Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2024 Haret Hreik airstrike#Requested move 21 September 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Reading Beans 06:20, 28 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Israel–Hamas war#Requested move 13 August 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. --MikutoH ^talk! 22:06, 29 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon#Requested Move, 3 October that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Web-julio (talk) 02:21, 4 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present)#Requested move 2 October 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Web-julio (talk) 07:26, 5 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2024 Hezbollah headquarters strike#Requested move 27 September 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Web-julio (talk) 03:47, 6 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2024 Lebanon pager explosions#Requested move 19 September 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Web-julio (talk) 03:48, 6 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:September 2024 Lebanon strikes#Requested move 1 October 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Web-julio (talk) 03:49, 6 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

It looks like there was (has been?) a large scale canvassing operation targeting Israel-related topics on Wikipedia, see here. The first part of the article is not very convincing in my opinion but coordinating edits on Discord seems like a clear violation of the policy. Alaexis_¿question? 19:30, 25 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

It looks like they mention two different groups, the first they don't seem to name, the second being Tech for Palestine. It seems like most of Tech for Palestine's activities are transparent, including some past on-wiki coordination (see here), but more concerningly, there's also coordination on a now-private Discord channel. It seems most evidence was deleted, though there are a few screenshots like in [1]. @BilledMammal: might have more information. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 20:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

This isn't a forum, if there is evidence of something sanctionable, do the necessary. Selfstudier (talk) 21:52, 25 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Amayorov and Sean.hoyland: just cc'ing you based on your related discussion. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 21:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

See also Inside the war over Israel at Wikipedia — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 22:00, 25 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

I agree the Tech for Palestine's channel for Wikipedia editing has a high likelihood of constituting improper canvassing. However, the issue would be stale if the channel is inactive. I have asked on the Discord server the status of their Wikipedia activities. Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:01, 26 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

They say they discontinued their Wikipedia editing channel due to doxxing. I believe the issue to be now stale. Ca ^{talk to me!} 12:42, 27 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

<-Yes, I already read it. I learned that I am one of the top 30 members of this powerful group of pro-Hamas editors hijacking Wikipedia. So, I already know the author is either a bit dopey, dishonest or both.

• There is, no doubt, plenty of offsite coordination going on and there has been for years. We already know the use of deception and canvassing is relatively common among Israel supporters here of course, has been for well over a decade, and is seen as justified from an in-world perspective, so it wouldn't be surprising at all if these kinds of activities existed with the opposite valence.
• My view is that little to nothing can be done about it because it is not currently possible to prevent off-site coordination or any determined individual from editing in the topic area due to various technical and wiki-cultural constraints. For example, I believe that one of the people banned in the CAMERA lobbying case is currently active in the topic area, and Wikipedia's rather unserious approach to ban evasion, or the ranking of privacy over honesty, means that it can't be addressed. That's okay. Nobody died.
• Given the technical/cultural limits that can't be changed it seems, I would rather there was an emphasis on enforcing compliance with the Wikimedia Universal Code of Conduct's position that unacceptable behavior includes "systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view" i.e. biased editing/activism. The normalization of biased editing/advocacy means that you naturally produce conjugate sets of editors with opposite valence forming something like an autocatalytic set or a self-sustaining fire. But again, anyone blocked for biased editing/advocacy/coordination/canvassing etc. can easily return with a new account and quickly become extended confirmed using numerous tools that Wikipedia provides to new users to get them started.
• On the article itself, it is hard for me to take it seriously as these kinds of conspiratorial, casually defamatory, attack pieces camouflaged as rational analyses remind me so much of antisemitic conspiracy theories and conversations I've had with street people over the years, including a man who believed he was John the Baptist. The primarily utility of these kinds of attack articles and low-quality media reporting about on-wiki-things for me personally, as someone interested in the dynamics of the topic area, is that they are a useful reminder of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect and they help to identify actors with an elevated susceptibility to misinformation and manipulation and/or a willingness to generate or inject disinformation into Wikipedia's systems either directly or by employing external vectors. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:45, 26 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your response. Indeed a lot of the article seems like guesswork, maybe poor guesswork. Just wondering if anyone had dug into this further to determine what actual evidence exists.

To the extent that their is evidence of stealth canvassing, I think it should be acted on regardless of the editor's ideology. Certainly ban enforcement has its challenges, but that doesn't seem like enough reason to ignore rulebreaking. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 05:08, 26 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm also wondering if anyone has managed to have a detailed look at the Tech for Palestine activities to compile actual evidence of policy violations, and if not, why not. I guess the answer is no/not yet or else evidence would have been presented in the PIA5 discussions or at AE for specific editors by now since that information has been available for a while. I may be a lot more cynical than you when it comes to enforcing rules in PIA because I see sanctions/remedies as mostly performative nowadays. They appear to have little to no actual impact on the dynamics of the topic area over time unless they are machine enforceable like EC protection, and even then, the benefit is very limited. People enforcing rules in PIA doesn't seem to work. The main benefits of enforcement seem to be that it can be weaponized and exploited by partisan actors to keep the fires burning/take out perceived enemies and it provides reinforcement learning so that people get better at exploiting weaknesses in the system over time. I also think that much of what happens in the topic area, rule breaking or not, is not visible/goes unnoticed/is given a pass. This is evident from the number of edits ban evading accounts manage to make before they are blocked. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:52, 26 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

This RFC might interest contributors of this project. Andre🚐 19:52, 28 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Kamal Adwan Hospital sieges § Over-use of Al Jazeera. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:50, 30 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Please see Talk:Jews in Madagascar#Requested move 1 November 2024 dealing with articles about Jews and Jewish history. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 17:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I wonder if anyone feels like writing an article about this contentious subject? Or failing that a section for Healthcare in Israel? All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:40, 2 November 2024 (UTC).Reply

Could anyone of you please start an article on him here on en.wp? There is a lot of info sourced to him. I asked Rajoub570, but he seems o be on a wiki break. The article about him on Hebrew wp is https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/דוד_גרוסמן_(גאוגרף) Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:01, 10 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Please see the discussion at Talk:Georgian Jews#Requested move 12 November 2024. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 20:22, 13 November 2024 (UTC)Reply