I think the point of the argument against is that statistics from an apartheid state (regardless of how much the US happens to sanction it currently) must be treated as suspect. UN statistics should be better--ie, more NPOV--even if they are not as "complete."
The same could in many ways be said for the US as well-- the US until very recently was more or less an apartheid state, and still has lingering aspects of this left over, in terms of its sociological/financial barriers. Etc. If this was the case today in the US--as it was 1950--there would be every justification for Wikipedians to look upon statistics coming out of such a country's official machinery as smelly. We should trust more open neutral statistics than those of any state agency. The CIA factbook for example is only usable is because its extremely short descriptions belie any attempt at pov.
To deal with the basic concept--what people forget is that "racism" and the apartheid that was synonymous with it, (which came first?) in the US was, (as it is everywhere) simply a way to keep people separated--firstly for imperialist/corporate control reasons. The US began as an English corporate venture into tobacco, youll remember. Whatever the reason, ''[[the hand that rocks the cradle]] is the hand that rules the world'', and we would be remiss to not challenge such statistics, that ask us to overlook some glaring inconsistencies.
Apply these fundamental metaphors for understanding humanity as you like. ~S~ Between any two disparate points of view is a buffer zone, which makes for a nice way for tricksters to get around. --戴眩
= = = =
- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Adam Raizen araizen@newmail.net wrote:
Geoff Burling wrote:
On Sun, 14 Sep 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
--- Adam Raizen araizen@newmail.net wrote:
I would like to use a bot to upload articles
on
cities in Israel based on information from Israel's Central Bureau
of
Statistics (http://www.cbs.gov.il), a la Rambot. You can
see
an
example article at [[User:AdamRaizen/Ramla]]. Any objections or comments?
I wouldn't object, but the following part is a
bit
unclear:
The ethnic makeup of the city is 80.5% Jewish
and
other, and 20.0% Arab (15.4% Muslim and 4.0% Christian). There are 450 new immigrants.
Are these catagories legally defined in
Israeli
law? (Or
at least, the same terms from the Israeli
census
materials?)
If so, I would like to see those terms
hyperlinked
to
an article explaining the legal definitions,
much
as
was done for the U.S. cities.
Kind of. For Jews, the Interior Ministry (whose
data
is the source of the data used here) basically accepts as Jewish whoever the Rabbinate says is Jewish (with some complications), and
this
is a hotly debated political issue. I'm not sure of the situation
for
Muslims and Christians, but I assume it's similar (i.e.
whatever
the local religious authority says). There probably should be an
article
explaining all this somewhere anyway.
Are you refering to the fact that Judiasm,
according
to the laws therof, is transfered from mother to child (as written at [[Judaism#Who_is_a_Jew]])? If so,
I'd
suggest that you chage
The ethnic makeup of the city is 80.5% Jewish and other, and 20.0% Arab (15.4% Muslim and 4.0% Christian). There are 450 new immigrants.
to
Tje ethnic makeup of the city is 80.5% Jewish by ethnicity and 20.0% Arab, consisting of 15.4% Muslim, and 4.0% Christian. There are 450 new immigrants since the last time the census was taken.
A user on he.wikipedia suggested that tables are easier to read than paragraphs. Am I correct that this has already
been
debated with regards to Rambot's articles and settled that short paragraphs are okay, at least for the English wikipedia?
--Adam Raizen
Yes, I do think a table would be easier to read,
but
there should also be some content in paragraph
form.
I'll try to find content to put in the articles
that
is automated. So far, I've found http://www.iula.org.il/cities/citind.htm, a list
of
links to the websites of all of the big cities in Israel, but that's it, and it probably would go
into
the table. LDan
Oh, yeah, and if you make a table, you should wait until the new table markup is put up (or it is decided that we don't want it). LDan
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