User:Bharel/Reliability of Wikipedia

During the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which started on October 7th 2023, it seems like the reliability and neutrality standards within Wikipedia have deteriorated in favor of a clear political opinion.

Donors don't matter

The situation is so dire that Wikipedia and Wikimedia itself have lied and defrauded donors. According to Wikimedia Foundation's own donation page: "Wikipedia is different: not perfect, but also not here to make a profit or to push a particular perspective". While promising donors that Wikipedia is not here to push a particular perspective, Wikipedia is actively hosting pro-Palestinian banners at the top of every page of the Arabic version of the website, with links pointing towards "Israeli Propaganda" and other clear one-sided opinion articles.

Wikipedia's donation page

Arabic Wikipedia hosting "neutral" banners

Putting aside the legality of lying to donors, it is clear that both the foundation and the editors have abandoned the strive for a neutral encyclopedia, where such cases are justified over and over again. The code of conduct and pillars of Wikipedia are clearly against such cases, but it seems like the community at large is willing to shift the standards when they feel like it, turning Wikipedia into a blog that changes according to the will of the majority of its editors.

Facts don't matter

On the latest RFC regarding the Anti-Defamation League, the discussion was purely political. Plenty of statements claiming "factual errors" by the ADL caused the ADL to be marked as unreliable, but none of the claims gave any actual error found. What are the errors? Nobody knows. A few statements by the CEO of the ADL were used. Some other biased sources were used to claim that the ADL itself is biased. No factual errors were shown that the ADL has made, before marking it as unreliable, apart from a single comment stating that they said something false in 2006 - or 19 years ago.

When in doubt - bash the author

When the facts start piling up against the will of the majority of the users, it seems like the best mechanism of action would be to divert the discussion into one that is against Wikipedia's own policies, in particular - to bash the author. Try to find the author's motives for posting the RFC. It doesn't even have to be true. Claim that he's Jewish, Christian, Vietnamese, supports Pikachu as the new world leader or any other statement really. It will cause the discussion to close and subside due to "personal remarks" even if the author of the RFC didn't make any.

I have written a guide of how to do so in one of the RFCs. This one was written after a large discussion regarding the reliability of Al-Jazeera English. It contained plenty of factual errors and statements made by Al-Jazeera, and the discussion was closed due to a completely unrelated reason - the "personal statements made within the RFC". Here is the guide that I've written, if anyone wishes to use the same tactic:

1. Claim it's the first time, or happens only once, and does not show any systemic issue / bias.
2. Claim that AJ retracts the article (even though it doesn't always happen, and when it does, if you keep on publishing false information and retracting it because of backlash - that is not the hallmark of a reliable source).
3. Claim that AJ Arabic is different than AJ English, even though the report is against AJ English.
4. Claim that it already says that it's biased on the conflict, even though the current wording makes the impression that AJ Arabic is the only real issue.
5. Claim that AJ is the only reliable source in the Arab world, i.e. prefer to lower the standards, ignore the issues, and claim it's reliable because "we have no other choice", which is a fallacy and problematic in many dimensions at best. Being the big one is certainly not the only one, and does not make a source reliable giving factually true information. Unless of course you believe RT because it's the biggest in Russia or any other "biggest", "only option" or anything else.
6. When that fails - start claiming that the authors of the RFC or the responders are Jewish / Israeli / whatever so they're biased, which is what happened multiple times in the last RFC - effectively saying that Israelis or Jews can never be reliable for anything related to Israel. Speaking of bias...
7. Close the RFC because of those unrelated comments regarding the intent of the RFC opener, completely disregarding that about 50% of the editors deemed it unreliable, and the actual faults found.

That's exactly what happened time and time again, and I wouldn't be surprised if it'll happen again here. That's why I have stopped contributing - that system cannot be fought against, and because we have Israeli editors on this discussion, their voices don't matter anyway per point 6 and as evident by the closing of the last RFCs. The only solution left is to be submissive and claim it's reliable because we said so. Bar Harel (talk) 04:46, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

History repeats itself

Interestingly, per the premise given in the guide, that situation happened again right within the same thread where the guide was given. Attempting to claim an ulterior motive seems to be a prevalent way to derail a discussion and force it to close if the facts are not aligning the political agenda.

When such tactics repeat themselves, and are being used to selectively validate or invalidate sources, or selectively show political and questionably verified information, it completely undermines the reliability of the project within those subjects.

What can we do?

Unfortunately, nothing. The editors at large are not worried about these discussions or these methods. Since the start of the war, the paradigm shifted. Tiktok and Instagram are used en-mass as a source of information. Wikipedia itself is shifting more and more according to the political opinion of its writers, with some pages promoting terrorism - such as arwiki's promotion of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades "Leadership" in killing of "Zionist" civilians.

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades' "Leadership"

The Wikimedia Foundation does not seem to do much about it. They post new rules and regulations that aren't followed, such as a "Universal Code of Conduct" that promotes the premise of neutrality, but doesn't have any actionable ways to achieve it if the community does not actually want neutrality.

Unless it is published in the news, nobody cares if a few donors are defrauded. I volunteered for over 15 years on the premise of building a neutral encyclopedia, and seeing it crumbling in front of my eyes to the point that it promotes terrorism against me and my people is a disgrace. Unfortunately though, calling for Intifada and killing of Israelis is the prevalent sentiment these days, so we can't really expect neutrality from a simple online encyclopedia can we?

I can only wonder what will happen when the tides will be shifted, and you, the reader, will be the target.