I beg everyone's indulgence as I respond to the points in this email.
There is an important clarification that must needs be made here.
Further discussions will be taken to the appropriate Talk page.
On Tue, 1 Jun 2004, Jim Kork wrote:
"Having taken a look at the Serdar Argic
article,
I note that you twice insisted on qualifying "Armenian Genocide" as
"alleged",
& when both of those changes were reverted, you blanked the article."
I am making variou changes, and the reason I blanked the article is that I
didn't see any credibility to the story. There is virtually none whatsoever.
Blanking an article is an extreme act, & is bound to offend many people
even if done by a seasoned contributor who has much experience & has earned
much trust. You did that with no explanation, & after having your edits twice
rejected; sorry, but anyone will read that as pushing your own POV without
concern for the views or feelings of other people who contribute to
Wikipedia.
The point of the article is that, there is one bad
Turkish who tried to
disturb people over the Usenet and that he was trying to rewrite the
history.
I think you read too much into the point of the article. Someone was
abusing Usenet in a very clumsy fashion to push his political agenda: that
was the entire point of the Serdar Argic episode. But instead of asking
questions about the intent of the article on the Talk page, or explain
how it came over to you, you decided to blank it without a justification
for your act to anyone.
[snip]
"The reasons you gave for this change was that without the word "alleged"
the
article was POV -- only this assertion, with no proof or evidence either
at the Talk page for this article, nor at [[Talk:Armenian Genocide]].
(Incidentally you made 10 edits to the main Armenian Genocide page, which
were removed every time, & you never discussed the reaons for your
changes.)"
I couldn't discuss it because with the old interface I couldn't figure out
how to discuss it. With this new interface everything is much clearer to me,
and thus I started to leave comments. This is not vandalizing, you can check
out the policy again. Also the admin who blocked me accused me of being
Serdar Argic, but never left a note how to discuss it.
If you could figure out how to make changes to an article, why couldn't you
figure out how to discuss making changes to it? Help me understand this:
when I came to Wikipedia, I understood how to both make changes & add
comments to articles; you claim that you couldn't figure this out, which
means that our interface as somehow broken.
"Uh, everybody except Turkish nationals (& perhaps even some of them) agree
that it happened"
You are quite arrogant on this topic, nobody denies what had happened, what
people couldn't disagree on is whether it was an intentional genocide.
Genocide has a specific meaning, during wartime people die all the time,
nobody call those "genocide".
I've read the Wikipedia article: Genocide is the intentional mass murder
of people based on their ethnic heritage. A large number of Armenians were
killed on the basis of their ethnic background -- you admit that this
happened. However, you then talk about people dying in a war, which does
not logically follow.
I would hazard a guess here about what you are trying to say, but I find
it hard to be sympathetic after you've called me "arrogant". If you want
to start an argument over this topic, I'm sure you can find a better
combatant elsewhere: I'm just trying to explain how your behavior is hurting
your participation here on Wikipedia.
"From a quick glance at the history logs, your contributions was to
misrepresent
cited sources to reduce the number of victims."
Could you please give me the proof for the Hitler's quote. A specific page
so that I can go to the library and find it? It is in the article though.
I didn't say anything about "Hitler's quote"; you removed that passage
after
I wrote my email. I was talking about the following changes to [[Armenian
Genocide]]:
1. On 13 May 2004, the number of victims of the was given as between 500,000
and 2,000,000 dead, but 1,500,000 is the most commonly accepted number.
2. You subsequently changed the numbers to "between 300,000 and 2,000,000
dead" and to 500,000 as the most commonly accepted number; these numbers
were reverted to the first set of numbers on 18 May.
3. Once again you changed the numbers, this time to "between 300,000 and
1,000,000" and to 400,000 as the most commonly accepted total; & once again
these numbers were reverted, on 22 May.
4. Again you changed the numbers, this time the range was "between 200,000
and 1,000,000", & while you left the most commonly accepted total unchanged,
you changed the figure Toynbee is said to have estimated. These numbers
were once again restored to the original figures on 24 May.
5. Then you changed the figures once last time, giving a range of "between
100,000 and 1,500,000 died" & the most commonly accepted number to
300,000, as well as deleting McCarthy's estimate. These were restored on
30 May.
The only consistent pattern I can see to these changes are that you kept
trying to reduce the numbers, as if to find a lower number that everyone
invovled in the article would accept, & thereby minimize the tragedy of this
event. You deleted or altered verifiable facts (e.g., what Toynbee & McCarthy
wrote). As a couple of veteran Wikipedians have said in another thread,
if you don't agree with what is stated, why don't you instead provide better
facts instead of changing them? Can't you take the time to find authorities
who attest to the lower numbers you offered, & thereby improve quality of
the article's content? I don't know where the original figures for the
casualties came form, but the fact 3 or 4 different editors agreed on one
set of numbers is far more convincing than the 4 different numbers you
supplied without attribution.
"If you have access to a source that provides different numbers, you are
welcome to add those figures;"
Many sources have different numbers, one person reading the article can
easily see that this is pure propaganda as it stands now. Link to Serdar
Argic is one example, just to discredit anybody who opposes this idea,
another one is accusing me of vandalizing even though according to
wikipedia's own rules I didn't vandalize. Vandalizers do not join mailing
lists and complain!
First, I didn't call you a vandal: the point of my original email was to
explain how your contributions were not taken seriously. I still hope this
is the case: Wikipedia is in constant need of contributors who want to
improve its content. Yet if you consider my attempt at constructive criticism
is nothing more than calling you a "vandal", then I feel that I'm at a
loss to convince you otherwise.
"you are welcome to change verifiable numbers -- unless you can clearly
show that they are misquoted, which you did not bother to do."
I will, but as I said none of these are proving that I was vandalizing it.
If these were proofs then you should better check out the authors of that
article, since they also put so many number of "facts" which are not facts.
"I will concede one point about [[Armenian Genocide]]: I did not see an
explanation for the Turkish POV."
If you accuse them of vandalizing I don't you will ever see. By the way I am
not Turkish.
When I first read your second sentence, I was puzzled over how what relevance
this had to my statement: I had expressed an opinion about a weakness in the
article; you somehow understood this as a statement about you.
Then I remembered in my original email I wrote that "everyone except Turkish
nationals" believe this. Absolute statements are always hazardous: I should
have written "almost everyone except Turkish nationals".
And that statement is a fair one: I Googled on the phrase "Armenian Genocide",
& got 105,000 hits. The first few pages were all on pages that believed
that it was a historical fact: one (
http://www.cilicia.com/armo10c.html)
was a collection of contemporary articles from the New York Times detailing
the events; another (
http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/facts/gen_bibl.html)
is a list of publications about this event, which includes a number of
reports published by the League of Nations investigating the event.
My point of mentioning all of this evidence is not to prove that it happened,
but to show you that you have a lot of work ahead of you to present the
Turkish POV in convincing way. And making deletions from an IP address, &
offering only the most brief explanations is not going to do it.
"The article would be better if it were provided -- although it would need
to be clearly identified as such."
The article should contain only facts and clearly explain why it is
disputed. Right now, what happened is provided as intentional and
systematic. It doesn't tell how many number of Turks have died to the same
events. Also, currently the article is highly political, it puts Turkish
government as the adversary, rather than historians with opposing views. It
doesn't tell the motivations behind lobbying governments like France to
accept this allegation as a law. The claims over the soil of the Turkey and
so on.
Well, this is the first I have read about these claims. You would be better
off taking the time explaining these things & not deleting or altering what
you find objectionable. This article is not going anywhere; Wikipedia is not
going anywhere. The world won't end because any given article needs fixing:
I can think of dozens of articles that need work, but I won't be working
on soon because they need some research. Take the time to explain & document
these points, & they will better survive future edits.
"The acts I detail above clearly show why you were blocked."
NO! What you showed me is NOT vandalism. Go and read the blocking policy. It
clearly states that vandalism is not different point of view, is not being a
newbie (leaving a reason or discussing the article). If you block everybody
making modification without leavnig a reason or discussing then we will have
a problem.
It is not the fact you made changes. You made changes without concern
that other people disagreed with you, & continued to repeat them without
venturing into any form of dialogue until your IP address was blocked. Instead
of responding to comments on your Talk page, you deleted them; instead of
providing better figures for casualties in [[Armenian Genocide]], you
changed them to lower numbers, seemingly picked at random.
[snip]
"And from the record, speaking as someone who is entirely disinterested
in the matter (I didn't even know that there was an article on Serdar Argic
until now), I find you have failed to be convincing."
I will fail on this as long as I am being accused of vandalizing and
considered to be a Turkish National by default.
If I came to your house & put a new roof on for free, you would think that was
an act of kindness; if I came to your house & threw a brick through one of
your windows, you would consider it an act of hostility. We want people to
come to Wikipedia & make our house better, not worse. Can you put yourself
in our place & see how we might consider your actions hostile?
Geoff