Wikipedia 'Arbitrators' Tearfully Sanction Pro-Hamas Editors, Scream at Anti-Pro-Hamas Editors

Arbitrator 'ToBeFree' is too busy with other things to look at evidence

Wikipedia's so-called "Arbitration Committee" yesterday issued a final decision in its months-long examination of "Palestine-Israel" editing. Much attention has focused on the topic bans imposed on six pro-Hamas editors, which Jewish groups like the ADL are celebrating.

I described the arbcom decision in my last blog post and explained in my X feed why the rejoicing is unwarranted. 

In this post I will explain further how arbcom employed blatant double standards in crafting its decision, which was whipped together by the volunteer, unpaid, unaccountable "arbs" with little thought.

Wikipedia jurist "CaptainEek"

As I mentioned in my last post, the principal drafter of the decision, "CaptainEek," was so anxious to penalize the pro-Israel editor AndreJustAndre that she just  outright lied and claimed, without evidence, that AndreJustAndre had complied with requests by me, in this blog, to edit specific articles.  I don't do such things, as even a casual skim of this blog would have revealed. 

That was voted down by the committee. Yet only not a single arb pointed out that she was just making stuff up. 

One arb, the 28-year-old German "linux enthusiast" "ToBefree," adopted CaptianEek's reasoning, saying "I'm not a fan of the proxy editing for a blogger and do think such behavior is rather disruptive than something to be endorsed." 

The fact that there was no "proxy editing," and no one produced any evidence that there was, didn't bother him. He just accepted her assertion as proof.  

ToBeFree was not alone. The arbs voted penalties and non-penalties based upon how other arbs voted, and made comments revealing their own biases and prejudices. Few arbs appeared to actually read the evidence.

One common theme was that topic bans of pro-Hamas operatives would deprive Wikipedia of fantastic editors. 

That arose during a topic ban discussion concerning Levivich. He is one of the worst of a bad bunch, a dogmatic anti-Israel operative who has worked hard to turn the article on Zionism into an anti-Zionist polemic, and performed similar tasks for the Cause in dozens of other articles. 

There was overwhelming evidence of such "non-neutral editing" and that he repeatedly bullied and harassed other editors, but it was ignored by a disturbingly large number of arbs.

Even though ultimately deciding to impose a topic ban, multiple arbs actually praised Levivich and insisted that he was a darn good editor, a real asset to "the project."

"I think Levivich is generally an excellent and thoughtful editor, and I was actually quite impressed with them at times," said CaptainEek. His effort to turn the Zionism article into pro-Hamas garbage didn't bother her, and it's probable from the praise she lavished on him that she approved. 

Captain Eek described Levivich as being "well meaning" even when he was attacking other editors. She said that she "respected" his desire to "work from first principles" (i.e., denigrating Israel at every opportunity), and that he should "focus what he is really best at: the sources. I don't think anybody had better dedication to sources in this topic area than Levivich."

This is true. The evidence was overwhelming that Levivich cherry-picked some of the most extreme anti-Israel "sources" in his efforts to turn Wikipedia articles into Hamas propaganda.

Other arbs picked up on that theme, reacting not to the evidence but to their colleague's praise.

Wikipedia jurist "H.J. Mitchell"

"Levivich is very skilled at digging through sources, but his pattern of behavior here is often disruptive," said the arb "Elli." 

 "A net-positive" said arb "HJ Mitchell," a smug Brit who poses proudly in an underexposed photo on his user page, wearing an ill-fitting t-shirt and sporting a bad haircut. 

When it came time to consider penalties for Levivich, a mere  "admonishing" came within two votes of passage. CaptainEek favored that, reminding her colleagues that "Levivich is a great researcher, and one of the most source focused editors in PIA." 

Yet even that non-penalty was opposed by ToBeFree, "The evidence provided for the finding of fact leading to this conclusion here is insufficient to me," he said, proving again that he didn't even skim the evidence.

Ultimately the arbs topic-banned Levivich, which CaptainEek rejected. She described this longtime Hamas tool as "generally conducive to feedback, so I have every reason to believe they'll take the concerns here to heart." Topic banning him, she said, would "be a waste (and fulfill Icewhiz's deepest dreams)." 

That bizarre reference to "Icewhiz" refers to a long-banned pro-Israel editor who is often trotted out in paranoid fashion as an offsite pro-Israel evildoer, as I mentioned in a recent post.

CaptainEek continued: "As I've already identified, Levivich is very dedicated to using quality sources in the topic area, and is generally quite principled. A topic ban just goes way too far." 

HJ Mitchell proposed an alternate remedy that would have allowed his buddy to insert anti-Israel propaganda only in "historical conflicts or the broader Middle East conflict." But that was so peculiar that it failed to win enough votes.

And on and on it went. Administrator Zero0000, a longtime anti-Israel editor who has received scrutiny as far back as 2019, received a mere warning despite extensive evidence of his misconduct, and even though administrators are supposed to be held to higher standards than ordinary editors.

 

The two pro-Israel editors didn't get kid gloves treatment, and weren't praised as net-positives or skilled and so on. BilledMammal was falsely accused of "misrepresenting sources" and that he "weaponized reporting systems against perceived ideological enemies." The latter was based in part on "private evidence," which is Wikipedia-speak for poison-pen letters sent to arbcom on the sly.

AndreJustAndre was similarly raked over the coals by the arbs, who came close to banning him from Wikipedia completely, a penalty that wasn't even considered for pro-Hamas editors except Ïvana, who this blog revealed was running an offsite coordination effort.

After the ban effort failed to get enough votes (though it came close), the arbs crafted a special humiliation just for Andre, a "suspended site ban" under which he is subject to banning if someone who doesn't like him takes it up with arbcom.  "And we really mean it this time!" exclaimed arb "Theleekycauldron." 

The takeaway here is that Wikipedia's highest tribunal, which wields great power, is a joke. Its members are as unserious and ditsy as their idiotic handles and the screwball photos they put on their user pages. 

Their laziness, stupidity and cheerful incompetence isn't a bug in the Wikipedia system. It is a feature.

Wikipedia's 'Arbitrators' Prove There Are No Adults in the Room—Only Kangaroos

Wikipedia's kangaroo court points up the need for Section 230 reform

As I've mentioned in several posts, Wikipedia's highest tribunal, its "Arbitration Committee," has been grappling with the "Palestine-Israel" topic area since August. Over the past two weeks, they finally cranked out a tentative decision.

The proceedings are still underway, and there is still potential for mischief. But it's been mostly decided, and the great Aaron Bandler has done a thorough job of summarizing its "actions" in Jewish Journal. 

As Aaron explains, the anti-Israel editors Iskandar323, Levivich, Nableezy, Selfstudier, Makeandtoss, and Nishidani were topic-banned, which can and will be appealed after one year. Zero0000, an administrator, was "warned." Two pro-Israel editors,  AndreJustAndre and BilledMammal, were also topic banned.

My takeaways:

• While there was much whining by the affected anti-Israel editors, this was a net win for the Wikipedia Flood. They far outnumber editors willing to oppose them. Six topic bans barely dent their ranks, while two of the most active editors seeking to restore balance to articles were topic banned, and one faces a possible site ban as described below. 

• Arbcom ignored some of the very worst anti-Israel editors, such as the rape-denier Huldra and the silky Sean.hoyland, valued by the "Flood" for cranking out meaningless "data" to "prove" that Wikipedia is awash with pro-Israel "sockpuppets."

• Only one pro-Hamas editor was banned, Ïvana. That took place before the proceedings began and was caused by her role in an offsite pro-Hamas effort to slant editing on Wikipedia. Exposure by this blog and Ashley Rindsberg in Pirate Wires made that impossible to ignore. 

• At this writing it appears that the most active pro-Israel editor in the case, "AndreJustAndre," may be banned from the site based on trumped-up misconduct allegations by anti-Israel editors. None of the topic-banned pro-Hamas editors face that punishment.

• 

  Meet 'CaptainEek'

  The arb who drafted the preliminary decision, "CaptainEek," didn't even pretend to read the evidence and "workshop" analysis. Her laziness was so blatant that she was derided on Wikipediocracy, a criticism site that pays close attention to arbcom. One regular sneered, "With CaptainEek at the helm, the Titanic would never have hit an iceberg. It wouldn't have made it out of port." 

• CaptainEek claimed in her decision draft that AndreJustAndre made "specific edits after an off-wiki blogger requested those edits be made." That, she later clarified, referred to this blog. That contention was so utterly bonkers—even a casual reader knows that I don't "request" edits—that it was rejected by the other arbs. 

• While they did not adopt Captain Eek's wildest claims, most arbs were almost as irresponsible and lazy as she was. The panel's arbitrary decision-making was harshly criticized by other editors in the "talk" page of the proposed decision. On Wikipediocracy, a user pointed to "multiple editors calling out arbcom for conclusions based on incorrect ‘facts,’" and added "They didn’t read the evidence. They just want to be done."

In short, arbcom showed outright favoritism toward pro-Hamas editors by their selective and skewed enforcement of the rules, and proved itself to be a classic "kangaroo court." 

That's not hyperbole. Arbcom fits the dictionary definition of "a court characterized by irresponsible, unauthorized, or irregular status or procedures."

The very fact that I have to refer to a member of Wikipedia's highest tribunal by their juvenile handle shows how utterly broken Wikipedia is. Most arbs, CaptainEek among them, conceal their identities in star-chamber fashion despite the immense power they wield on the site.

 

What these anonymous Wiki-jurists proved in this case is that Wikipedia's highest tribunal is both unwilling and unable to curb highly organized propagandists who infiltrate the site to push pro-Hamas and antisemitic propaganda. 

Their actions prove that they are unserious. The goofy pictures they post of themselves, like the ones CaptainEek posts on her personal Wikipedia page (above) just gild the lily.

And since arbcom is an outright kangaroo court that disregards evidence and behaves without accountability, it is actually an obstacle to improving the site. How can editors oppose the pro-Hamas operatives if they believe arbcom will come swooping down and kick them out without a valid reason?  

Wikipedia's editor-oversight panel is allowed to fester like this for a reason. 

The highly compensated executives of the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns the servers, take no responsibility for Wikipedia content because of Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934. 

The Congressional Research Service says that Section 230

generally precludes providers and users from being held liable—that is, legally responsible—for information provided by another person, but does not prevent them from being held legally responsible for information that they have developed or for activities unrelated to third-party content. Courts have interpreted Section 230 to foreclose a wide variety of lawsuits and to preempt laws that would make providers and users liable for third-party content. For example, the law has been applied to protect online service providers like social media companies from lawsuits based on their decisions to transmit or take down user-generated content.

There's a need for that law and it shouldn't be repealed. It protects innocuous websites from unwarranted legal attack. But it can function as a recipe for lack of accountability, and that is not acceptable. 

Section 230 should not apply to Wikipedia.

Pro-Hamas Editors Use 'Wikipedia Lawfare' to Ban Pro-Israel Editors

 

Pro-Hamas editors claim a defunct account is an 'Emmanuel Goldstein' pro-Israel mastermind

Since August I've described how Wikipedia's highest tribunal, its so-called "Arbitration Committee," has been slowly and reluctantly addressing editor misconduct in the "Palestine-Israel" topic area. That effort is finally winding down, and a key part of the pro-Hamas editors' strategy is clear.  

They claim that the main problem in this topic area is not their own behavior, not their "ownership" of articles, not their perversion of Wikipedia's "neutrality" mandate, but widespread, improper pro-Israel editing.

That's right. Your lying eyes deceive. The real problem in articles accusing Israel of genocide and massacres etc etc is excessive pro-Israel editing due to diabolical use of "sockpupeting," in which villainous pro-Israel people create phony accounts to pad talk page discussions to go in their direction.

The fact that discussions in these articles' talk pages never, ever go in the pro-Israel direction, and the articles themselves are notoriously anti-Israel, is never mentioned when pro-Hamas editors push this line. They portray themselves as heroic "defenders of the Wiki" who are a front line of defense against those horrible people, preventing further damage to Wikipedia, further pro-Israel bias.

This nutty claim is made frequently on the arbcom case "evidence" page, in which prolific pro-Hamas editor "Makeandtoss" posted a chart—arbcom loves charts!—to "prove" that the "actual root causes of problem are sockpuppets who are canvassing, stonewalling, coordinating and disrupting." 

This claim is absurd on its face, for the simple reasons that all the sockpuppets claimed in that chart were caught, and before they were caught absolutely nothing they did had any lasting or even transitory impact on anything. All were new accounts, all outnumbered, all shouted down.

Most genuine sockpuppeting are easy to catch, because Wikipedia used a device called "checkuser" to determine if someone is using computers with the same or similar IP address to create multiple Wikipedia accounts.  

And here's where it gets interesting. If checkuser comes up naught, Wikipedia's pro-Hamas editors have long been able to get accounts banned by claiming that the accounts are editing similar to accounts that were banned a long time ago. This is known as "behavioral evidence." Wikipedia administrators, who are often hostile to Israel themselves, fall for this ruse frequently.

Long-defunct banned pro-Israel accounts, especially one dormant since 2019 known as "Icewhiz," are commonly used for that purpose. 

Icewhiz is frequently accused of contaminating Wikipedia by his voracious Israel advocacy and prolific sockpuppet-making, making that long-banned editor a kind of "Emanuel Goldstein" figure, to be hated by all right-thinking Wikipedians.

The beauty of accusing someone of being an "Icewhiz sock" is that you don't need much evidence. In fact, you can get people banned if the evidence doesn't amount to anything.

Of the 12 accounts cited by Makeandtoss in his chart, nine of which were supposed "Icewhiz socks," all but were two were caught by "behavioral" evidence despite nonexistent or dubious technical evidence. 

For example: Two pro-Israel accounts in the Makeandtoss chart, "UnspokenPassion" and "O.maximov," were blocked as Icewhiz socks in September after a complaint by the anti-Israel editor "Levivich."

He contended that "O.maximov and UnspokenPassion show the same basic POV, similarity of comments, and "drive-by" habit," as "evidenced" by the following horrors:

Israel

• O.maximov ("if the Israeli War of Independence isn't mentioned, then it makes no sense to mention the Nakba")
• UnspokenPassion ("If we include Nakba, we’d have to bring in more narratives, like the Independence War, as mentioned above.")
• This is the only edit UnspokenPassion has made to the talk page, no edits to the article; O.maximov has edited both

Genocide of indigenous peoples

• O.maximov ("We're looking at two groups, both with historical ties to the land, both claiming indigenity.")
• UnspokenPassion ("The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is generally understood as a struggle between two ethnic groups, both laying claim to being indigenous.")
• These are the only edits either account made to that article's talk page. O.maximov made one edit to the article; UnspokenPassion has made no edits to the article.

Palestinian suicide terrorism - an article created by UnspokenPassion

• UnspokenPassion ("... the term 'terrorism' is entirely appropriate (for instance, see examples like Islamic terrorism, Jewish extremist terrorism, etc.).")
• O.maximov ("It is unclear to me why there are calls to remove the term from this article while its usage in the above mentioned articles like Jewish extremist terrorism, Islamic terrorism, and, I will add, Israel and state-sponsored terrorism is accepted.")
• This is the only edit O.maximov has made to this article or its talk page

Based on that nothingburger, the two editors were assumed to be that villain Icewhiz, up to his old tricks. Administrator (and arbitrator) H.J. Mitchell agreed, saying:

I'm reluctant to draw definitive conclusions here but the behaviour is consistent with previous IW socks and CU data shows that both of these accounts are unusually sophisticated in obfuscating their IPs. Both are using proxies and are very careful not to overlap. I'm gonna call this  Likely and block both.

Note that the technical evidence actually does not prove that these editors are the same person, but he ascribes that to them being "unusually sophisticated in obfuscating their IPs." The problem is that "the behaviour is consistent with previous IW [Icewhiz] socks." Which he does not elaborate but apparently refers to the nothingburger quoted above. 

Veteran anti-Israel editor "Sean.hoyland" piled on with a presentation of his own, which he placed in a Google Docs file to nail another pro-Israel editor, ABHammad. (Be careful clicking on that Google Docs file, as it shows your account if you are logged in to Google). ABHammad was subsequently kicked off Wikipedia on the basis of that "evidence."

What's happening here is the Wikipedia counterpart of "lawfare," and they are making the most of it. Pro-Hamas editors are contending in the arbcom case that these sockpuppets, even though they were caught, even though their influence is nil, are just the tip of the iceberg of a massive pro-Israel editing push, and that the topic area is already infected with bogus pro-Israeli accounts.   

In one recent posting, Makeandtoss claims that he has "extremely important new evidence relevant to what I had described as 'systemic and institutional manipulation.'" 

A day later, obviously shaken by the enormity of the crimes he has uncovered, he posted:

I have now emailed the committee my evidence, which unfortunately does indeed indicate extensive state actor involvement, particularly at the highest levels. This evidence can be posted in other WP venues to raise awareness among both editors and admins, but I believe it is particularly relevant for this one, so that preventative action can be taken.

Oh no! Thank heavens for heroes like this, protecting Wikipedia from this scourge. 

Will all that massive pro-Israel sockpuppeting and "manipulation" be curbed?  Will arbcom valiantly fight this horror, this stain on its reputation? Stay tuned. 

The Wikipedia Flood's Latest Claim: An Invasion by Pro-Israel Automatons

Beware of the pro-Israel automatons

Back in August I described how Wikipedia's highest tribunal, its "Arbitration Committee," had begun to consider if it would deal with infighting in the "Israel-Palestine" topic area. With great reluctance, it decided in November to begin a case. 

The Wikipedia Flood—the Hamasniks and antisemites who control articles on everything related to Israel—is of course anxious to turn the proceedings in its favor. They have done so largely through three tactics:

1. They deflect through meaningless charts and tables designed to "quantify" that your lying eyes deceive you, that vast stretches of Wikipedia haven't become systematically slanted against Israel. This can be an effective tactic, because Wikipedia editors are often nerds, easily swayed by charts and statistics.

2. They've claimed that "sockpuppeting" by pro-Israel people is the real problem, even though this crude tactic is easily caught and has no lasting impact on the articles.  

Meaningless 'data' is a Flood favorite

3. Lastly we have the Flood's latest gambit. They are contending that the problem is you. Yes you, the reader of this blog and other critical coverage of Wikipedia's anti-Israel bias! If that is, you are a Wikipedia editor. In which case you should be drummed out of the site, based purely on edits that maybe, possibly, align with external criticism of Wikipedia.

There is a lot of criticism of Wikipedia on multiple websites, such as the largely anti-Israel "Wikipediocracy," which has entire sections aimed at influencing content, but that doesn't bother them. 

The Flood is claiming that the very act of reading the coverage that has come out in recent months about how dreadful Wikipedia has become—including this blog, Aaron Bandler's fine articles the Pirate Wires piece by Ashley Rindsberg, and reams of other coverage—turns you into a mindless automaton carrying out "tasks," even if you've been editing Wikipedia for years and are a reasonably sentient human being.  

Don't believe me. Just look at what they've written.

In a "workshop" page associated with the Arbcom case, Wikipedia Flood regular "Sean.Hoyland" (who is not a party to the case despite his years of hammering away at hundreds of articles) pursued that theme at length in several posts, including this one:

I don't know whether "editing influenced by outside suggestions" is prohibited or allowed. There are a lot of external actors trying to exert an influence over Wikipedia content every day. They are not part of the community, and they are not sanctionable. Should editors be allowed to participate in those campaigns/influence operations by executing the tasks they assign? To me it makes no difference whether the editor agrees or disagrees with the objective of the task or whether that external party's view is consistent or inconsistent with Wikipedia's policy. It's about whether there is a firewall between what happens on wiki and what happens off-wiki. 

Note what I've put in boldface. Coverage is spun as "tasks" that, if "executed," contaminate Wikipedia like a computer virus that requires a "firewall." 

By this logic, the existence of outside news coverage  and criticism of Wikipedia is the problem, not the contents of that coverage and criticism.

How do we know that a Wikipedia editor has been programmed into a robot, carrying out the commands of nefarious forces? Sean.Hoyland sets forth the criteria as follows:

What you can observe is the external 'change x to y' task, whether it was actioned, and the parties involved. You can then ask questions about the nature of the source that created the task and the objective of the task e.g. is the source a supporter of an organization that carries out acts of mass violence against civilians like ISIS, the Assad regime, the Israeli military, Hamas' military wing, the Russian military, and is the objective consistent with the [Wikipedia] Universal Code of Conduct that prohibits "systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view". For me, it is not about what current policy says. Current policy doesn't work. It's about making sure bad actors who shouldn't be anywhere near Wikipedia content have zero impact on content.

As spun by Sean.Hoyland, criticism of Wikipedia's anti-Israel slant becomes, again, a "task," and coverage favoring Israeli military is put on a par with ISIS, the Assad regime, Hamas and Putin. That, he claims, falls afoul of Wikipedia's "universal code of conduct," so therefore such people (meaning you, by reading this blog) are "bad actors" who "shouldn't be anywhere near Wikipedia content" and must "have zero impact on content."

While Sean.Hoyland clearly has no problem with Wikipedia criticism sites in general, only the ones that expose the Wikipedia Flood, his position, if adopted, would make all Wikipedia criticism sites off-limits to Wikipedia editors. This has resulted in some pushback on the anti-Israel Wikipediocracy website.

I should point out here that Sean.Hoyland is a veteran anti-Israel operative whose activities were documented as far back as 2019 and has been mentioned in this blog several times, mainly for producing the meaningless "data" and charts I mentioned above.

That's the Wikipedia Flood's Arbcom game plan. True, this "coverage=tasks" gambit is a sign of desperation, an indication of how much they hate, loathe and despise outside attention to their exploits, but don't underestimate them. They are sophisticated and, I believe, professional operatives who do this for a living.

Their claims may seem phantasmagorical or simply idiotic, but remember that they do a superb job of getting their way, and there's no reason Arbcom won't be swayed by their smorgasbord of deflection, bogus "data" and lies. 

After all, some Arbcom members use their real names. Would you want to antagonize pro-Hamas editors, whose supporters and sponsors can only be surmised, if they knew who you were? 

All one can say with certainty is that even if Arbcom wants to curb the Flood, which is far from certain, it would be an uneven situation. They are overworked, often non-anonymous volunteers facing off against anonymous propagandists. It's no contest. In such a situation the determined, singleminded operatives will always get their way. 

How Wikipedia Weaponizes Antisemitism—Against Jews

'Weaponization of Antisemitism' as created by the veteran anti-Israel operative 'Onceinawhile'

In this blog I've documented how antisemites weaponize Jew-hate in the pages of Wikipedia, turning "encyclopedia articles" into anti-Israel and often antisemitic screeds. But did you know that Wikipedia has an article devoted to how antisemitism is weaponized?

Of course, this being Wikipedia, the article does not detail how antisemitism is weaponized against Jews by the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, but rather by Jews against nice people who aren't antisemites. 

The article, titled "Weaponization of antisemitism," was created last Dec. 31 by the veteran anti-Israel propagandist "Onceinawhile." The article was initially illustrated with a cartoon by Carlos Latuff, notorious for employing "classic antisemitic tropes." 

That was, of course, the point of the article—to exonerate Jew-haters like Latuff, by pointing out that those antisemitic tropes he uses aren't antisemitic tropes at all, but rather "criticism of Israel."  

The article, which now looks like this, has since jettisoned its Latuff cartoon, but the polemical point remains. The lead paragraph of the article currently reads as follows:

The exploitation of accusations of antisemitism, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel,^[1] may be described as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card.^[2] Bad-faith accusations against Israel's critics have been called a form of smear tactics.^[3] Some writers have compared them to playing the race card.^[4][5]

The article goes on in that vein, with sourcing that relies heavily on anti-Zionist writers like Noam Chomsky and anti-Israel screeds with titles like "Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom," and "Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel."  

There are of course, no articles on Wikipedia with titles like "Weaponization of Islamophobia" or "Weaponization of racism."  

"Onceinawhile," the author of the article, has been around for 14 years and is one of the most prolific anti-Israel editors on Wikipedia. Long before pro-Hamas propagandist descended on Wikipedia en masse after Oct. 7, 2023, "Onceinawhile" was gaining recognition for his agenda, which is to minimize, justify and erase antisemitism. 

He was listed as the "No. 5 Anti-Israel Editor" by "Israel Group" researchers in 2019, when he was singled out for downplaying the severity of antisemitic pogroms: "Onceinawhile is one of the primary participants in systematically removing 'pogrom' from Wikipedia and replacing it with other terms, usually 'riots.'"

British investigative journalist David Collier described Onceinawhile's tactics back in December 2020, in the article  "Exclusive - Project Wiki - how Wikipedia is breeding an army of antisemites." 

Collier pointed out that Onceinawhile:

• Edited the Wiki page on the murderous 1945 anti-Jewish riots in Egypt by adding a single sentence – that the Prime Minister of Egypt blamed the Zionists for provoking the attacks.
• Tried and failed to have the page on the expulsion of Egyptian Jews deleted.
• Edited the page on ‘refugees’. This was an interesting edit. The section on Jewish refugees (which this user edited) is all about how politicised the argument is, how Israel wanted the refugees and the possibility of Zionist false flag attacks. The section immediately above it is all about Palestinian refugees – there is no mention of politicisation and the focus is almost exclusively (and errantly) on forced expulsion. The page was eventually cleaned up – but the insertion about politicisation stuck and is visible on other Wiki Jewish refugee pages (see here).
• Created the page about Ben Gurion’s letter to his son in 1937. The page was weighted to imply that Ben Gurion had stated his intention to expel the Arabs. Placing the original page alongside the current version highlights the problem of correcting bias – whilst individual attempts can be made over time to clean up the entry – the pillar of the page, the very bias with which it was created, remains intact. 

More recently, Onceinawhile was featured in Ashley Rindsberg's Pirate Wires investigation, which described how he was among the most productive anti-Israel editors, frequently acting in collaboration with a hard core of other anti-Israel operatives: 

 As of time of publication, Nableezy and Onceinawhile have co-edited 1,418 articles. Nableezy and Iskandar323 1,429 co-edited articles. Onceinawhile and Zero0000 have co-edited 2,119 articles. Zero000 and Nableezy have co-edited 1,754 articles. Onceinawhile and Iskandar323 have 1,594 co-edited. Huldra and Onceinawhile have co-edited articles 2,493 times. Nableezy and Huldra have co-edited 1,764 times.

At the time he probed Onceinawhile four years ago, Collier pointed out that he "has made over 32000 edits on Wikipedia. The mistake would be in thinking this is an exceptional case."

The edit count is now over 50,000, and Onceinawhile has not been impeded one bit by Wikipedia's vaunted processes, which claim to promote a "neutral point of view" that does not exist in articles relating to Jews and Israel.

Indeed, in August 2024, "Onceinawhile" created a Wikipedia article titled "Masada myth," describing how a well-documented historical event, the Siege of Masada, is a lot of hooey dreamed up by those horrible Israelis to justify their illegitimate state.

It goes without saying that "Onceinawhile" is not a party to the Arbitration Committee proceedings that were recently commenced to examine the "Palestine-Israel" subject area.

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.

When It Comes to anti-Zionist Poison, Wikipedia is 'The Encyclopedia NOBODY Can Edit'

 

Don't you dare remove that foul lie from the Wikipedia Zionism article.

It's not a revelation to point out that when it comes to Zionism, Wikipedia is as chilly as a Mt. Everest base camp. But it's actually worse than most people realize. Worse than even I realized, and I broke the story of how the Wikipedia Zionism article had been turned into anti-Zionist propaganda by the "Wikipedia Flood" of Israel-hating editors.

On Sept. 13, an administrator added to the article a "hidden note" decreeing that a sloppily worded, poorly sourced nugget of anti-Zionist propaganda—Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible—was henceforth baked into the first paragraph of the article.  

That sentence, which accuses Israel's founders of ethnic cleansing in Wikipedia's voice, unattributed, is there to stay. And if you don't like it you can pound sand or, even less productively, you can argue it out on the "talk" page of the article, which is tightly controlled by anti-Zionist editors.

The wording of that untouchable sentence has been widely derided as making a mockery of history. 

In his excellent Jewish Journal article on the Zionism article, journalist Aaron Bandler pointed out that this sentence was described as "false" by Middle East historian Asaf Romirowsky, who heads Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the Association for Study in the Middle East and North Africa. 

And in my blog item I pointed out:

The sourcing of that and other anti-Zionist statements includes a long roster of anti-Zionists. The sourcing of the statement cited above include anti-Israel extremists such as Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, infamous for his support of terrorism, all quoted at length in a footnote. 

Prof. Romirowsky elaborated in the Jewish Journal article that before Israel was established, “the Jewish community was willing to accept whatever proposal was offered to them, even the desolate land itself, just the idea of having a homeland.”

Pretty bad, huh? Well don't try to fix it. When it comes to articles in what Wikipedia calls the "Palestine-Israel area," editors must have 500 edits and at least thirty days under their belts before they can edit. But not even that helps when it comes to that false statement. As a practical matter, for that sentence Wikipedia is the "encyclopedia nobody can edit." 

The "hidden note" in the lead of the Zionism article

In an action that received little attention outside Wikipedia, on Sept. 13, a volunteer administrator, ScottishFinnishRadish, inserted a "hidden note," invisible to the public but viewable by editors seeking to edit the article, essentially acknowledging the Wikipedia Flood's ownership of that passage. 

His (or her?) hidden note reads:

The following text is the result of consensus on the talk page. Changes to the text have been challenged and any further edits to the sentence should be discussed on the talk page and consensus obtained to change. 

Since "consensus" is the Holy Grail of Wikipedia, anyone trying to change it without "talking it out" on the stacked-deck "talk page" will find that, at a minimum, he or she is wasting his or her time, and risks getting tossed out of Wikipedia or otherwise flogged. 

That was precisely the fate of an editor who raised the issue on the "talk page" a few days ago. He is being shot down in flames, and the "hidden note" has of course been cited. Like all discussions in this topic area, this one is going on and on and on.

What makes all this even more Orwellian is that the hidden note was not the work of one of the anonymous anti-Israel operatives of what I call the "Wikipedia Flood," who work 24/7, successfully, to turn Wikipedia into an anti-Israel propaganda machine.

Ironically ScottishFinnishRadish is actually one of the better administrators willing to venture into this topic area, and is unpopular with some of the very worst Flood editors for failing to do their bidding to their satisfaction. As far as Wikipedia administrators go, he is one of the "good guys."  

But his job is to enforce the rules, and ScottishFinnishRadish knows perfectly well that on Wikipedia, the Flood calls the shots.

Postscript: Note the comment that came in concerning SFR after I posted this. The commenter makes a good point. I may have been too charitable in calling them "one of the 'good guys.'"

A Timely Study Emerges as Wikipedia Weighs 'Israel/Palestine'

 

I've been offline for a while, neglecting this blog, and during my absence a number of things have happened.

Two very important ones are related:

1. Wikipedia's highest tribunal, its "arbitration committee" or "Arbcom," has  voted to open a "case" to consider complaints that anti-Israel and sometimes antisemitic editors have bullied their way into dominating a vast swath of articles on Israel and the Gaza war. The "case" will commence on November 30th.

2. Just as the Arbcom case is about to commence, Canadian researchers have released an impressively thorough study quantifying the behavior of anti-Israel editors. 

A National Post article on the study, by its authors, can be found here. Their analysis "reveals alarming patterns of bias that can cascade through the digital information ecosystem, infecting everything from search engine results to academic citations to social media posts and even AI training data."

I wrote about the arbcom case when it first commenced back in August, and updated several times. As I've described, it began promisingly, with postings by several respected editors pointing out the pattern of anti-Israel "ownership" of articles, much of it (as I revealed in this blog), coordinated offsite in violation of Wikipedia rules.

What I call the "Wikipedia Flood" of pro-Hamas editors fought fiercely against Arbcom's taking up the case, gaslighting and producing reams of verbiage and meaningless "data" to prove that the blatant anti-Israel propaganda in the artcles, and the misconduct that produced it, is just a figment of everyone's imagination.

The phony "data" they generated was crucial, as arbcom often takes a nerdy approach and is swayed by "data," no matter how bogus.

The arbcom case drew outside attention as it dragged on for months, especially articles by Aaron Bandler in Jewish Journal, which raised the stakes and made it harder for arbcom to just sweep it all under the rug. 

Revelations about outside coordination, by this blog and Ashley Rindsberg in Piratewire, made it still harder.

In voting to go ahead with the case, the arb "Moneytrees" specifically pointed to the canvassing:

I also want to look at offsite behavior and canvassing, which has been chronic for a while and been difficult to address with our current processes. The scope should be an examination of how to address these offsite issues, and how we can empower admins to act on them.

And now comes this latest development, the Canadian study, just as the case is about to begin.

The study was conducted by Neil Seeman, a Senior Fellow at Massey College. the University of Toronto, and Jeff Ballabon, Senior Counsel for International and Government Affairs at the American Center for Law and Justice. These are serious researchers, which Wikipedia usually hold in higher esteem than journalists. 

In their National Post article, they wrote:

We conducted a comprehensive analysis of Wikipedia’s structural bias, using as our case study the page about South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Our findings unearthed patterns of systematic bias that can shape and contort public understanding of critical global issues.

Through a detailed examination of over 1,000 page revisions, we identified several key mechanisms through which bias can enter and metastasize inside Wikipedia.

Our analysis identified 27 highly active editors who contributed significantly to the page. These weren’t hobbyist contributors — they averaged over 200,000 edits across Wikipedia, suggesting they’re highly experienced editors with considerable influence over content. The bias expression analysis identified patterns of anti-Israel bias among power-user editors, highlighting how personal viewpoints can seep into supposedly neutral content.

While none of the researchers' findings will come as a surprise to readers of this blog and the other coverage, their work dovetails neatly what I've been documenting sinch March, and what Aaron and Ashley have written about.

Their findings concerning editor behavior are significant because, remember, Arbcom's jurisdiction is confined entirely to that realm:

What’s particularly remarkable is these biases contradict the spirit of a “wiki” — an ethos of bottom-up collaboration and respect expressed toward all its volunteer editors. These biases include: elite theory bias, that is, a preference for academic sources over grassroots knowledge; high-contributor frequency bias (disproportionate influence of frequent editors); citation gaming (strategic use of citations to push particular viewpoints); temporal bias (over-representation of recent events or perspectives); institutional capture systematic bias (from organized editing groups); language complexity bias (use of complex language to obscure bias); and source selectivity bias (selective choice of sources to support particular views).

So there it is, all laid out. The arbcom case won't commence until the end of November, so you can bet that the Wikipedia Flood--and their sponsors and backers--will be minutely examining the Canadian study to rip it to shreds and extract as much blood as they can from the editors who have sought to counter them.

The Flood is tightly organized offsite, experienced and well-established onsite. They've achieved their objective since 10/7, spreading poison, turning Wikipedia into a propaganda website, and there's no reason to believe they won't win again, study or no study.

Why? Because Wikipedia belongs to them.

Wikipedia needs to be starved of money and discredited. This new study will go a long way toward achieving the latter objective. 

Wikipedia Decrees: Israel Has No Right to Exist

 

Existence? Not for Israel, not on Wikipedia 

One of the cliches of the Arab-Israel conflict is that the "good guys" and the "bad guys" roughly line up over the question: "Does Israel have a right to exist?"

Only the most violent rogue states and antisemitic terrorist groups says it does not.

Wikipedia says it does not.

That emerged recently in one of Wikipedia's numerous administrative boards. An administrator named "ScottishFinnishRadish," known usually as "SFR," sought advice from other admins as to whether a user should be sanctioned over that issue.

The user, "Nableezy," is a veteran anti-Israel editor who I've mentioned in several previous blog items. He contended on an article discussion page that Wikipedia cannot say that Israel has a right to exist (see above) in its own voice. That's just a "claim." 

SFR wrote:

I've opened this report to get input from other administrators about the diffs above that say Wikipedia cannot presuppose[s] Israel has a right to exist and that it is something that should not be put in wikivoice. This is a diff showing the content at issue.

In as much as any nation has a right to exist, I think the very least we're looking at a WP:FRINGE viewpoint being used to argue content and against a provided source. I know that I've blocked editors for similar comments on both the existence of Palestine and Israel. I am interested in what other administrators think about these diffs. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:54, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

What followed was what usually happens when anti-Israel editors are brought up on charges. Members of the "Wikipedia Flood" of anti-Israel editors, and their allies, piled on. 

Of course Israel has no right to exist! No country does, they argued, so therefore Wikipedia cannot say in its own voice that Israel has a right to exist. Even raising the issue is wrong!

Nableezy won the dispute without much effort.

SFR succumbed, withdrawing his query with a humiliating apology to Nableezy.

You really have to savor the double standard at work here.

Wikipedia editors have ruled multiple times that Israel can be raked over the coals in Wikipedia's own voice.

Wikipedia says in its own voice that Israel is an apartheid state.

Wikipedia says in its own voice that Israel commits genocide in Gaza.

Massacres? Of course. There's an entire Wikipedia category of massacres committed by those dastardly Israelis.

All in Wikipedia's voice.

But you daren't say, in Wikipedia's voice, that those genocidal, apartheid-committing massacre-perpetrators have a right to a state of their own. That's disputed. That has to be attributed. It's very much in doubt 

And after reading the way Israel, its people and history are described in thousands of articles by Wikipedia's anti-Israel editors--who dominate the articles on Israel and Jews--you might feel the same way if you approached the subject cold.

You might be persuaded to support Hamas yourself. 

Or worse.