Re: "Here is a typical example of 172's ad hominem that really ought to be out of bounds, and yet quite a few people seem to be OK with it. Why is anybody willing to put up with these kinds of low attacks?"
Why didn't you quote me in full, huh?
Here's the full quotation: "BTW, an aunt of mine was murdered by the Stalinist USSR. Aside from her one surviving sibling, the rest of her family was murdered by Nazi Germany. I don't need some senile, 1950s era U.S. McCarthyite throwback lecturing me about totalitarianism."
Sure, this is harsh. But the difference is that I didn't jump into the mailing list discussion out of the blue to attack Fred Bauder; instead, I was defending myself. As mentioned, my contributions on Soviet history on Wikipedia are entirely in mainstream of Western academic Soviet and Russia studies. If you have any evidence to the contrary, this is a matter to bring up on the individual talk pages of articles.
Now, regarding "the personal attacks," if Fred stops practicing McCarthyism against me on the mailing list, I will have no need to defend myself (in a sometimes ineloquent manner, I admit) against his attacks on my academic credibility and character on the mailing list. If he can apologize and agree to quit slandering me, I'll retract those comments and agree to stay cordial in my dealings with him in the future. The same goes for you.
-172
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You fail to mention that the mainstream you speak of is called the revisionist school.
Fred
From: "Abe Sokolov" abesokolov@hotmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2004 18:52:58 +0000 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Can we ban 172 now? And VV too! (in response to Stan)
As mentioned, my contributions on Soviet history on Wikipedia are entirely in mainstream of Western academic Soviet and Russia studies.
Maybe only in the United States....
This debate is really good example of why some of us are sick to death of some sections/editors of Wikipedia.
Fred is not stupid - he is well aware that revisionism is a POV term. I think he also knows he is partisan (although not in the same league as the utterly brainwashed VV), and edits from what I would describe as a national POV.
My conclusion is that people are fighting what they see as a moral crusade - that Wikipedia exists to put the world to rights, to speak the objective truth about X issue etc etc.
The problem with these latter day cold warriors is that they are utterly impossible to work with. The world is not neatly divided into black and white, good vs evil. Progandanda (whoevers) is not fact.
This really needs to be sorted out for the good of the project. People are leaving, I edit for a fraction of the time I used to - I used to do 5+ hours a day - I now do 10 mins or so.
Nobody wants a war of attrition with partisans of any description.
Caroline
Fred Bauder wrote:
You fail to mention that the mainstream you speak of is called the revisionist school.
Fred
From: "Abe Sokolov" abesokolov@hotmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2004 18:52:58 +0000 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Can we ban 172 now? And VV too! (in response to Stan)
As mentioned, my contributions on Soviet history on Wikipedia are entirely in mainstream of Western academic Soviet and Russia studies.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Abe Sokolov wrote:
Re: "Here is a typical example of 172's ad hominem that really ought to be out of bounds, and yet quite a few people seem to be OK with it. Why is anybody willing to put up with these kinds of low attacks?"
Why didn't you quote me in full, huh?
Because there's no possible excuse for personal attacks. It doesn't matter how strongly you feel about the issue, your personal history, nothing. Critiquing behavior and statements, sure, go wild - if Fred or I say something stupid, it's perfectly fine to respond "that was a stupid thing to say". But to go from that to "Fred is senile", that is not OK. Calling it "harshness" or "ineloquence" is not an excuse; I know you're smart enough to know full well the difference between an attack on what someone says, and an attack on them personally.
If that's not convincing, then consider the likely outcome if *everybody* on WP is allowed to cut loose with the personal attacks all the time. Rest assured, I have some pretty nasty thoughts about people here, plus the vocabulary and creativity to make attacks that will amuse the audience while ulcerating the victim. (Fish with Google Groups to get a partial sample of my youthful and less-honed flaming - alas, some of my best material seems not have been archived.)
Stan
Abe Sokolov wrote:
Now, regarding "the personal attacks," if Fred stops practicing McCarthyism against me on the mailing list, I will have no need to defend myself (in a sometimes ineloquent manner, I admit) against his attacks on my academic credibility and character on the mailing list. If he can apologize and agree to quit slandering me, I'll retract those comments and agree to stay cordial in my dealings with him in the future. The same goes for you.
You really shouldn't take it so personally. If I remember the McCarthy hearings correctly, being a Communist was not a pre-requisite to being called one.
Ec