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Wikipedia Put a Near Total Ban on Calling Gaza Health Ministry "Hamas-Run"

25 points by mostcallmeyt 2y ago

lysace 2y ago
Excellent reporting. We need more insights like this into Wikimedia's/Wikipedia's political decisions. They have power and power needs to be scrutinized.
- Sirizarry 2y ago
  Is this bad or good in your opinion?
  - lysace 2y ago
    Is what good or bad?
    - pbarthelemy 2y ago
      Isn’t that obvious ? “The hamas-run health ministry is reporting 40,000 deaths” is a not-so-subtle way make the number questionable… But some will say mentioning hamas is fair, because it is factually true that it runs the government. No wording is neutral… all newspapers have style guides and guidelines and “elements of language”, the NYT ones for the US-funded destruction of Palestine leaked not so long ago, the ones for Israel counter-terrorism operations by Wikipedia is in the article… (see, no wording is neutral, I guess everyone hates me now )
      - smegsicle 2y ago
        i think they just hate not seeing a magnet link for the nyt genocide enabling style guide
        lysace 2y ago
        I bet you felt a real rush of pride after writing that.
  - halflife 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - pbarthelemy 2y ago
      Globally ? Nope … “by western governments and a few others” is more accurate ( most liberation movements are called terrorist at some point, most French called their internal resistance in WWII terrorists, only to use the same word for groups who fought France in their decolonization (Viet-Minh, FLN) Terrorism is not even defined in international laws ; the more generic notion is war crime is used. ( not that lexical discussions change much for the civilians of any side who lose their lifes … )
    - rich_sasha 2y ago
      Should all articles about Israel's government call it "Netanyahu-led government"? Should every mention of Israeli settlements be qualified as "supported by Ben-Gvir"? These are factually correct, but using these as qualifiers is clearly trying to make a point that belongs with journalism or politics, not something that's supposed to be factual and bland, like Wikipedia. It doesn't sound like there is any ban at all in describing the "government" in Gaza and Hamas' involvement in it.
      - halflife 2y ago
        Well yeah, context matters. When Ben gvir or smotritch say one of their extremely stupid things, if you label it as “Israel says” it will be very disingenuous addressing their opinion as the official opinion of the state. And in the case of Gaza health administration, calling it without mentioning Hamas does the exact opposite, removing important context. And is especially egregious since they never mention how many combatants killed, which makes readers assume that all deaths are civilians (as Gaza health administration is a civilian body). Think of it like these 2 sentences- Hospital says 10 people killed. Military hospital says 10 people killed. Both will be correct, but omission of context makes you assume different outcomes
        rich_sasha 2y ago
secstate 2y ago
I dunno, the problem with processes is that they still get it wrong sometimes. But absent any sort of process all you get is trash. Wikipedia has managed to maintain a certain credibility in the world largely due to these democratic processes. Do the processes fail sometimes, sure. But I'll take this over 4chan any day. In the meantime, the only government-like structure left in Gaza is Hamas, and so if you say the Gaza Health Ministry, anyone who knows what's going on, understands that Gaza is run by Hamas, which makes the reporting super dubious, AND clearly Hamas-run. So I think for most people, it is super redundant to use it every time it's referenced. Once at the top of an article as a quick reminder, sure. But to insist that the name of the organization is the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which is a ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza government, that's foolish and only useful for folks with a specific agenda.
- tivert 2y ago
  > In the meantime, the only government-like structure left in Gaza is Hamas, and so if you say the Gaza Health Ministry, anyone who knows what's going on, understands that Gaza is run by Hamas, which makes the reporting super dubious, AND clearly Hamas-run. And that's exactly the reason why you need to label it: most people reading English language media like Wikipedia aren't going to make that kind of mental correction. That's only the kind of thing someone who is both already knowledgeable and reading in a guarded way would do.
- halflife 2y ago
  I think the opposite, most people don’t know how hamas controls Gaza. Most don’t know the difference between Gaza and the West Bank. It seems more like whitewashing the numbers for ill informed people
tzs 2y ago
Is this just for article where Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) is mentioned, e.g., an article about a particular fight that says something like "The Gaza Health Ministry reports 241 casualties", or does this also apply to articles about GHM? If it is just for articles that mention GHM but are not about GHM then it seems reasonable. The text "Gaza Health Ministry" in those articles should link to the GHM article and people can click that if they want to find out more about GHM including who controls it. In general this seems like it would be a reasonable policy for pretty much any organization or person that has a Wikipedia page. When an organization or person is mentioned on another page it should only need qualification if the qualifier is the reason it is being mentioned.
p3rls 2y ago
And this over an article that gets on average 200 pageviews a day... I run my own wiki project and this sorta political bike-shedding would get you labeled as a troublemaker and then thrown out, though I envy how wikipedia can survive with this kinda democratization where the inmates are running the asylum and it mostly performs flawlessly. I step away for a day and my inmates have regressed to speaking in wingdings and trying to eat the moderators.
- mostcallmeyt 2y ago
  A lot of critical coverages against Wikipedia have indeed appeared lately. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/29/1114599942/wikipedia-recession-edits https://www.npr.org/2022/07/29/1114599942/wikipedia-recessio... https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4703442 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4703442 https://dawnmena.org/saudi-arabia-government-agents-infiltrate-wikipedia-sentence-independent-wikipedia-administrators-to-prison/ https://dawnmena.org/saudi-arabia-government-agents-infiltra... https://forward.com/opinion/550600/wikipedia-holocaust-disinformation/ https://forward.com/opinion/550600/wikipedia-holocaust-disin... https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/wikipedia-road-highway-editors-wiki-railfans-roadgeeks.html https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/wikipedia-road-highway-... https://www.iranintl.com/en/202401124365 https://www.iranintl.com/en/202401124365 https://theconversation.com/wikipedias-volunteer-editors-are-fleeing-online-abuse-heres-what-that-could-mean-for-the-internet-and-you-218517 https://theconversation.com/wikipedias-volunteer-editors-are... https://harpers.org/archive/2023/12/the-hofmann-wobble-wikipedia-and-the-problem-of-historical-memory/ https://harpers.org/archive/2023/12/the-hofmann-wobble-wikip... https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wikipedia-admin https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik... Aaron Bandler of Jewish Journal also wrote many articles criticizing Wikipedia's antisemitic problems in the wake of October 7 attacks too. Not to mention "The Wikipedia Flood" blog which is posting more reports on Wikipedia.
  - red016 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - tivert 2y ago
    > A lot of critical coverages against Wikipedia have indeed appeared lately. Which is good, because irrespective of any particular political controversy, Wikipedia has way more goodwill than it deserves. People should look at it way, way more critically, and stop with the hagiographic praise.

25 points by mostcallmeyt 2y ago

Excellent reporting. We need more insights like this into Wikimedia's/Wikipedia's political decisions. They have power and power needs to be scrutinized.

Sirizarry 2y ago
Is this bad or good in your opinion?
- lysace 2y ago
  Is what good or bad?
  - pbarthelemy 2y ago
    Isn’t that obvious ? “The hamas-run health ministry is reporting 40,000 deaths” is a not-so-subtle way make the number questionable… But some will say mentioning hamas is fair, because it is factually true that it runs the government. No wording is neutral… all newspapers have style guides and guidelines and “elements of language”, the NYT ones for the US-funded destruction of Palestine leaked not so long ago, the ones for Israel counter-terrorism operations by Wikipedia is in the article… (see, no wording is neutral, I guess everyone hates me now )
    - smegsicle 2y ago
      i think they just hate not seeing a magnet link for the nyt genocide enabling style guide
      - lysace 2y ago
        I bet you felt a real rush of pride after writing that.
- halflife 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - pbarthelemy 2y ago
    Globally ? Nope … “by western governments and a few others” is more accurate ( most liberation movements are called terrorist at some point, most French called their internal resistance in WWII terrorists, only to use the same word for groups who fought France in their decolonization (Viet-Minh, FLN) Terrorism is not even defined in international laws ; the more generic notion is war crime is used. ( not that lexical discussions change much for the civilians of any side who lose their lifes … )
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    Should all articles about Israel's government call it "Netanyahu-led government"? Should every mention of Israeli settlements be qualified as "supported by Ben-Gvir"? These are factually correct, but using these as qualifiers is clearly trying to make a point that belongs with journalism or politics, not something that's supposed to be factual and bland, like Wikipedia. It doesn't sound like there is any ban at all in describing the "government" in Gaza and Hamas' involvement in it.
    - halflife 2y ago
      Well yeah, context matters. When Ben gvir or smotritch say one of their extremely stupid things, if you label it as “Israel says” it will be very disingenuous addressing their opinion as the official opinion of the state. And in the case of Gaza health administration, calling it without mentioning Hamas does the exact opposite, removing important context. And is especially egregious since they never mention how many combatants killed, which makes readers assume that all deaths are civilians (as Gaza health administration is a civilian body). Think of it like these 2 sentences- Hospital says 10 people killed. Military hospital says 10 people killed. Both will be correct, but omission of context makes you assume different outcomes
      - rich_sasha 2y ago

secstate 2y ago

I dunno, the problem with processes is that they still get it wrong sometimes. But absent any sort of process all you get is trash. Wikipedia has managed to maintain a certain credibility in the world largely due to these democratic processes. Do the processes fail sometimes, sure. But I'll take this over 4chan any day. In the meantime, the only government-like structure left in Gaza is Hamas, and so if you say the Gaza Health Ministry, anyone who knows what's going on, understands that Gaza is run by Hamas, which makes the reporting super dubious, AND clearly Hamas-run. So I think for most people, it is super redundant to use it every time it's referenced. Once at the top of an article as a quick reminder, sure. But to insist that the name of the organization is the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which is a ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza government, that's foolish and only useful for folks with a specific agenda.

tivert 2y ago
> In the meantime, the only government-like structure left in Gaza is Hamas, and so if you say the Gaza Health Ministry, anyone who knows what's going on, understands that Gaza is run by Hamas, which makes the reporting super dubious, AND clearly Hamas-run. And that's exactly the reason why you need to label it: most people reading English language media like Wikipedia aren't going to make that kind of mental correction. That's only the kind of thing someone who is both already knowledgeable and reading in a guarded way would do.
halflife 2y ago
I think the opposite, most people don’t know how hamas controls Gaza. Most don’t know the difference between Gaza and the West Bank. It seems more like whitewashing the numbers for ill informed people

tzs 2y ago

Is this just for article where Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) is mentioned, e.g., an article about a particular fight that says something like "The Gaza Health Ministry reports 241 casualties", or does this also apply to articles about GHM? If it is just for articles that mention GHM but are not about GHM then it seems reasonable. The text "Gaza Health Ministry" in those articles should link to the GHM article and people can click that if they want to find out more about GHM including who controls it. In general this seems like it would be a reasonable policy for pretty much any organization or person that has a Wikipedia page. When an organization or person is mentioned on another page it should only need qualification if the qualifier is the reason it is being mentioned.

p3rls 2y ago

And this over an article that gets on average 200 pageviews a day... I run my own wiki project and this sorta political bike-shedding would get you labeled as a troublemaker and then thrown out, though I envy how wikipedia can survive with this kinda democratization where the inmates are running the asylum and it mostly performs flawlessly. I step away for a day and my inmates have regressed to speaking in wingdings and trying to eat the moderators.

mostcallmeyt 2y ago
A lot of critical coverages against Wikipedia have indeed appeared lately. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/29/1114599942/wikipedia-recession-edits https://www.npr.org/2022/07/29/1114599942/wikipedia-recessio... https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4703442 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4703442 https://dawnmena.org/saudi-arabia-government-agents-infiltrate-wikipedia-sentence-independent-wikipedia-administrators-to-prison/ https://dawnmena.org/saudi-arabia-government-agents-infiltra... https://forward.com/opinion/550600/wikipedia-holocaust-disinformation/ https://forward.com/opinion/550600/wikipedia-holocaust-disin... https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/wikipedia-road-highway-editors-wiki-railfans-roadgeeks.html https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/wikipedia-road-highway-... https://www.iranintl.com/en/202401124365 https://www.iranintl.com/en/202401124365 https://theconversation.com/wikipedias-volunteer-editors-are-fleeing-online-abuse-heres-what-that-could-mean-for-the-internet-and-you-218517 https://theconversation.com/wikipedias-volunteer-editors-are... https://harpers.org/archive/2023/12/the-hofmann-wobble-wikipedia-and-the-problem-of-historical-memory/ https://harpers.org/archive/2023/12/the-hofmann-wobble-wikip... https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wikipedia-admin https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik... Aaron Bandler of Jewish Journal also wrote many articles criticizing Wikipedia's antisemitic problems in the wake of October 7 attacks too. Not to mention "The Wikipedia Flood" blog which is posting more reports on Wikipedia.
- red016 2y ago
  [flagged]
- tivert 2y ago
  > A lot of critical coverages against Wikipedia have indeed appeared lately. Which is good, because irrespective of any particular political controversy, Wikipedia has way more goodwill than it deserves. People should look at it way, way more critically, and stop with the hagiographic praise.