The Signpost, the main community newsletter on Wikipedia, noted a recent Tablet Magazine article by journalist Ashley Rindsberg in its “In the media” section. Reporting how Wikipedia smeared Zionism, Rindsberg’s piece noted previously-reported names of two prominent pro-Palestinian editors involved. A member of Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee, often likened to a Supreme Court, removed the report with public site records of it deleted. A former Committee member claimed violations of the site’s doxing policy.
On Wikipedia, Tablet Magazine has been the subject of several discussions agreeing it was a reliable source with one of the identified editors even supporting its use in a prior case. The names of both pro-Palestinian editors were previously reported in 2019 by the Washington Free Beacon, which has been deemed reliable on Wikipedia, with one named in other news reports. Breitbart’s own reporting criticizing Wikipedia has previously been censored when noted in the Signpost.
Writers for the Signpost, consisting of regular editors, report on issues of interest to the site’s community, including media coverage of Wikipedia. Such coverage is typically noted in the newsletter’s “In the media” section. Archives of the newsletter show a section regarding Rindsberg’s Tablet article giving a brief summary of its contents and noting follow-up coverage in the National Review, which links to Rindsberg’s piece. National Review is treated as a questionable source on Wikipedia due to no consensus about its reliability with editors encouraged to attribute its claims to the outlet instead of using it for factual claims.
Rindsberg’s Wikipedia criticism
Rindsberg’s piece titled “Wiki Wars” was published in Tablet Magazine on September 3, 2025. In the piece, Rindsberg noted the recent announcement by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee that they were conducting an investigation into the site’s bias, particularly focused on the involvement of foreign actors in articles about wars in Gaza and Ukraine. In the Tablet article, Rindsberg noted his prior reporting for Pirate Wires last year regarding a “Gang of 40” editors who he states “systematically pushed the most extreme anti-Zionist narratives on Wikipedia.” His report states these editors “made 850,000 combined edits across 10,000 articles related to Israel, effectively reshaping the entire topic area.”
He noted a moratorium imposed this August on discussion of a line in the introduction of Wikipedia’s Zionism article stating: “Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.” Criticizing this as equating Zionism with ethnic cleansing and genocide, Rindsberg noted it had initially been added by an editor later banned from articles relating to the conflict by the Arbitration Committee, which cited reasons including “consistently non-neutral editing” on the topic. It was initially added by that editor to Wikipedia’s “Nakba” article, a term meaning “Catastrophe” that many Arabs use regarding Israel’s establishment.
Noting how the editors he identified as part of this “Gang of 40” collaborated to keep the line in the Zionism article, he mentioned many appear to be foreign citizens. One was site administrator “Zero0000” who Rindsberg identified as Australian mathematician and computer scientist Brendan McKay in the Tablet piece, citing a pro-Israel group that investigated Wikipedia’s bias. He cited the same group to note another active pro-Palestinian editor “Nishidani” they identified as Australian academic Peter Nicholas Dale. Rindsberg noted Dale was a primary contributor to Wikipedia’s “Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism” article, which associates Zionism with race science.
The Israel Group previously identified McKay and Dale in 2019. At the time, the Washington Free Beacon reported the group was seeking “accountability for the numerous and often anonymous editors who control all of the content that exists on Wikipedia.” In a comment for the Beacon, the group’s founder and president stated: “Trying to teach anyone the truth and facts about Israel is a futile effort as long as Wikipedia, the number one online educational resource globally, substantiates the lies and propaganda promulgated by the BDS movement” referring to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement that targets Israel. Dale and McKay were each named directly in the Beacon piece.
Censoring Rindsberg
Currently, the live page of the newsletter shows the entire section regarding Rindsberg’s piece is absent. Reviewing the page’s history indicates the mention of Rindsberg’s piece was first added by editor “Bri” with all subsequent edits redacted until an edit by Arbitration Committee member “Primefac” citing issues with a section being removed. However, the edit itself cannot be seen, instead stating “You cannot view this diff because one or both of the revisions have been suppressed.” Suppression refers to the oversight privilege, which allows users to remove edits from public view so that only those possessing oversight privileges can see them.
Oversighter privileges on Wikipedia require approval by the Arbitration Committee. Members of the Committee can receive the privileges on request and retain them after leaving. Anyone who receives the privileges or joins the Committee is required to identify themselves to the Wikimedia Foundation and sign a non-disclosure agreement. Although identified to the Foundation, their identities do not need to be disclosed publicly and many remain anonymous. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has criticized the anonymity of the site’s most powerful users or “Power 62” in his recent nine theses calling for reform, though his list did not include oversighters.
Doug Weller, who formerly served on the Arbitration Committee and retained oversight privileges after his term on the Committee expired, commented on a discussion page for the Signpost to inform them of the deletion stating “You all linked a page outing two editors” referring to the site’s doxing policy. Tilman Bayer, a former employee of the Wikimedia Foundation that owns Wikipedia and contributor for the Signpost who edits as “HaeB” on the site, objected to the removal, stating oversighters should “avoid absolutist interpretations of policy that do little to actually protect editors’ privacy.”
Bayer criticized the removal, while noting the material was not added by him, stating: “Whether we like it or not, Tablet and National Review are widely read publications, and there is value for the community in being aware of what kind of viewpoints they push about our project – especially, as the Signpost story seemed to imply, they are likely to inform the current, unprecedented Congressional investigation regarding Wikipedia.” Weller responded that he was not accusing anyone specifically and that the decision to remove the mention of Rindsberg’s piece was a collective one, apparently referring to the oversight team, which includes the Committee.
Ed Erhart, a long-time administrator and former Signpost editor-in-chief who serves in the communications department of the Wikimedia Foundation, questioned why the entire story was removed and not just the link. Primefac expressed doubt about including quotes and a summary without a link. Erhart was previously involved in a dispute over a 2016 April Fool’s Day Signpost page mocking the size of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s hands, having used his admin privileges to lock the Signpost page so only administrators could edit it. The dispute over the page prompted an Arbitration Committee case. Then-Signpost editor-in-chief Robert Fernandez, who created the page mocking Trump, served on the Committee.
Fernandez resigned from the Committee following the incident, later trying to get Slate reporter and site critic David Auerbach fired in posts on then-Twitter. Auerbach was privately inquiring about Fernandez’s position on the Wikimedia DC Board of Directors, due to a claim from then-Committee member Weller that Fernandez resigned there despite him retaining his post. No action was taken against Fernandez, even though Auerbach contributed on Wikipedia after being smeared on the site by another editor. Erhart seemingly endorsed targeting Auerbach’s job in response to Adam Hyland, who worked at the Wiki Education Organization spun off from the Wikimedia Foundation and also contacted Auerbach’s employer.
Reliable Sources Identifying Editors
Despite challenging the removal of Rindsberg’s piece, none specifically questioned censoring a source editors deemed reliable. A discussion about Tablet Magazine last year saw pro-Palestinian editors agreeing it was reliable, though objecting to a specific article for advocating what they called a “fringe” view that the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza misrepresented casualties during the war. Editors similarly endorsed Tablet in 2012. McKay himself, the administrator named in Rindsberg’s piece, agreed in 2015 that Tablet was a “citable source” for information. Policies on posting personal information are rigidly enforced on Wikipedia. However, applying this to news outlets editors deemed reliable is abnormal.
As reported above, it was not the first time both editors had been identified by name in a source Wikipedia editors deemed reliable. The Free Beacon, which identified McKay and Dale by name in 2019, was deemed reliable on Wikipedia specifically for the period starting in the latter half of the year when the article was published. McKay even has an article on Wikipedia itself, which notes his contributions to Wikipedia regarding his work in tracking down an infamous quote from an Arab leader prior to Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, though the cited articles did not explicitly identify his account on the site.
Censoring Breitbart
Breitbart’s own reporting was previously censored in the Signpost. Following the Foundation’s unprecedented ban of administrator “Fram” that sparked an editor revolt, Breitbart’s piece covering it was mentioned without a link at the newsletter’s “In the media” section, but this was still removed by its editor-in-chief, who later stated the Foundation Trust and Safety team requested its removal. Breitbart noted an editor the Foundation warned Fram to avoid was allegedly in a romantic relationship with the Foundation’s Board Chair. Fram previously got the editor sanctioned for repeated Spanish translation errors and cast a decisive vote in a deletion discussion about her work a month before the ban.
Dave Craven, a member of the Arbitration Committee who edits as “The Worm That Turned” on Wikipedia, also removed the piece from the site’s “white list” and expressed disappointment with an administrator’s decision to add it. Since 2018, Breitbart has been on a “spam list” that even prohibits linking to the outlet. Craven stated he undid white-listing of the piece on his own initiative, but did not specify how he learned of it. He referred to the white-listing as “overturning consensus” regarding Breitbart.
In fact, no such consensus existed for Breitbart’s addition to Wikipedia’s spam list. Breitbart was spam-listed unilaterally by then-administrator Guy Chapman, who proposed Breitbart’s blacklisting with false claims it “admitted” publishing fake news. Afterwards, Chapman began unilaterally removing Breitbart citations even when use was permitted under the decision. While other editors opposed his actions, Chapman seized on the fact one account undoing his removals was suspected to be a banned harasser to add Breitbart to the spam list.
His addition of Breitbart prompted criticism of Chapman abusing admin privileges, something he was admonished for doing previously yet continued doing. Chapman later changed site policy unilaterally to back his behavior. Breitbart’s reporting on its initial blacklisting noted Chapman’s profile page supported banning all Trump supporters, which led to Committee members advising him against admin action regarding American politics articles. He later resigned his admin role after banning an editor from the Antifa page, though contending his resignation was unrelated.
Editors have falsely claimed “doxing” to further justify censoring Breitbart citing a discussion about the editor revolt piece that claimed noting allegations about a romantic relationship between a chief complainant and the Foundation Board Chair violated site policy, despite these claims being discussed openly on Wikipedia itself. An attempt to white-list one Breitbart piece criticizing Wikipedia was rebuffed with claims of doxing in the piece prompting the link’s removal and suppression by oversighters, despite all named parties having their identities prominently disclosed on Wikipedia or affiliated sites. Wikipedia’s doxing policy does not prohibit mentioning the real names of editors who have disclosed their identities on Wikipedia.
Bias Against Israel
Concerns about an anti-Israeli bias on Wikipedia have prompted the recently-announced House Oversight Committee investigation into the site and a bi-partisan information request from Congress to the site’s owners. Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin earlier this year sent a similar request for information and was subjected to retaliation from editors. There has also been criticism of this bias from co-founder Sanger who noted in one thesis how the Anti-Defamation League is banned as a source on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but not Al-Jazeera. Last month, demonstrating this bias, Wikipedia editors declared Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza, partly citing an “expert” list that included individuals published in Al-Jazeera.
(Disclosure: The author has previously been involved in disputes on Wikipedia with some parties referenced in this article)
T. D. Adler edited Wikipedia as The Devil’s Advocate. He was banned after privately reporting conflict of interest editing by one of the site’s administrators. Due to previous witch-hunts led by mainstream Wikipedians against their critics, Adler writes under an alias.
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