shebs at apple.com wrote:
I have indeed compared your wording with the purported sources (not on this article, but on others that we have discussed previously), and there are significant differences.
Stan Shebs claims that there is a discrepancy between my work on Wikipedia and my sources, yet he insults the intelligence of mailing list readers by only offering this as evidence, "For instance, there was the episode where Somoza was a dictator but Stalin was not, and then where the Berlin Airlift was mainly a publicity stunt." [I've made over 10,000 edits to Wikipedia, so it's easy for someone with an ax to grind to cherry-pick examples and then throw in gratuitous accusations]
(1) Stan Sheb's disingenuous claims of bias on the Berlin blockade and airlift are emphatically refuted by Wikipedia's article on the Berlin blockade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade), which I wrote.
(2) I shy away from the term "dictator" altogether on Wikipedia (see, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Fidel_Castro&diff=4721758&...) I also changed the reference to Pinochet as a "dictator" to "military ruler" on the in the news box on the main page several days ago. Yet, this matter is more complicated than Stan Shebs is making it out to be (as usual). Notice the following conversation taken from Talk:Fidel Castro:
::Not exactly. Dictator is not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact, so it's not POV (though some try to twist the facts). While Batista is called a dictator in Britannica, BSE and probably other encyclopedias, Fidel is not. Fidel is not a dictator, because no matter how popular he is, he doesn't rule Cuba, the party does (and people too). Batista, on the other hand, was clearly a dictator (the second time he was in power) because of the way he ruled. So I think we should call Batista a dictator, but not do the same for Fidel. [[User:Paranoid|Paranoid]] 06:56, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC) :::Good point, Paranoid. Cuba is a single party state, not a personalistic regime. (Not to say that this is mutually exclusive. Ceausescu's Romania and North Korea, where the power of the party was strongly subverted by the leader, are considered "sultanistic" and "personalistic" regimes by a number of prominent comparativists, e.g., Linz and Stepan, who have drawn from Max Weber's concept of personalized power in a "sultanism.") However, many Wikipedians aren't going to grasp these nuances, and will be suspicious that the term is being applied arbitrarily. So, it's best to just shy away from the term altogether, even in obvious cases, like the Somozas, Idi Amin, Papa Doc and Baby Doc, Bokassa, Saddam Hussein, Mobutu, etc. [[User:172|172]] 07:38, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps I might have slipped up a few times and referred to the "obvious cases" (personalistic leaders) as dictators over the past year and a half that I've been working on Wikipedia. Fair-minded users will put this in context, tough, and note my substantial contributions to this site; note that my articles tend to make the best use of references on Wikipedia (e.g., history of post-Soviet Russia has over 30); and note that I have garnered praise even from fair-minded, conservative U.S. users for being able to write neutrally on difficult, controversial topics (e.g., Franco-U.S. relations).
In close, Stan is only bringing up these red herrings to distract everyone from the real issue. He launched into a personal attack against me over my work on Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 on the mailing list with no evidence, no command of the facts, and no inclination to do any reading or check the list of sources I added to the article. Once again, his unwarranted defamation is a dishonor only to him, not to me.
-172
_________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
Abe Sokolov wrote:
(1) Stan Sheb's disingenuous claims of bias on the Berlin blockade and airlift are emphatically refuted by Wikipedia's article on the Berlin blockade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade), which I wrote.
Except, of course, for the part of it that was written by other people and that you collected from Berlin Airlift and redirected, after the expected couple rounds of reversion vs Kingturtle. I note that your addition to that one contains a bunch of creative excuses justifying the Soviet use of Berlin civilians as hostages, with no hint that anyone might possibly consider blockading a city an inhuman act.
Also, the external link on the page points out that the British were already flying in supplies by the time Truman made his decision, plus there was at least one discusion with the British about what to do, so the "consulting no one else but just several cabinet members" line is a perfect example of the kind of slant I was talking about - while it may be true that Truman personally only talked to a few people, it was not a secret dead-of-night-type decision. I believe there was also a public outcry to "do something" at the time, so Truman knew that it would be politically popular in the US; he didn't have to make up stories about WMDs in Berlin (oops, wrong context :-) ).
The "publicity stunt" line I referred is from an old version of a Cold War article anyway.
I could easily come up with hundreds more examples like this, but in the end, WP isn't paying me enough to get into endless arguments that are ultimately pointless because of your reverting habit.
Perhaps I might have slipped up a few times and referred to the "obvious cases" (personalistic leaders) as dictators over the past year and a half that I've been working on Wikipedia. Fair-minded users will put this in context, tough, and note my substantial contributions to this site; note that my articles tend to make the best use of references on Wikipedia (e.g., history of post-Soviet Russia has over 30); and note that I have garnered praise even from fair-minded, conservative U.S. users for being able to write neutrally on difficult, controversial topics (e.g., Franco-U.S. relations).
I'm not saying you haven't done good stuff, but that's not an excuse for aggressively reverting people who try to fix articles.
In close, Stan is only bringing up these red herrings to distract everyone from the real issue. He launched into a personal attack against me over my work on Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 on the mailing list with no evidence, no command of the facts, and no inclination to do any reading or check the list of sources I added to the article. Once again, his unwarranted defamation is a dishonor only to him, not to me.
Jimbo was puzzled, I helped fill him in on a situation that he probably would have been just as happy knowing nothing about. When non-experts can smell the fishiness, that should be a pretty strong hint.
Stan
Just what role do "the people" play?
And what is the fate of any Party member who opposes Castro's rule?
Such nonsense. Garbage is not food.
Fred
From: "Abe Sokolov" abesokolov@hotmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 01:33:07 +0000 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 (some responses)
Fidel is not a dictator, because no matter how popular he is, he doesn't rule Cuba, the party does (and people too).