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Requests for comment/Severe Problems in hewiki

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This document intends to show the problematic situation in Hebrew Wikipedia (hewiki), and provide evidence that it has been overtaken by a group of mostly religious and nationalist editors, who prevent others from achieving higher permissions while promoting their own allies. This group has worked its way up hewiki's permission ladder, and some of its members are now admins, checkusers and bureaucrats. In recent years, as they gained more power, they changed rules to their benefit without consulting the community; blocked and threatened opposing editors; and conducted selective enforcement of the code of conduct, many times according to political identity. These actions lead to a lot of biased and non-NPOV content, bad atmosphere among editors, and left very little chance for change. Last November hewiki has elected new bureaucrats, in a controversial elections in which many editors could not participate due to a unilateral change of the qualifications to vote or due to their inexplicable block. Most of the events described herein took place while the previous bureaucrats were "in office", but sadly the new bureaucrats seem to follow in the previous ones' footsteps: Editors are still being interrogated and threatened; only 3 of the 59 editors who were inexplicably blocked have been released, and under strict limitations (they can't participate in discussions, polls and policy design, and aren't allowed to edit "political articles"); and the biased, selective enforcement of the rules persists. Just recently the "Parliament", where we vote about policy, was re-opened after a block of more than 7 months, in what the new bureaucrats called "Ending the blocks affair and opening the parliament". Still, many dozens of editors are either blocked, have lost the right to vote in the Parliament, or were forced to refrain from voting in exchange for their unblock. We will show that hewiki is in a dark place, and needs intervention from the international Wikimedia foundation.

The situation in Hewiki is not unrelated to processes that have been happening in Israel over the past two years, as the country has been undergoing a regime transformation, usually referred to as the "judicial overhaul" or the "self-coup". During this time the government has been centralizing its power and attempting to take control of the judicial system and police, turning them into its political arms. Those who criticize or protest against these actions are defamed as traitors and are being silenced. These events led to the demotion of Israel's Democracy Grade. Since the war in Gaza and Lebanon began, anti-democratic measures have been justified by claims that the country is in a state of emergency.

Unfortunately, similar processes seem to be affecting Hebrew Wikipedia: two bureaucrats, supported by a group of administrators and editors close to them, have concentrated significant power. They changed the rules without any community discussion, poll or broad consensus; operated without transparency; implemented mass indefinite blocks of editors without any warning and without presenting any evidence; threatened the remaining editors, hinting that "more blocks are underway"; conducted secretive investigations; encouraged "snitching" on fellow editors; and singled out "internal enemies" - all under the pretext of an "emergency situation". As a result, some editors have left the project, others have significantly reduced their activity, and some continue editing while expressing great discomfort with the situation. Some other editors have expressed their will to "bow their heads until the storm is over", fearing they too will be blocked indefinitely and their (user)names tarnished. These events raise concerns about hewiki increasingly departing from the basic principles of the global Wikimedia movement.

This document summarises the events and provides evidence for the above claims. It was written by a group of editors, who are concerned that hewiki has been overtaken by a group who dictates a non-neutral, mainly nationalist and/or religious POV, and now operates to stay in power by permanently blocking editors with liberal views or those who criticise the admins and bureaucrats, and preventing those regarded as "not our own" from achieving advanced positions such as admins, checkusers etc.

Our request from Wikimedia is to perform an extensive investigation of the situation, and get involved: consider taking extreme measures such as removal of permissions and cancellation of mass blocks, impose minimal standards and policies which fit Wikimedia's core values and ideology, and establish some sort of temporary supervision over hewiki until it stabalizes.

Note (1) - During November 2024 hewiki went through an election process for new bureaucrats, and the two bureaucrats mentioned herein were replaced. Our claim is that this did not change the situation, for several reasons:

  1. The elections were held after massive one-sided blocks and changes of regulations without the approval of the community, thus heavily biasing this vote.
  2. Several irregularities in the elections were ignored by those who were supposed to oversee the process (as described in chapter 2.7).
  3. The "old guard" of powerful admins and affiliated users is still in power, and even though the bureaucrats were replaced, its members still receive a lighter treatment when they break the rules.
  4. One of the newly elected bureaucrats said openly that he intends to continue the policy of the previous bureaucrats. If the other one will want to take a different path or reverse some actions, one can assume that she will have difficulty doing so without external support.
  5. The new bureaucrats did not fix most of the problems which were caused by the previous ones, and so far it seems like they follow in their footsteps: Most of the blocked editors are still blocked (and the few released are under strict limitations), one-sided sanctions on "political editing" are still happening, etc.

And so, even after the removal of the old bureaucrats, all of the problems described in this document still exist.

Note (2) - In this document, editors are sometimes described as "liberal/conservative/religious." These descriptions are the writers' assessment, based on either the editors' explicit own declarations on their user pages, or implicit via consistent expressions of position in discussions at the village pump, talk pages, and polls.

Note (3) - Naturally, many of the links to examples and references in this document will lead to pages in Hebrew. We're aware that this will probably make this case more difficult to follow, and would like to apologize in advance for the inconvenience. However, the weight of our claims demands that we show as much evidence as possible, so we chose to provide these links. We hope that the gravity of the situation will urge you to not give up, and either use some automatic translation or turn to a trusted Hebrew speaking acquaintance for assistance. Some of the links lead to a diff page, in an attempt to prove a specific quote in a talk page - in these cases please translate the page and use the search option of your browser to find the specified quote. We will willfully answer any question and clarify any ambiguity about these links and quotes, and provide further evidence on demand.

Detailed Presentation of the Case

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Chapter 1 - Background

Chapter 2 - Specific Cases of Misconduct

Our Request for Global Wikimedia Intervention

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As detailed in this document, hewiki hasn't been functioning properly, and in recent years has been increasingly diverging from the values and principles which are the basis of the global Wikimedia movement. Dominant senior permission holders, the old bureaucrats as admins and checkusers, do not respect the rules set by the community (the slogan is "the rules are meant to serve us and not the other way around", as was openly declared here, here and in other places). These privileged users concentrate excessive powers in their own hands and are gradually leading hewiki to an "authoritarian regime" - similar to processes that occurred in the past in Croatian Wikipedia, and to the political atmosphere in the state of Israel. Sadly, the election of new bureaucrats recently didn't bring about the remedy we were hoping for.

Following these matters, we turn to you, representatives of global Wikimedia, requesting intervention in Hebrew Wikipedia's activities. Our request is that you consider taking the following steps to return hewiki to proper operational course:

  1. Perform a thorough investigation of the events mentioned in this document, in order to find out which admins, checkusers and bureaucrats were involved in mass blocks, rule-bendings, selective enforcement and any other misconduct.
  2. Appoint an "imposed trusteeship" to oversight hewiki until its situation stabilizes and the global Wikipedia principles (transparency, neutrality, diversity and inclusion, non-harmful discourse) are fully assimilated.
  3. Guide hewiki community through the process of electing bureaucrats, administrators and checkusers, who were'nt involved in the hewiki takeover.
  4. Cancel the unilateral changes to rules and regulations, and guide the community through the proper procedures of setting the rules by community vote.
  5. Establish an appeals committee, chaired by a Wikimedia Foundation official, to review the blocks cast since June 2024 and release any user whose block cannot be justified with concrete evidence.
  6. Revoke the permissions of any permission holder who took part in taking over hewiki, and consider blocking them for a significant amount of time, or banning them from adminship.

Support

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If you have suffered from the events described in this RFC, or have witnessed them and can approve that what is described here is true, please add your signature below. If you have anything to add, please add it before your signature.


  • On the one hand, new bureaucrats have been elected, demonstrating clear good intentions. On the other hand, the scope and gravity of the actions taken by their predecessors, as well as by some of current administrators who persist in following the previous direction, are considerable. While there are some inaccuracies in this complaint, the core issues remain worth examining. In my view, the good intentions fall short, and the consequences of the actions are still problematic in some ways. I believe that guidance from the foundation would benefit everyone. Freddy9 (talk) 14:42, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Every edit or minor change I made in an entry with even the slightest political interpretation was immediately erased and a tedious exchange was initiated. The aim was always one of attrition, not discussion: my adversaries did not even bother to read what I wrote.I got fed up and basically stopped editing and correcting existing entries. ProfPB12 (talk) 13:33, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Hewiki is a cesspool of bigotry and hate and until a grownup intervenes, it will only keep on getting worse. It's far beyond political. It has to do with the very essence of wikis and how the hewiki developed over the years. If need to equate wiki to a human, what's going on there rn, is a violent cancer that will be fatal if not treated aggressively. --Benderbr (talk) 16:49, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • As an active and responsible user, I strive to contribute positively to the community by adhering to the rules and guidelines of Wikipedia. . However, I was notified that I was no longer permitted to make edits, which came as a complete surprise. Not only was I not given any warning, but I also was not informed of any specific violation that led to this decision. Zo1948 (talk) 18:38, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a consensus on two key points: 1. In recent months dozens of editors have been blocked from the Hebrew Wikipedia. (hewiki) 2. Neither the blocked editors nor the editorial community has been provided with evidence to justify these blocks. This situation is reminiscent of troubling periods and should not happen.HanochP (talk) 15:40, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lyra silvertounge (talk) 18:58, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm one of the blocked editors. I opend a rfc after all my requests from the bureaucrats have been ignored. You can read it here. Be'Ikar Yerakot (talk) 09:42, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • 7 months ago I (user: Louisis14) was completely blocked from the Hebrew Wikipedia. The claim made in the announcement page was that the 43 users (me included) were blocked as they were identical to other users AND their activity patterns showed them to be working as part of an organization trying to harm the Hebrew Wikipedia. It took me by surprise to be included in such a list as I'm working on my own and tried to contribute to the Hebrew Wiki to the best of my capabilities. I've added completely new two entries, added sources and footnotes, fixed mistakes, added images as well as adding local links (and external links). Ever since then I've tried to get a response on my activities and it was in vain. Hence - leaving me in a dead-lock. I'm not getting any specific response and I can't explain why I'm not falling within their criteria (as these are not provided). Louisis14 (talk) 10:40, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I suffured from it and do not edit anymore.Tushtrbui (talk) 09:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I edited some Hebrew values related to the concept of parliamentary democracy - Judicial review, Separation of Powers, etc. I encountered disrespect for common knowledge, as expressed by parallel values in English, as if Israel was some very special case. For example, the right-wing propaganda about "Tyranny of The Judicial System" was considered legitimate. Eventually, I had enough of arguing with much higher-rank editors about what should have been obvious, and stopped editing. Today I edited the Hebrew value for Self Coup. I wonder how much time will my edits stay online this time. Pozuzu (talk) 19:21, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was blocked without any warning and without any explanation. I am the user sivanta 2A06:C701:7092:A400:C1FF:2C55:9F6B:D013 13:20, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • While i concur with this document, I'd argue it's actually severely lacking in some areas. While the pattern of power grabbing and harassment has now expanded to other areas, it began with female and LGBTQ+ editors editing articles related to feminism and LGBTQ+ issues.
    There is a policy that has been semi-standing for over 8 years to misgender and deadname transgender women in articles concerning them (a policy that still very much stands in the articles that started the discussion: he:סתיו סטרשקו and he:אבי שטיין. There were instances where the anti-LGBTQ+ faction tried to use the voting mechanism to establish homophobic pseudoscience as fact or enact transphobic policies. As such, HeWiki almost (and only thanks to a great struggle did not) made the decision to present conversion therapy as a legitimate practice or treat nonbinary individuals as women and ignore their gender identity, with editors expressing homophobic or transphobic positions not being repremanded.
    After User:TMagen (one of the co-founders of the HeWiki WikiWomen group) was permanently blocked - a decision I will not comment on but whose consequences are important to the discussion - virtually every pro-LGBTQ+ or feminist editor was accused of being a TMagen sockpuppet, almost always without any basis in reality. Many decision were reversed, even in cases where it wasn't demonstrated TMagen manipulated the results, and the wiki immediately became more hostile to female and LGBTQ+ editors.
    There has also been persistent and basically untreated history of harassment of female and LGBTQ+ editors, and in particular, transgender editors. To my knowledge I am the last openly-out transgender editor still somewhat active in LGBTQ+-related discussions in HeWiki, and that's not a coincidence. Among the nicknames that were given to LGBTQ+ people in general and trans people specifically are "sick ideas", "a bunch of monkeys", "spreading a radical political genderist-progressivist agenda", etc. I myself have been subject to editors deliberately misgendering me and announcing they are doing that on purpose, or to various deliberate insults, including that I'm "a traitor to nature". After harassing me and others, those users were often given by the administrators weeks to keep on with their behavior, often repeating the offences in the very page discussing them, before being blocked. On one occasion, a user was not repremanded at all despite refusing to say what he has done wrong, with the same administrator considering that a worthy resolution later temp-blocking me for documenting the whole ordeal on my user page.
    The double standard that has been demonstrated in this long document is significantly worse when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues, with editors dealing with harassment often being punished more severely than the harassors. This, the hostile environment, the explicitly transphobic policies and the almost-implemented additional homophobic and transphobic policies, as well as other things I haven't even started discussing - such as the fact that the articles of women or LGBTQ+ people are much more likely to be deleted, or the fact that some notable instances of transphobia in the media are forbidden from being mentioned in articles - have lead to a silent exodus of LGBTQ+ and female editors from the Wiki, and honestly, I wouldn't blame anyone who left. Fighting such an uphill battle when the rules were twisted to act against you has serious negative mental health effect, that I'm sure other users who experience it now that this behaviour has expanded its reach can attest to.
    To me, the Hebrew Wikipedia can no longer be considered a reliable place for people to self-educate themselves on subjects. I and others have made our best efforts to counteract that, but the reality is the average HeWiki reader will be mislead when it comes to many critical subjects. It is now up to Global Wikimedia to decide if that remains the case, or if we are to see a change in this project.
    TalyaNe (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Jag kommer inte ihåg om det var @Talya eller nån annan, men jag minns tydligt en brutal attack mot en redaktör på grund av hennes kön, vilket gjorde mig fullkomligt rasande. Det gör mycket ondare när någon skadar ens kollegor än när man själv blir attackerad, och därför sitter just det här fallet fast i mitt minne. :( Anderssøn79 (talk) 20:22, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Happened to a bunch of people, but it might very well be me that you remember, as in addition to users who attacked a bunch of people all at once, there were also four times (that I remember right now) when someone was harassing me specifically due to me being trans. TalyaNe (talk) 20:32, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don’t know if there is any requirements for adding my voice, which supports taking action to solve the deep problems with the Hebrew — or rather ‘Israeli’, because it takes a very nationalist stance, in a way that is very alien to the global Wikipedia spirit — Wikipedia. If there are such requirements, like having made so and so edits in the last so and so days, me not fulfilling these requirements is all the more another support of the need for a decisive action: I almost entirely refrain from making (substantial) edits to the Hebrew Wikipedia because of the toxic atmosphere and the way the clique of the editors who have overtaken the Hebrew Wikipedia behave. Like many, I don’t want to take a part in such a project and suffer from the hands of said editors. The fact the global Wikimedia community has not interfered adequately until now is an alienating factor from this whole multilingual endeavour for me. My user on the Hebrew Wikipedia is he:משתמש:The_Fool; my first edit was on February 2004 (well, now I feel old…). Rumpelstilzchen (talk) 00:15, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    An addition: I think that in the context of this discussion, the topic of deleting the article about Israeli settler violence has to be considered. Relevant links:
    It’s unfathomable to me how such an important article has been deleted. Indeed, the fact that this article has no place in the Hebrew (=‘Israeli’) Wikipedia is indicative of the latter’s nature.
    Rumpelstilzchen (talk) 00:17, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I created a bot that tracks importance and deletion discussions in HeWiki. In October 2024, it detected 10 discussions during two weeks about prominent Israeli LGBTQ+ figures. Two of them were deleted and 8 of them were demoted to draft because the writer "didn't want to fight". Five out of ten of the disputes were initiated by one user, יוניון ג'ק. I talked about this incident on national radio. As far as I know, nothing was done about this incident and about this user. All the info is in this (Hebrew) blog post. --HananCohen (talk) 10:07, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I used to have another account on Wikipedia, but I was inactive for years and lost it. On this account (that I created only for minor edits, I don't want to become an active editor), I believe I edited Hebrew Wikipedia three times or so, and English Wikipedia around 70. That is to say, I can't prove the substance behind my words, but: I don't edit Hebrew Wikipedia anymore as I'm a lot more leftist than your average Israeli and than Hebrew Wikipedia's political stand. I know any real, contributing edits will only be reverted, and I don't see a reason to waste my time arguing whether some facts should be removed from Hebrew Wikipedia because it "supports Iranian propaganda" (I do not have a link, sorry; But I'm sure you could find it mentioned somewhere here). RatherQueerDebator (talk) 16:17, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can read Hebrew and have looked at some of the heated discussions and general climate of harassment. Political discussions are getting heated everywhere, but it's absolutely getting unacceptably worse on hewp. Shushugah (talk) 00:22, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • RodRabelo7 (talk) 14:32, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Updates

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Jan. 27

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I want to share that today the Hebrew Wikimedia Foundation published data from a survey conducted among hewiki editors in July-September 2024, immediately after the waves of blocks described above. The link to the survey findings can be found here: presentation, Excel. Some of the data presented there seems relevant to this complaint:

• Most editors (61%) believe that conflicts are generally not well resolved in Hebrew Wikipedia

• About a fifth of editors reported that they fell victim to harassment from other editors in the past year (26% of female editors, which comprise only 16% of all editors, and 20% of male editors)

• Only 3% of editors believe that permanent blocking of editors will help prevent conflicts in Hebrew Wikipedia (53% believe that stricter enforcement of existing procedures and 50% believe that improving procedures will help)

• 31% of female editors believe that low participation of women in Wikipedia stems from a violent atmosphere and discourse

(It should be taken into account that many editors, and especially many female editors, who were affected by the violent atmosphere stopped editing and did not respond to this survey at all). Sofiblum (talk) 11:52, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Feb. 6

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The Parliament was opened by the new bureaucrats, after 8 months, for a poll about voting rights. This is indeed a step in the right direction, as it allowed the community to determine the conditions which would grant editors the right to participate in polls, instead of the conditions which were set unilaterally by the old bureaucrats in June 2024. However, only editors who fit the bureaucrats' unilateral criteria were allowed to participate in the poll, and not editors who fit the original criteria set by the community, and of course none of the blocked editors could participate, including those few whose block was lifted: they are allowed to edit - but not to vote. As a result, the result of the poll will not represent the will of the community, but the will of those who were spared by the previous bureaucrats. De facto, the new bureaucrats approve of the mass blocks and of the draconian terms that unblocked editors were forced to accept in order to get back to Wikipedia.

Feb. 19

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One of the new bureaucrats, Erez Ha'Orez, wrote today: "all the claims that I am wrong, and that we harras liberal editors and turn a blind eye to political right leaning editors - are baseless. We have zero tolerance for such claims, therefore we clarify that anyone who makes these claims will be blocked from talk pages and subsequently from Wikipedia entirely". This announcement came after a discussion regarding a request to remove a block from liberal editor sofiblum that ended with the bureaucrats' decision to not remove the block. Several editors criticized the decision and claimed that the bureaucrats have shown very few and poor evidence for problematic patterns in sofiblum's edits, and pointed out examples of much more problematic editors who don't get any sanctions or warnings - not for politically biased edits nor for offensive and demeaning comments in discussions. The threat to block anyone who dares to say that the bureaucrat is wrong, or to express criticism about his decisions, is unacceptable and provides further evidence to our claim that the change of bureaucrats didn't change the situation in hewiki. איתמראשפר (talk) 09:41, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(Comment moved to talk page)

Feb. 20

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The poll was designed, skillfully and with good intent, by several active editors in cooperation with the new bureaucrats. It ran in two phases: formulating several criteria for voting rights, then approving the result. Both phases were run very professionally by the admins, with no glitches except for one incident in which retrospectively cancelling an editor's votes led to a change in one criteria (a minimum of 750 edits changed to 900 edits). In phase two, all criteria were approved by 90% of the community - a rare consensus.

Some of the writers of this RFC find the new policy rather reasonable and balanced, but according to a calculator by a hewiki editor, it lowers the number of potential voters from 368 to 286 - a decrease of 22%.

Feb.27

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The new bureaucrat Funcs announced that she will be almost completely unavailable in the upcoming several months, and recommended that hewiki will elect more bureaucrats soon, so that Erez Ha'Orez won't be left alone as a single bureaucrat. This started a long discussion, in which almost everyone agrees that Funcs is a good and respected bureaucrat, and that she should keep her permissions. Everyone agrees that more bureaucrats should be elected ASAP, and the discussion continues about the format of the vote.

As of March 4, the discussion concluded with no clear decision, and the community now waits for the bureaucrats' decision. Since her announcement, Funcs hasn't been active as bureaucrat, so effectively the militant Erez Ha'Orez is now the only bureaucrat. Dozens of editors are still blocked or restricted from discussions and polls.

March 14

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On March 9 I submitted an application to the Universal Code of Conduct Coordination Committee about the systemic failure in enforcing the code of conduct in Hebrew Wikipedia. The application was submitted on behalf of a group of editors from hewiki and in line with the content of this RFC. here is a link to the application. Sofiblum (talk) 23:22, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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The discussion section was moved to the talk page.

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