JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050119 05:57]:
To join and be part of a community, you have to abide by its norms. Those who fail to do so generally face exclusion from the community of one form or another. And I find Wikipedia extremely reluctant to use the tools it has to enfore communal norms, to its detriment. Some of the detriment is seen in the highly variable quality of the content. Other is seen in the many good editors willing to abide by those norms, but not put up with those who do not, and who end up leaving.
Probably the problem in the specific case is that people holding a particular POV come to Wikipedia, see something that reads to them like unspeakable bias and go "fuck it" and dive in head first. Look at Alberuni, who went wild with sockpuppets and personal abuse, but still doesn't think that constituted doing *anything wrong at all* and that he was kicked off Wikipedia because of a Jewish conspiracy. He's an extreme case, but still.
For this particular conflict, it would help if someone could be found who knows and even holds the Palestinian POV *but* understands NPOV and why it's good - to show those who hold that POV how to do things properly here.
I'm not sure how you would go about recruiting one or more ...
- d.