Talk:Antisemitism on Wikipedia

BLP vios

@Tamzin, ProfGray, and דברי.הימים:

If this article is titled "Antisemitism on Wikipedia" then it is a massive BLP violation to post screenshots of edits by non-notable Wikipedia editors. Listing non-notable Wikipedians as anti-semites is problematic unless they self-identify as such or reliable sources mentioned that they are (in which case it could be wise to attribute that claim, unless there are many RS that agree). Not just the edit, but the person.

If we rename the article to Allegations of antisemitism on Wikipedia then there is slightly more leeway.

I removed some massive BLP violations. We can't make the same mistake our enemies make. Please take a look at my edits. Thank you, Polygnotus (talk) 01:45, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why was the Kosner/Jew-tagging content sourced to [1] a massive BLP violation? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:02, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång Because Wikipedia was calling a living person an antisemite, without any evidence or self-identification. Polygnotus (talk) 07:11, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see that per ref given. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:18, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The article content you removed was "Concerns have also been raised about "Jew tagging", a practice primarily driven by one active editor, who would tag biographies of Jewish individuals as such. One subject affected by the tagging suspected antisemitic motives, although the Wikimedia Foundation said that the editing had no malicious intent." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:19, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Jup, and that was mentioned in the article Antisemitism on Wikipedia. Pretty bad. Polygnotus (talk) 07:20, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Cullen328, I remember you were a part of the jew-tagging discussions. Do you have an opinion on this content in regards to BLP/whatever? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:30, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Gråbergs Gråa Sång, as a Jewish editor, I am quite uncomfortable with the term "Jew-tagging" as used in Wikipedia content discussions since it has been applied, indiscrimately in my view, to obvious anti-Semitic editors, to proud Jewish editors, and to editors with a general interest in ethno-religious social groups. Some editors idealistically believe that religion and ethnicity does not or ought not to matter in the "modern world" and get all indignant at the notion that the real world is different from their pie-in-the-sky notions. Religious and ethnic identifications remain important and are often worthy of neutral mention if properly verified by a reliable source. Cullen328 (talk) 18:38, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it
  • weakens the article to list something that was not an example of antisemitism on the Antisemitism on Wikipedia article. Especially since there are plenty of examples of real antisemitism from real anti-semites on Wikipedia.
  • is a BLP violation to act as if the actions of a particular living person are antisemitic, without any reliable source or self-identification to back that up.
The WMF did its investigation and stated there was no such intent, and I don't see a reason to not believe them (especially in the context that that user was also tagging other groups). They are still active today and have made over 172k edits. Polygnotus (talk) 07:38, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the "Reliability of the Anti-Defamation League"-section is very weird. First of all the reasons why it was considered unreliable in that context is not mentioned (WP:ADLPIA: significant evidence that the ADL acts as a pro-Israeli advocacy group and has repeatedly published false and misleading statements as fact, un-retracted, regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The general unreliability of the ADL extends to the intersection of the topics of antisemitism and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.), and secondly thinking the ADL is unreliable in that context is not antisemitism. At most it is anti-ADLism, in matters of reliability, in that context. Polygnotus (talk) 04:18, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This article contains stuff like: Israeli actor and activist Roi Dolev criticized the editor's contributions for framing Zionism as colonialist, as well as for the article's statement that Zionists wanted "as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinians as possible How can that be a notable POV when no one has even bothered to write an article about him? And then I dug up the version they are probably complaining about, searched for the words "as few", and there are a bunch of refs. Sure, you can argue about if those refs are reliable, but the Wikipedia article is framing it as if a bunch of completely unreasonable antisemites can do whatever they want on Wikipedia, while the reality is far more boring. It doesn't make sense to turn the Wikipedia article into a coatrack of every time someone called something or someone antisemitic. Polygnotus (talk) 06:51, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On Roi Dolev, it can be considered WP:DUE/WP:PROPORTIONATE because JP [2] wrote about it. However, it only mentions him in passing, and the source doesn't seem to support the content you removed, so I don't think it does. But Dolev not having a WP.article has nothing to do with it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:10, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång No, because the fact that the JP wrote about it does not turn a non-notable POV from some unknown into a notable POV. We may list the opinion of the president of France on some topics, but we don't mention my French neighbours opinion. Even if JP mentions my neighbours opinion. Someone should write WP:VOXPOP. Polygnotus (talk) 07:12, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:N has nothing to do with article content, that falls under the details of WP:NPOV. Wiews can be WP:PROPORTIONate to include even if you consider the people having them some unknown, it depends on coverage of view in sources, not WP:N. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:17, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, I don't remember the shortcut, but we don't include the opinion of my French neighbour, even if he is a lovely person. The opinion of some random person is also not mentioned on articles about plane crashes and the like, but the reaction of the president of France may be. Polygnotus (talk) 07:19, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We may very well include the view of your French neighbour if WaPo and Le Monde wrote articles about it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:20, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång Shockingly neither WaPo and Le Monde are aware of the existence of my French neighbour. Also he has never been interviewed by The Guardian or the BBC. This is clear evidence of a disgusting anti-my-French-neighbour-bias in the media. I demand reparations, in baguette form. Polygnotus (talk) 07:22, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So you agree views by people without WP-articles can be included in a WP-article per WP:NPOV? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:26, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure how WP:NPOV is relevant? My neighbour may not have been the president of France (or any other country), but he has worked in a water treatment plant. And Emmanuel Macron has not. Polygnotus (talk) 07:28, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
NPOV is the policy that deals with "There is a WaPo article about the views of Polygnotus' French neighbour who doesn't have a WP-article, should we include this view in an existing WP-article?" That said, it seems we're now off-topic for this talkpage. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:37, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have the memory of a moist baguette but I vaguely remember reading something like that somewhere (not on WP:NPOV). But I also think we can use WP:COMMONSENSE to say that we don't need to add my French neighbours opinions to the articles on the 2019 Kashmir earthquake and the magpie goose and mining in Ethiopia. Those articles are probably doing fine without mentioning the opinion of some random non-notable dude. Polygnotus (talk) 07:44, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The relevant policy is WP:DUE. The opinion of some random activist who hardly anyone has heard of is clearly undue. In fact the Hebrew wiki decided he isn't even notable enough in Israel. There are thousands of activists and unqualified commentators out there and quoting them can only serve to make this appalling article even more dreadful. I strongly support Polygnotus's deletions and believe they should go further. Zerotalk 08:53, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Zero0000 Of course this was just the tip of the iceberg. @Steven1991:, who is blocked on enwiki, has been spreading these BLP violations, and fake narratives, on simple.wikipedia.org. So I am really curious what the relationship between ProfGray and Steven1991 is.
For example see this screenshot: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jewish_well_poisoning_allegation_source_insertion.png it is of this edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Well_poisoning&diff=prev&oldid=1247628475 and then you look at https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism#Wikipedia and it is there with the caption Antisemitic user inserting an article link with allegations of Jews poisoning wells to conspire a "genocide" of Germans, a purported incident commonly invoked by Holocaust deniers to create a false moral equivalence between Jews and Nazi Germans. added in this edit.
Who do I call? Trust & Safety? Polygnotus (talk) 23:17, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Regarding your curiosity about me and Steven1991, I don't believe I know that user. From your info above, I gather that Steven1991 used two images that I uploaded. But I'm not responsible for Steven1991's edits. Though Steven1991 may be accused of misconduct, I edit and upload images in good faith, so please avoid assuming or implying otherwise. ProfGray (talk) 21:16, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ProfGray I am happy to assume good faith in your case (tho not in Steven1991's) but you need to understand what you did was already a very big mistake. You can't upload screenshots of edits by Wikipedia users and then add them to an article titled Antisemitism on Wikipedia without evidence that those users are antisemites. As a prof with experience in this field I expect you to understand that. So it is surprising that your reaction is anything other than "sorry, I shouldn't have done that". It is a very serious accusation, and should be handled with the utmost care. And then when it turns out that those images were misused, you can't simply say: I edit and upload images in good faith, so please avoid assuming or implying otherwise.. Do you have evidence that the users Midnightblueowl and Evelyn727 are antisemites? If not, I think you should apologize to them, and get those images removed at the very least. Polygnotus (talk) 21:20, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Polygnotus, thank you for the AGF.
On the use of the images and WP:BLP, perhaps we can agree on a forum to discuss it. You've raised a meaningful concern and I'm not sure the answer is obvious. You raised your concerns in Commons and it is being discussed there, right?
FWIW, in that discussion, I emphasize that the two images that I uploaded are based on evidence in reliable scholarly sources, which are cited in this article. The images help illustrate this scholarship, which Is or should be described and contextualized in the accompanying text.
Also, IINM, the scholars do not simplistically accuse any users of being "antisemites" and similarly, in my editing and other work, I distinguish between anti-Jewish conduct and characterizations of people as antisemites. No usernames are shown in the images, right? So I don't agree that images of their edits themselves serve as characterizations of editors, regardless of the WP article title. Anyway, is this best discussed here or in Commons? ProfGray (talk) 21:36, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ProfGray Here, probably. But I think it is pretty easy. The people who write papers about Wikipedia, and publish them elsewhere, are not bound by our rules. We have little control over what they do, although it would be nice if they would follow the advice given in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikimedia_Research_Best_Practices_Around_Privacy_Whitepaper
But publishing and using images on WMF projects is different, because there are different rules and expectations. And on WMF wikis it is unacceptable to link users to antisemitism unless they self-identify as such or there are a bunch of RS that say "this guy is definitely an anti-semite" (in which case you still gotta be careful, but that could be seen as a valid justification).
The fact that you, the person behind the ProfGray account, distinguishes between anti-Jewish conduct and characterizations of people as antisemites does not surprise me at all. But sadly we both know that some people are missing the gray matter required to see the world in anything but black and white. So on a Wikipedia article with a title like that we can't use the edits of innocent people whose edits could be interpreted as anti-Jewish conduct, unless we have definitive proof that that is what it is (multiple RS) or what they want it to be (self-identification).
Note that there could be an innocent explanation for an edit that looks rather damning. For example, you or I could remove information about, for example, the amount of Jewish people killed in a particular location if we notice that the same information is provided more than once. That might look like an antisemitic edit, if you don't provide the context required to understand the thought process of the person making the edit.
Not showing usernames doesn't really help, it took me roughly a quarter second each to determine where they came from (if you click on the image you see the link). So I understand how such a mistake could be made, in good faith. But even tho you were trying to do the right thing the only way forward is to apologize to those people and move on. Polygnotus (talk) 21:52, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As background to this discussion: The two images I uploaded reflect different evidence and scholarly findings. In one case, Oboler (2010) states that the user removed criticism of antisemitic bias (against an NGO). This user is not called an antisemite, though their editing is presented as defending antisemitic bias. In the second case, however, Pfanzelter (2015) only criticizes the reasoning of a GA review. Pfanzelter does '''not''' accuse the GA reviewer of anti-Jewish bias or conduct -- and there is '''no''' such accusation in this WP article text or the disputed screenshot image of that GA review.
Let me see if I understand your perspective. You are concerned that readers will assume that the GA reviewer is antisemitic because of the article title. Or that readers could misinterpret the extended GA review quote in the image as antisemitic. Is this the gist of your concern about that image?
I notice that you are not asking to remove the accompanying text, about Pfanzelter's critique of a WP neutrality debate and the GA review. If you don't mind my asking, why not? Her critique strikes me as important content for this WP article, but the 2015 article itself does reveal some usernames, such as the GA reviewer. In any case, I am fine with apologizing if it is found that my images or edits violated BLP or other policies.
@Rhododendrites, it'd be great if you see this discussion of the two images I uploaded, since you commented on Commons. I believe we've talked in the past about how to write in Wikipedia about Wikipedia disputes and conduct. Thanks, ProfGray (talk) 22:42, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ProfGray Since Rhododendrites was very unhelpful over at Commons, it is probably best to not ask them to contribute here. @ProfGray I know I don't have to explain to you that people will perceive those images as examples of Antisemitism on Wikipedia, since that is the title of the article they are in. In an article titled Jimbo Wales I expect a picture of Jimbo Wales. Polygnotus (talk) 22:45, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, you are making it harder and harder to assume good faith. If you are of good faith, and you fucked up, then why act like this? Why not simply say "oh I am sorry" and stop wasting my time? Polygnotus (talk) 22:47, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I came here from the discussion on Commons; this is outside my usual topic area. The Oboler paper (full text) that discusses the diffs shown in ProfGray's uploads was written by three authors associated with the right-wing NGO Monitor (former fellow, president, former intern). I absolutely would not consider it a reliable source for this article, and I do not believe it is a reason to include screenshots of edits in this article. That paper is currently cited four times in this article. One of those times, the "removal of an accusation" that the paper discusses includes attribution of a claim to NGO Monitor. The paper conveniently leaves out the mention of NGO Monitor, which strikes me as rather dishonest. The Oboler paper should not be used in a neutral voice in this article; while its claims may be worth noting, they should be contextualized with something like A 2010 paper by authors associated with the right-wing NGO Monitor argued that... If possible, they should be cited to discussion about the Oboler paper rather than the Oboler paper itself. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:51, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pi.1415926535, thanks for that point and I've added the NGO-M context at the first citation. ProfGray (talk) 23:11, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is not remotely sufficient. The paper is not a reliable source and its claims need to be backed up by a different source or removed. At minimum, any claims from that paper need to mention the source in-text, not just the first time the paper is cited. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:17, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ProfGray Do you not see the problem with that? I have removed it from the lead section. Polygnotus (talk) 23:18, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And at this point, I would also like an apology for wasting my time. Polygnotus (talk) 22:30, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ProfGray, thanks for the ping but I'll pass on getting further involved; Polygnotus's comments make it clear I've blundered into a WP:BATTLEGROUND. I'll be over on Commons uploading insect photos and commenting on the occasional DR. :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:55, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites Thank you. Polygnotus (talk) 22:56, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ProfGray I would also like to issue an apology for bringing you into an SPI. That was erroneous on my part and I apologize for any stress it might have caused you. Insanityclown1 (talk) 03:13, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Insanityclown1 Thanks for your note, but I'm not seeing why an apology is needed. Did you submit an SPI case? Or did you raise SPI-type concerns somewhere that I wasn't aware of? Regardless, you presumably acted in good faith and it sounds like you made a mistake. Best wishes, ProfGray (talk) 16:07, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WTF

ProfGray uploads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocaust_Good_Article_review_excerpt_Feb_2_2013.png which is a screenshot from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Holocaust/GA1 added to Antisemitism on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antisemitism_on_Wikipedia&diff=prev&oldid=1255755085

I have notified them here: User_talk:Midnightblueowl#Hello

ProfGray uploads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Editing_out_the_anti-Jewish_critique_of_an_NGO_per_Oboler_et_al_2010.png which is a screenshot from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%20War_on_Want&diff=106858317&oldid=106391605 added to Antisemitism on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antisemitism_on_Wikipedia&diff=prev&oldid=1255753443

I have notified them here: User_talk:Evelyn727#Hello

Then the Steven1991 account adds both images on simple.wikipedia.org on:

On https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism Steven1991 also adds: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jewish_well_poisoning_allegation_source_insertion.png which is a screenshot of https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Well_poisoning&diff=prev&oldid=1247628475 added to simple:Antisemitism here: https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antisemitism&diff=prev&oldid=10174808 The description of the image is: "Antisemitic user inserting an article link with allegations of Jews poisoning wells to conspire a "genocide" of Germans, a purported incident commonly invoked by Holocaust deniers to create a false moral equivalence between Jews and Nazi Germans."

I have notified them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Insanityclown1#Antisemite

Around March 2025 Steven1991 had an disagreement with Iskandar323.

In response, they uploaded https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Serial_erasure_of_content_in_a_Jewish_history_article_by_a_user_engaging_in_tendentious_editing.jpg which is a screenshot of: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Solomon%27s_Temple&action=history&limit=8&offset=20250119195531001 which they then added to the following simple.wikipedia articles:

I have notified them here: User_talk:Iskandar323#Hello

These images should be removed (need a Commons admin), the texts should be removed from simple.wikipedia (needs a simple.wiki admin) and the users should be indeffed because this is clearly unacceptable behaviour. Polygnotus (talk) 23:55, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Have requested deletion of these images on Commons, I have removed the images from simple, but someone should still check their contribs for POV. Polygnotus (talk) 01:33, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted talk page history

@Cullen328: could you, or another admin, look into the truncated talk page history by looking at this diff, please? Thank you. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 19:15, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The history to be merged or moved appears to be here, but I'd rather an admin had a look to see if there was some (privacy?) reason that the archived talk page was moved to draft space and not moved back. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 20:24, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure it was an oversight. The option to move subpages does not appear for those without extendedmover, which means Lewisguile would have needed to check for an archive, and few people remember to do that. I have moved it. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 20:44, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mea culpa! Thanks for clarifying (and fixing). I'll make a note to check that next time. Lewisguile (talk) 21:44, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Compassionate727:. The recovery of the TP history reminded me that it had been decided that there was consensus that this article would be merged, but rereading your close, I see there wasn't a clear destination mentioned (except in the title of the merge discussion) and in 9 months, I'm not sure anyone has merged anything anywhere (I gather the target was intended to be Criticism of Wikipedia). When you moved this from draft space did you have a merge destination in mind @Lewisguile:? Is there something I don't know which overrides this community consensus? (I added the link to the TP header.) -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 01:32, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, nothing was ever merged; if memory serves, some content had already been copied from this article to the destination, and if I had to guess, editors felt that was sufficient. In any case, the consensus to merge was based partially on the condition of the article, and it looks much different now than it did, so it would no longer be appropriate to merge based on that discussion; if anyone still believes this article shouldn't exist separately, they should start a new discussion. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 01:48, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When I undraftified the article, it had sat there for 9 months in draft state. If it was intended to be merged, that probably should have happened at least 8 months ago. The conversations on talk had been dry for at least 4 months, with the last discussion between @Zanahary and me, so I addressed any lingering/immediate issues I had, and went ahead and moved it to mainspace. I didn't want it to languish just because no one could be bothered to make any changes.
In my view, this was ultimately effective, since it revived any outstanding discussions that had gone stale and we've had a number of constructive edits to bring it up to scratch since. Sometimes, it takes changing an article's status for people to engage with it again.
I agree that if we wanted to merge this again, we should seek a new consensus. It's inappropriate to do so after significant changes have been made and several months after the last consensus was reached. Lewisguile (talk) 06:09, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge template

There is a closure to merge from November last year, but this version of the article appeared in mainspace in June this year. Is adding the merge template now proper procedure? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:50, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think a new discussion is warranted to check current pulse. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:01, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds sensible to me. Rather than being merged, the article had been draftified, and in the interim a lot of changes were made that improved the article. I hit republish after it had been in draft form for some time, since the merge discussion was quite old. If the original draftification was an error, and it should have been merged properly, we should resolve that. Lewisguile (talk) 13:24, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah whatever consensus there was is for a decidedly different situation and different article.
no clue what community consensus is now and not really interested in starting up a new merge discussion with the most egregious issues now fixed. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:13, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
From the merge close:

Before publishing it again, they should ensure that the article clearly shows that this is a discrete, notable topic and not merely a collection of every source that has mentioned the two together, or this outcome will likely recur.

So have we shown that this is a discrete, notable topic? What secondary sources are writing about this? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:12, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In general it’s a mishmash of different sources accusing Wikipedia of being antisemitic in one occasion or another. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:37, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism elimination

Pretty sure it is just an error, but "criticism elimination" was a term I coined for a concept I discovered in work with my colleagues in 2010. The peer reviewed journal article which published this work is correctly cited in the references, but the credit in the text appears to have been given to someone else. The named people also did important work, but their contribution was not "criticism elimination" and came about 7 years later. I don't want to make a change that is about myself, but if someone else wants to check and correct it that would be welcome. Oboler (talk) 09:54, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Right, see | this version to understand how someone was misled into the error. I executed a minimal fix. Zerotalk
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_talk:Antisemitism_on_Wikipedia