Wikipedia's Highest Court Timidly Confronts the Anti-Israel Mob

 

The rape denier 'Huldra' is not a party to the 'arbcom' case

In August I described how Wikipedia's so-called "Arbitration Committee," the website's highest tribunal, had begun considering if it would deal with the Wikipedia Flood. At the time I was downbeat.

In my blog item, I opined that while action against the Flood was possible, it was "more likely either nothing meaningful will happen, or the outcome will be a net positive for the 'Wikipedia Flood' of pro-Hamas editors, who are accustomed to gaming the system for their own ends."

So far my initial view has been borne out. While there was a positive development, it is far less than meets the eye.

The positive development is that last week, arbcom took action against editors involved in the effort by anti-Israel operatives to coordinate their actions offsite. 

That's good news. The bad news is that they did so because they had to, and what they did was limited and grudging.  

Back in August I broke the story of the "Tech for Palestine" offsite propaganda effort, and followed up with this blog item describing how the pro-Hamas crew covered its tracks. 

Arbcom had to take action, but not because of my blog. Blogs can be ignored, but news articles are another matter. Tech for Palestine was a centerpiece of Ashley Rindsberg's excellent article in Pirate Wires. That and the constant stream of articles in Jewish Journal by Aaron Bandler, who has been on the Wikipedia bias story for months, prodded arbcom to act on this blatant violation of Wikipedia rules. 

Their action was limited and ineffectual. 

A grand total of one editor was kicked off the site. That was "Ïvana," who was the "resident expert" in charge of the propagandizing effort.

But other pro-Hamas editors involved in the offsite effort were merely "topic banned." This kind of "canvassing" flies in the face of Wikipedia rules, totally perverting the site's ethos by rigging the game, and pro-Israel editors involved in such efforts in the past have been sitebanned. But the pro-Hamas editors, by contrast, were treated with kid gloves.

Even worse: arbcom has, so far at least, omitted from the case some of the most vicious anti-Israel editors. 

Among the non-parties is the longtime, trash-talking pro-Hamas activist Nishidani and the creepy antisemite Huldra, notorious for her disgusting claim that 10/7 rape victim Na'ama Levy, photographed with blood on her crotch, was "having a period." 

Huldra was never even given as much as a wrist slap for that depraved comment. Nor is anything likely to happen to this editor because she is not even a party to the proceedings.

If any action is taken against the few pro-Hamas editors listed as parties, it is likely to be "balanced' in cowardly fashion by action against innocent editors who have sought to curb their influence.

I may be proven wrong, but wagering on another triumph by the Wikipedia Flood is always a safe bet.

UPDATE: Nishidani was added as a party. But the rape denier Huldra? Nope.