WikiProject Judaism

In recent issues, the Signpost interviewed Secisek of WikiProject Christianity and Itaqallah of WikiProject Islam. In this issue, we're wrapping up our coverage of the Abrahamic religions with WikiProject Judaism. This WikiProject was created in July 2004 and now boasts more than 300 members. Here to tell us more about it is IZAK, who has been with the project since day one.

1. IZAK, can you tell us a little about your involvement with Wikipedia and WikiProject Judaism?

Hi. Thank you for having me. For the record, I have been with Wikipedia for a little over six years now. (On 23:44, 24 December 2002 I registered as "IZAK" and wrote Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. First draft: [2] with several Wikipedia beginner's errors evident. My first 500 contributions / edits: [3]). There were by then a few excellent editors who had already joined and were active with Judaic topics. One of them was User:Danny (talk · contribs) who went on to a leadership role at Wikipedia HQ, and User:Jfdwolff (talk · contribs) who is not only an expert on Judaism but also a medical doctor and contributes to many Wikipedia medical articles.

In the early years there was a great hunger for any content so editors were left to police themselves and had much more freedom to write than they do today. Since then as the policies of WP:RS, WP:CITE and WP:N and more have been established it has streamlined the process of creating and judging articles but it has also made it a little difficult at times as well because Judaism is an ancient religion going back well over 3,300 years to the times of Abraham and the Exodus and there are not always English-language up-to-date sources that are easy to find or translate quickly.

Early on, in the course of discussions at various article talk pages and at the still very active WP:TALKJUDAISM page, a few ground rules were set up. One was that in Judaic articles dealing with the Bible, the terms "Old Testament" and even plain "Bible" would not be used because Judaism does not recognize the notion of a "New Testament" so that the acceptable neutral terms Hebrew Bible and even Tanakh would be used. This has avoided much conflict with editors in the Christian areas. Another point established early on was that the term/s "Ultra Orthodox Jew/Judaism" would not be used because it is regarded as a pejorative term. The more acceptable and commonly used term that satisfies all parties is Haredi Judaism or simply Haredi. This has alleviated concerns of those editors connected with Orthodox Judaism and with the Haredi and Hasidic streams that may feel offended when the term "Ultra" is used as a prefix to decribe their most sacred beliefs. Another point that has been practiced is that when the views of all Jewish streams are cited in articles, such as from Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism then separate sub-headings for each movement's approach are created and cited. This has avoided much inter-denominational squabbling.

When I joined as an editor there was no system of categorization, but when that started I was one of the first and created Category:Jews and Judaism on 13 June 2004 and it has grown by leaps and bounds. I have devoted much time and energy to the growth of categories for Jews, Judaism, and Jewish history.

Generally speaking, in fact almost always, editors busy with articles and topics relating to Judaism avoid getting involved in fruitless theological debates between the merits or demerits between religions. Personally, I respect whatever editors in other religions write in their sections and I assume that they are being responsible and that there are enough varying views in each religion's section, as there are in the Judaic section, to ensure that WP:NPOV and WP:NOTSOAPBOX and WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND are observed.

In my first few months, being a novice, I was deeply troubled when I saw what seemed to me blatant antisemitic views being expressed and I over-reacted which resulted in a brief block. But I learned a lot from that experience and I have tried to keep much calmer ever since and I have seen that with time, eventually what happens is that offending parties trip themselves up on their own over time and get caught up in other nasty disputes and edit wars that forces them to deal with the consequences of their nasty views.

Personally, I hate edit-warring because it is so childish and I have never contravened the WP:3RR, as in my view no editing situation should ever lead to such sanctions. I am a firm believer in settling ALL disputes on articles' talk pages, or on Users' talk pages (including my own that contain some very lengthy by now archived debates) or at the Project Judaism talk page because that is what talk pages are designed for and Wikipedia is kind enough to provide all that Wiki digital cyberspace for good reason. I think that it is for that reason that editors quickly discover that Wikipedia is not a playground and it is not for crass amateurs or for people who wish to fool around.

Wikipedia is a serious project of building the world's greatest encylopedia (it already is that) and all Judaic editors are aware of that or else they would not stick around as they do and make their profound contributions that require much careful and meticulous work that takes up hours, days, weeks, months and in some cases many years already -- all based on years of prior reading and studying. At the same time, this is a project we all enjoy being part of and we view as a true labor of love to be able to share our knowledge and the ability to impart it with a worldwide audience that encompasses literally all of humanity with access to a PC or laptop.

Many editors in the Judaic sections are highly educated and its obvious that there are serious academics, scientists, scholars, rabbis, Talmudists, professors and all sorts of well-read and devoted editors, who wish to contribute and partake and also learn as they go along. I have personally learned much. One of my favorite projects where I learned so much was researching and working on and learning about the History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula (started 2 January 2008) and its various sub-articles.

I have made some wonderful friends on Wikipedia and even though I have never met any of them in person, after six years of co-editing with them, I regard them as some of the dearest friends I have ever made in my entire life.

2. You seem to be happy with the manner in which Judaism-related discussions are conducted on Wikipedia. In our recent interviews with Secisek of WikiProject Christianity and Itaqallah of WikiProject Islam, they both discussed some of the difficulties of dealing with POV pushers. Why do you think the WikiProject Judaism's articles are not as contentious as those relating to Islam or Christianity?

Hi again. Well, I assure you that in the Judaism sections discussions are not always conflict free, there have been some huge debates and many are still unresolved because the issues themselves are highly controversial, like Who is a Jew?, Anti-Zionism (which is a major intra-Jewish theological issue) and Chabad messianism, and over the years there have been some editors who have been unhappy in all sorts of topics.

Usually what happens is a new editor joins who is highly educated (and quite often highly opinionated as well) and then goes in with guns blazing trying to reorganize or rewrite an entire section or topic and then gets noticed by the more established editors and discovers that there are quite a few editors who have those articles on their personal "watchlists" from the Wikipedia Judaism sections who then insert and assert themselves in the sense that they ask for more balance or less stridency and POV pushing and then that new editor either gets it or will soon enough find that they will be excluded from mainstrean discussions and will be sidelined and they then leave. So to be effective one must learn early on the value of team-work and that on Wikipedia we do not have senseless digital wars between Reform Judaism and Orthodox Judaism or between Christian topics and Jewish ones, but rather editors of Judaic topics work from a foundation of retaining a calm atmosphere and a willingness to hear out all points of view in discussions where there is give and take until a consensus is reached.

We, (meaning the experienced editors, quite a few of whom have reached admin status) expect maturity and reasonableness from people and if any signs of immaturity and temper-tantrums are evident we will have little patience with such childish behavior, simply because we believe in the seriousness of building Wikipedia as the world-class global encyclopedia. People who come here with petty agendas and ideological axes to grind in the Judaic sections will not find that they have much of a future simply because our editors are quite obviously highly educated and very skilled and experienced and will not tolerate game playing and pettiness. This is not explicitly stated of course, I am expressing what is an underlying attitude that is the bedrock of all our efforts over the years and any editor getting into the field of any topics related to the Category:Jews and Judaism will quickly discover this.

I'm not sure what the issues or the problems are that face the Christianity or Islam editors, but please do note that just by virtue of numbers in the world population there are going to be far more people drawn to Islam and Christianity topics than to Judaism simply because there are only about thirteen million Jews in the world while there are about two billion Christians and about one and half billion Muslims in the world so that automatically more Christian and Islamic editors will join Wikipedia all the time and that will perhaps give rise to a constant need to repeat the same old battles of how to write articles and what should go into them. But that is only my view and as I have said, I almost never enter into the Christianity and Islam sections so I can't really tell you what the core problems are that they are having.

You know, it may also be that stereotypically Jews are known to be very opinionated by nature and there is an old Jewish expression of "two Jews, three opinions" or something like that, so that when POV pushers enter into discussions, Jewish editors are not freaked out or afraid of a tumult since by nature Judaism is accepting of opposing and even contradictory opinions in all matters. For example, the Talmudic method of study is based on presenting contradictory views on Jewish Law by the rabbis and Jewish sages and then much argumentation or "pilpul" ensues, so therefore there is definitely a higher cultural and historical threshhold or acceptance for a POV pusher (tongue in cheek though, perhaps it's that for 2000 years, Judaism has not required that dissenters or apostates be burned at the stake or beheaded as infidels, who knows?) yet that as long as he/she can be contained and engaged in constructive discussions, no matter how contrarian and unconventional they may be, and will exhibit signs that they are getting the message to cooperate and that it's ok to have private opinions of your own or to hew to a party line or ideology or belief of your own choice, just don't write articles that way or as if you were here to propagandize in violation of WP:NOTSOAPBOX.

We all have opinions. Wikipedia does not say that we are not allowed to have personal opinions, but what many editors forget or are not aware of is that we must all abide by WP:NPOV which means that one must find a neutral and objective way of expressing those views and backing them up with WP:RS and with WP:CITE as much as possible. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ is fascinating and instructive in this regard and as long as editors do not grasp these fundamentals they will not make it on Wikipedia and will just make themselves into pests, so I would strongly recommend that whenever the experienced Christian and Islamic sections editors, or any editors, have problems with with POV-pushers they should VERY QUICKLY guide their problem cases to read and digest WP:NPOV and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ the sooneer the better for normalcy to reign. Those are the "rules of the road" at Wikipedia in no matter which areas we are laboring to produce this great encyclopedia. IZAK (talk) 22:49, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

3. Has WikiProject Judaism undergone any significant changes lately?

Hi again. It all depends what you mean by "lately"? I will assume that it means in the last couple of years compared to the early years when Wikipedia started. I can think of a few changes, all for the better, that the Judaism project has undergone. First of all, the project is not really such a tightly bound one. Most of the editors who have signed on and left their names on its roll-call page are not active at all. There is a small minority that is active and the main time the project's talk page is used is when someone wishes to discuss a matter and at best there will be two, three or four editors around to get involved. But that is good because there is always someone on hand to answer or bounce issues off of. But the relationship between the project's editors is very loose and everybody pursues their own interests as they please. There have been some attempts to get some projects going within the broader project over the years, such as Wikipedia:Orthodox Rabbinical Biography Collaboration of the Week, but after a while it petered out, yet the rabbinic biographies still get worked on and keep growing. So editors are definitely a free-spirited, but determined lot.

Admins: To my mind, I think the fact that a key number of some active Judaic editors have risen to admin status has been great for the both Judaism articles and for Wikipedia at large. This has been a great change from the time when there were relatively very few Judaicly knowledgeable admins. The fact that there are quite a few good admins who are Judaic editors means that problems and policy issues can be set straight and nipped in the bud before they become festering sores. In this regard some very admirable Judaic editors who are also admins are Users: Avraham (talk · contribs); Humus sapiens (talk · contribs); Jayjg (talk · contribs); Jfdwolff (talk · contribs); PinchasC (talk · contribs); Shirahadasha (talk · contribs); TShilo12 (talk · contribs) and a few others who can always be counted upon to give of their expert Judaic opinions as well as to enforce Wikipedia rules and policies to the hilt, and I have certainly come to respect and rely on their roles. By the way, any one of them could have been subjects for a great interview here as well.

Sourcing: There has been a rise in the extra effort to try and ensure that sourcing and referencing are upgraded, as it's been happening all over Wikipedia in the last few years, much more than in the early days. While this is not always a quick or easy or simple task, the Judaic editors as a whole seem to have become both conscious and conscientious about this.

Texts: Personally, I have been amazed as to how the really serious classical Judaic and rabbinic texts articles and navigation tools have been increased and implemented. For example, just take a look at the scope of the topics and articles covered within Template:Rabbinic Literature as well as in the more general Template:Judaism and the very detailed Template:Jews and Judaism all of which has taken years to build up and is an excllent and unique souce for anyone wishing to read and learn about these topics via Wikipedia. See also Category:Hebrew Bible templates for its tremendous scope.

Holidays: I am also happy to see that all the major Jewish holidays and most important core Jewish rituals have their own articles, categories, navigation tools and templates, such as in Category:Jewish holy days. The articles are readable, comprehensible and informative enough for any lay person or scholar as well as for anyone interested in reading and learning about the Jews and their religious holy holy days.

Photos: In recent years as policies concerning copyright issues have made it harder to obtain and use images from non-documented sources, a few of the Judaic editors have contributed their own work and photos, such as Users Gilabrand (talk · contribs) and Yoninah (talk · contribs).

Hasidism: In the last couple of years Wikipedia has benefited from a variety of editors with knowledge about Hasidic Judaism with hard to come by information about the intracacies of the history of the Hasidic movement and its Rebbes as well as some up to date information about current affairs. See Category:Hasidic dynasties for the scope of this informal sub-project. Wikipedia has become the only repository of such articles in the world I believe and it's being used as a reference point by those wishing to gain serious insights and knowledge into an otherwise tightly-knit and closed set of Jewish religious communities. IZAK (talk) 22:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

4. Finally, how can non-expert editors help out with WikiProject Judaism?

Hi. Why would non-expert editors want to "help out" in any Wikiproject? It is really no different to any field in Wikipedia that is specialized. How does anyone who is not an expert in any field "help"? I would say that the best answer is that you stay out until you can exhibit enough expertise in a subject to gain credibility as an editor. No rational and reasonable person would seriously consider adding or editing articles connected with Category:Surgery or Category:Astronomy if they were not on some level of expertise in those fields. Ditto for WP:Judaism.

You know, Wikipedia has come a long way from its early years following its founding around 2000. At that time there were very few policies and almost anything could be piled on provided it was half decently written, and even then some editors were already picky and fussed that articles should look well-informed and not as if amateurs had written them. In today's Wikipedia milieu it is almost impossible to get away with contributing below par articles or adding skittish and non-educated information, and WP:Judaism is no exception. That is why in recent years policies about speedy deletion and quick reversion have been enacted and are in force without much debate and ceremony because Wikipedia has evolved to the point where at any given moment there are a good number of expert editors in almost every field logged on and they have eagle eyes and spot nonsense very quickly and will have Wikipedia:Patent nonsense removed very quickly, not just in articles related to WP:Judaism, but all over Wikipedia.

But I will say this though, and perhaps it is not what you are thinking, and that is that quite often it happens that non-Judaic and evidently non-Jewish editors will come across articles very important and notable in the context of Jews and Judaism, that is very well-known to scholars and readers about Judaism, and they will nominate articles that are important to Jews and Judaism for deletion for technical reasons rather than for reasons of substance and true value. It then causes an upset among Judaic editors who have to run to defend and often beef up those articles, and it causes some animosity at times. This kind of situation could easily be avoided if non-expert editors who wish to get involved with Judaism articles, and at times even decide to put them up for deletion too hastily, that they should first come to the talk page of WP:Judaism at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism (shortcut: WP:TALKJUDAISM) and place a question for discussion there and get input from some of the Judaic editors of WP:Judaism before doing anything rash. Some think that this displays a tendency towards WP:OWN, but that is poor logic because mistaken or hasty or poorly judged moves against Judaism articles, or any articles in a specialized field, by non-expert editors not normally working in that field, will automatically arouse suspicion and a counter-reaction and ultimately harms the growth of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia that presents its subject areas per the established and proven expert editors in each field. Incidentally, the fact that at times contentious articles are locked by admins and then only proven and expert editors are permited to edit bolsters my argument. There should perhaps be a policy for this, that if you don't know much about a subject, don't chop its articles up and do not run to nominate articles or topics from it for deletion, but rather take it up with its connected Wikiproject first before making it into a drama or a full blown AfD or CfD as the case may be. The exception to this rule would be in the area of photos and images, where expertise in the subject is not required but it's rather a knowledge about copyright rules, laws and procedures on Wikipedia and in the world at large that need to be enforced given that it may involve real-life legal questions relating to infringement of copyrights at large and not related to the subject at hand.

Thanks for having me. Please come to WP:TALKJUDAISM if you have any questions about Jews and Judaism whether it is for anyone's general edification or about specific Wikipedia articles or topics as such. Thank you very much and all the best to you and the readers of The Wikipedia Signpost. IZAK (talk) 08:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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