Requests for comment/Violating the Neutral point of view in Arabic Wiki

This is a subpage; for more information, see the Requests for comments page.

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(forgive me if my English is bad) As always, I was browsing other wikis when I came across the Arabic wiki, unfortunately this project does not believe in an Neutral point of view and continues to do so. In ar:ويكيبيديا:الميدان/منوعات, an administrator makes a proposal to declare solidarity with the Palestinian people, which they all agreed with. On the main page there is a text that reads: ("Stop killing civilians, stop bombing hospitals and schools, etc. you can see for yourself").

I have several questions:

1.Is this policy violation going to continue? Why? Also by a Admin!

2.Why is no action taken by the foundation?

3.Why does Arabic Wiki continue to operate so brazenly and violate policies.

Please take the necessary measures and prevent this deplorable situation so that it does not appear in all wikis.

(If this request is in the wrong place, please move it to the right place). Thanks StarTesla (talk) 17:28, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

• For the main page version, see here: Main page of Arabic Wiki StarTesla (talk) 20:03, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  I read the main page and it was horrible. For example, it denied that the October 7 attack had occurred and dismissed it as information. As someone who supported the two-state solution, this blackout is ridiculous because it also did not condemn Hamas too. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 20:18, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  @SpinnerLaserzthe2nd: This matter should be taken seriously, it can hit the projects and its consequences are destructive. If I support a certain country, whether Social Media or in the real world, I will not bring it to Wikipedia. Why should an admin make such a suggestion? What can be expected from the users of Arabic Wiki when its admin has such an approach? You can see the poll that was held for this action here: See StarTesla (talk) 20:55, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  Where on that page does it deny the October 7 attack? Voorts (talk) 18:57, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah I don't remember seeing such a denial; only the failure to mention it. Would be easily corrected by an editor adding it. Firestar464 (talk) 18:59, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• This action on Arabic Wikipedia is completely contrary to the fundamental principle of Wikipedia, which is openness, and it deals a significant blow to the Wikimedia Foundation. Swift measures should be taken to prevent and reclaim administrators' access. Their demand is valid, but it is by no means impartial. WASP-Outis (talk) 23:29, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I think antisemitic systemic bias can explain a lot since most of the jews have been ethnically cleansed out of arabian countries.

Free "Genocide" allegation to descendants of notorious genocides victim, in particular from a "realm" that has ethnically cleansed most of its jews, is an infamy that will hurt Wikipedia globally. Ptaah.fr (talk) 09:34, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

• I have sent this previously to the Wikimedia legal team and got no reply. As a long time contributor and member of the Wikimedia Foundation, it seems like the foundation stands behind "freedom of speech" more than any other value. Since I haven't received any reply, and the Arabic Wikipedia further escalated their stance, I might as well go public and proceed with filing an official complaint to the European Union against the Wikimedia Foundation for hosting content promoting terrorism. The following btw was my exact email sent to legal:

Dear Wikimedia,

I've been looking around the Arabic Wikipedia and have seen plenty of material supporting / encouraging terrorism. For example, here's the Wikipedia article about the military wing of Hamas, glorifying its achievements of killing civilians using suicide bombings:

https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/كتائب_الشهيد_عز_الدين_القسام (Rev 65475100)

As I was deeply concerned about third parties reading those Wikipedia articles and believing that joining a terrorist organization would be a positive idea, I was about to report the material per TERREG, but having seen your FAQ regarding TVEC I thought to give you a heads up first.

I've previously asked on different articles / read other people asking for content to be changed in the Arabic Wikipedia, but unfortunately in all cases the community chose to keep up incorrect / terrorism promoting content.

I'm yet to know if it is even legal to host per the PATRIOT act, but do not know the legal intricacies involved.

Thanks, REDACTED User: Bharel

As an additional information, I'd just like to state that my Facebook account was restricted for sharing that link to the Wikipedia article, as I was sharing "content promoting terrorism". What a joke. Bharel (talk) 01:35, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• If the first principle of Wikimedia is to be freedom of speech and this principle can override other laws, then Hebrew Wikipedia can also show similar support for Israel, and a conflict may arise on Wikipedia as well. It is interesting.WASP-Outis (talk) 02:37, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think we want this in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Besides, the article I referenced is illegal to host or show within the confines of the European Union. Freedom of speech can't break EU regulations. The article shows terrorists as prominent leaders, being the first to kill children on buses, using the first women suicide bombers, and encouraging others to do the same for fame. Not once it is stated that half the world counts that organization as terrorists. It is absolutely disgusting, and for the first time in 15 years I'm ashamed to be part of the Wikimedia movement. Wikimedia is not the place to promote blatant terrorism, and I don't think any Wikipedian should encourage that on site. Bharel (talk) 02:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  If I suffer monetary losses and get blocked on social media for sharing a link to a Wikipedia article because that article promotes terrorism, the situation is beyond ridiculous. What's next? Should I go around saying "Hey Wikipedians, let me give you a legal advice: don't share Wikipedia articles because you might suffer legal consequences and loses"? Because right now that seems to be the case. Post that link on Facebook and see what happens to your account. Bharel (talk) 03:07, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Bharel: This is unfortunate! The foundation must stop this situation that violates the main policy of neutrality! (If the foundation does not take action, it will cause the rest of the wikis to imitate and cause a lack of trust in the project). StarTesla (talk) 09:48, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• Non-steward comment Related: Steward requests/Miscellaneous/2023-12#Arabic Wikipedia protest forced logout script. --Novak Watchmen (talk) 04:35, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose any action First, NPOV generally applies to article content, not site-wide actions, and there is precedent for site-wide blackouts. For example, en-wiki staged a blackout on January 18, 2012, to oppose legislation in the United States. Second, IAR is more fundamental than NPOV, and I can't think of a better time to use IAR than to express solidarity with people who are being subjected to a genocide. Voorts (talk) 17:15, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• What?🤨 IAR in this context is an exaggerated and too clumsy logic pirouette for me to perform, sorry.
  IAR don't apply when it may be used to abuse the platform or to serve other purposes; its only meant for cases of improving or maintaining a project... clearly not our case.
• See also the unbinding but wise Legal/Foundation Policy and Political Association Guideline.
  Did the Wikimedia Foundation approve the action?
  • If not, the claims about some "hijacking" actions carried out by irresponsible functioneers on the Arabic Wikipedia continues to demand RfC consequences.
  • If the foundation did approve this, it's a complete scandal, and a big step toward the unpromising reality of continued abuse of any project for any action and goal, even if it causes a conflict of interests with the very project's goal, with bias and even rapaciousness that suspends complitly the activity of a project.
    Can a representative of the foundation respond here, officially, regarding the existence of such approval?

· ^מקף Hyphen _෴ · 18:14, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Please note that the Political Association Guideline only applies to Wikimedia Foundation itself. Thanks. SCP-2000 18:23, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

As I mentioned, "unbinding but wise". Thank you, · ^מקף Hyphen _෴ · 18:27, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

What is scandalous about calling for an end to the targeting of hospitals and civilians? Voorts (talk) 18:59, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments in response to several editors below: Many editors are asserting that the statement on the blackout page should've condemned Hamas, or that somehow the statement shows support for Hamas. This is a red herring. Read the statement: Stop the war.. Spread the just and comprehensive peace.. What about calling for a "comprehensive peace" exactly is supportive of Hamas or its goals?

Other editors are also claiming that this statement should've called for the protection of all civilians, not just Palestinians. That is also a red herring. How many Israeli families have been completely wiped out, with no survivors, since the beginning of the war? How many people have been bombed out of their homes in Tel Aviv? As the Arabic Wikipedia community noted: "Stop double standards." Nobody is making these same kinds of demands on Israelis (to condemn the Israeli government) who have family members who have been kidnapped, and for good reason. Voorts (talk) 19:33, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I really don't think it's a good idea to state unequivocally that the Palestinians are "people being subjected to a genocide" when there is no consensus on this view and when genocide is naturally an inflammatory accusation to make. JM2023 (talk) 09:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

• This is horrible. Just plainly horrible. This would be similar to as if Russian Wikipedia put a Z, Georgic ribbon, or Russian flag with the same argumentation like "stop killing Russian civilians in the 8-year bombing of Donbass". Well very well (talk) 18:14, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  Also, if I remember correctly, 1 or 2 years ago an interesting situation happened in Arabic Wikipedia — 20 or so admins were desysoped because of their government affiliation (with Saudi Arabia, if I remember correctly? Not sure). Would be very very interesting if someone who sanctioned this banner has a similar background. Well very well (talk) 18:18, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Well very well, Please avoid misinformation, WMF widely reported to have denied such claims. Also, remember that "misinformation about this action has the potential to cause harm to the individuals involved". Ahmed Naji ^Talk 20:10, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  Terms of Use also says "Disrupting the services by inundating any of the Project Websites with communications or other traffic that suggests no serious intent to use the Project website for its stated purpose;" Nemoralis (talk) 20:34, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  In that article is stated:

  "The DAWN/SMEX press release combined its report on Osama's and Ziyad's prison sentences with the news that the WMF had recently banned sixteen Wikipedians in the Middle East/North Africa region, including seven Arabic Wikipedia administrators, for alleged conflict-of-interest editing and advancing "the aims of external parties". " (I was wrong about 20 -- just 7)

  "The Saudi Arabian government infiltrated Wikipedia by recruiting the organization's highest ranked administrators in the country to serve as government agents to control information about the country and prosecuting those who contributed critical information about political detainees, said SMEX and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) today.

  Following an internal investigation in 2022, Wikimedia terminated all of its Wikipedia administrators in Saudi Arabia in December. DAWN and SMEX documented Wikipedia's infiltration by the Saudi government based on interviews with sources close to Wikipedia and the imprisoned administrators"

  I didn't know about the WMF response to that press release, thank you! Well very well (talk) 20:45, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  Your hypothetical is odd given that the Russian government isn't exactly kind to the Russian Wikipedia. In any event, there's a very clear difference between supporting a country doing the invading (Russia), as in your hypothetical, and supporting a people who are having their children murdered every few minutes (Palestinians). Voorts (talk) 19:02, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Voorts No, Russian Wikipedia has done things greatly, to protect their users from getting harmed by government, they (Arbcom) oversight nearly all edits history on some pages. To prevent any possibilities that project got hijacked by Kremlin-supporters, some ARBs even resigned willingly. They kept up with WP:NPOV and the NDA they signed, under lots of stress from Kremlin Nazis. While Arabic Wiki, with the help with the highest functions on all projects, performed badly. Lemonaka (talk) 03:06, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm saying it's a bad example because Russian wiki would never praise the Russian government. I also said that, hypothetically, if that did occur, there is a difference between supporting the Russian government and calling for a ceasefire during what most of the world perceives to be an ongoing genocide. Voorts (talk) 14:10, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Would be interesting to see the polling done to show that "most of the world" sees the Israeli response to the Oct 7 massacre of Jews as a genocide. It's quite an extraordinary claim to make. JM2023 (talk) 09:52, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

• I'am an administrator on ArabicWikipedia and I've read all comments here. First of all, the pillar of NPOV concerned with the articles and the content of our encyclopedia and doesn't interfere with the action we did (which is similar to many actions done in different Wikipedias). Second, let's say that NPOV concerns with what happened in ArWiki, I will say it doesn't violate it because the solidarity with human rights in safe life and other rights mentioned in UDHR isn't a violation of the neutral point of view. Third, The action done in ArWiki had the agreement of the members of our community and the community held a discussion before doing it and noone said that would lead to a probable violation of our Arabic policies. Ahmed Naji ^Talk 18:23, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• Regarding NPOV:
  1. Human rights of only some people, while ignoring Israelis who were massacred or babies who are still in captivity without medicine or even a visit from the Red Cross?
  2. I didn't come here to defend Israel and I also don't think there is any human being who doesn't feel deeply sad when innocent people harmed.
  3. Still, the Hebrew Wikipedia has not raise blackout about the October 7 massacre and kidnapping. We understand that Wikipedia is not here to serve interests, however high they may be, and we adhere to a neutral environment even when it means biting our lips in great pain.
  4. Changing a site-logo, adding a sitenotice - in a certain sense, they are all even more significant than "just" violating neutrality or adding disinformation to the articles concerning the subject itself. Because these appear at the top of each page.
• The functioneers at the Arabic Wikipedia were not content with abusing only these elements. In addition to these, .* <noedit> was also added to ar:MediaWiki:Titleblacklist to completely block any editing, and a script was added to ar:MediaWiki:common.js that forcibly logged out users who visited the Arabic Wikipedia, globally, with no warning (see also this).
  1. It is not clear on what basis these additional steps were taken and how those who performed them have not yet taken responsibility.
  2. This irresponsibility seems to ended only with an oversight hiding of the usernames responsible for making the harmful and restrictive edits, far-reaching&fetched action by itself.

· ^מקף Hyphen _෴ · 18:49, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@מקף: Agreed 100%

I'm Israeli, and I personally support Palestine (not Hamas), but my problem isn't that I don't support it, it's that Wikipedia should be completely neutral in all political problems which aren't a direct threat to Wikipedia/the WMF (e.g. SOPA/PIA) QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 11:25, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

To respond to your first two points about NPOV:

1. Literally the entire world condemned the October 7 massacre. In response to that massacre, Bibi's government has murdered tens of thousands of civilians, including children, journalists, and healthcare workers. Nobody is ignoring anything; the Arabic Wikipedia community decided to express solidarity with people currently undergoing a genocide. You also bring up that people are still "in captivity without medicine or even a visit from the Red Cross". Bibi's government has refused to let adequate aid into Gaza, cut off power, water, etc., bombed MSF and Red Cross hospitals and ambulances, and refused deals that would have lead to those very hostages being freed.
2. Nobody is accusing you of defending Israel, but unfortunately, there are people who are literally calling for the genocide of Palestinians and the flattening of Gaza, including Israeli government officials.

Voorts (talk) 19:15, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

They are people who call for the genocide of the jews all across the world (including many rebels governements like Hamas or Houtih), it doesn't mean there is a genocide ongoing. Ptaah.fr (talk) 15:45, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

@أحمد ناجي: This is a clear violation of NPOV! This is an open and free encyclopedia, not a place for demonstrations or lawsuits! I'm not on Wikipedia to defend a country or an organization, I'm here to help the project. All other versions of Wikipedia that violate the NPOV must be dealt with. StarTesla (talk) 20:46, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@أحمد ناجي - If you wanted to, as you claim, stand with the "solidarity with human rights in safe life", you would stick up for all innocents killed in the conflict (Israelis, Palestinians and citizens of other countries killed in Gaza) and not just one group. Secondly, re "noone said that would lead to a probable violation of our ... policies"; when you're in an echo chamber with everybody in agreement, people don't tend to point out the flaws in or the negative aspects of a proposal ("Yeah, let's do it! But isn't this bad?"). Tim O'Doherty (talk) 22:38, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@أحمد ناجي - I am very disappointed in you because you did not condemn Hamas. Even if I supported Palestinian rights and I believe in a two-state solution, that does not mean I support Hamas. There are are Wikipedia users who are Israeli Arabs. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 23:33, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I would suppose that, due to the imbalance of users with different political views, Arabic Wikipedia has the same NPOV problems as any other medium-size Wikipedia (or even as English Wikipedia, which has a problem with users whitewashing Poland about the Holocaust). But I do not see any problem in a banner with a humanitarian message about solidarity and human rights of Palestinians. Wikisaurus (talk) 18:56, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

One can disagree with the arguments about NPOV violation. Please do know it is worth referring to the arguments so that the disagreement can be convincing.
And, maybe if you read the second bullet point in what I wrote, you'll see that it didn't even come down only to that banner. · ^מקף Hyphen _෴ · 19:01, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose blackout and take actions Wikipedia should not be used for such blackouts. If you really concerned about civilians and peace, you should condemn Hamas' crimes too, such as those committed in Re'im (see: Killing of Shani Louk) or Be'eri. Supporting one side can be seen as pushing a particular POV. Arwiki has a policy (ar:وب:دعاية أحادية الجانب) that says "Wikipedia is not a platform for displaying political, scientific, religious, national, or similar biases", but the whole community seems to have ignored it. Also, where did you get the authority/permission to forcibly logout every visitor without prior warning? It might be necessary for the WMF to address this issue. Nemoralis (talk) 20:28, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

   Like I quite agree. StarTesla (talk) 20:57, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

   Oppose ArWiki actions per Nemoralis QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 11:26, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose blackout per Nemoralis Andre (talk) 20:45, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose blackout I agree with Nemoralis. I care about both Israeli and Palestinian lives. Anyone who supports Hamas or calls or the destruction of Israel and the harming of Jews should be banned from the site because Hamas does not represent Palestinians. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 23:38, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose any action, not because I endorse arwiki's actions, but because I do not think outside involvement is necessary when the issue in question does not affect encyclopedic content. Mach61 (talk) 01:40, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• I had a read through the Arabic article on the current phase of the war. Obviously I don't understand Arabic, but most of it is simply content issues (and an excessive number of Hamas quotations). However, it refers to Omar Dagarameh, a leader of Hamas as a martyr [1] (the use of the term "martyr" is used quite frequently, and the use of such an emotional term violates NPOV imo). Lastly, it describes the reports of sexual violence against women as unsubstantiated, when reliable sources have corroborated them [2][3] (of course, certain people will dismiss these sources because "west bad," as nothing ever happens).
  The Hamas article is arguably more of a problem. This section is blatant Hamas glorification. These issues need to be addressed by the arwiki community; if no real effort is made to do so, then perhaps the WMF should intervene. However, the first step should always be the local community. Firestar464 (talk) 02:37, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Also I forgot to note my thoughts on the protest: This is neither in response to a threat towards Wikimedia as a whole, nor is it in response to a threat towards the Arab world as a whole. One could make the argument that a protest would be valid if one of the Arab countries had their sovereignty threatened, but this is not happening here. The only thing that is likely to disappear as a result of this war is Hamas's control of the Gaza Strip. The West Bank isn't threatened at the moment. Firestar464 (talk) 03:25, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I also forgot to mention that trwiki's logo change was valid as the project was basically banned in Turkey. (Thanks to @Piotrus for providing a link to all the special logos). Firestar464 (talk) 15:28, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Blackout, and recommend further investigation on the Arabic Wikipedia.

  @Firestar464 Unfortunately I've seen plenty of times that the local community was approached, and they rejected any change. The existence of entire articles glorifying Hamas and showing how efficient and great are their suicide bombings, children stabbings, kidnappings, and killing of "Zionists" and "Jews" - all while being hosted on WMF servers and treated as quality knowledge for the human race. Are we out of our mind?! I'm Jewish, and an Arabic Wikipedia article literally says that my death would be an achievement! If that's the stench of how a Wikimedia project looks like, maybe we should open the Wikimedia Brigades and offer public instruction of how to commit more "glorious" acts to add to the list. I've shown this to several large donors, and they promised to give Jimbo a call, asking where do their donations go. When WM-France objected to the anti terror regulations set by the French Government, was that the intention? Wake up! We're literally sponsoring terrorist propaganda! Bharel (talk) 03:10, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  These are serious accusations. Could you please provide evidence to back that up? Voorts (talk) 19:43, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  These are very serious accusations and I wish they weren't true. You're welcome to read. People are saying that Meta isn't an appeals court for arwiki content, but I think that if arwiki would turn into a pornography or a torrenting site, somehow it would be problematic. Calling the Hamas "leaders" with plenty of achievements in bombing children on buses, and not once mentioning a terrorist organization destination within almost the entire western world, is sponsoring terrorist content, whether we like to hear it or not. What's next? Saying that the death of Christians will be great because they believe in a false prophet? But we'll allow it because we're not supervising arwiki for content? Bharel (talk) 01:28, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Voorts Also note my breakdown of content issues here Firestar464 (talk) 19:06, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  When I checked their version of Oct 17 hospital bombing, in the Infobox I can only recognize that only Israel is the possible preparator when there have need credible evidence that this is most likely a misfired missile from the other side, with visual and audio evidence backed up. This seems to be NPOV issue.

  Further to that, a Google translate of section titles for articles linked from the top box showed "Israeli Propaganda/Zionist Propaganda" for all Israeli explanation of the issue. 1233 （T / C） 02:18, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

  @1233: how is the hospital bombing represented in most Arabic language sources? On English Wikipedia, most people consult only English language sources. Likewise if Arabic wikipedians are using sources from a language they are most comfortable with, then naturally Arabic wikipedia will reflect the bias of the sources of that language. Vice regent (talk) 02:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Probably it is the culprit but Wikipedia doesn't have any rules that restrict sources must be of the same language of the article. It only restricts how the sources are presented and where the source is.

  But section titles seem to be much more problematic, and there are some infoboxes used the term "Israeli Occupation Army". IDF is IDF not IOA or whatever name. 1233 （T / C） 09:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. Which particular policy is the Arab Wikipedia violating? Please cite, link and ping me, I am very curious. As far as I can tell, what is being violated is the Wikimedia community norm about avoiding taking sides in political issues. But it is an unwritten norm, AFAIK. Again, I'd be happy to learn otherwise but cite your sources (policies...). --Piotrus (talk) 04:37, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  really now, you don't think it would be an NPOV problem if the English Wikipedia put a huge US flag in the logo? Andre (talk) 05:20, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  No. Many wikis have done so, see commons:Category:Wikipedia logo variants. Some are user variants or jokes, but I've seen quite a few flags or such on various pages of various projects. See https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%96%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B0 which right now is using national colors. Read more at en:Wikipedia logo. There have been many logos changed, from Ukraine war to Turkish earthquake to others. Piotrus (talk) 07:01, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Piotrus Sure, here ya go. Bharel (talk) 06:24, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  That applies to content, not advertising/logos. Piotrus (talk) 06:55, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Piotrus: Is this a new law? Related to the content?! Unbiased Wikipedia means that it should not support any group or country. Why did Wiki Arabic not announce the October 7 attack on the site page? Why should the killing of Jews be ignored? This is a complete violation of NPOV StarTesla (talk) 07:21, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Piotrus: Of course, it's not the only logo, haven't you seen the banner that big? Did you not see the blockout of the site for 24 hours? If this action does not violate NPOV, do this: go to another wikipedia and suggest changing the logo and adding a banner to support Jews. And in the banner, mention the massacre of October 7 and the brutal attacks of Hamas on civilians. StarTesla (talk) 07:39, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  There is a very good policy in Russian Wikipedia that talks about exactly such situations — it states "Wikipedia is not a [political] tribune, or a place for propaganda [or advertisements]". There seems to be a similar policy in English Wikipedia which talks about "Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, scientific, religious, national, sports-related, or otherwise" — and note the comment there — "Talk pages, user pages and essays are venues where you can advocate your opinions provided that they are directly related to the improvement of Wikipedia and are not disruptive".
  Wikipedia is not a place where you can do such things. Well very well (talk) 11:13, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Well very well: This policy applies everywhere. There is also a policy in Persian Wikipedia:"Advocacy, propaganda or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, scientific, religious, national, sporting or otherwise. But an article can be written impartially about these issues. Use a blog or forum to convince people of the correctness of your ideas." See here. Unfortunately, Arabic Wiki clearly violated this on the main page StarTesla (talk) 11:50, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  And if Arabic Wikipedia does not have such a policy, it's their choice. Given that meta does not have it. Maybe we should have it, maybe not. This stuff takes time and I doubt we will see anything happen faster than years. Moderating tempers would help. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, either. Piotrus (talk) 11:52, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Piotrus: Arabic Wiki also has a policy. See here StarTesla (talk) 12:16, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which includes wikipedia is not a soapbox.Geni (talk) 19:39, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose blackout. Wikimedia should not support Hamas' terrorists. Asorev (talk) 10:01, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• The "blackout" has now ended; now arwiki only has a sitenotice calling for peace. No action needed. Madeline (part of me) 20:06, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Worth noting that the subject of the discussion has shifted somewhat to the logo change as well as content issues. Firestar464 (talk) 20:43, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Arwiki can put a flag on their logo if they want. Ukwiki has done the exact same. Article content of course needs to be neutral, but that's primarily a project-internal concern, and I don't see any reasons here for why metawiki should be trying to override arwiki content decisions at this time. Madeline (part of me) 22:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  After thinking about it, you kind of are right. Meta isn't an appeals court. Firestar464 (talk) 22:46, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• If the actions do not affect the actual content and neutrality of Arabic wikipedia pages, I think the action is permissible although not necessarily correct. NPOV only applies to article content, not Wikipedia space pages, banners, or anything else. Buidhe (talk) 21:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• @Bharel Wikimedia Legal team is really slow and reluctant to take any actions, they are more likely to tell you, please discuss about that issue again on meta, depend on local community and refuse to do anything, after months of evaluation.
  During the case of PlanespotterA320, I'm kicked like a ball, emails to Wikimedia foundation being directed to metawiki, metawiki direct you to local community, while local community is hijacked by the defendants themselves. That raises really serious worries about the current global governance. Lemonaka (talk) 01:14, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  So since I didn't receive the response, I reported the content to the police. I live in Europe, and in here it's illegal to sponsor content calling for my death by stabbing, what can I do. Apparently calling for the death of "Zionists" an achievement is a neutral point of view. @Hemiauchenia I know, I have a warped version of what neutrality means. What would you think if the Hebrew Wikipedia will write an article listing all of the Palestinian children deaths, and saying that we achieved great milestones in recovering the biblical land by purging the population? The more dead the better it is. Do you think it would be an NPoV? Because like it or not, that's literally the content of that article. Bharel (talk) 01:51, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  I reported the content to the police.
  Goddess me, don't talk about that. This is directly against w:wp:NLT, and will result yourself being banned. Lemonaka (talk) 02:35, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Meta does not have such a policy afaik, and it's not a legal threat. According to the official meta FAQ - if the police finds terror content and asks it to remove it, they have to oblige. I followed the entire FAQ, sent it to legal, sent it to ca, even sent it to emergency, had absolutely no answer from Wikimedia whatsoever, arwiki community seems to have no problem with that content, so I had to escalate the matter. As an administrator I filed police reports against trolls plenty of times, and some of them were prosecuted for internet crime violations. It's completely transparent in the Hebrew Wikipedia - we have a page of all the police and abuse reports we submitted.

  Shouldn't I file a report when someone calls for my death? I don't remember us Wikipedians being above the law... Bharel (talk) 03:42, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Bharel OMG, you can file a report to police. But do not talk about that before everything ended, a steward called Rxy (talk · contribs) had a good taste of that, they lost all their rights, and got banned for a year on their home project after openly talking about that. Lemonaka (talk) 03:52, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Even on meta that doesn't have such a policy? Well that sucks... Either way, I contacted Wikimedia on every possible channel, and followed every FAQ and policy until there was no other choice left but to address the issue here publicly.

  A bit late I guess but thanks for the heads-up :-) Bharel (talk) 04:16, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Related page ja:Wikipedia:投稿ブロック依頼/rxy, User:Rxy/User:ネイ/Timeline of the 2020 case and Stewards/Confirm/2021/Rxy Lemonaka (talk) 06:29, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  As a user once said (can't remember who), "do what you need to do, but don't talk about it here." Firestar464 (talk) 19:02, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  that's me... on August signpost Lemonaka (talk) 02:25, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  Oh cool! Firestar464 (talk) 20:51, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• @علاء 's opinion may count on this problem. They came from Arabic communities as a ar-N. What's local community is talking about may matter. Lemonaka (talk) 02:52, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Dear Wikimedians,

I'm Ayoub (sorry fo my english) Firstly I'm one of thos who vote for blockout in Arabic Wikipedia, I voted for peace and humanity i voted for save civilienses lives and stop war witch meant that I condemn all vilence actions bitween Gaza and Israel. we (in sitenotice) condemn all Massacres during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war and Re'im massacre and Netiv HaAsara massacre are one of theme. No one in the world can hide the vilence that are hapning in Israel and more in Gaza big numbers of deaths every houre and we as a wikimedians are worry about our friends there that stopped contribe all wikimedia projects becaus of war.-- أيوب (talk) 22:42, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Individual Wikipedia projects have the autonomy to do what they see fit. The vast majority of the worlds nations are calling for a ceasefire, so I don't see this cause as particularly controversial, outside some American and Israeli Wikipedia editors warped version of what "neutrality" means. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:16, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@أيوب: I get your opinion, but I think there should be a time and a place for activism, and Wikipedia isn't that place. QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 07:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• One of the smallest violations of neutrality in Arabic Wiki is that it called the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf! While it is called Persian Gulf in all other wikis. StarTesla ^(talk) 12:13, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Different languages use different words for the same things. Madeline (part of me) 13:11, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Let me make this clear: Arabic Wikipedia did not "violate" the NVOP rules, because Contrary to what @أحمد ناجي wrote, NPOV never existed there. they present the terrorist organization Hamas with open sympathy. its attacks are called "reactions" and its terrorists are called "martyrs". throughout the entire article about the October 7th attack there is no mention of the massive murder of citizens, and Hamas is presented as having only attacked soldiers and armed men. they call the Gaza Strip and Tel Aviv (within the '67 borders, for those who don't know) "settlements"?

  The irony is that In their message they put a link to the Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion, according to an intelligence investigation of 4 different countries as well as according to an investigation by the media and Human Rights Watch, this was an explosion caused by a rocket launch from Gaza. In the Arab Wikipedia, of course, Israel continues to be blamed. .So they are talking about disinformation?

  Trust me, it's just a drop in the bucket. I could fill hundreds of thousands of bits with the lies, disinformation and biases that exist in this Wikipedia. I wrote some of it Talk:Human Rights Team/Impact of the war in Gaza and Israel.

  The Arabic Wikipedia is written like a Hamas mouthpiece. Wikimedia should do a thorough investigation to find out the roots of the situation there, and whether it even deserves the sponsorship of the Wikimedia Foundation. שמש מרפא (talk) 23:32, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  One takeaway is that people should contact ca@wikimedia.org about any claims of disinformation campaigns (like the horrendous arwiki pages). Firestar464 (talk) 01:01, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  As far as I can tell from this and other comments, I believe the WMF needs to take some sort of higher level of control over Arabic Wikipedia. Judging from the examples presented here of glorification of terrorism and massacres, there is no way that Arabic Wikipedia's community would be able to resolve the NPOV issues there. JM2023 (talk) 10:00, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

  Hi @Maddy from Celeste @Andrevan @Asorev @Bharel @Buidhe @Firestar464 @Geni @Hemiauchenia @Lemonaka @Mach61, sorry if i forget somone nd sorry for my english. As an editor in Arabic Wikipedia and member of this comuanity i do not accept the accusations to this project about support vilence and terrotisme, as one of Wikimedia Fondatin projects we work hard to keep all contents in our project harmonious with Wikimedia principles Including Neutral point of view and the Five pillars. And as many other projects we have Administrators' noticeboard through which you can report any issues related to harm, abuse, anti-Semitism, threats, or violence..., Including content disputes. -- أيوب (talk) 20:51, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  @أيوب I'm glad to hear that somebody on arwiki doesn't support terrorism. Unfortunately when you read the articles on the War in Gaza as well as the article on Hamas, there's a copious amount of glorification. As you're an arwiki editor, perhaps you could help clean up those articles? Firestar464 (talk) 20:54, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Firestar464 Thank you for your response. Let me first tell you that most of the contributors in the Arabic Wikipedia do not support terrorism and extremism. We are here to contribute to building a free, neutral, and comprehensive encyclopedia as Jimbo envisioned it. There is a lot of assumption of bad faith in colleagues’ previous comments, and editors must assume good faith in discussions. Of course, some people and I work to evaluate violations related to content, including advertising and promotion of one party at the expense of another. أيوب (talk) 21:32, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  You have a point. The fact that problematic content hasn't been dealt with doesn't equal endorsement of said content. However others here also might have a point when they raise suspicion at the fact that some of the problematic content has been up for a while now, with no one doing much about it. Firestar464 (talk) 16:10, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

  What does arwiki do to counteract Hamas' propaganda? Asorev (talk) 21:16, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  It's not the purpose of Wikipedia to "counteract Hamas propaganda" (or Israeli propaganda, for that matter). The encyclopedia exists to cover the conflict factually and neutrally. Buidhe (talk) 22:14, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  Hi @Maddy from Celeste @Andrevan @Asorev @Bharel @Buidhe @Firestar464 @Geni @Hemiauchenia @Lemonaka @Mach61, sorry if i forget someone and sorry for my English. As an editor in Arabic Wikipedia and member of this community I do not accept the accusations to this project about support violence and terrorism, as one of Wikimedia Foundation projects we work hard to keep all contents in our project harmonious with Wikimedia principles Including Neutral point of view and the Five pillars. And as many other projects we have Administrators' noticeboard through which you can report any issues related to harm, abuse, anti-Semitism, threats, or violence..., Including content disputes.
  @أيوب I've fixed your language. Lemonaka (talk) 09:07, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

  Every time I've seen someone complain about the lack of neutrality, he was ignored or reported as "spreading Israeli propaganda". You're welcome to read the talk pages of the referenced articles - where the arwiki community denies rape, ignores evidence, and takes a one sided approach to every single part of the conflict I've seen, deliberately choosing to cite only sources that agree with them. The articles' content being completely impartial to the point of supporting terrorism is the result of community-wide action, and not the position of the stars aligning on a single case. Please, if you believe in neutrality at least be honest with us and read what's going on in your own backyard. Bharel (talk) 23:55, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

• My view

1. That NPOV not just applies to article but also the appearance of it. Showing the message at this trouble time would raise questions about NPOV of the content
2. That this is something that cannot be resolved by this discussion and stewards alone and Wikimedia foundation need to act. We are looking at office actions.
3. That there should be a global policy on advocation.

SYSS Mouse (talk) 17:16, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment on documentation of wiki protests. Policy on this area would be much better informed if we had fuller coverage at Project-wide protests of the several types of protest actions at Arabic Wikipedia recently (blackout, sitenotice, logo change), and also of Ukrainian, Georgian and other cases. Each type of protest action is somewhat different, has a somewhat different history on various languages, and should probably be subject by global policy in varying ways.--Pharos (talk) 05:42, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

  he key issue is other project-wide protests are issues that directly or indirectly that affect the operation of that project, e.g. copyright, advertising, etc. This one is not. SYSS Mouse (talk) 14:02, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

• I am astonished on this blatant violation of the neutral point of view and am willing to demand measures against. This includes user blocks, deadministrations and the like concerning accounts involved into this violation of the neutral point of view. Further on, it seems that a great batch of articles on Israel and the Middle East conflict has to be reviewed as some users in this RFC indicate further violations in a row of articles. Remembering precedences like the achinese WP issue and issues in croatian and serbian WP it seems necessary for the WMF to review ar WP content. --Matthiasb (talk) 02:05, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Matthiasb Against whom? Desysop who? I'm not quite catch you. Lemonaka (talk) 15:17, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  Starting with those who put up the banner. But I believe the WMF will start an investigation and undertake measures.

  But as I see the issue is more profound that I thought. See for example this page. It is a real real mess. Matthiasb (talk) 21:46, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

  If you'll actually look at the talk page of the article you mentioned, you'll see that I asked them to update it after they wrote that a girl's death was fake. Apparently her beheaded skull is not enough proof for her death, and according to Arabic Wikipedia she's still alive, has a "simple head injury" and it is all "Israeli propaganda". Arabic Wikipedia makes us Jews live forever ❤️. Bharel (talk) 02:12, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Bharel The link you have added is dead. Also, It is better to edit yourself than to expect others to edit on your behalf. _signed, 511KeV ^(talk) 03:51, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Link still seems alive... Unfortunately the majority of edits we've done on Arabic Wikipedia to counteract NPOV issues were reverted. Bharel (talk) 14:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  (Also most of us can't write in Arabic sadly) Firestar464 (talk) 16:43, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose any action. If English wikipedia can do a blackout for a cause it believes in, then why can't Arabic wikipedia? Further:
  • Arabic wikipedia has bad content? So does English wikipedia! And it can sometimes takes months of discussions, dispute resolution etc to fix it. If you want to fix it, you'll have to invest a similar amount of time into the Arabic wikipedia. As a Muslim wikipedian I have spent years combatting "Muslims are terrorists/rapists/murders/criminals" propaganda on English wikipedia. How many years have you spent combatting bad content on Arabic wikipedia?
  • Arabic wikipedia has systemic bias? So does English wikipedia.
    • As an example, consider every news source from the Muslim world (representing 20%+ of the world's population) listed at WP:RSP has been deemed unreliable. The sole exception is Al-Jazeera, and Bharel, who is above complaining about bias on Arabic wikipedia, has tried to have Al-Jazeera deemed unreliable too[4].
  • The above users seem to be conflating hate speech with the Palestinian flag banner. Those are two separate things and the Palestinian flag most certainly does not represent any kind of hate speech.
  • In reference to this logo, consider the fact that the Palestinian flag colors are also the pan-Arab colors. The en.wiki article says "Before Wikipedia was updated to MediaWiki 1.16, Arabic Wikipedia had a default page background of the site inspired by Arabic/Islamic tiling or ornament styles.". We should allow non-English wikipedias to implement their own aesthetic schemes. Vice regent (talk) 00:58, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  The English blackout is related to SOPA Act which has a potentially direct impact on Wikipedia's operation. The Palestine protest does not have direct impact on Wikipedia's operation. SYSS Mouse (talk) 14:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Regarding WP:RSP, although off topic, about 50% of the other editors (~18 if I counted correctly) agreed that AJE is unreliable, at least for the Arab-Israeli conflict, with plenty of RS to back it up. I'm not entirely sure how the discussion was closed as "reliable". If someone would help me figure it out, I'd appreciate it. Bharel (talk) 16:03, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  The issue isn't the Palestine flag (or to be fair, the blackout anymore). And yes, ideally the content issues should be dealt with by the local community (as is done at enwiki), but many of us aren't versed in Arabic.Firestar464 (talk) 16:43, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• Clarification request: This comment by Bharel is very disturbing. In regards to content they find problematic, they say " I've shown this to several large donors, and they promised to give Jimbo a call, asking where do their donations go." Can WMF clarify whether "several large donors" have the ability to remove content a user finds problematic by "giv[ing] Jimbo a call"? Vice regent (talk) 03:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  I apologize if they refuse to donate when articles actively call murdering them or me an achievement. I can't even believe we're having this discussion of whether or not calling the death of Jews / Israelis a great thing - is a natural point of view. I'd appreciate someone from WMF come forth and explain how the hell does this content that actively supports terrorism still stay alive, and is being defended. Bharel (talk) 16:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  And I'm really done making jokes. This content threatens mine and my family's life. Such content is legally required to be removed within an hour inside the European Union. It is enough that one reader out of the millions that enter Arabic Wikipedia would believe that murdering my family will bring them great honor, and that Wikipedia is a reliable source, for them to plan my murder. I don't understand if any of you believe how serious this is. Those articles honor murdering civilian population over and over again and are deemed fair and neutral. Wikipedia is not a social media platform that is supposed to encourage the murder of its editors or any other civilian in that matter. Bharel (talk) 16:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Please show evidence of any article on Arabic Wikipedia that "encourage the murder of its editors"? Also show evidence of trying to fix it yourself. Vice regent (talk) 17:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  This discussion is going around in circles. From claims that arwiki does not need to be neutral, to requesting more and more proof, to claims that Wikipedia fighting against its practical closure with SOPA is akin to a political statement - so it's not neutral, claiming that English Wikipedia has a systemic bias, so somehow it means that arwiki should have one too...?

  We've had enough conversations on arwiki, all of them resulted at the end with content that call Israeli / Jewish civilian deaths an achievement. Some of those are editors within this very own conversation, and Wikipedia articles state their / their families' deaths as glorious.

  Enough proof provided, enough statements of how arwiki is supposed to not be neutral / it's not their policy to be neutral, enough discussion about how many actions we as other editors from outside the ar-community need to do to prevent it.

  This discussion has life and death consequences, and I'm not willing to wait until a reader decides to stab me or other editors here so he'll show up on the leadership board of glorious murders hosted on arwiki. Bharel (talk) 18:22, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  You need to separate allegations about hate speech (which should be taken seriously) from your attempts to suppress anti-Israeli viewpoints.

  For example, in the immediate comment above you pasted as "proof" Special:MobileDiff/26001618 which accuses arwiki of "they call the Gaza Strip and Tel Aviv (within the '67 borders, for those who don't know) "settlements"." Calling Tel Aviv a "settlement" is distasteful but it is not hate speech and doesn't have "life and death consequences". Vice regent (talk) 20:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that "distasteful wording" does not have life and death consequences. If you'll read the entire comment (without cherry picking), and the ones I've had before, you'll notice that I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about an article for example containing blatant Hamas endorsements with its leadership and achievements in suicide bombings and stabbing attacks of civilians. I have no problem with anti-Israeli viewpoints, and I'd appreciate if you won't accuse me of trying suppress them. I do have a problem when an article actively calls for the death of me and my relatives, and counts killing Jewish / Israeli civilians an achievement - that has consequences. I will wholeheartedly suppress such content and would go much further to request WMF intervention. That's a red line crossed. It is illegal within the EU, immoral, is completely against the mission of Wikimedia, can and will get someone killed. I would have said the exact same thing if we would have an article on hewiki saying how great it is to commit suicide acts and murder Palestinian children. Bharel (talk) 21:54, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah the issue is the Hamas hagiography Firestar464 (talk) 17:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• Per Buidhe. NPOV applies to articles instead of blackouts. Blackouts are supposed to have a point of view, or it would be useless. Though I think the wording in this one could be adjusted and softened. --魔琴 (talk) 14:18, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Break

• Adding context here: the Arabic Wikipedia shut down it's services for 24 hours in December and linked the banner to three/four articles (not a project page that document the reason for the protest). These articles were then scrutinized by editors from other wiki and, by using machine translation, seems to show quite some problems on whether such articles conform to NPOV. I don't know if there is some misunderstanding for that, but until now I have yet to see a page that document the action in detail.--1233 （T / C） 09:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Adding questions to the Arabic Editor Community:

1. Have you contacted the public policy team on this matter?
2. Are there a page that exclusively document the discussion and the rationale (i.e. an explanation page). Without that this discussion will never go to your favor or resolve that.
3. How was the banner designed? Are there reviews on the banner/links?
4. What concerns in the above discussions do you consider as legitimate concerns and not?--1233 （T / C） 09:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

   @1233 No response. I think the probable answer for all four questions are no. SYSS Mouse (talk) 23:05, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

   Well because norms tell me that there will be project pages that document the temp closures of project. I don't think the current form is best for the Arabic community to continue it's mission as it will just create more and more legitimate concerns. I do have met Arabic Community members in Wikimania so I don't think there's a very problematic NPOV problem but it's rather the "first time issue". For the fourth question I think that needs to be sorted out as discussions just can't continue. 1233 （T / C） 05:34, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Analysis of Bharel's allegations

Bharel has repeatedly accused arwiki of advocating of murder. When pressed for evidence they provided only this diff Special:MobileDiff/26001618 as "proof", so let's analyze all its allegations.

• "they present the terrorist organization Hamas with open sympathy. its attacks are called "reactions" and its terrorists are called "martyrs"."
  • I did not find a single instance of the word "reaction" in the article's English translation.
  • The word الشهيد (which is often translated as "martyr") does appear. Most occurrences happen due to the fact that the article's subject name is "The Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades". This is similar to how the word martyr appears 29 times on enwiki's Al-Aqsa martyr's brigades page. Other occurrences include describing the slogan of the organization (هذا جهاد نصر أو استشهاد), the name of its unit (وحدة الاستشهاديين) etc. Even on English wikipedia we don't change proper nouns, no matter how offensive they are, as wikipedia is not censored.
  • Whether arwiki should use الشهيد as common noun, and in which context, is a discussion for Arabic speakers. A quick google search shows that major Arabic newspapers have been using that term as a common noun in their coverage of the Gaza war: Al-Ahram[5] (largest newspaper in Egypt), Al Eqtisadiah[6] (Saudi business newspaper), Al-Masry Al-Youm[7] (another Egyptian newspaper), Al-Quds Al-Arabi[8] (an Arabic newspaper published in the UK). This is similar to controversy on enwiki whether contentious labels (such as "terrorist" or "freedom fighter") should be used. Policy says no, but its application is spotty.
• "throughout the entire article about the October 7th attack there is no mention of the massive murder of citizens, and Hamas is presented as having only attacked soldiers and armed men."
  • False. The infobox clearly says 1,452 Israelis killed (even though Israel itself has downrevised its casualty count to 1,200) including 868 civilians killed (مقتل 868 مدني).
  • I don't see anything in this article advocating murder as Bharel alleges.
• "they call the Gaza Strip and Tel Aviv (within the '67 borders, for those who don't know) "settlements"?
  • I don't see where this is so one can examine the context.
• "The irony is that In their message they put a link to the Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion, according to an intelligence investigation of 4 different countries as well as according to an investigation by the media and Human Rights Watch, this was an explosion caused by a rocket launch from Gaza. In the Arab Wikipedia, of course, Israel continues to be blamed ."
  • This is a controversial topic as evidenced by 8 archived talk pages at Al-Ahli hospital explosion. The enwiki article mostly blames Palestinians, but does mention the allegation that Israelis could have caused it; the arwiki article most blames Israelis, but does mention the allegation that Palestinians could have caused it. The sources at enwiki mostly blame Palestinians. Given the obligation on both wikipedias to follow the sourcing, and given that arwiki users will naturally be reading Arabic sources, I don't think arwiki users are necessarily acting in bad faith.
  • This discussion on the arwiki's talk page is insightful. An arwiki user defends their side by arguing (1) while Arabic wikipedia can use non-Arabic sources, it should not discount Arabic ones, and (2) two investigative analyses done in the Arab world that placed fault with Israel.
  • Most importantly, there's nothing here about advocating murder like Bharel alleges.

I hope Bharel will retract their inflammatory allegations, and I hope others can see there is no basis for them.Vice regent (talk) 06:02, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I was really trying to avoid it, but you once again ignore certain sections (that were discussed upon again and again within this conversation, opting to show a single comment from the entire talk page) and present it as if I'm the only one alleging for POV issues - some of them to the point of glorifying terrorist attacks. So let's just use the raw (machine) translated material: (trigger warning, I'm quoting from Arabic Wikipedia)

Section: Leadership in the Palestinian resistance

The Al-Qassam Brigades obtained Palestinian, Arab and Islamic patents... The record of the pioneers was rich and varied, whether in the field of operational tactics, or in the field of military manufacturing, or military information and its supplies... at the level of Palestinian resistance, and within the occupied homeland. Among them:

• The first to bomb Tel Aviv with a locally manufactured missile, the M-75
• The first to bomb Haifa and Hadera with a locally manufactured missile, the R-160
• ...
• The first to kidnap Zionist soldiers and detain them alive, the most notable of which was the kidnapping of Zionist soldiers ...
• The first stabbing attack with knives in the first intifada was carried out by a mujahid from Hamas. The mujahid blew up Amer Abu Sarhan (the knife war) and killed three Zionists on 10/8/1990.
• The first martyr in the first intifada was from the Al-Qassam Brigades, the Mujahid Saher Tammam, when he blew up his car in the Mehola settlement in Beit She’anon April 16, 1993
• The first to recruit and carry out martyrdom operations by non-Palestinian fighters on the land of Palestine, the most prominent of whom were from Egypt , Pakistan, and Britain in the years 1994 and 2003.
• the first to engage in armed ambushes using overtaking cars on the road, in 1992, and Imad Akl was known for his professionalism in this performance.
• The first to target Zionist settlements with missiles during the Al-Aqsa Intifada
• The first to target the Zionists with tunnels and bring them death from under them, the bombing of a camp on the border with Rafah, and the famous tunnel operation (Abu Holi)
• The first person to document a martyr's farewell with his mother on video, was Muhammad Farhat, as his mother (Khansa Palestine) bid him farewell to the operation, and kept praying for him to succeed until he returned to her as a triumphant martyr.
• The first to target Zionist buses with a martyrdom attack using a car bomb, carried out by Suleiman Zidane on 8/10/1993 near the Beit El settlement in Ramallah.
• The first operation that claimed more than 30 Zionist lives during the two intifadas and the Park Hotel operation, and was carried out by the Qassami mujahid Abdel Basset Odeh.
• The first to target Zionist buses with a martyrdom attack using an explosive belt
• The first to target Zionist cities inside Palestine occupied in 1948 with rockets: Negev, Sderot, Ashkelon
• The first Palestinian mujahid to be judged in the history of the Zionist state for more than a thousand years was Al-Qassami Hassan Abdel Rahman Salama
• The first person to carry out a naval suicide operation during the Al-Aqsa Intifada was carried out by Hamdi Insio in early 2001
• The first to involve female mujahideen in carrying out martyrdom operations was in the Sbarro restaurant operation
• The first to target Dezenkov Street in the center of Tel Aviv. It was called Peace Street, as no shell had reached it since the establishment of the Zionist entity. Dezenkov's residence was destroyed in the operation on 10/19/1994, killing 22 people
• The first to carry out a triple martyrdom operation using explosive belts and a cell
• ...

After that list of 49 amazing achievements, or as they say "rich record" and "leadership" (which I obviously shortened, but I did include the female one for #metoo and diversity), let's continue for some more!

The Al-Qassam Brigades fought many wars ... One of its most famous operations was Operation Shattered Illusion, in which the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped

Section Most prominent operations:

• January 1 , 2001 A suicide bombing in the city of Netanya by a Hamas suicide bomber. One person was killed and 59 others were injured.
• February 14 , 2001 A suicide bombing of a bus in a crowd of people, killing 8 Israelis and wounding 21 others.
• March 4 , 2001 A suicide bombing in the city of Netanya, killing 4 Israelis and wounding 68 others.
• March 28 , 2001 A suicide bombing occurred among a group waiting at a bus stop in Qalqilya in the West Bank, killing 2 Israelis and wounding 4 others.
• June 1 , 2001 Suicide bombing outside the Dolphinarium nightclub on the beach in Tel Aviv, killing 21 Israelis and wounding others.
• ... (some plenty of more suicide bombings)
• December 2 , 2001 A suicide bomber boarded an Israeli bus coming from the Neve Shaanan area of Haifa. He paid a large bill to the driver, then blew himself up
• March 27 , 2002, the Park Hotel bombing on the Jewish Passover holiday in the Israeli city of Netanya , via Abdel Basset Odeh, killing 30 and wounding 140 Israelis.
• April 10 , 2002 A suicide bombing on a bus near the settlement of Kibbutz Yagur, east of Haifa. It led to the death of 8 people, including 6 soldiers and 2 civilians, and the injury of 22 others
• May 19 , 2002 A suicide bomber disguised as a soldier blew himself up in a market in Netanya.
• June 18 , 2002 A suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in Jerusalem, known as the Bat Junction massacre, killing 19 and wounding more than 74 Israelis.
• July 31 , 2002 A cell phone bomb exploded in the cafeteria of the Student Center on the Hebrew University campus, killing 9, including 5 Americans, and wounding more than 85 Israelis.
• ... let's go for a little bit of kidnappings
• The Al-Qassam Brigades revealed their capture of the Zionist soldier ”Shaul Aron“in a special operation east
• ... some more

And after listing about 23 suicide bombings against the Zionists and another 9 kidnappings the section of course ends with

Then, on the 10th of Ramadan 1435 AH, it carried out Operation Tenth of Ramadan, which is a historic operation in which the Qassam Brigades destroyed, for the first time in the history of the conflict with the Zionist occupation, the most important Israeli cities, namely Haifa, Hadera, and Tel Aviv, and struck the Israeli depth until its strikes affected almost all of Israel, and this operation was part of the Battle of Al-Asif Al-Maqul in 2014

As a side note, one of them that "was known for his professionalism" drove over my best friend about 7 years ago when he was walking outside a museum. RIP.

Of course it doesn't state anywhere in the article that they constitute as a terrorist organization in almost the entire western world. Why would it? It's just a small measly fact that would ruin the "hall of fame".

That was article number one. Shall we continue with the Al Ahli explosion which probably wasn't Israeli, but of course starts with:

The Arab National Hospital massacre, is a massacre committed by the Israeli Air Force when it raided the Arab National Hospital “Al-Baptist” in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City, in the early night hours of October 17, 2023 . The violent Israeli air strike hit the hospital courtyard, which contained dozens of wounded people, as well as hundreds of displaced civilians, most of whom were women and children. The Israeli massacre caused a real disaster. It tore apart the bodies of the victims, making them scattered and burned, while the hospital turned into a pool of blood.

Or maybe continue on to other ones such as the "Israeli propaganda" article? There is more, and more, and more.

I was banned from several social media platforms for just linking the Wikipedia articles as, I quote, I "shared links to content promoting terrorism". I appealed twice and they did not revert it.

I tried avoiding the sharing of this content, which is absolutely horrendous, but there's a demand again and again for more proof. If that content chilled you to the bone, it makes sense, because it should, and all of it is inside Arabic Wikipedia - presented as completely neutral knowledge for mankind. The reason that type of content is being defended here is beyond my understanding. Bharel (talk) 10:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Just so you'll understand how bad it is, let's use the exact same words for Osama Bin Laden. After all, this entire list is of people blowing themselves up in buses, restaurants and other terror attacks, all we do is change the name and place:

Osama Bin Laden's record was rich and varied. He was known for his professionalism. Among his most prominent operations was of course 9/11. He was the first martyr that struck the American depth until its strikes affected almost all of America. Additionally, the first person to document a martyr's farewell with his mother on video, was the airplane hijacker heading to the twin towers, as his mother (Khansa Palestine) bid him farewell to the operation, and kept praying for him to succeed until he returned to her as a triumphant martyr. He was the first to target the Americans and bring them death from under them. 9/11 is a historic operation in which the Al-Qaeda Brigades destroyed, for the first time in the history of the conflict with the American occupation, the most important American cities, namely New York , and struck the American depth until its strikes affected almost all of America. The mujahid blew up the twin towers and killed 3000 Christians. The attack tore apart the bodies of the victims, making them scattered and burned, while the twin towers turned into a pool of blood.

This wording is completely neutral according to Arabic Wikipedia (after all, it is entirely copy-pasted without much modification). I simply changed Israel to America, changed a place to "the twin towers" and changed the "martyr" names.

Instead of praising Al-Qaeda or Osama, they praise the Al Qassam brigades. Instead of the airplane hijacker you have "Muhammad Farhat" who blew himself up on a bus. This content being endorsed as part of the Wikimedia mission is a red line crossed, and someone needs to be bold and stand up. As a last note, before a sysop or a stewards thinks or decides to oversight this content - please think about the implications and remember that it is quoted in its entirety from the Arabic Wikipedia. These are not my words. I'm extremely furious and taking a step back from the discussion for the rest of the day as it chills me to my stomach. Bharel (talk) 13:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Firstly, nothing Bharel has quoted advocates murder. At most the issue is of tone. Second, I took the Arabic text and ran it through alternate machine translators and got different results. For example, "السبق في المقاومة الفلسطينية", which google translated as "Leadership in the Palestinian resistance", was translated by yandex as "The beginning of the Palestinian resistance". Likewise, the phrase "سجل حافل متنوع", when used in the context of the paragraph gives "rich and varied record" in google, but in yandex it gives "a varied track record", in bing it gives "a diverse event". I'm no longer going to respond to Bharel, if anyone else has credible allegations, please ping me.Vice regent (talk) 16:31, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Well yeah there might be translation issues. I did consider this, as that was basically the root of some of the ruwikinews vs. rest of Wikimedia drama, as a Russian friend explained once. I just wanted some arwiki people to respond to the concerns.

I fed the whole thing into yandex, and it's still hagiography. Would paste a link here, but turbopages is blacklisted. I'll try to get the link whitelisted. Firestar464 (talk) 17:16, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ar-en.en.634dd4ec-659adb5d-20599c36-74722d776562/https/ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%A8_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D9%87%D9%8A%D8%AF_%D8%B9%D8%B2_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%85

Here it is. Firestar464 (talk) 22:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Vice regent, You are confusing my claims with Barharel's, there is a difference between them. I will respond to you about the things you quoted above (which are actually mine). I'm mainly focusing here on violating NPOV and spreading disinformation.

• Terminology is important. We at the Hebrew Wikipedia make sure to choose neutral expressions when we talk about Israeli soldiers who are killed. In the press they will write something like "a soldier fell in battle", but we understand that this is not acceptable in a neutral encyclopedia, so we simply write "killed". When the Arab Wikipedia uses the phrase 'martyr's', that clearly shows admiration for a person who basically just killed innocents, it goes far beyond just a violation of NPOV. The fact that this is also done in the Arab press is completely irrelevant.

And no, calling them in more neutral definitions is not 'Wikipedia censorship'. It is not the Arabic language that makes them 'martyr's' but perhaps part of Arab culture. They can avoid using this term. Even the term "combatants" could be considered reasonable (although the objective definition is 'terrorists', but I don't expect that from the Arabic Wikipedia).

• "throughout the entire article about the October 7th attack there is no mention of the massive murder of citizens, and Hamas is presented as having only attacked soldiers and armed men."

Yes, there is in the infobox. But in the article itself there is no mention of the massacre at the music festival. 260 people were killed and it's not worth any mention? Are over 100 people killed in the village of Bari not worthy of mention? And what about "Nahal Oz", over a quarter of its residents were massacred or kidnapped? And what about all the rape cases, about which testimonies pile up in the media? Why is only an attack on a military base mentioned there? It seems like there is some kind of regulator directing them what to write and what to skip. This is exactly how Holocaust denial works.

• Regarding calling cities in Israel "settlements", It's there at the beginning of the article: "Thousands of missiles were directed at various Israeli settlements from Dimona in the south to Hod Hasharon in the north..." There are several other such references in the article. But it's probably a broad policy there, and it has no direct connection to this article specifically.
• Regarding the explosion at the hospital, unfortunately you are not telling the truth. Throughout the article, Israel is exclusively blamed for the incident. At most, there is a brief mention there in the chapter "Reactions" to the investigation by the intelligence authorities. The claim that this is a rocket launched from Gaza appears mainly in the chapter "Israeli Propaganda", with the introduction that "Israel has a long history of propaganda, fiction and attempts at evasion". This is not a form of writing that tries to be objective or decent .This is writing based on A narrative, not facts.
  • The excuse of relying on Arab sources is ridiculous. You cannot ignore a source just because it is written in a foreign language, and prefer a source that is inherently biased. there is almost all the media, an intelligence investigation of 4 countries and a Nobel Prize-winning human rights organization that contradicts this position. Is it only by chance that the media in Arabic blame Israel? And is it therefore possible to completely ignore the absolute majority of opinions? This is an excellent example of an NPOV violation.

I sincerely hope that this discussion will lead to change. Good night. שמש מרפא (talk) 23:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
@Firestar464: and @שמש מרפא:. What you are describing above are routine NPOV violations. Let me be specific:

• Are there examples on arwiki of content that is illegal under American law, by virtue of incitement, libel, etc?
  • If so, that content must be removed immediately and aggressively, and all those who restore it must be blocked.
  • 0 evidence has been provided for such content's existence.
• Are there examples of content that violates neutrality?
  • Yes, clearly arwiki has such content. enwiki has 7,000+ articles tagged as being non-neutral.
  • Such content must be resolved using normal dispute resolution processes. First, fix the issue yourself as arwiki says "إنْ لاحظت مشكلةً في أحد المقالات بإمكانك إصلاحها مباشرةًً بالضغط على زر عدل في أعلى الصفحة" ("If you notice a problem in an article, you can fix it directly by clicking the Edit button at the top of the page."). Discuss the article. And then follow whatever dispute resolution mechanisms available.
  • I want to point out that taking down racist and white supremacist content from enwiki often takes months of back and forth community discussion. Why do you expect these problems to be fixed on arwiki overnight? And, most importantly, why do you expect them to fixed without any effort from you?

Vice regent (talk) 07:19, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Per en:WP:OWNFEET, I didn't want to screw up the article because of my absolute lack of knowledge in Arabic- I'd be replacing the wrong parts with the wrong things. As this concerns multiple articles, is there a venue on arwiki where I could discuss them in bulk? Firestar464 (talk) 22:46, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

> What you are describing above are routine NPOV violations.

This reminds me so much of the hrwiki case, where the main answers to questioning its blatant non-neutrality were the same. Well very well (talk) 10:26, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I can't believe some comments here. What is the site supposed to do, tell its Palestinian editors "we don't care if you die"? And don't think that you're just not supporting partisanship, or such (how many protested the Georgian parallel? But no, somehow western countries don't support one invasion, but are enthusiastic about another one...) - by declaring your opposition to a tiny protest that will, happily for some I presume, do little to stop the billions going into aiding a genocide, you are indeed supporting the latter. And, sure, sopa was different... in the sense that even if it was enacted no life would have been lost! Some perspective would be lovely... and no, sopa wouldn't have affected this site more, because wars kill people, and I thought people edited, not some legislation... — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 92.7.60.13 (talk) 13:57, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Your logic can also apply to Israelis- What is the site supposed to do, tell its Israeli editors "we don't care if you die"?

(Lasting peace can only be achieved when two sides both have the intention to come to peace.)

I don't think Wikipedia or it's sister projects is a suitable location for advocating for real-life events, especially for something that is highly debatable (i.e. the claim of 75 years of occupation), or even the hatred that is built on it.

The reason the whole thread become something like that is more likely due to how they handle such banners. In my opinion, these articles will not be such heavily scrutinized if they create a page to dedicate their advocacy. The problem here is not only about the arwiki's method of protest, but also about the article quality that got light shed on when the arwiki community chose to link those as the only linked articles from main page and banners at protest.

Unfortunately this seems to be going in the hrwiki direction. 1233 （T / C） 20:00, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

SOPA would have rendered Wikimedia unable to continue functioning in a reasonable manner. You seem to be disregarding that. Firestar464 (talk) 17:46, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Let me know if I have this right. The Arabic wiki has a banner that reads "Stop genocide in Gaza. Stop killing civilians. Stop targeting hospitals and schools. Stop misinformation and disinformation. Stop double standards." Israel is plausibly accused of genocide in the ICJ, apparently with broad international support. Why are people outraged by the banner and not the possibility of genocide? AP295 (talk) 14:35, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Because it's asserting as fact the allegation that Israel is committing genocide against Gaza, which is not appropriate for a Wikipedia in any language. Additionally, this is in the context of widespread hagiographic writing in favour of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists (which are often called "martyrs") and Palestinian terrorism against Israelis (which are often called "Zionists") while ignoring major massacres of Israeli civilians. It seems that the discussion evolved from discussion of the sitewide activism to discussion of these general issues of the wiki in the I-P topic area. JM2023 (talk) 10:14, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

"Asserting as fact the allegation"? Wouldn't that just be alleging? The responses in this RfC are disturbing. Information from the WHO, ICRC, and OCHA prove that there's a very serious problem in Gaza. I think the other user was correct to say that IAR applies. At any rate, it's no longer up. AP295 (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

The last time I visited the Arabic Wikipedia I had multiple banners pop up containing Palestinian flags, and the logo was still the Palestinian flag. I never read any of them, but I would presume they're pro-Palestinian considering the flags present. That was when I first started commenting on this RfC. Someone else here said the banners present the hospital bombing as perpetrated by Israel. None of the pro-terrorism, antisemitic, and pro-Hamas NPOV / systemic bias concerns in the articles have been addressed. Is that not still the case? I agree that "the responses in this RfC are disturbing" but I'm certain I totally disagree on which responses are disturbing. I think IAR within one Wiki can be overruled by a higher body, and I think that that should be the case here. The presentation of a contentious or even fringe viewpoint as fact and the undertaking of one-sided political action over it should not be justified with an IAR. JM2023 (talk) 06:10, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

According to the UN, ninety four healthcare facilities in Gaza have been attacked since 10/7 including twenty six hospitals. [9] Presumably not the work of Hamas, in most cases. [10] You should watch the whole thing, if you haven't already. AP295 (talk) 08:48, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with my statement. I referred specifically to the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, which Hamas and Arabic-language media immediately blamed on Israel and sparked a wave of anti-Israel sentiment, but which within days turned out to be caused by a missile fired by Hamas or the PIJ or some group from the south within Gaza itself, and was a much smaller event; in fact Hamas claimed about 10x the actual casualties that actually occurred. If any banners present portray/portrayed that event as perpetrated by Israel, its a major example of the Arabic Wikipedia disregarding NPOV and pushing en:WP:FRINGE sitewide in a political statement. JM2023 (talk) 16:19, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

From all the evidence I've seen, the source of increasing anti-Israel sentiment is little other than Israel's broadside attack against Gaza's civilian population and infrastructure, which at face value comprises many war crimes including probable violations of the genocide convention. An NPOV violation on arwiki is a paltry complaint vis-a-vis the needless immiseration and slaughter of Gazans and the moral obligation to prevent genocide. Have some common decency. Israel scarcely benefits in the long run either, wouldn't you agree? AP295 (talk) 01:19, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

The problem is not only about the banner now, it's someone called legal action on this case, which escalated the situation. Lemonaka (talk) 07:33, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

• Free-licensed distribution of knowledge for "everybody" that "anybody" can edit is under attack when a group of people are subject to genocide: they lose their possibility of reading and editing. The International Court of Justice found that the evidence that genocide is being carried out in Gaza is sufficiently plausible that it ordered provisional measures; Israel is now legally bound to carry out those measures to prevent genocide and report within a month. The decisions were 80-95% majority decisions, depending on which particular measure and whether you exclude the SA and Israeli ad hoc judges from the count. Suggestions of "no genocide" tend towards a WP:FRINGE claim in this context.
  The Arabic-language Wikipedia community in some sense has the same advantage as the English-language Wikipedia community: participation by people from a big variety of national backgrounds with different biases (just one example: the Algerian–Moroccan conflict). The hypothesis that the Arabic-language Wikipedia community managed to reach consensus on their one-day blackout decision without having extensively debated it among people with a mix of national and political biases lacks credibility.
  Trying to debate the meaning of an Arabic-language Wikipedia article based on automatic translations from a language with dozens of varieties, some of which are mutually unintelligible, rather than looking at the full edit history and talk page where you are someone who has full linguistic competence in at least one major variety of Arabic and familiarity with some of the others seems unconstructive to me. If you are a fluent Arabic speaker, then participate in the talk pages over at ar-wiki. That's the right place to debate the differences between the meanings of a Wikipedia article in e.g. the Maghrebi, Egyptian, Levantine or Sudanese dialects of Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic and whether the text of an article satisfies the five pillars. Boud (talk) 02:24, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  There are a few things here.

  One, the idea that "no genocide" is en:WP:FRINGE is not a credible idea. If it was, then every I-P article on Enwiki would call it a genocide in wikivoice; not a single one of them does so. The ICJ deciding to proceed with the case and issuing preventative measures does not invalidate that. Western sources are by-and-large not calling it genocide unless those sources themselves are listed as unreliable or considered fringe, and even then they often attribute such statements and/or have them in opinion articles. If anything it's a fringe opinion to call it a genocide at all.

  Two, you can't ignore the fact that the Arab world does have a huge problem with antisemitism. This is something that is well-documented: en:Antisemitism in the Arab world. This is something that needs to be taken into consideration when considering any possible systemic biases in the Arabic-language Wikipedia. JM2023 (talk) 06:05, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  The opportunity to raise awareness may well be over by the time the ICJ reaches a decision. It seems faintly monstrous that so many are calling foul against arwiki for the banner on grounds of NPOV when there's a significant possibility genocide is occurring as we speak. The point about antisemitism in the Arab world is valid, but it was South Africa who accused Israel of violating the genocide convention. AP295 (talk) 08:07, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  So we're having an opinionated, mostly subjective, political discussion as a reason for why Wikipedia should host banners endorsing one of the sides? Same for article content? I don't remember signing up for this. Bharel (talk) 16:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  Here's South Africa's application to the ICJ [11]. It contains over five hundred citations and as far as I can see, every claim they make is backed up with evidence. If you knew there were an ongoing genocide, would you still object to the banner? AP295 (talk) 16:54, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  You're diluting the subject. That's not the heart of the question. The question is about neutrality of Wikipedia.

  Besides, you are putting forth a court application, not a court ruling (because there has been none). This is not how international justice is done. But again, that's not the core subject of the discussion. 37.174.41.193 18:20, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

  You didn't answer the question. AP295 (talk) 21:40, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

  FYI, as early as mid October 2023 a sizable number of scholars and academics had warned that there was evidence of genocidal intent. "Statements of Israeli officials since 7 October 2023 suggest that beyond the killings and restriction of basic conditions for life perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza, there are also indications that the ongoing and imminent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip are being conducted with potentially genocidal intent."[12] Over eight hundred scholars signed that paper. Holocaust scholar Raz Segal wrote "Indeed, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed. Perpetrators of genocide usually do not express their intentions so clearly, though there are exceptions." [13] South Africa's application to the ICJ reads, "Evidence of Israeli State officials’ specific intent (‘dolus specialis’) to commit and persist in committing genocidal acts or to fail to prevent them has been significant and overt since October 2023." And now Nicaragua applies to join the case against Israel, "Nicaragua considers that the conduct of Israel is in “violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention, including Articles I, III, IV, V and VI, read in conjunction with Article II”."[14] How could anyone suggest that arwiki is out of line for a banner that reads "Stop genocide in Gaza. Stop killing civilians. Stop targeting hospitals and schools. Stop misinformation and disinformation. Stop double standards."? I'll not let it be said that "it's a fringe opinion to call it a genocide". The evidence is right there for anyone who bothers to look. If by "western sources" you mean the western mass media, there are several indications that they have been laundering Israel's propaganda [15],[16],[17] AP295 (talk) 12:40, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  And for every scholar saying there is, I can give one that says there isn't. So do you want to continue the political debate on which side should Wikipedia support? Is that the point of Wikipedia? To host banners endorsing your political view? What about article content? Let's just delete the article about Israel, we're already having a political debate on which content should exist and which side Wikipedia should take. Seems like the opinion is that Israel should not exist, so we might as well delete the article about it out of political reasons. Next up we'll add advertisements of Coca Cola if they'll donate to Wikimedia. Coca Cola is very healthy and has no sugar* Bharel (talk) 18:47, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not saying Wikipedia should "support one side", nor that it should delete the article about Israel. I realize that some academics are not partial toward Israel, but there's also a lot of information coming from humanitarian organizations and the UN, such as some of the information cited in South Africa's application. Even if you can find an equal number of scholars who disagree, you cannot say that it's a fringe idea. If there's a substantial risk of genocide or other serious violations of human rights then arwiki should be given the benefit of the doubt and be allowed to raise awareness. It does not do Israel any good either, if they're allowed to make such a terrible mistake. If you are a patriot you must understand that. Don't be conned into doing the dirtywork of some rich bastard and their land or oil interests. It'll be Israel's patriots who they foist the blame upon after the fact. AP295 (talk) 19:46, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

  It's not Wikipedia's job, and my personal and political view is completely irrelevant. Israel has more than a hundred hostages, kidnapped illegally from their homes, some raped and tortured, are prevented from access to medicine, and are being used as negotiation cards. Do you think Wikipedia should host a banner about that? That is an actual provable war crime, with no doubt whatsoever, and I still don't think that Wikipedia should host a banner about it. Wikipedia is not there to embellish, support, or "raise awareness" about a side in a political conflict. Wikipedia Arabic does not show banners when Syria is using chemical weapons against its own civilians, when the Taliban executes women for singing, or when god knows what happens every day in the Arab world. So it's about awareness only on a specific conflict? My ass it is not political, and this isn't Wikipedia's job. I guarantee you that 99% of the contributors did not sign up to Wikipedia in order for it to take a political opinion on the front page, no matter the opinion, and that includes contributors for articles, monetary contributions in the form of donations or resources, or any other volunteer time. If such a thing happens again, I personally will leave Wikimedia, and do everything in my power to stop it. And for those here that are afraid regarding the stopping of donations, I highly doubt Google or any other large contributor donated to Wikimedia knowingly that their resources are used to host a website with a political statement on its front page. Do you want us to call their PR division and ask what do they think? Because they're donating and contributing to a website with "Free Palestine" on it's homepage, and you'll go and explain to them why their donation is justified according to whichever scholars. Bharel (talk) 03:19, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  In fact, let's do it right now! Since the banner is still here for months now, Wikimedia did not reply to any of my emails, and are continuing to host a banner breaking NPOV on their front page (against their own terms of agreement), they have broken the trust between us volunteers and the Wikimedia foundation. I have not spent 15 years here for my contributions and status as a Wikipedian to endorse a political side on the front page. I have previously donated to Wikimedia, but will now cancel all of my donations, and will personally contact each and every large contributor, and tell them they're contributing to an NGO supporting the "end of genocide in Gaza" and "stopping Israeli propaganda" (after all, it's on the fricking homepage). Let's see how it goes.

  
  

  For those of you that are still here @1233 @StarTesla @Andrevan @JM2023 @Lemonaka @Firestar464 @Well very well, and others, do note that as we speak, you are contributing your time and effort to a website with a political opinion on the front page. I sure hope you agree with that opinion, because you're supporting the website, some of you are even community managers on that website. Personally I never saw myself as a TikTok influencer attempting to sway Arab opinions. Goodbye for now. Bharel (talk) 03:50, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  Contacting Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Adobe, Amazon, Cisco, Intel and Walt Disney.[18] Let's ask them why do they contribute to a website calling for the end of "genocide in Gaza" and "Israeli propaganda", and what is the political view of their company. According to this thread, it is completely neutral, so there shouldn't be any issue whatsoever. I'm sure WMF's legal team will happily bear the burden of explaining the "scholars' opinion" and misuse of donations. And before you say anything, this is not a legal threat, I'm not even a side to their conflict should there be one. Wikimedia Foundation opened Pandora's box with this one. Bharel (talk) 04:01, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  Honestly the threatening of Wikimedia is getting a little tiring. And no, I do not support the banner, but Meta is not an appeals court. Firestar464 (talk) 17:26, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  Same opinion, the banner should be removed but meta is not an appeals court unless this is egregious. I personally consider the banner inappropriate because of the fact that it is a political statement and the very interesting decision to do advocacy without explanation or a project page, which brings related articles into a much higher level of scrutiny. 1233 （T / C） 19:40, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Bharel it's strongly advised that you do not talk about legal action unless it's over. Please be calm, you are clearly facing a global ban against yourself if this continues escalating.
  @AP295 if you really want to help this project, have a talk with wikimedia foundation about current situation. Thank you in advance.
  @1233 this topic is not so constructive, maybe we need to contact sysop to close it. Lemonaka (talk) 03:18, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  Global ban for advocating against WMF helping turn arwiki into a political manifesto? Global ban because I donated both my time and money, to what is now hosted as a political statement against my country? arwiki is breaking the foundations of this project, and I've been defrauded when I contributed to a neutral encyclopedia. Does encyclopedia Britannica host banners against "Israeli propaganda and deception"? Would you support it if Wikipedia one day would turn all of its users and reader base against you? Half the contributors on hewiki I talked to don't want to contribute anymore. They feel betrayed by a supposedly neutral project, that lied to them and is promoting a campaign against their own country! And using their own donations against them!

  
  

  Wikipedia is "neutral"? That's what it claims, so why is Wikipedia and the foundation lying to my face?!

  
  

  I'd be glad getting banned for fighting against the politicization of the project, for the benefit of the entire community, including each and every person in this thread. The most honorable cause you can do in this project, is fight for its freedom and it's principles. Arwiki takes away that decision from millions of contributors around the world.

  
  

  You can ask the people at Websummit what happened when their venue turned political. If WMF continues on that course and wants to be websummit 2.0 so be it. I fear that the project you and I worked hard on might end up the same, losing all of its sponsorship (for a really good reason), which in our case will lead to a big blow. I know that I'm loud, but someone needs to be, as this never happened in the history of the foundation. I've never seen a project going against Wikimedia Foundation's principles, the desire of the movement as a whole, and WMF sitting idly by waiting for our years of work to get dismantled piece by piece. Bharel (talk) 06:34, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  I never said it wasn't political. It is political, and I believe arwiki's users had good cause to put the banner up. Personally it would not bother me at all if hewiki were to put up their own banner about the hostages. Better everyone has a say than to enforce or promote a culture of political quietude and self-censorship. It has become very fashionable lately to act as though one is above having an opinion. It requires no risk, no knowledge, no effort, no judgement and no sense of principle. It is contemptible. Why shouldn't the community of arwiki (or hewiki) be able to put a political banner on the website they themselves built? Even setting aside the issue of war crimes and preventing genocide (which seems like the best imaginable justification for a political banner), the UCoC does not seem to prohibit activism. Isn't each contribution itself an act of social activism? Over twelve thousand children alone have been killed in Gaza and hundreds of thousands more are in danger. (I almost wrote "died in Gaza", but in fact they were killed.) It is entirely appropriate for arwiki to put up a banner about it. Likewise, I see no reason why hewiki can't have a banner about the hostages if they like, as their lives have value too. AP295 (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  And then what? Each Wikipedia will have its own political statement on the homepage? That's what I contributed and donated for over a decade?

  Supposedly Wikipedia has five pillars. One of them is a neutral point of view. It exists in all languages, among them arwiki. Arwiki took it and threw it to the trash, making the website political beyond doubt, and in the front page. I don't think a single person can truthfully state that banners supporting the fight against alleged "Israeli propaganda" is neutral.

  Clearly, because of a "majority opinion" and as it seems by this very thread, Wikipedia can simply remove one of its pillars. Not many seem to care about it anyway, as it's there for months and only a handful of people replied here.

  By supporting this, WMF has broken the contract between us volunteers and the Wikimedia mission, and allowed arwiki to turn Wikipedia into a tool for political propaganda. Wikipedia is one of the largest sites in the world, thanks to us - contributors, and I did not contribute years of my life in order to help a website spread a political opinion against my country on the home page.

  It hurts each and every one of us. For days, months and years we were fighting on Wikipedia's credibility and neutrality, and arwiki's actions are turning our effort as a collective project into a joke.

  Maybe it's legal to defraud donors. Tell them that the site is neutral and is there to promote knowledge, only to place political banners and defend it over and over again. Even encouraging other projects to state their political opinion too. I don't have a legal background, so I'd appreciate it if an expert in the field would chime in. I certainly feel that my donation is now being used against the website's stated purpose.

  Furthermore there was a major decision not to advertise on Wikipedia, as it "breaks neutrality". What exactly is this then? I guess each project may overturn any decision because WMF is not an appeals court?

  I'm sorry, but we as a collective on hewiki are overwhelmingly outraged about this move, with dozens of threads thinking of how to fight it. We haven't placed banners, because we believe in Wikimedia's mission to promote a neutral website. We believe in the five pillars that the project was founded on, even if arwiki chooses to shoot itself and Wikimedia's mission in the foot.

  I, and dozens other probably, are done contributing. We cannot continue spending our time and money when the project as a whole spits on our face. In my opinion it is time to fight this in whatever means necessary, even if it means running a campaign in the media to stop donations, or advocating the placement of a banner in hewiki against arwiki and WMF. If we don't stop it, this will set precedent, and next thing you know, German, Spanish or any other language will start promoting their own political agenda using Wikimedia's donations. Right now we have dozens of excuses of why it's great to place politics on the front page. Do we really want to wait for it until it spreads?

  "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of our political agenda." Bharel (talk) 23:44, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  "Supposedly Wikipedia has five pillars. One of them is a neutral point of view. It exists in all languages, among them arwiki. Arwiki took it and threw it to the trash" Chalk one up for the away team. What sort of principle is neutrality? Why not accuracy, honesty, or decency? Why should you or any other donor feel defrauded by a banner that raises awareness of war crimes and impending genocide? The important question though is whether or not what the banner implies is true, and it appears to be so. Supposing that's the case, would you still insist that they take it down? I asked this earlier and did not receive an answer. By all means, have a banner about the hostages. I hope they get home too. Wikipedia perhaps has enough reach to make a difference, and it would be absurd if someone were to bite it over a ridiculous thing like "wikipedia's second pillar: neutrality". And what do you expect wikimedia to do? I don't know how the assault on Gaza looks from where you're standing but speaking as an ordinary citizen of the USA, I'd say it's not looking good. They can't tell arwiki to take down the banner. Even to suggest that it's inappropriate has the potential to be a major PR foul-up in the long run, it seems to me. The morally decent thing to do (at minimum) would be to make a statement condemning the assault on Gaza, but also the kidnappings. Though really "condemnations", "affirmations", and other such lip service is just that. Have some consideration for the many people who've done nothing wrong at all but were killed anyway. AP295 (talk) 00:16, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  This is not Wikipedia's job. It is not enhancing human knowledge. Wikimedia is an apolitical movement - fighting against alleged "Israeli propaganda" according to the banner, is not Wikipedia's purpose. I think what is happening in Gaza is horrendous. The hostage situation is horrendous. This is not Wikipedia's job to take stance, especially one that is clearly single-sided. It's not accurate (as you have hundreds of discussions a day on that opinionated subject), it is not honest (as arwiki has plenty of materials changed for political gains, as written in the thread), and it is not decent (as tricking me and other donors for Wikipedia to go against its own stated purpose is a disgusting move).

  My donation was not meant to be used to host a website promoting a political agenda, and I doubt any other donor would support it. If Wikipedia wants to change its pillars, and stop being neutral for the purpose of "decency", that should be a community wide decision across all projects. I'm happy arwiki took it upon themselves to change Wikimedia Foundation's mission, I'm just sad no one in the other projects was offered the opinion. Bharel (talk) 00:51, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  P.S. For what it's worth, I see nothing wrong with the idea of a Jewish homeland per se. Yet the ethnic cleansing of Gaza is morally abhorrent, expensive, and harmful to my own nation. Completely senseless. AP295 (talk) 00:51, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  You think there's ethnic cleansing, I don't. Why does Wikipedia decide you are right and your voice is on the front page using my donations? Bharel (talk) 00:53, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  I insist you answer just one of my questions first: supposing the implication of arwiki's banner is true (that is to say, that those crimes are arguably being committed), would you still be opposed to the banner? It's a binary question. It seems to me that if your answer is yes, then I'd not likely change your mind. Conversely, if the answer is no, then the discussion must address whether or not the banner is accurate, honest, and decent. AP295 (talk) 01:13, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  Although truthfully to a lesser degree, I would still oppose, just as I opposed an anti-hamas banner on hewiki, even though they commited war crimes. Bharel (talk) 01:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  Bharel, stop. This whole page is a vehicle for Israeli nationalistic posturing that has little to do with Wikimedia and whether ArWiki should have a political banner on its main page. You are only here because the Israel-Hamas war has gotten your country swept up in a tide of patriotic fanatiscism. You want my two cents? No, ArWiki should not have a political banner on its main page, but as much as you might hate to hear it Israel has been credibly accused of genocidal conduct. This is not trivializing Hamas’s atrocities against Israel but is not some crackpot fringe theory either. It’s completely understandable that ArWiki’s userbase might consider it a moral obligation to oppose Israel’s campaign in Gaza that overrides neutrality. Dronebogus (talk) 12:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  It must strike you how absurd and facile it is to take a position of "neutrality" during a moral crisis. Many here opine that arwiki should not have a banner on grounds that it violates 'neutrality', but this is really just question-begging nonsense. "Neutrality" is a moral cop-out. On what grounds do you say that arwiki should not have this banner? You seem to believe that arwiki's banner is at least somewhat justified. Why not just say so rather than deliver such a weak, qualified reply with false airs of moral authority? AP295 (talk) 09:16, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

  Alleged. And the grounds were written plenty of times before - it is not Wikipedia's job to use take sides - in fact, Wikipedia itself says so in dozens of different places. Besides you don't see arwiki writing anything about war crimes such as taking hostages do you? So cherry picking war crimes endorsing one side in a conflict is a great way to go. Bharel (talk) 06:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

  Surely you'd acknowledge that preventing war crimes and genocide is a greater imperative than maintaining 'neutrality'. AP295 (talk) 09:58, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

  Legal threat on Wikimedia projects, is a very serious "crime" that can rule out all the validity from your actions. No matter how right you are or how wrong the accused party are, please keep these actions in secret unless they are solved. You are trying to stress arwiki editor using the weapons of laws, that's something more serious than violating NPOV itself.
  You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Lemonaka (talk) 10:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  Either make a formal complaint about him or don't, but I really doubt there's any point to reading a Miranda warning except as an attempt to stop the conversation. He's wrong of course, but so is trying to browbeat people out of the RfC. AP295 (talk) 13:24, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  @AP295 No, I mean we should stop this discussion about laws or cases. Leaving laws to court and rules to metawiki.
  @Bharel has called the police, the more he said, the more evidence disclosed so arwiki sysops can prepare against them. The more you said here, the poorer result got from legal actions. Lemonaka (talk) 03:43, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  What the hell are you talking about? AP295 (talk) 08:29, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, I didn't really threat any individual in this conversation besides the WMF where I repeatedly warned them about what I believe is their responsibility which they are choosing to ignore. I made sure to disclose any activity against the foundation on the legal email address and they have simply ignored it. They did respond once with something along "yes we understand that the articles mentioned are breaking NPOV and have notified the administrators". The problem I have is against arwiki as a whole taking a political stance despite WMF polices and premise, and doesn't have anything to do with any particular editor. While I believe some of them are wrong, it just ends within this RFC. Bharel (talk) 10:15, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  "The problem I have is against arwiki as a whole taking a political stance despite WMF polices and premise" Articles should be impartial and objective. This is ostensibly the point of WP:NPOV, is it not? It does not mean that all contributors and admins must remain completely apolitical in all circumstances. Isn't that a very odd expectation for a donor to have? AP295 (talk) 14:31, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  But the articles are not impartial and objective, and the front page hosts political banners. Bharel (talk) 15:46, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  I don't read Arabic so I cannot evaluate the articles. It's worth considering though that most western media is not exactly impartial either. Also, the banner is not an article. If the banner and its implications are more or less correct (which they probably are) then arwiki is fully justified in putting it up, no? You cannot really ask users to maintain abject political quietism. If you can argue that the banner is untrue or dishonest then do so, but it seems unlikely that's the case. AP295 (talk) 22:16, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

  I don’t think you should be trying to argue about Gaza with an Israeli. You might as well argue with a Turkish person about the Armenian Genocide. Dronebogus (talk) 11:37, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

  Who else would I argue with, if not with someone who disagrees? Preaching to the choir defeats the purpose. AP295 (talk) 16:29, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  I’m saying your arguing is fundamentally pointless because there is literally nothing that is going to convince Bharel otherwise. Dronebogus (talk) 10:08, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

  For one, that's a rather unfair presumption. Even if I don't change their mind entirely and instantly, perhaps I've changed it slightly. Secondly, I also make the argument for the sake of the observer since there are too few critical arguments in general, and for my own experience as well. It's most certainly a worthwhile argument to make. AP295 (talk) 21:57, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with every word of your message. Well very well (talk) 06:16, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Best blackout practice

This blackout practice is not the best of what we could hope for. I wrote an essay on advice on blackouts and I hope similar events afterward would be better.--魔琴 (talk) 10:57, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

"This blackout practice is not the best of what we could hope for." In what sense? AP295 (talk) 14:28, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

To me, the most surprising moment was when I learned that arwiki originally used an auto-logout script to implement the blackout. If I were wrong, correct me. Other issues including low media coverage, blunt wording, etc. just seem minor. In my opinion, that is. --魔琴 (talk) 16:26, 12 April 2024 (UTC)