On July 25, after a couple of months of debate, the Wikipedia entry “Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza” was changed to “Gaza genocide.” This was done despite the fact that the International Court of Justice in the Hague has not made an official ruling on the matter, in the wake of South Africa’s petition to the court alleging that Israel is committing or facilitating genocide in Gaza.

The Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal, which followed the Wikipedia discussion and vote, wrote that the editors who voted on this change claimed to be relying on an academic consensus based on statements of experts on genocide, human rights, human rights law and Holocaust historians.

  • Amanda@aggregatet.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    61
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    Wikipedia is now in the interesting position of having to write an encyclopaedia article about the discussions about their original page, in which I suspect they cannot cite themselves as a source.

    • SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      4 months ago

      Unless their “talk” page is about academics resolving the name change based on acacemic concensus. It’d still be “us confirming us”, but with citations and constructive resources.

      • Amanda@aggregatet.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        Sure, but I assume there will have to be a regular Wikipedia page (or at least section) about the discussion of Wikipedia’s naming of the main article.