There's no point in going through it again. They came to the conclusion that wasn't going to upset SlimVirgin and rest of the Wikipedia Israeli lobby and Jimbo Wales and that's it.

Look what happened to the supposed sanctions against Jayjg after the Apartheid debacle, oh wait, that's right, there weren't any because Jimbo Wales was having sooper seekrit discussions about it ad infinitum.

I wonder just how much money the Israeli lobby has paid Wikipedia and/or Jimbo Wales? Quite a lot I'd say- I mean look how many people look at the Palestinian people article- we need to keep control of that right to make sure kids know the "truth" right?

And for people who think Jimbo Wales doesn't know anything about COI- oh dear!!!!

I don't think anyone can say that the weak provisions devised by arbcom stem from pressure from an "Israel Lobby".

One could note though that Weiss ingratiated himself with SlimVirgin and Jayjg at the height of their powers while edit-warring alongside them on articles related to Judaism, Martin Luther's antisemitism and so on. Which in turn -- through their support -- provided him with protection from the inner circle, and a chorus of JzGs & Phil Sandifers at his beck and call, to denounce his rivals and do his dirty work for him.

Most importantly, all of this Mantanmoreland business got caught up SlimVirgin's harassment meme, which distorts everything it touches. And the fact that Wordbomb was publicizing the Linda Mack story only fueled the Wiki's hatred of Wordbomb, and their support of Weiss. These are the prime reasons why the leading admins, and now Arbcom react in such odd ways to what should be a straight forward affair : Journalist uses a number of aliases to manipulate Wikipedia and to discredit targets.

Okay, now that makes sense. That's how Wikipedia works. Someone is helpful and seems reasonable (to you) in one place, you're likely to help them in another.

Israel and Jewish-related articles are so polarized - thanks in large part to anti-Israel contributors like Jorge - that all friendly hands are welcomed by this beleaguered group (see 20th century.) This is just as true in the other direction, with anti-Israel editors fighting tooth and nail to defend even very problematic allied contributors - the main difference being (speaking very generally) that anti-Israel and anti-Semitic posters tend to be more often disruptive (although see sockmaster Isarig,) and less often influential.

Still, I'm not clear that this is why Mantanmoreland is being defended at this point. I would sooner guess that he's been around a long time, has been an ally against "attack sites," and overall just seems like a friend. Well, like two friends. It would be hard for me to accept that two of my WP colleagues were, in fact, the same person.

No, he's met David Shankbone. That's not the same thing at all.



Just like the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, really.



... Newport, R613vlu?

This whole insane mixture of serious religious-political disputes
with sockpuppetry allegations really makes more of a mess
of the issues than they were in the first place. It would
really make more sense for WP to not have articles on such
controversial issues in the first place. Perhaps just leave a link
to Britannica or something.

Kato, this is, in retrospect, a very interesting thread. Here Weiss, WordBomb, harassment, and Jorge's Israeli conspiracy theories are all intertwined:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm...o_issue_here.3F

It strikes me, though, that the interconnection may be, in part, Jorge's own doing.

That is an interesting link -- and it well illustrates how this operation worked. Jorge / Arniep is correct in his assumptions all the way through the talk page thread, but gets mugged by a clique who have been co-ordinating operations offsite.

One by one they arrive to stick the boot in, till eventually JoshuaZ announces that Arniep has "exhausted the communities patience", whatever that means. But it is the end of Arniep on Wikipedia regardless.

Most of the people on the page attacking Jorge, if not all, are pro-Israel editors. That is a statement of fact. They organize very closely off-site. That is also a statement of fact. They subvert consensus to suit a POV all over the site. Again, that is a statement of fact. Jorge / Arniep was correct throughout the discussion regarding Weiss and everything else, they were wrong. That is another fact. If people don't like these facts, then boo-hoo.

Thanks Kato for standing up for me there. Pro, I have had a look at your WP history (as you have mine it seems), and it seems that you concentrate mostly on Islamic topics/Muhammed/Anti-Semitism etc. and you seem to be doing a clearly non partisan job at it which is a good thing. I can see how you have built up something of a rapport with the pro-Israel/pro-Judaism camp even though you have often disagreed with them. The problem is, perhaps in trying to constantly seem reasonable and bend to the hawkish/blinkered views of the pro-Israel/Judaism camp (and please don't infer as you have before that I am am anti-Israel or anti-Judaism as you previously seem to), that you perhaps assume good faith a little too much, and because of the rapport you have built up with these editors you feel somehow that you would be betraying them to even speculate that they are in any way acting dishonourably?

People collaborate offsite to game the system. And Jayjg is usually at the center of this. There's no point anyone denying it.

Even now, when Jayjg wants to oppose a bureaucrat, he adds his oppose, and Crum375 does it a few minutes later. Then Jayjg moves onto another request for bureaucrat and opposes him, followed a couple of minutes later by Crum who does the same. They give the same non-answers as well. Both of them are following SlimVirgin who gave the same opinions to the two bureaucrats a few hours earlier. And all three ignored the other two elections going on simulatneously.

All of this goes on without any evidence of on-site cooperation. Hence it is obviously off-site.

Scale this up to include members in Jayjg's secret mailing list, and throw in others in close off-site contact like Jossi who always votes the same way and you can get your way in anything.

You check those old Allegations of Apartheid debates, and watch how the pro-Israel bloc vote yes or no, often in complicated counter-intuitive ways to play various hands in the wider dispute. Always In Unison with the ultimate goal to protect the Israel articles. The number of editors who were manipulating the consensus at will in this manner was well into double figures. And a lot of them appear on the link to drown Jorge / Arniep, combining with the SlimVirgin harassment meme crowd to make a deadly concoction that was able to ban half of the Wikipedia Review for no good reason.

Better evidence than in the Poetlister/Runcorn case.

This guy Crum is giving sycophancy a bad name.

Exactly. It is a fact that a group of pro Israeli editors have been allowed to get away with it for years now. Why? Because if Wales or the board even ackknowledged that there was a problem here, they would set themselves up for an avalanche of criticism from numerous Israeli or Jewish lobby groups which could lead to a cut in funding, demonstrations against Wikipedia, accusations of anti-semitism, who knows what. Thus is the problem with all controversial subjects relating to Israel on Wikipedia, because there are far more, well organized editors on the pro Israeli side than there are on the side sympathetic to the Palestinians.

It's impossible to deny the appearance of coordination in the "Allegations of Apartheid" debate. And the allegations of WP:POINT are similary undeniable.

But what was the goal? Not to "protect the Israel articles," but to delete an insult to honest reporting and scholarship alike: the Israeli Apartheid article (since changed names a few times, but retaining the same idea.) "Israeli Apartheid" is like "Islamofascism:" it has no existence outside the rhetoric of the speaker. There's nothing to write about except the epithet itself. What you inevitably get is an article about the epithet, which aims either to convince the reader that the analysis is well-motivated or that it isn't. At best, you get a "some say…others disagree" type arena of polemic - nothing like an encyclopedia at all.

As for coordination, I recall both sides being coordinated in the early debates. The administrator/anti-Israel activist Maisonsurlagamme went beyond e-mail coordination and grew a sockfarm. The whole thing began with POV-pushing and wikiactivism.

Does that excuse fighting back in kind? I don't know. I see it both ways. If the deletion process worked as it should, there would have been no dispute.

jorge go an argue alongside the arabs on hummus who keep screaming that including a reference to hummus being common in jewish cusine is "ZIONIST BIAS!!"

I appreciate that. It took me awhile though, to put my finger on how one can attain some semblance of neutrality in this kind of article - about which many or even most of us might hold strong personal beliefs. I think the answer - and this isn't sufficient, but I think necessary - is to uphold very strong and specific requirements for sources, both quality and character (e.g., no opinion pieces.) One common and, I think, deeply misguided approach to NPOV is to erect a framework for controversy, and then "present both sides." This might be necessary in some cases, but I've found that usually it's not, and it invariably leads to endless (as in perpetual) struggle and disagreement.

Generally, I think it's best to ground a narrative in mutually agreed-upon facts, only treating controversy if it's about something concrete (e.g. if something actually happened, how it happened, etc.) rather than about what we readers and right-minded people generally should think about this. For example, what Jimmy Carter or Desmond Tutu think of Israel's West Bank barrier is as irrelevant as what Pope Benedict or George Bush think about Muhammad. What we need instead are sources for facts, which might well be "controversial," but not (in most cases) disputed.

That Carter and Tutu say these things is itself a fact, but they're not reliable non-partisan sources about the Wall itself, and the object they're discussing, "Israeli Apartheid," is not one that a disinterested observer would even agree exists .

Much less "Cuban Apartheid" or "French Apartheid."




I caught a little of that debate, and it's…strange.

Pro, Homey's socking was an act of desparation against the obvious coordination of pro-Israeli editors in article editing, afds and cfds, usually ending up something like a 10:1 ratio of pro-Israeli editors against neutral or editors sympathetic to the Muslim side. Things have started getting better since you joined in 2006 though.


I thought the Israeli-Apartheid article was ridiculous. It should have just stated that it was a phrase used by certain critics of Israel and given some examples and that's it. It shouldn't have gone on to discuss whether or not the term was valid, listed people who criticised the terms use etc.


That's obviously ridiculous.

Yes, Mantanmoreland found the perfect ear for his claims of harassment, and Wordbomb fanned the flames, making it appear to a casual observer that this was harassment of Mantanmoreland without a corresponding ethical problem by Mantanmoreland. Israeli conspiracies need not apply.

That's an important point, and it actually explains a lot of the animosity that goes on. The Casual Observer is everywhere in the World of Wikipedia. The barely informed, the illiterate, the half baked. But everyone has a say -- or rather an opportunity to beat the drum regardless. Whether they are talking out of their ass or not. No one can stop them. No one can take the conch, and in front of silenced crowd calmly run through the facts. Wordbomb was fighting drama with drama. As was Daniel Brandt. It's the only way to get heard in Wiki-land.