Wikipedia editors: Coverage of Israel 'problematic' *******************************************************************************
Wikipedia's coverage of Israel-related issues is "problematic," leading Israeli internet researchers claimed Sunday at the Wikipedia Academy 2009 Conference dealing with the world's largest encyclopedia. The conference was organized by Wikimedia's volunteer-based Israel chapter and Tel Aviv University's Netvision Institute for Internet Studies. However, the Web site's leading manager said it merely reflected public discourse.
******************************************************************************* Full Article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082777.html
On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 10:29 PM, K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Full Article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082777.html
It would be interesting if they did any research and published it, along with any arguments they might have for why they think something should be such. I'm not too impressed with the notion of sticking a label like "Holocaust-denier" on anyone, just as I would advise against using any other "denier" labels we might think of...
And the real point here is that someone like Mahmoud is not so much a "denier" as he is an 'Iranian conservative Islamic theocrat politician' who for merely geographic reasons alone, has to pander to the local anti-Israel blame-game. Just as Israeli hawks do successfully with their own pet issues. And moreover people aren't really ever "deniers" anyway, as much as they are just "people who reject certain concepts, for certain reasons," and "people who think and say really stupid things."
So anyway while the labels make for pleasant and efficient stigmanyms, they ultimately only piss decent people off, and demonstrate a concept of ill-will on the part of the labeller(s). And anyway it's more important to just accurately quote the idiotic things certain people like Mahmoud and others sometimes say, and let such speak for itself.
A label can be quite heated. And what more does one need to know but that heat is not light.
-SV
K. Peachey wrote:
Wikipedia editors: Coverage of Israel 'problematic'
Wikipedia's coverage of Israel-related issues is "problematic," leading Israeli internet researchers claimed Sunday at the Wikipedia Academy 2009 Conference dealing with the world's largest encyclopedia. The conference was organized by Wikimedia's volunteer-based Israel chapter and Tel Aviv University's Netvision Institute for Internet Studies. However, the Web site's leading manager said it merely reflected public discourse.
If the worst that can be said is that lead sections don't follow someone's editorial line (David Irving is a historian, by anyone's definition, even if he has destroyed his own reputation), then things aren't too bad. To research serious NPOV problems in an area on WP, you have to do more than scroll down articles about obviously sensitive topics until you find something you personally disagree with. Ahmadinejad and Irving are Israel-related in that they are both commentators on the Shoah; I was expecting more about articles that are obviously in [[Category:Israel]]. Perhaps the Haaretz article doesn't do justice to the study; the piece looks like it is drawn from a press release. The use of understatement in summary style is at least good taste, if the full article is setting out a detailed position. Wikipedia is allowed a house style that restricts the use of certain appositive phrases, and is chary of using such a contested term as "terrorist" (these are things it has in common with major news outlets, which is Sue Gardner's point).
Charles