Wikipediocracy

After having departed Wikipedia without a word on 31 May, at roughly the stroke of midnight on 15 October, Jayjg (T-C-L) returned to Wikipedia to plump the article "List of Jewish Nobel laureates (T-H-L)".

What's the significance of this (if any?)

Jayjg is a towering figure in the history of WikiKorruption. A master system-gamer and POV-pusher, he managed to acquire all manner of adminstrative powerz up to and including checkuser (which I believe was taken away, because his abuse of it was just too over-the-top.) He was like the Jesse James of the WP-abusin' world. He evaded every attempt by internet sleuths to ascertain his RL ID. But he had fallen somewhat from the dizzying heights of power that he once enjoyed. Some thought that he had withdrawn from the field, discouraged. But that assessment was clearly premature.

Jayjg is one of the most partisan of Wikipedia's power structure, in his case primarily on Israel/Palestine topics and those more generally associated with Judaism. He was formerly on ArbCom, an Oversighter, and a Checkuser, powers that he used to wield awesome control of his corner of Wikipedia, until he was defrocked in one their periodic purges. He remains an Admin, though he tends now to wield his power through others. He was once allied with the dreaded SlimVirgin (T-C-L), though by all appearances that alliance is frayed, if not completely over.

He is perhaps the most powerful Wikipedia who has never been identified. He will never run for ArbCom again, I am certain, because they instituted an identity check as part of the process after his previous term. Speculation (and it is only that -- there has never been a shred of proof) has Jay as everything from a Mossad agent (stupid) to a CAMERA employee (unlikely) to a role account for a group of partisan editors (also unlikely).

He regularly disappeared from view on Wikipedia for months at a time, but usually when he is about to come under scrutiny of any kind. Open an ArbCom case against him -- poof! -- he's gone. This, to my recollection, has been among his longer absences, and the only one I can recall not clearly prompted by some revealed malfeasance of his. I do believe he stayed away for six full months after his defrocking.

For what little it's worth, there still seems to be a general suspicion that he is Judah Gould, son of Canadian magazine writer Allan Gould.
At least, that's the way the (sketchy) evidence points, and I've never seen anything better. Personally, having looked at his contribs in some depth,
I suspect he shared his account with some of the CAMERA cranks.

One thing's damn certain: he'll go right back to fighting over Jewish and Palestinian articles.
I feel that he is the primary reason for Wikipedia's absurdly inflated pro-Jewish and anti-Palestinian bias.

greybeard wrote:After having departed Wikipedia without a word on 31 May, at roughly the stroke of midnight on 15 October, Jayjg (T-C-L) returned to Wikipedia to plump the article "List of Jewish Nobel laureates (T-H-L)".

That's a rather misleading description of what he did. Jayjg hates articles like that and always tries to wreck them.

True, he made the article bigger, because he'd gone through re-formatting the references, but in fact he deleted two names. That's typical of him, cunningly concealing what he did. Apparently, these people weren't Jewish enough for him. In one case, the person had himself said that he was of Jewish descent, sufficient to make him acceptable in the most orthodox synagogue as a Jew, and had suffered from antisemitism, but oh no, that isn't enough for Jayjg, he demands that there is an explicit statement in so many words that someone is Jewish.

I've never understood Jayjg's attitude. He's alleged to be so pro-Jewish, yet he seems to think that labelling someone as Jewish is a badge of shame and has used every possible technique to remove people's names from lists of Jews and even delete the whole list. In one celebrated case, he said that being chairman of Jewish Care and keeping a kosher kitchen wasn't good enough, and removed the name without putting on a {{fact}} tag or anything. A few seconds' Googling would have got him an impeccable reference, but he didn't bother. In another case, he removed someone undoubtedly Jewish from a list of Jewish journalists, on the grounds that he was a columnist and not a reporter.

In fact, "List of Jewish Nobel laureates" was deleted at one point, on the grounds that if they kept it they couldn't delete "List of atheist Nobel laureates"! See here. I understand that its re-creation was only allowed because some very eminent people complained to Jimbo about it.

Willbeheard wrote:

greybeard wrote:After having departed Wikipedia without a word on 31 May, at roughly the stroke of midnight on 15 October, Jayjg (T-C-L) returned to Wikipedia to plump the article "List of Jewish Nobel laureates (T-H-L)".

That's a rather misleading description of what he did. Jayjg hates articles like that and always tries to wreck them.

True, he made the article bigger, because he'd gone through re-formatting the references, but in fact he deleted two names. That's typical of him, cunningly concealing what he did. Apparently, these people weren't Jewish enough for him. In one case, the person had himself said that he was of Jewish descent, sufficient to make him acceptable in the most orthodox synagogue as a Jew, and had suffered from antisemitism, but oh no, that isn't enough for Jayjg, he demands that there is an explicit statement in so many words that someone is Jewish.

I've never understood Jayjg's attitude. He's alleged to be so pro-Jewish, yet he seems to think that labelling someone as Jewish is a badge of shame and has used every possible technique to remove people's names from lists of Jews and even delete the whole list. In one celebrated case, he said that being chairman of Jewish Care and keeping a kosher kitchen wasn't good enough, and removed the name without putting on a {{fact}} tag or anything. A few seconds' Googling would have got him an impeccable reference, but he didn't bother.

In fact, "List of Jewish Nobel laureates" was deleted at one point, on the grounds that if they kept it they couldn't delete "List of atheist Nobel laureates"! See here. I understand that its re-creation was only allowed because some very eminent people complained to Jimbo about it.

In the past, whenever a Jewish person did good or screwed up, competing crowds at Wikipedia added or removed the 'Jewish' category to the person's article. Examples;

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =430366155
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =430452246

I think there's some agreement now requiring the person self-identify, or something like that, for the category to be added. Jayjg is probably applying some rule.

TungstenCarbide wrote:I think there's some agreement now requiring the person self-identify, or something like that, for the category to be added. Jayjg is probably applying some rule.

I think you missed part of my post. "In one case, the person had himself said that he was of Jewish descent, sufficient to make him acceptable in the most orthodox synagogue as a Jew, and had suffered from antisemitism, but oh no, that isn't enough for Jayjg, he demands that there is an explicit statement in so many words that someone is Jewish."

The only rule I've ever seen him apply is "can we find some loophole that will enable me to delete a name". Just read his contributions to List of British Jews and the talk page.

In any case, the sort of rule you suggest would go against every principle of WP (which isn't to deny that you're right!) The only sensible rule within the WP framework would be "if there are reliable sources that state that someone is Jewish or had Jewish parents, they are Jewish".

TungstenCarbide wrote:

Willbeheard wrote:

greybeard wrote:After having departed Wikipedia without a word on 31 May, at roughly the stroke of midnight on 15 October, Jayjg (T-C-L) returned to Wikipedia to plump the article "List of Jewish Nobel laureates (T-H-L)".

That's a rather misleading description of what he did. Jayjg hates articles like that and always tries to wreck them.

True, he made the article bigger, because he'd gone through re-formatting the references, but in fact he deleted two names. That's typical of him, cunningly concealing what he did. Apparently, these people weren't Jewish enough for him. In one case, the person had himself said that he was of Jewish descent, sufficient to make him acceptable in the most orthodox synagogue as a Jew, and had suffered from antisemitism, but oh no, that isn't enough for Jayjg, he demands that there is an explicit statement in so many words that someone is Jewish.

I've never understood Jayjg's attitude. He's alleged to be so pro-Jewish, yet he seems to think that labelling someone as Jewish is a badge of shame and has used every possible technique to remove people's names from lists of Jews and even delete the whole list. In one celebrated case, he said that being chairman of Jewish Care and keeping a kosher kitchen wasn't good enough, and removed the name without putting on a {{fact}} tag or anything. A few seconds' Googling would have got him an impeccable reference, but he didn't bother.

In fact, "List of Jewish Nobel laureates" was deleted at one point, on the grounds that if they kept it they couldn't delete "List of atheist Nobel laureates"! See here. I understand that its re-creation was only allowed because some very eminent people complained to Jimbo about it.

In the past, whenever a Jewish person did good or screwed up, competing crowds at Wikipedia added or removed the 'Jewish' category to the person's article. Examples;

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =430366155
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =430452246

I think there's some agreement now requiring the person self-identify, or something like that, for the category to be added. Jayjg is probably applying some rule.

I don't know. Many orthodox Jews are like the Muslims who practice takfir: Who is a "Jew" to Jews in general is not a "Jew" to them. And they will fight hard to have their right to control "Jewishness" stick.

I have no idea if that's the case with this fellow.

Willbeheard wrote:

TungstenCarbide wrote:I think there's some agreement now requiring the person self-identify, or something like that, for the category to be added. Jayjg is probably applying some rule.

I think you missed part of my post. "In one case, the person had himself said that he was of Jewish descent, sufficient to make him acceptable in the most orthodox synagogue as a Jew, and had suffered from antisemitism, but oh no, that isn't enough for Jayjg, he demands that there is an explicit statement in so many words that someone is Jewish."

The only rule I've ever seen him apply is "can we find some loophole that will enable me to delete a name". Just read his contributions to List of British Jews and the talk page.

In any case, the sort of rule you suggest would go against every principle of WP (which isn't to deny that you're right!) The only sensible rule within the WP framework would be "if there are reliable sources that state that someone is Jewish or had Jewish parents, they are Jewish".

Ok, thinking back now a long time, I believe the criteria was that there needed to be good references and that the person's faith/heritage was an important part of their public life. I looked briefly but didn't find anything solid.

But you are right, Willbeheard, it's like a big game to the various factions finding loopholes to push their POV.

DanMurphy wrote:I don't know. Many orthodox Jews are like the Muslims who practice takfir: Who is a "Jew" to Jews in general is not a "Jew" to them. And they will fight hard to have their right to control "Jewishness" stick.

I have no idea if that's the case with this fellow.

Well, if you're interested in damaging your brain this talk page is illuminating.

TungstenCarbide wrote: Ok, thinking back now a long time, I believe the criteria was that there needed to be good references and that the person's faith/heritage was an important part of their public life.

WP:BLPCAT (T-H-L).

EricBarbour wrote: I feel that he is the primary reason for Wikipedia's absurdly inflated pro-Jewish and anti-Palestinian bias.

That's fucking absurd. The Right Wing Israeli nationalists are legion. The Palestinian side is supported by a couple commies fighting the good fight. It's an utterly unequal POV battle.

Note: i do not edit on this topic because I have an aversion to crazy people who try to manipulate content.

RfB

TungstenCarbide wrote: Well, if you're interested in damaging your brain this talk page is illuminating.

Fun fact, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was under house arrest in NYC, he resided in the same apartment building with the diminutive troll weev.

Willbeheard wrote:

greybeard wrote:After having departed Wikipedia without a word on 31 May, at roughly the stroke of midnight on 15 October, Jayjg (T-C-L) returned to Wikipedia to plump the article "List of Jewish Nobel laureates (T-H-L)".

That's a rather misleading description of what he did. Jayjg hates articles like that and always tries to wreck them.

You're right. The whole "yellow-badging" thing is too complex for my Gentile brain. Seriously. I didn't have the patience to carefully examine his edits. My apologies (to you, not Jayjg).

Perhaps we should not be giving him any attention -- he seems to thrive on it, while denying it loudly.
Wait for him to pull one of his dirty tricks in an AFD or an arbitration. That's less likely, since he lost his oversight/CU powers.

Randy from Boise wrote:The Palestinian side is supported by a couple commies fighting the good fight. It's an utterly unequal POV battle.

That seems about right.

greybeard wrote:After having departed Wikipedia without a word on 31 May, at roughly the stroke of midnight on 15 October, Jayjg (T-C-L) returned to Wikipedia to plump the article "List of Jewish Nobel laureates (T-H-L)".

That article has at least 11 references to Adherents.com (T-H-L). There are also 1,647 external links on the English wikipedia that direct to their website.

On Adherents.com's front page, under recent events, they link to a press release from 2005 (that no longer exists at that link) that predicts Wiccan will be the 3rd largest U.S. religion by 2012. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life / U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Wiccans represent <.3 percent of the adult U.S. population.

Adherents.com also mention they have a collection of 43,870 adherent statistics. That number hasn't changed since 2006. How in all seriousness can this hobby website run by a computer geek from Texas be used as a reliable source for hundreds of articles in an encyclopedia?

tarantino wrote:That article has at least 11 references to Adherents.com (T-H-L). There are also 1,647 external links on the English wikipedia that direct to their website.

And that makes me wonder if Mr. Hunter is running multiple sockfarms, using WP's Google rank to puff his own website.
After all, one of the biggest past users of adherents.com "data" is one Java7837 (T-C-L). Most of those backlinks to adherents.com were
posted on talkpages, where they are unlikely to be reverted, and often used in arguments.

greybeard wrote:...a role account for a group of partisan editors (also unlikely).

The writing style and word usage has been different at different times in Jayjg's history, though what can be looked into now given that his edit history looks like Shredded Wheat probably wouldn't reveal much. My guess has been that there is a primary person but that the account was loaned on occasion.

Randy from Boise wrote:

EricBarbour wrote: I feel that he is the primary reason for Wikipedia's absurdly inflated pro-Jewish and anti-Palestinian bias.

That's fucking absurd. The Right Wing Israeli nationalists are legion. The Palestinian side is supported by a couple commies fighting the good fight. It's an utterly unequal POV battle.

Note: i do not edit on this topic because I have an aversion to crazy people who try to manipulate content.

In my experience, Jewish people tend to be interested in famous Jews in much the same way that Canadians are interested in famous Canadians. It's only a problem when the Jewish person (or Canadian) also happens to be a complete loon.

SB_Johnny wrote:

Randy from Boise wrote:

EricBarbour wrote: I feel that he is the primary reason for Wikipedia's absurdly inflated pro-Jewish and anti-Palestinian bias.

That's fucking absurd. The Right Wing Israeli nationalists are legion. The Palestinian side is supported by a couple commies fighting the good fight. It's an utterly unequal POV battle.

Note: i do not edit on this topic because I have an aversion to crazy people who try to manipulate content.

In my experience, Jewish people tend to be interested in famous Jews in much the same way that Canadians are interested in famous Canadians. It's only a problem when the Jewish person (or Canadian) also happens to be a complete loon.

In general this is true. Bear in mind though that Canada isn't in the middle of a civil war and ultra-nationalism isn't a huge issue there. The number of complete loons on matters of contemporary Middle Eastern politics is distressingly large.

RfB

Randy from Boise wrote:
In general this is true. Bear in mind though that Canada isn't in the middle of a civil war and ultra-nationalism isn't a huge issue there. The number of complete loons on matters of contemporary Middle Eastern politics is distressingly large.

RfB

Depends on whether the Canadian lives in Quebec . . .

The issue of "famous Jewish people" or near-Jewish people is completely unrelated to the issue of Israel/Palestine. Persons of Jewish descent or even current adherent to the tenets of various Jewish sects (Reform, Orthodox, etc) diverge quite broadly on the subject of the relation between Israel and Palestine, in much the same way that all other people do. One could even say that the conflation of extreme Zionism with Judaism is (yet another) pernicious form of anti-Semitism.

That non-Israeli Jews (or Gentiles) uneducated on the specific topics at hand vis-a-vis Israel's difficulties with Palestine should be afforded a view in an "encyclopedia" is beyond absurd, not as a matter of religion or politics, but as a matter of scholarship.

Randy from Boise wrote: In general this is true. Bear in mind though that Canada isn't in the middle of a civil war RfB

Watch this space for when the nuts in Quebec try and secede.

To revive an old topic, I belatedly noticed that Jayjg (T-C-L) has returned for his annual 2-hour binge of automated edits, about 1000 edits in quick succession, mostly designed to preserve his admin status, but also hiding a couple of meaningful edits in a pile of dross. This year's target (in addition to plumping an article about an abandoned New York synagogue, one of his fave topics), is Leopold_Cohn_(Christian_clergyman) (T-H-L), which perpetuates his own personal war against suggestions that formerly Jewish converts to Christianity are "Messianic Jews". I don't have a position on the topic, but his editing patterns continue to be interesting, albeit only once a year.

greybeard wrote:To revive an old topic, I belatedly noticed that Jayjg (T-C-L) has returned for his annual 2-hour binge of automated edits, about 1000 edits in quick succession, mostly designed to preserve his admin status, but also hiding a couple of meaningful edits in a pile of dross. This year's target (in addition to plumping an article about an abandoned New York synagogue, one of his fave topics), is Leopold_Cohn_(Christian_clergyman) (T-H-L), which perpetuates his own personal war against suggestions that formerly Jewish converts to Christianity are "Messianic Jews". I don't have a position on the topic, but his editing patterns continue to be interesting, albeit only once a year.

There actually is a sort-of denomination, or group of denominations, called Messianic Judaism (T-H-L), and I don't know if Cohn was involved in any of the related groups. So far as I can tell, that group would seem to have the claim to the WP:COMMONNAME (T-H-L) usage of the term, so he is probably doing the right thing. I guess.

A Messianic Jew is a Jew who continues to follow all the rules of the religion other than that he or she accepts Jesus as the Messiah. I see no evidence that Cohn did this.

Poetlister wrote:A Messianic Jew is a Jew who continues to follow all the rules of the religion other than that he or she accepts Jesus as the Messiah. I see no evidence that Cohn did this.

Without wishing to contest any of this, I'll simply note that while Jayjg scrubbed the Cohn article of references to Messianic Judaism, the article on that subject continues to prominently feature Cohn. Whichever position is academically correct, it appears that entropy continues to have its way with Wikipedia.

greybeard wrote:

Poetlister wrote:A Messianic Jew is a Jew who continues to follow all the rules of the religion other than that he or she accepts Jesus as the Messiah. I see no evidence that Cohn did this.

Without wishing to contest any of this, I'll simply note that while Jayjg scrubbed the Cohn article of references to Messianic Judaism, the article on that subject continues to prominently feature Cohn. Whichever position is academically correct, it appears that entropy continues to have its way with Wikipedia.

The problem is a bit of a pain, unfortunately. There actually is still a source used which relates to MJs in a broad way, but not necessarily to the most common usage of the term as per COMMONNAME. The name is most frequently used for those groups of congregations mentioned in the main article on the MJs. And the article still is in the MJ category as well. Personally, I think it really, really sucks that there aren't more reference works to use as a baseline for determining the usage of the term MJ as opposed to the usage of the term Jewish Christian (T-H-L). He clearly is one of the latter, more or less, and could probably be counted as some sort of "precursor" to the modern MJs, but not really as an MJ himself.

Articles on Jewish Christianity are a pain to deal with too. I remember reading a recent academic anthology work which seriously questioned whether the term should be used to describe the groups who are often described as such. Of, course, the book itself was titled, you guessed it, "Jewish Christianity."

Let's be clear: I'm not trying to have a debate about the subject at hand. I think it's odd that Jayjg returns once a year for a couple of hours to make 1000 "minor" automated edits, in the middle of which is one that is plausibly controversial, and then disappears for another year. He's been doing this now for quite a few years.

Let's face it, even if Jay's once-a-year "preserve my admin status" edits include a few mildly controversial ones, we need to compare this to back in the day, when he'd storm onto the really controversial IP articles, get a few other heavyweight editors (ie. SV) to "watch his back", and checkuser the shit out of anyone who disagreed with them. Those days are, thankfully, gone.

Whatever did happen to Crum375? Still (occasionally) here and mostly writing about airlines and cycling, by the looks of it...

Black Kite wrote:Let's face it, even if Jay's once-a-year "preserve my admin status" edits include a few mildly controversial ones, we need to compare this to back in the day, when he'd storm onto the really controversial IP articles, get a few other heavyweight editors (ie. SV) to "watch his back", and checkuser the shit out of anyone who disagreed with them. Those days are, thankfully, gone.

Whatever did happen to Crum375? Still (occasionally) here and mostly writing about airlines and cycling, by the looks of it...

Those days are still here.
The people and/or masks have just changed.

Vigilant wrote:

Black Kite wrote:Let's face it, even if Jay's once-a-year "preserve my admin status" edits include a few mildly controversial ones, we need to compare this to back in the day, when he'd storm onto the really controversial IP articles, get a few other heavyweight editors (ie. SV) to "watch his back", and checkuser the shit out of anyone who disagreed with them. Those days are, thankfully, gone.

Whatever did happen to Crum375? Still (occasionally) here and mostly writing about airlines and cycling, by the looks of it...

Those days are still here.
The people and/or masks have just changed.

6SJ7, Jiujitsuguy (still agitating off-site; Wikipedia's Israel Problem), Humus sapiens, etc...I have no doubt at all they're still around in some form.

I had no idea that State-sponsored Internet sockpuppetry (T-H-L) was actually a notable topic, either.

I'm sure Jayjg still edits Wikipedia under other guises. Virtually all the major players on Wikipedia have more socks than an infantry brigade kitted out for duty in the Arctic.

Gamer gate posts moved here: linkviewtopic.php?p=153398#p153398[/link]

Kelly Martin wrote:I'm sure Jayjg still edits Wikipedia under other guises. Virtually all the major players on Wikipedia have more socks than an infantry brigade kitted out for duty in the Arctic.

Yes. I watched those guys operate for several years and they appear to be, either formally or informally, signed-on to organized initiatives to fight anti-Semitism over the Internet. So, this particular crew uses WP to make sure that Israel and Jewish people and culture are depicted in the best light possible. So, they're probably operating multiple accounts. It appears to me that the guy behind the Jayjg account, who rumor has it is a UX architect in Canada, is keeping the Jayjg account semi-active in case he ever needs to use those admin privileges.

I'm not sure why he and others in that group are so anti-Messianic Judaism. I guess they see it as some kind of threat to the People.

Cla68 wrote:

Kelly Martin wrote:I'm sure Jayjg still edits Wikipedia under other guises. Virtually all the major players on Wikipedia have more socks than an infantry brigade kitted out for duty in the Arctic.

Yes. I watched those guys operate for several years and they appear to be, either formally or informally, signed-on to organized initiatives to fight anti-Semitism over the Internet. So, this particular crew uses WP to make sure that Israel and Jewish people and culture are depicted in the best light possible. So, they're probably operating multiple accounts. It appears to me that the guy behind the Jayjg account, who rumor has it is a UX architect in Canada, is keeping the Jayjg account semi-active in case he ever needs to use those admin privileges.

I'm not sure why he and others in that group are so anti-Messianic Judaism. I guess they see it as some kind of threat to the People.

I don't think it is so much that they are anti-Messianic Judaism. Having been peripherally involved with the topic for some years now, the impression I get is that they are trying to counteract what seems to be the promotional line of MJs, which is that they are, basically, the fulfillment of Judaism or something like that. The academic world, apparently in accord with Judaism itself, sees them as being basically a Christian restorationist movement within the evangelical/charismatic tradition. I know that from what I have seen of the relevant reference works regarding this topic that seems to be where it is most regularly placed. But, yeah, I can see where Jewish "POV pushers" would be interested in preventing a POV with which they disagree, which is more or less also contrary to the prevailing academic POV, from getting much attention in wikipedia.

Cla68 wrote:I'm not sure why he and others in that group are so anti-Messianic Judaism. I guess they see it as some kind of threat to the People.

There's a lot of bad blood between Messainic Jews and actual Jews. The actual Jews don't like being proselytized by people who pretend to practice Judaism, and the Messaianics don't like being accused of being a cult by people who don't accept that the messiah has already come.

I'm a little surprised that isn't a bigger bandwagon, given the number of observant Jews who edit Wikipedia...

JCM wrote:the promotional line of MJs, which is that they are, basically, the fulfillment of Judaism or something like that. The academic world, apparently in accord with Judaism itself, sees them as being basically a Christian restorationist movement within the evangelical/charismatic tradition.

Yes, I think that's spot-on.

Poetlister wrote:

JCM wrote:the promotional line of MJs, which is that they are, basically, the fulfillment of Judaism or something like that. The academic world, apparently in accord with Judaism itself, sees them as being basically a Christian restorationist movement within the evangelical/charismatic tradition.

Yes, I think that's spot-on.

This, I suppose, is my point. I don't have a position one way or the other about Messianic Judaism or anything else, but I would expect an encyclopedia to take an even-handed, academic, and (most importantly) "above-the-fray" perspective.

Wikipedia is the converse of this -- on topics like this that attract few disinterested parties and many zealots, they are the worst source -- both positions are (in effect) wrong, and the central, balanced position is politically untenable in the rarefied world of wiki-politics. Why does Jayjg work to maintain his admin bit? To push his POV, not to make Wikipedia a better encyclopedia (whether or not the two sometimes converge).

JCM wrote:

Cla68 wrote:

Kelly Martin wrote:I'm sure Jayjg still edits Wikipedia under other guises. Virtually all the major players on Wikipedia have more socks than an infantry brigade kitted out for duty in the Arctic.

Yes. I watched those guys operate for several years and they appear to be, either formally or informally, signed-on to organized initiatives to fight anti-Semitism over the Internet. So, this particular crew uses WP to make sure that Israel and Jewish people and culture are depicted in the best light possible. So, they're probably operating multiple accounts. It appears to me that the guy behind the Jayjg account, who rumor has it is a UX architect in Canada, is keeping the Jayjg account semi-active in case he ever needs to use those admin privileges.

I'm not sure why he and others in that group are so anti-Messianic Judaism. I guess they see it as some kind of threat to the People.

I don't think it is so much that they are anti-Messianic Judaism. Having been peripherally involved with the topic for some years now, the impression I get is that they are trying to counteract what seems to be the promotional line of MJs, which is that they are, basically, the fulfillment of Judaism or something like that. The academic world, apparently in accord with Judaism itself, sees them as being basically a Christian restorationist movement within the evangelical/charismatic tradition. I know that from what I have seen of the relevant reference works regarding this topic that seems to be where it is most regularly placed. But, yeah, I can see where Jewish "POV pushers" would be interested in preventing a POV with which they disagree, which is more or less also contrary to the prevailing academic POV, from getting much attention in wikipedia.

Theologically, Judaism is monotheistic. In contrast, the bread-is-meat and wine-is-blood cult claims to be "monotheistic" but makes the same polytheistic claims of other mystery cults from 2000 years ago; so claims that self-described "Messianic Jews" are Jews irritate tribesmen.

Sociologically, Christians have tried to convert or exterminate Jews since (at least) the Reconquest of Spain from the Moors, with some significant reductions in numbers in the 20th Century. So advertisements from Jews for Jesus irritate tribesmen---who usually just shake their heads and mutter about goyim ("meshuggah") privately.

Have Jews objected to Breaking Bad's Saul Goodman (who changed his name to appear to be "a pipe-smoking member of the tribe" to boost his law practice)?

Moral Hazard wrote:Sociologically, Christians have tried to convert or exterminate Jews since (at least) the Reconquest of Spain from the Moors

Oh, well before that.

Greybeard's claim is that "both positions are (in effect) wrong, and the central, balanced position is politically untenable". That raises a general question beyond the scope of this thread. If there is a position held by every respectable academic, and a different one held by a religious sect, should an encyclopaedia reject the academic consensus and seek a compromise with the views of this sect? It would be easy to find positions held by much larger religious groups, for example the claim by the Aramaic-speaking Christians of Syria and Iraq that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic and only later translated into Greek, that are rightly not given any credence on Wikipedia.

greybeard wrote:I think it's odd that Jayjg returns once a year for a couple of hours to make 1000 "minor" automated edits, in the middle of which is one that is plausibly controversial, and then disappears for another year.

I think you're reading way too much into this. The edit in question returned the article to the state it was in November 2012, before an IP editor inserted lots of crap into it, including making the claim of Messianic Judaism.

greybeard wrote:

Poetlister wrote:

JCM wrote:the promotional line of MJs, which is that they are, basically, the fulfillment of Judaism or something like that. The academic world, apparently in accord with Judaism itself, sees them as being basically a Christian restorationist movement within the evangelical/charismatic tradition.

Yes, I think that's spot-on.

This, I suppose, is my point. I don't have a position one way or the other about Messianic Judaism or anything else, but I would expect an encyclopedia to take an even-handed, academic, and (most importantly) "above-the-fray" perspective.

Wikipedia is the converse of this -- on topics like this that attract few disinterested parties and many zealots, they are the worst source -- both positions are (in effect) wrong, and the central, balanced position is politically untenable in the rarefied world of wiki-politics. Why does Jayjg work to maintain his admin bit? To push his POV, not to make Wikipedia a better encyclopedia (whether or not the two sometimes converge).

I'd myself like to see, as much as possible, our content reflect the content of wikipedia reflect, as far as possible, the content of all the other encyclopedias and dictionaries out there in at least some way. And, yes, that would mean including, somewhere, material from even reference works on at best tangentially related topics, like conspiracy theories regarding various churches, organizations, individuals, and so on.

FWIW, though, so far as I can remember at this point, having not looked at the book for several months, the best and I think longest encyclopedic article on the MJ's that I know of anyway is one in The International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, written by one of the leaders and leading theologians of one of the MJ groups, and, again, so far as I can remember, the classification I suggested above, is more or less the one he includes in his article. Of course, that book is about 13 years old and there may well have been big changes since then in the internal theology.

Having said all that, I'd still love to see more encyclopedic overlooks on a lot of these topics, and acknowledge up front that, in at least some of these lesser known and less widely discussed topics, including a lot of other NRMs, POV pushing by senior editors is going to be a big problem.

Hex wrote:

greybeard wrote:I think it's odd that Jayjg returns once a year for a couple of hours to make 1000 "minor" automated edits, in the middle of which is one that is plausibly controversial, and then disappears for another year.

I think you're reading way too much into this. The edit in question returned the article to the state it was in November 2012, before an IP editor inserted lots of crap into it, including making the claim of Messianic Judaism.

This is one of those "Wikipedia really needs experts" points. Going back and forth it's pretty clear that before the modern Messianic Judaism movement (which is closely coupled to modern non-denom evangelicals) there was an earlier era of Jewish Christians as groups outside the mainstream, and that Cohn was part of this. The thing is, as far as Ming can tell, the two don't have a lot to do with each other. Ming's impression is that Jayjg does actually know quite a bit about this. But in Wikipedia, "the encyclopedia that anyone who doesn't know what they're talking about can edit," the old anti-expert impulse lives on; but too many of the experts turn out to be people like Brian Josephson who are there largely to push their own crankishness. Mediating this sort of content dispute continues to be a point of failure.

Ming wrote:This is one of those "Wikipedia really needs experts" points. Going back and forth it's pretty clear that before the modern Messianic Judaism movement (which is closely coupled to modern non-denom evangelicals) there was an earlier era of Jewish Christians as groups outside the mainstream, and that Cohn was part of this.

I think that earlier era is covered under the article Hebrew Christian movement (T-H-L). And yeah, there have been and still are edits on the talk page at least attempting to assert that the modern MJs are the "true" heir to Judaism or some such thing.