I must say, even though I'm personally rather fond of JT, I think he's sort of dropped the ball here. I really think the best thing to do would have been to accept Erik's peace offer, as it seemed very fair and sincere. I hope he'll see that he's not really winning a lot of converts by being so confrontational at this stage and pull back the reins a bit.
Let me clarify:
1. I am rather fond too of Dante! :-)
2. I have a lot of respect for Erik.
3. I do believe that on a few occasions (usually to do with religion) Erik loses all sense of judgment and, probably without realising it, produces edits that are glaringly POV.
4. I want to work with Erik.
5. IMHO Erik does have a habit of ignoring criticism of his work, of seeing agendas, or personalising criticism as attacks, etc.
6. On the page in question, Erik added in text with is seriously POV and unbalanced. I tried to NPOV the article while not censoring the allegations, by making a new article specifically focused on discussing the allegations, many of which are not directly about Mother Teresa, the focus of the original article. That article was to be linked to the main one, with a summary of the allegations, focusing on those centred on MT, contained in the main article. (Interestingly, a couple of people, unaware that this was originally attempted a week ago, are suggesting that as the obvious solution.) However Erik went ballistic, reverted, listed pages on the VfD, talked about bans, accused me of censorship and a 'pro-Catholic' agenda. Since then many users have come to the talk page and said that there /is/ a clear problem with the MT page as edited by Erik. People other than me have talked about POV, agendas, lack of balance, etc. Some have observed that the MT article carries more extreme criticism than in articles on Hiter and Idi Amin! Erik has ignored all the criticism and focused his attacks on me. I have not edited the page in days, but to clarify for the community what is the problem and what is the proposed solution, called a vote. Erik tried to move the questions, change the questions, dispute the terminology, add in a 900th repeat of his constantly repeated defence (ok, 900th is an exagguration but you get the point) all about censorship, etc (bizarrely linking in Pol Pot in the debate!).
To set up the vote, I left messages on plenty of talk pages, including people who agree with Erik. I left messages on the Village Pump and here. In other words, while Erik has been talking about working with people, I have been doing it; trying to NPOV a poor article, trying to get a debate, trying to set up a vote to clarify what the community want. I have been seeking a community consensus. Erik has been trying to get people to accept what he wants.
But I have a lot of respect still for Erik. I do want to work with him. But it is difficult when, on topics touching his pet topic, his dislike of religion, he lets his personal opinions blind him to the NPOV requirement. /If/ I was a catholic apologist, I would have deleted Erik's controversial stuff, not given it its own linked article. On [[Pope Pius XII]] I would not have dug up a quote from Hitler to a cabinet meeting that supports Erik's thesis.
My bottom line is ensuring that articles are NPOV and encyclopædic. And all that I have done is to ensure that. I just wish that Erik would show the same neutrality and concern with NPOV. That he holds strong opinions is his right. But he needs to avoid pushing those agendas in a 'case for the prosecution' style that makes articles 70% accusationary (another contributor suggested 80%). There is no point Erik talking peace if he insists it is a peace based on getting his way, when most people have been repeating over and over again 'this article has a POV problem'.
wikipeace
JT
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