Ravan Al-Taie, who is based in Iraq and works for an oilfield services company, states on her page as a candidate for the board of the Wikimedia Foundation that she thinks “it’s time for more voices from underrepresented communities” to shape the future of the encyclopedia’s movement and that she wants to “help ensure that decisions reflect the diversity of our global community.”
“Over the past 16 years, I’ve made more than 22,000 edits and created over 1,000 articles, with a strong focus on bridging content gaps in topics related to Iraqi culture, women’s biographies and underrepresented communities,” she states. “My goal has always been to make knowledge accessible, relevant and reflective of the diversity in our region.”
American Jewish groups told JNS that it would be very unfortunate if Al-Taie were elected to the board of the San Francisco-based nonprofit, which oversees Wikipedia, one of the most visited sites on the internet.
“It should raise every red flag imaginable when a would-be Wikimedia board member, guardian of one of the world’s most influential information platforms, is on record pushing anti-Israel propaganda and peddling canards,” Vlad Khaykin, executive vice president of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told JNS.
If Al-Taie is elected to the board, it would corrupt “the integrity of Wikipedia and its noble mission of providing impartial knowledge for all,” said Khaykin, who noted that the Wiesenthal Center has warned that “Wikipedia is bleeding credibility thanks to activist editors smuggling anti-Israel bias into its pages.”
“Wikimedia needs to decide. Is it still in the fact business, or is it handing the keys to the conspiracy theorists?” Khaykin said.
Daniel S. Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS that Al-Taie “should be disqualified from the get-go,” questioning why anyone “would assume Wikipedia’s impartiality with a board whose membership includes Al-Taie, who subscribes to myth-based view of history and the present.”
The Wikimedia Foundation states that it “does not have an editorial role on Wikipedia.” (JNS sought comment from the foundation and Al-Taie.)
Members of the foundation’s board serve three-year terms.
Those who had made at least 300 edits on Wikimedia sites—including Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikiquote—prior to July 28, and at least 20 edits between Aug. 27, 2024, and July 28, 2025, can vote for the foundation board between Oct. 8 and Oct. 23. (Those who have been banned on any Wikimedia projects are ineligible to vote, per the foundation.)
The foundation intends to release preliminary results after that voting period, and its board aims to confirm new members in December. It had planned on holding voting from Aug. 27 to Sept. 10, but on Aug. 21, its elections and governance committees postponed elections due to “best practices, increased scrutiny the board faces, and to reduce uncertainty around candidate eligibility before community members vote.”
A former administrator for the Arabic-language Wikipedia, Al-Taie is one of six candidates running for two open seats on the foundation’s board of trustees.
Since-deleted social media posts purportedly of Al-Taie’s have surfaced, including reference to Israel committing “hundreds of genocides.” An Israeli diplomat in Britain posted a screenshot of Al-Taie’s referring to the “fake news of ‘rape attacks’ on Oct. 7.”
“Over 50% of British adults use Wikipedia for research. Right now, its parent company, the Wikimedia Foundation, is considering Ravan Jaafar Al-Taie to join their board of trustees,” the diplomat wrote. “Does rape denial fall in line with your trustee code of conduct, Wikimedia?”
Al-Taie appears to have deleted her account on the X social network recently.
Shlomit Aharoni Lir, a research fellow at the University of Haifa who called attention to what she described as former social media posts of Al-Taie’s, told JNS that she thinks the Iraqi’s candidacy is “very serious.”
The Wikimedia board “directs and oversees the foundation’s activities” and defines the “strategy, long-term objectives and the approaches needed to reach them,” she told JNS.
Al-Taie’s since-deleted posts violate the foundation’s universal code of conduct, which “bans hate speech, discriminatory language and the use of symbols or content meant to intimidate, harm or marginalize people, as groups or individuals,” the researcher told JNS.
“A trustee, who has publicly denied documented atrocities, circulated antisemitic tropes and erases Israel by labeling the entire territory as ‘Palestine,’ thus denying Jewish self-determination, violates the universal code of conduct and demonstrates the kind of bias the foundation was warned about,” she said.
Al-Taie’s “presence at the board table would legitimize extremist views and further damage the board’s credibility, making it complicit in the very manipulation of knowledge it is supposed to oppose and has failed to do so,” Lir said.
