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Is it time to re-evaluate the ADL?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The ADL is a bit of an odd entry as a GREL source at RSP, and I'm wondering if this is simply a function of there never being a fully fledged RFC on the matter, and merely a handful of relatively informal discussions. The ADL is functionally a pro-Israeli advocacy group that has also dabbled in civil rights more generally. At the moment, the organization is deemed largely GREL with a few caveats: "There is consensus that ADL is a generally reliable source, including for topics related to hate groups and extremism in the U.S. There is no consensus that ADL must be attributed in all cases, but there is consensus that the labelling of organisations and individuals by the ADL (particularly as antisemitic) should be attributed. Some editors consider the ADL's opinion pieces not reliable, and that they should only be used with attribution. Some editors consider the ADL a biased source for Israel/Palestine related topics that should be used with caution, if at all." I find the last two of these points particularly odd. Does this mean that there are opinion pieces that would be considered reliable and not require attribution? And how and why? Don't we ordinarily attribute almost all opinion, unless issued from an utterly impeachable source? And only some editors consider the ADL a biased source for the Israel/Palestine conflict? Again, surely it is a dead ringer for bias in that area? This question has recently intensified. Since October, the ADL has increasingly veered towards supporting not just Israel, but expressly Zionism, and equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism Anti-Defamation League staff decry ‘dishonest’ campaign against Israel critics. And now "many civil society groups are increasingly reluctant to partner with the non-profit. The ADL has facilitated trainings between US and Israeli law enforcement officers and allegedly spied on progressive and Arab American groups. (The ADL settled a lawsuit stemming from the spying allegations but denied wrongdoing.) In 2021, about 100 social justice and civil rights groups signed an open letter urging other organizations not to work with the ADL. Since the 7 October attacks, the ADL has been working with law enforcement to crack down on college campus activism that it sees as antisemitic. They developed a legal strategy to go after branches of Students for Justice in Palestine, and reached out to 200 university leaders calling on them to investigate the group for allegedly providing support to Hamas, which the group vehemently denies. ADL has described grassroots calls for protests of Israel’s military campaign as “pro-Hamas activism”." - so not just advocacy group, but a group working with law enforcement to interfere with freedom of speech and, well, the last line there speaks for itself - preech false equivalence of the propagandistic variety. Is this really GREL? As good as the best a news source can offer? And from the intercept: How The Adl’s Anti-Palestinian Advocacy Helped Shape U.S. Terror Laws – standfirst: Long before 9/11, Zionist groups like the Anti-Defamation League lobbied for counterterror legislation that singled out Palestinians, a new report reveals., and quote: Emma Saltzberg, the U.S. strategic campaigns director for Diaspora Alliance, an organization that fights “antisemitism and its instrumentalization,” told The Intercept that the ADL’s call for terrorism investigations is contrary to its stated mission as a civil rights group. And then finally we have Jewish Currents, with ADL Staffers Dissented After CEO Compared Palestinian Rights Groups to Right-Wing Extremists, Leaked Audio Reveals, the groups in question here including Jewish Voice for Peace, which the ADL CEO Greenblatt called “extremist” and compared to right-wing extremists. Is this really a source that we consider GREL, with only a ho-hum, "some editors consider the ADL a biased source for Israel/Palestine? Only some? Who doesn't? Iskandar323 (talk) 17:29, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Has this come about by way of a current dispute? A recent article in the Guardian opens in their own voice, with

ADL has only doubled down on initiatives defending Israel and the policies of the Israeli government amid criticism and staff resignations.The Anti-Defamation League CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, sparked controversy in 2022 when he placed opposition to Israel on a par with white supremacy as a source of antisemitism.

and continues in a similar vein. The bias is severe enough that I think this source should be considered gunrel for IP matters. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

It hasn't come by way of a particular dispute, but by way of the ADL repeatedly being brought up as GREL source in conversation with respect to the conflict, which seems entirely beyond the pale at this point. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:45, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

They are definitely a clear case for biased but reliable, I’m not sure who fully disagrees with biased in an I/P context. I would call them pretty objective when it comes to other topics, particularly right-wing and other antisemitism.

Regarding reliability, they are broadly cited, even during this conflict, and there are no other issues concerning reliability that are apparent which are not covered by bias.

While a phrasing change is a reasonable idea, probably by removing the opinion sentence and clarifying that the some users part refers to “that should be used with caution, if at all.” and not to the biased part, I see no reason to remove the ADL from the GREL list or to even re-discuss the topic. FortunateSons (talk) 17:46, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

The phrasing can hardly be changed without a re-discussion of the topic. One does not make changes willy-nilly to RSP. But thank you for your constructive engagement on the possible oddities here. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:48, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

We could definitely remove the second to last sentence for being specifically outside of policy, if we find unilateral consensus here, no? I think editors who could be perceived to be on “any side” of this conflict are still here to build an encyclopaedia, and using unattributed opinion pieces if we don’t do it for a Paper of Record is nothing anyone should support. As I consider the last sentence to be merely a linguistic and not a content error, requesting a new close could fix that, right? FortunateSons (talk) 18:01, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

If there is additional sourcing available similar to that of the Guardian, I fail to see how this source can be considered as anything other than generally unreliable for IP matters. If such sourcing exists, an RFC to clarify that seems desirable. Selfstudier (talk) 17:51, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I suppose if one had to point to one particular issue, it would be this Guardian phrase again: "ADL has described grassroots calls for protests of Israel’s military campaign as “pro-Hamas activism”." - I would say that this strays far beyond mere bias and into the realm of quite chronic falsehood. This is an extremely problematic position. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:52, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

The linked tweet (so not what we would use anyway) sounds within a reasonable interpretation of the facts, though I’m not very happy with tone (read: bias) either. Some of the “grass-roots-activism” is definitely supportive of at least some of the methods and goals by Hamas which were otherwise criticised by (western) media. As unfortunate as it is, warnings were somewhat reasonable based on some of the attacks on Jewish and Israeli institutions and organisations outside of Israel which happened over the last few months. FortunateSons (talk) 17:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

And bias is kind of covered, so unsure we need to change anything. Slatersteven (talk) 18:02, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Its statistical reporting of antisemitism has also been rubbished by tenured law professor David Bernstein [1], so even if we're cool with the propagandizing, its facts are a problem. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources doesn’t list Tablet (magazine), but I’m going to stick with biased but reliable unless shown otherwise, despite it being somewhat right-wing.

With the exception of the bomb threats (were I disagree with the outcome but understand the argument, as I would count 163 bomb threats against Muslim institutions to be Islamophobic even if not intended to be as such), I would say that the ADL response appropriately addressed most of the issues at hand. Do you disagree? FortunateSons (talk) 19:38, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I emphasized the author precisely because it was a professor, so regardless of the hosting source, it's a subject-matter expert speaking. He highlighted among other flaws an extremely skew-y methodology, misleading presentation, and ultimately concluded: "The ADL itself is primarily to blame for how its own study has been misconstrued and misused." The ADL's response was the usual fluffy PR waffle and hardly addressed the meat of the concerns, or any of the specifics, in the slightest. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:46, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I have found past reporting to be pretty clear, but I guess that’s subjective FortunateSons (talk) 22:48, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

David Bernstein is a right-wing tenured law professor who strongly believes that measuring, monitoring and indeed most forms of opposing racism are generally bad pursuits, who in 2017 was attacking the ADL for its reporting on antisemitism under Trump, but even he does not criticise the way they recorded data, but the way mainstream media reported their findings (which he said their press release was partly responsible for). The meat of his concerns that the what the ADL calls antisemitic incidents are not violent incidents and therefore shouldn't make Jews feel unsafe. We absolutely should not see his opinion piece as indicating unreliability. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:44, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

That's not entirely correct. He also criticises the type of incidents captured, including those found later to be unrelated to antisemitism but which the ADL did not discount. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:56, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

But ADL were very upfront about this in the report: Jewish institutions, including Jewish schools, community centers, and museums as well as synagogues, were the targets of 342 anti-Semitic incidents in 2017. This is an increase of 101% over the 170 incidents recorded in 2016. However, this number includes 163 bomb threats made in the first quarter of the year; the vast majority of which were alleged to have been perpetrated by a troubled Jewish teenager located in Israel. Excluding those bomb threats, the total number of incidents targeting Jewish institutions is 179, an increase of 5% over the 170 incidents targeting those places in 2016.[2] To me, this transparency shows we can use them as a source for facts, and perhaps just double check that we're not misinterpreting what they are counting. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:30, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

But it's still calling threats by a Jewish teenager antisemitic incidents? Are they implying self-hatred? Iskandar323 (talk) 23:16, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The question here is: does the ADL giving the figures both with and without these reported incidents in the 2017 report, and being explicit about doing that, mean they're not reliable for facts? BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

That's one question. Another is whether they are competent at categorising information in the first place. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:25, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

What is the ADL's reputation, that is what we should be basing this on? Slatersteven (talk) 11:20, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: I find the fact that even the group's own staff have been protesting at its partisanship and targeting of other civil rights groups over the past 12 months (Jewish Currents (March 2023), The Guardian (January 2024)) is pretty indicative of the issues at hand. Even if the ADL hadn't arrived at naked partisanship prior to Greenblatt, it surely has done so under his leadership. Now Jewish Voice for Peace, for example, have been grouped with the antisemitic crowd for advocating for Palestinian rights. So now, at least in the IP conflict sphere, the ADL appears to be anti-civil rights where it conflicts with its pro-Israel messaging. Given that the organisation's original merit was deemed to be in categorising far-right extremist groups, when it makes analogies between Jewish Voice for Peace to far-right groups and calls them "left-wing extremists", it is using the weight of that voice oppressively. So it is now leveraging its position within the civil rights community to take a stand against other Jewish groups when they conflict with it ideologically, which is remarkable to say the least. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:24, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• It seems like they are becoming more partisan recently including with their domestic coverage. I don't see any reason to cite their output on the I/P conflict—it's not like they do original reporting or scholarship in that area. (t · c) buidhe 01:33, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
• As the person who opened the original ADL RfC, I specifically asked the Israel-Palestine question because it seemed to me that the ADL was partisan on this topic, an opinion I still hold. While I think the ADL is a useful source for far-right extremism ala the SPLC, there are much better sources for the I-P topic area. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:39, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  Does anybody ever use it as a source on I-P itself? That would be bizarre. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  I recall it being used to state that the phrase "from the river to the sea" is antisemitic, which is the sort of usage I had in mind. I don't think it's unusable to represent its own opinion, but it's views definitely should be attributed to the ADL rather than stated as fact. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:42, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  It's being cited in the Finkelstein thread on this page right now. Levivich (talk) 02:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

It's been brought up in Talk pages that the ADL (and in related discussions the SPLC) are RS with regard to what can be called a "hate group" etc -- I think that's the more typical citation we see, rather than for facts on currents events like I-P. Their methodology on this similarly comes under criticism from time to time, but it somewhat depends on the types of activity they're covering (which is part of the problem -- a lot of the methodology behind their pronouncements, particularly for smaller groups, is opaque). Generally in such articles the ADL's pronouncements are cited with in-prose attribution, unless (as in bigger articles) they are backed up with peer-reviewed scholars claiming more transparently something similar. (I seem to recall we used to have information on think tanks and advocacy groups on the WP:SOURCETYPES section of WP:RS, or somewhere else, but I cannot find it; this seems a notable gap in otherwise extensive coverage.) SamuelRiv (talk) 22:34, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: 1. The fact that you don't like the politics of a certain source is not a reason to declare it unreliable. The only justification for deprecating a source from "reliable" to "not reliable", in general or on any specific subject, is to show that it has started to make false factual claims (in general or on a specific issue) in a rate that is significantly larger than it made before, and significantly larger than the average rate of false claims that appear in other reliable sources. You didn't present any proof of that here with regard to the ADL.

2. I strongly reject your suggestion that holding the view that "antizionism is a type of antisemitism" is a reason to declare someone as unreliable. The idea that "antizionism is a type of antisemitism" is very far from being a fringe idea. On the contrary, it is a very common and mainstream idea. See for example here, here, and here. It's true that there is a minority that thinks otherwise, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still a mainstream idea. Claiming that holding this view makes the ADL unreliable source means that every news organization that has any political mainstream view (that is contested by some people) should be considered unreliable. For example by this logic the NYT should not be considered a reliable source on American politics because it endorsed Biden over Trump. But of course nobody would make such a preposterous suggestion.

3. Furthermore there is a clear and simple justification for the position that "antizionism is a type of antisemitism": what anti-Zionism claims is that, unlike all other nations, the Jewish nation doesn't have the right of self-determination in its homeland. This is a discrimination against the Jews, i.e. anti-Semitism. In other words the view that "antizionism is a type of antisemitism" is equivalent to the view that "like all other nations, the Jewish nation has the right of self-determination in its homeland". If you think that holding the view that "the Jewish nation has the right of self-determination in its homeland" make a source unreliable, then by the same logic you should also declare almost all of the Western media as unreliable because they support the view that "the Ukrainian nation has the right of self-determination in its homeland". And by the same logic you should also declare all of the Arab and Muslim media (and most of the Western media as well) as unreliable because they support the view that "the Palestinian nation has the right of self-determination in its homeland". All of this is of course completely preposterous. Vegan416 (talk) 07:13, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

For clarity, the first example seems to indicate that the appropriateness of equating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is actually deeply contested rather than mainstream: In the US, Palestinian rights supporters have long rejected conflations of Zionism with Judaism, noting that many Jewish Americans identify as anti-Zionist. The three attestations of anti-Zionism being anti-Semitism, as found in the linked sources, are from government legislators or appointees (the U. S. Congress, the French Parliament, and a seemingly trial-level court ruling from a judge)—these are not journalists writing for reputed periodicals or academics writing in scholarly venues. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 07:37, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Hydrangeans

I don't know in what kind of country you live, but In democratic states (like the US, France and Germany) the government and legislators are representing the people, and therefore the opinion of the government and legislature (especially when it has vast majority in them) is BY DEFINITION a mainstream opinion. Vegan416 (talk) 07:56, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think you know how Wikipedia works. Legislatures are not reliable sources on Wikipedia. Otherwise the US Congress could say that Iraq has WMDs and we'd have to print it in Wikivoice. Loki (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that a legislative body is not an RS. However, I would consider a decision by a major US legislative body to be a strong indication that it isn’t a fringe idea.

In this specific case, the correlation (and disputed causation) between anti-zionism and antisemitism is at the very least broadly discussed and therefore not fringe. That doesn’t have to mean that it is true, but it does likely mean that it isn’t fringe.

While the discussion itself is interesting (but out of scope), I think the fact that the argument by @Hydrangeans considers it contested and not fringe is enough to show that antizionism = antisemitism is not fringe (enough) and therefore does not impact reliability. FortunateSons (talk) 20:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

The decisions of a legislature have no impact on reliability at all. A state legislature once tried to declare that pi = 3.2 exactly. Doesn't make it so. Loki (talk) 23:57, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

True, but regarding social issues (as this is), a significant amount of bodies making such decisions indicates that it isn’t a fringe view. Right? FortunateSons (talk) 00:05, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Not in the Wikipedia sense of the term. Per the guideline on fringe, in Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field (italics added), not the "prevailing views of legislators elected by the public" or even "the prevailing views of the general public" (which legislators don't necessarily represent anyway; consider gerrymandering and how it makes legislatures more extreme than and less representative of their constituents).

As far as understanding the prevailing views of the field—that's to say, scholars who study antisemitism, discrimination, etc.—one could do little worse than Oxford University Press' Antisemitism: A Very Short Introduction (2015 [2nd ed.]) which states, To equate anti-Zionism and antisemitism is, however, far too simplistic, theoretically crass, and demeaning to the memory of those who suffered the horrendous consequences of real antisemitism (116). The ADL is out of step with the field. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 00:21, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I unfortunately don’t seem to have access.

While not quite as good as your source, the NYT article shows that it is disputed, at least enough to not be fringe.

Additionally, this subject matter expert describes a significant correlation: source

Second source from the same expert. FortunateSons (talk) 01:02, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The excellent NYTimes article on the subject provides many views but in no way endorses the concept that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. The last line is “I think there is a contempt for active, engaged American Jews who think it’s not just about Israel existing,” she said, “but Israel existing in a context that does include the Palestinians.” O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:24, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate you removing the personal comment.

The article does not claim that antizionism is per se antisemitism, but clearly discusses it as one of a handful of “mainstream” view points, showing that an/‘the’ newspaper RS does not consider it a fringe view, otherwise it wouldn’t be discussed like that. FortunateSons (talk) 01:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The ADL's position seems to be more complex and flexible than anti-Zionism = antisemitism. This is evident from their analysis of/attack on the Jewish Voice for Peace organization here as part of their "Anti-Israel Activity" backgrounder reporting. An example quote is, for example, "Criticism of Israel or of Zionism is not inherently anti-Semitic. But sometimes it is." In any case, this kind of wide-ranging discussion seems too far removed from the advice at the top of the page, "Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports.", to produce a result of practical use to editors. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@Loki

1. I know very well how wikipedia works. What you seem to completely misunderstand is that the discussion here is not at all about whether we should put in an article the statement "Antizionism is antisemitism" as a fact in the wiki-voice. I would actually completely object to doing so, because it is clearly a matter of opinion and not of fact.

2. If on the other hand someone would have suggested to write in some article the the following statement "The view that antizionism is antisemitism is a far from being a fringe view in the USA, as is evidenced for example by the landslide vote in favor of it in the house of representatives" as a fact in wiki-voice, that would be completely ok and acceptable. The RS which will establish this fact would not be the legislature decision itself, but rather an article describing the vote in some RS such as for example this https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/world/middleeast/house-anti-zionism-antisemitism.html. This simply follows from the dictionary definition of "fringe". A view that is held by 3/4 of the population, or even just 1/2 of the population simply cannot be fringe. This would be a contradiction in terms.

3. But in fact, even this is not the discussion here. The discussion is whether the fact that someone holds this view disqualifies him from being RS. So you criticism here was completely irrelevant and off the mark. Vegan416 (talk) 20:49, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Fringe-ness is not decided by the opinions of random people, it's decided by the opinions of experts in the relevant field. There are many things that the majority of Americans believe that are unambiguously WP:FRINGE. Most Americans believe that ghosts exist. Loki (talk) 23:58, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Loki

I completely reject this. The opinion of 75% of the US legislature is not the "opinions of random people". And the analogy to belief in ghosts is not relevant, because this is not a scientific question at all but rather a political/semantic one. The definition of antisemitism is not a question of fact, but rather of opinion, and there is no scientific definition of antisemitism. That means there is really no need to rely on experts on this question.

But if you insist on using experts in the field, then it is easy to demonstrate that the view that "antizionism is antisemitism" is far from being a fringe idea even among experts in the field of the research of antisemitism. For example in 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted a Working Definition of Antisemitism, which endorsed the equation of certain manifestations of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. And here are several more references to RS which support the claim that antizionism is antisemitism:

https://books.google.co.il/books?id=767fCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA161&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.co.il/books?id=BHtrEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA448&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Vegan416 (talk) 11:22, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The notion that AZ = AS is misused to protect Israel and that includes IHRA misuse. Some people do use AZ to hide behind, but one cannot use that in order to tar every anti-Zionist with the same brush and people that do that are contemptible. As is quoted above, "To equate anti-Zionism and antisemitism is, however, far too simplistic, theoretically crass, and demeaning to the memory of those who suffered the horrendous consequences of real antisemitism". Selfstudier (talk) 11:44, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

That's your personal opinion and the opinion of whoever wrote that sentence you quote. But I subscribe to the view that denying the Jewish nation's right of self-determination in their historic homeland is a type of antisemitism, and so are many experts as I have shown, and so are 75% of the US legislature. If that means you think that I am contemptible, well I'm sorry about that, but I can live with it. It won't make me change my mind. Vegan416 (talk) 11:50, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Generally reliable for I/P and antisemitism and Social Justice in general ADL is one of the most important organizations in combatting antisemtism, it was also an important organisation in the civil rights movement and has faced scrutiny by those opposed to social justice for decades. Jonathan Greenblat head of ADL was an advisor to Barack Obama and headed the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation under Obama so I don't think anyone can say they are partisan in politics in favour of the right wing. Also Greenblat and ADL have been active in condeming Trump's travel bans and have critisized Trump's adminsitration as well as Mike Pompeo for anti mulsim activities. [3]

Also it is very important to note that according to CNN [4] Elon Musk is trying to demonize and delegitimze ADL and Jonathan Greenblat because they crtisized him and Twitter. Clearly they are not afraid to go against the big fish.They even boycutted twitter. I am also worried that these bad faith accusations against ADL is influenced by Elon Musk's twitter campaign. Eladkarmel (talk) 09:01, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Nothing after your initial !vote has anything to do with assessing the source's reliability, or engages with concerns already expressed about such. Remsense诉 09:05, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Please note the RfC is not here Vegan416 (talk) 10:10, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Bias is not an issue, factual accuracy is. Slatersteven (talk) 12:52, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: Sure, so do you think it is a factually accurate statement that Jewish Voice for Peace are left-wing extremists? Because my sky is blue reading of that is that it is tripe. Based on the ADL contention that anti-zionism = antisemitism, Jewish Voice for Peace are also antisemitic. So are we happy with allowing the ADL to label (as fact) other Jewish groups as antisemitic – essentially the classic "self-hating Jew" pejorative for those that don't toe the line, but sadly not in this instance rolled out for comedic purposes. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:31, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

That all smacks of OR. What do RS think? Slatersteven (talk) 13:34, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: Well it isn't. I presented you with the Jewish Currents and Guardian articles just above. Did you miss my comment, and have you actually read the contents? Iskandar323 (talk) 13:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

You mean the stuff about what some of their staff think? Slatersteven (talk) 13:47, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Aside from that RS reporting, there's also this Times of Israel piece on the ADL's long-standing antipathy towards Jewish Voice for Peace. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

That an RS reporting disgruntled staff, not them saying it is unreliable, and the new source seems to be the one calling JVP far-left, not the ADL. Nor doers it seem to be overly crucial of the ADL. Slatersteven (talk) 14:47, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Are we missing the point that the ADL is an advocacy group that publishes material without peer review or anything by way of an editorial board? If it were a lobby group that advocated on behalf of companies, it wouldn't get anywhere near RSP, but because it is a lobby group that advocates on behalf of a country (a foreign government in the context of the US) it appears to get a free pass. The tuppence from the Nation entitled "The ADL Goes Full Bully: The organization’s new campaign against anti-Zionist and Palestine-solidarity groups is a clear sign that it lacks the credibility to lead on civil rights issues." Iskandar323 (talk) 16:13, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

No i am missing the part where RS say (in their words) it is not reliable, and with this I am out, and I suggest others users drop out as well rather than bludgeoning the process, we have all had our say. Slatersteven (talk) 16:16, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems worth mentioning that the guideline on original research applies to how we write articles and is not a prohibition against carefully studying sources to gauge independence, reliability, etc. There are plenty of reasons to still prefer assessments from reliable sources, and I generally do so—but in this case the question becomes academic, because Iskandar323 has provided a source. The Nation article linked in their prior comment states outright, at the end of the article, in the body text, the ADL lacks the credibility to lead on issues of equality, discrimination, and civil rights. Credibility is the fact that someone or something can be believed or trusted. If the ADL cannot be trusted on questions of discrimination and civil rights, it is not a reliable source for identifying hate speech/activities, assessing social movement groups, etc. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 07:45, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Hydrangeans

The problem with your argument is that The Nation itself is considered by most editors to be a partisan source (See here ) so you cannot use subjective claims coming from it to disqualify another source. Vegan416 (talk) 08:05, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I believe ADL is a reliable source for facts in the topic area where it has expertise, e.g. in reporting on right-wing hate groups or conspiracy theories. The problem is about its judgement in using contentious labels such as "extremist", which are labels WP generally ought to avoid anyway. It is also the case that it is hasty in labelling Israel criticism as antisemitic and fails to distinguish between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. For this reason, we should not say "X is antisemitic", citing only ADL. However, as it is heavily cited and notable, it would often be noteworthy for us to say "ADL describe X as antisemitic", balanced with noteworthy opposing views where applicable. In the specific example given above, if any publication of the ADL called e.g. JVP extremist or antisemitic, that might be noteworthy (especially if reported by secondary sources) but not something we should relay in our own voice without attribution -- but it anyway appears that this was the personal opinion of the CEO rather than an official statement of the organisation. ADL has absolutely no expertise on Israel-Palestine itself, and I cannot imagine why anybody would cite it in that topic area. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:54, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful for editors to link to a Wikipedia article that uses ADL for the I-P conflict for context. Oxfam is an advocacy group, and I have seen a secondary source quote Oxfam for use in the I-P topic area, so I am not sure if ADL being an advocacy group excludes it from being reliable. Wafflefrites (talk) 17:04, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• It's green because it doesn't misrepresent facts. The main contentions I'm seeing here that I feel like I can refute are that:
  • The ADL is unreliable to use for factual statements of anti-Semitism because it conflates anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.
    • In response to this, it already states in the RSP listing that the ADL must be attributed for claims of antisemitism. This is already the status quo and doesn't necessitate going down in reliability.
  • The ADL is biased in the Israel-Palestine topic area.
    • This is again, already the status quo and RSP says to use it with caution in that area.
  • The ADL accused some campus groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) of supporting Hamas.
    • Students for Justice in Palestine supported the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. [5] [6] The exact quote from SJP is contained in their "Day of Resistance toolkit". [7]

      • Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance: across land, air, and sea, our people have broken down the artificial barriers of the Zionist entity, taking with it the facade of an impenetrable settler colony and reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near. As the Palestinian student movement, we have an unshakable responsibility to join the call for mass mobilization. National liberation is near— glory to our resistance, to our martyrs, and to our steadfast people.

    • This is what the ADL was referring to when it said that SJP supported terrorism. [8] Generally, when someone makes a statement in support of a terrorist attack, it's assumed that they also support the terrorists that committed the attack. @Iskandar323: says that:
      • I suppose if one had to point to one particular issue, it would be this Guardian phrase again: "ADL has described grassroots calls for protests of Israel’s military campaign as “pro-Hamas activism”."
    • I would like to hear how the above statement isn't "pro-Hamas".
    • I also don't understand why this degrades the ADL as a reliable source. Currently, the ADL targets many groups that make violent threats against Jewish people, such as neo-Nazis that glorify the Holocaust. Another quote from SJP's toolkit:
      • Settlers are already fleeing the land, their ‘dedication’ to the settler colony is easily broken. The dedication of Palestianians for their national liberation is unshakable.
    • If I'm not mistaken, this is glorifying the genocide of Jewish Israelis and acclaiming how many were turned into refugees during the conflict. The ADL's position has not changed during the conflict or since October 7th. Generally, they oppose groups that advocate for the murder of people because they are Jewish, regardless of if it is Europe, America, Israel, or anywhere else in the world.
• The burden of proof here is to show that the ADL isn't publishing the truth. As far as I can see, this burden hasn't been met. I welcome inline replies as I put this in point-form. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:10, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  No source is presumed to be reliable. The burden of proof is precisely the opposite: those arguing that a source has a reputation for fact checking and accuracy should be prepared to show it's the case. (t · c) buidhe 03:36, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  The claims made by the source are substantially true and it's already been shown to be reliable in previous discussions. There's been no evidence offered to show that this has changed. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 13:40, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Chess: I don't believe I raised a single specific point about this group called the SJP, but instead focused entirely on JVP. One might call it somewhat strawman-ish to respond to entirely different specifics than those that were raised. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:10, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  JVP is an extremely controversial group in the Jewish community, not just for its anti-Zionism but also its association with radical Palestinian groups and individuals, including convicted terrorists. You can literally read about in on their own Wiki page, but it’s no surprise a mainstream Jewish group like ADL would regard JVP very poorly. Toa Nidhiki05 16:01, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  I fully support Chess's position that the ADL is a reliable source and that the status que should not change. Vegan416 (talk) 06:15, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• It's very frustrating to see the decline of the ADL into a propaganda org for Israel over the last few years because it has been a valuable resource for tracing American nazis and neo-nazis. I would suggest the exercise of extreme caution in the use of ADL sources - likely inappropriate for anything even tangentially related to Israel. But if it's dealing with issues surrounding Americans that it is identifying specifically as Nazis in a context not involving Israel it would likely still be at least somewhat reliable in that context. Simonm223 (talk) 12:38, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  I've also found this In These Times piece charting the ADL's slow-motion abdication of its civil rights leadership role. There's also this Boston Review piece in a similar vein, though not sure if it's guest analysis or opinion. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:05, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  The Anti-Defamation League: Israel’s Attack Dog in the US

  "Posing as a civil rights group, the ADL has long operated as an intelligence organization targeting Israel’s critics. So why does the media still treat it as a credible source?" Selfstudier (talk) 14:44, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

• This is a complicated one because:
  • The ADL is clearly unreliable regarding the I/P conflict. They're mainly cited for whether or not a group is a hate group, but they regard essentially any opposition to Israel at all as antisemitic, which is not anywhere near a mainstream position on this issue. Just going by their public statements, they'd accuse the vast majority of nations in the UN of antisemitism just based off their official positions towards the Israel-Palestine conflict. No newsorg in the world would repeat those accusations in their own voice, so it's clear their accusations in the area are not credible.
  • Despite this, when talking about antisemitism outside the context of I/P, the ADL clearly are a reliable source, and often a useful one.
  • This would normally justify two entries (compare WP:FOXNEWS and WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS), except that it's fairly often the case that these two areas of expertise converge on each other and cannot clearly be separated. For instance, it's sometimes the case that pro-Palestine organizations do things that could be viewed as antisemitic, such as protesting outside a Jewish-owned business that donates significantly to Zionist causes. For an organization to have credibility in this situation it needs to be able to judge the situation neutrally, but the ADL clearly can't, even though there is some credible reason to think there's antisemitism going on.

So I think my general inclination would be to lower the ADL overall down to yellow, and make a separate red entry for the ADL on Israel/Palestine. Loki (talk) 22:34, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps keep green for the moment on things not related to Israel and Jews, but I think yes, just having a warning in it about such matters is inadequate when it actively harasses Jews who are against Israel's expansionist policies. NadVolum (talk) 13:50, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable in I/P area; possibly in others. This is an advocacy group so the threshold is higher than for a standard peer-reviewed secondary source. Recent coverage suggests that the sources is not only biased but may be unreliable. For example, The Nation dismantles ADL's claims that "U.S. Antisemitic Incidents Skyrocketed 360% in Aftermath of Attack in Israel" and asks ...why does the media still treat it as a credible source? --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:44, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
• Generally unreliable in I/P area. Agree with Coffman. Conflation with disagreement of Israeli politics or Israel itself with antisemitism is problematic to a dangerous level. A defamation league cannot itself falsely defame others. Period. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:13, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
• Generally unreliable for I/P and antisemitism, broadly construed per Simon, Loki, Coffman, OP, The Guardian, The Nation, et al. Treating criticism of or opposition to Zionism or Israeli govt policies/actions as antisemitism makes them unreliable on these issues. They really shouldn't be used as a source for anything IMO, as they're an advocacy group, not scholarship or journalism. (For the record I'd say the same about SPLC, Oxfam, Heritage Foundation, Greenpeace, etc.) Levivich (talk) 02:33, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
• Reliable for I/P and antisemitism. The ADL believes that the Jewish nation has a right of self-determination in its homeland like any other nation, and that therefore antizionism is antisemitism. This is a very reasonable position, and even if you are against it for some reason, it is definitely not a ground to declare the ADL as unreliable. Furthermore, there is no scientific definition of antisemitism, since this is not a scientific question but rather a question of political opinion (or of semantics) so the question of "expertise" is irrelevant. But if one insists on "expertise" in this field then clearly the ADL can be viewed as experts in it, as they have been researching it for more than 100 years. Vegan416 (talk) 06:41, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Vegan416: Your comment is signed "Levivich" instead of "Vegan416". Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:12, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Hydrangeans: I've struck the original erroneous signature and added an unsigned template, so it should be good to go now, thanks. Left guide (talk) 06:31, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  corrected. The editor interface here is really inconvenient to use. Vegan416 (talk) 06:42, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable on the Israel–Palestine topic area and on antisemitism. Coffman and Loki sum up the matter well, and the quotation I provided further up from Oxford University Press' Antisemitism: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd ed. (2015) grounds some of my reasoning: To equate anti-Zionism and antisemitism is, however, far too simplistic, theoretically crass, and demeaning to the memory of those who suffered the horrendous consequences of real antisemitism (116). The ADL is out of step from the field. To Vegan416's comment, I would say that reducing Zionism to a right of self-determination in its homeland is eliding other aspects of Zionism, including those that are what some critics of Zionism take issue with, like settler methodology and negating the diaspora. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:21, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  this is the definition of Zionism https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism:

  "Zionism, Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews".

  Please explain how being "anti" this idea is not being against the Jewish nation's right of self-determination. Vegan416 (talk) 06:45, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  Also "negating the diaspora" is not an integral necessary part of Zionism. The fact is there millions of Zionist Jews who live in the diaspora. And I don't understand what you mean by "settler methodology". In any case criticism of Zionism is not defined antisemitism by the ADL. What the ADL defines as antisemitism is real antizionism, i.e. the belief that Israel doesn't have a right to exist as a Jewish state in the Jewish nation's historical homeland. And I said before this is view of the ADL is quite mainstream Vegan416 (talk) 10:30, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  Also, in 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted a Working Definition of Antisemitism, one which subsequently was officially recognized by various governments, foremost among them, the United States and France, which endorsed the equation of certain manifestations of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

  And here are several references to RS which support the claim that antizionism is antisemitism:

  https://books.google.co.il/books?id=767fCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA161&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

  https://books.google.co.il/books?id=BHtrEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA448&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/29/comment Vegan416 (talk) 10:49, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  This is not the place for a debate like this, we are here only concerned with reliability of ADL, not these other distractions. Selfstudier (talk) 11:15, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  But one of the main arguments of the person who opened this discussion here was that the ADL is not a reliable source because the ADL says that antizionism is antisemitism. And some of the other editors here follow suit. So how can we answer his question without discussing this argument? Vegan416 (talk) 11:32, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  I and others have replied elsewhere about the idea that AZ = AS, in general that is false (and no, I do not want to debate that with you). Selfstudier (talk) 11:47, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  Nobody forces you to debate with me. But I of course reject your opinion that it is false. Vegan416 (talk) 11:55, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Generally unreliable: I was actually also just about to open this discussion. The ADL has been historically controversially in matters relating to antisemitism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally, having been embroiled in espionage and defamation campaigns against pro-Palestinian activists. But that's not the only source of controversy; the ADL was even engaged in a propaganda campaign against Nelson Mandela and had numerous other controversies relating to its recognition of the Armenian genocide. Recently, the ADL has broadened its definition of antisemitism to label pro-Palestinian demonstrations as such, even in the face of increasing internal dissent within the organization, and critical investigative reports done by the Guardian and the Nation [9] and [10]. The Nation's report published two months ago went as far as describing the ADL as Israel's "attack dog" in the United States! This is an extremely historically controversial organization which has not been reliable. Every single claim made by this organization needs to be attributed, if used at all in controversial cases. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:02, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The Nation itself is considered by most editors to be a partisan source (See here ) so you cannot use subjective claims coming from it to disqualify another source. Vegan416 (talk) 13:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Twice you have said this, The Nation is green, ie generally reliable, even if biased. Selfstudier (talk) 13:42, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The Guardian is also green, and we can definitely use their reporting to disqualify a controversial source like the ADL. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:45, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The ADL is also green, ie generally reliable, even if biased. And so it should stay. Vegan416 (talk) 14:48, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Idk about that, I'm thinking there are enough caveats being expressed here that we should perhaps consider a formal RFC to look at that, what do others think? Selfstudier (talk) 15:23, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, quite possibly. We now seem to be at: highly partisan, tone-deaf advocacy group that can't be relied on re: IP, antisemitism or its catalog of hate symbols ... But maybe, just maybe, might be reliable for its material on far-right hate groups in the US? (Talk about a niche reliability disclaimer!) Iskandar323 (talk) 15:38, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Generally reliable except where its claims are based on a definition of antisemitism that differs from what readers would expect (and the definition most other groups/scholars seem to use). That seems to be the main objection to its reliability, which has become more acute since October. There's no reason to skip by traditional "option 2" (additional considerations apply), which seems like a good fit here, in favor of "option 3" (generally unreliable) when it has, for years, been publishing highly respected and widely cited research, journalism, and commentary-style content on extremism, hate groups, stereotypes, misinformation, etc. I see no reason their perspective on the scope of antisemitism should have any bearing on all of that, but I do see why we shouldn't simply cite their data on, say, the rise in antisemitic incidents as fact. If it's deemed to have WP:WEIGHT, it should be attributed and probably contextualized, since it's not the same definition the average reader would think of. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:53, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

BTW I boldtext !voted because that's what people started doing, but given the current consensus is based on an advertised RfC, this should really be turned into an RfC if the intention is to change WP:RSP. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:56, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree, I'll open one separately now. Loki (talk) 23:50, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Done. Loki (talk) 00:07, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The ADL does sloppy research on 'hate symbols'

It has repeatedly come up on related pages that the ADL cannot be trusted when it comes to researching symbols. The research they put forth is utterly terrible and would not pass an introductory course on the matter.

An example that caused a headache over at our own Black Sun (symbol) article (back in 2019) is their entry on what they call the "Sonnenrad" ([11]). This entry appears to have once been intended to be about the the Black Sun (symbol), but an earlier version appeared to have no idea what the word Sonnenrad was used for (and seemed to have been copied and pasted from an earlier, non-ADL resource without much thought).

As the entry today says (probably after someone their encountered our discussion of it), the German noun Sonnenrad is literally 'sunwheel' and can refer to any number of other symbols, including the swastika. Nonetheless, the ADL still hasn't bothered to make a separate Black Sun entry, an important neo-Nazi symbol today.

Their symbol database is full of other poorly-researched entries with dubious 'facts', like on the group's entry for the Wolfsangel symbol (entry). Here the ADL claims it is "an ancient runic symbol", which is completely false. It is not a character from any historic ("ancient") runic script. And I know they've repeatedly been asked to correct this by scholars.

Most of their entries on historic symbols are just a mess (like this one, where they use the "life rune" term throughout without noting that this comes from 1900s Völkisch circles and is not 'ancient'). And that's just the beginning of the issues with this article — all their articles on runes are just a total mess. They are certainly not something we should be considering reliable.

The ADL could easily correct the many issues in these entries at any time by bringing on an expert. To date they have expressed no interest in doing so despite positioning themselves as authorities on these topics. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:48, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

• https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/sonnenrad seems to actually say all of what you say about the sonnenrad, seems pretty balanced to me. Slatersteven (talk) 18:51, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  Adjusted above. While still garbled, confused, and incorrect, the ADL revised the entry to make more sense, and that's why there are only images of the Black Sun with it. This sloppy 'research' led to an obnoxious discussion over at the article's talk page ([12]) and it's why the ADL lacks a Black Sun entry, despite the attention the topic has received. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:01, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  So what do they say that is factualy incorrect? Slatersteven (talk) 19:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  Besides the Wolfsangel example above, the misinformation about the Black Sun, and the lack of research about the "life rune"? The whole database is riddled with errors, provides no authorship information (who wrote this garbage?), and cites no sources. I could easily put together a long list here. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:14, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  What misinformation about the black sun, what do they say about it that is wrong? Not a long list, one factoid they get wrong, just one. Slatersteven (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  I'm discussing historic issues with the site. The current entry is better than the old one but it remains a garbled mess that isn't clear that what it's discussing, not even calling the Black Sun symbol by name. And the Wolfsangel isn't an "ancient rune", for example. Poor 'research' like this continues to cause issues on relevant Wikipedia entries. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:24, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

All Black suns are sonnerad's that is not incorrect. And the Wolfsangel is a rune as all runes are "Runes were used to write Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialized purposes thereafter." so yes it is a rune that dates back to at least 1299, Thus is can be argued that even Ancient is not wrong, as it is a matter of perspective. So this is a POV issue, not an inaccuracy one, so with this you have the field. Ohh and correcting errors is a sign of being an RS. Slatersteven (talk) 19:32, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

"so yes it is a rune that dates back to at least 1299" — lol, what on earth are you talking about? The Wolfsangel has never been a part of any historic ("ancient") runic alphabet. That's an objective fact. It does however get confused for 'an ancient rune' by non-experts and here we see this happening with the ADL, which is unacceptable for a resource positioning itself as authorative.

Are you remotely familiar with the runic alphabets? Do you know what a rune is? We have plenty of articles on these topics.

I strongly suggest that you do some very basic research before commenting further. When someone has genuine concerns about reliability and demonstrates poor research, step one is for you to become familiar enough about a topic to discuss it before attempting to do so.

Furthermore, there's one Black Sun (Schwarze Sonne) symbol and it's from the mid-1930s-early 1940s. It gained its name in the 1990s and it's just a type of 'sun wheel', which is nothing more than a category with a questionable name. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:36, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I remember this discussion occurring at Azov Brigade, I forget the conclusion though. Selfstudier (talk) 19:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Together, the lack of sourcing, the lack of care, and the cavalier nature of these entries suggests it is a bad encyclopedic resource. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:59, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Our own articles must have citations and authorship. However, that is not a requirement for sources themselves (or not necessarily). The lack of bylines in The Economist, for instance, is a bit of a pain, but does not render it non-RS. A lack of citations or hyperlinks in a magazine piece would not render it non-RS if the magazine were otherwise deemed reliable. If there are factual errors, that is another matter, and those seem more worth highlighting. Freelance-frank (talk) 21:51, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Not all sources provide their sources, but most sources have some sort of provenance. News sources have editorial boards, academic papers have peer review, even think tank papers normally have a list of sources, and the ADL has what exactly? Blind trust? Iskandar323 (talk) 22:15, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

It literally states, sourced, on the Wolfsangel page that this symbol is sometimes mistaken for a rune, but appears in no runic alphabet. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems like that the list of perennial sources should note that the ADL is unreliable regarding hate symbols. Cortador (talk) 21:33, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Hmm... this is actually all fairly convincing that the ADL just shouldn't be a reliable source in general. Especially failing to correct the Wolfsangel mistake is a big one: that's a clear mistake of fact and while making it doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on them, not correcting it absolutely does. Loki (talk) 22:32, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I think that, in general, most of the organizations that purport to make lists of "hate symbols" just kind of throw whatever crap in there. For example, if you look at the ADL's "hate symbols database", you will see entries for:

• 1-11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• 18
• 23
• 28
• 33/6
• 38

I don't really think a classification should be taken seriously when, of the two-digit numbers between 10 and 40, ten are hate symbols. jp×g🗯️ 10:42, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

If you look at these entries, it’s clear that in context they are indeed hate symbols. When “12” appears in an Aryan Brotherhood tattoo as a symbol of the AB it is absolutely a hate symbol. The fact that a lot of things are repurposed as hate symbols does bit make a listing of them unreliable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:51, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• This all depends on what it's being used for. If there's debate over whether something is an ancient rune, no, the ADL should not win that argument. That's simply not their lane. If you're writing about how a symbol (whether an ancient rune or anything else) is used by a Neo-Nazi group, yes, ADL is a good source. Their hate symbols projects are widely cited in both scholarship and the press. Not scholarship as in "let's explore the ancient history of a symbol with help from the ADL" but scholarship that intersects with hate speech, hate groups, bias, etc. On that the ADL is seen as an authority (even if their popularity is decreasing over the last few months...). Yes, there are a lot of numbers in the database because there are lots of symbols that have been either created or appropriated by one or more hate-related purposes. As for whether to include it in an article like 12 (number), that's a good WP:WEIGHT debate for the talk page. Even in the historical criticisms above, OP acknowledges they've made improvements, and that doesn't even concern the main contribution of the project, which (again) isn't a history of the symbol in general but how it's used as a hate symbol. Where have they been wrong about whether or not a given symbol is a "symbol of hate"? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:17, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  Digging through the database, some dubious claims:

  • There's a lot of numbers in there, as previously stated. Some of those, like 14 and 88, definitely are white supremacist symbols. But others I feel are more dubious, and are sourced mostly to relatively obscure prison gangs. I feel like to be a hate symbol a symbol needs to be used enough by racists that it at least competes with the ordinary use of the symbol, which is not the case for the numbers 11 or 13.
  • They claim that ACAB, short for "all cops are bastards", can be a hate symbol. But I frankly don't think this is plausible: the term is used by a whole lot of anti-establishment groups, most of which are on the left, and any use by hate groups seems like a consequence of this broader meaning.
  • They claim that anti-antifa images are hate symbols. I say confidently as someone personally on the far-left that basically the entire American right and much of the American center is against antifa, often to a weird degree, so this is again a symbol that is used by hate groups to refer to a broader meaning and not a hate symbol itself.

  (Overall though, my verdict from picking through the database is that the ADL is a reliable source for whether a symbol is a hate symbol or not, even if they're not always great about the historical details. Notably there's nothing in here about pro-Palestine activism, which was my main worry.) Loki (talk) 21:56, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

The closer I look at the database, the more errors I find. Seriously, to whoever wrote this junk: Have an expert come in for a few days focused on the database. It would resolve all your issues.

Many of these entries are uncessary and many necessary entries are missing. Those that do exist are riddled with issues. I know from personal experience that several scholars in my circle have reached out to even volunteer to correct the material for them. There is just no excuse for the many problems here but getting this right does not appear to be at all a priority for the ADL. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:03, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Given the indent, I presume this is a response to me (oops, sorry -- on second look it might be to Loki, in which case nevermind). Where are the errors related to relationship between these symbols and hate speech/hate groups, and who are the experts that have criticized it in that regard? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:59, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The more obscure a symbol is, the more useful ADL is as a source. With a common term like ACAB, we’d probably find better sources than ADL. With a Nazi prison gang, ADL would be a very good source for saying something like “it uses the number 12 in its tattoos”. I’d be wary of WP ever saying in our own voice “x is a hate symbol” because that’s not a statement of fact. But we might want to say “ADL considers x a hate symbol because of its use by y”. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:56, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I mean, that is what I mean: something being included in their database basically just seems to mean that somewhere, at one point, some group of people was racist, and that was one of the six things in their logo. That part is true, but it's really not clear to me that being "listed" is WP:DUE.

I am reminded of some time when a government agency (I forget which) made a list of warning signs that someone might be a domestic terrorist, loaded with all sorts of completely asinine nonsense like "doesn't post on social media", "wears a jacket in the summer", "has gotten a speeding ticket" etc. I mean, maybe if you are looking for the bomber in a crowd of people in the summertime and one of them is wearing a huge puffy jacket, they've got it under that, but this factoid really doesn't seem worth mentioning in jacket or summer or even really terrorism. jp×g🗯️ 22:43, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• Reliable. A reliable source is not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective, according to WP:BIASED. Many NGOs, which are considered reliable, illustrate this point. ADL is clearly an opinionated source, for example, they openly say that "ADL works to support a secure Jewish and democratic state of Israel, living in peace and security with its neighbors" and "ADL speaks out when anti-Israel rhetoric or activism engages in distortions or delegitimizes Israel, crosses into antisemitism when it demonizes or negates Zionism, and uses anti-Jewish assertions and tropes". To be considered a reliable source, an organization is required to have good reputation for fact checking. When using *any* source, it's crucial to distinguish between opinion pieces and research, and to properly attribute opinions. Their reputation for fact-checking in research papers has been excellent for over a century; thus, relying on them for facts presents no issue. Editors should exercise normal consideration of controversial topics and consider using attribution where necessary. Claiming something is or is not a "hate symbol" is more a matter of opinion than fact, serving as an example of something that should be attributed if disputed. Marokwitz (talk) 05:19, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

  So this part: "ADL speaks out when anti-Israel rhetoric or activism [...] when it [...] negates Zionism is the real problem – because this is a mission to curtail free speech. You can't really be civil rights group AND be such an openly politically biased entity that you actively go after individuals and groups for simply opposing your chosen political ideology. That's more than a little unhinged – more so even than the rest of its mission as a US (not Israeli) NGO that isn't registered as a foreign agent (FARA). And editors have pointed out numerous issues with the ADL's presentation of facts; there's a lot of not listening here. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

• Reliable also on Israel, Jewish, Muslim and Palestinian related topics Hi, so I read the materials that you guys wrote, very long read, and also researched and ADL actually looks a reallly important organization and I saw above what Vegan416 wrote on anti Zionism and antisemitism and I think Vegan416 is on to something. I also saw what Eladkarmel wrote on Elon Musk's Twitter attacks on ADL and that's really crazy and I think really proves how important ADL is. I also saw that the Alt Right attacks ADL and also the Alt Left which I think kinda proves ADL is critical. Also I also read about ADL fighting anti Muslim bigotry and also I read on their history of helping the civil rights movement, so I think these guys are really important in helping all minorities and I think that if ADL is taking such a big stand against racism and against antisemitism and is taking attacks from Elon Musk and alt right and alt left then they have to be a very serious organization. Also I think what Chess wrote about SJP and ADL in relation to it really explains a lot, I also don't understand why ADL's critic of SJP makes ADL unreliable. I mean I was really horrified by the sentences SJP wrote and I really think it makes sense ADL will critic SJP, I mean "artificial barriers of the Zionist entity", " glory to our resistance, to our martyrs", that is so crazy. I also saw what Marokwitz wrote and I think Marokwitz also has a big point.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Balls and Strikes

The source. I found a source I was interested in using, but it has never been discussed before, and I figured it should be brought up here. Would this site be considered reliable for its coverage of American politics and the American judicial system? Several of its contributors, including the EiC, have previous journalism experience according to their contributors page. However, after reading through a few articles, they do seem to have a strong left-wing bias. Any thoughts? QuicoleJR (talk) 14:19, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Very do have a strong bias, per their about us page[13], so attribution would likely be a good idea. They're quite new so may lack a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS) and I can't finf any other reliable sources using them as a source (WP:USEBYOTHERS).
The staff does have journalistic experience though, so overall use with caution. I could see an argument that their comments are undue in some cases (given their limited recognition). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:38, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: Correct me if I'm wrong here:

Balls and Strikes is a biased source and inline attribution should be used. Their opinions may be undue in some cases. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:50, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I will also mention that this page is quite concerning. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:28, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

And this one is too. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:32, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah that's a good summary. I don't see the 'How to Pitch' page as being concerning, it's just the modern day 'tip line' that newspapets had. Anything submitted is apparently looked over by their editorial staff. As for the last link it's an April fools day post, other sources have posted more elaborate pranks (for instance[14]). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:56, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough, and I'm glad we are on the same page here. As for the pitch page, I was concerned about the part where they said they are specifically looking for criticism in submissions, although that isn't too big of a concern. The April Fools' page was just meant as an example of how biased the site is. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I will also mention that the site is sponsored by Demand Justice, which is an advocacy organization. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:20, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes I noticed that to, and they definitely wear their bias on their sleeve, but bias doesn't automatically mean unreliable (per WP:RSBIAS). Note in BLPs they might not life up to Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources from WP:BLP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:35, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense. Thanks for clearing things up. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:22, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Note: I have informed WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases of this discussion. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:44, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Bias ≠ unreliable, as AD said. Balls & Strikes generally doesn't do fact reporting; they do analysis and opinion. They have editors and an editorial policy and their opinions should be used with attribution, just like any other op-ed. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:47, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, UNDUE speaks to minority points of view, not to the fact that the writer of a POV works for a smaller publication. We don't exclude a source as UNDUE just because it isn't as famous as another publication. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:50, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Regardless, they should probably be used with caution in BLPs, if used at all. I could see considering its opinion to be as acceptable as other site's opinions, but I doubt it meets the stricter standards of BLP, per ActivelyDisinterested. For example, I don't think this would be a good source to use for the politician it is about. QuicoleJR (talk) 22:16, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Why? The tone is snarky, but if there were a section in the article about his handling of judicial nominees, I don't see why that article couldn't be cited as criticism of his tactics/style. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:26, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

A simple question: what if the subject was a liberal, and the author/source was a snarky conservative upstart? Somehow I can't imagine anything less than howling indignation and shouts of "propaganda rag!" from the Wikipedian peanut gallery. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:10, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

We would treat it in the same way - and we do - unless you have an example of a "snarky conservative" source that has been deprecated simply for being snarky and conservative? Black Kite (talk) 04:29, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

"Deprecated" has a distinct, stronger meaning on this board, but check out this very recent discussion of a conservative leaning source. And when it comes to opinions, well, there is no shortage of them, and Wikipedians need to be wary of putting their thumb on the scale, of giving undue/disproportionate weight to the opinions of obscure partisans that would otherwise see little light of day. A commentary in Balls and Strikes by a non-notable professional writer carries much less prominence and weight than a commentary in a major news magazine or widely reprinted columnist. --Animalparty! (talk) 14:02, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Chen Chen and Twitter-based literary journals

I am concerned that WP:ABOUTSELF does not apply to this passage on the page Chen Chen (poet):

He also edits "the lickety split", a Twitter-based journal that "only publishes poems that fit in a single tweet", alongside his fictional assistant editor Gudetama the Egg.

My reasoning is as follows: since the lickety split is ostensibly a third-party -- even if Chen is the sole (real) editor -- it isn't notable enough to include on Wikipedia as it has no third-party sources, only the Twitter page itself.

Pinging Skyerise (talk · contribs) as she disagrees with me. She should make the opposing case if she so chooses. wound theology◈ 13:03, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Notability doesn't apply to to article content. Unless someone is suggesting a standalone page on the lickety split, the relevant question here isn't whether it's notable, but whether the Twitter page is a reliable source for its own existence – I would say obviously it is. – Joe (talk) 13:19, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

About self applies to organisations as well as people. So either Chen Chen is talking about themself, or Chen Chen is making a statement from lickety split as the owner of lickety split. Either way it's still an about self statement.
Whether the existence of lickety split is pertinent to the article isn't a reliability matter. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:17, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

In general, I wouldn't consider a twitter account to be a third-party to the operator of that account for the purposes of ABOUTSELF, no, if that's what you're asking. Alpha3031 (t • c) 15:28, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I would agree with you about UNDUE but that's not a question for this board. (t · c) buidhe 21:10, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Age Matters

Can anyone tell what I should do if the sources conflict in the results? Should I prefer New sources over older?

Like in Bahmani-Vijayanagara War (1375-1378) the older sources cited Cambridge History Of India Vol. 2. gives different context that it was a rather peace treaty but the newer other sources cited in the articles talks about Vijaynagar victory. Please tell me what I should do here? Should I remove it as per WP:AGE MATTERS?Sudsahab (talk) 11:46, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

The actual question should be, Is it reliable to cite the conflicts between the Bahmanis and Vijayanagara between Mujahid Shah and Bukka Raya, ended in peace by using the excerpt Mujahid besieged Adoni for nine months, and was on the point of receiving its surrender when the rainy season began, replenished the water supply of the garrison, and caused much distress in the besiegers’ camp. Saif-ud-din Ghuri persuaded him to raise the siege, peace was made with Bukka, and Mujahid set out for his capital., from the source Cambridge History Of India Vol. 2 page number 383-384, or does this fall under WP: AGEMATTERS. The same context is present in the The Cambridge Shorter History Of India : J.allan, page 174. Imperial^[AFCND] 12:23, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I think I know what I'm asking, the other sources clearly goes with Vijaynagar victory while the outdated/Aged sources goes with peace treaty and I asked that what should be done in this case. Can you give a room to RSN clerks before starting a new discussion here and pointing out '''what should be done'''? Sudsahab (talk) 14:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

And what I have to say to @Sudsahab is, just keep your keyboard shut for sometime. The above way you asked is not the right way to ask the reliability of sources here. I've been noticing this rubbish behaviour against me by you. Just let me allow to speak, and stop bludgeoning the process. Imperial^[AFCND] 15:43, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with Sudsahab's question, nor do they appear to be bludgeoning the discussion. Schazjmd (talk) 15:45, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@User:Schazjmd, Let's focus on discussing the topic rather than the individual discussions. Since you haven't witnessed their behavior towards me, it may be difficult to fully understand the situation. For example, observe their behavior in other contexts Talk:Battle of Talas. Whenever I take action or try to help, their behavior tends to bother me. What did I do wrong here? Was providing a quote with the corresponding page number inappropriate? They say "before starting a new discussion," but did I actually initiate a new discussion? Consider these points after reviewing the entire context. Imperial^[AFCND] 15:56, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@ImperialAficionado, it appears you're dragging a personal conflict from elsewhere into this discussion. I disagreed with your accusations that the original post was "not the right way to ask" and that the OP is "bludgeoning the process". I suggest that you just engage with Levivich's reasonable and experienced analysis of the question about sources rather than try to silence Sudsahab. Schazjmd (talk) 16:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Appreciate your suggestion. Take a look again, who tried to silence whom. Imperial^[AFCND] 16:25, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

what I have to say to @Sudsahab is, just keep your keyboard shut for sometime Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:54, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

100-year-old history books are not RS for history, they're obsolete. Use modern sources: 21st-century history books whenever possible; if not, then the most recent available. Levivich (talk) 15:17, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich, the most recent book the above user talks about was published just after 30 years the Cambridge source published. I don't think thirty-year old gap would make such a difference, and I can't see any records cited to the book. And no, there is no sources that covers the event in-depth in the 21st century sources. Does that makes the article fall WP:GNG? The concept of a 100-year rule doesn't appear feasible. If it were, anyone could argue for the removal of sources, especially those published after just 30 or 40 years. Unfortunately, if there isn't much coverage by reliable sources within that timeframe, users could use this as an excuse to remove sources and claim that they no longer meet notability standards. This could potentially result in much of history being overlooked, which is concerning. What are your thoughts on this? Imperial^[AFCND] 15:39, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

It's not the 30-year gap between the books that make a difference, it's the age of the books. The Cambridge History of India was published between 1922 and 1937. The Cambridge Shorter History of India was published in 1934. That is so long ago that we cannot trust that what those books says are true. They don't tell us what modern scholarship has to say about anything. And imagine: is there anything in those history books from 100 years ago that scholars have not written about in the last 100 years? That's unthinkable. If it's true, then whatever it was that is no longer written about, is probably not notable.

But anyway, there is, at least, The New Cambridge History of India, written between 1987 and 2004. I don't see any reason why anyone would use the 100-year-old version of the book, instead of using the 30-year-old version of the book. But even this is rather old, for history: 30 years is more than one generation of historians. There are more recent history books that talk about the history of India, the history of the Bahmani Sultanate, and the history of the Vijayanagar empire. I would look at those books to see what they said about the particular Bahmani-Vijayanagar war of 1362-1367--which may, indeed, not be notable enough for a stand-alone article; for example, if most modern historians treat that particular conflict as one small part of a broader conflict between the two groups that spanned over 100 years, then perhaps that's how Wikipedia should present it as well. Levivich (talk) 16:09, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

That's a more prudent approach. Additionally, it's important to consider that older sources might be influenced by WP:RAJ records, which are often regarded as unreliable. I'll make an effort to find newer sources. By the way, could you provide guidance on the acceptable timelimit for using older sources? This would be helpful as I frequently encounter a mix of old and new records. Imperial^[AFCND] 16:30, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich, I came across an unexpected outcome in the book The New Cambridge History of India Vijayanagara. On page 115, it states, However, the early Bahmani sultans Muhammed I and Mujahid (c. 1358-78) waged such successful wars for this territory that during the fifteenth century the Tungabhadra became a boundary between the two kingdoms, with the interfluvial tract of Raichur constituting a buffer that changed hands frequently." Interestingly, this is the only information provided in the book about the campaign. What would you suggest for the result section in the infobox? Imperial^[AFCND] 16:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

es, that these sources were published by Cambridge University during the British Raj is another reason why I do not think they are reliable -- I would not trust a colonizer to accurately tell me the history of the indigenous people it is colonizing.

I don't think there is any numerical rule or date limit for sources. It really depends on the subject matter, and I don't think there is any kind of global consensus for exactly how old is "too old." For example, it's possible somebody discovered some species of plant in 1850 and wrote an article about it, and then nobody ever bothered to write about that particular species of plant again, in which case the 1850 article is probably fine for Wikipedia to use. But for history, especially wars, it's totally different. Every generation of historians expands or revises what the previous generation of historians wrote. It's always changing, always evolving. So I think it's best for Wikipedia to summarize "the current generation of historians," which I generally think of as the last 20-25 years, or, conveniently for us, the 21st century. For some obscure topics, you may have to go back two generations -- 25-50 years -- but for me personally, that's as far back as one should go.

To answer your question about "result," well taking that quote alone, since it says "successful wars," I would think that the result of the wars was a victory for the Bahmani sultans. But more likely, it makes me thing that this article maybe should be merged to another article, or the scope expanded, to cover the wars (plural) in one article, instead of having a separate article entirely about the 1375-1378 war. But I would look to see what other sources say first, to see if the sources are in agreement or disagreement about the outcome, and whether the sources treat the 1375-1378 war separately, or as part of a longer conflict. Sometimes, older sources call a "war" what newer sources call a "campaign" or even "battle." Levivich (talk) 17:00, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

That's right. There are indeed disagreements in this campaign. The earlier was treated as the First Bahmani-Vijayanagar War, fought between Muhammad Shah I and Bukka Raya. It is explicitly considered as an individual single war between the both parties. The later campaign launched by Mujahid Shah, was not considered as a "war" such as "Bahmani-Vijayanagar War" by any of the historians, but a campaign launched by Mujahid against the Vijayanagara. That's why I initiated a move discussion on the talk page of Bahmani-Vijayanagara War (1375-1378). I've seen the outcome of the campaign as the peace treaty, successful campaign of Bahmanis, and as unsuccessful campaign of the Bahmanis. The context of the article is already present at Bahmani–Vijayanagar War (1398)#Background. I neither oppose merging, nor keeping this, but a move is required, and the aftermath section is disputed. Multiple sources provide multiple outcome, as this perhaps be because of the nature of the campaign. Imperial^[AFCND] 17:24, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Another option is to intentionally NOT state the “result”… but instead do what you just did here, describe how different historians have different views on the “result”… and explain to the reader who says what. Blueboar (talk) 17:52, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I think that works. I've seen articles with result section being directed to aftermath section by adding "See Aftermath". In this case, we could cover all the opinions on different records, and describe it in the aftermath section. Thanks @Blueboar! Imperial^[AFCND] 18:13, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to opine on the particular sources here, but I disagree that 100-year-old history books are not RS for history, they're obsolete is always true. For example, Black Reconstruction in America is still considered to be a seminal, reliable text on the history of Black Reconstruction in America, and its conclusions have been reaffirmed by contemporary historians, including Eric Foner. Age alone is not an indicator of the reliability of a historical text. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:05, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@Voorts, I've added both the contexts in the article, Cambridge History of India, and the New Cambridge History of India. Some months ago, I removed some 300-400 year old sources from the the article Battle of Cochin. Not sure if I made a mistake, but pretty sure 300-400 year old sources, that too of a participant party of a war is unreliable. Imperial^[AFCND] 06:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Dear, @ImperialAficionado just keep your keyboard shut for sometime was colossally harsh towards me and again you may not tell me what should be done The above way you asked is not the right way to ask the reliability of sources here as I know myself better what to do. And no this is not WP:BLUDGEONING please refrain from accusing me of such behaviour when it was you who was accused of WP:BLUDGEONING a few months ago at RSN. Considering that you did the same by starting a discussion at the wrong place [15]. I can show various such instances where you even tried to do fishing [16] Nonetheless I think it's not the right place to tell any about this I have to move forward by swallowing these personal attacks.

• 1) Now coming to the discussion.

We know that the historiagraphy of Vijaynagar Empire and Bahmani Sultanate has evolved since the 1930s so it should be the only reason that we should not stick to the older sources as they have become obsolete and aren't relevant anymore when we have an ample amount of up-to-date sources.

• 2) The influence of the British Raj shouldn't be just altogether ignored here.

• 3) To say that article will not pass WP:GNG if we won't use these sources is just a hoax argument. We can't go with these aged sources even if they have in-depth analysis about the subject topic as I have said these sources aren't yet developed and using these could be hazardous (lacks primary sources? Lacks peer review? Not revised?).

• 4) From THE HISTORY OF VIJAYANAGAR EMPIRE VOL.1. We can affirm the article's GNG The Fourth Bahamani War: June 1375—March 1378.Sudsahab (talk) 9 April 2024 (UTC)
• while that is a bit sharp brevity is a virtue (t · c) buidhe 21:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

CNA and other Mediacorp outlets

How reliable are those Singapore news sources? I haven't watched CNA for a long time. Ahri.boy (talk) 22:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think these a reason to believe they are unreliable, but maybe as with The Straits Times finding a different source is suggestable when it comes to the government of Singapore (due to media restrictions in the country[17]). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:17, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Al Jazeera reliability

Very concerning incident this week surrounding AJ reporting and keeping on their website for more than 24 hours erroneous reports of rapes committed by IDF soldiers in Al Shifa hospital.

AJ quietly deleted all references to the supposed incident and has not provided any retraction. A former editor (and current AJ journalist) has come forward to provide context, but the organization has remained mum.

Keeping up this completely unverified story for a day, then removing without retraction is potentially in serious violation of RS standards. I understand AJ more often than not abides, but this is an egregious violation nonetheless, and well beyond any acceptable journalistic rules:

Reportage:

Times of Israel: Al Jazeera takes down video falsely alleging IDF rapes in Shifa Hospital

Haaretz: Al Jazeera Deletes Video Claiming Woman Was Raped by Israeli Forces in Gaza Al-Shifa Raid

New York Sun: Al Jazeera Says Its Story That IDF Soldiers are Raping Gazans Was Fabricated Mistamystery (talk) 17:07, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

This reportage all comes from sources with deep ideological biases and as such I'd question us taking them at their word that Al Jazeera isn't reliable. Frankly it'd make a mockery of WP:NPOV to deprecate Al Jazeera but not Times of Israel. Simonm223 (talk) 17:09, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

You're evading the core point. Al Jazeera staff literally confirmed the retraction. This has nothing to do with the reliability of the sources provided, it's well attested beyond those three posts. Mistamystery (talk) 17:13, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

And you're evading my core point. That it'd be disingenuous to begin treating AJ as unreliable on the basis of this considering the multiple times that Times of Israel and Haaretz have reported IDF talking points as fact that later proved to be misinformation, often without retractions. Simonm223 (talk) 17:15, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

1. Please provide examples of IDF talking points that were published and later proven to be "misinformation", as opposed to later updating of information.

2. This is far more significant. This is direct reporting from what they claimed to be a verified source who was - in fact - completely fabricating the story. Mistamystery (talk) 17:18, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

How about the Jerusalem Post claiming a killed baby was a doll and then silently removing the story from their webpage? And no, al-Jazeera never claimed it was a verified source, that is completely made up. nableezy - 17:26, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The Jerusalem Post appears to have made an announcement retracting and apologising for that story, which is more than Al Jazeera has done. I also note you’ve described JPost as JPost is generally closer to garbage than fine, so I’m not sure why you think saying Al Jazeera is no different to JPost is a defence of Al Jazeera. BilledMammal (talk) 17:35, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Because the Jerusalem Post actually said that this wasnt a baby, this was a doll and the evidence was fabricated, and all of that was a lie. Al-Jazeera only said that there is a witness saying that this rape happened, and that was true. Al-Jazeera later determined that person was not being honest, but they did not report as fact something that was a lie. Jerusalem Post did, and does often. Like here claiming there are confirmed images of burned and beheaded babies from October 7 (there is not). That story is still up for the record. nableezy - 17:42, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Wow, that story is still up. Unbelievable. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:40, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

How about? The argument above stays. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 17:36, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

They asked for examples of Israeli misinformation, I gave that. nableezy - 17:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/no-words-can-describe-the-suffering-horrific-testimonies-from-al-shifa/

"Al-Jazeera obtained horrific testimonies of Palestinians trapped inside the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, which has been besieged by Israeli occupation forces for the last six days."

https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2024/03/361577/eyewitness-accuses-israel-of-raping-women-during-ongoing-al-shifa-raid#google_vignette

"Civilian Jamila al-hissi, who was trapped in a building near the health facility, in an interview with Al Jazeera reported that the IOF was, kidnapping, and killing women during their raid at the hospital.

“They raped women, kidnapped women, executed women, and pulled dead bodies from under the rubble to unleash their dogs on them,” she told Al Jazeera."

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/03/25/executions-detentions-and-sexual-violence-israels-brutal-siege-on-al-shifa-hospital/

"Al-Hassi’s testimony from Al-Shifa described how Israeli soldiers stripped a woman sheltering there and proceeded to rape her in front of her husband and other men, threatening to kill them if they looked away."

https://countercurrents.org/2024/03/eyewitness-says-israeli-soldiers-raped-women-before-killing-them-in-al-shifa-hospital/

"Eyewitness accounts are horrifying. Jamila Al-Hisi, a woman besieged in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and managed to finally get out told Al-Jazeera the Israeli occupation soldiers are raping women and killing them."

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240325-un-expresses-grave-concern-over-rape-of-women-in-gaza-by-israeli-soldiers/

"According to Al-Jazeera, reports have emerged of rape crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against women in Gaza during the Occupation army’s raid of Al-Shifa Hospital.

Jamila Al-Hissi, who found herself trapped in a nearby building, recounted that the Israeli soldiers were involved in the abduction, rape and killing of women during the raid of the hospital.

“They raped women, kidnapped women, executed women and pulled dead bodies from under the rubble to unleash their dogs on them,” she said."

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-170-israel-assaults-al-shifa-nasser-and-al-amal-hospitals-in-one-day/

"According to Al-Jazeera, reports have emerged of rape crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against women in Gaza during the Occupation army’s raid of Al-Shifa Hospital.

Jamila Al-Hissi, who found herself trapped in a nearby building, recounted that the Israeli soldiers were involved in the abduction, rape and killing of women during the raid of the hospital.

“They raped women, kidnapped women, executed women and pulled dead bodies from under the rubble to unleash their dogs on them,” she said."

https://www.watanserb.com/en/2024/03/23/tragic-testimony-palestinian-woman-reveals-horrors-amid-gaza-hospital-siege/

"Jamila Al-Hessi, besieged in the vicinity of Al-Shifa Complex, said in a phone call with Al Jazeera on Saturday that the occupation forces burned and killed entire families."

https://en.abna24.com/story/1446410

"Al-Jazeera TV channel quoted the Palestinian Jamila Al-Hassi, who was besieged in the vicinity of the Al-Shifa Complex, as saying: “The occupation forces burned and killed entire families, and raped and killed women.”

Mistamystery (talk) 17:36, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I have no idea why you're citing other sources, what al-Jazeera reported was that Jamila Al-Hissi claimed these things, and she did. Al-Jazeera never reported it was true. nableezy - 17:40, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this list Mistamystery? These are all unreliable sources, I believe, quoting al-Jazeera. While we count use by reliable sources as evidence of reliability, I don't think we count use by unreliable sources as evidence of unreliability. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:02, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

This was answered already in the chain. Not saying those sources are RS. A user was trying to claim - even based on RS sources provided - that the incident didn't happen. Was just showing further evidence of the reporting (as well as spread) Mistamystery (talk) 18:47, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

We’ve seen this before with Al Jazeera; in the last discussion I presented evidence of them declining to retract false claims about the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion after fresh information emerged.

This isn’t the behaviour we expect of a reliable source; we don’t expect them to be perfect, but we do expect them to be transparent and own up to their mistakes. I think it’s past time to consider Al Jazeera as "additional considerations apply", at least on the topic of the Israeli-Arab conflict. BilledMammal (talk) 17:14, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Here's NYT doing their own retraction of witness evidence that was up for far longer than AJ's (1 day). How awful, let's immediately put NYT on additional considerations apply list (sarcasm). Oh, and we've seen this before with NYT :) Selfstudier (talk) 17:30, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that’s the sort of behaviour we expect from a reliable source; a public retraction. If Al Jazeera had done that we wouldn’t be here now. BilledMammal (talk) 17:33, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Former managing director of Al Jazeera, Yasser Abu Hilalah, took to X to share that an investigation revealed the news to be fabricated and that the witness, Jamila Al-Hissi, had "exaggerated the details to provoke an emotional response" in an effort to draw attention to the violence in Gaza, particularly during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Good enough for me...and we shouldn't be here now for the latest episode of how awful AJ is according to pro Israel editors, because they report witnesses saying bad things about Israel occasionally (unlike Israeli media which say bad things about Palestinians all of the time, every day, without any witnesses. Selfstudier (talk) 17:38, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Not for me. Al Jazeera needs to be making that statement, preferably on their own website - the New York Times story you linked is a case study in how a reliable source should respond when additional information reveals they were in error, while Al Jazeera is a case study in how a reliable source should not respond. BilledMammal (talk) 17:41, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Nope, that is a continuation of the crap story they put out in the first place on the subject, which they first off refused to retract. Selfstudier (talk) 17:42, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Even after all of its witness accounts have been either shredded or cast into significant doubt. So yeah, let's drag NYT before the jury first. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

They reported that somebody claimed this, which was true, and then when they determined it was false retracted the story. Thats what is supposed to happen. They did not say that it was true, only that there was this claim being made. And then determined it was false and removed the claim. That is precisely what a reliable source is supposed to do. That BilledMammal thinks they need to follow the Western sources on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital for a disputed story is interesting but also not all that relevant to anything here. nableezy - 17:22, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

That’s not what I said, and I ask that you stop continuing to misrepresent me on this.

And what should have happened is Al Jazeera publicly saying they got it wrong, rather than pretending it never happened and leaving their readers with a false impression. BilledMammal (talk) 17:26, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

You said that they made false claims, when their reporting has not been determined false by anybody besides intelligence agencies of Israeli allies. I dont think Ive misrepresented you but feel free to clarify what al-Jazeera needs to have retracted that is proven false, and what that proof is. nableezy - 17:30, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The claim that Israel is indisputably culpable. That claim isn’t supported by the evidence and should have been retracted when additional information emerged, as genuinely reliable sources did. BilledMammal (talk) 17:33, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

It is supported by evidence though, you just dont agree. Which isnt all that relevant, but when reliable sources disagree we attribute things, not just say oh this one must be wrong so they are not reliable. nableezy - 17:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it is definitely concerning, but as almost no source has been particularly good with respect to fact-checking during the conflict, I would suggest we wait how this plays out over the next few days. FortunateSons (talk) 18:10, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Further reporting:

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syks8u1kc

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793560

https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/al-jazeera-deletes-fake-story-about-idf-rapes-in-gaza-hospital-j1uquwad

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/al-jazeera-quietly-deletes-story-falsely-alleging-idf-raped-palestinians-in-gaza-hospital/

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/artc-hamas-admits-women-not-raped-by-idf-at-shifa-hospital-following-al-jazeera-report

https://voz.us/al-jazeera-retracts-and-takes-down-its-rape-allegations-against-idf-at-al-shifa-hospital/?lang=en

https://www.mediaite.com/news/al-jazeera-removes-video-alleging-israelis-raped-women-in-gaza-as-former-managing-director-calls-claims-fabricated/

https://allisrael.com/al-jazeera-retracts-idf-rape-accusations-admits-story-fabricated-by-female-witness

https://honestreporting.com/damage-done-how-al-jazeeras-fake-news-harmed-israels-reputation-in-less-than-24-hours/

https://taarifa.rw/al-jazeera-israel-disagree-on-idf-rapes-in-gaza/

Mistamystery (talk) 17:41, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Tell us something new. Selfstudier (talk) 17:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Cites i24, complains about al-Jazeera lol. The originator of the propaganda about 40 beheaded babies, and you uncritically cite them and Free Beacon and Honest Reporting lol. nableezy - 17:44, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@Mistamystery: i24, really? Iskandar323 (talk) 20:48, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Again, as stated below, there was a user early in the discussion who was attempting to deny the incident happened at all. Links were provided re: breadth of coverage, not establishing additional RS. Never claimed they were. Mistamystery (talk) 20:52, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Ill repeat the pertinent parts here, because there is a bunch of misinformation being spread here. Al-Jazeera reported that a woman claimed that Israeli troops had raped a pregnant woman at al-Shifa. They included a video of that person saying this. They did not at all say that this has been confirmed or verified. When they determined it was not true, they removed the video. I havent checked their Arabic site to see if they reported on why they found the claim to be false, but no al-Jazeera did not claim that Israeli soldiers raped a patient at al-Shifa, they reported that somebody at al-Shifa claimed to have seen this. And that was and is true. And also, for the record, this was al-Jazeera Arabic, which we generally dont cite anyway, not al-Jazeera English. nableezy - 17:48, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

No, it was on Al Jazeera English’s live blog. On 24 March, Al Jazeera released an update on its liveblog entitled, "Israel forces raped, killed women during raid on al-Shifa, witness says." Al Jazeera's update used statements of a witness, Jamila al-Hissi, who stated that "They raped women, kidnapped women, executed women, and pulled dead bodies from under the rubble to unleash their dogs on them.”

On 25 March, Al Jazeera took down its video of Jamila al-Hissi’s statements but kept its written update posted when Times of Israel last checked. Former managing director of Al Jazeera, Yasser Abu Hilalah, wrote on X, “Hamas investigations revealed that the story of the rape of women in Shifa Hospital was fabricated.” Abu Hilalah reported that al-Hissi “justified her exaggeration and incorrect talk by saying that the goal was to arouse the nation’s fervor and brotherhood.”

It is problematic using live blog updates in Wiki articles. The content is hard to verify

here, rape story still up https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/3/24/israels-war-on-gaza-live-19-killed-as-israel-again-fires-on-aid-seekers?update=2794606

except now I have to go change the link in the wiki articles that are using this story, because those links no longer link to the rape story due to the nature of live update snippets updating and pushing down content. I had to web search for the story Wafflefrites (talk) 18:07, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

You better click on the live blog link I just posted. The links to the story keeps changing!!!! Who knows if it changes again. How are we supposed to verify information in the future if the live update links no longer point to the story? Wafflefrites (talk) 18:10, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Can you archive it? FortunateSons (talk) 18:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know how to archive. Do I need to take a screen shot? Are there instructions on Wikipedia that you can point me to? I don’t like these live blogs…. They lack context. Wafflefrites (talk) 18:15, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

You're right, AJE reported that the witness said this. What it says is

"Israel forces raped, killed women during raid on al-Shifa, witness says
A Palestinian woman who was trapped in a building near al-Shifa Hospital has told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces raped, kidnapped and killed women during their ongoing raid on Gaza’s largest hospital.

Jamila al-Hissi, who spent six days inside the besieged building before being forced out by Israeli forces, told Al Jazeera Arabic that al-Shifa was a “war zone”."

Which is all true,Jamila al-Hissi did tell al-Jazeera this. They did not report it as fact though. nableezy - 18:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

This may work better. The fact that they haven’t even silently retracted or otherwise corrected this claim that they now know to be false is extremely concerning; this is not the behaviour we expect of a reliable source. BilledMammal (talk) 18:16, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The sheer high emotional bombardment of an item that - at minimum - mere requested notice be made of a clear journalistic ethic violation - is telling enough, and reeks of a gang up. People need to cool their jets and get calm before they hit the keyboard.

This isn't about other sources. This is about Al Jazeera. They had a source on air and on their website (who they vetted prior to having on air) state on air that rapes were happening at the hospital, when they weren't. If they have a source on air for an interview, it's because they have determined their information to be factual. They're not just putting live mics in front of people without speaking to them prior.

The story then turned into a major story on its own and went both global and viral (as well as, apparently, having an on ground impact in Gaza itself, it further sources are to be believed).

Standard journalistic practice is for outlets to retract - officially, clearly, and publicly. Not their staffers off-hand. On their website (and in print in the good 'ol days), which did not happen here. Which is why notice was made. It's not controversial.

This is not a measuring contest between outlets, or a competition between Hogwarts houses. The outlets are not in an ethics race, and points are not added and detracted or exchanged. This post is about Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera alone. They platformed and published falsehoods that were spread widely and had immediate impact, and failed to properly retract. That's it and it's irrefutable. Mistamystery (talk) 18:13, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

And the additional links were posted because one of the editors doubted the incident even happened, not because they're reliable sources. Thanks. Mistamystery (talk) 18:16, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

No, they vetted prior to having on air is completely made up. They said that there is this witness that claims these things. Thats it. Earlier you said Please provide examples of IDF talking points that were published and later proven to be "misinformation", as opposed to later updating of information. and when that is provided you just wave it away. Al-Jazeera broadcast testimony they later determined was false and retracted it. nableezy - 18:17, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

It's global standard practice to pre-interview people who appear live on TV shows. They don't just hand a hot mic to people and let them say whatever they want. Either way, the news source conventionally holds themselves accountable for what they allow to air. They don't exist to air speculation.

Also - I had asked for proven IDF misinformation - you referred to a JPost piece. Mistamystery (talk) 18:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Seriously asking for evidence that the IDF tells porkies? Even the mainstream press is reporting that as a fact nowadays. Selfstudier (talk) 18:50, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@Mistamystery: You haven't become aware of any instances if IDF misinformation unquestioningly repeated in Israeli sources in the past six months? Do you think that suggests a clear eyed view of the media landscape? And in this context, we're meant to go along with your take on Al Jazeera? Iskandar323 (talk) 20:57, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

What is this general attitude of "Al Jazeera can only be criticized so long as we discuss other sources" being spouted by people on this chain? There is a clear incident of a news outlet failing to vet a source before spreading contentious, false information - and then later failing to issue a retraction. That is the beginning and end of the matter. Please start separate chains if we are to assess other news outlets. Mistamystery (talk) 21:02, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The only purpose of the "notice", afaics, is to foment another useless discussion about nothing very much at all. Selfstudier (talk) 18:19, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Here is Middle East Eye. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mN1SRUx0R8&ab_channel=MiddleEastEye

Al Jazeera may have removed its video but Middle East Eye still has it on YouTube. Caption says “ Jamila al-Hissi, a Palestinian woman who was besieged for six days in a building in the vicinity of al-Shifa hospital, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces raped, tortured and executed women inside the hospital.” with no mention of retraction or clarification on the debunked statements Wafflefrites (talk) 18:19, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, she did tell al-Jazeera this. The video is her telling al-Jazeera this. What they reported is true, that al-Hissi said this. nableezy - 18:21, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

They reported a witness who made statements that were later found to be false. Once the statements were found to be false, they didn’t update their audience. Using these types of blog reports with little to no context are no better than putting information you see people tweet on Twitter and pasting it into Wikipedia. Wafflefrites (talk) 18:28, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I dont even know if thats true, have you checked their Arabic website for any updates on the story? nableezy - 18:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

My issue is with the liveblog. The live-blogging is just like reporters tweeting info. The links keep changing making info difficult to verify and there is little context. I posted a link to Times of Israel above about a former Al Jazeera director saying that Hamas found the allegations false https://www.timesofisrael.com/al-jazeera-report-alleging-idf-rapes-in-shifa-hospital-retracted/

The Al Jazeera English is still up https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/3/24/israels-war-on-gaza-live-19-killed-as-israel-again-fires-on-aid-seekers?update=2794606 Wafflefrites (talk) 18:40, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@Wafflefrites: No pages should really be using live blogs long-term as sources. This is a WP:NOTNEWS issue as much as anything else. Because yes, live blogs are just a stream of off-the-cuff news and unredacted commentary. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:01, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Even if it is the live-blogging of a RS? Can you please share with me the Wikipedia link or policy that says this so that I can share in my edit summaries before I go reverting other users’ work? Wafflefrites (talk) 21:07, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The link you shared just says NOTNEWS. Al Jazeera is a RS, other editors are not going to understand why they can’t use this live blog thing. At least Times of Israel is also a RS, so in these cases I suppose at this point is just the burden of putting in other sources per SOURCESDIFFER, which is what I did when I found out the info had been debunked Wafflefrites (talk) 21:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

At a minimum, I think we need to declare Al Jazeera unreliable for attributed statements. They clearly make insufficient efforts to verify these statements, and worse they fail to retract them even after the statements have been proven to be lies - what other outright lies are on their website and now in our articles that they just haven’t bothered to retract?

To put it simply, we can no longer trust that Al Jazeera isn’t promoting disinformation with such quotes - if the quotes are due for inclusion then other sources will have reported on them independently. BilledMammal (talk) 18:32, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Thats nonsense, because what they attribute to al-Hissi is what al-Hissi said. News sources dont verify things they quote others saying. The NYT does not verify the quotes they include are true either, and sometimes they are later found to be false, for example here they are reporting that things that were said to them that they reported, without verifying, are not true. Should we not include quotes from the Times now? nableezy - 18:38, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The article you link shows the New York Times retracting a claim they now know to be false. The reason why Al Jazeera’s behaviour here is so concerning is because they aren’t doing the same. BilledMammal (talk) 18:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The original article remains with no retraction, including the claim they now admit is false. And this all happened in the last day, why wouldn't you allow al-Jazeera the months it took the NYT to determine something they quoted to be false the same deference? You wrote They clearly make insufficient efforts to verify these statements, how does that not apply to the NYT here? nableezy - 18:46, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Because Al Jazeera has already determined it to be false, they just haven’t publicised it.

The New York Times published an entire article that prominently says they were wrong; ideally they would have updated the original article as well, but they have met our expectations of a reliable source. Al Jazeera has not. BilledMammal (talk) 18:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Who's to say when NYT made this determination, how long it took them to make an article about it. But the relevant part here is you saying They clearly make insufficient efforts to verify these statements. Do you think other sources make sufficient efforts to verify statements that they quote? Thats the whole point of attributing a quote, you're saying I dont know this is true but they say it is. nableezy - 19:03, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

As I said, and worse they fail to retract them even after the statements have been proven to be lies. The blind faith is concerning, but not why we can no longer consider them reliable - we can no longer consider them reliable because they now know the claim is false, but have failed to retract it or issue a correction. BilledMammal (talk) 19:09, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

It's been a day, and did you check their Arabic site for any updates? nableezy - 19:10, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I haven’t seen any. If you have, please link it - and regardless, an update on just their Arabic site would be insufficient given this story was also published (and still is published) on their English site. BilledMammal (talk) 19:22, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• Al Jazeera is no better than RT. It is Qatari state media and should be deprecated as a propaganda organ. Coretheapple (talk) 18:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  If above is all there is, no reason to do anything at all, never mind deprecate. No evidence of anything systemic. Selfstudier (talk) 18:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  This discussion began two hours ago. Coretheapple (talk) 19:51, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  Al Jazeera as Qatari propaganda and Hamas mouthpiece is one of the major issues that renders it necessary to dispose of as a reliable source, like RT, such as the debacle the other day of informally retracting a false story about rape at Al-Shifa, which is journalistically unethical, after Hamas denied the story. Another major issue is peddling antisemitimic conspiracy and their blatant distortion of historical facts, like posting Holocaust denial videos, claiming that Jewish employees of 9/11 targets were informed of the attacks beforehand, etc. All this can bee seen on the Al Jazeera controversies and criticism. SalomeofJudea (Maria) (talk) 20:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  This discussion appears to be becoming some sort of race to the bottom to come up with the least substantiated idle aspersions to make about Al Jazeera as possible. It is far more revealing about the editors making the aspersions than it is about Al Jazeera. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:09, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• Note should be added in WP:RSP. Quietly deleting false information does not comply with the editorial standards used by reliable sources. Al Jazeera cannot and should not be considered a reliable source for topics related to Qatar and the Arab/Israeli conflict. According to [18], it has a "Mixed" rating for factual reporting due to failed fact checks that were not corrected and misleading extreme editorial bias favoring Qatar. It does not qualify as a high-quality source due to direct ownership by Qatar and extreme editorial bias, including being subject to Qatari laws that prohibit any criticism of the government. It should be considered a partisan source in topics related to Qatar, the Arab/Israeli conflict, and minorities in India, and its statements should always be attributed in such topics. Marokwitz (talk) 19:21, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Media Bias Fact Check is itself not considered a WP:RS. And more generally, reliability is based on a source's broad reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; one incident doesn't generally change a source's reputation until / unless there's broad or sustained coverage to indicate its impact. As previous discussions have determined repeatedly, Al Jazeera has strong WP:USEBYOTHERS and reasonably high-quality coverage describing them as reliable; and right now, the only criticism of them for this seems to be from similarly WP:BIASED sources, which obviously isn't going to be enough to change a source's reputation or assessment on its own. --Aquillion (talk) 19:42, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

That was a "stealth edit" and is unethical. Coretheapple (talk) 19:57, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

This Arab News article is likely relevant, as is this National Review article. BilledMammal (talk) 20:06, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone know what the outcome of these lawsuits was? I’ve been unable to work it out, but it may be informative as to whether we can trust Al Jazeera on various topics of interest to Qatar. BilledMammal (talk) 20:10, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Arab News, owned by the Saudi royal family, is certainly not a reliable source on Al-Jazeera or Qatar given their long standing geopolitical rivalry. And the National Review lol. nableezy - 20:09, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Let me make sure I’ve understood you correctly. Arab News is not reliable on Qatar due to it being owned by the Saudi royal family, and due to Saudi having geopolitical interests in regards to Qatar?

If I have understood you, why aren’t you applying the same standard to Al Jazeera? BilledMammal (talk) 20:13, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia instituted a blockade of Qatar with one of their demands being that al-Jazeera be shut down, a blockade that was active at the time of that article. If Qatar does that to Israel then feel free to raise that here. But unless you want to rule out Israeli sources talking about the Palestinians I dont think the point youre trying to make is actually one you should be trying to make. nableezy - 20:20, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

And Qatar is a major funder and ally of Hamas.

As for Israeli sources, which are controlled by the state? And I remind you, I didn’t raise this line - you did, when you dismissed Arab News for reasons that if applied equally would require us to dismiss Al Jazeera. BilledMammal (talk) 20:25, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Again, the reasons are not the same. Saudi Arabia engaged in an act of war against Qatar, and demanded the shuttering of al-Jazeera. And I wouldn't cite al-Jazeera for material on the Saudi royal family for the same reasons. And for the record, all the major Israeli news papers get funding from the state and are subject to the state military censor, so that distinction you think you are making isnt quite as strong as you think it is. You have argued that a lobby organization with ties to the Israeli military reprinting an actual piece of propaganda from the Israeli military is a reliable source (here), but want to act like because Qatar has provided funds to the government of Gaza that they are ruled out somehow. Well, ok, you can make that argument if you want, but I dont have to pretend it is a serious one. Arab News, especially while the Saudis were engaged in hostile acts against Qatar and demanding that al-Jazeera be shut down, is not a reliable source for Qatar or al-Jazeera. nableezy - 20:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know, it was not an act of war.

Regardless, your entire argument seems to be that you think Saudi’s opposition to Qatar makes Saudi news sources unreliable on Qatar, but Qatar’s support for Hamas has no impact - and you have not justified this beyond thin assertions that Saudi’s opposition is more significant than Qatar’s extensive and long-term support.

I suggest you focus on the substance of the articles I presented, rather than trying to discredit them with arguments that a reasonable individual could equally apply to Al Jazeera. BilledMammal (talk) 20:39, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

A blockade is an act of war. That is very basic. And no, that is not my argument. My argument is that a state engaged in an act of war against another state shouldnt be taken as a reliable source about that other state. And Arab News is an arm of the Saudi state, much moreso than al-Jazeera. And no, a reasonable person cannot apply that to al-Jazeera, as Qatar has not engaged in an act of war against Israel or any other state for that matter. As far as the substance, I did that when I said lol. nableezy - 20:42, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM. The Kip 21:20, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
My understanding is that Saudi didn’t implement a blockade but instead closed their borders, which some sources characterise as a de facto blockade. You could characterise it as an act of war - but you could equally characterise providing billions to Hamas as an act of war against Israel. But we’re off topic here and you’re clearly not going to consider the sources that raise issues with Al Jazeera; I’m going to step back from this line of discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 20:47, 26 March 2024 (UTC) Except Israel was on board with Qatar providing those funds lol. But sure, you can consider whatever you like to be whatever you like it to be. nableezy - 20:49, 26 March 2024 (UTC) Yeah, Netanyahu encouraged that funding. Was he committing an act of war against Israel? Iskandar323 (talk) 21:14, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• The Al Jazeera Media Network is not a reliable source. Look, as many nowadays know, it's no secret that the Al Jazeera Media Network is owned and operated by the government of Qatar, which is an authorian monarchy: it's ultimately just the Qatari royal family persecuting (and executing) whoever they want and for whatever reason they deem. This inconvenient reality is something Al Jazeera avoids talking about unless absolutely necessarily (AJ+ for example attempts to explain this away by comparing this situation to that of the BBC being owned by "British Taxpayers", lol—similar attempts at dodging this incredible situation can be found on other Al Jazeera sites). No matter how Al Jazeera wants to dress sit up, in all cases the buck stops—quite literally—with the Qatari royal family. Time and time again we see the ideological biases and preferences of the Qatari royal family creep into Al Jazeera reporting. I see no reason why we should not instead be using better sources than those owned and operated by the Qatari royal family. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:48, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  Al-Jazeera is routinely cited by other reliable sources, this is just a series of baseless assertions with no evidence or even relevance. nableezy - 19:53, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  • Al Jazeera also also routinely receives criticism for pro-Qatari slant, and the fact that it is basically an arm of the Qatari royal family has come up here many, many times. My advice: Find a better source, ideally one not funded and operated by a notorious dictatorship best known for its outrageous human rights abuses, or expect inevitable pushback. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:00, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

    Unsupported assertions dont merit responses. We determine reliability based on, for example, WP:USEBYOTHERS, not on, for example, a random person on the internet aka a Wikipedia editor disliking a source. nableezy - 20:02, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

We determine reliability by wide range of parameters, as you know. Additionally, Al Jazeera is a hot topic in WP:RS discussion spaces specifically because of the fact that it's funded and operated by the Qatari government. That's a fact and is far beyond 'just not liking it'. How often do we see other 'reliable' sources pushing for example holocaust denialism? :bloodofox: (talk) 20:08, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I missed this Holocaust denial allegation. Two points: First, the video was removed and the two journalists suspended, which considerably mitigates this count against reliability. Second, this was for the Arabic version of AJ+, not published on an actual Al-Jazeera news platform. I think it's already established consensus that AJE is more reliable than the AJ Arabic and that AJ+ wouldn't be used as a source on WP. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:08, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• Another effort to downgrade AJ after the most recent effort failed to do so and nothing has changed since then, this incident is an almost irrelevancy, possibly worth a mention in the relevant article, nothing more. Selfstudier (talk) 20:01, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  This is already covered in the current RSP entry. --Licks-rocks (talk) 20:57, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• The standard for moving the reliability needle on a source as widely used-by-others, scrutinized, and ultimately praised by both peer-reviewed publications and press organizations as Al-Jazeera (and especially Al-Jazeera English) is peer reviewed literature that refutes the pre-existing literature. See my comments from this discussion for links and quotes to relevant sources. Arguments that do not include that standard of evidence are wasting people's time, and the frequency with which these lackluster attempts occur form a basis for arbitration enforcement measures. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:06, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• Two comments:

1. Many users need to read WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:OTHERSTUFF. This is a discussion of Al Jazeera. Comments about Times of Israel or Jerusalem Post are irrelevant to the matter of Al Jazeera's reliability.

2. Proposing to downgrade Al Jazeera's reliability based on one single incident looks wildly exaggerated. I suggest this discussion be closed as no change to how we treat Al Jazeera. Jeppiz (talk) 20:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

No Times of Israel and JPost published a story that said Al Jazeera’s story was false per a statement from a former Al Jazeera director and a Hamas investigation. Al Jazeera basically published someone’s lies about witnessing rape, and other sources such as Moroccan News and Middle East Eye repeated it. Wafflefrites (talk) 20:36, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Al Jazeera’s story is still up, as is Middle East Eye’s and Moroccan News. The former director had the integrity to call out the news source Wafflefrites (talk) 20:38, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Mediaite and i24 aren't exactly reliable sources, and I personally wouldn't trust a website called "AllIsrael" to report objectively on things regarding the conflict. The Kip 20:53, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• I myself have had concerns at times regarding Al Jazeera's reporting on the conflict, but that's moreso been due to my own admitted bias rather than journalistic malpractice on their part. While such reporting as above is actively problematic, I'm not seeing much of a reason to fully downgrade; remember, like the recent discussion on the New York Times, generally reliable does not mean always reliable. I don't think we need to do anything here, besides obviously not use info from a retracted claim/piece; at most, I could see dropping AJ's Arab-Israeli reporting to WP:MREL/"Additional considerations," while keeping the rest at GREL (like how we've divided Anadolu Agency's reporting between general topics and CTOPs at WP:RSP), but even that feels like a slight stretch unless a stronger case is built. The Kip 20:59, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  I would support that, with a note that they don’t always make retractions after falsehoods have been identified. In terms of a stronger case, take a look at the Arab News and National Review articles I provided above. BilledMammal (talk) 21:02, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  That isnt a stronger case, thats two highly partisan pieces making claims that serious sources have ignored. nableezy - 21:04, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  Both of those sources are WP:MREL, with one (National Review) being a source I simply don't trust and the other (Arab News) itself being government-backed, as well as published in the midst of the Qatar diplomatic crisis. I'd need to see something on the level of BBC or WaPo for a proper case. The Kip 21:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  I think I agree with this assessment most, I too have seen issues but nothing catastrophic. I think post-war a discussion on a slight downgrade on I/P specifically is reasonable, but this conduct is at most a facet. FortunateSons (talk) 21:06, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• I'm not seeing the issue here. The claim was directly attributed to a specific person who made the claim. The person's claim was debunked. Al Jazeera honestly weren't even required to pull the articles at that point, many other outlets haven't when they've published attributed claims that were debunked. I do think the comparison to the Jerusalem Post and specifically the "dead child is a doll" claim to be relevant, especially since their reporting wasn't attributed to a person, but the outlet directly making the claim.

Regardless, this thread seems to be largely based on nothing. Though I am noticing certain highly emotional and seemingly POV responses from some editors against Al Jazeera, like BilledMammal above. I think this discussion is more revealing on editor conduct than anything else. Silverseren^C 21:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

What's a continual problem on Wikipedia is that editors with the strongest POV and bias are the editors who flock to highly controversial topics like the Israel/Palestine conflict. They are simply unable to see things from a neutral perspective. This is too much drama for me but my read of it is this has been discussed already, and nothing has changed and this whole conversation is a waste of time. AusLondonder (talk) 21:56, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

On another note...The National Review? "Most editors consider National Review a partisan source whose statements should be attributed." The idea we should get rid of Al Jazeera because of an opinion piece in a right-wing American magazine is simply unbelievable. AusLondonder (talk) 22:04, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Amen to that. The Kip 22:06, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

This is not the first or the only problem with AJ's reporting of the IP conflict. The source clearly has a bias, which is noted in the RSP entry and is described by RS [19]. Their journalist moonlighted as a Hamas commander, or at least was very much embedded in Hamas militia [20].

It doesn't mean that all their reporting is unreliable but we also should take their biases into account, for example when determining the weight of a certain event, or when there is an exceptional claim.

Now we fail to do this. AJ is the single most used source for Israel–Hamas war article accounting for >10% of all citations, and often their reporting is presented in wikivoice. Alaexis_¿question? 22:05, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The IDF is a reliable source now? nableezy - 22:12, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I take what they say with a grain of salt but I haven't seen any response to the evidence they provided. Has AJ explained what their journalist was doing with a rocket launcher? Alaexis_¿question? 07:27, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Those following this war are probably aware that the IDF rarely provides anything even remotely akin to evidence. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:52, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

At the top of the page it says "Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports." Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that when people depart from that, by posing more general questions about a source for example, it often does not go well? Isn't an RFC the appropriate tool for this kind of thing? Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:09, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Here’s the Wikipedia article that it’s used in Al-Shifa Hospital siege#Misinformation on rape allegations

I have balanced it out with a Times of Israel article finding. Originally, the article section and title was much worse https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Al-Shifa_Hospital_siege&oldid=1215351572#Mass_rape_claim_made_in_Arab_and_Iranian_media

I actually did not question the Al Jazeera source. I only knew to question and started searching when a third editor put up a maintenance tag here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Al-Shifa_Hospital_siege&oldid=1215487636#24_March Wafflefrites (talk) 13:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The article section is much better now thanks to that third editor’s maintenance tag and The Times of Israel’s additional reporting on the accidental misinformation that was in the live update and then repeated by sources like Moroccan News, Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss. Actually rereading it, it seemed the first editor also question the original source’s content and but posted it anyways. Wafflefrites (talk) 13:56, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to downgrade or adjust their reliability, other than perhaps to add an additional disclaimer about its close ties to the government of Qatar. We already caution the source as partisan on Israel-Palestine issues, but I've not seen anything to suggest they are outright unreliable on the matter. Toa Nidhiki05 17:04, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@Toa Nidhiki05, the problem is that this notice doesn't work. As I said earlier, this is the single most used source for the Israel-Hamas war article, with predictable consequences. The problem with AJ is usually not outright falsehoods but rather what it chooses to cover and whose voices it amplifies. When it writes "according to X, the forces of Y did Z" I'm pretty sure that they are not lying, but many other sources would not report it without further corroboration. Still, as long as it's green on RSP, editors feel that it's good enough for Wikipedia. Alaexis_¿question? 22:08, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Editors feel that it is good enough because it is good enough. The characteristic you describe of selective information publication is common to all news. This is the basis of bias. You present AJ's choices as if these are unusual, when this is par for the course for all media. But the grosser bias throughout this conflict, as now well documented, is the anti-Palestinian bias in most Western media, which has been breathtakingly appalling. Iskandar323 (talk) 23:11, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

It also ignores that Times of Israel is cited 81 times, compared to al-Jazeera's 83, Jerusalem Post 11 times, Ynet/Yedioth Ahronoth 20 times, Haaretz 20 times and so on. Israeli sources are cited considerably more than Arab sources. And it takes a special kind of boldness to say as long as it's green on RSP, editors feel that it's good enough for Wikipedia when that same user makes a comment like this about CAMERA while attempting to use it and sources of that quality regularly. nableezy - 23:24, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Eh, I don't remember myself using CAMERA actually but that doesn't really matter. The problem is not that the sources originate from Arab countries but that the said countries have a terrible record when it comes to free speech and naturally their reporting is influenced by the agenda of their governments.

I'm not saying it should never be used, rather that it's now used way more that it's justified and thus its bias seeps into Wikipedia. Alaexis_¿question? 07:26, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

We don't judge sources by their country of origin, but by the track record of quality and accuracy in their content. This baying for Al Jazeera's blood because it comes from Qatar (ignoring its decades-long track record of quality reporting) is becoming McCarthyite. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:54, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Let me know if you’d like your memory jogged further. nableezy - 10:20, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to downgrade AJ based on this. Generally reliable sources are not always reliable so one or two errors does not add up to evidence of general unreliability. We should avoid news blogs and avoid attempting to immediately put every single thing reported in the news into articles, but we already have policy for that. Reporting on I/P is fraught with bias, so we need to triangulate reportage, with AJ being one of the strongest sources not biased in favour of Israel. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:13, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Is there a Wikipedia policy that specifically says newsblogs should not be used? or is it softer wording like they should be avoided? Many of our I P articles are extremely “newsy” with a “Reactions” section with quotes from commentators from various countries. Plus there are a lot of I P articles lately that use the Al Jazeera liveblog. I did take a look at some of the older links though, It seems the links stabilize, but are not archivable.

I think the issue might not be Al Jazeera, but overuse of its liveblog and quotes from commentators in the liveblog Wafflefrites (talk) 17:49, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

No, WP:NEWSBLOG merely says be cautious. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that’s what I thought. I wasn’t going to go around mass reverting other people’s work without a specific policy saying that you cannot use liveblogs. Plus, the some of the liveblog info most likely could be verifiable if you dig around for other sources… it would just be a lot of work replacing and finding better sources. But, yes, some of the I P articles that use Al Jazeera may actually be using the daily/hourly reported snippets and sound bites. I am not a fan of Al Jazeera using commentators and video taping them, and taking it out of context though without further investigation. I am glad that a proper witness investigation was done by Hamas later though to figure out what was going on. Wafflefrites (talk) 18:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Reliable. At least as reliable as the New York Times, and my comment on that outlet (Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_430#The_New_York_Times) applies just as well to Al Jazeera: "The test for a generally reliable source is not "never fucks up ever"." Daveosaurus (talk) 06:31, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The test is not "never fucks up ever", but it is "when they fuck up, and they know they fucked up, they correct it". The issue with Al Jazeera is they don't appear to be doing the latter. BilledMammal (talk) 07:31, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Except, as Nableezy and others have exhaustively reiterated, they didn't even "fuck up" - they released content that was clearly attributed from the start and did not translate the claims from that source into their own voice. They then removed it a day later. This is unlike the NYT, which took garbage testimony from Zaka and others and translated it into unsubstantiated claims of "systematic" sexual violence and left it up for a month without even a whiff of internal scrutiny. Then, when external pressure arose, it begrudgingly raised questions over its original story (though not its fallacious reporting), and began an internal inquest into who ratted it out. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

They published a lie, and they continue to fail to retract it.

The New York Times published a statement from a medic who may have been mistaken about the location or who may have lied, and they wrote an entire article retracting it.

Both were attributed, but that wouldn’t justify the New York Times not retracting it, and it doesn’t justify Al Jazeera not retracting it. BilledMammal (talk) 08:33, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Saying that someone says something is never going to be a lie. Publications retract falsehoods that they make in their own voice. They are not required to apologise on behalf of false witnesses. Anyone can perform this criticism. I understand that this was something in a live blog. We avoid using live blogs anyway, in part because they're not fully fact-checked stories, and it's ludicrous to imagine that media outlets will go back and add notes and updates live blogs retroactively. Has the NYT anywhere published a piece explaining how Zaka put out a pack of lies? – as demonstrated by basic residency figures. No. They've merely hinted that a subsequent video 'undermines' some of the bunk that was put out. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:49, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

For us to trust sources we need to know they are responsible. Publishing quotes that contain information they know to be false without telling the reader that the information is false is irresponsible and contributes to the spread of misinformation. Further, it can result in us including falsehoods without informing our reader that the information is false.

Here, Al Jazeera had behaved irresponsibly, by failing to do the bare minimum of retracting the quote. Ideally, they would go beyond this like the New York Times has done, and publish an article explaining what happened, but given their bias I am not expecting them to do so.

Given your comments about the live blogs, can we at least agree to note on RSP that Al Jazeera’s rating does not apply to their live blog? BilledMammal (talk) 08:59, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

That's unnecessary. Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS and live blogs is the newsiest news. They should rarely if ever be used as permanent sources on any pages. We also have WP:NEWSBLOG, which is very clear that news blogs should be used with caution due to the looser fact-checking involved. So it's already in the guidelines, as well as being common sense. So the main complaint here is that they didn't issue a formal retraction online or in print about a live blog entry. To this, I would ask: do outlets typically formally retract live blog entries, or do they just edit their live blogs? Can you provide a historic example of a news outlet specifically issuing a retraction for information from a live blog that never made it into an article? Iskandar323 (talk) 10:21, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

do they just edit their live blogs The issue is they haven’t even edited their live page; it’s still up.

As for NEWSBLOGS, it’s not clear that applies to Al Jazeera’s; it talks only about pages labelled “blogs”, but Al Jazeera’s is labeled a "live page". BilledMammal (talk) 10:52, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Where's it still up? A few links have been posted, but they don't go anywhere useful. And yes, it is clear what a live news feed/blog looks like. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:03, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Here; I also linked it above.

It’s not clear to me that such live feeds are what NEWSBLOGS is talking about; it appears to be referring to something closer to opinion columns (host online columns they call blogs) BilledMammal (talk) 11:07, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

So as Nableezy notes, all it says is that the woman told AJ "X", which is still true. It's not in their voice. What do you want them to do? Falsify the record and erase it, as if the woman didn't make that statement, and they didn't record it? These blogs close at the end of each day and it's not typical for them to be edited after the fact – again, that would be falsification of the timeline of reporting. The video has been deleted directly from the media library rather than by means of editing the live blog. The testimony meanwhile does not already appear in any actual written-up news or analysis, so nowhere does AJ claim to have validated or corroborated the claim, and so there's nothing to update or correct. How many statements do you think exist out there of IDF spokespeople claiming they're not targeting civilians? Obvious garbage, but again, not a problem because they're attributed statements. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:20, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Whatever the reason they don't update the record, their fact that they don't do so is a very good reason for us not to use the live feed.

In the same line as the issues with this update, they often put things in their own voice that every other reliable source attributes - evidence that for stories where their biases and Qatars interests apply they are too willing to take statements at face value rather than consider them critically. For example, in this update, they say that Israeli forces killed a boy during a raid in the West Bank; all other reliable sources attribute to WAFA. Even aside from reliability, this is reason we should be careful about use the live feed as the sole source for a claim; it's far too likely to be WP:UNDUE. BilledMammal (talk) 05:46, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:DROPTHESTICK, ffs. Looking more and more like WP:BLUDGEONING. Selfstudier (talk) 12:43, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Comment: Worth noting that when Blinken trotted along to Qatar to ask Al Jazeera to dim their coverage of the war "no specific offending examples of the station’s output were given" – so the US had nyada and couldn't even muster up a proper complaint. The political problem with Al Jazeera is its incisive reporting, due to it being "one of the few news organisations with a functioning bureau in Gaza", and its shining of a torch where Israel and the West would prefer it didn't. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:26, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Not sure "functioning" really captures the current situation. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:36, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

If anything, that AJ has only made a couple of decisions even vaguely resembling slip-ups that anyone thinks worthy to write home about in six months of very isolated war reporting is bloody miraculous, and stands to its credit. It's difficult to verify truth in a war zone. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:08, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I just wanted to revisit the initial incident this thread was raised in relation to, having looked into it further. The OP is assuming that the AJ reporting was false because a former AJ employee tweeted that Hamas had investigated the allegation and found it to be false, as reported (slightly inaccurately) by the Times of Israel. (So anyone who has argued on this page that Hamas or the ministry of health it controls is by definition unreliable shouldn't be giving credence to the refutation, given it is sourced only to Hamas.) There have been other broadly credible social media accounts also saying it was false,[21][22][23] along with the alleged victim's brother.[24] None of these give a source for their claims and none have been reported in reliable sources. Other broadly credible social media accounts have in turn questioned the denials, noting that Hamas don't investigate such incidents and giving reasons why Hamas and the brother would have an interest in the story being refuted.[25][26][27] Again, not reported in reliable sources. In short, even if Al-Jazeera had said the allegations were true (which they didn't), we cannot categorically say that it's not true, so this is in no sense evidence against AJ reliability. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:22, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Can't argue with the logic. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:42, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Generally reliable, which means exactly what it says. It doesn't mean they never fuck up. When the story was determined false, they took it down. What would we have them do? Leave it up? If we're going to start banging on about outlets getting things wrong and judging them by that then we'd have to judge The New York Times for propagating the mother of all lies about weapons of mass destruction and I don't see anyone beating that drum. This is a non-starter. TarnishedPath^talk 10:21, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2 (Al Jazeera)

The Al Jazeera overall is not a reliable source.
It's never a good idea to label the entire news source on any topic as "black or white" as there are many nuances and those need to be understood. Many news agencies might be biased in some shape or form but it's key to what extent. One can’t have an entirely unbiased religious network. I'd limit the areas where they can be used as RS and leave for the other areas. But if we need to make one decision for any news on any topics from this agency then overall it's not a reliable source.

• Firstly, it's essential to recognize the distinction between the two versions of Al Jazeera: the English version tailored for Western audiences, often emphasizing victimization to solicit sympathy and funding, using 'Israel' and supporting gay rights, and the Arabic version propagating a narrative of religious strength and the power of Muslim leaders, referring to Israel as 'the Zionist Regime' and neglecting gay rights. This dichotomy resembles that of the Russian propaganda channel RT.
  
• Secondly, while any news agency may err occasionally, the frequency of such errors and their handling of misinformation when discovered are crucial factors. In my observation, Al Jazeera often fails in this regard.
  
• Thirdly, based on my experience, Al Jazeera generally provides decent coverage of events beyond the Muslim world and Israel. However, their reporting on the Israel-Palestine relationship and Muslim politics is heavily biased. News related to Qatar, particularly during the football World Cup or concerning their relationship with Hamas, is also biased. Moreover, they are unreliable for topics concerning Shia Islam and tend to exhibit a strong bias when determining alliances or adversaries.

Let us take a look at a few examples:

1. At times, they may initially propagate false information, only to retract it once the damage is already inflicted. Regrettably, they often omit issuing an editorial to acknowledge and explain the misinformation they disseminated. One of the examples is from within last 10 days when they have published a lie that claiming woman was raped by Israeli Forces in Gaza Al-Shifa Raid when she was not. Aliza Licht did a good job explaining this lie here. Here is another coverage of it here. Even the terrorist organization Hamas has said that the Al Jazeera has lied. The outcome? "the confession from Al Jazeera's own ranks was nothing short of cinematic, as former director Yasser Abuhilalah disclosed through a tweet the findings of a Hamas investigation: the harrowing tale of sexual violence within Al-Shifaa Hospital's walls was a pure fabrication, designed to stir the pot of national fervor—a needless endeavor given the already high stakes and suffering in the region".
2. Another style of what they do is just to show only one side of the story. Al Jazeera has not covered murders committed by the Hamas terrorists but often makes up rapes by IDF which didn't happen. Al Jazeera is funded by Qatar which funds Hamas that has the goal to destroy Israel. Why would anyone expect any reliable information from them?
3. This news outlet sometimes provokes its audience. For example, in 2012 Bangladesh news outlet The Daily Star quoted MA Hasan, a war crimes researcher: "They [Al Jazeera] want to provoke instability in the country”. The National Human Rights Commission(NHRC) Chairman Dr Mizanur Rahman had the same opinion: “It's audacious and a kind of provocation. This type of conclusion can inspire the opponents of the trial.” I didn't find an apology written by Al Jazeera.
4. They sometimes create false statements which influence the political situation. For example, in 2021 there was an "Al Jazeera Report" which had among other info the following: "The Government of Bangladesh has learnt of a false and defamatory report titled “All the Prime Minister’s Men” by Al Jazeera news channel. The report is nothing more than a misleading series of innuendos and insinuations" and I didn't find an apology written by Al Jazeera.
5. They tend to present assumptions as facts. Take a look as an example at this article.
6. During the hospital incident, they promptly issued a false statement alleging that over 500 people died due to an Israeli rocket attack, presenting assumptions as facts with a biased viewpoint. They failed to include qualifiers such as "allegedly" or provide sources for this claim. Furthermore, their dissemination of false propaganda persisted as the lead story for several days, seemingly aimed at influencing readers' perspectives, but in reality, it tarnished their own reputation in my eyes. It was only three days later that they acknowledged the possibility that it was misinformation.
7. In the initial days of the Israel-Hamas conflict, while sourcing information, I found Al Jazeera's reporting troubling. They claimed that Israel initiated the war while completely overlooking the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists, which actually triggered Israel's defensive response in Gaza. This type of biased reporting is reminiscent of tactics employed by Russian authoritarian leaders, but it fails to accurately depict reality.
8. According to Professor Mordechai Kedar, an expert in the Arab media and culture from his 25 years in IDF intelligence and subsequent work as a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University: "Al-Jazeera keeps spreading lies, but since they speak to people with a poker face, everyone thinks they are telling the truth". One of Al-Jazeera’s distortions, now parroted by some elements in the foreign press, is that Israel has murdered 45 journalists in the last 22 years.
9.  As some of us remember, in 2010 exposed that the  Qatari government is manipulating Al Jazeera’s coverage of certain event types. I didn't find an apology written by Al Jazeera.
10. Al Jazeera's manager Mahmud, who oversaw Broadcast Operations and Technology at the network  made the following statements to it's employees: “whoever supports Israel should die a fiery death in hell”. How could such outlets be reliable?
11. They have additional issues with antisemitism. "For instance, it has dabbled in blatantly antisemitic conspiracies, such as the erroneous claim that Jewish World Trade Center employees were warned of the events of 9/11 beforehand, therefore implying that Jews (or Israel) bore at least some responsibility for what happened (if you need a reminder: Qatar, which controls what is published in Al Jazeera, has deep financial ties with both the Taliban and Al Qaeda)", and many other problems which can be seen this article.
12.  Al Jazeera published a fake news article that photos of an Israeli baby burned by the Hamas terrorists were fake and "millions of people saw it and became a victim of fake propaganda".
13. Al-Jazeera shared videos showing fake injuries (and sometimes fake deaths) of Palestinian Arab civilians in an intention to demonize Israel. And then I didn't see any apology from them. Should we allow such facts in our wikipedia articles? We should if we want to spread lies.
14. Al Jazeera has painted an incorrect picture of life in Gaza.
15. Instead of airing the proper spectrum of news Al Jazeera [28] a documentary on the Israeli lobby in Washington.
16. Al Jazeera was artificially inflating fake news about alleged Arafat poisoning.
17. According to Bloomberg: The lawmakers also are asking the Justice Department to investigate reports that Al Jazeera infiltrated nonprofit organizations. Their letter calls its broadcasts 'anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel' and urges regulators to scrutinize the network to determine whether it violates U.S. law".
18. "Al Jazeera has reported that Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning and a number of other professional football and baseball players have been linked to an Indiana anti-aging clinic that provides its clients with human growth hormone, among other drugs... one of the men who Al Jazeera relied on for its bombshell documentary is saying his previous statements were untrue". I am not sure if targeting someone with a last name of  Zimmerman was a coincidence, but has Al Jazeera apologized or corrected its misrepresentation?
19. Then there was a story of Kleinfeld and the ‘anti-Semitic’ Al Jazeera docuseries on US Jewish lobby". 
20. They have fabricated a story that had human growth hormone mailed to his home while he was recovering from neck surgery.
21. And example of how Al Jazeera  tweaks the information. And here is example.
22. is one of the inside stories on how Al Jazeera is misrepresenting the news. Do we really want this to be a reliable source?
23. More than 20 people just in a single office have resigned from Al Jazeera  in protest over bias.
24. Jazeera staffers were relieved that the email exchange had been leaked, "because it exposed the station's biased and unprofessional coverage Syria.
25. Dr Anwar Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs: “us be clear, the way Al Jazeera channel has dealt with the statement of Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed was not a professional blunder; It was part of a smear campaign [by the media against the UAE]”.
26. "fact, Al Jazeera seems to have missed the last five years of life itself when every major terrorist incident has been found to have some Pakistan connection. When the whole world has its eyes open, Al Jazeera’s are shut".
27. 2020: Justice Department says AJ+, a media outlet backed by the royal family of Qatar, engages in “political activities”.
    2021: "National Security Division made the determination that AJ+, a subsidiary unit of Al Jazeera Media Network, must register under FARA because it engages in “political activities” on behalf of Qatar’s government and is designed to “influence American perceptions” of “domestic policy,” among other reasons".
    2023: "Al Jazeera Must Register as a Foreign Agent of Qatar".
28. Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) has demanded to impose a ban on the broadcast of Qatar-based Al Jazeera in Bangladesh accusing it of serving an anti-national vested group's interest by tarnishing Bangladesh's image at the international level.
29. has banned Al Jazeera from reporting from inside the Gulf state citing “breach of media norms”.
30. Israel is in the process of banning Al Jazeera.
31. Not only Israel, but many muslim countries see issues with Al Jazeera propaganda. For example, "and Saudi Arabia have already shuttered local Al Jazeera offices, and both the channel and its affiliated websites have been blocked in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain".
32. closed Al Jazeera office due to the issues with hoe the information was provided.
33. According to the BBC since at least 2014 (!) "criticism of Al Jazeera comes as readily from ordinary people as from Arab governments". And there are earlier news from 2011.

These examples I've provided are just the tip of the iceberg, as I didn't spend a considerable time to compile them. My intention is to shed light on the fact that relying blindly on this news outlet as a credible source for any topic is not advisable. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 03:29, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for this work; it is very comprehensive. In particular, the Wikileaks cables demonstrate that we can't trust the claim that they are editorially independent of the Qatari government, and that we should not consider them generally reliable for topics related to Qatari interests. BilledMammal (talk) 05:49, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

To add to this, regarding the lawsuits I mentioned above:

1. According to Shannon High-Bassalik, a former senior Vice-President at Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera abandoned journalistic objectivity to advance a pro-Arabic and Middle Eastern Point of view. For example, she said that during the 2014 war they were explicitly instructed to favor the Middle Eastern Point of view and paint Israel as the villain. She also said this goes beyond things that can merely be considered bias and into the realm of conspiracy theory, such as that producers were told that much of the Arab World believed 9/11 was a CIA plot, and that they should keep this point of view in mind when they decide the tone and content of their reporting - the consequences of this can be seen in their publication of material denying the holocaust, but we have to expect that it also came through more subtly in other publications. Unfortunately, the accuracy of these claims were not considered in court, who ruled the arbitration clause was binding. I have been unable to determine the outcome of the arbitration.
2. According to Matthew Luke, a former employee at Al Jazeera, a member of senior management was antisemitic and sexist, saying at one point "whoever supports Israel should die a fiery death in hell" and that Israeli employees were replaced with Palestinian ones without basis. It was settled out of court; I have no been able to find the specifics. This speaks less to reliability that the High-Bassalik suit, but it does raise serious concerns about significant bias at Al Jazeera that should be mentioned in the RSP rating - at the least we should attribute all claims related to Israel.

BilledMammal (talk) 06:22, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

We very recently had an RFC on this source and this game of ask until you get the answer you want is disruptive. We have a consensus on the reliability of Al-Jazera, and using sources like Arutz Sheva to question that is laughable. Give it a rest, sheesh. nableezy - 09:01, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

@Nableezy: I can't remember a recent RfC on Al Jazeera; can you link it? BilledMammal (talk) 09:13, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 421#Al Jazeera - 2023 nableezy - 09:18, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

@Nableezy: I don't think that was an RfC, but if you are convinced it was I note it closed as "no consensus"; this would require us to downgrade Al Jazeera from "generally reliable" to "no consensus". Let me know if you are convinced that it was and thus serves as an impediment to an RfC on Al Jazeera within the near-future. BilledMammal (talk) 12:06, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

No consensus to change, not no consensus. nableezy - 12:50, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Generally reliable: let's not confuse AJ Arabic controversies with its English-language outlets. Also no news outlet is immune to mistakes; their retraction of that story shows that they clearly they have journalistic standards in place and are enforced. As for the other sources questioning AJ's reliability, most are affiliated with Israel, including its own national media outlets and US-based pro-Israel advocacy groups such as HonestReporting. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:48, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

• I don’t support any attempt at changing the status of AJ based on this thread. All I’m reading is back-and-forth “I like Al Jazeera because crap also exists” vs. “I don’t like Al Jazeera because other crap exists”. The evidence presented is almost all biased, dubious and anecdotal. Add the Israel-Hamas war into this mess and you have a recipe for a complete lack of legitimate consensus. Dronebogus (talk) 16:33, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
• Many journalistic outlets appear to be at their worst in relation to the ongoing conflict, but from what I can see they appear to be generally reliable, and none of the supposed evidence presented here convinces me otherwise. PARAKANYAA (talk) 13:06, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
• Failing to correct errors; Al Jazeera claimed in multiple articles Daniel Hagari admitted that hundreds of tonnes of bombs had been dropped on Gaza with an emphasis “on damage and not accuracy” This has since been found to be a mistranslation; instead, he said while balancing accuracy with the scope of damage, right now we’re focused on what causes maximum damage. While other reliable sources corrected this, Al Jazeera has not done so. Al Jazeera also claimed that an Israeli analysis had shown "Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has killed a significantly greater proportion of civilians than the average civilian death toll in conflicts around the world during the 20th century". In fact, it was for the period 1945 to 1990; other sources made this error and corrected, but Al Jazeera did not. This is similar to the issue we saw with the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, where they still haven't corrected their early reporting, and doesn't meet the standard that we expect from reliable sources. BilledMammal (talk) 03:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  The second one of those is quite a creative retelling. 972 later added a clarification to their original story on the date range, when AJ reported that it was as they reported it. I don’t think we expect sources to monitor other outlets for updates to stories they ran so that they can later update their stories. That the Guardian did that is good for the Guardian, but this isn’t how you presented it. The former one seems to be a dispute about a translation, and perhaps there is ambiguity in what Hagari said in Hebrew. Maybe you should email them requesting a correction. The Washington Post had written that Hamas had murdered 1200 civilians and I emailed them to correct the misstatement. They silently removed civilians some four weeks later. The idea that sources are supposed to be omniscient to all changes that happen in other sources they used is fanciful. nableezy - 04:01, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  Regarding the second one:

  • The referenced source is Haaretz, not 972.
  • Even if we don't believe that sources should correct mistakes based on mistakes in downstream sources, Al Jazeera's claim still doesn't align with Haaretz's original claim, who didn't say the entire 20th century but during the 20th century, up until the 1990's.

  Al Jazeera's mistake wasn't limited to failing to issue a correction after Haaretz issued a correction - their claim was incorrect from the start, and their failure to correct it is made more concerning by the fact that other sources have corrected a mistake related to this.

  Regarding the first one, there is no indication that there is a translation dispute; sources make it clear that this was a mistranslation of the sort that we would expect sources we list as "generally reliable" to correct. BilledMammal (talk) 05:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  Err ... "during the 20th century, up until the 1990's" is the entire century - what comes after the 1990s ... ? Iskandar323 (talk) 09:02, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  "Up until the 1990's" would exclude the 90's; it's saying up until that decade - to interpret it as you say would make it redundant.

  If you don't believe me, look at how reliable sources use the term. BilledMammal (talk) 10:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  It's ambiguous, potentially meaning all of the 90s, part of the 90s or none of the 90s. If they wanted to say none of the 90s, however, they would have said "up until 1989", which they didn't. It's a masterclass in imprecision. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:04, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  The second one of those is quite a creative retelling. 972 later added a clarification to their original story on the date range, when AJ reported that it was as they reported it. I don’t think we expect sources to monitor other outlets for updates to stories they ran so that they can later update their stories. That the Guardian did that is good for the Guardian, but this isn’t how you presented it. The former one seems to be a dispute about a translation, and perhaps there is ambiguity in what Hagari said in Hebrew. Maybe you should email them requesting a correction. The Washington Post had written that Hamas had murdered 1200 civilians and I emailed them to correct the misstatement. They silently removed civilians some four weeks later. The idea that sources are supposed to be omniscient to all changes that happen in other sources they used is fanciful. nableezy - 04:01, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• The Al Jazeera is a reliable source. The reason of this attack on Al Jazeera is because the Far Right wing Israeli government is currently banning it and they want to shut down any visual report from the ground in Gaza about Israel's war in Gaza. Israel forbids foreign journalists in Gaza. Al Jazeera is the only channel that shows footage of urbicide, how Israel uses starvation as a weapon of war and how they kill a lot of men and male teenagers and children, women, arbitrarily. Israeli most famous journalist abroad, Gideon Levy, who has said many times that Haaretz is the only really serious newspaper in Israel, has praised Al Jazeera : Al Jazeera English... offers balanced, professional reporting from correspondents... in Gaza. [29] Gideon Levy has recently given Al Jazeera a long interview about Israel's war in Gaza and Gideon Levy neatly broke Israeli state's narrative.[30] There is an irony to see users who want to ban Al Jazeera as a source whereas the same ones have been including Israeli patriotic sources on Israel war related articles, such as The Times of Israel. Ynet and The Jerusalem Post that always whitewashes Israeli state violence against Palestinians. Far right wing Israeli source like The Times of Israel doesn't have any Editorial Independence Policy [31], and they don't cover Israeli settlers' violence like the Israeli Settlers’ Hawara Pogrom [32]. TToI doesn't provide factual, distinctive journalism for a diverse audience. That is called partisan media bias. Ynet is the same thing. Le Monde recently wrote: "Ynet [an extension of Israel's leading daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth], have all taken a patriotic turn." [33] Those Israeli sources don't write anything about the suffering in Gaza, they are partial media. And yet the users who have been including those Israeli partisan media sources, have been advocating to ban Al Jazeera again and again. This is just political, business as usual and Israeli narrative. And those Israeli media didn't say that the '40 beheading babies' story was fake : 90% of Israelis keep one believing it. Deblinis (talk) 06:09, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
• I think that the English version of Al Jazeera seems to be an overall reliable source, but the Israeli government is currently trying to prevent its reporting and would greatly prefer if Wikipedia censors all content here that uses the news organisation as a source, in order to hide its crimes against humanity, given the heavily critical focus on Wikipedia within lobbying organisations regarding this topic recently. Also, by the logic of removing entire mostly reliable news organisations for some inaccurate reporting, should we also remove The New York Times, CNN, and most of older United States media for promoting the invasion of Iraq on false premises? David A (talk) 06:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Independence of Al Jazeera

The question of whether Al Jazeera is independent from the Qatari state has been mentioned several times, but not considered in detail. Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar, and it is operated by its royal family, with the chairman of Al Jazeera being Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani.

In "The menu of autocratic innovation", Morgenbesser discusses innovations designed to maintain autocratic power in a changing world; one of their examples is Qatar, arguing that they are utilizing their control of media to systematically target "citizens, civil society activists, opposition members, and foreign policymakers" to maintain the "façade of accountability without allowing the practice of it" - they offer the facade of impartiality and objectivity but not the reality of it.

In "Al-Jazeera, Qatar, and New Tactics in State-Sponsored Media Diplomacy", Samuel-Azran argues "that the Qatar–Al-Jazeera relationship represents a third form of media diplomacy, the hybrid model, that allows the state to regain control over the messages transmitted to global audiences. Under the hybrid model identified here, a state-sponsored station operates independently in routine affairs, which gives it the credibility of a privately owned station, and reverts to state-sponsored-style broadcasting only during a crisis involving the state." Samuel-Azran and Assaf expand on this in a later paper, arguing that it "promote[s] its national interests and successfully manage[s] its image in the international realm by smart initiatives including sponsoring hybrid public–private initiatives such as Al Jazeera". In other words, for matters unrelated to Qatari interests, we can consider it independent and reliable - but not on matters related to Qatari interests. This is supported by scholars like Lynch who argue that Al Jazeera serves the interests of Qatar, and Khatib who argues that it is a Qatari tool for public diplomacy, and that its position shifts when Qatar needs it to.

This is further supported in "Characteristics and Experiences of Contemporary Media Diplomacy: A case study of Al Jazeera in Qatar", Ying and Dong argue that Al Jazeera is used by Qatar to enhance its ability to set agendas, including as part of Qatar's diplomatic negotiations and they explicitly reject the claims of Al Jazeera's independence; "Therefore, although Al Jazeera, which is financially supported by the Qatari royal family, claims to adhere to the principle of press freedom, in fact its international news agenda-setting and reporting tendency are indirectly serving the goal of Qatar’s diversified and balanced foreign policy." In "Two Tales of One War: Understanding the Media Coverage of the Yemeni Civil War in Saudi Arabia and Qatar", Duman and Yulco agree with this, arguing that "Al Jazeera is the “soft power tool” serving Qatar’s political agenda"

It appears that scholarly sources do not consider Al Jazeera independent on matters of concern to the Qatari state - as such, we shouldn't either. I think our treatment of certain Turkish outlets would be a good model to use here. BilledMammal (talk) 12:10, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

See Archive 10 of 11 discussions on AJ, where this issue was addressed, nothing has changed since. Selfstudier (talk) 12:17, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

It's hard to see how a media outlet located in an absolute monarchy with extremely limited press freedom can be independent, but it's good to have scholarly sources confirming it. Alaexis_¿question? 12:42, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

It's called an editorial team and board. Al Jazeera recruited a strong team of ex-BBC and other staff a decade ago, and they've gone from strength to strength since. These aspersions based on ownership are like some sort of neo-Orientalist attempt at shoring up systemic bias. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The comparison to Turkish state media seems inappropriate: the reliability of sources like Anadolu Ajansi and TRT has been disputed because they print actual misinformation on behalf of the Turkish state (e.g. [34] stating without attribution that there are "FETO camps" in the US and that this organization staged a coup in Turkey in 2016; no reliable source repeats these claims). The same has not been demonstrated of Al Jazeera vis a vis Qatar. Meanwhile, if the charge is that AJ is a "soft power tool", you can find abundant scholarly monographs that make the same claim of BBC vis-a-vis the British government (e.g. [35], [36], [37]). Wright et al. is particularly illustrative in its analysis of AJ and BBC as essentially being peers, with Xinhua and RT being examples of lower-quality tiers of state-backed media. Really, complaining about "soft power" as being incompatible with RS status just belies a misunderstanding of both our relevant guidelines and the nature of professional journalism on a fundamental level. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:03, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think you are equating equal things here. For example, when Vercellotti talks about "soft power" in "The BBC and Soft Power at Home: Promoting Democracy Through The Archers", he is talking about independent decisions made by the BBC that promote British culture and values - specifically, the promotion of democracy and political engagement in Britain. In contrast, when Duman and Yulco is talking about Qatar using Al Jazeera as a "soft power tool", they are talking about Al Jazeera having limited independence and being used by the Qatari state to advance their interests.

Further, that was one source from several I presented; even if you don't find that aspect concerning the others are far more direct about Al Jazeera lacking the independence that we have hereto assumed it had and being controlled by the Qatari state to advance their interests and maintain the power of the Al Thani family.

In regards to the Turkish media, I was referring to WP:TRT, not AA. However, I do think a more bespoke solution would be appropriate: Additional considerations apply for topics where the Qatari government has an interest; editors should carefully consider whether inclusion is WP:DUE, and if included should generally attribute. Otherwise, generally reliable, including for statements by the Qatari government. BilledMammal (talk) 15:37, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Just like how the BBC is often very bad at covering domestic politics when it isn't in the government's interests – like last Friday, when the BBC just skipped over what was likely the largest anti-Gaza war protest in London to date. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:08, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

If you have concerns about the BBC then I encourage you to do a similar analysis to what I have done here and open a discussion - if similar issues exist I will support action there as well. However, lets not derail this discussion by focusing on a different source. BilledMammal (talk) 16:25, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The point is that you are merely pointing out the same issues of media bias that are universal to almost all outlets. None of it is particularly pertinent to a discussion on reliability. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:34, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

No other source that we consider generally reliable claims to be independent only for research to reveal that this is false, and that instead of being "impartial and objective" they are used by a nation state in a hybrid model to advance their interests and maintain autocratic rule. BilledMammal (talk) 16:55, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:BLUDGEON, this is getting really tiresome. Selfstudier (talk) 17:01, 7 April 2024 (UTC

Very true about the BBC. It just ignores or puts out trivial stuff on the side about stuff the security service doesn't like. And the British newspapers are pretty much under the control of the D-Notice system, the Guardian made a attempt for a few years to buck it but is firmly under control again. NadVolum (talk) 16:08, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

References

References

verywell Health on the spam blacklist

Alright, folks, got an interesting question for you all: Should the website "verywellhealth.com" remain on the MediaWiki spam blacklist?

I was trying to use it as a source for the article Myolysis; I found their article on the procedure ("Myolysis: Everything You Need to Know") to be approachably written, but more importantly, not making any extraordinary claims, nor at odds with other reliable sources - seemingly passing WP:MEDRS for at least limited use. However, I was informed by edit notice that the site is currently blacklisted, for Spam reasons.

Looking into the history of the listing, I'm not sure I agree it should be blacklisted. According to WP:BLACKLIST, "blacklisting a URL should be used as a last resort against spammers"; it's recommended to try page protection or user-blocking first. However, in the case where this website (and its family of sites - "verywellmind.com" and "verywellfamily.com") were first blacklisted, only 4 users were noted to be spamming it: 3 brand-new accounts, and one IP. It seems like that case could've been stopped with some user blocks. But, the site was blacklisted, just 1.5 hours after the 3 reported users were blocked [38] [39] [40].

These sites remained blacklisted for a long while with no discussion, until these 3 discsussions [41] [42] [43], all of which were opened by Manifestation. The GENERAL SUMMARY I got from those threads was:

• Verywell is probably marginally reliable, and useful for uncontroversial medical information, subject to considerations laid out at Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Other sources
• However, the site is popular and prone to spamming

It was recommended that the site get requested to be whitelisted selectively where it might have legitimate use.

So, considering the site at large doesn't seem to fall afoul of WP:MEDRS, and (as Newslinger pointed out in one thread) is popular enough that blacklisting causes a substantial amount of collateral damage by making it more difficult for editors to use this source correctly, I feel like this site should be removed from the Blacklist.

Is there anything I'm missing? Other considerations with how/why Wikipedia might blacklist popular sites? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:12, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, there actually is something you're missing. There are *four* Verywell sites. Three of them are spamlisted, completely by mistake. When I requested this be corrected, an abusive admin manipulated everyone to keep them banned. When I called him out on it, he further harassed me by reporting me to ANI. The closing admin of that thread falsely claimed that I never presented a need for linking to Verywell (I did). The Verywell sites are not spam sites and have never been spammed. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 21:29, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Look, I read all those old threads, and I came to a similar conclusion you did regarding the sources. But that level of heat isn't necessary here, in this thread. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I read through those old threads and I can appreciate your frustration. I'm wondering, does the LinkReports verywellhealth subpage that you linked on your ANI no longer update? I'm only seeing reported attempts from 2018-07 through 2019-11. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:18, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

In February 2024 I participated in Request to not use the spam blacklist to block non-spam sites, which failed. In February 2023 I made a request that the Breitbart Spam Blacklist be removed, which failed. My negative experience makes me sympathize with Manifestation but not be hopeful. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:20, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Part of the issue with Breitbart is it was deprecated before being blacklisted. In your push to get it un-blacklisted, many users countered that it wasn't a good source at all, so why bother. It does seem that using the spam blacklist to disallow use of non-reliable sources seems a bit like crossing wires... but in the case of sources so poor they've been deprecated, the end result is the same. Wikipedia doesn't allow citations to those sources.

In the case of the Verywell sites, I never saw a strong consensus to rate these sources poorly. On the contrary, there seemed some consensus that they were marginally reliable. So why they remain blacklisted is a mystery to me. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:31, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

@PhotogenicScientist: Well, some Wikipedians believe that popular press sources (Psychology Today, ScienceDaily, Men's Health, Woman's Day, etc.) should *never* be used, especially on medical topics, and that other sources should be found. WP:MEDPOP discourages their use, but also states that some of their articles can be of high quality.

I attempted to use Verywell twice. The first was while writing a small paragraph at Remission (medicine) about the term No Evidence of Disease (NED). Verywell has a medically-reviewed article about it with some general info. I couldn't cite the article, because the site is banned.

The second time was while creating ICD-11. Verywell has a peer-reviewed article that summarizes the changes made in the ICD-11 compared to the ICD-10. I couldn't cite it, it's banned.

Several other Wikipedians, with a lot more experience than I have, attempted to cite Verywell over the years, but couldn't, due to false spamming accusations. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 07:52, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

If you want to use a link to a site blacklisted for spamming you need to go to MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:29, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The wheels of justice grind slowly... here's hoping they at least grind fine. I've made a request there for the one article of theirs I'd like to use. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested my request has now sat on the whitelist request page for nearly a week, with no signs of movement toward either approval or rejection. For a site that isn't in conflict with WP:MEDRS, I'm struggling to see why this is taking so long... if the whitelist request process is really so onerous, I feel like this site needs to be removed form the blacklist entirely if it's to be used on Wikipedia at all. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 13:31, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately it's something that requires an admin to action. I don't know why it's show hard to get a single url whitelisted. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:49, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The spam whitelist talk page has been perpetually understaffed. Until a few days ago I was the only one handling requests there at all, and prior to that they stayed around for a month and then got archived without action. I don't feel comfortable using my admin access to whitelist this - it seems like a hairy dispute over proper source usage that is exactly the sort of thing I promised to stay out of in Q12 of my RfA. Any other admin is welcome to do as they see fit. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:28, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe posting to AN for additional admin eyes is the next step -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:12, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@Pppery I appreciate the response. I remember your RFA, and am vaguely aware of the content of your promise. Though, if I may, I think you're fully qualified to process my request. Every whitelist request you've already approved affects content in articles. And my request doesn't seem particularly contentious - this thread has been open for 10 days, nobody has spoken up in opposition, and there's at least one other user who supports the request; the whitelist request has for 7 days, and has also garnered no opposition. I don't think great harm would come to the project if this one link to verywell's article on Myolysis were whitelisted.

I also appreciate your efforts in processing whitelist requests. It's pretty apparent that Wikipedia is suffering from a lack of adminship these days. Many of our processes - like whitelist requests - require admin perms to action, yet fewer and fewer admins seem willing to volunteer. It's not that admins are lazy - I get that there are TONS of queues like this one, and that admins choose to volunteer their time where they enjoy working. But DANG, it is such a drag to be directed to one of these queues as the "resolution" to your problem, only to find out it's one of those nearly-abandoned processes. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:14, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree it's unfortunate how many obscure understaffed admin queues there are (WT:CFDW, another one I'm involved in, is backed up by a month), but my comment above stands. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

About WP:MEDPOP, it does say that popular press "sometimes feature articles that explain medical subjects in plain English", and to "use common sense" to evaluate the quality of each individual article from sources like this. That guideline also recommends: One possibility is to cite a higher-quality source along with a more-accessible popular source. So there is a legitimate use case for citing sources like verywell in tandem with more scientific, scholarly sources. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:03, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

As I mentioned, some Wikipedians believe that only those scientific, scholarly sources should be used. But I do agree with your comment. Lower quality refs can be used as a supplement to 'invisible' sources, i.e. books that are not searchable, papers that are behind a paywall, and other refs that are not easily accessible. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 17:20, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting article about subpar listicles from reliable sources

This article from Housefresh[44] maybe of interest. I had noticed the lowing of quality of such articles and product recommendations in general, but the article brings it into sharp relief. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:36, 13 April 2024 (UTC)