Talk:MEMRI

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Edit request

• What I think should be changed (format using {{textdiff}}):

  −

  [[2002 Gujarat violence#Attacks on Muslims|Burmese Buddhist massacre]]

  +

  [[2013 Myanmar anti-Muslim riots|Burmese Buddhist massacre]]

• Why it should be changed: Hyperlink goes to Gujarat riots, rather than Buddhist anti-Muslim massacres in Burma.
• References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button): N/A

82.7.225.186 (talk) 21:00, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

 Done Day Creature (talk) 04:57, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

References

RFC on Current state of the Lead and whether or not it's biased

Hello! This I am made this post an RFC due to the lack of consensus on whether or not the second paragraph of the lead should remain or not.

• The opposition to the current lead have stated that it is inaccurate and/or is from bad faith primary sources (Mona Baker is the main example given) and thus should be removed for giving WP:UNDUE weight to bad faith interpretations (at least in the lead).
• Editors who are positive of or neutral the current lead do not believe it is biased or that regardless of the quality of the sources of the criticism, that having a criticism in the lead is preferable since it is a notable aspect of organisation (my argument).

I do not believe I have any right to repeatedly revert edits rejecting the current lead when there is no clear consensus on this talk page on what to do regarding it, and that this is a fairly niche article so a talk page trying to solve this issue wouldn't probably wouldn't have much luck compared to the last few times. Thanks for reading! AssanEcho (talk) 17:06, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

According to MOS:LEAD, I propose that the lead be limited to a concise and factual overview of MEMRI's founding, purpose, and mission. MOS:LEAD requires that "emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic."

A revised lead could be written as follows: "The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), officially the Middle East Media and Research Institute, is an American non-profit press monitoring organization founded in 1997 by Israeli former intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American political scientist Meyrav Wurmser.

The organization provides English-language translations and analyses of media content originally published in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and Pashto."

The phrasing only focuses on the factual aspects of what the organization is and what it does and extraneous detail or pundit opinions remain below for the reader to explore. Gjb0zWxOb (talk) 23:22, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

Please do not alter the lead at the present unless it is something extremely pressing like copyrighted material or the like! I can sympathise that I'dve preferred if this RFC went a bit faster (honestly I just want to be done with this article entirely after this lead business is sorted) but it would be best to leave the lead as is for the moment just so that editors have it immediately clear to them what the debate it about atm. Thank you for reading and sorry if this isn't as polite as it should be I just don't know how else to phrase this. AssanEcho (talk) 00:06, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

(Summoned by bot) MOS:LEAD says that "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article, in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article." The article does spend a fair amount of space on their controversies and the criticism they have received, which seems to be a significant part of what they are known for. So not mentioning this in the lead feels a bit misleading. I'm not commenting on the quality of the sources being used, but I'm quite sure better ones could be found if that is seen as an issue. Paprikaiser (talk) 20:28, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

There's not much that can be done about the lead until the body is addressed. The body currently has a huge mass of negative content that unduly slants the article. A massive collection of "Person said thing" sentences is a common way to present a certain POV as factual within an article, and this one is full of them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 03:03, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree that we need to first work on the body before majorly addressing the lead. Though the lead also could use with a significant update after that is done. I'll get started now, and we can continue throughout. Iljhgtn (talk) 18:13, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

I hadn't thought to notify the Palestinian and Isreali wikiprojects on this RFC. Ill get on that first thing in the morning. AssanEcho (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 28 August 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 05:10, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

---

Middle East Media Research Institute → MEMRI – Per WP:COMMONNAME and MOS:ACROTITLE. It uses that name in the logo and most other sources call it by that name PhotographyEdits (talk) 19:34, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

oppose, seems like a mostly pointless change. The logo of the org is in the infobox, the common name (memri) is given in bold in the lead and it is also referred to as memri through out the whole article. AssanEcho (talk) 15:56, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

• Support Per WP:COMMONNAME and MOS:ACROTITLE, the group is overwhelmingly known as MEMRI in reliable sources and public discourse. The full name is rarely used. Similar precedents (NATO, UNICEF, UNESCO) show that the acronym should be the article title for clarity and consistency. Eliezer1987 (talk) 08:55, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

• Support per above arguments. DonBeroni (talk) 16:23, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

• Comment, I originally closed this as move, but the script to move it is not working, so I self-reverted. Anyone else may close. JuniperChill (talk) 19:01, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 August 2025

The Translation Accuracy section starts with this well-sourced quote:

MEMRI's translations are considered "usually accurate".

But, clicking through to the source, the rest of the sentence / paragraph substantially changes the meaning / weight of that fragment (incidentally, in the same way it describes MEMRI doing):

The curious thing about all this is that Memri's translations are usually accurate (though it is highly selective in what it chooses to translate and often removes things from their original context). When errors do occur, it's difficult to attribute them to incompetence or accidental lapses. As in the case of the children's TV programme, there appears to be a political motive.

The next sentence of our article is just absurd and of no use, as it is contradicted by the rest of the section:

In 2008, The New York Times wrote that "no one disputes their translations."

True enough that the NYT did print an article in 2008 by Steven Erlanger that made that claim. We are not required to repeat untrue over-broad claims just because an otherwise reliable source printed them decades ago, are we?

So, my request is just removing those two quotes completely and starting the section with a more faithful rendering of the first article's content to introduce the issue of accuracy, and then follow it with MEMRI's own disclaimer on the matter, so something like:

Change the first paragraph of the Translation Accuracy section to

Arabic-language speakers have highlighted substantial distortions in some of MEMRI's translations; in response MEMRI has stated, "[we have] never claimed to 'represent the view of the Arabic media', but rather to reflect, through our translations, general trends which are widespread and topical." ShadyNorthAmericanIPs (talk) 17:08, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. Since this change is potentially controversial, a consensus will be required before it can be implemented. Day Creature (talk) 20:50, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Translation Accuracy section

(This is essentially a duplicate of the above edit request that was rejected with the "establish consensus" reason as the reviewer considered it potentially controversial)

The Translation Accuracy section starts with this well-sourced quote:

MEMRI's translations are considered "usually accurate".

But, clicking through to the source, the rest of the sentence / paragraph substantially changes the meaning / weight of that fragment (incidentally, in the same way it describes MEMRI doing):

The curious thing about all this is that Memri's translations are usually accurate (though it is highly selective in what it chooses to translate and often removes things from their original context). When errors do occur, it's difficult to attribute them to incompetence or accidental lapses. As in the case of the children's TV programme, there appears to be a political motive.

The next sentence of our article is just of no informational use:

In 2008, The New York Times wrote that "no one disputes their translations."

In this case it is accurate to claim that the NYT did print an article in 2008 by Steven Erlanger that made that claim -- but it's a little odd to present in a section about translation disputes, and not merely "missing context"-style disputes: the Glenn Beck Show anecdote in the first source highlights a substantial distortion from MEMRI's translation using the wrong grammatical word order.

So, my proposal is just removing those two quotes completely, and starting the section with a more faithful rendering of the first article's content to introduce the issue of accuracy (that way we don't lose the source, which is quite good), and then follow it directly with MEMRI's own disclaimer on the matter, so something like:

Arabic-language speakers have highlighted substantial distortions in some of MEMRI's translations; in response MEMRI has stated, "[we have] never claimed to 'represent the view of the Arabic media', but rather to reflect, through our translations, general trends which are widespread and topical."

Barring that, maybe at least a dubious tag to help get competent / authorized eyes on it? As it stands it's a transparently dishonest mischaracterization of the source that, in combination with the rest of the paragraph, is obviously intended to explicitly undermine the entire section. ShadyNorthAmericanIPs (talk) 03:02, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

References