• mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    12 days ago

    What is this “ban”?

    Maybe I am the clueless one, but Wikipedia has general guidelines and not system enforced “bans” on things like sources. It has this list which recently changed to show the ADL as green for all topics except for the Israel / Palestine conflict, and red for the conflict, and that carries quite a bit of weight but it is at the end of the day still just a guideline document for editors to use when evaluating an absolute Niagara Falls of edits which get made to a whole universe of topics any one of which may or may not adhere to any reliable source standards at all, let alone the ones in that document.

    All it’s really saying is, if you put in the ADL and nothing else as the source for a claim, and someone else disputes it, you won’t have a leg to stand on in the ensuing disagreement unless you can also find somewhere else to source your claim. Which, if no other reliable source is saying it, and it concerns the Gaza war or Israel / Palestine issues in general… kind of makes it sound like whoever added that little caveat had a point, and all the emoting that’s happening about a “ban” and how unfair it is, is exactly as good faith as it sounds like it is.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Wikipedia editors/whatever agreed that it was an “unreliable source”, because it pushed linking pro-Palestinian protests with antisemitism, and such like.

      Basically you can’t use the ADL as a source for Wikipedia articles. It’s also a big broader than just the conflict- it would appear you wouldn’t be able to cite them on, say, page discussing antisemitism, or similar things. (Basically everything the ADL might be interested in.)

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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        12 days ago

        Examples of articles using ADL as a source: this this this and this

        Check my explanation and in particular the link I gave, it explains a little bit more. The OP article is just a little confused about how Wikipedia works. Actually, down near the bottom, they get a lot bit closer to how it works:

        By deeming the ADL “generally unreliable,” Wikipedia is telling users that “the source should normally not be used, and it should never be used for information about a living person.” Wikipedia is not poised ban the ADL outright; enough editors have argued that some aspects of the ADL’s work, such as its database of hate symbols, should still be considered an acceptable source.

        That’s actually a lot closer to what happened than is the headline or the early part of the article.