Talk:Cabal/Archive 1

Removed debunked information
Removed the following:


 * The term took on its present invidious meaning from a group of five ministers chosen in 1667 by King Charles II of England (Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale), whose initial letters coincidentally spelled Cabal.
 * This Cabal, never very unified in its members' aims and sympathies, fell apart by 1672; Lord Ashley, who became Earl of Shaftesbury, still later even became one of Charles II's fiercest opponents.
 * The term, in any case, continued to hold its general meaning of intrigue and conspiracy.

This explanation (implying that the term is an acronym) has been convincingly debunked.

Urban Legends Reference Pages article on "Cabal"

Ellsworth 19:30, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * That would be a reason to keep it in the article with an explanation that it is commonly believed but false, rather than to remove it! - Nunh-huh 19:33, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In fact, it's not even false - the article said that their initial letters coincidentally spelled Cabal. john k 20:12, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I added a clarifying sentence that the acronym explanation, as it relates to the ministers names, is a UL. Ellsworth 22:42, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's not exactly an urban legend. The word doesn't derive from the fact of the names. Nor were they called the Cabal because of the initials. But the initials were noticed at the time, and jokes were made on that basis. john k 22:57, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Lately right-wing Americans are claiming that the existence of the word "cabal" is a proof that left-wing Americans are anti-semitic. If someone can explain this to me in terms I can understand, I will be grateful. -- Anon


 * No doubt it suits their purposes to do so, whatever those purposes might be -- insulting their left-wing opponents perhaps ? It need be no more complicated than that. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:10, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

Anon, how is your political plug relevant? 21:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's an antisemitic word. Its origin is from a Hebrew word meaning "chain" (Kabbalah is from the same word.) In overwhelming number of cases, it's used against Jews. In those few when its' targets are not Jewish, it is an attempt to smear them by covertly accusing them of being Jewish plotters without quite saying that. I'll try to find more examples and post them here. 75.84.113.125 (talk) 21:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.84.113.125 (talk) 21:12, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

A justification of the Wikipedia self-reference has been requested. Unfortunately, as its original author the best I can supply is "it was totally worth it." Well, it was. -- Kizor 15:38, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * It said
 * A hypothetical group of privileged users that secretly controls and slants the contents of Wikipedia for their own sinister ends. Although most mentions of this 'cabal' are light-hearted, a few people appear to believe in its existence.

Why selfish is evil?
Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.53.157.200 (talk) 23:53, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

cabal helix
why i cant connect in cabal helix now —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.205.151.211 (talk) 14:25, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

public/secret treaty
In the section about the Cabal Ministry, "Association with Charles II", it is mentioned "the public Treaty of Dover". The link however redirects to secret treaty of Dover. Could somebody cast a light on this? // habj (talk) 17:14, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed - does a Cabal require a "public" conspiracy?  Why Public?  --71.245.164.83 (talk) 03:07, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Bilderberg?
I'm assuming that the Bilderberg Group are probably the archetypical definition of the word, "cabal." Do people agree? Petrus4 (talk) 10:14, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Cabal
WikiLeaks released a set of 3402 e-mail messages exchanged between a group of Wikipedia editors, conspiring to alter entries of the online encyclopedia in line with their political agenda. You can find these emails in this file:

http://wikileaks.is/file/wikileaks_archive.7z

The group called itself 'Wikipediametric' and generally targeted pages about history and current events, biasing them in favor of nationalism and Eastern European countries and against Russia, Socialists, Communists and Jews. The group employed a number of malicious tactics to achieve this end, including creating and citing false sources, assuming multiple accounts and false personas, defaming and blocking users who disagreed with them and instigating edit wars with other users. The members frequently discussed covering up their nature as a 'cabal' by creating elaborate false identities and avoiding suspicion by editing pages in a gradual manner as well as using exetrnal websites and programs to 'cheat' the wikipedia system. The emails also make reference to other similar cabals including, the 'Russians' and the 'Jews' who engaged in similar activities, espousing Communist and Jewish nationalist ideologies respectively, who the Eastern Europeans often engaged in conflicts with.

The case was discussed in the wikipedia arbitration section here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list

Third party coverage of the case can be found on various sites including:

http://www.thephora.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-61106.html

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=26604&st=0

encyclopediadramatica.com/Wikipediametric

Do you think this should be mentioned in this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.71.156.159 (talk) 13:46, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no cabal. What are you talking about? I don't know about any cabal.ParadoxJuice (talk) 22:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * There Is No Cabal (TINC). We discussed this at the last cabal meeting, and everyone agreed that there is no cabal. An announcement was made in Cabalist: The Official Newsletter of The Cabal making it clear that there is no cabal. The words "There Is No Cabal" are in ten-foot letters on the side of the international cabal headquarters, and we show a disclaimer that there is no cabal at the start of every program on the Cabal Network. If that's not enough to convince people that there is no cabal, I don't know what will. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:36, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Homonyms?
This article seems to confuse two separate words, which are actually homonyms, as if they are a single word.

Under "Origins" the article describes a word of Hebrew origin which appears to have an entirely different and unrelated meaning, and which we assume continues with that meaning today.

But the use of "Cabal" as described in this topic seems to have been invented to refer to the Cabal Ministry. Even if it might have been invented as a homonym of the Hebrew word, it still seem to qualify as such; rather than as a "current meaning" of that same word.

I'm not sure of Wikipedia's policies on this kind of case, whether it may be better documented with a "disambiguation" page, perhaps?

Not being an expert in these policies, I just offer this comment for those who are.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Exyfeplin (talk • contribs) 09:48, 25 June 2017 (UTC)