Wikipedia wars: inside the fight against far-right editors

[Strelnikov]

It's kind of sad how Jimmy cuts a pretty lonesome figure on Wikipedia now...

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =830758883

...What a fucked up world it is, where if you believe in small government, personal responsibility and responsible fiscal policy, you're better off turning a blind eye to the activities of fascist and traitors than embracing the principles of democracy. Similarly, if you support gun control and are pro-choice, you have to ally yourself with the extreme left, which as can be seen, Wikipedians seem to think don't even exist.

Months ago they laughingly called the issue of antisemitism in the British left (the mainstream party having recently swung hard left) a non-issue, a political diversion, not worth documenting in Wikipedia. Indeed, they tried to actively suppress it. Well, that seems to have backfired.....cue this week, protests in the streets, civil war in his party, and public apologies from their leader for not having taken it seriously. The ensuing controversy has of course overshadowed the many worthwhile issues that are pressing in politics today, that he was trying to highlight. It will probably also add to the pile of evidence that he is not fit to govern, and so seeing another right wing government's five year term, unopposed and in coalition with actual bigots.

Thank you very much, Wikipedians. You didn't do it all, but you played your part about reshaping how the world debates socio-political issues. And if you believe your own hype about your project's influence, it must have been a very big one!

I disagree about the antisemitism in the British Left; mostly this is built around the belief that a Corbyn Labour government will be less slavish towards Israel's interests than Theresa May's Conservatives; all this forgets that the British press leans heavily to the Right and any issue that makes Corbyn look like shit is amplified by a factor of 10 (they don't like change, they prefer drama.)

John Booth wrote about this mess in Lobster magazine last winter: link Which prompted a response from Colin Challen an ex-MP who had been in Parliment for nine years; link - he agreed with Booth's reporting because he had been there, both as a party activist and as an elected member; if it was this cesspit of antisemitism, why would a Jewish person like Challen hang around? Really it's about Labour Friends of Israel (the pro-Israel group set up in the late 1950s) pressuring British politics to hang in with the Anglo-American "relationship" and support Israel to the hilt no matter how crappy the government gets (and any government that kills 17 unarmed protestors and wounds 400 really needs to be looked at critically.) That set-up is doomed to change.

As for Wikipedia, yes, absolutely it should be covering this neutrally, but they won't because whomever is "in charge" of British news coverage is either too lazy, burnt out, or biased to do so. And that's why there are weird gaps in coverage of almost anything - take this pointless "List of animated works with LGBT characters" for example. Scroll down to 2013 within the "animated series" sublist and you hit Steven Universe where they list Pearl, Ruby and Sapphire (who "fuse" to create Garnet), Rose Quartz, and..... Mr. Smiley, a minor character who was originally voiced by Sinbad, now by Colton Dunn. Nary a mention of Amethyst, the fourth "hero character." Why? Probably overhang from the first "long" 52 episode season, where fans disliked both Pearl and Amethyst; after the "plot"* developed people understood Pearl, but I have the feeling that Amethyst will turn out to be aromantic (all the characters I have named are asexual space rocks with "hard" hologram bodies, except for Mr. Smiley, who is a human running an amusement park in an East Coast boardwalk town.) The weird snubbing goes down to the Steven Universe template; it's a goofy example, but if Wikipedia can't/won't handle simple issues with pop-culture articles, then how can it be trusted with real news?

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*For an 11 minute cartoon, it moves in long arcs, has lots of minor characters, and the humor is in long burns and mostly character driven; imagine the cast of War and Peace in a plot that has resembled Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain - lots of stasis, then short bursts of action. It's becoming more conventional in story structure due to rising stakes and Cartoon Network's bizarre release schedule.

[CrowsNest]

I disagree about the antisemitism in the British Left; mostly this is built around the belief that a Corbyn Labour government will be less slavish towards Israel's interests than Theresa May's Conservatives; all this forgets that the British press leans heavily to the Right and any issue that makes Corbyn look like shit is amplified by a factor of 10 (they don't like change, they prefer drama.)

John Booth wrote about this mess in Lobster magazine last winter: link Which prompted a response from Colin Challen an ex-MP who had been in Parliment for nine years; link - he agreed with Booth's reporting because he had been there, both as a party activist and as an elected member; if it was this cesspit of antisemitism, why would a Jewish person like Challen hang around? Really it's about Labour Friends of Israel (the pro-Israel group set up in the late 1950s) pressuring British politics to hang in with the Anglo-American "relationship" and support Israel to the hilt no matter how crappy the government gets (and any government that kills 17 unarmed protestors and wounds 400 really needs to be looked at critically.) That set-up is doomed to change.

As for Wikipedia, yes, absolutely it should be covering this neutrally, but they won't because whomever is "in charge" of British news coverage is either too lazy, burnt out, or biased to do so.

While I can certainly understand that line of argument, it makes quite a few errors. Obviously the Parliamentary party of Blair/Brown weren't a hotbed of antisemitism, and arguably because the hard left deselection/replacement cycle hasn't finished it still isn't. But the current firestorm doesn't involve them, but the conduct of the new influx of membership and the conduct of Corbyn's supporters.

It is frankly inarguable that the current issue is all about the anti-Jewish sentiments of some of these people (and even Corbyn), rather than anti-Israel sentiment, and more importantly, how the leadership deals with it. Is it all being exploited by the supporters of Israel, who include the neoliberal left? Of course. But we British are not so feeble minded that we get angry to the point we take to the streets over nothing.

As much as they might wish it, the right wing elements of the press really don't have that power anymore (and as they point out, the left is still well represented with the Guardian and Mirror). The protests and condemnations and controversy continued long after everybody who believed it was just a storm in a teacup being boosterised by a media/neoliberal conspiracy had had their say, in full, in triplicate even.

On that score, any failure on Wikipedia's part to present that side of the story, won't be due to lack of coverage, only bias. Sometimes antisemitism is just that, and sometimes a guy just fails to act swiftly or strongly enough to convince those who aren't already fully paid up loyalists.

Indeed, you could argue his initial approach was precisely because he sees mileage in casting every criticism of his leadership as somehow eminating from a conspiracy to stop the people. On this occasion, the people didn't buy it (whereas on several occasions, media led attempts to criticise Corbyn for obviously nothing, have flopped, most notably their attempts during the last campaign, where they actually helped him turn a loss into a victory by making him seem unfairly treated).

Corbyn supporters won't like it, but as of now, there's simply way too much actual hard evidence, beneath the froth, that the guy just hasn't got what it takes to represent the UK on the world stage. He is now quite easily cast as what he arguably always has been - an activist/protestor, not a leader who can actually effect change through good ideas that attract wide public support, such as achieving a realignment in our foreign relations with the Middle East.

Add to this the usual fear that the hard left will wreck the economy and be concerned only with feathering the nests of the public sector and propping up an oversubscribed welfare state, and he has no chance of winning an election. There are so many interests aligned against him - even the Unions wouldn't support cutting off the Saudis without guarantees no jobs would be lost - impossible without plunging the country ever further into debt. I'm none too happy with our blind support for the Saudis, it is obvious that is an amoral position driven solely by the arms industry. But would a Corbyn led government be able to do anything about it? Not without causing more damage than it would repair, it seems.

It says a lot that this controversy has seen Corbyn's supporters relinquish a seat on the National Executive Committee in the hope that would make it go away. You don't do that if you think you're ultimately in the right, or that you will succeed in convincing the public it's not a major issue.

[hyatt]

I disagree about the antisemitism in the British Left; mostly this is built around the belief that a Corbyn Labour government will be less slavish towards Israel's interests than Theresa May's Conservatives;

It turned out to be worse than you had heard.

Jeremy Corbyn accused of belonging to third antisemitic Facebook group
12 top UK Labour officials in Facebook groups with anti-Semitic content

This is close to /pol/ with a hammer and sickle instead of a swastika.

[ericbarbour]

Jeremy Corbyn accused of belonging to third antisemitic Facebook group
12 top UK Labour officials in Facebook groups with anti-Semitic content

This is close to /pol/ with a hammer and sickle instead of a swastika.

I disagree, it simply shows how Israeli media is beginning to ape the British tabloids. Israel WAS an attempt to set up an egalitarian and modern democracy, albeit based on Jewish principles; but the Netanyahu regime increasingly resembles a Baathist dictatorship. (His WP biography is now 195k bytes long and still shows the polishings of biased pro-Israel editors, even today after 10+ years of editwarring. Ask the primary controllers of that article, Avaya1 and Hertz1888, where their interests lie.)