G'day Silverback,
On 10/10/05, Tony Sidaway wrote:
Well, do you not see that all you're talking about is a tit-for-tat affair? What does the issue of killing people trying to escape Cuba have to do with the question of whether we call Batista or Castro dictators? Both of them instituted a government by force of arms, so they would both fit the traditional standard. Shah Pahlavi, for that matter, when dismissed by Massadeq, was reinstalled by military force, so I guess we could call him a dictator too. But the editors of the Pahlavi article, for whatever reason, are not squabbling.
You can call it tit-for-tat, but when a clique has control of a page, and is claiming a certain standard in rejecting your edits such as "dictator" being POV and pejorative even when applied to a world class dictator like Fidel Castro, you can at least embarass them some with their hypocrisy if they insist on maintaining the term for a petty corrupt dictator such as Batista. His oppression only extended
Ah! Now I see your problem. It's not that they alone are POV-pushing. Both your side and their side (whoever they are) are POV-pushing. The real issue is that they're *better* at POV-pushing than you are, and therefore getting away with it while you are not. Well, my heart bleeds.
Now go back and re-read the post where Tony quoted the [[Hitler]] article as an example of How To Deal With Bastard Dictators Without Calling Them Bastard Dictators Because Readers Are Smart Enough To Work That Out. You may like to ask him (nicely) to make the same point to your opponents in whatever petty edit wars you've been engaged in lately. That way every POV-pusher can receive Enlightenment at the same time!
Remember, we are writing an encyclopaedia, not a particularly poorly-written high school argumentative essay. You present facts, you do not draw conclusions: that's for the reader to do. If I read on WP that Castro shoots people who try to leave Cuba, I'll immediately leap out of my seat (dislodging the cat), and scream "he's a bastard!" If I read on WP that Castro is a bastard, I'll start to wonder why I'm bothering to read such a bloody awful encyclopaedia. D'yer understand?
to the measures necessary to keep him in power and luxury. There is a difference between being anti-democratic for selfish reasons, and essentially enslaving (because they can't leave) a pool of cheap labor to implement your grand plans for the economy.
Now you're getting into ideology, and ... well, off-topic. That's not good.
Cheers,