Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel

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[edit] Article Rating/Review System

I started a rating system sub-page at: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Israel/Assessment. The template needs to be edited to allow for the relevant changes, and is beyond my Wiki knowledge. Please help edit and complete this page to begin rating articles. We should have a large number of quality articles on Israel, and should work together to achieve more of them. --יהושועEric 03:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have edited the template to allow for classification. I would like to add one of those grids to the project page saying how many articles we have in each category. If you know how, please go ahead and add it. I do not know how, but will try to research it if no one works on it. --יהושועEric 06:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I figured out all of the technical stuff and the system is working. However, there are more than 525 Israel articles on Wikipedia. Please help tag them all! --יהושועEric 05:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Binational solution

I made a big addition under the premise that the situation under the british mandate was basically a "binational solution" without a state. I'm guessing it's likely to be challenged. Please check it out, --Urthogie 14:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] India-Israel relations

Seems to be a revert war brewing on that page.Bakaman 03:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

In being a frequent editor to the politics section, I am troubled by the amount of links to Arutz Sheva and Israel National News pieces being used as references by a small but persistant group of editors, particularly noticeable in the Israel's unilateral disengagement plan article. My opinion is that they definitely aren't credible sources - they're right wing propaganda tools of the settlers (one article for instance claims 250,000 at a protest march, whilst Ynet puts it at 70,000).

Perhaps we should draw up a list of reliable sources on Israeli affairs. To begin with, I suggest:

  • Jerusalem Post
  • Ha'Aretz
  • Ynet
  • BBC and other international news organisations such as CNN etc.

However, there is also a problem with JPost and Haaretz articles that they disappear quite quickly - all the ones I checked from the disengagement article were broken. It's also shame that Ma'ariv don't have an English version. Number 57 12:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I prefer not to arbitrarily list reliable sources because such a list would imply that all sources that are not on the list are unreliable on all aspects of Israeli affairs, which is simply not true. --GHcool 20:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Arutz Sheva is no more biased than Ha'Aretz. I think its safe to say that all media outlets in Israel are biased in one direction or another. And most are government controlled. Therefore the only way to allow ballance is to include them all, including those that function independent of state control.--Divina SJ 09:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mass addition of wikiproject templates

If anyone finds the time, I believe it would be useful to closely review the Contributions of a bot I just blocked for inserting en mass the wikiproject template in what appears to be less than accurate manner. (more details available here). בברכה, El_C 23:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I asked the bot owner to insert the template on every page in category Israel and all of the subcategories. There are too many pages to do it manually, and I think it would be easier to remove the bad ones than add them all ourselves. --יהושועEric 17:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the bot did an excellent job and am puzzled as to why El_C reverted its edits. It probably made some mistakes (even though I haven't personally noticed any), but I agree with Eric that it's much easier to remove a few mistakes than manually adding all the templates to the appropriate pages. I have asked El_C about the reverts, and he has replied with:
Now that I look at it, t'was 35-minutes of non-stop rollbacking. I am so great, G-R-E-T (& S-M-R-T., too). I hope that answers your question! בברכה, El_C 20:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Hopefully we will get a more satisfactory answer soon. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 20:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I know for definate there was some mis-taggings. Some bad categorisation it seems - ie articles in sub categories of Israel, that shouldnt be there... Hence the bad tagging. El_C's reverts should have removed the bad tags, aswell as some correct ones, i noticed he has left some that must've been obviously correct.
No matter, i am prepared to retag all the necessary pages after someone has checked out the categories for me. I'd rather not do another mass tagging spree to cause loads of problems again. Im proposing, to start with, just doing Category:Israel stubs, i can automatically tag them as a stub, and reduce some of the assessment workload.
If people can post categories they know are ok, i shall get on with tagging them for you. Reedy Boy 00:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
From the sample I did, about 10-to-20 percent of talkpages were mis-tagged, which out of ~1,500 amounts to ... a lot. I think it made much more sense, then (as I wrote directly above Ynhockey's note — I'm surprised he overlooked it and thought my whimsical comment was the explanation!), to undo everything and let the bot redo it from scratch, with the issues which caused the mis-tagging resolved (I saw a good explanation as to why it happned, but I'm unable to find it now). Basically, doing all of this automatically saves everyone a lot of time and energy. I'm confident that Reedy Boy's ongoing (revised) effort will address the concerns which currently plague both our talk pages. Please be patient and give him and his bot some time; he is re-tagging as we speak. Many thanks. בברכה, El_C 00:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Quality - Colaboration of the Week/Month?

Hi Everyone, I was looking at the WP Israel Statistics and noticed that we don't have any articles with a quality higher than B-class. That makes me sad. I was thinking that a collaboration (similar to the Orthodox Rabbi of the Week at WP Judaism) is in order. Do people support this? Would you help? Should it be weekly, biweekly, monthly? Speak your opinion here. I will make a template and subpage for it if that is the consensus.

At the moment I will make a weekly template. After more people chime in I will change it if needed. --יהושועEric 07:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I support a weekly collaboration picked from a nominations list. --יהושועEric 00:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I support a monthly collaboration picked from a nominations list. --GHcool 00:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for deletion?

Elie Yossef (6 hits on google), Karma Feinstein-Cohen (18 hits) and Yehuda HaKohen. The latter is ridiculously overdetailed for such a minor personality, suggesting it is either self-written or produced by an associate. They seem to be springing from overpromotion of the Magshimey Herut and the Zionist Freedom Alliance, two organisations I have never heard of despite a pretty detailed knowledge of the Israeli political scene.

As I have not nominated an article for deletion before, I thought I'd seek some opinions whether it's an appropriate course for these. Number 57 14:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review for Jerusalem

Some input from members of WikiProject Israel is requested in regards to a peer review for the Jerusalem article:

[edit] Jerusalem

I have been working on this article for the past three months and I'm hoping to put this up for featured article status sometime in the near future. Essentially, I'm looking for a critique of the article and suggestions for things that might need to be rectified prior to submitting it for a featured article candidacy.

  • I was a bit worried about the length of the article, but I personally feel it is okay since much of the kilobyte-age comes from the large number of sources rather than from over-the-top text. However, if you disagree, please do offer up suggestions for shortening the article.
  • Because I know the Jerusalem article is (somewhat) controversial, I want to make sure any issues with neutrality (especially in regards to the capital issue) are squared away before making a final submittal. I believe I did a good job, but perhaps something is subtly biased that I did not notice.
  • A good look at the prose would be great. I just finished writing the last section, so I haven't gotten the chance to do a thorough proofread; I'll proceed to do that this week while this peer review takes place, but by all means chip in.
  • I want to ensure the facts are correct. I have never been to Jerusalem, so my writing comes exclusively from extensive research. If something looks factually incorrect, please fix it or make a note of it (although please use caution if the change will conflict with a source). If a source was misinterpreted, please please fix it or make a note of it.
  • I want to ensure foreign-language words are used and/or translated properly, since I'm not knowledgeable in Hebrew or Arabic.
  • I'm not sure what to say about local, city, or municipal government in Jerusalem. I may have to keep it short, but if anyone can think of any ideas, that would be great.

You are, of course, welcome to assist in other areas as well. Thanks in advance for any help you may provide. -- tariqabjotu 16:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Any chance of more citations from the Holy Scriptures? WikiNew 16:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Where do you believe additional citations from religious texts would be useful? -- tariqabjotu 17:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


  • Looks great overall; I have a few POV issues, but I'm sure these are just oversights, and I certainly do not make any accusations as to your opinions or anything like that; we must work together to make these sorts of things as objective as possible, and it's a tough business. I just have a few minor stylistic questions. Rather than go in and mess with your wording myself, I thought I should let you work on your own project.
    1. "and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre among different sects of Christians." -- different from what? would this be better as "some sects" or "various sects"?
    2. "while majority Palestinian areas dominate the north, east and south of the Old City" I think I get what you mean - "areas where there is a Palestinian majority" rather than "the majority of areas which are Palestinian/ majority of Palestinian areas" - but this is a bit ambiguous as it reads now.
    3. The section on The Temple Periods ends by saying that for over 18 centuries Jerusalem was not the capital of any independent state; I like this. It's accurate, it's dramatic, and it's an interesting historical fact. But I think that as this could be taken as a political (i.e. POV biased) statement, it should perhaps be balanced by a brief description of the fact that no independent state called Palestine has ever existed and/or of the Greco-Roman origins of the word.
    4. The last few sentences of the State of Israel section in the history also seems to be a bit tilted. Perhaps a slight expansion would be pertinent on the problems with the city being split, and the causes of the Six-Day War. As it stands right now, I feel it reads as though Israel's capture of East Jerusalem was entirely selfish and vicious, and that its rule/sovereignty over the united city is somehow unfair or unjust.
    5. A more explicit mention of the Three Hills (Mount of Olives, Mount Zion, and Temple Mount) and Three Valleys might be good in the geography section.
    6. In the Capital section, "only two members of the United Nations — Costa Rica and El Salvador — have their embassies located within the city limits of Jerusalem...and several consulates within the city itself." Are these consulates of Costa Rica and Ecuador, or consulates of other nations? Seems unclear from the wording.

Thanks for your hard work. I truly do apologize for introducing POV issues into this, but I think a few minor changes here and there would be good to ensure the objectivity of the article's message. LordAmeth 19:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I'll get back to you on a couple of these points, but it may be best for you to address a few yourself because I don't see the ambiguity with some of them, particularly with your second point. I added the number of consulates in regards to your second point, but I didn't specifically mention that those consulates did not include Costa Rica and El Salvador (since it wouldn't make sense for a country to have an embassy and a consulate in the same city). I fixed the first point, but take issue with doing something about the third point (because mentioning Palestine rather superfluously might sound like a subtle desire for a nation-state by the name of Palestine). -- tariqabjotu 15:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I've eliminated the ambiguity I had perceived in the "majority areas" phrase. As for the thing about Jerusalem not being the capital for 18 centuries, all I'm saying is that inclusion of this fact could be interpreted as an argument against the legitimacy of Jewish/Israeli claims on it as their capital. By explaining that there has never been an independent state called Palestine, you discount their claims on it as well, balancing the POV. That's my thought. LordAmeth 12:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I would shorten the religious significance section. The sub pages should be sufficient for most of what is there. That would help with the length issue. I might also link to category: neighborhoods of Jerusalem somewhere. --יהושועEric 03:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree on the point regarding shortening the Religious Significance section. In comparison to the five articles on the religious significance of Jerusalem, the section is quite short, only touching upon the most basic facts about the significance of the city in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I'm thinking that perhaps the History section could be cut down, but Jerusalem does indeed have a very long history; the summary in the Jerusalem article is much shorter than the full piece at History of Jerusalem. However, I encourage you to make whatever changes you feel are necessary to cut down on the length. At some later date, I'll calculate how much readable prose is in the article (so we can compare the article with WP:LENGTH), but I'm rather confident there won't be a tremendous issues since there are a heck of a lot of sources that do not count toward the readable prose total. For comparison, this is 63kB of prose. As long as this article is less than 50-55kB of prose (WP:LENGTH actually says less than 60kB), any objection based on length alone would not be warranted. -- tariqabjotu 15:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I determined that the article in its current state is 34 kB of readable prose, well within the limits of WP:LENGTH. See User:Tariqabjotu/Jerusalem. -- tariqabjotu 04:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
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