Jimbo writes:
> Robert, I really think you should moderate your tone,
> because I think that doing so will make your comments
> more effective.
In theory, I agree with you. However, I also agreed with
Jtdirl that these topics (Arab refugees and Jewish
refugees) should be discussed on Wikipedia. That's moderate
as well. I just was shocked by his false claims of
censorship. (Especially since we have more than three
articles discussing this subject!)
When we work together for months to whip articles into
decent shape, it seems inappropriate, and a violation of
Wikipedia policy, to do an end-run around them by starting
a new discussion on the same subject, pushing only Jtdirl's
point of view. I am not the only person who has pointed
this out.
Jimbo writes:
> Making a moral judgment in a case like this is likely to
> turn people off. And, really, it runs a very strong
> risk of being _not true at all_. It strikes me as more
> likely that jtdirl is mistaken, rather than actively
> dishonest. Or that you are mistaken.
Ok, I agree; I could be mistaken. But Jtdirl refuses to
talk to me, so no conversation is possible. You saw for
yourself James Duffy's odd response to my points:
I said we *should* have articles on Arab refugees, but we
should no do an end-run around our peer-rview. I stated
that it is wrong to claim censorship is going on.
Jtdirl (James Duffy) responded, stop calling me an
anti-Semite! And then Jtdirl started talking about
Jerusalem.
Huh? His statements have absolutely no relationship to what
is being said to him. He is in his own little world, and
that kind of freaks me out. I get the idea that people
read his letter, and respond to his false claims about
me...even though my letter said nothing about what he
mentions!
It would be very easy to smooth things over, but that is
impossible until his responses respond to what I actually
write. (That is a truism, no?)
On a separate topic: I am uncomfortable with the way that
Jtdirl and others slander me as a racist. For example,
Jtdirl again stated that Zionists are racists. He does this
knowing that I a Zionist, therefore the clear implication
is that I am racist bigot whose words should be ignored.
Such angry and false speech about Zionists (which includes
tens of millions of Jews and Christians) is not appropriate
here. Would we accept it if people said that Irish
nationalism is racist? That feminism is FemiNazism? That
black progressivism is really white-hating communism? I
doubt that most Wikipedias would stand for this. But when
people here make these generalized and incorrect statements
about Zionists, no one says a word.
You and I don't speak this way about people of other
groups; I propose that this standard should be true for all
of us here. I hope that I am not perceived as being
unreasonable.
Robert (RK)
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
James Duffy, JTDIRL, has been causing problems on the
"State of Israel" article of late, because he refuses to
work with others in our Wikipedia peer-review. Instead of
working on the many Arab and Jewish refugee articles that
already exist, he keeps bypassing the peer-review by trying
to stuff his own biased statements into new articles.
When I noted this, he made personal attacks on me as
promoting "censorship". This is a violation of Wikipedia
protocol. I have tried discussing this with him, and have
alerted members of this list about this incident.
Astonishingly, Jtdirl has decided to respond with total
frabrications. He is now screaming that I am accusing him
of anti-Semitism. Huh?
Sure, it is wrong of Jtdirl (James Duffy) to do an end-run
around our peer-review, and for him to shove his POV essays
on this subject into other articles. And it is wrong for
him to falsely accuse me of "censoring" him, for the
"crime" of asking him to follow standard Wikipedia
protocol. But where does this have to do with
anti-Semitism? Nowhere.
JTDIRL claims:
> Any attempt to add in /anything/ that is not pro-Israeli
> immediately leads to RK going ballistic and screaming
> anti-semitism.
That in of itself is false. But more disturbing, Jtdirl
then starts mentioning something about the status of
Jerusalem, which has NOTHING to do with this topic. His
claims to the contrary are bald-faced lies. No one is
writing about Jerusalem. He is just making this up. Jtdirl
just is in some sort of rage, because I AND a few others
have removed his POV essay and out of place statements in
the State of Israel article.
Sadly, though, his incoherent responses do come close to
Jew-baiting. Every time I disagree with him, he claims to
be the victim of false anti-Semitism charges...even though
the topic has nothing to do with Jews or anti-Semitism. He
seriously needs to lay of the Jews for a while. Seriously.
With concerns,
Robert (RK)
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>I'm going to be a bit firm here, but I want to push for a more
>peaceful way of interacting that's more likely to lead to productive
>solutions. Both RK and Jtdirl are valued contributors in their own
>right.
>
>Robert, I really think you should moderate your tone, because I
>think that doing so will make your comments more effective.
>
>Robert wrote:
> > For reasons I do not understand, Jtdirl is being dishonest
> > about my work on Wikipedia.
>
>It would be better to say "For reasons I do not understand, it seems
>that Jtdirl has misperceived that nature of my work on Wikipedia."
>
>'misperceived' leaves open the question of a moral judgment: was it
>deliberate? Was it an oversight? Was it stupidity? Was it
>forgetfulness?
>
>'seems' leaves open the possibility that with further discussion, it
>may turn out that you were wrong. 'seems' has you only expressing
>your current understanding of the situation, as opposed to a formal
>and final judgment.
>
>Making a moral judgment in a case like this is likely to turn people
>off. And, really, it runs a very strong risk of being _not true at
>all_. It strikes me as more likely that jtdirl is mistaken, rather
>than actively dishonest. Or that you are mistaken.
>
> > "rv yet more RK censorship. Does he ever stop? Does he have
> > a clue what NPOV means?"
>
>I would also recommend jtdirl to avoid such terms as 'censorship' and
>'does he have a clue'? These are inflammatory and likely to give rise
>to hard feelings rather than productive co-operation.
>
>Better would be 'rv RK. RK, I'm unconvinced that your edit here is
>NPOV, can we chat on the talk page to reach a compromise?'
>
>--Jimbo
The problem was that an important line lost in an edit had been reinstated
by me in a carefully worded NPOV manner. The issue was being discussed on
the talk page. As he regularly does, RK swept in and deleted the paragraph
including my line without discussion, announcing with his usual
infallibility that it had previously been discussed, without comment on the
talk page. This is his regular behaviour on this and related pages. If he
doesn't approve he denounces it as "anti-semite" or "pro-Arab" and deletes
it on sight. As Fred Bauder pointed out, the page is rather too POV in its
pro-Israeli contents. Any attempts to so much as mention that there is any
problem fall foul of RK.
The line I had added in related the fact that Israel, which was created as a
typical 'nation-state', suffers from the same problem that exists or has
existed in Ireland, Poland, Germany and some other names, namely that the
'state' (the civil governmental entity) and the 'nation' (a shared sense of
culture, identity, heritage, idenfication etc) are not coterminus. Normally
they are. Where they are not, and the state governs only part of the nation,
or a territory larger than the nation - the case in Israel - problems arise
over how does one deal those who do see themselves as part of the nation but
aren't included in the state, or, and this is Israel's problem, those within
the state who don't define themselves as part of the nation, in Israel's
case the Palestinians. The Oslo Accord proposed one solution; those places
in what is now Israel where there is a different sense of national identity
and sense of nationhood, are given their own right of self-government, in
effect their own 'nation-state'. The sentence was not perscriptive (there
are articles on the detail of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute) merely
descriptive and NPOV, a basic political science analysis of the theorectical
basis of the modern problem (as to the original problem, claims of Israel
'displacing' Palestine; no-one seriously suggests displacing Israel, which
has a clear and unambiguous right to exist, a right which must be
acknowledged in any solution.)
I called RK's behaviour censorship because I have to say that it how it
looks. On the Israel page and on many others, RK seems to spend most of his
time removing other people's work, calling it POV (ie not his POV which he
thinks is NPOV), anti-semitic and pro-Arab, ie not pro-Israeli enough for
his own liking. I can understand the sensitivity of the Jewish people, given
all they have experienced in terms of rascism and bigotry. Some pro-Israeli
contributors have been excessively protective. (One on the talk page regards
everyone in Israel as part of what he called the "Jewish nation", which he
equates with Israel. That would come as a surprise to Palestinians, who
most definitely do not regard themselves as part of the Israeli nation, much
less a Jewish one.
But RK goes way overboard (as shown by his disgraceful treatment of
Anthere), removing what he does not like and calling everyone who disagrees
with him anti-semitic. By his actions he damages the very cause he fights
for, reducing the charge of anti-semitism from a serious charge to a term of
abuse, while keeping out from 'his' pages anything that might seriously
offer intellectual insight, as opposed to a pro-Israeli slant. Wiki will
suffer, and the cause for which RK so passionately believes will suffer, by
RK's self-righteous suffication of debate.
JT
_________________________________________________________________
STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Once again today, someone is complaining about page load time on the pump. I am beginning to suspect that this is a bandwidth problem. What has been done to investigate the reason behind this problem, and what were the results of said tests? I haven't really heard a straight answer from anyone saying what the problem is, just speculation.
--
Michael Becker
a.k.a. Mbecker
a.k.a. MB
>
>We have a problem with a new user, "Palestine liberator"
>
>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Palestine_liberator
>
>Here are some of his gems. Let's start with his
>anti-Semitic statement in which he demands that all the
>Jews in Israel be murdered "Only peace will come when the
>Zionists drink the sea at Gaza."
>
>Some more of his statements:
>
>INSERTING PIC OF UGLY DICK SHARON
>
>SHARON IS FECES
>
>RULES: COMMENTS BY ZIONISTS WILL BE DELETED !
>
>This site is crawling with Zionists
>
>ZIONIST TERROR
>
>The Zionists are the REAL terrorists.
>
>This was genocide and ethnic cleansing. The UN says Zionism
>equals racism and this proves they are right, as the
>genocide by the Zionists was motivated by their race
>hatred.
>
>Only peace will come when the Zionists drink the sea at
>Gaza.
>
>The Zionist entity, which the Zionists call "Israel" so
>that everyone forgets their crimes against the Arab nation
>of Palestine, is the world's biggest terrorist. Like Nazi
>Germany and bin Laden, this terrorist must be destroyed so
>that Palestine can strech from the river to the sea
>
>(There is more, but I tire of copying his rants.)
>
>I think "Palestine liberator"'s statements speak for
>themselves. His rabid hatred is a violation of everything
>that Wikipeida stands for, and I hope that he is not
>allowed to damage our community.
>
>
>Robert ("RK")
Actually Robert yesterday I reverted his edits, left a tough message on his
talk page telling him his POVing of content was unacceptable, opened up a
ban page, then put details of what he was doing on the wiki-list and
requested his immediate banning, which Jimbo agreed was an immediate
necessity and implemented.
Perhaps you could remember all of this the /next/ time you start calling me
an anti-semite and pro-Arab or that I am following an anti-Israeli agenda. I
have been called a 'pro-British Tory' and a 'rapid Irish republican', a
fanatical Australian monarchist and a pro-Australian republican, a communist
and a neo-fascist in my attempts to stop /any/ side POVing articles. I will
continue to do so to all sides to ensure nothing short of NPOV.
JT
_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
For reasons I do not understand, Jtdirl is being dishonest
about my work on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a good article on
the State of Israel, which has links to many different
sub-topics. However, in recent days a few people have been
trying to start, from scratch, argumentative discussions
about Jewish refugees and Arab refugees within this main
page. You need to kno that these subjects ALREADY are
discussed in great detail in many other article! The edit
page shows this is already becoming very contentious.
The problem here is that people, such as Jtdirl, are
effectively bypassing our peer review by starting a totally
new discussion on the same topic, without taking into
account the consensus that has already been built. It also
has become inflammatory, with many other people adding text
and deleting text.
Jtdirl's edits, and edits of a few others here, are a
violation of the protocol that we use for all our other
nation/state entries.
Bizarrely, Jtdirl refuses to recognize that Wikipedia
*already* discusses this issue, in depth. When I removed
this inflammatory section, and referred him to the fact
that we *already* have these articles, which have gone
through many rounds of peer review, Jtdirl yelled at me:
"rv yet more RK censorship. Does he ever stop? Does he have
a clue what NPOV means?"
This is a lie. I have never censored this, and in fact I
have worked with many others here in many rounds of
peer-review to hone our articles on precisely these topics.
Here are our articles which ALREADY discuss these topics:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinehttp://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugeehttp://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_refugees
I am sincerely distressed by the way Jtdirl keeps accusing
me of censorship. I have never promoted censorship of
academic discouse, nor have I ever prevented anyone from
writing on this issue. That's just crazy. I just want to
maintain standard Wikipedia protocols. Jtdirl, please stop
the false accusations, and stop your reversions. Your POV
pushing is not acceptable; instead, please work with the
rest of us in the peer-reviewed articles which already are
gaining some measure of consensus.
RK
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>Fred wrote
>I have now looked at the Wikipedia article, "Israel". It is acceptable
>without editing for inclusion in Internet-Encyclopedia; that is, it is
>written from a sympathetic point of view, If you will compare the article,
>"People's Republic of China", which includes sharply negative information
>(Most of which I have insisted on including) you will see that the Israel
>article fails to achieve a neutral point of view.
>
Any attempt to add in /anything/ that is not pro-Israeli immediately leads
to RK going ballistic and screaming anti-semitism. Even something as basic
as mentioning that while Israel regards Jerusalem as its capital, most of
the world refuses to accept that designation, led to screams of 'pro-Arab'
and 'anti-semitism'. Note, it was not being said that Jerusalem was not
Israel's capital. All that was being pointed out was that while 3 world
states accept that designation, 100+ don't and regard the 1948 capital, Tel
Aviv, as the capital, as a result basing their embassies and diplomatic
missions there. That there is a dispute on the issue is 100% correct but the
add in was /very/ careful not to agree with either side, and to list
Jerusalem with an explanatory footnote. But even that drove RK and a few
others ballistic.
The dispute on PROC was not over whether one could include negative
information, just the manner in which it was being added in, which struck
many people as being, probably unintentionally, POV. The issue was simply
one of trying to reformat the add-in in an NPOV manner. On Israel, any
attempt to be express anything other than a pro-Israel POV is blocked.
Criticism of any sort is shunted off to daughter articles, leaving only a
one-sided pro-Israel argument in the article. It is an outrageous betrayal
of the many Jewish people who have been victims of anti-semitism for RK and
others to call attempts to add some balance 'anti-semitism'. It is nothing
of the sort but his insidious attempts to silence any balanced criticism is
damaging wiki and the credibility of the articles RK thinks he is defending.
JT
_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
My dad sent me this joke which was forwarded to him from a
mailing list. Funny for Wikipedia, particularly since I've
been thinking about how we could best go about producing a 1.0
print edition. :-)
----- Forwarded message from POPWALES999(a)aol.com -----
From: POPWALES999(a)aol.com
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 10:35:43 EDT
To: jwales(a)bomis.com, wales001(a)bomis.com
Subject: Fwd: [GCFL] Encyclopedia
YOU COMPUTER TYPE GUYS SHOULD APPRECIATE THIS ONE......FUNNY.
From: GCFL <gcfl-info(a)gcfl.net>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 06:43:40 -0500 (CDT)
To: GCFL Subscriber <popwales999(a)aol.com>
Subject: [GCFL] Encyclopedia
Working as a computer instructor for an adult-education
program at a community college, I am keenly aware of the
gap in computer knowledge between my younger and older
students.
My observations were confirmed the day a new student
walked into our library area and glanced at the
encyclopedia volumes stacked on a bookshelf.
"What are all these books?" he asked.
Somewhat surprised, I replied that they were
encyclopedias.
"Really?" he said. "Someone printed out the whole thing?"
Received from Thomas S. Ellsworth of GCF.
-=+=-
Remember when the funniest jokes were the clean ones? They still are!
The Good, Clean Funnies List: Good, clean funnies five times a week,
FOR F R E E! ... AND NO ADS IN THE MAILINGS!
A cheerful heart is good medicine... (Prov 17:22a)
The latest GCFL funny can always be found on the web at
http://www.gcfl.net/archive/latest.php
To email this funny to a friend, go to
http://www.gcfl.net/archive/emailit.php?funny=20030805
For subscription and other information, go to our web page at
http://www.gcfl.net, or send email to gcfl-info(a)gcfl.net.
Mailing address: GCFL, Box 100, Harvest, AL 35749
You are subscribed as popwales999(a)aol.com
To unsubscribe, go to
http://www.gcfl.net/cgi-bin/gcflweb.cgi?remove
----- End forwarded message -----
So wikipedia is now reaching 1 in 1000 web users according to Alexa, which
is amazing, but also incredibly scary. The proportion of IPs making edits now
is much much higher than it was a year ago when I first began editing. I think
this is cause for concern... 90% of these IPs probably won't come back, but if
this continues we're going to be continually peppered with edits by people who
don't understand the norms of wikipedia, resulting in a breakdown of community,
NPOV, etc.
I think we should take some steps to combat this problem, and here they are:
* Major spikes should be anticipated and highlighted in advance. I had no clue
this CNN story was coming (and maybe no one else did either), but for stories
where people know a spike is coming it should be advertised prominently
beforehand, so that regular hands will know a flood of newcomers are arriving
* Communication with IP editors should be improved. Personally I'm in favor
of simply locking them out - as has been pointed out before, there's nothing
really any more anonymous about an IP than a logged in user (maybe even less
anonymous), and it's much harder to communicate with IPs consistently.
Alternatively maybe forced talk pages (i.e. you MUST read your notes if you are
an IP before you can edit) or the like would be better.
* There should be longer intervals between publicity. The Google effect is
getting hard enough to keep up with, and I'm afraid the process of
indoctrinating new people with NPOV (which I think is the most problematic
concept) and getting them to respond to community standards is beginning to
break down as the experienced hands get overwhelmed by new folks. We need to
relax and consolidate what we've got before we try to grow more - otherwise
we'll just bloom and die off, so to speak, killed by our own excesses.
Just some thoughts,
Saurabh
------
"In any event, if the occupation proves long-lasting, the American soldiers,
who are today carrying Iraqi infants in their arms, will eventually chase them
down alleys, beat them and kill them, as our [IDF] soldiers do."
-- Gideon Levy, in Ha'aretz
The article about Wikipedia is now linked to from the front page of
CNN.com so now is the time for all Wikipedia volunteer firefighters
to report to duty. :-)
--
Allan Crossman - http://dogma.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
PGP keys - 0x06C4BCCA (new) || 0xCEC9FAE1 (compatible)