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Jimmy Wales (wikipedia founder) joins Gaza genocide talk page, says Genocide is contested and pleades for "neutrality" (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted 10 months ago* by to c/wikipedia@lemmy.world
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Quote from him:

I assume good faith of everyone who has worked on this Gaza “genocide” article. At present, the lede and the overall presentation state, in Wikipedia’s voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested.

A neutral approach would begin with a formulation such as: “Multiple governments, NGOs, and legal bodies have described or rejected the characterization of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.”

Respect for Jimmy Wales 📉📉

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[–] 28 points 10 months ago (13 children)

I don't think it's the place of Wikipedia to put together the UN's opinion and the UK's opinion (to take two examples) and conclude that the UN's can be stated as fact while the UK's can't.

I agree that the UN's is correct, but it makes Wikipedia worse, not better, to ignore disagreement on important subjects.

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  • [–] 35 points 10 months ago (12 children)

    Do you take the same broad-minded approach to Holocaust denial? Vaccine misinformation? Intelligent design?

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (11 children)

    I take the same approach, yes: where there is well-established consensus, Wikipedia should state that as fact. Where there is disagreement with the consensus, it should be noted proportionately.

    But there is no lack of consensus on the things you mention.

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago (10 children)

    The genocide of Gazans is in the same place: a few ideologically-motivated crazies arguing for the side that is obviously both factually and morally bankrupt.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    I agree it's ideologically motivated, but that doesn't affect the fact that there's a lack of consensus. There are serious governments and academics and commentators who disagree.

    Probably in time they will see the truth but that's not for Wikipedia to predict.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago* (8 children)

    There are serious governments and academics and commentators who disagree.

    No there isn't. All the arguments rely on genocide denial and ignoring repeated, clear statements of intent by Israeli government officials, soldiers, MP's and citizens, whilst clearly having a clear bias towards exaggeration when it concerns claims about acts committed by Palestinians.

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    That's just repeating the claim that they're ideologically motivated.

    Western governments, sans the US, are serious governments.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (6 children)

    That’s just repeating the claim that they’re ideologically motivated.

    Because they are, as well as materially motivated.

    Western governments, sans the US, are serious governments.

    As opposed to every government that is non-western, which are by definition non-serious???

    What denotes serious vs non-serious government worthy of weight? Why would you not merely look at the evidence, and make determinations independent of the will of any particular government? Why would being "serious" mean they're not materially or ideologically motivated? Why would the US under Biden be more serious when Biden repeated the false claim of beheaded babies? Why would Starmer, who declared Israel had the right to withhold power and water, be any more serious? Why would any of these countries that have smeared Palestinian advocates as anti-semites and introduced laws to crack down on even peaceful protests be "serious" and worth weighing in their view of what constitutes genocide as if they are neutral observers, not guilty co-conspirators?

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Because they are, as well as materially motivated.

    So if you're just repeating the claim, there is no point. Say something new?

    What denotes serious vs non-serious government worthy of weight?

    So the statements of the Israeli government would not have much weight in this, as they have obvious incentive to lie. The government of Russia should not have much weight, because it wants to whitewash its war crimes in Ukraine. The government of the US should not have much weight, because it has been eviscerated of everyone of any intellectual capacity.

    as if they are neutral observers

    They are not neutral observers, but (some of them) make serious statements and are capable of responding to facts even when it concerns an ally. We don't see that with the US. We do see it with the UK, so even though it is not neutral, it forms part of the lack of consensus.

    Going on the basis of consensus means that sometimes Wikipedia will not state as fact something that is a fact. And that's fine. It's better than the alternative.

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    So if you’re just repeating the claim, there is no point. Say something new?

    So if you're not going to say anything of substance, there is no point. Say something that doesn't waste peoples time?

    So the statements of the Israeli government would not have much weight in this, as they have obvious incentive to lie. The government of Russia should not have much weight, because it wants to whitewash its war crimes in Ukraine. The government of the US should not have much weight, because it has been eviscerated of everyone of any intellectual capacity.

    Good to know we've dealt with all 3 governments.

    They are not neutral observers, but (some of them) make serious statements and are capable of responding to facts even when it concerns an ally. We don’t see that with the US. We do see it with the UK, so even though it is not neutral, it forms part of the lack of consensus.

    Going on the basis of consensus means that sometimes Wikipedia will not state as fact something that is a fact. And that’s fine. It’s better than the alternative.

    Somehow you've managed to be both inane and absurd. We can't state facts because there's no consensus, there's no consensus because there are material and idealogical incentives to deny facts, so therefore liars and and co-conspirators get to pre-empt statements of fact, and this is better than the alternative to stating facts, because it might offend those who want to deny them. And the basis of this allowance of self censorship for alignment with the guilty is that some are "serious", and they are "serious" entirely because they are "capable of responding to facts even when it concerns an ally". This is despite the UK (a "serious" country) being directly complicit, having hidden its own legal advice on the sale of arms to Israel, having been in near lockstep with the US on policy, having declared Israel "does have that right" to deny power and water to Palestinians as collective punishment, having cracked down on domestic protests and made Palestine Action a proscribed organisation for mere trespassing and maybe criminal damage (of spraying paint on a plane), I could go on.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Good to know we’ve dealt with all 3 governments.

    If you are not able to extrapolate, I'm not going to give an opinion on all ~200 governments in the world, or any significant fraction of them.

    and this is better than the alternative to stating facts, because it might offend those who want to deny them.

    Fundamental error. Wales and the wikipedia ethos is not about "not offending" people; it's about creating a resource that can be trusted by as many people as possible.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (2 children)

    If you are not able to extrapolate, I’m not going to give an opinion on all ~200 governments in the world, or any significant fraction of them.

    Only that there's apparently enough "serious" ones to be OK to deny genocide in an encyclopedia.

    Fundamental error. Wales and the wikipedia ethos is not about “not offending” people; it’s about creating a resource that can be trusted by as many people as possible.

    And how you get trust is by denying inconvenient facts that are only controversial to morons and complicit governments and politicians according to you, because they're "serious" in your stupid, shallow and meaningless criteria. Moron.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I've never said Wikipedia should deny the genocide in Gaza and you know it.

    You are not a serious commenter; goodbye.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago*

    You just defended claiming objections should be taken seriously from "serious" (lmao) countries in the specific context of someone trying to get the article rewritten to downplay claims of genocide by invoking the claims of interested governments that are the ones doing the downplaying for their own cynical reasons.

    You're an idiot who can't follow the topic and context of conversation. Goodbye.

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