--- Abe Sokolov abesokolov@hotmail.com wrote:
Admittedly, I would have jumped on the bandwagon for his banning when I had my first RK experience. RK has called me a few choice things in the past, but I been discovering that RK is an essential part of the Wiki community since his edit wars consistently yield the kind of synthesis that we want: quality, neutrality, and a unique perspective that highlights what Wiki can offer that other sourcebooks cannot.
We should disregard the mountain of grievances we have against him, and accept him as an eloquent, forceful representative of a significant share of hard-liners on the pro-Israel side, although I would certainly favor banning if there were no counterweight. Since these are mass-based struggles, there might be a substantive benefit to allowing partisans to engage in struggle and yield syntheses, in that we might be better able to deal with the role of public opinion, and political mobilization.
Actually, I�ve been noticing that Wikipedia�s have been doing a better job of conveying how the two sides see this conflict than the academic literature and media articles (Reuters, NY Times, BBC, AP usually) that I usually read.
I don't usually have that experience of the two sides banancing. I usually find that many of the articles about Israel are either violently for Israel (by RK) or violently against (by Stevertigo). LDan
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