Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Jewish lobby/sourcing

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Discussion before mediation started moved to /old discussion


[edit] Sourcing: What is and is not covered by WP:OR

It seems like this is the crux of the current issue with one side believing they have found reliable sources and another who believes that what's happening is synthesis, which is prohibited as original research. Can we get a clearer explanation from both sides here (maybe some examples)? And for the pro-sources side, please describe why you believe that the use of sources is not covered by the synthesis clause (again, examples are good)? Shell babelfish 07:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to our party; thank you for your support! In an attempt to be personal, I can not figure out if I might call you Shell, babe, of lfish; there is also babel, but I do believe that God tried to put an end to that approach some long time-ago, when people got too familiar, too idolic and tried to build something on false pretenses. With toungue out of cheek, thank you again, really. I am what my edits are, I stand by that; I am a talkpage-kinda-guy, up to this point, so other, more experienced editors are better at answering those types of specific questions than I am. Given that, the best thing that I can say is... nothing yet; I will leave those specifics to others with more experience than I. My overview, however, is that if a J and/or his POV-compatriates read anything they don't agree with, the reply is generallyWP:OR or WP:SYN or, possibly, what I have called RSBS. With respect, and my toungue flickering in-and-out-of cheek, for serious and substantial reasons, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 13:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Please compare two most recent, and very different, versions Several of us believe WP:OR is used an excuse to constant wholesale reverts of a more WP:NPOV version of article to one that most of the most active recent editors believe is very POV. The best thing you can do is compare the two most recent versions of the article we keep reverting back and forth between:
I think this wiki section - Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial#Moral_and_political_points_of_view - is very relevant to this issue:
Moral and political points of view -On certain topics, there is naturally less "expertise" and scientific thinking, and more "opinion". This is especially the case of topics such as morals or religion, based on faith, as well as politics. We should then list all points of views, according to their importance, and, if possible, be precise as to who holds them. There exist some cases where the vast majority of political parties, politicians and journalists hold a certain opinion, while a sizeable minority do not: both views should be stated. Carol Moore 00:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}
That's why we're trying to take a good look at what everyone's opinion is on how this relates to WP:OR. Do you have any specific arguments against your version using any OR -- I assume you've seen the arguments for OR before; how would you rebut them? Shell babelfish 02:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
WP:SYN was partially quoted above. (It's instructive to go back to WP:SYN and read the entire paragraph.) WP:SYN is about drawing conclusions that aren't directly supported by citations. But that's not happening here. Anything that looked like an uncited conclusion was taken out months ago. The revert issues now are about citations, not conclusions. WP:SYN does not apply at all.
Here's part of a large deletion by Jayjg (talk · contribs)[1]:
The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission of Australia defines the "Jewish lobby" as "an unwieldy group of individuals and organisations devoted to supporting the needs and interests of the Jewish community."<ref name=ADC-Australia/>The term has been used to refer to groups in other countries which promote the special interests of their Jewish members.<ref>[http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-95807415.html Seven Days], [[Jerusalem Post]], June 18, 2004</ref><ref>[http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-109275286.html A little louder, please], [[Jerusalem Post]], June 1, 2005</ref><ref>[http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-52453393.html Continental divide], [[Jerusalem Post]], April 19, 2002</ref> The Oxford English Dictionary uses the term as an example of a special interest lobby, quoting from a 1958 article in [[the Listener]]: "The United States Government, sensitive to the Jewish lobby .. backed the Jews".<ref>[[The Oxford English Dictionary]], p. 1074, 2nd Edition, 1989</ref>'
Where's the original research there? --John Nagle (talk) 03:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Why don't you provide the quotes for how the sources were used, then it should be clear how it is WP:OR. Yahel Guhan 03:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
  • First, in general the complainants about WP:OR should list their complaints, though I mention a very important one in the section below. When they do so we always have either fixed the text according to correct interpretations or argued why we believed it was not WP:OR. Next, in the case of John's three citations, it would be helpful to quote the relevant sentences on the talk page - Maybe even put quotes in refs. - since many people won't sign up for a free trial to check refs, as must do with Highbeam.com. (Unless I missed the quotes on talk page?) Carol Moore 12:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}
I'm trying to get those quotes, which were added by Jgui (talk · contribs). I can find the correct Jerusalem Post "Seven Days" page at [2], but the links on that page are producing internal errors on the Jpost server. More later. --John Nagle (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
The Highbeam cites need to be made more specific by someone with a Highbeam account, which I don't have. See Talk:Jewish lobby for the technical details. Jgui got those cites from a Highbeam search, but the free Highbeam results don't give enough info to find the right pages in the Internet Archive, which has older Jerusalem Post material but isn't searchable. The Jerusalem Post site was reporting database errors for older pages, so it's not obtainable from that source right now. I sent them a bug report. The data is out there; give this a few days. --John Nagle (talk) 15:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Why "Descriptive" Section is Not WP:OR Jayjg keeps deleting the section called "descriptive" which several of us feel makes this article WP:NPOV. However, we now have a WP:RS quote that explicitly makes the point that uses of the phrase "Jewish Lobby" are both descriptive and antisemitic. So I hope Jayjg will concede this and stop deleting the section. (He should tell us which specific quotes in that section he thinks are WP:OR.) Relevant quote is: "The assumption, however, that Jews have a disproportionate power and influence over decision making is what transforms a descriptive reality about politics to an antisemitic argument about Jewish power." REF:http://www.antidef.org.au/www/309/1001127/displayarticle/1001451.html The Media, Stereotypes and the Jewish Lobby], the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, Inc. (Australia). Carol Moore 13:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

Does that source have the words Jewish lobby elsewhere in the text or are we inferring that they are referring to the Jewish lobby? Shell babelfish 21:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, should have mentioned it does and the relevant description is used in the wiki article text as well. Carol Moore 00:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}
No problem, just wanted to check that first. Okay, can someone who believes the use of the source and the statement it references is original research give an explanation of why they feel that is? Thanks. Shell babelfish 00:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Shell, do you see anywhere in that article where it says that the term "Jewish lobby" is "descriptive"? Do any of the other sources used say that the use of the term is "descriptive"? Also, it's rather instructive to note how Carol describes the different "versions" - the version I prefer is described as the "Jayjg version which heavily emphasizes antisemitic uses", while the version Carol wrote is described as the "NPOV Version including descriptive as well as antisemitic uses". In fact, I've tried to ensure that the article uses sources with describe the term, rather than synthesizing definitions based on articles which use the term - exactly what Carol and John have been doing here. The fact that more sources that actually describe the term consider it antisemitic is a simple out-growth of what the sources say. Carol and John feel they must combat this, somehow, by doing Original Research - however, they seem to think that they can define in advance how much should material should be devoted to the "descriptive" versus the "antisemitic" view of the term, and then either add or delete material based on that. I have tried to explain to them that, in fact, they need to first find out what the sources say, and then construct an article based on that. Jayjg (talk) 22:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Jayjg (talk · contribs) used to complain about the use of sources which didn't use the exact phrase "Jewish lobby". So a number of people went out and found sources that used the exact phrase. Now he wants an even more restrictive standard.
The notion that a cite must "describe" the term is a form of "Jewish lobby denial". There are many cites which simply talk about the Jewish lobby as an existing real-world entity, and those fall within the subject of the article. The requirement that the article must only discuss the term would be appropriate for Wictionary, but not not Wikipedia.
Interestingly, we have very few cites of the use of the term in an antisemitic context. We have cites of various people saying that such statements exist, and a few have been found from the Arab world (mostly from countries that have been in shooting wars with Israel), but not much solid evidence that the alleged antisemitic uses occur much. The ones we have tend to look like ordinary political discourse. Finding such cites might be a more productive activity than deleting cites. --John Nagle (talk) 04:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Do I understand correctly that you believe asking for sources which actually mention the subject is unreasonable? On a subject that it likely to be contentious, it would seem to make sense to insist on high quality research and sourcing to make sure that we get the article right. Shell babelfish 04:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

So I guess the next question would be, the sources being used which Jayjg describes as original research, do they say "they Jewish lobby, which is..." or do they just use the term? Unfortunately, it appears that a number of editors in this case (myself included) don't have access to the full resource. Other than highbeam, can someone point me at any other options to review these articles being used as sources? Shell babelfish 04:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think every source left uses the exact phrase "Jewish Lobby". Those that don't were removed months ago in response to complaints.
The Highbeam sources were just examples; they're probably not the best ones to use for this discussion. (Jgui put those in; see the talk page for this link problem.)
A better example is Goldberg's "Jewish Power". This is an entire book about the Jewish lobby. Goldberg (who is editor of The Forward) uses the term many times. Goldberg discusses many activities of the Jewish lobby that aren't Israel-related, including involvement in civil rights, treatment of Jews in the USSR, and abortion issues. Goldberg generally takes the position that the Jewish lobby is a positive force in American society. Jayjg (talk · contribs) has repeatedly deleted all references to Goldberg's book. (Example: [3])
Goldberg, by the way, is a good read. He has quite a bit to say about why the Jewish community tends to panic when people talk about Jewish political clout or the Jewish lobby, and he thinks the community needs to just get over it and accept that they're political players. I recommend reading pages 4-20 of Goldberg. --John Nagle (talk) 16:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Re: "Jewish lobby" is "descriptive"? Relevant sentence is: The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission of Australia defines the "Jewish lobby" as "an unwieldy group of individuals and organisations devoted to supporting the needs and interests of the Jewish community." The article notes that: "The assumption, however, that Jews have a disproportionate power and influence over decision making is what transforms a descriptive reality about politics to an antisemitic argument about Jewish power." Considering the title of the article is "The Media, Stereotypes and the Jewish Lobby" - is it too far a stretch to see they are comparing descriptive and anti-semitic uses of term?
  • Let's say it is, what are we to call a section that is about "nonantisemitic" definitions of the phrase? Is it WP:OR to give it some title? And isn't "descriptive" an NPOV phrase??
  • I myself have removed the sentences with highbeam links til we get the actual quotes; several of us question them on various grounds including WP:OR, so not relevant here.
  • If we believe that there are lots of nonantisemitic uses AND can find descriptive quotes from WP:RS making that points, that's just good NPOV wiki editing, not WP:OR.
  • Your thoughts on the difference between quotes that just use the phrase and those that describe it helpful, though at this point I'd say just about all describe it. Carol Moore 18:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}
Okay, sounds like we may need to discuss one source at a time and see what the consensus is for inclusion and how they should be used. The book by Goldberg seems like a good place to start. John has given us a good summary of why it should be used; can we get a summary of any reasons it shouldn't be used and see if we have any common ground here? Thanks. Shell babelfish 22:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Shell, this is one of the reasons why I find discussions with John so difficult. He claims, based on my insistence that sources discuss the term rather than simply use it (above), that Jayjg (talk · contribs) used to complain about the use of sources which didn't use the exact phrase "Jewish lobby". So a number of people went out and found sources that used the exact phrase. Now he wants an even more restrictive standard.[4] However, as is quite obvious, I've been making this point all along. For example, here's a comment on the Talk: page from March 29, 2007, almost a year ago:

Of course it was OR. You introduced it to counter the argument that use of the term "Jewish lobby" is antisemitic. You made that extremely clear; you were even nice enough to use the word "However", to make your intent indisputable. None of the sources you brought actually discussed the term itself; you merely brought a bunch of sources which used the term, and in so doing attempted to prove that it could be used in an non antisemitic way. If you think the article is POV, you need to find sources which discuss the term. But I don't have to tell you this; you've made the exact same argument yourself. Jayjg (talk) 21:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[5]

I've been saying the same things to the same people for a year now, yet they claim I am somehow moving the goalposts. Regarding the Goldberg material, I've been consistently stating that this article should be about the term "Jewish lobby", which is why I was trying my best to restrict the article to sources that actually discussed the term. That said, the Goldberg material has been there in versions that I've edited going back several days; on the 21st], for example. Here I actually restored Goldberg material to the article on the 19th:[6] Jayjg (talk) 00:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like everyone is on the same page with the Goldberg reference then. Lets see if we can move more out of the general and into specifics -- for instance, what other sources are in dispute that we can discuss? Shell babelfish 01:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)