Contrary to news reports, Wikipedia's decision doesn't group ADL with the National Enquirer—it's closer to HuffPost and Rolling Stone, sources useful for some topics, but not for others
Just looking at Wikipedia’s entry on Zionism, you see the problem. When distortions and misinformation, complete with footnotes to more distortions and misinformation, become the rule, it becomes clear that this platform is indelibly marked by systemic antisemitism. Claiming that Zionism is a colonial movement, whose goal from the outset was to displace, the so-called indigenous inhabitant is one of those massive lies that show the rottenness of the foundation of the report. This article which legitimizes the anti-defamation By not allowing Jews to define antisemitism is another breathtakingly massive assault on a people who has suffered violence, bigotry, demonization, and genocide for simply having the audacity to continue to exist by not allowing Jews, the “right“ to define the world‘s oldest hate, antisemitism, which has been levied against them for millennia. This is intellectual colonization and appropriation and deeply infests every thing that Wikipedia writes about Jews, Judaism, Israel, etc., however, I suspect that the bias is more pernicious-falsus in uno, false in omnibus. A lie in one thing becomes a lie about all things. Wikipedia‘s willingness to listen to the voices of hate and be guided by misinformation and falsehood shows the general on Stiness of this entire platform. We’ll just have to get our truth from platforms devoted not to mob rule, but to factual reality.
The ADL should take heart from the Daily Mail's experience. Their 2016 outright ban by Wikipedia generated worldwide headlines for a day, and then nothing. It was years before anyone even started to remove their links en masse, mostly being done by one editor, the very clearly biased David Gerard. It is 100% true to say that quite ridiculously, this determination placed what is the most widely read mass market newspaper in the UK, on the same footing as National Enquirer and Russia Today. The fact that it is also the most right wing mass market newspaper in the UK (as determined by a reputable poll) surely didn't go unnoticed by the general public. As such, it seems highly likely that everyone happily assumed this ban wasn't about reliability at all, but about the left leaning Wikipedia community seeking ways to not have to include the Mail when trying to come up with neutral articles on topics such as immigration. To further show the ban had no effect beyond Wikipedia, we can now see the UK had a right wing government for a further eight years after the Wikipedia ban, winning multiple elections, and this new left wing government doesn't exactly have a ringing endorsement of its plans for how to deal with immigration. Last but by no means least, for all of those eight years there has been this weird paradox, where on the one hand the Wikipedia editors firmly believe the Mail is generally unreliable, namely you can't be sure a single part of it can be trusted for any purpose, yet this claim isn't made in Wikipedia's own article about the paper. It doesn't even come close to saying it. Why? Because unlike Wikipedia, reliable sources tend not to want to publish claims that are not just lacking in the robust defence of well divined truth, but are potentially so false that it could be said the only way they were published, was either through malice or complex negligence. Neither of which constrain Wikipedia of course. No point sueing individual editors, as they're usually potless. And thanks to the US government, you can't sue Wikipedia full stop. The ban has led to all sorts of stupidity just waiting to be exposed. The Marek Kukula paradox for example. Is he an Astronomer Royal or a convicted paedophile? An open question since 2018, one that Wikipedia will do anything and everything to suppress rather than admit there is a fundamental wrong being committed here. Those same paradoxes will arise for the ADL, and I'd wager they have the means to quickly use them to erode trust in Wikipedia and hit the bottom line. Wikipedia is already facing a crisis of brand confidence that is affecting small donations, and that's all because of how aware people are becoming of how easily the site is manipulated by people with an agenda.
"Wikipedia is a very different thing: decisions are not made from the top down, but the bottom up."
The actual bottom is people like me who edit, and rarely create or revert, the occasional article while not logged in (because we don't maintain an account), and don't participate in arguments such as RFCs except on the immediate talk pages of the articles we happen to be drive-by editing.
As an Wikipedia editor, I naturally noticed that you wrote "Any claim that Wikipedia is grouped with them is completely false." I think you mean "Any claim that ADL is grouped with them is completely false."
Just looking at Wikipedia’s entry on Zionism, you see the problem. When distortions and misinformation, complete with footnotes to more distortions and misinformation, become the rule, it becomes clear that this platform is indelibly marked by systemic antisemitism. Claiming that Zionism is a colonial movement, whose goal from the outset was to displace, the so-called indigenous inhabitant is one of those massive lies that show the rottenness of the foundation of the report. This article which legitimizes the anti-defamation By not allowing Jews to define antisemitism is another breathtakingly massive assault on a people who has suffered violence, bigotry, demonization, and genocide for simply having the audacity to continue to exist by not allowing Jews, the “right“ to define the world‘s oldest hate, antisemitism, which has been levied against them for millennia. This is intellectual colonization and appropriation and deeply infests every thing that Wikipedia writes about Jews, Judaism, Israel, etc., however, I suspect that the bias is more pernicious-falsus in uno, false in omnibus. A lie in one thing becomes a lie about all things. Wikipedia‘s willingness to listen to the voices of hate and be guided by misinformation and falsehood shows the general on Stiness of this entire platform. We’ll just have to get our truth from platforms devoted not to mob rule, but to factual reality.
The ADL should take heart from the Daily Mail's experience. Their 2016 outright ban by Wikipedia generated worldwide headlines for a day, and then nothing. It was years before anyone even started to remove their links en masse, mostly being done by one editor, the very clearly biased David Gerard. It is 100% true to say that quite ridiculously, this determination placed what is the most widely read mass market newspaper in the UK, on the same footing as National Enquirer and Russia Today. The fact that it is also the most right wing mass market newspaper in the UK (as determined by a reputable poll) surely didn't go unnoticed by the general public. As such, it seems highly likely that everyone happily assumed this ban wasn't about reliability at all, but about the left leaning Wikipedia community seeking ways to not have to include the Mail when trying to come up with neutral articles on topics such as immigration. To further show the ban had no effect beyond Wikipedia, we can now see the UK had a right wing government for a further eight years after the Wikipedia ban, winning multiple elections, and this new left wing government doesn't exactly have a ringing endorsement of its plans for how to deal with immigration. Last but by no means least, for all of those eight years there has been this weird paradox, where on the one hand the Wikipedia editors firmly believe the Mail is generally unreliable, namely you can't be sure a single part of it can be trusted for any purpose, yet this claim isn't made in Wikipedia's own article about the paper. It doesn't even come close to saying it. Why? Because unlike Wikipedia, reliable sources tend not to want to publish claims that are not just lacking in the robust defence of well divined truth, but are potentially so false that it could be said the only way they were published, was either through malice or complex negligence. Neither of which constrain Wikipedia of course. No point sueing individual editors, as they're usually potless. And thanks to the US government, you can't sue Wikipedia full stop. The ban has led to all sorts of stupidity just waiting to be exposed. The Marek Kukula paradox for example. Is he an Astronomer Royal or a convicted paedophile? An open question since 2018, one that Wikipedia will do anything and everything to suppress rather than admit there is a fundamental wrong being committed here. Those same paradoxes will arise for the ADL, and I'd wager they have the means to quickly use them to erode trust in Wikipedia and hit the bottom line. Wikipedia is already facing a crisis of brand confidence that is affecting small donations, and that's all because of how aware people are becoming of how easily the site is manipulated by people with an agenda.
"Wikipedia is a very different thing: decisions are not made from the top down, but the bottom up."
The actual bottom is people like me who edit, and rarely create or revert, the occasional article while not logged in (because we don't maintain an account), and don't participate in arguments such as RFCs except on the immediate talk pages of the articles we happen to be drive-by editing.
As an Wikipedia editor, I naturally noticed that you wrote "Any claim that Wikipedia is grouped with them is completely false." I think you mean "Any claim that ADL is grouped with them is completely false."
Thanks, fixed!