“At present, the lede and the overall presentation state, in Wikipedia’s voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested,” Wales said. He added that a “neutral approach would begin with a formulation such as: ‘Multiple governments, NGOs, and legal bodies have described or rejected the characterization of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.’” Currently, the article bases its position that a genocide exists on conclusions from United Nations investigations, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and “multiple human rights groups,” among others.
I’m sure Grokipedia has taken the page and converted it into something that won’t offend the boot lickers.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I think Wales is correct.
I understand this seems irrational, because of course Israel committed genocide in Gaza. And Wikipedia’s job is to describe reality, right?
Wrong. Wikipedia’s job is to describe historical and scientific consensus. It is fundamental to their mission that they do all they can to avoid arbitrating disputes. I know that’s painful, but it’s a matter of roles: academics and media organizations arbitrate, and Wikipedia’s role is to catalog and communicate the consensus these organizations reach.
It’s terrible that a minority of biased actors have managed to prevent media and academic institutions from reaching consensus when the subject is so straightforward and obvious. But until that is addressed, unfortunately Wikipedia is hampered from describing the consensus reality by the needs of their core mission. They are designed to be downstream of these organizations, and they have to be to remain effective to their core mission. It’s like how the UN lets war criminals like Netanyahu visit and speak. As much as we’d all like them to kick him the hell out, doing so undermines the core purpose of the institution. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s the job description.
I think one solution is that their should be more than one crowd-sourced encyclopedia for the world. Wikipedia will always suffer from a Western, English-speaking bias.
is consensus even a thing? and considering the groups that make up the group saying it’s not a genocide, it would be like giving a murder equal say in his conviction at trial.
genocide has a definition, isreal far exceeded all criteria, israel has and is currently committing genocide.
unless there is a new definition that excludes israel but also doesn’t exclude the holocaust without naming the parties i don’t know of
giving a murder equal say in his conviction at trial.
You guys don’t allow the accused a defence?
say in his conviction. the accused does not get to deliberate upon their own guilt
Multiple governments […] have described or rejected the characterization of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.
Which, apart from Israel and the US?
US dependencies, island nations, and micronations.
I found this: https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164281
Fits.
Hey Jimmy, people who are committing genocide denying that they are committing genocide doesn’t make it highly contested.
To play devil’s advocate, due to the formulation of his edit suggestion, he may have meant how to depict the claims is being highly contested (on wiki) and should be more neutral and specific as per who is claiming what… And said it badly.
Why assume when he has had plenty of time to clarify if that is what he meant?
His exact phrasing is the same as saying climate change is contested. No, that kind of thing does not deserve to be in an article any more than the including denial about the Nazi genocide as an example of being highly cobtested because some shitty people and organizations still deny that one too. That kind of thing deserves to be ina section called genocide denial, no lt a note that ‘it is contested’.
Ends up in semantics though… Contested only requires 1, and highly or widely is not defined, and who is a qualifying contributor is not qualified, and who is a qualifying arbiter is not defined.
Depending on how invested he is in the feedback, he may not even realize currently it’s being read outside the context of the wiki editing neutrality issue he was talking about for the article.
I know nothing about his politics, and can only talk about the semantic concepts.
Yeah. But also people who are not are contesting it somewhat. E.g. brit government.
The UK started the fucking genocide by giving away land that was not theirs to an entire religion/ethnic group who hadn’t been more than a minority in the region in all of recorded history.
Everyone denying the genocide is complicit or bought.
You are mental.
The UK did not redistribute land to Jerusalem this millennium. Claiming borders and deeds of old to justify (military) action is a book out of a warmongers playbook.
It isIch vermute, dass die Geschichtsbücher in Ihrem Land Ihnen ein falsches Bild von der Entstehung des Staates Israel vermittelt haben. Nach dem Selbstmord von 88 und der Kapitulation Deutschlands wurden die vertriebenen Juden von Europa nach dort verschifft, England und ein Lord sind die Hauptursache für die Probleme, die seit 1946 entstanden sind
Coward. Use English and spell shit out. Incredibly terrible machine translation is unacceptable. That was last millennium. By the way. Deporting the immigrants of the past does not solve the issue of today in an acceptable way.
English is my 4 language ,so screw yourself
In what way does this force you to use bad German? And why does this mean you must self censor?
Honestly I kinda feel like “Multiple governments, NGOs, and legal bodies have described or rejected the characterization of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide” sounds more damning than just “Israel perpetrated a genocide.”
Still, Jimbo, you should probably stay out of this. Wikipedia’s whole thing is that no one person is in charge.
He is discussing a page’s content, not “being in charge” of the page. I actually think it would be a good thing if board members spent more time as “normal” editors, maybe they would be less disconnected from the community
I think it’s the fact that he has a recognizable username that gives me pause on that, though. For a lot of people, his position is naturally going to afford him some level of deference and authority.
If the people making decisions spent time as normal editors anonymously, I agree definitely that that would be a good way to get to know the community more.
So that means…
The moon landing is highly contested.
The shape of the Earth is highly contested.
Shit like this is why I had to leave Wikipedia. Trolls and paid shills can lock up any meaningful edit/argument forever if they want to. And the people running Wikipedia are no different.
fyi, both of your exemples would fall under wp:fringe
Also seen at https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/57081889
Not sure why this isn’t a crosspost.
Looks to me like that link is broken. Must be something going on.
