Absolutely they must disclose such a COI.
I say indef block any IP's originating from the institution in question. A stated goal of trying to influence Wikipedia in a POV way would get any individual anon blocked, so why not a pseudo-governmental organization?
On 7/29/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
Utter contempt for the integrity of Wikipedia.
Fred
-----Original Message----- From: Hello all [mailto:wikipedian51@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 03:39 PM To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict of Interest and lobbyists for foreign
governments
The Hasbara Fellowship program is a project of the Israeli Foreign
Ministry
which "educates and trains university students to be effective pro-Israel activists". The program essentially pays people to engage in promoting Israel's point of view online.
Hasbara has said the following about wikipedia:
http://www.israelactivism.com/index.php?mode=newsletter#article11 http://www.israelactivism.com/index.php?mode=newsletter#article11
Everyone knows about Wikipedia, a place to go to get the 'real' scoop.
How
often do you use Wikipedia to look up subjects you know little about? Now imagine how often other people use Wikipedia to look up subjects related
to
Israel.
Wikipedia is not an objective resource but rather an online encyclopedia that any one can edit. The result is a website that is in large part is controlled by 'intellectuals' who seek re-write the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. These authors have systematically yet subtly rewritten key passages of thousands of Wikipedia entries to portray
Israel
in a negative light.
You have the opportunity to stop this dangerous trend! If you are interested in joining a team of Wikipedians to make sure Israel is
presented
fairly and accurately, please contact director@israelactivism.com for details!
This looks like a concerted and funded effort to push a particular
political
POV on wikipedia. If there is a "team" of people paid to edit Israel
related
articles in a POV fashion shouldn't they be required to declare their Conflict of Interest? Should employees or other individuals paid by Aish HaTorah, which runs the Hasbara Fellowships program on behalf of and with funding by Israel's Foreign Ministry, have to declare their COI if they
edit
Israel related articles? _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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