Sean Barrett wrote:
Lir is now at work on the VANDALISM IN PROGRESS page,
deleting any
references to herself, while accusing all other editors of the
Christopher Columbus page of being vandals.
But far be it from me to suggest that anything be done about it! I've
learned my lesson.
Lir is not a "vandal" -- but a contributor who disagrees with other
contributors. I just spent an hour yesterday trying to fix up the Columbus article myself
-- trying to minimize any addition of my own POV and focusing mostly on grammar, sequence
and neutrality. I haven't even taken a look at this morning's version yet,
though.
I read all Lir's talk page comments. Nothing anti-Wikipedia there. She says Columbus
was a slave-trader, and she won't shut up about it; well, as I suppose LDC would
agree, we have free speech on the talk pages. Also, I did a little googling and found 2
online sources that say Columbus transported slaves from the New World to Europe. Unless
he "donated" the slaves to a museum or something, he probably got paid -- and
slave transport + got paid = slave trader.
I had never heard about this in grade school or even high school. I always thought
Columbus was a pure, noble adventurous hero -- who well deserves an annual holiday. But if
he kidnapped people into slavery, I gotta downgrade his heroism at least one notch (on my
own personal list of historical figures).
And the article should say that "some sources" indicate that Columbus initiated
the [[Transatlantic slave trade]].
I'll see if I can straighten this out.
Ed Poor
Amateur and Utterly Unofficial Self-appointed Neutrality Umpire