Talk:The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

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Q: Why does the first sentence of the article say the Protocols is fraudulent? Aren't Misplaced Pages articles supposed to be neutral?

A: Misplaced Pages articles are absolutely required to maintain a neutral point of view. It has long been established that this work is fraudulent; its author(s) plagiarized a work of fiction, changing the original, Gentile characters into the secret leaders of a Jewish conspiracy. That plagiarized, fictional material is presented as though it were fact. That constitutes a literary fraud.

Q: So Misplaced Pages is saying that there was not a secret Jewish conspiracy to rule the world?

A: That is an entirely separate issue from the established fact that the Protocols is fraudulent.

Q: Why not let the reader decide for him- or herself whether the document is fraudulent or not? Doesn't drawing conclusions constitute WP:OR?

A: The article does not draw any conclusions; journalists drew the conclusion in 1921, and numerous scholars have reaffirmed it since then. It is not original research to state that the the Protocols is fraudulent; it is a well-established scholarly fact, as documented and sourced in the article. Numerous similar examples exist throughout Misplaced Pages; for example, the Hitler diaries are demonstrably fake, and the WP article says so—and sources it.

Q: But if the fraud is a well-established fact, why do some groups still assert that the Protocols is a genuine document?

A: It is difficult to answer why anyone still believes that the Protocols is a real document, other than to say that some people have beliefs that are simply immune to facts (Exhibit A: Holocaust deniers). To those whose minds are made up, it makes no difference that the Protocols have been debunked countless times—or that so much incriminating Holocaust evidence survives that a dozen museums can't hold it all.

Q: But you can't disprove the contention that a bunch of Jews got together sometime in the mid-19th century and plotted a conspiracy, can you?

A: As already stated, the conspiracy issue is not relevant to this article. But to answer your question, if one was told that the Moon is a giant ball of Gouda cheese covered with a foot-thick layer of dirt, it would be their responsibility to prove them.

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Proposed rollback

I am proposing a rollback of the article to to version 867831438 of 08:15, November 8, 2018, to remove a series of two dozen edits in the last 24 hours that were either inconsequential sentence reordering or minor changes of words, or were detrimental to the clarity and flow of the prose in small ways, and that taken as a whole, have not improved the article and been disruptive of editors’ time. For more detail, please see User talk:Chas. Caltrop#The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Mathglot (talk) 05:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

I have WP:BOLDly rolled back to the version in question. Coretheapple (talk) 05:25, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

I endorse the rollback. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:39, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Agree. William Avery (talk) 09:40, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

A reply to the page owners

I have edited the article to remove the POV-pushing, which, curiously, always identifies the Jews as Jews, yet, for example, the American historian Daniel Pipes is NOT identified as a Christian historian. Please, identify specific factual faults with the content, not just opinions about how you just don't like it. Be specific, give examples of deleterious edits. I've copied your complaint from my personal page to this article Talk page, where it belongs; volume is not fact, just game-playing with the rules.

Regards,

Chas. Caltrop (talk) 10:03, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Transposed to the pertinent Article Talk Page

Note: Box border added for clarity around material copied here by User:Chas. Caltrop from their Talk page. Mathglot (talk) 01:48, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Please stop your long series of edits which in no way improve the article The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. There are somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five recent edits of yours with edit summaries like, ‘’CE; full facts, narrative flow’’ (or similar) which make trivial changes of wording or sentence order, some of which are not harmful but neither are they an improvement, and others of which are detrimental. What is your goal, here? Are you trying to rack up a large number of edits or are you genuinely trying to improve the article, because I am at a loss to see any overall improvement to the article at all, after two dozen edits by you. This is becoming disruptive of other editors’ time, who have to come in behind you and examine the changes, cleaning up where necessary.

Your editing at this article is starting to become disruptive. In addition,

this diff spans 32 edits of yours in the last 24 hours (including a smattering by other editors attempting fixes), and I fail to see any overall improvement in the article in that span. Can you give a good reason why the article should not be rolled back to version 867831438 of 08:15, November 8, 2018? Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 05:01, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

I’ve opened a section at Talk:The Protocols of the Elders of Zion#Proposed rollback concerning this to see if there is consensus for a rollback. Mathglot (talk) 05:28, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

The edits in question are manifestly unnecessary and unhelpful and have been reverted to this diff. User Caltrop, if you don't care to discuss the edits that you have made, feel free to not do so but there is an apparent consensus that you are wasting time by making unnecessary edits to the article that do not improve it. Coretheapple (talk) 05:33, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

User Caltrop, I hope this puts an end to your disruption at this article. If not, I call your attention to this AN/I discussion where you were apparently reported for exactly the same behavior. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 05:55, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

A reply

Be specific, give examples. Your opinion is your business, the facts remain to be presented. Disruptive editing must be demonstrated, with specific examples, not just opinions.

Regards,

Chas. Caltrop (talk) 10:14, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Talk pages are for gaining consensus about how to improve the article. Disruptive editing does not have to be “demonstrated” here; it’s sufficient that you have been reverted and that consensus appears not to be in your favor. Save your wikilawyering about facts and diffs for AN/I. But I’m sure you know that already; you’ve been there before for similar behavior. Let’s see how far other editors’ patience extends this time. Perhaps like a cat, you still have a few more lives left. Perhaps not. Sea lions can only swim so far.

Oh, and since we are still discussing improvements here, per WP:BRD would you kindly self-revert your edit version 868458619 until such time as you gain consensus for it while discussions are still underway? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 11:05, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Despite reverts from other editors, changes of dubious utility continue under such rubrics as "CE". William Avery (talk) 14:18, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Chas. Caltrop continues to engage in outrageous edit-warring, non-consensus editing, ignoring any and all requests to modify his behaviour. Something needs to be done to make this stop.Smeat75 (talk) 15:13, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

A reply to Smeat75

Your turn at rollback mentions no specific editorial mistakes or factual incorrectness. Why? Surely, not every edit I have made is factually incorrect, is it, Ma'am? I ask.

Let me know, perhaps we can correspond, the way the lads cannot.

Regards,

Chas. Caltrop (talk) 15:49, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

If necessary, I will bring Chas. Caltrop to WP:ANI once again, as I did here, to stop his POV-pushing edit-warring. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:54, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Exposure of the forgery should be prominent

Since the status of this document as a forgery is "controversial" (in the way that most conspiracy theories are "controversial"), the lead should summarize how the forgery was discovered, with multiple RS references. Right in the lead. As it stands, the lede only states that it's a forgery, and the facts about its discovery are buried waaaaay down in the article's body. This creates the impression that the forgery status is being dubiously claimed by brute force and repetition, and not via reliable sources. I'm sure a lot of people, like myself, come to this article looking for that information — "how do we know it's a forgery?" — and not, for example, what the document actually says or who was purported to have written it. -Jordgette 01:08, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jordgette: It may be important, but the very nature of the lead is that it is an introductory summary of information to be found in the body of the article, including material waaaaaay down in the article body. I certainly agree that it would be out of the question if the lead did not say it was a forgery. But it does. It says so in no uncertain terms, and more than once, calling it: fabricated text, a hoax, taught as if factual, and having been exposed as fraudulent. That seems like plenty of insistence about the fact it's a forgery; I don't know how many more times you could insist on this point in the lead.

I have no idea where you get the impression that the forgery status is being dubiously claimed by brute force and repetition, and not via reliable sources, as I certainly did not get that impression. Can you indicate what, precisely, led you to that view? The lead is not required to duplicate footnotes in the body which already support the lead summary; but it is also not forbidden, either; and it would probably be okay to duplicate some of the body references in the lead, unless someone objects for some reason.

As to, "how do we know it's a forgery?" please see the section, #The Times exposes a forgery, 1921 which gives an overview of the answer to that question, indicating in addition that an entire book has been devoted to the subject. The section #Maurice Joly goes into lengthy detail about the plagiarism, with line-by-line comparisons. These two sections seems easily enough space to devote to the answer to your how-do-we-know question, and may already be too much, per due weight.

If this still isn't enough detail to answer your question, perhaps a new article, dedicated to talking only about the question of evidence would be warranted. How to do this is covered under the Summary style guideline. For some examples of a topic that does this, see for example Shroud of Turin or Dreyfus Affair, each of which has several sub-articles in summary style, describing specific aspects of the topic. You could do this with The Protocols if you find the current level of detail insufficient, by creating the new article yourself. But I think that adding a lot more detail about forgery evidence in this article would shade into the area of undue weight, but that's exactly the kind of thing that summary style sub-articles were designed for. HTH, Mathglot (talk) 05:49, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

The Shroud of Turin article is a great example. In the lead, we have: "In 1988, three radiocarbon dating tests dated a corner piece of the shroud from the Middle Ages, between the years 1260 and 1390." That's a quick, lead-appropriate explanation of how we're pretty sure it's not authentic, with a source, right in the lead. Also you wrote, "That seems like plenty of insistence about the fact it's a forgery; I don't know how many more times you could insist on this point in the lead." That's precisely my point: The lead merely insisting that it's a forgery is unconvincing. Merely saying it in no uncertain terms is not informative. Since the non-authenticity of this document is central to the article, the reader should be able to scan the lead and immediately find a source. I suggest inserting one or more references, in the first sentence immediately after "antisemitic fabricated text." Don't you think this would improve credibility? -Jordgette 19:22, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I do not personally think it would improve credibility for the reasons I've stated about the lead having to be verifiable as a summary by footnotes already present in the body. However, citations are not prohibited in the lead either, and if you feel that footnotes would improve credibility, nothing is stopping you from adding them. Mathglot (talk) 22:06, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks — I added the Graves source and mentioned that it was plagiarized from non-antisemitic sources. I feel this makes it easy for someone who only reads the lead to take away an understanding of how the document was fabricated as well as how we know it was fabricated. -Jordgette 00:34, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jordgette: The Graves-1921 sources redirects to the home page when I tried it, and there's nothing there about the topic. Can you provide a better source that that one? Mathglot (talk) 10:42, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't follow the link. The full text is here , but I'm not sure how to create this reference or even if it's an acceptable source, being a Wikimedia project. Help please? -Jordgette 19:42, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

There is an essay on this situation. I think it is ok for the citation to name the original source, but to give the URL of the copy. There is an obligation, however, to check that the copy agrees with the original---I can do that if nobody else does it first. I note that clicking on the numbers in the left margin brings up scans of the original. Zero 02:59, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Incorrect Claim Per the Citation

This article incorrectly states that Henry Ford printed 500,000 copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The cited source actually states that he published his own compilation of newspaper articles entitled "The International Jew".

Specifically, the articles states under the "United States" sub-heading: "In the U.S., Henry Ford sponsored the printing of 500,000 copies (in reference to The Protocols), and, from 1920 to 1922, published a series of antisemitic articles titled 'The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem', in The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper he owned."

For citation, you reference "Could Henry Ford Have Dreamed a Jew Would Run His Car Company?" at https://forward.com/news/198741/could-henry-ford-have-dreamed-a-jew-would-run-his/. According to this page, "Ford also distributed some 500,000 copies of “The International Jew” across America and, with more lethal effect, published it in Europe, as well." Therefore, it should not be stated that Ford printed any copies of The Protocols.

Regards,

Bervin75 (talk) 20:14, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

The Protocols were part of the series of articles which were published in book form as "The International Jew". See AD:

The Protocols were publicized in America by Boris Brasol, a former Czarist prosecutor. Auto magnate Henry Ford was one of those who responded to Brasol’s conspiratorial fantasies. "The Dearborn Independent," owned by Ford, published an American version of the Protocols between May and September of 1920 in a series called ‘The International Jew: the World’s Foremost Problem." The articles were later republished in book form with half a million copies in circulation in the United States, and were translated into several foreign languages.

Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:47, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

That's a very poor source compared to what is available. What does "an American version of the Protocols" actually mean, anyway? You can find sources claiming that the Dearborn Independent serialised the Protocols, but it is not true. Nor does The International Jew contain the Protocols as a whole. If you have a strong stomach you can check for yourself at the Internet Archive. What you will find is original articles that include commentary on the Protocols with quotations from them. Only a fraction of the total is included. Here are more precise descriptions:

"Beginning in 1920 and continuing for nearly two years, the Independent ran a series of ninety-one articles largely based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an authorless document purporting to lay out the Jewish plan for world domination." (article on DI in Antisemitism — A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, ed. Richard Levy, p163).

"Commencing on May 22, 1920, in Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent, the widely-publicized articles fully exploited the Protocols, dwelling week after week on the clear and present danger posed to American institutions by international Jewry. Rather than merely reprinting the Protocols, William Cameron, the paper’s editor and the person generally believed to be the author of the anti-Jewish articles, elucidated upon them as 'the most comprehensive program for world subjugation that has ever come to public knowledge.'" (Robert Singerman, The American Career of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, American Jewish History; Sep 1, 1981; pp48–)

"Rather than printing all The Protocols in a single 'text,' these writers used shorter articles that mixed parts of the infamous forgery with local, national, and international news items." (M. Hasian, Understanding the power of conspiratorial rhetoric: A case study of the protocols of the elders of Zion, Communication Studies, 48:3, 195-214.)

Zero 11:50, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Neither an anonymous article on the ADL web site, nor an article in The Forward that doesn't mention the Protocols at all, is a suitable source for this page. Zero 13:13, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

If you don't think that the ADL is a reliable source, I suggest you open a discussion on RSN, where it has always been accepted as one. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:15, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Why should I waste my time debating one source when we have others whose reliability is beyond question? Zero 15:59, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Merge from Mikhail Raslovlev

This person is of no interest other than his association with the Protocols; let's clean up another of one Ludvikus' messes. --jpgordon 15:48, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

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