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The page represents the consensus view among academics who study genocide, including the leading Israeli academics who study the subject. Wikipedia has policie

The page represents the consensus view among academics who study genocide, including the leading Israeli academics who study the subject. Wikipedia has policies around what constitutes a reliable source, and academics who study a particular subject and publish in peer-reviewed journals are generally considered among the highest-quality sources. In this case, they nearly unanimously agree that what Israel has been doing in Gaza is a genocide. It took Wikipedia a long time to come to this determination. At first, academics were divided, but as time went on and Israel's actions became ever more extreme, opinions shifted and nearly all academics in the field started calling it a genocide. That caused Wikipedia to start calling it a genocide. There was a very long process of discussion and debate on the talk page of the article leading up to this change, centered on an evaluation of the sources. Jimmy Wales has now come along and essentially ordered the Wikipedia community to change the article. He's effectively ordering them to disregard the usual "reliable source" guidelines and instead represent a view that he personally feels is neutral. The thing is that Wikipedia editors don't necessarily respect Jimmy Wales that much, and they generally don't think he has the right to dictate what any particular article should or should not say. Wikipedia has been around for more than 20 years. It has well established rules and a community of editors. Jimmy Wales is just the guy who originally set it up, but he's not necessarily an expert on anything.

mmooss 1y ago
> There was a very long process of discussion and debate on the talk page Could you link to it? It's seems key to the issue. Many refer to it - including in the discussion with Wales - but nobody seems to link to, refer to, or analyse it.
- DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
  This is the discussion that led to the opening sentence of the article being changed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide/Archive_12#RfC_on_first_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide/Archive_12#... As you can see, it wasn't just a few editors saying, "lol, let's just say it's a genocide." Hundreds of people weighed in on the proposal. They looked at lists of recent sources. There were previous discussions like this that came to a different conclusion. But as more and more sources started calling it a genocide, Wikipedia editors eventually decided the opening sentence had to be changed.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    My complaint was not at all about the first sentence but about the total absense in the entire article of any alternative viewpoint, or even references to the conflict or the totally different treatment of scholarly consensus (because there is a scholarly consensus that hamas committed genocide too, in fact, there is consensus about multiple hamas genocides, and about many genocides committed by other palestinian factions including the PA). And as I pointed out even the beginning of the conflict, Hamas' attack, which is a genocide without any discussion about it, is barely mentioned at all, and only as an "attack". Because once again, your comparisons just doesn't work. Wikipedia title for an article that 90% of scholars (WITH academic credentials) agree hamas and palestinians committed genocide on Jews: "Allegations of genocide in the October 7 attacks" Wikipedia title for an article that 90% of scholars (who paid 20 euros to be considered scholars, the IAGS) agree Israel committed genocide against Gazans: "Gaza genocide" (IAGS does not require academic credentials to be a member, and many members have none) Here is the link to the page about Hamas' (and random Palestinians) committing genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_in_the_October_7_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_in_the... Note that the scholars alleging Hamas' committed genocide in the October 7 attacks are largely the same as the in the "Gaza genocide" article. In ONE of those articles both genocides are represented ... in the other they aren't (except in the non-user-editable part). Of course, on the page describing the hamas' genocide, none of the your arguments apply. The various viewpoints are represented (frankly ad nauseam), including arguments by individual scholars denying the genocide. On that page Wikipedia seriously makes the argument that "a massacre with genocidal intent" does not constitute a genocide. On that page scholarly consensus that a genocide occurred is described as "allegations of genocide". It continues like that, with for every scholar mentioned every tiny caveat they put anywhere in their paper repeated. For example that information sources may not be reliable as to intent. On that page it is extensively mentioned that there are accusations against Israel committing genocide in Gaza, whereas on the "Gaza genocide" page it is not mentioned at all that hamas' committed genocide (except in that consensus is that hamas' definitely committed genocide against Israeli too ... oh and of course, there's the title. I could keep going, pointing out that even in this article it is not mentioned that hamas' has in fact committed multiple genocides, including against Palestinians (in Al-Shifa hospital, among other places), and that the Palestinian Authority has done so as well, including against Palestinians, Jordans, Lebanese, ...

mmooss 1y ago

> There was a very long process of discussion and debate on the talk page Could you link to it? It's seems key to the issue. Many refer to it - including in the discussion with Wales - but nobody seems to link to, refer to, or analyse it.

DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
This is the discussion that led to the opening sentence of the article being changed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide/Archive_12#RfC_on_first_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide/Archive_12#... As you can see, it wasn't just a few editors saying, "lol, let's just say it's a genocide." Hundreds of people weighed in on the proposal. They looked at lists of recent sources. There were previous discussions like this that came to a different conclusion. But as more and more sources started calling it a genocide, Wikipedia editors eventually decided the opening sentence had to be changed.
- spwa4 1y ago
  My complaint was not at all about the first sentence but about the total absense in the entire article of any alternative viewpoint, or even references to the conflict or the totally different treatment of scholarly consensus (because there is a scholarly consensus that hamas committed genocide too, in fact, there is consensus about multiple hamas genocides, and about many genocides committed by other palestinian factions including the PA). And as I pointed out even the beginning of the conflict, Hamas' attack, which is a genocide without any discussion about it, is barely mentioned at all, and only as an "attack". Because once again, your comparisons just doesn't work. Wikipedia title for an article that 90% of scholars (WITH academic credentials) agree hamas and palestinians committed genocide on Jews: "Allegations of genocide in the October 7 attacks" Wikipedia title for an article that 90% of scholars (who paid 20 euros to be considered scholars, the IAGS) agree Israel committed genocide against Gazans: "Gaza genocide" (IAGS does not require academic credentials to be a member, and many members have none) Here is the link to the page about Hamas' (and random Palestinians) committing genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_in_the_October_7_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_in_the... Note that the scholars alleging Hamas' committed genocide in the October 7 attacks are largely the same as the in the "Gaza genocide" article. In ONE of those articles both genocides are represented ... in the other they aren't (except in the non-user-editable part). Of course, on the page describing the hamas' genocide, none of the your arguments apply. The various viewpoints are represented (frankly ad nauseam), including arguments by individual scholars denying the genocide. On that page Wikipedia seriously makes the argument that "a massacre with genocidal intent" does not constitute a genocide. On that page scholarly consensus that a genocide occurred is described as "allegations of genocide". It continues like that, with for every scholar mentioned every tiny caveat they put anywhere in their paper repeated. For example that information sources may not be reliable as to intent. On that page it is extensively mentioned that there are accusations against Israel committing genocide in Gaza, whereas on the "Gaza genocide" page it is not mentioned at all that hamas' committed genocide (except in that consensus is that hamas' definitely committed genocide against Israeli too ... oh and of course, there's the title. I could keep going, pointing out that even in this article it is not mentioned that hamas' has in fact committed multiple genocides, including against Palestinians (in Al-Shifa hospital, among other places), and that the Palestinian Authority has done so as well, including against Palestinians, Jordans, Lebanese, ...