
I don’t read or speak any Russian but I got curious enough to compare the pages for Ainars Šlesers that exist in a couple of different languages, mainly English, Latvian and Russian. I don’t know what the standards are for the Russian language Wikipedia project at the moment, but I was quite shocked by the apparent state of the page on Slesers, Ainars. The biggest section seems to be titled "Contribution to the development of Latvia" and is basically a fluffed up listing of supposed hard work and glorious achievements to the benefit of the country and its people. The closing sentence of the ‘political activities’ section mentions that he founded a new party in 2022 with a program to attract €10b for the Latvian economy. Also: his family adheres to Christian values!
There is a note on top of the page that states (as translated by Google):
The current version of this page has not yet been reviewed by experienced contributors and may differ significantly from the version last reviewed on June 18, 2025; 7 edits require review.
But I can totally see this being ignored by any Russian reader with an interest in the this man (expect this to increase with the upcoming elections), and the same for language models being trained for the next version of ChatGPT and Claude… Instead they will just take in the above talking points and get on with their day. I do believe this can make a real difference when it comes to support for this figure.
I’m wondering if any of the local redditors that do read Russian would be able to assess the state of that page, and perhaps even ammend it with _neutral, balanced facts_, or perhaps flag it for the editors because I do believe that Wikipedia should have special editorial policies when it comes to pages about major players in ongoing or upcoming elections.
Šlesers' Russian language Wikipedia page (Шлесерс, Айнарс)
byu/sveshinieks inlatvia
Posted by sveshinieks

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I’m not reading the whole page but the top note just lists a few minor edits since June, more neutral phrasing and links to articles that didn’t exist previously.