The Spartacus Factor: How Wikipedia's Pro-Hamas Editors Control Articles

Very few established Wikipedia editors want to be Spartacus.

Recently I received an email from a longtime former Wikipedia editor. I'm taking the liberty of replicating a passage from their email, redacted to ensure their anonymity:

I'm actually a former editor of Wikipedia. . .  After discovering the anti-Israel activity, I had multiple negative encounters with the propagandists you write about, most notably [redacted], and arguing with these people was driving me crazy, plus the fact that they seem to have unlimited time and energy, and the ability to get - and get away with - whatever they want. I realized I was up against an immovable evil, so I left the entire project, for my own sake. I definitely don't have the mental energy to do what you're doing!

Note the text that I've put in italic boldface, as I think it is crucial. 

I thought of that email when I read Ashley Rindsberg's well-researched, exhaustively documented article that just came out in an online journal called the Pirate Wires. Ashley, author of an excellent book on the New York Times, has written other articles about Wikipedia, and it is a superlative website, well worth a subscription. His work on Wikipedia is right up there with Aaron Bandler of the Jewish Journal, who has been all over the story of Wikipedia's gross anti-Israel bias for months.

What made Ashley's article especially valuable is how he delves into and quantifies the techniques used by what I call the Wikipedia Flood—the well-coordinated coterie of anti-Zionist and sometimes antisemitic editors who control every single article that has anything to do with Israel, even remotely. 

Opponents of the Flood are overwhelmed, exhausted, and ultimately worn out because the pro-Hamas editors effectively "game" Wikipedia's arbitrarily enforced, often unenforced policies. Ashley points out:

To evade detection, the group works in pairs or trios, an approach that veils them from detection. They also appear to rotate their groupings for the same reason. Likewise, one or more of the group’s editors can come to the aid of another in the case of pushback. In many instances, editing by the group is made to articles focused on historical issues, where a single editor might be patrolling for this kind of abuse, making it easy for two dedicated users to overwhelm or exhaust the lone editor.

Yes, "lone editors" like the one I quoted at the top of this post.

The Flood consists of many editors, but Ashley documents how it comes down to a hard core of 40 experienced editors.  Experienced editors are held in high regard by Wikipedia. When acting in concert, they invariably get their way when they are persistent, motivated, ideologically single-minded and well-organized.

Ashley describes how that works, with charts identifying the editors in questions, all familiar names to readers of this blog.

To skirt [Wikipedia polices], the pro-Palestine group leverages deep Wikipedia know-how to coordinate efforts without raising red flags. They work in small clusters, with only two or three active in the same article at any given time. On their own, many of these edits appear minor, even trivial. But together, their scope is staggering, with two million edits made to more than 10,000 articles, a majority of which are PIA or topically associated. In dozens of cases, the group’s edits account for upwards of 90% of the content on an article, giving them complete control of the topics.

The numbers are indeed staggering:

In August, an analysis of the intensity of editing in PIA between January 2022 and September 2024 found that the top contributor to PIA by number of edits, a user called Selfstudier, made over 15,000 edits in the space in that period. Iskandar323 contributed over 12,000 edits to PIA articles in the same period. Other members of the pro-Palestine group are equally prolific, with top contributors including CarmenEsparzaAmoux (8,353), Makeandtoss (8,074), Nableezy (6,414), Nishidani (5,879), Onceinawhile (4,760) and an admin called Zero0000 (2,561).

. . . . All together, the top 20 editors of this group made over 850,000 edits to more than 10,500 articles, the majority of them in the Palestine-Israel topic area, or topically connected historical articles.

These astonishing numbers quantify why when you see the "talk" pages of article there is either no dissent at all to their "POV-pushing," or when there is dissent it is isolated and ineffective, a case of one editor is up against many. 

That's no accident. As Ashley points out, and as I have documented, they "swarm" over articles due to offsite "canvassing." That is against Wikipedia rules, like everything else they do, but is unenforceable when it takes place offsite.

Sure you can fight them. But that can end your Wikipedia career or get you kicked out of the topic area. By coordinating their actions offsite, the Wikipedia Flood is able to gin up a "consensus" whenever they so desire. Fighting them means that you are against "consensus," which means that you are being "disruptive." Fight too hard, refuse to surrender to the Flood, and you get blocked or banned from the topic area entirely.

It's a numbers game, as I have said over and over again in this blog. 

It's a bit like Spartacus and his small band of slave rebels. Remember what happened to Spartacus? He and his band were overwhelmed by the Roman legions. It made for a great Kirk Douglas movie, but remember how it ends, with everyone crucified on the road to Rome? Every single one dead.

No experienced editor wants to be Spartacus. They like editing Wikipedia. They enjoy it. Maybe there is another area of interest that holds their interest. Maybe they are beekeepers or mainly focused on editing articles about their hobbies or their hometowns. I guarantee you that it is much more satisfying to edit in an area where other editors are pleasant and cooperative than editing in a topic where the other editors would happy if you burned to death in real life.

To avoid that fate, editors drop out of Wikipedia entirely or, more commonly, stop editing in what is known on Wikipedia as the "Palestine/Israel" topic area. 

The same desire to avoid unnecessary conflict, expenditure of energy and fatigue results in the vast majority of Wikipedia's volunteer "administrators" avoiding the subject area—except, in almost all cases, for administrators who back up the Wikipedia Flood. As I've described, one admin, "Vallereee," improperly uses her administrative tools on behalf of the Flood.

That same conflict-avoidance imperative has resulted in the Wikipedia "Arbitration Committee" showing extreme reluctance in tackling the issue. Same reason: they are volunteers, they have other things to do, and life is short.

One "arbcom" case involving the same pro-Hamas editors mentioned in Ashley's article has been dragging on since August without resolution. In fighting that case, the Flood has used the same "swarming" tactics they've used in getting their way throughout Wikipedia.

Read Ashley's article for more. And be sure to follow Aaron Bandler's great work in the Jewish Journal. They are the only journalists who are following this story closely. Hopefully there will be more.