Talk:False Moshe Ya'alon quotation

Merger Proposal

Is there any reason why this should not be redirected to Moshe Ya'alon, which already covers the quote? DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:51, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree This is pretty much covered in the revised paragraph in the Moshe Ya'alon. I don't see how this should have it's own article. Singularity42 (talk) 15:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Disagree, Two major publications, Columbia Journalism Review and the Toronto Star have devoted entire articles to a bogus quotation that was cited by major scholars such as Rashid Khalidi and that ran in many major publicaitons, the more responsible of which (i.e., not The Nation) have printed corrections. See aso the list of similar articles about similar incidents.Historicist (talk) 15:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Two published articles is not very many. Plenty of incidents with many more published articles than that don't get their own WIkipedia article. And which similar articles did you have in mind? DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

the ones listed below. There are many articles citing the quotation, and many published corrections, but for two major publications to devote entire, thoughtful articles to a single fake quotation is indeed unusual in the world of journalism.Historicist (talk) 15:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Just because more than one major newspaper have written an article on the subject doesn't mean the issue is noteable enough. Although it's not policy, WP:News articles can be a useful resource in this regard. Singularity42 (talk) 15:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Disagree, per Historicst, and per my extensive comments at the recent AfD discussion. This passes our notability guidleines for an independent article, and the issues here (Media distortions w/o corrections) run deeper than the personal effect it had on Ya'alon. LoverOfTheRussianQueen (talk) 21:36, 29 August 2009 (UTC)Sockpuppet of indefinitely blocked user trying to get around sanctions. Singularity42 (talk) 20:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Just merge and be done with it; to claim that a quote that never actually happened is grounds for standalone notability is just as ludicrous now as it was in the dead-end AfD. Tarc (talk) 02:28, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Notability on Wikipedia is defined by significant coverage in reliable, 3rd party sources - which this topic has. Many thing that "never actually happened" are quite notable and have lengthy articles devoted to them - see Spaghetti tree or Dead fairy hoax. LoverOfTheRussianQueen (talk) 04:26, 30 August 2009 (UTC)Sockpuppet of indefinitely blocked user trying to get around sanctions. Singularity42 (talk) 20:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey, Tarc, I mostly agree. But I also second LOTRQ's comment. If the reliable sources say it, we may want to listen! There are a number of false quotations that do have their own articles. Many others do not. I'm not sure this one rises to that level, but widely known falsehoods, misconceptions, and mistakes are sometimes notable as such. Whether it is notable or not in the WP:N sense, this one is really quite encyclopedic and interesting. How does a statement that was never actually said take on its own life as a cultural icon? Ya'alon's supposed quotation became a minor cultural meme to represent the pro-Israel camp's supposed inhumanity, yet it was not real. I think that's most notable as a question of journalism, how major reliable sources repeat things that did not actually happen without proper fact-checking, simply because other major sources said them before. This is a huge issue in journalism. Anyway, if we can remove the Israel / Palestine angle, this is actually a very interesting issue regarding mass media. Wikidemon (talk) 04:52, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support merge: as I commented on the AFD, the story of this quotation is worth covering, but it's not so important that it needs its own page. Robofish (talk) 21:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Deletion

This article has already been merged / deleted, after being created by the same editor -- see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alleged Ya'alon quotation. It should probably be summarily redirected, although any discussion of that probably belongs in a new deletion debate or some other central process, because this issue is again subject of a dispute among some of the same parties across multiple articles. Wikidemon (talk) 15:59, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

• Hang on there User:Wikidemon is failing to allow for new facts. Since the previous article, two major publications have devoted long articles to this bogus quotation. We all know User:Wikidemon's opinion, and mine is equally apparent. Surely there is no harm in allowing a few days to pass and awaiting the opinion of more editors.Historicist (talk) 16:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

• This seems to be an edit conflict issue at this point more than article substance. I've filed an AN/I report on the matter here. Wikidemon (talk) 17:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Since my one and only edit in Middle-east related articles was this one, I think it's safe to say I'm a somewhat uninvolved editor up until this point (I say 'somewhat', because I was the editor that first posted The Toronto Star article as a source). It seems that there's not enough to this story that it needs it's own article. It can be fairly dealt with on the Moshe Ya'alon article. If needed, it can even have it's own section there. But right now, all we have is an WP article that just narrates the Toronto Star article, with one or two additional sources for a couple extra comments. Truthfully, it would be easier to follow just reading the Star's article. Also, I have raised WP:News articles as an objective source of guidance on this issue, and you haven't responded. If you disagree with those guidelines, fair enough - but say so so that we can have a proper debate. In fact, let's break your arguments down into the two main ones (let me know if I have summarized them incorrectly):

• "It's important to make it clear that quotation was falsly attributed to Ya'alon" (this isn't one of the arguments you have posted here, but it is one you have made in the past, so it probably has bearing on this debate) - in response, I would argue that it would be better dealt with on the article about Ya'alon, and not in a stand-alone article to achieve the desired effect.
• "Two major publications have written articles about the issue". Okay. And? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't believe that's ever been a criteria to create a new stand-alone WP article about the issue, espeically when it can be dealt with better in an already existing WP article. I agree (and so does everyone else) that's it's noteable for inclusion in the Ya'alon article (in fact, it would be very bad if it wasn't included). But not every noteable issue should have a stand-alone article, especially given my comments that this new article seems to be just a narrative of the Toronto Star's article. Singularity42 (talk) 17:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

See also

• Alleged Ouze Merham interview of Ariel Sharon
• Adnan Hajj photographs controversy
• Pallywood
• Israeli-Palestinian history denial
• A land without a people for a people without a land
• Muhammad al-Durrah
• Tuvia Grossman

• We seem to have a fundamental disagreement on what is significant. I would like ot point out that the section on the Moshe Ya'alon page has been removed in the past, and is vulnerable to removal again at the click of a key. Moreover, I feel that inventing a false quotation is a significant part of a man's career, yet the material on this incident was removed today form the page on Henry Siegman, as it has been repeatedly in the past. For an academic to use a controversial quotation without sourcing it is a high crime within these ivied walls, yet mention of this major sin was expunged today form Rashid Khalidi's page. This needs a page of its own so that it will be in the public record, despite the repeated and aggressive whitewashing of this false quotation from Wikipedia.Historicist (talk) 18:38, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I very much disagree. If the material is removed improperly, it can be reverted. If there is a debate about the content on those articles, it can go for RfC. Technically, this entire article can be blanked by vandals, so that is of no help. (As an aside, that does not appear to be what is taking place at Rashid Khalidi. It seems that's more of a debate about what role he had in the issue based on the sources provided). If it is a properly sourced criticism of Henry Siegman, then it belongs at Henry Siegman. I still fail to see why this needs to exist as a stand-alone article. Singularity42 (talk) 18:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The renewed accusations of bad faith ("whitewashing", "expunged") will make discussion here impossible and take us fully to AN/I if they continue. Most of this is a rehash of things said before and elsewhere, and this article has already failed a deletion discussion. But for the benefit of those not familiar, notability is determined by what reliable sources establish to be notable, not any editor's views or reasoning process on how events cast living people into a positive or negative light. Article organization is further determined by editors coming to consensus on where to put various things - just because an event is notable does not mean it needs its own article, or that it be mentioned and linked in the articles about every single individual involved. That's especially true here, where the misquote was reprinted by several different prominent people and publications, and probably many times that number of less prominent places. The quotation itself is probably not notable. Quotations are rarely considered notable apart from the people who said them, if even that. Even household famous quotes with tens of thousands of citations are sometimes added only to the articles about those who supposedly said them. For example, That's one small step for a man redirects to Neil Armstrong (contrast, Give me Liberty, or give me Death!). If the quote article was deleted as not notable when people thought Ya'alon did say it, it is hardly more notable now that it's clear he didn't say it. The only notability remaining, now that those sources have corrected it, is that there was a misquote. If you look at List of misquotations, very few misquotes have their own articles - they're mostly treated in the biographical article of the person who was wrongly thought to have said them. That's probably for purposes of article organization. Anyway, we have two reliable sources that describe the misquote, and both treat it as an example of the propagation of error in news sources, not as anything particularly notable about the individuals involved, other than Ya'alon himself. Wikidemon (talk) 19:09, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Article name

I named the article Bogus Moshe Ya'alon quotation. The Toronto Star and the Columbia Journalism Review, in thoughtful considerations of this issue, both conclude that Ya'alon never said any such thing. User:Wikidemon renamed thae article Mosshe Ya'alon Mosquote , implying that Ya'alon said something that was distorted or misquoted. Wikidemon offers no source for his POV renaming. I have renamed to the NPOV and well- supported False Moshe Ya'alon quotation to make perfectly clear that this is a false or bogus quotation, invented, not misquoted.Historicist (talk) 16:22, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a totally unacceptable name that presents an opinion as a fact. So far I have not seen any proof that the quote is in fact fake. None of these "detailed investigations" has bothered to go to the Hebrew original text of what Ya'alon said, which is the only way that fakery could be established. Zero^talk 23:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

While I do have some problems with the name, I do disagree with your statement "So far I have not seen any proof that the quote is in fact fake." The Toronto Star has generally been considered a reliable secondary source in Wikipedia, and its article states:

Yaalon did not say what he is supposed to have said.

Certainly, Yaalon did not speak these words during a 2002 interview with Ari Shavit, a reporter with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in whose pages the now-notorious remark is widely supposed to have originally appeared.

What you seem to be looking for is a primary source, which isn't necessary for Wikipedia (in fact, WP:PSTS clearly states that secondary sources are what we rely on). I really don't think the issue with this article is whether there is reliable enough sources to state the quotation was falsly attributed to Ya'alon. I think the issue is more that this is already covered in the Moshe Ya'alon article, and so we have a disagreement over whether the issue merits a stand-alone article. At this point, other than User:Historicist, we all agree that the issue doesn't merit it's own article. But we should give a few more days to see what other opinions there are. Singularity42 (talk) 05:02, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"False" is ambiguous because it suggests several possibilities, and what actually happened, a false atribution rather than a false statement, is not the most intuitive one. For similar reasons, "bogus" is a completely inappropriate way to describe it. One of the two sources uses the term but it is WP:SYNTH to repeat that source's conclusion in other contexts (e.g. claiming that reporter X repeated a bogus quotation, when no source makes that connection). No paper so far has said exactly how this very real (and thus not false, fake, bogus, or anything of the sort - at worst a partisan opinion with which people may disagree) real passage by Siegman, a commentator, came to be misattributed to Ya'alon, the military official. The words false and bogus also imply deception, and fake is an explicit claim of dishonesty. No reliable source has claimed that. Wikidemon (talk) 16:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, I've removed the adjective "bogus", "false", etc., throughout the document in places where it describes the quote. The reliable sources do not use this adjective when describing the various role of people. Of the two sources, the Columbia Review does use the word fake once, and hoax another time, but it does not explain why, and it does not use these words in connection with any publications or writers. The Star piece does not characterize it that way. Taking these characterizations from the context in which they were made, and applying them elsewhere, is classic SYNTH, and is covered explicitly on that policy page. I've also removed a litany of uses of the quotation that seemed to be original research - Wikipedians finding source documents. There's a good reason why we require secondary sourcing, and don't do analysis of primary text ourselves. Wikidemon (talk) 16:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that many of the recent edits were made by User:Hamilton23, who was blocked as a possible sockpuppet of User:Historicist. Singularity42 (talk) 16:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to put much more effort into it if the article is going to be deleted, but if it is, let's find a good neutral name for this. "False" isn't terrible if the article content is solid, but like I said it's a little ambiguous and perhaps we can find something more precise.Wikidemon (talk) 17:46, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

csd

this qualifies under csd g4 as a recreation of Alleged Ya'alon quotation. nableezy - 19:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

• 'baloney significant new facts and coverage make the topic measurably more notable now than it was last winter. I don't like it is not reason to delete.Historicist (talk) 19:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

recreation of material that an afd resulted in removing is a reason to delete, you need to go through WP:DRV to change that result. Liking it is not reason to ignore community consensus. nableezy - 19:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Having seen this at WP:AN/I, I would decline the speedy-deletion request. WP:CSD#G4 applies to deleted material, whereas this was redirected. More importantly, G4 only applies to "sufficiently identical and unimproved" recreations of deleted material. In this case, it appears that the content and sourcing have been changed significantly since the AfD version. Since this recreation is not "substantially identical" to the redirected version, it is explicitly excluded from G4. This is not a comment on the general merits of a standalone article vs. a merge/redirect; that is a matter for further discussion and consensus, or potentially I suppose for another AfD, but I do not see this as meeting speedy-deletion criteria. MastCell ^Talk 19:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, thanks. nableezy - 19:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

New AfD?

Well, it appears that the last AfD was hijacked by User:LoverOfTheRussianQueen, a sockpuppet of an indefinitely blocked user who was trying to get around sanctions. Anyone think it's worth a second go? Singularity42 (talk) 20:52, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I was neutral on it in the first AfD, so I don't have a strong content position either way. I'm an inclusionist as I said in the debate, and not a great fan of re-nominating articles for deletion so quickly after a "keep" result, even if there were problems in the discussion. The article is not objectionable if it can stick to the sources, be neutral, and stay within the bounds of BLP. Minus any POV issues the only harm is perhaps making a mountain out of a molehill (i.e. non-notability), and whether this information is better presented within the CAMERA and/or Ya'Alon articles. As a process matter, even though the process was mired in sockpuppetry the "no consensus" result is still supportable even based on the "keep" comments not (yet?) known to be sockpuppets. If there's a new AfD I'll likely vote "neutral" again. I note that the article creator, Historicist, is almost finished with a two-week block for sockpuppeting themselves, and would potentially participate in any new process. Perhaps a DrV would be less drama-ful, or simply asking the closing administrator whether their decision would be different if they discarded that editor's comments. Wikidemon (talk) 21:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

As a participant in the last AfD, my position (merge) for the most part would be unchanged (LOTRQ and I disagreed in our positions), but given some of the recent discussion, my current position would probably be better described as "weak merge". Honestly, as much I'm pissed that a sockpuppet hijacked most of the discussion, I doubt any of us would honestly change our positions despite LOTRQ's involvement. Singularity42 (talk) 21:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh for fuck's sake, that was NOCAL100? He's swiftly approaching Zeq territory for tendentious trolling of the I-P topic area. At the very least, I would like to seek input from the closing admin on the impact. If it has not been done so already I'll drop a note. Tarc (talk) 21:31, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It makes one wonder how many other sockpuppets there are around these parts. It seems that when you have a lot of heat just above the article surface, some pro-Israel sentiments blowing in from the East and anti-Obama front from the west, you have a big storm brewing, sockpuppetwise. Wikidemon (talk) 21:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

This is precisely why I have largely disengaged from the I-P topic area. It makes what we deal with in the Obama/political realm look like a Sunday picnic in comparison. Ideological differences are a lot easier to deal with than religious ones. Tarc (talk) 21:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Based from my one experience in the I-P topic area (i.e. this debate), I'm surprised any involved editor or administrator doesn't get burned out after just one week... :) Singularity42 (talk) 22:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh they do, yea, it sucks. BTW I brought this up with the closing admin, and he said it would definitely have affected the final finding, but unsure as to how much...not enough to go and just outright change the finding to a "delete". So a 2nd AfD would be the proper route to take. Tarc (talk) 22:21, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The ceaseless political AFDs are a leading reason for editor burnout. On Israel-related issues, the are some editors eager to run AFD after AFD until they get the outcome they want. Of course, proposing this AFD on this during the Jewish holy days is good strategy - many pro-Israel editors don't use computers on holy days.Historicist (talk) 18:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)