Certainly people who are mistreated are likely to become angry. I don't know why some people bear mistreatment patiently, while others become filled with murderous rage. If anyone can discover the answer, I hope they will include it in a Wikipedia article.
One thing I'm interested in, is how much the anger of Palestinian nationalists is due to mistreatment by Israel -- compared to how much is frustration because of rejection by Islamic nations to assimilate refugees -- and also how much is due to rabble-rousing by groups dedicated to Israel's destruction. How's that for a "dangerous question"?
Ed Poor
>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>>Daniel Mayer wrote:
>>
>>>6) State that we have no intention of ever removing
>>> es.wikipedia.com but we could point that URL to
the
>>> Seville server is they wish to stay on that
server.
>>
>>I don't think this is acceptable. Without sever
unity,
>>there is no way for us to enforce openness. If they
>>start to ban people for political reasons, forming a
>>'cabal', we would be powerless to stop them.
>
>And they would be powerless to stop you.
Answered on the International mailing list.
__________________________________________________
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>First, it's not only a problem of bias but also a problem of language
>difficulties - it takes me more than three times longer to write in
>English than in German. Plus, often it's a question of subtle nouances of
>formulations which make the difference in the neutrality of an article,
>as I tried to point out. As a non-native speaker I can feel that something
>is "smelling" but my corrections would eventually make things only
>worse. (I already had such a problem in a discussion with maverick where I
>still don't know what exactly I got wrong in grammar - anyway, sorry mav)
>
>Third, I have serious doubts that the normal wikipedian strategy you
>described would work in this special area. My impression was that articles
>tend to grow longer and longer, each writer adding deeds, arguments,
>objections, denials, accusations of each side, leaving it totally to the
>reader to sort out the relevant material. This is not my vision of a
>NPOV-encyclopedia and nothing I want to participate in.
>
>Finally, I could do, but you would agree that 15 simultaneous edit wars
>are not a very pleasant situation to be in?
>
>So I'd prefer a consensual attempt to make the articles NPOV, which seems
>to be made possible by Ed's generous offer. Maybe I should also talk to
>Uriyan.
>
>greetings,
>elian
Elian,
As you pointed out, there are many obstacles to fixing these articles. Writing in English is time-consuming, and the nuances are hard to master. The edit war which results from accusation and denial just makes it worse.
One practice that seems to work well, is when a partisan for one side does his best to explain the viewpoint of the other side. Stephen Covey once described a debate in which neither side was permitted to say a single word about their own views, until they had first restated the opposing viewpoint _to the satisfaction of the other side_.
Sometimes, I'm just too close to a subject to be able to step back and write neutrally. I don't know why, but I just start to think, "But this is RIGHT! Why do I have to give equal time to nonsense?" At such a time, a third party who can step in would be welcome.
I appreciate the confidence you and some others place in me, but I have doubts about how helpful I can really be. I don't remember whether I have revealed my biases yet. (I think Israel should annex Gaza and West Bank; Palestinian Arabs can either tolerate subjection to Israeli authority, or emigrate to a friendly neighbor like Jordan, Egypt or Syria.)
Is it really possible for a person holding this view to write _neutrally_ about it or about opposing views? Some Wikipedians think I can do it, and some think I can't.
Another obstacle is the amount of time it will take. I would say at least two years. Several contributors have given up after a few weeks.
Another problem I have no idea how to solve, because I might be part of the problem, is the personal attacks between contributors. "You're a troll." "Oh, yeah? You're a *&@#$!" If I step in, both sides immediately say, "He started it." "No, he started it. All I was saying was..." "Yeah, but he...." When I proposed to ban one party for as short as 24 hours, several long-time contributors criticized me for exceeding my authority. (What authority? You have none!) These critics were all correct: only Jimbo can ban a signed-in contributor, and he's only done so one time.
Can we make peace on Wikipedia by silencing "troublemakers"? Perhaps even to think so shows that I failed to grasp the essence of "neutral point of view".
I do want to work with you, Elian. But it will be a lot of hard work. And it will not be smooth sailing.
I think we should continue to discuss "how to approach" these pages, here, on the mailing list. Specific questions about how to describe facts, ideas and viewpoints are probably best left to the talk pages of the articles themselves.
Ed Poor
Google isn't picking up our images. does anyone know why? (I for one would like them to be indexed--no point in giving pictures away if nobody knows they're there.) ;-)
Maybe it's a non-issue.
cheers,
kq
Thank you, Elian. That was very well put. As one of those who have contributed to the pro-Israeli bias, I must apologize.
I also find the pages you mention very one-sided. I don't know enough about the situation to fix it myself.
If there is anything I can do to help you to fix these pages, please let me know. I offer my editing services to you.
Ed Poor
From: elian [mailto:elian@gmx.li]
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] NPOV and the israeli-palestinian conflict
When I discovered Wikipedia I was really fascinated and decided to join
the project. One of my first selfimposed limitations before I even knew
about the NPOV-policy, however, was not to write about the
Israeli-palestinian conflict because I consider myself as biased (having
friends who are palestinian refugees).
[snip]
WojPob wrote:
>The google image search feature isn't really that great
>compared to their 'normal' index, IMO.
I would say not. I searched for "kiwifruit", scrolled through everything, and saw nothing but mediocre pictures.
What I wanted was to be able to search for the subject & find it. Funny that.... I'm surprised Google hasn't figured out how to do this.
kq
Someone noted on [[Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links]] that
[[Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links]] was locked. Going back to the
page, I noted that it was, clicked on unlock (there is no good reason to lock
this page, while there is a good reason to not lock it, namely giving people
the chance to remove pages they have fixed). But after that, the page
remained locked. What is going on?
Andre Engels
On Thursday 03 October 2002 04:22 pm, you wrote:
> Google isn't picking up our images. does anyone know why? (I for one
> would like them to be indexed--no point in giving pictures away if nobody
> knows they're there.) ;-)
>
> Maybe it's a non-issue.
>
> cheers,
>
> kq
I would classify this as a bug report. Please file it at;
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=34373&atid=411192
I have a feature request that I'd first like to put on the mailing list,
before putting it at SourceForge.
When I use the search feature, I am frequently annoyed by the large
number of pages showing up that are simply redirects. When I type
Zimbabwe, I might also be interested in "History of Zimbabwe", which
shows up. I am, however, not interested in the redirect
"Zimbabwe/History", which is a previous location of that same article. I
know it is important to keep that redirect for linking (both internal
and external), but it is not useful for searching. The same holds for
all other pages that were moved because of some naming convention or
change in policy, or moved across namespaces (as a side note, I'd like
to be able to search in Wikipedia: namespace articles as well, there are
getting too much of these pages).
My proposal is to make two kinds of redirects. The first type is the
type we currently have, the second one is different in that it still
redirects those visiting it, but the page does not show up in any
searches. I think this can be implemented relatively easy (a "flag" in
the database might do the trick), but I'm not sure if that is true; it
may have some performance impact. However, I do think this is an
important feature with respect to those that are using Wikipedia as an
encyclopedia: you want to find thing fast, and not get 231 article title
matches if searching for "Wikipedia" (which is only the 19th hit, anyway).
Of course, it would be necessary to check all redirects over time to see
if it should be a "silent" redirect or not, but that's a one-time thing.
Jeronimo