The new Hasbara-esque scandal (but worse) Options

[yow]

From Electronic Intifada

A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged.

A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a "war" on Wikipedia.

A 13 March action alert signed by Gilead Ini, a "Senior Research Analyst" at CAMERA, calls for "volunteers who can work as 'editors' to ensure" that Israel-related articles on Wikipedia are "free of bias and error, and include necessary facts and context." However, subsequent communications indicate that the group not only wanted to keep the effort secret from the media, the public, and Wikipedia administrators, but that the material they intended to introduce included discredited claims that could smear Palestinians and Muslims and conceal Israel's true history.


AND MUCH MORE.

[Merzbow]

As of yet nobody has been able to produce a shred of evidence of this nonsense actually producing any ill-behavior on-wiki, aside from a vague connection between an email and a proposed article renaming, of all things (and aside from isolated, individual incompetence on the part of several editors, like Gil). I've seen the same sort of bullcrap attempted at several Muslim forums BTW, except with worse spelling (actually I may have to take that back after reading more of Zeq's attempts at the English language). The bottom line is that words are not evidence of crime, and to think otherwise leads to idiocy like what led to Rama's Arrow's downfall.

This post has been edited by Merzbow:

[Tarc]

As of yet nobody has been able to produce a shred of evidence of this nonsense actually producing any ill-behavior on-wiki, aside from a vague connection between an email and a proposed article renaming, of all things (and aside from isolated, individual incompetence on the part of several editors, like Gil). I've seen the same sort of bullcrap attempted at several Muslim forums BTW, except with worse spelling (actually I may have to take that back after reading more of Zeq's attempts at the English language). The bottom line is that words are not evidence of crime, and to think otherwise leads to idiocy like what led to Rama's Arrow's downfall.

You have no idea what you're talking about. There are plenty "shreds of evidence" right in the group's own mailing list archives that have been posted.

[Milton Roe]

As of yet nobody has been able to produce a shred of evidence of this nonsense actually producing any ill-behavior on-wiki, aside from a vague connection between an email and a proposed article renaming, of all things (and aside from isolated, individual incompetence on the part of several editors, like Gil). I've seen the same sort of bullcrap attempted at several Muslim forums BTW, except with worse spelling (actually I may have to take that back after reading more of Zeq's attempts at the English language). The bottom line is that words are not evidence of crime, and to think otherwise leads to idiocy like what led to Rama's Arrow's downfall.

You have no idea what you're talking about. There are plenty "shreds of evidence" right in the group's own mailing list archives that have been posted.

But wait-- since the most actively edited non-WP-related articles on WP are Israel-Lebanese Conflict, Adolf Hitler, and WW II, I thought we'd decided to blame the Lebanese for this ongoing campaign.

It does bring in the old meta-problem, though (metaproblem: where you see that a bunch of problems are really the SAME problem, only in different forms, so you try to fix the basic "thing"). The basic problem at Wikipedia is that anonymity is really NOT consistant with any kind of democratic behavior (and "democracy" includes any kind of voting, asking for opinions, or anything that even vaguely looks like a town meeting, so please don't try to fuzzify the issue by claiming Wikipedia doesn't try to do democratic things). The whole thing comes to a head with WP:CANVAS (which is vastly hypocritical, depending upon which group is being canvassed and how) and the various giant wiki-wars over sockpuppeting and meatpuppeting and cockpuppeting (this last term only for sexual partners editing the same laptop from the same bed, especially if gay), and so on. Because all of these things wouldn't matter if there was no "voting", or if there was "voting" but voting couldn't be "stacked" or "stuffed", due to "voter registration" (see identification).

So the Israel Lobby Problem, whether it does or does not exist, or even if it exists de facto but not by conspiratorial intent, is no different than the "Math Department Lobby" problem. But it generates a lot more Dwama. In the Sturm und Drang of Wikipedia, this is really good Drang.

But since Wikipedia is studiously ignoring this particular metaproblem, due to their refusal to fix either of the two conflicting core policies which produce it, I suppose this is just going to have to continue to cause more dwama. Stay tuned. Here at the WR Cult Deprogramming Center™, we enjoy these, more than Soap Opera. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)