Talk:Uganda Internet Exchange Point

COI discussion

I have no financial or commercial incentive to create or edit this article despite my affiliation with the organization. Any potential Conflict of Interest I might have is rendered irrelevant by the numerous citations from notable sources which explicitly corroborate the article's text. The article's veracity is easily verifiable and it is better sourced than most other articles about individual Internet Exchange Points.

The development of this article is part of a broader effort to improve the documentation of Uganda's Internet ecosystem. Internet Exchange Points are designated as critical national infrastructure by most national governments and intergovernmental organizations. The UIXP is currently the sole operator of this infrastructure in Uganda and has played a notable role in the country's economic history since its establishment in 2001.

Kyle Spencer (talk) 11:22, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Hey there Kyle Spencer, having an affiliation with an organization and writing about that organization is the definition of a conflict of interest:

Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial and other relationships.

You're the primary contributor to this article, and it is something that is noteworthy for reviewers, even if the subject is notable of its own right. There are plenty of articles on Wikipedia which have been edited by folks with a COI, this isn't of itself a problem, but it means additional due process is required to review the contents of the submission.

WP:WAX may be interesting, and I would highly recommend reading and following WP:DISCLOSE to learn more about recommendations for how to properly disclose a COI, so reviewers (like myself) can better review the article. SiliconRed (talk) 13:48, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi SiliconRed, thanks for the feedback! I did not claim to have no COI; I claim that the COI is irrelevant due to the independently verifiable veracity of the article's content. I have no objection to disclosure and, if necessary, I can add even more independent citations. Would that help?

Regarding the text's similarity to the UIXP website: This is a result of the fact that Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) perform a specific technical function. The language of our website and this article both reflect a common way to describe that function. As evidence of this, the main article on Internet Exchange Points prominently includes the following (nearly identical) text in its second paragraph:

IXPs reduce the portion of an ISP's traffic that must be delivered via their upstream transit providers, thereby reducing the average per-bit delivery cost of their service. Furthermore, the increased number of paths available through the IXP improves routing efficiency (by allowing routers to select shorter paths) and fault-tolerance.

Compare this to the UIXP article's first paragraph:

The UIXP enables networks to directly interconnect and freely exchange data traffic at a common point, thereby reducing the amount which must be delivered via costly intermediaries. This lowers the overall cost of network service delivery, improves routing efficiency, and increases fault tolerance.

There are not many distinct ways to accurately describe this technical function. Would it help if we explicitly copied the main article text instead of our own website?

Kyle Spencer (talk) 18:25, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

The text is not just similar to the UIXP website, it contains some sentences which are identical. I entirely disagree that technical writing, in this case about internet exchange points, can only be phrased in such a limited way that it must be copied from a source to write an effective encyclopedic article. The goal of this article isn't to cover the topic Internet exchange point, but to specifically cover UIXP. I would recommend rewriting the content of this article so it is not copied from anywhere, but paraphrased from >= WP:THREE independent citations that demonstrate notability. Of the citations in this article, only one [1] is independent and contains more than a passing mention of the subject, and I am not convinced it demonstrates notability. "Moving Toward an Interconnected Africa" is a good start, as far as stronger citations go. Also, for general clarification, who is "we"? Are you working with other members of your organization on this article? SiliconRed (talk) 20:35, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi SiliconRed,

1) I am not collaborating with anyone else on this article and have made my motivations clear. My occasional use of the word "we" reflects the fact that I am informally acting on behalf of Uganda's Internet community to better document Uganda's Internet ecosystem; not that I am involved in a conspiracy to defraud Wikipedia for personal or commercial gain.

2) A brief description of an Internet exchange point's function is necessary for a reader to understand the UIXP's purpose and notability. As I have previously demonstrated, the description of an IXP's function will inevitably be similar to the description of any other IXP's function. Likewise, there are only so many ways to describe the function of a wheel. Nevertheless, I have altered the relevant text in an attempt to make it superficially different from the original text. I hope this will satisfy your requirement.

3) I have added four (4) more independent sources which confirm the UIXP's existence and notability. This brings the total number of notability sources to at least six (6):

The Internet Society: Pages 26, 27, and 28 explicitly mention the UIXP and its impact on the development of Uganda's Internet ecosystem.

Uganda Ministry of ICT: The UIXP's mere presence in this document establishes notability as governments do not mention non-notable entities in national policy and strategy documents. Further, pages 47 and 48 clearly mention the UIXP as a component of Uganda's middle-mile / national backbone infrastructure. They state that the UIXP makes "large-scale content and cloud deployments more viable in Uganda" and that the UIXP is "saving the country expensive international bandwidth connectivity."

IEEE: This research paper's abstract states that the UIXP helps to "facilitate the deployment of locally hosted content and reduce the country's reliance on international cables" and the full report includes numerous other statements which also establish notability.

Cloudflare: This Cloudflare blog post confirms the UIXP's notability by using its traffic statistics as a way to measure the impact of a government ordered Internet shutdown.

The Committee to Protect Journalists: CPJ also confirms notability by citing the UIXP's traffic levels as a key way to measure the impact of a government ordered Internet shutdown.

Access Now: Access Now also believes that UIXP traffic levels are a notable measure of the impact of a government ordered Internet shutdown.

I hope that the above makes it clear that the UIXP is sufficiently notable and that the article's language is factually accurate.

Kyle Spencer (talk) 16:19, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Kyle Spencer — I've approved the submission after making some small changes to prose and citation usage. Because of your COI, you should contribute to this article by making an WP:EDITREQUEST rather than editing directly. Thanks! SiliconRed (he/him) (talk) 14:08, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Misinformation

A Wikipedia moderator added controversial and misleading information to this article based on a questionable interpretation of a single source. The relevant text reads as follows:

The Ugandan government has made multiple attempts to purchase and nationalize the organization, in part to enable the government to control and censor the internet and in part for the government to manage the public infrastructure enabling Ugandan internet.

The single source relied upon is located here: https://isoc.ug/index.php/2020/06/06/analysing-the-current-state-of-the-uganda-internet-exchange-point-uixp/

This is a serious claim that should require more than one source. The single source relied upon is of questionable veracity as it openly states that it was written by a trainee as part of a training program. Further, the claim's language is based on the moderator's personal interpretation of the source phrase "to try and own this company" as meaning "to try and purchase this company" despite there being no support for this interpretation within the source material. It is also generally not possible to "purchase" a non-profit organization.

I request that this claim be removed from the article unless it can be corroborated.

Kyle Spencer (talk) 09:28, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi there -- thanks for opening an edit request. Here is the change I would propose, which changes wording slightly and adds more context with additional citations:

There are several sources which document this government tension with UIXP, and it should be included in the article -- it's not clear to me that the current text is either controversial or misleading, it seems to be a semantics issue. I'll wait on other for other folks to weigh in before making this change. SiliconRed (he/him) (talk) 13:48, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

References

Looks brilliant, Siliconred - go for it. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

This revision is substantially improved despite some grammatical issues, though the terms "take ownership" and "nationalize" are now redundant and would better read as "control" and "nationalize". To clarify: The nature of this content is inherently controversial as it relates to a contentious public policy dispute. The current text is highly misleading because, in our context, the claim that the government tried to "purchase" the UIXP strongly implies an attempted act of corruption. Kyle Spencer (talk) 18:35, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Going back to the first post, that https://isoc.ug/index.php/2020/06/06/analysing-the-current-state-of-the-uganda-internet-exchange-point-uixp/ isn't a reliable source, I tend to agree with that. However, it's either a reliable source or not, having discounted it you can't then use it as a source to verify what you want the article to say. --John B123 (talk) 22:28, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

The Internet Society produces and publishes a variety of first and third-party content with varying veracity. The source I originally cited is first-party content and the source in question here is third-party content. Regardless, the best way to resolve the question of a source's veracity is by adding additional corroborating sources. In this case, there are none that support the controversial use of the word "purchase" and the use of that word has significant implications in this context. Kyle Spencer (talk) 00:10, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Could you clarify on what grammatical issues you see? SiliconRed (he/him) (talk) 23:48, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

The text "attempts take" should read "attempts to take"; "primarily UIXP" should read "primarily the UIXP"; and "regulate and censor Ugandan's access to internet" should read "regulate and censor Uganda's Internet" since not all users of Uganda's Internet are Ugandan. I also believe it's proper to capitalize the word "Internet" when it's used as a noun. Kyle Spencer (talk) 00:10, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Changes made. It’s actually not clear to me from MOS:CAPITALIZATION (& the MOS in general) whether “internet” should be capitalized. I think this is an inconsistency in style across Wikipedia (and generally seems to be a style question, not a grammar question). SiliconRed (he/him) (talk) 07:46, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Siliconred: Five days have passed since the last feedback was submitted and there appears to be a consensus. Can you please implement the changes as discussed? Kyle Spencer (talk) 14:10, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia editing is volunteer-run, so you can't expect instant response time -- I've been completely AFK for the past week. Coincidentally, I happen to be online as you posted this and updating this article is part of my to-do list for today. SiliconRed (he/him) (talk) 14:14, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I am aware that Wikipedia is volunteer run and do not expect anything other than good faith. The above message was intended as an asynchronous reminder, so I appreciate the fast reply. Kyle Spencer (talk) 14:20, 7 March 2022 (UTC)