Balance

This article is very imbalanced, it refers to Kiswani as being accused of various things (without quotes or references) and then only gives voice to her justification or some group defending on her behalf.

Anyone can examine her twitter account and they will quickly see she makes no difference between Jews, 'Zionists' or Israel, she constantly voices support for Hamas, for violent terrorist attacks on civilians and for the massacres of October 7th. LikkerdySplit (talk) 07:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have some criticisms of her that are made by people of importance in reliable sources? You are free to add those but due to the tensions around such topics it is best to discuss those first. Ofcourse you can always use WP:BOLD but you might get into some unpleasant conversations sadly. That's why I try to edit as little as possible in these areas personally.
Speederzzz (Talk) (Stalk) 16:52, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear on how a living person qualifies for contentious topic protection

Could someone explain? I thought only living persons prone to vandalism gained extended protection. Mistletoe-alert (talk) 00:20, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mistletoe-alert, I put an introduction to how coverage of the Israel/Palestine topic area works on your talk page, yet you reverted it and called it vandalism. You came on my talk accusing me of mini-modding, and I explained the entire thing to you again, yet you seem to have ignored my advice.
This is the last time I'm explaining this to you. Any more stuff about this mess on my talk will be archived. On Wikipedia, there tends to be controversial and tense topics that are frequent areas of disruption and/or vandalism. As a result, they have been labeled as "contentious", and additional restrictions are placed on related articles (in this case, the one revert rule and extended confirmed protection + people discussing this topic being EC). The related page for restrictions on Palestine/Israel articles is Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict. — 💽 🌙Eclipse 💽 🌹 ⚧ (she/they) talk/edits 01:44, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of more accurate representation source and using Zionist

@إيان You keep reverting 2 sections of text, in the first section I do agree that the "born in Jordan" is unsourced and should stay removed. However you keep putting in the wrong Jerusalem (the link you put in goes to the city not to the Palestinian Governate.) and another editor already stated that Beit Iksa already has "Jerusalem Governate" on it's page, therefor it is not necessary to link that too. (I'll remove it since the current link is incorrect anyways.)

I do however disagree with calling the three organisations that slandered her Zionist, not because I disagree, but because Wikipedia calls non of these organisations Zionist, my replacement "Jewish pro-Israeli" is more in line with wikipedia's standards. Although I have some questions whether you can call Canary Mission Jewish. I think replacing it with Pro-Israeli might be good too.

I also feel a bit weird about the sentence "She was ultimately absolved of any wrongdoing." It seems like it was taken straight out of [1], namely "...prompting investigations that have ultimately cleared Palestine advocates of wrongdoing." However this links to an article from 2016, long before this situation took place. The paragraph is about a history of similar accusations where people have been cleared of any wrongdoing. I'm not sure if that's enough reason for people to change the wording, but it just felt a bit off to me.

I do find it important we keep in the part of the sentence that she is still in good standing with the university, as to clarify that it's not just that that didn't have enough evidence to get her, but instead that the university supports her and her movement. (as far as universities support politically active students.

I also encourage others to join in on the conversation to improve the page.

Speederzzz (Talk) (Stalk) 15:25, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Speederzzz, thanks for the ping and sorry for having deleted your contributions.
  • A brief detail along the lines of 'Beit Iksa, a Palestinian village northwest of Jerusalem' would be useful as most readers unlikely to be familiar with Beit Iksa.
  • 'Pro-Israel' would be appropriate phrasing for the three organizations.
  • I also think your suggested edits re 'She was ultimately absolved of any wrongdoing' and good standing are solid.
إيان (talk) 22:53, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV and Promotional Content

I've added a tag to this page to reflect the fact that it contains promotional content and does not reflect a NPOV. Often, the verbiage is a direct reflection from low-quality advocacy websites, with no specifics involved. For instance, it's not uncommon for someone in Kiswani's position to experience cyberbullying, but there's no mention of when this happened, who perpetrated it, or how it manifested. This information is notably absent in the cited source as well, which makes sense because the source is not a news article from a highly regarded journalistic source, it's a promotional article from an advocacy group. DuckOfOrange (talk) 20:41, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is definitely trouble with the way many sentences are copied one-to-one from the sources, which has then leaked a certain viewpoint into the article (like the reason I came to the article, several pro-israel orgs being called zionist while wikipedia does not go so far to describe it.
I don't really want to get too much involved however, as even some small edits I did were immediately judged/discussed. I don't feel like I'm a good fit to improve this article, so I just want to state that I think directly copied sentences should be taken out and replaced by stuff said in editors own words.
Speederzzz (Talk) (Stalk) 22:42, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Iamnotanorange~enwiki, can you cite what text you consider promotional content specifically?
Speederzzz, what exactly is copied one-to-one from the sources? Pro-Israel literally redirects to Zionism; I don't get your point. As I thought I had made clear above, my removal of your contributions was accidental in my removal of the WP:OR. إيان (talk) 06:18, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also the adjective 'Zionist' comes straight out of the cited source. إيان (talk) 08:59, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The promotional content is most prominent in the "Online Harassment" section of the article, to which I see you've added some previously deleted content. This content was originally deleted because it mostly focuses on an Israeli App with only a weak connection to an email campaign complaining about Kiswani. I have no doubt the app was involved in the email campaign, but as far as I can tell, it simply prepares pre-written complaints for people to send.
The focus on an Israeli app that sends pre-written emails is self-promotional, as it reinforces her narrative that she is being targeted by a shadowy band of hidden Zionist forces.
This section leans the most heavily on a low quality source called "Palestine Legal" that is clearly not up to any journalistic standards. This is an advocacy website meant to further a very specific promotional narrative.
As a reminder, you're invited to declare any WP:COI that you see as relevant to this discussion. DuckOfOrange (talk) 20:09, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Since responding above, I've edited your promotional content into a more appropriate NPOV statement, based on reporting from the New York Times. I've also corrected the assertion that CUNY condemned Kiswani, when CUNY's press release says otherwise (tbh, I think that might be from some confusion resulting from back and forth edits). DuckOfOrange (talk) 20:43, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Iamnotanorange~enwiki:
As a reminder, you're invited to declare any WP:COI that you see as relevant to this discussion What on earth are you talking about? Where has anyone ever accused me of having a WP:COI? Based on what?
Why have you removed the link to Act.IL when it appears in several WP:Reliable sources specifically about the article subject, including The New York Times?
If you believe Palestine Legal is an unreliable source, you may start a discussion at WP:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. Ironically, while condemning the use of this source, you cite the ADL, which consensus has decided is an unreliable source. See WP:ADLAS.
Also, could you please fix your WP:Signature so that it matches your username to avoid confusing other editors or appearing to be signature forgery. إيان (talk) 20:59, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What on earth are you talking about? Where has anyone ever accused me of having a WP:COI?
I'm simply reminding you that you have that option, if you'd like. You're posting a very specific narrative on a page for a contentious topic, and now you're responding pretty defensively.
The NYtimes did report on it, but this page is not about ACT.IL, which is only on this page to further a promotional narrative. If you look at my edit you'll see that I've kept the portion relevant to Kiswani, including the email campaign used to complain about her at her school. This portion cites the NYtimes as source and keeps everything relevant to the subject at hand (ie: an email campaign complaining about her actions as anti-semitic and trying to get her kicked out of the school).
You're correct that the ADL is a low quality advocacy website, this addition was the result of a conversation I had here about the veracity of X as a source. I decided to add a low quality source simply as a second datapoint, as X was being called into question. Feel free to remove the ADL citation, as I prefer using the X account from the org instead.
Also that's not how you use the term irony, the word you're looking for is hypocritically, which is saying one thing, while doing another.
You're trying to accuse me of denigrating one source, while using an equally bad one, when in fact I'm begrudgingly utilizing both sources in a way that is appropriate for their low quality and bias. Or at least that's my goal.
And sorry for the signature, my account got migrated a few years back during a fallow period and I kinda hate the ~~enwiki suffix. I'll happily change it, if it's truly confusing to you. DuckOfOrange (talk) 21:22, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Iamnotanorange~enwiki, please read WP:Casting aspersions and understand that it constitutes a WP:Personal attack, which is not allowed. Instead of doubling down on the baseless accusation, with claims such as you're responding pretty defensively, I suggest you apologize and focus on content, not on the contributor.
Your argument for removing the link to Act.IL is not convincing. It's not promotional to reflect what appears in reliable sources about the topic. The app is addressed with reference to Kiswani in The New York Times, Middle East Eye, al-Quds al-Arabi, al-Jazeera, and others. If you want to talk about hypocritical, you cite a New Yorker article that doesn't even mention Kiswani once, in conjunction with some random tweet to include some WP:Undue details for this page about Yahya Sinwar.
I am now familiar so these multiple names are not an issue for me personally, but clearing it up would be of help to fellow editors who aren't. Changing and merging usernames is an option, perhaps with a smoother process now than whenever you did it before: WP:Username policy#Changing your username. إيان (talk) 22:08, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you apologize and focus on content, not on the contributor. Yes, that's the goal. It was just a polite invitation on a contentious issue that I know can feel very personal to many people.
Your argument for removing the link to Act.IL is not convincing. It's not promotional to reflect what appears in reliable sources about the topic. We don't include everything from the source, especialling extra details that seem to only function as a distraction, at best. Again, I am not disputing the veracity of the app, but the fact that it is a distraction from the topic in service of a promotional narrative focusing on the subject's persecution.
The relevant portion to Kiswani is the fact that there was an email campaign aspersing antisemitism and trying to get her kicked out of school. The focus and lengthy explanation of Act.IL is a distraction from the facts of the case, which are just that. The rubber meets the road at "Email Campaign with pre-written emails." We don't need to know the coordinating mechanism behind that.
Pre-written email campaigns are unfortunately a reality of nonprofits and how they ask their supporters to mobilize on a given issue. The fact that there was an app involved doesn't really change how it affected the subject of this article.
If you want to talk about hypocritical, you cite a New Yorker article that doesn't even mention Kiswani once, in conjunction with some random tweet to include some WP:Undue details for this page about Yahya Sinwar. I was attempting to provide context behind the organization and their mentality when it came to the conflict.
In the IP conflict it's important for readers to know the style of resistance involved. For instance, some organizations provide funding to starving children, some are anti-Hamas but pro-resistance, some are explicitly in favor of Hamas' military actions. It's sometimes hard to grok an org based on a wikipedia squib, especially if it's been written like this one, with a narrative focusing on the founder's persecution. For me, I want to know where an org stands and that tweet is a pretty good summary.
The New Yorker article is just for context on Sinwar, if someone didn't know who he was. Otherwise, for an uneducated reader, it reads like "Organization says palestinian guy is martyr." Why would that matter? Quick context and a solid citation can go a long way. DuckOfOrange (talk) 22:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We have wikilinks for that. Your New Yorker citation was pure SYNTH. Besides all that, you don't seem to know what "promotional" means. Evidence that someone is harassed is not promotional. Both good and bad people can be harassed. "Promotional" material would be text that praises her, presents her aims and opinions as worthy, and such, especially in wikitext rather than properly attributed opinion. Merely reporting that a campaign against her exists is not promotional at all, and if it comes with reliable sources it is proper to have it. Zerotalk 05:48, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Evidence that someone is harassed is not promotional.
Correct, evidence is great. I'm seeing a lot of generalities with no specifics, sourced from one low quality advocacy site. Again, I have no doubt she is experiencing harassment, but a section here should rely on high quality sources. So, let's stick to merely reporting that, please.
Besides all that, you don't seem to know what "promotional" means. Evidence that someone is harassed is not promotional.
That is not what I am arguing. But first, let's refresh our memories.
To quote from WP:PROMO:
Advocacy, propaganda,...of any kind: ... political, religious, national, ...or otherwise. An article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view.
So if we pull directly from an advocacy website for a national movement, that qualifies as promotional. It still qualifies as promotional if we uncritically advance a narrative from an advocacy website while quoting the NYTimes.
Yes, both good and bad people can be harrassed, but some people use a persecutory narrative as propaganda, which seems to be the case here. The most common form of this boils down to "they want to destroy me so it's implicitly not bad if I do X." Don't get me wrong, she was the target of an email campaign, but we need to report on the facts and refrain from advancing any persecutory propaganda. That includes focusing on the machinations of an app as a way to make an email campaign sound shadowy.
Your New Yorker citation was pure SYNTH
Can you tell me which part? Happy to eliminate the SYNTH portion. I took that information directly from a high quality source. I could find the same information on Sinwar's wikipedia page. The context was helpful to me, when I initially came across this article. I thought others could save some time by having it right there.
As a reminder WP:SYNTHNOTJUXTAPOSITION: SYNTH is not mere juxtaposition.
Let's take a step back and WP:AFG - we both want a high quality article here. Neither of us want promotional content leaking onto wikipedia. DuckOfOrange (talk) 21:12, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Iamnotanorange~enwiki, as the New Yorker article makes absolutely no reference to the subject of the article, and the tweet is a random one selected not by any reliable secondary source but by you at random to support your POV, it is clearly WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE. Your opinion that the details about Sinwar should be included in this article, but not information about the rather extraordinary app Act.IL and its ties to the Israeli government attested to in at least 4+ sources about the subject of the article, is your POV and it doesn't bear on the article because Wikipedia has a policy of WP:No original research.
I agree that Palestine Legal should not be abused as a source, but if you believe it should be completely disregarded as a valid source, the place to start the conversation is Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources.
It is further irony (or hypocrisy, if you like) that you are citing WP:Assume good faith after having randomly WP:Cast aspersions above about my fitness to contribute to this article and you have yet to apologize. إيان (talk) 03:53, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ian, I'm trying to get more details from you about what the WP:SYNTH is, so re-stating your claim doesn't really help me to understand your concern. At this point, you don't seem like you're focusing on SYNTH this time around, so maybe you've dropped that accusation in favor of a different one.
New Yorker article makes absolutely no reference to the subject of the article
Correct, the New Yorker article falls under the section about WOP, which is run by Kiswani. There's a sentence about Nasrallah right above the one I added, so it's strange to me that somehow adding one more extremely similar sentence is suddenly UNDUE. We're talking about one sentence explaining who this organization cares about. It's a tweet from their official X(twitter) page and a New Yorker article for context on what that means.
One sentence! Hard to argue this is giving UNDUE weight. Compare that to the 3 sentences on an app that sends emails (lol). My local NGOs have the same function, they just send pre-written emails via email. I get emails from an HOA I'm no longer part of and they have occasionally constructed pre-written emails to send to my local representative. No shadowy jewish network required.
This is an organization that mourns both Nasrallah and Sinwar, why is that based on anyone's POV? It's directly relevant to what Kiswani believes as the founder of a political organization that adopts political views.
For me, those tweets are two datapoints that tell me WOL is not (for instance) considering how these two fought each other in Syria during the civil war. It's support for two organizations as resistance against Israel, primarily. Even when they might have conflicting goals in other situations. There are other organizations that have a different focus in the IP conflict and the diverse range of focuses and values is extremely interesting to a reader.
As always, happy to be convinced otherwise.
Here's what I will find convincing:
1) Lay out how directly quoting an official tweet with context from a second article is SYNTH. I'm kind of assuming you're dropping this one, because you spent your last reply pivoting to new complaints.
2) Tell me how one sentence about an official tweet is WP:UNDUE.
As a reminder, Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources.
=== subsection on sources===
I agree that Palestine Legal should not be abused as a source, but if you believe it should be completely disregarded as a valid source, the place to start the conversation is Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources.
My friend, Palestine Legal is not listed as a source and I think we know it's not exactly the Times. I'm fine with using it as a viewpoint for a specific POV, but I'm skeptical of its factual veracity.
Palestine legal has no bylines and ends articles about Kiswani with a light COI disclosure at the end:
Palestine Legal has proudly supported Nerdeen since she was co-president of Students for Justice in Palestine at CUNY-Staten Island in 2014.
So this is a website that gets into the student activism of non-flagship campuses for a local college network. Not for journalistic reasons, or reporting in an even-handed way, but for support (in their words). That seems like a pretty clear bias. DuckOfOrange (talk) 06:52, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Iamnotanorange~enwiki:
re-stating your claim doesn't really help me to understand your concern. At this point, you don't seem like you're focusing on SYNTH this time around, so maybe you've dropped that accusation in favor of a different one.
"Re-stating"? "This time around"? You must be confused. I mentioned SYNTH for the first time here, in conjunction with UNDUE. SYNTH was first brought up by Zero0000.
The issue is that you are cherrypicking a random tweet from Kiswani and using a New Yorker article that does not mention Kiswani to support your POV that material that is not in a cited reliable source about Kiswani is relevant info for the page about Kiswani—meanwhile information that comes up in over 4 reliable sources about Kiswani is somehow not. Tweets are primary sources. Information in an article comes from reliable (secondary or tertiary) sources about the subject of the article; otherwise, it is WP:original research, which is not allowed. Add the info to the WOL page if it's not there, but don't combine sources to support a claim that is made by you and not by a reliable source about the subject.
Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources.
Indeed. Your anecdote is not a reliable source for the purposes of Wikipedia. Report (and don't remove) what is in the reliable sources about Kiswani.
No shadowy jewish network required.
Where does this come from?
Palestine Legal is not listed as a source and I think we know it's not exactly the Times.
On Palestine Legal, I think we agree enough and I'm happy for us to qualify/de-emphasize its role in the article. Yes, it's not listed, which is why I suggested that you start the conversation if so inclined. By the way, there are studies on the bias of the NYT on these topics, but it would be SYNTH and UNDUE to inject them in an introduction of the NYT in an attribution in this article.
Still waiting for your apology. إيان (talk) 08:02, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1 SYNTH Claims
I'm trying to get more details from you about what the WP:SYNTH is, so re-stating your claim doesn't really help me to understand your concern. At this point, you don't seem like you're focusing on SYNTH this time around, so maybe you've dropped that accusation in favor of a different one.
You must be confused. I mentioned SYNTH for the first time here, in conjunction with UNDUE. SYNTH was first brought up by Zero0000.
You're right, I address this to you, but muddled together who originally started that accusation.
But that means you were simply repeated Zero's claim (rather than your own), which still doesn't seem to have a lot of depth to it. Based on anyone's failure to expand on the SYNTH claim, I'm dropping it, until someone tells me what was Synthesized.
  • 2 Cherrypicking claim
The issue is that you are cherrypicking a random tweet from Kiswani I think we can agree that we wouldn't be talking about this if it were a truly random tweet.
Let me ask you this, how would you like to characterize WOL? The nature of their relationship to external organizations is clearly part to who they are and distinguishes them from other organizations.
Why are you upset about one tweet referring to Sinwar, but not a nearly identical sentence referring to Nasrallah? The latter is clearly more out of character and off topic, as it refers to a non-Palestinian leader of a non-palestinian militia, who mostly lived and (entirely) died outside of Palestine.
Sinwar is clearly more relevant, as he was THE Palestinian resistance fighter and WOL is a Palestinian rights NGO. So I'm not cherrypicking, Sinwar is more much more germane to the discussion and what WOL values.
  • 3 UNDUE claims
Not sure you're still arguing it's UNDUE to have one sentence about how the Palestinian resistance NGO feels about the main Palestinian resistance leader, but I'll address it.
If you feel like these two sentences are WP:UNDUE, feel free to delete the one referring to the non-Palestinian guy (by which I mean Nasrallah).
Just as a reminder, we're having a multi-day debate about one sentence.
  • 4 Original Research / No Primary Sources claim
As a reminder from Wikipedia:PRIMARY:
A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.
That's exactly what I've done here. It's ONE SENTENCE that makes a declarative sentence about an official tweet from the official X(twitter) page of an NGO run by the person in question.
One sentence that details how the Palestinian resistance NGO, run almost entirely by the subject of this page, feels about the most prominent Palestinian resistance fighter / strategist of the last 14 years. I'd argue this is the most important sentence in the entire page.
The whole reason Kiswani has a wikipedia page is because of her work with WOL, so your attempt to separate her from WOL is a little strange to me.
  • 5 Demanding an Apology?? (why?)
Are you referring to the COI thing from like 3 days ago? Again, simply an invitation that I've happily dropped. If you say you don't have a COI, then you don't.
I guess I'll tell you my mentality, so you can understand my perspective.
I know why I'm here - I got side tracked while editing celebrity gossip and neuroscience articles. lol
But I was surprised to see you were sitting on this page and monitoring it so much, fighting tooth and nail against revisions, considering the current state it. It's not uncommon for a low traffic BPL page to look so promotional and low quality, but not if someone was caring for it, as it seems you are. For a moment I was wondering precisely why you were sitting on this page and I thought COI could be a possibility, but I'm not going to push the issue any further.
I'm happy to believe that you're just a passionate wikipedia editor who cares deeply that we don't have a single sentence associating a palestinian resistance NGO with the incredibly famous palestinian resistance fighter they publicly mourned.
We're clearly both very passionate about wikipedia, so let's leave it at that. DuckOfOrange (talk) 07:48, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, didn't know about Pro-Israel leading to Zionist. I'll be pulling out of this discussion, cause it's far out of my league.
Good luck to everyone involved. I hope I didn't cause too much of a fuss.
Speederzzz (Talk) (Stalk) 12:27, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification Needed

  1. I would love some more information about the BDS resolutions passed at CUNY and what exactly they did. I don't see a lot of detail there and it would be interesting to know if they forced CUNY to divest themselves of Israeli companies (and how they chose those companies).
  2. If we're going to allow low quality sources like Mondoweiss, can we not lift their sentences verbatim?
  3. Furthermore, if we're going to rely on those vague, self promotional sentences can we try to fill in some detail there? For instance, if the subject of this article was targeted by Hollywood Actors, I'd love a link to a specific name. If she has been targeted by a Zionist org, let's name the org. Otherwise, we're not conveying information.

@إيان - Looks like you've waited for the biased, promotional content to be added back into the article, before removing the bias and promotional tags. Can you expand on that decision? DuckOfOrange (talk) 06:00, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,
Here are some responses to your questions:
  1. CUNY released a statement that they cannot follow the BDS resolutions. [2]
  2. According to WP:Mondoweiss, it is ok to include Mondoweiss as long as it is attributed. Which sentences were lifted verbatim? I agree they should be paraphrased.
  3. I'm not a big fan of the sentence mentioning "Hollywood actors" either.
Additional points:
  1. I disagree that this article contains "biased, promotional content" or that Middle East Eye is "low quality". Hopefully we can reach an agreement about how to present this article. We should do our best to follow Wikipedia's policy that biographies of living people "must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives; the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment."
  2. I restored the content you removed regarding Kiswani's activism with WOL. The content is focused specifically on her activism with WOL, so it belongs here.
  3. I don't think it makes sense to include the sentence about Nasrallah in the WOL section. This is a page about Kiswani so the section should be focused on Kiswani's activism with WOL, not specific tweets that WOL made. The "views" section already includes her opinions about supporting Palestinian resistance.
Rainsage (talk) 07:25, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the CUNY statement, I'll check that out in a bit.
  1. Anytime we're lifting / slightly modifying sentences about a very specific persecutory narrative, we're playing into a specific game of promotional content for the subject of this page. For instance, if the famous hollywood actors are also anonymous, then I would love to learn more about how they maintain fame and anonymity at the same time. If there's an app that sends persecutory emails, we don't need to name every jewish person who contributed money to the creation of the app. As a point of comparison, we don't explain Twitter as a microblogging site partially funded by Marc Andreessen - that would be weird, because usually there are dozens of funding sources for any app. Do you see the narrative that's creeping in here? It's partially a product of low quality sources like Palestine Legal, which in turn is being used as a source for Middle East Eye. Personally, I didn't think MEE was that bad until I saw they were using Palestine Legal as a source.
  2. The content is fine, I just think it isn't part of her work with WOL, it's more of the controversies surrounding protests, which might deserve its own section. The WOL section should focus on official activities first and the problems / violence surrounding protests as a second (or in its own section).
  3. The statements about Nasrallah are official, political statements, expressed by WOL and the subject of this article. These are political views made by political entities. The "Views" section is about Nerdeen's views, the WOL is about her statements via WOL. I don't understand why this is controversial? I should be able to quote the subject of this article and her official statements via WOL as part of this article.
DuckOfOrange (talk) 08:06, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the additional edits you made since posting this talk message. Please stop making additional contentious edits before gaining a consensus on how to resolve the existing disagreements we have.
Perhaps we can start with the "Online Harassment" section.
I'm a bit confused about why you think it contains promotional content. Which content in this section is not supported by reliable sources? Rainsage (talk) 22:08, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Iamnotanorange~enwiki, you have made another WP:personal attack without having apologized for your previous personal attacks, after having been repeatedly invited to do so. This is not a demonstration of good faith.
Your claims that the article has issues with promotional content and NPOV have already been addressed above.
I suggest you seek consensus here on the talk page for the changes you wish to implement, remembering the policies of WP:Verifiability and WP:No original research. إيان (talk) 12:29, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ian can we focus on the article? I was curious why the bias and promotional tags were added after the low quality sources returned. DuckOfOrange (talk) 16:48, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you need to slow down. Your recent rush of edits made the article worse; among other things, your tagging was scattershot and excessive given that your changes and concerns don't seem to have much of a consensus on talk - the purpose of tags isn't to serve as a "badge of shame", so to speak. Most of the things you tagged with {{who}}, in particular, are also attributed - you could argue that that attribution / quote is WP:UNDUE, but you can't use a bunch of "who" tags to argue with it; since it's attributed, anyone reading it knows we are simply reporting what they said (and that they can possibly get more detail from the source but, if not, that's simply what the source said.) Another issue is WP:BLP / WP:SYNTH stuff; you added a bunch of things about WOL and WOL protestors that clearly has negative / BLP-sensitive implications for Nerdeen Kiswani when placed on this article (eg. the publicly mourned stuff, the three protestors), but which don't mention her. Those things might make sense on the WOL page, but don't belong here unless sources connect them to her specifically due to the potential BLP implications. The Violence and Controversy During Protests section title was sharply inappropriate, too, both because per WP:CSECTION we rarely put controversy sections in profiles and because the violence it implicitly accused her of was largely from the sources that don't even mention her. --Aquillion (talk) 20:01, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Aquillion -

I think you need to slow down. Your recent rush of edits made the article worse;

Those edits were reverted by others, while avoiding the above discussion, so I was attempting to restore the article to where it was. Please refer to the comments in my edits.
They may seem excessive, but they were an effort to restore a series of edits I had made over several months.
If you would reference the comments I made when making edits, you'll see that much of the changes were due to failed fact checks, low quality sources, or secondary reference to low quality sources (e.g. an semi-legit news source that references Palestine Legal as a source, the former of which is an advocacy blog).
Thank you for pointing out the problem with the Criticism section, I wasn't aware of that policy, mostly because so many pages have criticism sections. Given that policy, let me tell you my reasoning and my revised suggestion.
There are a number of relevant news events that don't fall under Harassment, but seem to fall under criticism. Not necessarily valid as we're WP:NPOV but from definitely doesn't fall under the header of harassment. For example, AOC calling her anti-semitic because she protested outside the Nova Festival memorial.
WP:CSECTION Suggests renaming the section to be more specific than just "Criticism", so we might just rename it as Accusations and Associations with Anti-semitism. That summarizes most of the criticism section without using the term "criticism" in the name. The subject of this article is constantly being branded as such (rightly or wrongly) and it seems like something she is consistently responding to.

but you can't use a bunch of "who" tags to argue with it

My attempt at tagging with "who" is that the nouns used were extremely vague, even in the source material. If it's a zionist org, let's name the org. If it's a celebrity, let's name the celebrity. Again, I covered this in the comments of my edits. DuckOfOrange (talk) 00:00, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is now a clear consensus against your edits, so please don't add them back.
A section called "Accusations and Associations with Anti-semitism" would still be a section devoted to criticism of the subject which is discouraged because it typically leads to violations of NPOV/BLP (per WP:CSECTION and WP:BLPBALANCE) I am concerned that many of your edits were violating WP:BLPBALANCE by providing too much space to the POV that the subject of this page is anti-semitic and violent.
You have previously cited a random tweet, the ADL, PressTV, and a petition from ActionNetwork. These are all low quality sources that should not be used. Rainsage (talk) 01:36, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rainsage - No offense but I don't see a consensus here, I see people adding low quality sources into a page that's already low quality and promotional.
Still, I'm not interested in controversy, so I'm happy to debate here until a consensus is reached.
For the "Antisemitism" section, I'll quote the relevant suggestion from WP:CSECTION.

For example, if a politician received significant criticism about their public image, create a section entitled "Public image" or "Public profile", and include all related information—positive and negative—within that section. If a book was heavily criticized, create a section in the book's article called "Reception", and include positive and negative material in that section.

I'm open to suggestions, regarding what the equivalent section is here, but for Kiswani it might actually be "Antisemitism". It's pretty pervasive in all the press surrounding here - either an accusation or her denial of it.

You have previously cited a random tweet, the ADL, PressTV, and a petition from ActionNetwork.

A few points here:
  1. It wasn't a random tweet, it was from the official twitter account of the political organization run by the subject of this article.
  2. Why is this controversial? Or considered random? We are editing the page of a political activist, who acts in a political sphere and there's almost no record of her politics. We're allowed to cite Twitter, given the right context, and I'd consider the official statement from a political figure about the sphere of politics she operates in', to be the right context.
  3. My problem with this article is that everytime other people edit it, the reader learns less about the subject and more about the various campaigns of people trying to persecute her. The reason it reads like that is I can't cite a single article about her without it getting deleted - without discussion. Oh but we linked her to Sheldon Adelson? Who is that? Why does this person matter at all?
  4. The ADL citation was based on a suggestion from Zero0000, who suggested that he didn't believe the WOL Twitter account was operated by WOL. I reluctantly added the ADL as a secondary source, in order to show some sort of press covering the tweet. I don't know what PressTV is or Action Network, but I might have edited someone else's writing with that citation. In my book, ADL is basically the jewish version of Palestine Legal - we can cite it as a perspective, but this isn't ground truth.
DuckOfOrange (talk) 07:34, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Iamnotanorange~enwiki, the WP:consensus is clear; refusing to get the point is WP:Disruptive editing. Aquillion, Rainsage, Zero0000, and I have opposed the POV you are attempting to inject into the article and we have generously explained why. As editors, our POVs and what we think are immaterial as far as Wikipedia is concerned; per WP:Verifiability and WP:no original research, we just faithfully convey and represent what is stated in published WP:reliable sources. The admins were generous in giving you a warning for your second violation of 1RR, but I wouldn't expect the same leniency if you have to be brought back for further disruptive editing. إيان (talk) 20:17, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your edits have been removed by at least 3 editors, so I would call that consensus that they are generally disruptive and/or violating BLP/NPOV/RS. You are new to this highly contentious topic area, so I am trying to be patient and assume good faith. But I would advise that you be more careful in what edits you propose and familiarize yourself with all policies, especially those regarding BLP.
We are currently discussing and trying to build consensus because I agree that this article could be improved. But per WP:BADGER, you may not get your way with this article.
I have already added a section called Reception as WP:CSECTION suggests. As I have already mentioned to you, this is a BLP and we are supposed to be "conservative" about how we include and present criticism.
This is the edit where you cited ActionNetwork and PressTV, which is a deprecated source and you would have seen a red notice when you made the edit telling you not to use it. [3] Per WP:ADLPIA, ADL is not a reliable source for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It is difficult to believe that you are concerned about reliable sources, when you used such low quality sources.
Kiswani and WOL have made probably thousands of tweets. The fact that that particular tweet was not covered by a reliable secondary source means it is not WP:DUE to include. Rainsage (talk) 23:36, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this discussion is getting heated and some wires are getting crossed here. I'm being asked to defend ideas that I am not endorsing.
I don't think this thread is productive, especially when we're circling around a consensus in the thread below, while dealing with more concrete issues. See you down below. DuckOfOrange (talk) 05:48, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Online Harassment" section

Hi @Iamnotanorange~enwiki إيان ,

We have a lot of disagreements about this page. Can we please stop editing/reverting until we can reach a consensus?

Let's start with the "Online Harassment" section.

1) The fact that the Act.IL app was funded by Sheldon Adelson is sourced to the NYtimes article about Kiswani,[1] which is why I think it should be included. However, I'm fine with leaving it out.

2) I would like to propose rewriting this section like so:

Kiswani has stated that she was subject to harassment and death threats due to her pro-Palestine activism since she enrolled at CUNY School of Law.[2][3] She said that she received e-mails and phone calls from people who accused her of anti-semitism.[1] Additionally, Kiswani’s school received a very high volume of e-mails calling for her to be disciplined.[1][4] The e-mails appeared to have largely been organized by Act.IL, an app created by former Israeli intelligence officers and partially funded by the Israeli government that gave assignments to users to fight what it considered anti-Semitism.[1][5][6]

An organization called SAFE CUNY stated that Kiswani should not be allowed to practice law due to her discriminatory speech against Zionists. The school's Jewish Law Students Association supported Kiswani.[1][3] In response, CUNY School of Law found that Kiswani had not violated any rules[4] and released a statement in support of her free speech.[7][5][6]

  1. ^ a b c d e Leland, John (2021-01-22). "What Zoom Does to Campus Conflicts Over Israel and Free Speech". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2021-01-22. Retrieved 2025-02-16.
  2. ^ خاص, الجزيرة نت-. "نردين كسواني.. طالبة فلسطينية حاربت الاحتلال الإسرائيلي بأميركا فاحتشد ضدها اللوبي الصهيوني". الجزيرة نت (in Arabic). Retrieved 2024-11-11.
  3. ^ a b "NYC Councilwoman pulls CUNY law school funds over anti-Israel stance". The Jerusalem Post. 2022-05-29. Retrieved 2025-02-24.
  4. ^ a b "Who's behind the pro-Palestinian protests that are disrupting Biden's campaign events and blocking city streets?". NBC News. 2024-03-20. Retrieved 2024-11-11.
  5. ^ a b "Palestinian CUNY Law Student Viciously Harassed". Palestine Legal. 2021-08-20. Retrieved 2024-11-11.
  6. ^ a b "Meet Nerdeen Kiswani, the most targeted Palestinian activist in America". Mondoweiss. 2022-10-12. Retrieved 2024-11-12.
  7. ^ "Pro-Palestine activists brave smear campaigns at US universities". Middle East Eye. 2021-11-23. Retrieved 2025-02-16.

Rainsage (talk) 18:05, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rainsage, perhaps I should have left a notice here earlier, but there's an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Iamnotanorange~enwiki regarding Iamnotanorange~enwiki's violation of WP:ARBPIA 1RR on this article. إيان (talk) 18:26, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like the admins are probably going to tell them to be more careful and try to resolve our disputes on the talk page... please let us know what you think about our proposed changes to the article... Rainsage (talk) 19:43, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have a lot of disagreements about this page. Can we please stop editing/reverting until we can reach a consensus?

Yes please! You may not be aware, but many of your edits had reversed some changes that I had made over the last month. From my perspective, you and Ian have been reversing the changes that Ian and I had hashed out over several weeks. I appreciate the opportunity to hash this out in the talk page, rather than back and forth edits.
  • If you read my comments, the problem with Act.IL is not that it's factually incorrect or using an improper source. The problem is that it's WP:UNDUE and several degrees of separation away from the subject of the article. I'm fine with a brief mention, but imagine if you asked me about my trip to the airport and I described it by detailing Uber's connection to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. Not only would it be confusing, but you didn't really learn that much about my trip. It's a distraction.
  • I got involved in this page because it didn't really contain that much information about the subject of the article. I want to know about this person! I don't care about the funding source of an app that sent an email for a harassment campaign. The meat of that story is the harassment campaign. I've tried to strike a balance below.
  • The other general note I'd give is to use a person's own language when describing their point of view. For example, it would be inappropriate to describe Kiswani's support for Hamas as "support for terrorism" because that's not her view. Using the term terrorism would be editorializing her speech, not explaining her POV. Similarly, when an organization describes themselves as a jewish organization, we should describe it as such, rather than a 'pro israel' organization. When we reduce a jewish organization to a pro-israel org, it's editorializing, rather than describing an org from WP:NPOV.
  • Finally, if an NGO is criticizing Kiswani, that doesn't inherently make it harassment. An email campaign could be interpreted as either harassment or activism against Kiswani, so I'm fine with the former interpretation on her own page. However, if an NGO from her school criticizes her actions, that is not harassment. It makes more sense for this to live under a "criticism" banner, so we can capture this part of the dialogue.
  • Side note: a lot of the citations were off below, I've tried to fix as best as I can, but a lot of the citations did not hold what was stated in the sentence. For example, Mondoweiss doesn't mention the JLSA - that's from Jpost and NYtimes.
Here's what I'd suggest:
Kiswani has stated that she was subject to harassment and death threats due to her pro-Palestine activism since she enrolled at CUNY School of Law.[1][2] She said that she received e-mails and phone calls from people who accused her of anti-semitism.[3] Additionally, Kiswani’s school received a very high volume of e-mails calling for her to be disciplined.[3][4] The e-mails appeared to have largely been organized by Act.IL, an app created by former Israeli intelligence officers and partially funded by the Israeli government.[3][5][6]
== Criticism ==
An organization called SAFE CUNY stated that Kiswani should not be allowed to practice law because she "emphatically expresses views that violate the attorney's oath of office and religious liberty for all religious beliefs, including Zionistic ones."[5] The school's self described "anti-zionist" Jewish Law Students Association expressed their support for Kiswani.[5] In response, CUNY School of Law found that Kiswani had not violated any rules[4] and released a statement in support of her free speech.[7][5][6]
DuckOfOrange (talk) 19:00, 27 February 2025 (UTC) DuckOfOrange (talk) 19:00, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The citations are still messed up lol. We can fix them in the article.
1) Can we add "for anti-semitism" after "disciplined"?
2) The content is about events that occurred while she was at CUNY Law, so I think both paragraphs should be kept together. What if we put this content as well as the paragraph beginning "Kiswani helped pass two resolutions..." into a section called "CUNY Law School"?
3) I avoid sections called "criticism" on BLPs, per Wikipedia:Criticism#"Criticism" section Rainsage (talk) 19:31, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Great suggestions! I've added our edits under the Online Harassment section, but withheld the CUNY section because it's not totally clear where to put it. I'm not against putting it into something like an "activism at CUNY" section. DuckOfOrange (talk) 00:08, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to hear what إيان thinks about these edits before adding them.
To be clear, I am proposing putting all of this under a new section called "CUNY School of Law":
Kiswani has stated that she was subject to harassment and death threats due to her pro-Palestine activism since she enrolled at CUNY School of Law. She said that she received e-mails and phone calls from people who accused her of anti-semitism. Additionally, Kiswani’s school received a very high volume of e-mails calling for her to be disciplined for anti-semitism. The e-mails appeared to have largely been organized by Act.IL, an app created by former Israeli intelligence officers and partially funded by the Israeli government.
An organization called SAFE CUNY stated that Kiswani should not be allowed to practice law because she "emphatically expresses views that violate the attorney's oath of office and religious liberty for all religious beliefs, including Zionistic ones." The school's self described "anti-zionist" Jewish Law Students Association expressed their support for Kiswani. In response, CUNY School of Law found that Kiswani had not violated any rules and released a statement in support of her free speech.
Kiswani helped pass two resolutions in favor of BDS at CUNY. In response, city councilwoman Inna Vernikov removed $50,000 in funding from CUNY law school. Elected as graduation speaker by the class of 2022, Kiswani's speech praised a BDS resolution adopted by CUNY faculty, criticized CUNY for not supporting pro-Palestine activism, and addressed the Israeli killing of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Rainsage (talk) 01:25, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rainsage- I think we were getting a little heated in the section above, but I see us circling a clear consensus right here. That actually looks really good. I'd also like to incorporate the eventual decision of the school, as cited above in our discussion.
Kiswani helped pass two non-binding resolutions in favor of BDS at CUNY, both of which were eventually ignored by the school[8]. In response, city councilwoman Inna Vernikov removed $50,000 in funding from CUNY law school. Elected as graduation speaker by the class of 2022, Kiswani's speech praised a BDS resolution adopted by CUNY faculty, criticized CUNY for not supporting pro-Palestine activism, and addressed the Israeli killing of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
- I think the extra context is interesting, considering they lost the funding, even without the BDS campaign going anywhere. I don't know the timeline, but I'm guessing Inna dropping the funding happened before the resolutions were officially ignored.
DuckOfOrange (talk) 07:50, 2 March 2025 (UTC) DuckOfOrange (talk) 07:50, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Rainsage, thanks for the ping. I see value in grouping this material under a section called CUNY School of Law. I don't think the wording and coverage for Act.Il have to be changed from what is currently in the article. I would have to see the citations in order to usefully comment on the other aspects, but if it all comes from reliable secondary sources, it should be fine. إيان (talk) 20:20, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So you are okay with getting rid of the current "Online Harassment" section and putting this text under a new section called CUNY School of Law? DuckDuckOrange is opposed to mentioning Sheldon Adelson. I personally don't care either way. Why do you want to include him?

Kiswani has stated that she was subject to harassment and death threats due to her pro-Palestine activism since she enrolled at CUNY School of Law.[2][3] She said that she received e-mails and phone calls from people who accused her of anti-semitism.[1] The New York Times reported that Kiswani’s school had received a very high volume of e-mails calling for her to be disciplined.[1][3] The e-mails appeared to have largely been organized by Act.IL, an app created by former Israeli military and intelligence officers and partially funded by the Israeli government and Sheldon Adelson that gives assignments to users to fight what it considers anti-Semitism.[1][5][6]
An organization called SAFE CUNY stated that Kiswani should not be allowed to practice law because she "emphatically expresses views that violate the attorney's oath of office and religious liberty for all religious beliefs, including Zionistic ones." The school's self described "anti-zionist" Jewish Law Students Association expressed their support for Kiswani.[1][3] In response, CUNY School of Law found that Kiswani had not violated any rules and released a statement in support of her free speech.[7][5][6]
Kiswani helped pass two resolutions in favor of BDS at CUNY.[2] In response, city councilwoman Inna Vernikov removed $50,000 in funding from CUNY law school.[3][8] Elected as graduation speaker by the class of 2022, Kiswani's speech praised a BDS resolution adopted by CUNY faculty, criticized CUNY for not supporting pro-Palestine activism, and addressed the Israeli killing of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.[9][6][3]

Sources: 1 2 3 456789 Rainsage (talk) 00:37, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The matter of the rather extraordinary harassment she faced as a student activist features prominently in the sources and was fundamental to her notability before October 7. Perhaps 'online harassment' should be a sub-heading under 'CUNY School of Law.' What is important with regard to Act.Il is its ties to Israel's military and intelligence apparatuses, which are amply covered in the sources. I don't care much about the mention of Sheldon Adelson, but his financing the app is mentioned in the New York Times article cited and I am not convinced by Iamnotanorange~enwiki's POV to remove it.
The matter should also be contextualized as occuring during the violence in 2021 resulting from the attempted expulsions of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem. إيان (talk) 01:15, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This piece from the CUNY Law Review could also prove useful for the section on CUNY if used appropriately: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr/vol26/iss1/10/ إيان (talk) 01:36, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it definitely makes sense to talk about Sheldon Adelson in a more in depth article about the interplay between Pro-Israeli and Pro-palestinian activism. However, here, I don't see the tie-in to the article we're discussing.
I'd like to hear a sufficient reason for including a partial funding source, for an app that was used for an email campaign that was targeting the subject of an article. That's a few degrees (4? if we index on 1) too far and plays into the WP:PROMO of the persecution narrative. The relevant portion is the email campaign to (try to) get her kicked out of school. It makes sense to include the connection to a guy who worked in Israeli intelligence (that seems way more relevant!!!).
This app was not designed to target Kiswani, nor do any of the sources state as such. We are talking about a general purpose app used to advance Pro-Israeli advocacy. In all likelihood, Sheldon Adelson died without knowing who Kiswani was.
Before I read this page, I didn't know who Sheldon Adelson was and I still don't understand why his name is appearing here. Most apps raise money from multiple sources, and Sheldon has been reported to be only one of the sources.
Finally, if we're striving for accuracy (as I think we should), Sheldon Adelson did not directly fund the app. Technically, Sheldon gave money to the Maccabee Task Force, which in turn was one of the funders of the app. [9]
Looks like the NYtimes was oversimplifying a little.
I know the retort will be something like "ok but his money still made the app" but there's an extra layer of separation here. If you give money to a school that then uses some of your money to fund part of a project that creates Cold Fusion, did you fund cold fusion? Kind of, but you didn't choose where your money went - the school did that.
It's the same here, the 90 year old billionaire gave money to an org that aligned with his values and that org funded the app, along with other sources. So now we're at 5 degrees of separation. I say drop it. DuckOfOrange (talk) 06:34, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
here, I don't see the tie-in to the article we're discussing
The tie-in is that it appears in the reliable source about the subject:
Many of the accusers seemed to have been prodded by a cellphone app called Act.IL, which assigns users “missions” to combat anti-Semitism, including a prewritten note to be sent to Ms. Kiswani’s deans. The app was developed by former Israeli intelligence officers and partly financed by the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who died this month.
As has been explained to you before (here and elsewhere), what you think, your POV, for the purposes of editing on Wikipedia, does not matter. Please read and understand the policies of WP:Verifiability and WP:No original research. It is not an editor's place to opine on whether The New York Times is oversimplifying, or to argue their personal POV with analogies about cold fusion or whatever else that does not appear in the pertinent sources. Wikipedia editors do not interpret the sources or inject their POV into the article; they simply convey the content of the reliable sources according to WP:Due weight. Please understand. إيان (talk) 19:36, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ian can you please respond to the question I asked instead of quoting just before the question? Your response seems to be an aside that address doesn't the concerns and points I brought up. DuckOfOrange (talk) 21:30, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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