New subject: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/RK

12 Apr 2004

I am aware that many of you are concerned with the non-stop
harassment from "Mr Natural Health". As many of you have
noted, he has made threats against me, and has made what
appear to be death threats to many others on Usenet
newsgroups. Also, a Wikipedia committee has repeatredly
found him to be a harasser, and has reccomended action
against him. Many Wikipedians have complained about his
personal attacks and harassment.

In recent days he has started going back to harass his
older self-imagined enemies, including me. MNH is again out
of control, and is engaged in edit wars, personal attacks
and vandalism of talk pages. He needs to be banned,
immediately, as many of you already suggested.

Also, Martin Harper (MyRedDice) is still censoring the
article on Palestinian Views of the Peace Process. While he
disingenuously claimed to be engage in mediation, in point
of fact, the "mediation committee" refused to take any
action at all, and effectively supported his non-stop
vandalism. I tried for over two weeks to "mediate", only to
find out that the process was a hoax.

In regards to the article, ""Palestinian views of the peace
process", Martin Harper is _still_ censoring vast amounts
of historical facts and verified quotes. Instead of 
working with others to make improvements, he is hiding
facts that he finds inconvenient. This is totally
unacceptable.

We should heed the words of Jimbo Wales on this issue: On
Fri Jan 9 14:48:08 UTC 2004 Jimbo writes about this
situation:

"But in tems of actual content, I don't see the problem.
There is no question that a full understanding of the
Palestinian situation requires understanding what
Palestinian views of the peace process actually are. There
is no question that one point of contention is whether
Palestinian leaders, in particular, view the peace process
as "permanent and irrevocable" (or similar) or whether they
view it merely as a short-term negotiating tactic in a
longterm effort to destroy Israel. Simply omitting
information on that question is unacceptable. This is an
important part of one of the major questions of our time."

On Fri Jan 9 16:24:36 UTC 2004 Jim also wrote:

"I don't really see how it's original historical research
in any way shape or form. Palestinian attitudes are well
documented and discussed -- except on Wikipedia, where
people have chosen to delete rather than work for
neutrality."

My own comment Martin Harper is deliberately violating NPOV
by only mentioning viewpoints from a limited number of
people. Viewpoints that he disagrees with, even if they are
majority views, are censored. In contrast, the material
censored actually shows a wide range of views from a wide
range of Palestinian leaders, so that Wikipedia readers can
read the range of views and make up their own mind.  Should
we allow Wikipedia to maintain NPOV? Yes! range of views
presented within the article, Jimbo Wales writes:

Fri Jan 9 17:11:56 UTC 2004 

"The text could be improved, of course. But it is very good
precisely becasue it presents "balanced and balancing
viewpoints with the proper historical context". The quotes
are dated and exact references are given. Alternative views
and background information is given. 

Many in the West are uncomfortable with this kind of
information because it doesn't comport well with the
prevailing liberal view that the Palestinians are solely
victims. Rationally, of course we can say that Palestinians
are indeed victims while simultaneously holding and
expressing reprehensible views. What we must not do is
simply omit information about Palestinian attitudes because
it doesn't match up too our rosy view of noble rebels
fighting a racist apartheid state. What I'm primarily
arguing, though, is not the content of the material. I
think that the material is good, though not excellent, but
my real point is that it can in no way be characterized as
something that ought to be simply *deleted* outright. It
should be *improved*.

In the present case, we see why deletion is bad. We are
left with a horribly broken presentation in which readers
are unable to discover why it might be that, despite the
PLO officially no longer calling for the destruction of
Israel, and Arafat himself announcing a right to exist, the
majority of Palestinians polled support the destruction of
Israel.

We can only come to understand that better when we come to
understand Arafat's duplicity, and the anti-Israel
propaganda that is rampant in the Palestinian culture. But
because some supporters of Palestine are uncomfortable with
that material, it is censored from Wikipedia. No, I don't
think censorship is too strong a word."

-- end quote --

(Again, I would have been happy to engage in mediation. I
was saddened to see that in fact, it does not exist.)

Robert (RK)

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Mr Natural Health and Martin Harper again out of control