Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Statement re Wikilobby campaign

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1. The following is a joint statement by User:ChrisO, User:Future Perfect at Sunrise and User:Moreschi concerning allegations that a pressure group was seeking to improperly influence articles on Wikipedia. The three of us are Wikipedia administrators, with a combined five and a half years' experience as admins and eight and a half years as editors, and much experience of issues on Wikipedia concerning nationalist conflicts. Previous discussion on this issue can be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Wikilobby campaign‎. Please do not add comments to this page - comments should instead be posted to Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Statement re Wikilobby campaign.

Background[edit]

2. On April 21, 2008, the Electronic Intifada (EI) website published allegations that the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) was "orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged." [1] EI published two sets of leaked e-mails from a CAMERA members-only Google Groups mailing list called Isra-pedia, established by a CAMERA staff member [2], [3]. The e-mails have implicated a number of Wikipedia editors.

3. The three of us have received a copy of the full list of e-mails, provided in confidence for review purposes. It has been necessary to keep the e-mails confidential so that the privacy of their authors is not needlessly violated.

4. The e-mail archive consists of 137 e-mails. There appear to be a few missing, but the content of some of them can be identified from replies. The earliest e-mail was sent on March 20, 2008 and the last one before the mailing list was shut down was sent on April 21. We have compared the e-mails to the ones published by EI and can confirm that they appear to be authentic, although EI has chosen to publish only the more incriminating ones. There is no indication that EI has faked or otherwise significantly altered their content. Many of the unpublished e-mails are fairly banal.

Summary of evaluation and conclusions[edit]

5. Details of the content and analysis of these emails, editors involved, and editors and articles targeted, are given below. In brief, we have connected the users on the list to Wikipedia accounts in six cases, including a handful who have advocated activity incompatible with Wikipedia. Five of these have been sanctioned or indefinitely blocked/banned. A number of articles and editors were initially named as targets, or "allies/enemies".

6. Based on our assessment of the content of the e-mails, our conclusions concerning this list are as follows:

  • The "Isra-pedia" group had a minimal immediate impact on Wikipedia. It directly targeted only four articles but had little success in changing any of them. Its effectiveness was undermined principally by the very limited number of members who understood how to edit Wikipedia. We note that it only existed for less than a month before apparently being shut down.
  • We believe that the group posed a significant long-term threat to the integrity of Wikipedia's Middle Eastern articles. We note that CAMERA reportedly has 55,000 members and that its mailing list had already been used to recruit "Isra-pedia" members. There is no reason to believe that the group would not have grown in numbers and experience over time, particularly if CAMERA had continued to use its mailing list to solicit recruits. However, we regard the group's apparent intention to recruit so-called "stealth admins" as naïve and unlikely to have succeeded.
  • A number of matters were reasonable norms, but their use in this context is a source of concern. Other proposed tactics included the intent to recruit of "stealth" admins, to foster meatpuppetry, and promotion of tactics that were planned to unfairly cast opposing editors in a bad light. These were the items which led us to block/ban certain users.
  • Wikipedia is based on open, transparent editing in an atmosphere of mutual respect between editors. This goal is fundamentally incompatible with the creation of a private group to surreptitiously coordinate editing on Wikipedia by ideologically like-minded individuals. The creation of a private off-wiki group to influence edits on Wikipedia is a serious violation of Wikipedia:Sock puppetry, which states that "the recruitment of new editors to Wikipedia for the purpose of influencing a survey, performing reverts, or otherwise attempting to give the appearance of consensus is strongly discouraged."
  • Wikipedia is not not a place to hold grudges, import personal conflicts, or nurture hatred or fear. Zeq's aggressively partisan coaching of other list members was clearly a violation of that principle. We believe that his advocacy and standing would have had a negative effect on the group members' conduct on Wikipedia.
  • We believe that it is necessary to send a strong message to lobbying groups, campaigns and other advocacy groups that it is not acceptable to engage in conduct of this nature.
  • We acknowledge that Electronic Intifada is not a neutral party in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. However, we are bound to investigate and act on any credible allegations of misconduct on Wikipedia, from whichever source such allegations may come.

Sanctions[edit]

7. In the light of this affair, we have sanctioned the following editors:

All blocks and bans have been noted at Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Log of blocks and bans.

Identification of mailing list members[edit]

8. Based on our evaluation of the e-mails, we have identified a number of list members with Wikipedia accounts:

  • "Isra guy" = User:Zeq. Our identification is based on three principal lines of evidence: (1) e-mails from Zeq dating to July 2006, in which he uses the zeqzeq2@... address; (2) two appeals by "Isra guy" for CAMERA members to intervene on Allegations of Israeli apartheid on 15 April 2008, at exactly the same time that Zeq intervened on the article and talk page [4]; (3) an analysis of the writing style of "Isra guy", which corresponds to Zeq's distinctive style. We were also influenced by Zeq's repeated refusal to deny that he was the author of the "Isra guy" e-mails, and we note that Zeq has been an editor for "nearly 3 years" (first edit on 2 October 2005), like zeqzeq2. We believe that this combination of factors makes it overwhelmingly likely that Zeq and "Isra guy" are the same person.
  • "Dajudem" = User:Dajudem. Same user identity on Wikipedia as on the mailing list.
  • "I <3 Israel" = User:Screen stalker. Following a discussion on the list about 2006 Lebanon War, Screen stalker started a discussion about the article title ([5]). Four minutes later, "I <3 Israel" posted a message to the list stating Alright. I have added discussion <aexternal free">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2006_Lebanon_War#Article_Title">here</a> (linking to Screen stalker's edit).
  • "Maverik" = User:Jamesegarner. No e-mails by "Maverik" are preserved in the list archive. However, an e-mail of March 20 by "Gilead" commends an unnamed individual for "Excellent work, and good job explaining your rationale on the Wikipedia discussion page!". A subsequent e-mail also of March 20 identifies the article in question as Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America and the list member as "Maverik":
Unfortunately, the hostile editor, "Boodlesthecat," couldn't resist making substantive changes to Maverik's addition to Wikipedia's CAMERA article. And with complete disregard for the spirit of Wikipedia, he made this change without addressing your comments in the discussion section.
This matches the following edits by User:Jamesegarner on March 20: [6], [7].
  • We have also identified a Wikipedia account of another list member. However, we will not be disclosing this as we do not believe that there is evidence of wrongdoing in this case. The account in question is a Wikipedia editor in good standing who never edited Israel-related articles and whose actions on Wiki seem to have been independent from the discussions in the group. We will, however, be counselling the list member privately.

9. Although the list owner "Gilead" claimed that about 50 people had volunteered (and that the Isra-pedia group had 30 signed-up members), there is no evidence from the list of who these might be, whether they have Wikipedia accounts or what articles they might have edited.

Analysis of e-mails[edit]

10. The most significant and frequent contributions were made by "gilead" and "Isra guy". Gilead was the owner of the Isra-pedia list, having created and closed it.

11. Gilead initiated the creation of the mailing list with a "CAMERA Alert" sent on March 13, 2008 via an official CAMERA e-mail account. According to CAMERA's website, such alerts are sent to members of CAMERA to assist it in righting media-wrongs, educating journalists and editors, and expanding our work on college campuses. [8] Gilead explained in the e-mail that "CAMERA seeks 10 volunteers to help us keep Israel-related entries on Wikipedia from becoming tainted by anti-Israel editors." Individuals who responded to the e-mail received a second e-mail sent personally by Gilead, dated March 17, 2008, with the subject heading of "Wikipedia and CAMERA", announcing the creation of an "Isra-pedia" mailing list. (These e-mails are the first two items in the first set of leaked e-mails on the EI website [9].)

12. We note that Gilead advocated "working within the Wikipedia guidelines" and "remain[ing] civil when arguing ideas", which we regard as commendable advice. However, we also note that other actions by Gilead were seriously problematic. In particular, his injunction to keep the group confidential:

There is no reason to advertise the fact that we have these group discussions. Anti-Israel editors will seize on anything to try to discredit people who attempt to challenge their problematic assertions, and will be all too happy to pretend, and announce, that a 'Zionist' cabal (the same one that controls the banks and Hollywood?) is trying to hijack Wikipedia.

Gilead advocated list members seeking to become administrators to gain "more power and authority in the online encyclopedia." As discussed below, Gilead also sought to the support of list members in editing an article on which he had been twice blocked for edit warring and was later given a conflict of interest editing ban.

13. "Isra guy" (Zeq) played a key role on the mailing list as a self-appointed coach to the other list members. Although he did not reveal his Wikipedia username, he described himself as having been working in wikipedia alone for nearly 3 years and learned a lot in the process. He frequently expressed a very hostile and partisan attitude towards editing on Wikipedia. The e-mails that were publicly leaked by E.I. and extensively discussed on Wiki are representative of his total output. The following quotes from his e-mails illustrate this tendency:

  • this is an article that the Palestinians will fight for. You want to get them into trouble: make legitimate edits on this article by bringing quotes from ACADEMIC sources (not jut from links on the web). get them sanctioned after they delete this info.
  • We will go to war after we have build our army, equiped it, trained ... so please if you want to win this war help us build out army.
  • there are more formal votes: deletion of articles, renaming. Such cases there may be 20 participants but can go up to 100 in rare cases. the palis bring all the islamic and lefty friends (a group of 30-40) ...
  • The palestinians are not stopping. More and more pro palestinian articles are in wikipedia. They are gearing up for a major PR offensive toward israel's 60 years independence. WE need to have expsirianced editors ready near May 15 or before. It is important that you start building your wikipedia identity now.
  • don't be dsicouraged. understand that we are fighting a war here against total Palestinian and hizbulla control over a web site that comes up first in almost any google search.
  • Every time you see a Hamas person makes an outragous statements (like Jews came from apes or kill the jews) you write a small article about that peroson (google his name to find more ) and bring the quote from memri. why doing all that ? because google is wikipedia friend - 3 days after you created the article google the person's name again and voila your article will be the #1 in google for that name.

14. In addition, Zeq advocated the promotion of CAMERA members to admin status so that they could covertly support the CAMERA group on Israeli-Palestinian articles: In the issue of Israeli-palestine articles there is now additional restrictions that can be placed by an administrator AS LONG AS HE IS AN "uninvolved administrator". One or more of you who want to take this route should stay away from any Israel realted articles for month until they interact in a positive way with 100 wikipedia editors who would be used later to vote you as an administrator. We interpret this as a clear intent to manipulate the outcome of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles, which gives "uninvolved administrators" authority to "impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict".

15. Many of the e-mails from the other list members are banal by comparison. It is clear from the e-mails that several of the list members were having trouble making even basic edits to Wikipedia. Much of the list discussion concerns the basics of editing, sourcing and some non-Wikipedia issues.

Targeted articles[edit]

16. There appear to have been only four instances of specific articles being targeted. On March 20, Gilead asked CAMERA contributors to "add your two cents into this wildly contentious debate on the Wikipedia discussion page" at Talk:Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America#"is pro-Israel" vs. "cited as pro-Israel". He was active in that discussion as User:Gni, along with another CAMERA list member, User:Jamesegarner. We note that this occurred after Gni had already been involved in edit warring on the same article and had been blocked twice.

17. On March 28, Zeq posted a message concerning Hezbollah in which he claimed that an edit was a subtle example how the Hizbulah PR team works and that Clearly the hizbulla person who did this edit understand his target audiance in the left or neutral people in Europe and US. he does not go after the extreme right wing zionist he try to capture mindshre in the undecided ... User:Dajudem followed up by making two edits supporting Zeq's point of view ([10], [11]).

18. On April 9, "I <3 Israel" posted a message asking for support in changing the name of 2006 Lebanon War:

The discussion about voting reminded me that some time ago there were a few votes on how to name the article that wound up being named "2006 Lebanon war." It wound up being so named for many reasons, but mostly because the supporters of this name wanted to communicate their opinion that this war was conducted against Lebanon, not just Hezbollah. I think it might be appropriate to restart discussion on that title, if there are some people here who would be willing to support me in proposing a new title (such as "2006 Israel-Hezbollah war"). What do you guys think?

19. This was supported by several other list mambers, including Gilead, Dajudem and Zeq. We note the followup comments by Gilead, which show a clear intent to engage in vote-stacking:

This will surely be a contentious change, but that doesn't mean one should shy away from trying it. (Unless one is trying to become a Wikipedia administrator!) ... Also, I would suggest that if a number of people on this group are interested in this change -- there are at least 3, and likely more out of our group of 30 -- that everyone not jump into the page on the very same hour of the very same day. Perhaps I <3 Israel should take the lead by opening a new section in the discussion pages?

"I <3 Israel" posted a follow-up message to notify list members that he had started a discussion on Talk:2006 Lebanon War. As discussed in para. 5, this enabled us to identify him as User:Screen stalker.

20. A number of list members also engaged in a discussion concerning sourcing for Deir Yassin massacre between April 10-15, although they did not solicit specific changes. User:Screen stalker made two edits concerning sourcing on April 12 [12], [13].

21. On April 15 and 16, Zeq posted two requests for help concerning Allegations of Israeli apartheid. He made two edits to the article on April 15 [14], [15], and User:Dajudem made one edit on April 17 following "Isra guy's" second appeal for help [16]. Zeq also posted a list of "articles I consider highly important" as well as his full watchlist, consisting almost exclusively of Israel-related articles. He did not specifically ask list members to support any particular edits in those articles.

Targeted editors[edit]

22. Two editors were the subject of unfavorable comment on the list. User:Boodlesthecat was described as a "hostile editor" by Gilead for his edits to Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. More seriously, Zeq solicited the assistance of other list members to target User:Tarc. In a message of March 24, Zeq described Tarc as the Hizbulla rep in wikipedia and as a key pro palestinian editor in a message of March 26. He advised list members to "befriend Tarc" on unrelated topics in order to influence his editing on Middle Eastern issues:

Most of his edits are on rock bands so clearly this is an area that he knows something about ... If you like rock bands you can befriend Tarc - I have no idea if this "friendship" will hold once you start editing the Hamas article......It is more importent that you make friends with people who never edit anything about israel related issues - people who could vote for you or your proposals should you need their help.
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