Wikipedia banned eight volunteer editors from making changes to articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict, following a ruling on Thursday by the online encyclopedia’s Arbitration Committee.
In June, Wikipedia editors targeted the Anti-Defamation League, declaring it an “unreliable source” whose data could not be relied upon when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
When Wikipedia first announced disciplinary action against the Wikipedia editors, the ADL issued a press release praising the decision “in the wake of a massive effort by anti-Israel editors to spread misinformation and hate across the platform.”
ADL listed all but one of the banned anti-Israel editors. It named “Iskandar323,” “Selfstudier,” “Nableezy,” “Levivich” and “Nishidani” as “being part of a bad-faith campaign in an attempt t o undermine the credibility of ADL.”
Here’s the actual Arbitration Committee motion if anyone wants to read it. I haven’t yet, so I can’t say if I agree or disagree.
What I will generically caution is that people looking at Wikipedia from the outside in tend to vastly overestimate their understanding of how Wikipedia works, why things are done, and especially what actually happened when there’s an event reported outside the project.
I guess I’m happy to answer if there are questions about what jargon means, but specifics I’d have to investigate.