Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Jewish lobby/old discussion

Discussion before Mediation Opened

Questions, cc: Jewish Lobby Talk Page

This is my first mediation, read the relevant pages about but didn’t see clear answers.

• I of course will list several other issues if join on to it and assume those will have equal weight.
• Lobojo who has edited just twice and never been on talk is included. Five or six people who have made significant contributions, including on talk are not. I will announce on the Jewish Lobby Talk page.
• I assume the mediation committee will read and be working with the context of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles
• I assume any mediation would not necessarily over-ride the Arbitration Committee one revert and the talk page rule? or would that depend on what we all agreed to?
• Are the sock puppet issue and Jayjg canvassing email relevant here? or only if we list them as relevant?

Carol Moore 04:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

Issue: Is "Jewish lobby" a neologism within the meaning of WP:NEO?

One of the key issues here is whether or not "Jewish lobby" is a neologism. This is an issue here for an unusual reason. Usually neologism articles are simply deleted from Wikipedia. But in this article, WP:NEO has been used as justification for various deletions of cited references. So one of the first issues we have to deal with is simply answering the question of whether the term "Jewish lobby" is a neologism.

The usual dictionary definition of "neologism" is "a new word, usage, or expression".[1]. Wikipedia's WP:NEO guideline uses the definition "Neologisms are words and terms that have recently been coined, generally do not appear in any dictionary, but may be used widely or within certain communities." Clearly a neologism must be a new word or phrase.

The oldest reference we've found so far is "Jewish Lobby Loses a Big One", from a Time Magazine article in 1978. "The emerging Arab lobby displayed surprising sophistication and shrewdness. The Jewish lobby responded massively, but was undercut by confused signals from Jerusalem, as well as by some indecision in its own ranks, and it suffered a rare loss in Congress." That was thirty years ago.

We have a dictionary definition of "Jewish Lobby" from 1992:

The Dictionary of Politics: Selected American and Foreign Political and Legal Terms, Richmond, VA: Brunswick Publishing Corporation, 1992, 243:

Jewish Lobby. A conglomeration of approximately thirty-four Jewish political organizations in the United States which make joint and separate efforts to lobby for their interests in the United States, as well as for the interests of the State of Israel. Among those organizations which are most actively involved in lobbying activities at federal, state, and local levels of political and governmental institutions are: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American Jewish Community (AJC), which was once headed by Arthur Goldberg, the former Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and the B’nai B’rith which claims a membership of over half a million worldwide. The Jewish Lobby claims to speak for the six million Jews residing in the United States (with half of that number, or approximately three million, living in New York State and mid-Atlantic states – which exceeds the total number of Jews in the State of Israel), and it is known to be the most loyal and most generous donor to campaign expenses of public officials, regardless of nationality and religion. Political aspirants often find that Jewish constituencies are the first to embrace them and the last to abandon them, no matter how rough the going. See ARAB LOBBY, JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE, SADIT-BEGIN SUMMIT.

That was 16 years ago.

In addition, of course, there are hundreds of press references from a variety of viewpoints over many years that use the term. Additional cites on request.

This would seem to be sufficient verifiable evidence to demonstrate that the term is not a neologism. --John Nagle (talk) 04:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

What is the process here??

Didn't see anything in relevant pages about us needing to provide evidence so I assume mediators are just investigating the article themselves, especially the existing talk page. (So I won't create archives til they finish.) Is there anything else we are supposed to do? Per John's comments above? Thanks.Carol Moore 18:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

I'm not entirely sure either. Wikipedia:Mediation says "As indicated above, after the initial acceptance, a mediator will indicate that they are willing to mediate the request. At that time, the parties will be contacted and given the opportunity to make their case in full. It is at this point in the process that the parties set out their sides in full detail." Also, the process is supposed to be confidential. Is it done by e-mail, or what? --John Nagle (talk) 18:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

That's what I read. And we have been contacted, just not sure if that was the only contact we'll get. Adminstrators, Help!! Carol Moore 19:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

Hello? Is anybody from the Mediation Committee reading this? --John Nagle (talk) 21:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

As I wrote on talk page, it seems to me I've heard sometimes it takes a while. Also, mediators may be watching current talk and edits. So we have to keep trying the best we can to make article NPOV, despite the frustrations.Carol Moore 22:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

Anything happening with this? --John Nagle (talk) 02:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Checking in on the case

I know its been a very long time since this case was originally requested and I apologize for the wait. Can everyone let me know if this is still an open issue? It looks like there's been some discussion on the talk page of the article, but it also looks like there are still some issues to be worked out on how the article should be written. If everyone is still interested in mediation, I would be happy to see if I can help. Shell ^babelfish 14:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello. Yes, mediation would probably help. We seem to have gotten past two old issues. The "is it a neologism issue to which WP:NOR applies" (probably not), and "is the article about the term in a dictionary sense or about the political phenomenon" (it's now about both) issues seem to have been more or less settled. But there's still a slow-motion edit war going on. --John Nagle (talk) 18:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it would be best to hear from everyone then on what they feel the current issues are. Shell ^babelfish 21:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello too. Yes, mediation will probably help. We have been ununable to write any 'History" section; any RS'd quote, documentated event or whatever is edited out, for whatever reason. The POV-side's basic logic seems to be that if it doesn't exist, it obviously didn't happen. Sorry, yes, mediation will help; somebody just watching and asking questions when things arise would be helpful. Another thing to keep in mind is whether the article is growing. Since 24 Jan, the article has grown all of 6k bytes, despite all of the effort. CasualObserver'48 (talk) 02:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The issue is that while most uses of Jewish Lobby are neutral and descriptive, there are many partisan "definitions" claiming it is mostly used antisemitcally. The big issue is making article NPOV as most editors want by insuring that non-antisemitic-related quotes describing Jewish Lobby are not constantly deleted on dubious charges of WP:NEO or WP:OR, mostly by one editor. As you can see, for more than a month the article keeps getting reverted back and forth between two very different versions, by that editor and various people who come by just to do total reverts to POV version, and then disappear. I'm not saying that every use of every quote that those of us who want the NPOV version is perfect. (Some have been contested before, mostly on dubious grounds.) Still healing from broken arm, so haven't had a chance to re-study old objections, these current quotes or add new ones. Plus most energy used up in arguing to make article NPOV!! Carol Moore 14:32, 15 March 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

That seems about right. Contentious editing has produced a search for better sources, and the surviving sources are quite good. We have material about the "Jewish lobby" from The Jerusalem Post, B'nai B'rith (Australia), Goldberg's "Jewish Power" (a book about the Jewish lobby by the editor of the Forward), and similar pro-Jewish sources. Such references have been repeatedly deleted on, as Carol puts it above, "dubious grounds". The efforts to make cited references to a "Jewish lobby" go away have become almost desperate. --John Nagle (talk) 04:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Shell, the issue here is two-fold; first, a number of editors insist on using cobbling together a bunch of primary sources using the term "Jewish lobby" in order to advance their theses regarding the term. For some reason they continually and almost ritualistically repeat the phrase "reliable sources" while bafflingly refusing to acknowledge this statement from WP:SYN

Material can often be put together in a way that constitutes original research even if its individual elements have been published by reliable sources. Synthesizing material occurs when an editor tries to demonstrate the validity of his or her own conclusions by citing sources that when put together serve to advance the editor's position. If the sources cited do not explicitly reach the same conclusion, or if the sources cited are not directly related to the subject of the article, then the editor is engaged in original research.

The second issue is that these same editors seem to also want to turn the article into a WP:POVFORK of Israel lobby in the United States. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, looks like there's some feeling that things need to be worked out further. Can we get a roll call here of editors who still wish to be involved in a mediation? Thanks. Shell ^babelfish 04:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

1. ...Carol Moore 14:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}
2. ...CasualObserver'48 (talk) 15:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
3. ...--John Nagle (talk) 16:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
4. ...Yahel Guhan 20:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
5. ... Jayjg ^(talk) 22:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, looks like the other two originally listed either have lost interest or are no longer editing, so if no one objects we'll go ahead. Shell ^babelfish 07:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)