Can the Wikipedia say that a certain person is anti-Semitic? Or must an article step back and say only that the person is "regarded as anti-Semitic?"
Does it serve our neutrality policy to say rather that such a person is "universally regarded" or "all but universally regarded" as anti-Semitic?
Consider the following:
If someone ever quotes a Wikipedia article in a newspaper or book, should they be able to say, "According to Wikipedia, Joe Blow is anti-Semitic".
My interpretation of our neutrality policy may be a bit shaky, but something smells wrong here. The hypothetical quote above makes it seems like we are endorsing a view.
Is there any difference between stating that a certain person studied at a university and stating that the person "is anti-Semitic"?
Perhaps I am making a fact-value distinction: * studied at the university (fact) * is anti-Semitic (value judgement)
I'm not really asking for a chorus of opinions from the list, but an authoritative, once-and-for-all pronouncement from the Founders.
Ed Poor
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1998, says that Anti-Semitism is "Opposition to, or hatred of, Semites, esp. Jews.".
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
Can the Wikipedia say that a certain person is anti-Semitic? Or must an article step back and say only that the person is "regarded as anti-Semitic?"
Well, this may not be helpful in the important borderline cases, but some people declare themselves to be anti-Semitic.
Does it serve our neutrality policy to say rather that such a person is "universally regarded" or "all but universally regarded" as anti-Semitic?
In some cases, yes. But we need not add these sorts of qualifiers unless there does exist someone (noteworthy) who says otherwise. "Although the Institute for Historical Change is all but universally regarded as anti-Semitic, the Institute itself denies it, claiming instead blah blah blah." Compare with "Both critics and defenders of The Institute for Changing History agree that it is anti-Semitic." Or "KillTheJews.com is an openly anti-Semitic website."
(All examples made up just now. Real examples exist, of course.)
If someone ever quotes a Wikipedia article in a newspaper or book, should they be able to say, "According to Wikipedia, Joe Blow is anti-Semitic".
It's possible, but because the term is "hot", it's unlikely.
"According to Wikipedia, Joe Blow is a Canadian citizen." Of course, if Joe Blow _denies_ it, or if there is any significant opposition, then we should "go meta" and not assert it ourselves, even if we think it's true.
Is there any difference between stating that a certain person studied at a university and stating that the person "is anti-Semitic"?
Perhaps I am making a fact-value distinction:
- studied at the university (fact)
- is anti-Semitic (value judgement)
I see the point you are making, except that being anti-Semitic isn't always a value judgment, and is sometimes just a simple fact. It turns out, of course, that in the vast majority of cases, the label is at issue.
Some people legitimately say "I'm not anti-Semitic, I just oppose the specific policies of the Israeli government." Other people illegitimately say "I'm not anti-Semitic, but I don't want Jews in my neighborhood."
But I guess there are some people who openly embrace the term.
I'm not really asking for a chorus of opinions from the list, but an authoritative, once-and-for-all pronouncement from the Founders.
Not my style, exactly, for better or worse. :-)
So how's this for a non-authoritative, tentative and subject to change pronouncement:
In almost all cases, it's better to go meta with a contentious label like anti-Semitic. This need not involve soft-pedalling the issue.
------------
Here's another possibly contentious term: "white supremacist". The difference here is that the term is not as often applied to people who don't accept the term. Saying that the KKK is a white supremacist organization is uncontroversial, even though the term does carry with it, to normal people, a negative moral judgment.
Here's a real website: http://www.jewwatch.com/ I only mention them to condemn them and hold them up for ridicule. They are anti-Semitic, and I'd feel comfortable with the Wikipedia saying so.
--Jimbo
I'm not really asking for a chorus of opinions from the list, but an authoritative, once-and-for-all pronouncement from the Founders.
That's all nice and good, but before you do so, you should present an accurate and complete summary of the facts that made you pose this question.
1) Since Clutch started an Edit War by unilaterally removing large parts of the Richard Wagner article on the English Wikipedia (one of several edit wars he got involved in yesterday), that article has been edited back and forth.
2) Specifically, it has been debated whether statements about Wagner's anti-Semitism should be part of the article, or moved into a separate article because they "distract" from Wagner's work as Clutch argued. Unfortunately, so far, Clutch has succeeded in separating this part from the main article, even though we include dubious and extensive claims about anti-Semitism in the Noam Chomsky article.
3) That Wagner was an anti-Semite has not seriously been disputed by anyone, including Clutch. Wagner's publication "Das Judenthum in der Musik", where he accuses Jews of being hateful, greedy, powerful and heartless matches any reasonable definition of anti-Semitism perfectly.
4) Ed has repeatedly used his administrative powers to protect the page in an attempt to prevent edit conflicts. At first, I had no problem with that, but now he is getting involved in the debate and locking the page from further edits to protect his version at the same time.
5) Ed holds the position that, even if nobody disagrees with the fact that Wagner was an anti-Semite, it should be attributed, even if the attribution is something as fishy as "is universally regarded as".
6) I have countered this position with the analogy of requiring similar attribution for statements like "Wagner attended university at ..".
The point here is, if there is no disagreement about facts among people whose opinions are verifiable and should be included in the article, I see no point in attributing any claims, regardless of the nature of the statement. As someone (Jimbo?) pointed out in the North Korea example, if North Korea actually disputes the numbers, that's a verifiable fact. If somebody, say, disputed the authenticity of Wagner's publication, that would be a verifiable fact. In these cases, we would clearly have to tone down the claims. But if there are no counter-opinions, why should we?
Furthermore, I consider Ed's use of his administrative privileges to protect articles he is involved in an abuse of said privileges. He should only use them in the way he initially did, as a "time out" to direct discussions in case of conflicts to the talk page, but he should not even do that if he states a position in the matter. Otherwise he is no longer a sysop or a moderator but an editor, which is not the function assigned to him. If I recall correctly, this is not the first time this has come up, so I think some kind of reaction is in order.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
- Ed has repeatedly used his administrative powers to protect the page in
an attempt to prevent edit conflicts. At first, I had no problem with that, but now he is getting involved in the debate and locking the page from further edits to protect his version at the same time.
That sounds like a bad idea, and I'm sure Ed will not do this.
- Ed holds the position that, even if nobody disagrees with the fact that
Wagner was an anti-Semite, it should be attributed, even if the attribution is something as fishy as "is universally regarded as".
Well, that seems like a good way to compromise. It doesn't soft-pedal anything, but it gets us out of the business of making a potentially controversial judgment.
I don't know must about Wagner's anti-semitism (though I don't doubt it), so I don't know if anyone disputes it. Would Wagner have disputed it?
Furthermore, I consider Ed's use of his administrative privileges to protect articles he is involved in an abuse of said privileges. He should only use them in the way he initially did, as a "time out" to direct discussions in case of conflicts to the talk page, but he should not even do that if he states a position in the matter.
I agree that it's not good to use administrative powers "in the heat of battle".
Do you want sysop access, Erik? You should have it.
--Jimbo
On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 08:38:29AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I agree that it's not good to use administrative powers "in the heat of battle". Do you want sysop access, Erik? You should have it.
Given Eriks partisan war-editing, I humbly request that he not be given sysop powers. I don't trust him to use them wisely.
Jonathan
Jonathan Walther wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I agree that it's not good to use administrative powers "in the heat of battle". Do you want sysop access, Erik? You should have it.
Given Eriks partisan war-editing, I humbly request that he not be given sysop powers. I don't trust him to use them wisely.
OTC, he's the one arguing that sysop powers shouldn't be used in edit wars.
I support giving Erik (Eloquence) administrator status on [[en:]].
Discussion of this should move to <wikiEN-l>.
-- Toby
On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 10:02:23AM -0800, Toby Bartels wrote:
Given Eriks partisan war-editing, I humbly request that he not be given sysop powers. I don't trust him to use them wisely.
OTC, he's the one arguing that sysop powers shouldn't be used in edit wars.
Wrong. He only protested Ed's use of sysop powers when the version he wanted didn't get frozen; he didn't complain when Ed froze versions I didn't like earlier.
Erik was very involved himself in edit-warring; not good attributes for a sysop.
Jonathan
Well, that seems like a good way to compromise. It doesn't soft-pedal anything, but it gets us out of the business of making a potentially controversial judgment.
Jimbo, I know you like compromise, but I generally prefer consistency. If we do this in this article, we should use a phrase such as "is universally regarded as" in any sentence that falls into the same class, i.e. makes a value statement about a person that the majority sees as negative, but which is nevertheless not disputed. Is this a policy you would want?
I don't know must about Wagner's anti-semitism (though I don't doubt it), so I don't know if anyone disputes it. Would Wagner have disputed it?
Hard to tell. Perhaps he would have called himself "anti-Jewish". I have not read any of the countless books about Wagner (I just got involved after the edit-war with Clutch broke out), but the summaries I have found of even the more revisionist books of which there are plenty state something like "Wagner was an anti-Semite, there can be no doubt about it. But .."
Do you want sysop access, Erik? You should have it.
"I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment" ;-). I think it's good for some of the more involved people to keep an eye on how it looks from down here instead of up there, if you know what I mean.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimbo, I know you like compromise, but I generally prefer consistency. If we do this in this article, we should use a phrase such as "is universally regarded as" in any sentence that falls into the same class, i.e. makes a value statement about a person that the majority sees as negative, but which is nevertheless not disputed. Is this a policy you would want?
But there are further distinguishing characteristics here, I think. Each case will be different, and so no general rule of this type is advisable.
"I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment" ;-). I think it's good for some of the more involved people to keep an eye on how it looks from down here instead of up there, if you know what I mean.
Yow, then I need to re-emphasize what sysop powers are all about.
There is no "down here" and "up there". Sysop powers are purely a technical matter, to be treated solely in that capacity. They should not be used as tools or weapons in a debate.
We are all wikipedians, meeting on the equal field of wiki. That is why people are upset at Ed Poor for protecting the page.
--Jimbo
Wagner was not defined by his anti-Semitism; he was defined by his music, which was universally humanist. To make his anti-Semitism out to be as important as his music is really really unbalanced. The version Ed had was fine. Noone today reads any of Wagners "anti-Semitic" works, but millions listen to his music with pleasure. It is appropriate that it be mentioned Wagner was anti-Semitic, but to devote more than a passing mention to it as if it was the man's raison d'etre for existing does a gross injustice to a man who is dead and unable to defend himself.
You should be thankful Ed was protecting the page; where Ed left in a whole paragraph on Wagners anti-Semitism, I wanted to reduce it to a single sentence. But I can live with Ed's version as an acceptable compromise.
Jonathan
On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 05:33:31PM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
I'm not really asking for a chorus of opinions from the list, but an authoritative, once-and-for-all pronouncement from the Founders.
That's all nice and good, but before you do so, you should present an accurate and complete summary of the facts that made you pose this question.
- Since Clutch started an Edit War by unilaterally removing large parts of
the Richard Wagner article on the English Wikipedia (one of several edit wars he got involved in yesterday), that article has been edited back and forth.
- Specifically, it has been debated whether statements about Wagner's
anti-Semitism should be part of the article, or moved into a separate article because they "distract" from Wagner's work as Clutch argued. Unfortunately, so far, Clutch has succeeded in separating this part from the main article, even though we include dubious and extensive claims about anti-Semitism in the Noam Chomsky article.
- That Wagner was an anti-Semite has not seriously been disputed by anyone,
including Clutch. Wagner's publication "Das Judenthum in der Musik", where he accuses Jews of being hateful, greedy, powerful and heartless matches any reasonable definition of anti-Semitism perfectly.
- Ed has repeatedly used his administrative powers to protect the page in
an attempt to prevent edit conflicts. At first, I had no problem with that, but now he is getting involved in the debate and locking the page from further edits to protect his version at the same time.
- Ed holds the position that, even if nobody disagrees with the fact that
Wagner was an anti-Semite, it should be attributed, even if the attribution is something as fishy as "is universally regarded as".
- I have countered this position with the analogy of requiring similar
attribution for statements like "Wagner attended university at ..".
The point here is, if there is no disagreement about facts among people whose opinions are verifiable and should be included in the article, I see no point in attributing any claims, regardless of the nature of the statement. As someone (Jimbo?) pointed out in the North Korea example, if North Korea actually disputes the numbers, that's a verifiable fact. If somebody, say, disputed the authenticity of Wagner's publication, that would be a verifiable fact. In these cases, we would clearly have to tone down the claims. But if there are no counter-opinions, why should we?
Furthermore, I consider Ed's use of his administrative privileges to protect articles he is involved in an abuse of said privileges. He should only use them in the way he initially did, as a "time out" to direct discussions in case of conflicts to the talk page, but he should not even do that if he states a position in the matter. Otherwise he is no longer a sysop or a moderator but an editor, which is not the function assigned to him. If I recall correctly, this is not the first time this has come up, so I think some kind of reaction is in order.
Jonathan Walther wrote:
Wagner was not defined by his anti-Semitism; he was defined by his music, which was universally humanist. To make his anti-Semitism out to be as important as his music is really really unbalanced. The version Ed had was fine. Noone today reads any of Wagners "anti-Semitic" works, but millions listen to his music with pleasure. It is appropriate that it be mentioned Wagner was anti-Semitic, but to devote more than a passing mention to it as if it was the man's raison d'etre for existing does a gross injustice to a man who is dead and unable to defend himself.
You should be thankful Ed was protecting the page; where Ed left in a whole paragraph on Wagners anti-Semitism, I wanted to reduce it to a single sentence. But I can live with Ed's version as an acceptable compromise.
Sigh! I have to support Jonathan's view on this one. Some people unfortunately treat it as a virtue to emphasize somebody's anti-Semitism.
Eclecticology
Eloquence wrote in part:
- Ed holds the position that, even if nobody disagrees with the fact that
Wagner was an anti-Semite, it should be attributed, even if the attribution is something as fishy as "is universally regarded as".
But Wagner is *not* universally regarded as anti-Semitic. This means that we clearly have to make it "widely regarded", regardless of whether we should state as fact what is universally regarded.
I will try to find an argument that I read against the charge (and not on some sort of revisionist web site either!), so that I can summarise it on Wikipedia. But the gist was that anti-Semitism is a nationalist philosophy originiating in the 19th century that goes beyond merely accepting a society's dominant prejudices. Analogously, there's a difference between being a white supremacist and believing that blacks commit more crimes than whites in the US (a false but not uncommon belief here).
-- Toby
what the heck... couldn't you start this debate at another time than four days before my master's exam? ;-)
Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu writes:
But the gist was that anti-Semitism is a nationalist philosophy originiating in the 19th century that goes beyond merely accepting a society's dominant prejudices.
Toby gets the problem: Anti-Semitism is a concept of the 19th century. And its full consequences showed up in the 20th century (holocaust). Today, under the background of the holocaust, the term is one of the most evil reproaches you can think of. At least here in Germany, if you accuse someone successfully of anti-semitism, he can forget any career forever.
So, if Wagner called himself an Anti-semite, he did this under totally different circumstances and in the meanwhile the term changed its connotations - from stupid mainstream ressentiments against Jews to a very likely support of Hitler's murder of Jews. Would he also have called himself Anti-Semite if he knew of the Holocaust?
To put this problem on a meta-level: can we apply a concept or a term of the 20th century to something prior to it?
Can we call Plato's conception of state totalitarian? Is it appropriate to call the Prophet Muhammad, living in the 7th century an anti-semite?
Is it okay to call Aristoteles a sexist and criticize him for denying women the right to vote?
There is no right or final answer to these questions, but we have to think about it.
Just a small glance in the future: _if_ the Israelis adopted suddenly a policy of exterminating systematically _all_ Palestinians (some say they do already) - is then everybody who says today "I don't like these quarreling people, the Israelis are right to fight them" (like some American journalists and politicians do) a supporter of genocide?
Will Wikipedia in 50 years write "Dick Armey was Anti-Palestinian" and this will carry the same meaning as if you would say today someone is anti-semite? [1]
Concerning Ed's alleged abuse of sysop power: it should be noted that no other sysop on Wikipedia is so engaged in "hot" topics and trying to settle edit wars. I don't consider protecting pages a good way to achieve this but opinions may differ here. I support that Ed keeps his sysop status.
Rather I'd suggest a temporary ban of RK because of repeated NPOV abuses, if that didn't entail accusations of Anti-Semitism on Wikipedia.
For people who like to write good articles about anti-semitism, I want to point out that there is some work to do at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AThe_dark_side_of_Wikipedia As I have already said to Ed, I won't touch these articles.
greetings, elian [1] http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article569.shtml BTW, _if_ this interview transcript is correct - I don't trust the source entirely -, replace Israel with Germany and Palestinians with Jews and these sentences could pass for a Nazi's statement of the 1920ties. For the people not familiar with German history: longtime there was no mention of actually killing Jews, mostly the Nazis called for a "transfer of the Jews" and held that "Germany belonged to the Germans", where Germany was meant to comprise also the "vast spaces in the East", settled by the Polish etc. - these people should also be "transfered"...
On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 07:32:36PM +0100, elian wrote:
Rather I'd suggest a temporary ban of RK because of repeated NPOV abuses, if that didn't entail accusations of Anti-Semitism on Wikipedia.
My earlier statements requesting clarification of Wikipedia policy came from my observing the way RK on the one hand, ignores it, and on the other hand accuses others of ignoring it.
I too would support a temporary ban of RK. He is always biasing things.
RK may be a Jew, but banning him for his persistent and long-standing disrespect for the NPOV policy does NOT constitute anti-Semitism.
Seeing RK receive some consequences for his behavior would go a long way toward reassuring me that it is safe to stick to the NPOV approach without fear of people like him instantly reverting my edits and calling me an "anti-Semitic vandal".
RK has recently branched out from attacking the Jehovah's Witness articles and started biasing the articles on Mormonism and drove away some Mormon contributors who were contributing NPOV material based on their firsthand experience.
Also, I have caught RK making some edits to the JW articles that show he clearly is pulling information out of his ass. One item in particular: he wrote "Book X published by the JW's claims Y about changes in their doctrines." In fact, that book makes the opposite case. It is part of a long-standing pattern of abuse where RK has shown his only interest is to dig up muck on a group, and not to provide a neutral, balanced view.
URL here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Doctrines_of_Jehovah%27s_Witness...
A lot of RK's bias consists of emotionally loaded terms. Everything is "alleged" or "claimed" or "mysteriously". Or he will say "All scholars disagree" and other similar absolute statements. Worse than his edits are his attacks on people who try to neutralize his emotionally laden verbage to something more suitable to the Wikipedia.
Jonathan
Jonathan Walther krooger@debian.org writes:
On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 07:32:36PM +0100, elian wrote:
Rather I'd suggest a temporary ban of RK because of repeated NPOV abuses, if that didn't entail accusations of Anti-Semitism on Wikipedia.
My earlier statements requesting clarification of Wikipedia policy came from my observing the way RK on the one hand, ignores it, and on the other hand accuses others of ignoring it.
I too would support a temporary ban of RK. He is always biasing things.
You misunderstood. I don't call for a ban of RK.
First, I consider myself (like you, too) in regard to RK's writings as clearly biased and not able to judge if he deserves a ban. It seems to me that he really has NPOV in mind, but is too mangled in his hatred against anything he considers as anti-semitic to realize how biased his own writings are. However, I would prefer if anybody whose emotions go that high refrains voluntarily from writing in this area. I trust people like Julie more to write accurately and adequately about Wagner's anti-semitism.
Second, I consider a ban as really dangerous. As I already pointed out in my previous posting, even a rumour of anti-semitism (justified or unjustified) is likely to seriously harm Wikipedia.
Better be anti-Arab, it is politically a lot more opportune...
greetings, elian
elian wrote:
It seems to me that he really has NPOV in mind, but is too mangled in his hatred against anything he considers as anti-semitic to realize how biased his own writings are.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you about RK, because I haven't read much of the relevant writings, but I suspect that virtually everyone has some "hot button" issue where NPOV writing will be difficult. I wouldn't trust myself, for example, to write an article on John Kenneth Galbraith, who I consider a fascist blithering idiot. :-)
However, I would prefer if anybody whose emotions go that high refrains voluntarily from writing in this area.
Certainly good advice. Unfortunately, it is also true that people tend to know a lot about their "hot button" issues, and therefore have the ability to write a lot about them.
Better be anti-Arab, it is politically a lot more opportune...
Better, still, of course, is to not get involved on the level of advocacy at all.
--Jimbo
On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 04:59:28AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Certainly good advice. Unfortunately, it is also true that people tend to know a lot about their "hot button" issues, and therefore have the ability to write a lot about them.
Jimmy, I caught RK pulling 'facts' out of his ass, and provided a link to it. Bias is one thing, but outright fabrication should be taken seriously. Do you take it seriously? Do we as an encyclopedia take it seriously? I personally take it very seriously.
Better be anti-Arab, it is politically a lot more opportune...
Better, still, of course, is to not get involved on the level of advocacy at all.
I believe what elian was saying is, he is both afraid, and too exhausted to correct the Zionist bias RK keeps inserting into articles. He is not alone; there are an incredible number of others in the same situation. RK frequently abuses the "Vandalism in Progress" page and yells at contributors who are interested in the NPOV.
I'd like to know which is more important to you: RK, or NPOV?
Jonathan
(That Subject's a joke, ah say, a JOKE, son...)
On the dispute involving the bias (whichever way) on pages relating to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, and particularly RK's expression thereof: This particular aspect of this topic has come up before. The old discussion is available at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitism_vs_Anti-Zionism
and could well be used for further permutations of the discussion, if people want to see that off the list.
In deference to SLR, who explained that for historical reasons many feel the term "anti-Zionism" is threatening, I've personally substituted "anti Israeli government policy" or "anti Israeli imperialism" in my own writings. Yeah, it's longer, but it leads to far less confusion as to what exactly I'm disagreeing with. :) It may conceivably help to moderate disputes with RK to use such precise language, though yes, I have known him to be pretty quick off the mark in accusing others of being anti-Semitic.
Now, as to real anti-Semitism. It doesn't at all seem out of place to spend, say, a paragraph discussing the prejudices of a historically important person. It shouldn't be the first paragraph, and should come after a more lengthy discussion of why the person was historically important. However, unless the latter strongly relates to the former, a paragraph should be sufficient, and anyone wanting to discuss the aspect in more detail can then spin off a separate article.
The key points of a biographical entry, as I think of it, are to hit on a person's life history in brief, their personality and attitudes, and their contributions (positive or negative) to society and history at large. Noting that Wagner was a seriously disagreeable person to many, that his affairs were notorious, and that his prejudices were vehement has a place; for one, it detracts from the sort of "hero worship" seen in the past by "great man" school biographers. It presents a more realistic view of a complete human being. Feet of clay, and all that.
In sum: if the discussion of Wagner's anti-Semitism dwarfs the remainder of the article, it should be reduced (and/or the rest of the article seriously built up.) If it's discussed briefly, preferably with mention of the historical context, that seems reasonable. Here endeth long-winded opinion.
-- April
Jonathan Walther wrote:
I too would support a temporary ban of RK. He is always biasing things.
We aren't going to get into banning people like RK, unless he's doing things that I'm not aware of.
RK may be a Jew, but banning him for his persistent and long-standing disrespect for the NPOV policy does NOT constitute anti-Semitism.
No, of course not. I don't think anyone would seriously suggest otherwise. Your mentioning it seems unwarranted in this context.
The wiki process and a social culture of co-operation gives us plenty of tools to deal with bias.
--Jimbo
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
Can the Wikipedia say that a certain person is anti-Semitic? Or must an article step back and say only that the person is "regarded as anti-Semitic?"
Does it serve our neutrality policy to say rather that such a person is "universally regarded" or "all but universally regarded" as anti-Semitic.
"Anti-Semitic", or even the subtly different "anti-semitic", is a characterization which, like "murderous tyrants", has a broad range of interpretations that depend on personal points of view. Even insisting that a person who uses the term must use the term exactly as it is defined in [[Anti-semitism]] doesn't help us. Most of them probably will not have read that article. If they don't read the NPOV article.....!
The phrase "is regarded" is another problem. Like any grammatically passive phrase, it begs the question, "By whom?"
Saying that Joe Blow is anti-Semitic is an ad hominem argument, unlike saying that Joe Blow's statement was anti-Semitic. So characterizing the statement is far more palatable.
Consider the following:
If someone ever quotes a Wikipedia article in a newspaper or book, should they be able to say, "According to Wikipedia, Joe Blow is anti-Semitic".
They can say anything they want, and they will. Adding the words, "According to Wikipedia...", doesn't even prove that it was in Wikipedia unless the reader is astute enough to check his facts. We have absolutely no control over this Jimmy is willing to waste money on lawyers to prosecute people for stupidity.
Is there any difference between stating that a certain person studied at a university and stating that the person "is anti-Semitic"?
Perhaps I am making a fact-value distinction:
- studied at the university (fact)
- is anti-Semitic (value judgement)
There is a difference. The first statement is falsifiable in Popper's sense of the term; the second is not.
I'm not really asking for a chorus of opinions from the list, but an authoritative, once-and-for-all pronouncement from the Founders.
Lots of luck! Authoritative pronouncements tend to be un-Wikipedian.
I would favour a list of words and phrases that carry with them a presumption that they violate neutrality. This does not mean that they would be completely outlawed, but there use would be subject to some restrictions. They could not be used in blanket statements. They must be attributed to an identifiable source, and not to some vague "almost everybody". "Anti-semitism", "murderous tyrant", and "pseudoscience" would all qualify for the list.
Eclecticology
This is just ever-so-slightly suspect because it isn't *direct* from the source but here is a link to the New York City Opera Learning Resource Center's biography of Wagner, adapted from the Grove Dictionary of Opera, a well-respected reference work that does not, so far as I know, go in for flames or polemics.
I know Larry Sanger wants this sort of thing on the talk pages, but I think it is relevant to the discussion of how far a reference work may go in expressing an opinion or judgement:
http://www.nycopera.com/www/learn/resource/biographydetails.cfm?ComposerID=1...
In this biography, Wagner's essay on Jews in music is described as "ragingly anti-Semitic". The biography further states that as Wagner was completing his final opera, "In the meantime, he continued his musical and polemical writings, concentrating on 'racial purity'."
So, assuming that the quotes are correct, Wikipedia could cop out on this whole thing and quote Grove, but I don't see any problem with our going ahead and stating well-established information directly without weasling.
Tom Parmenter Ortolan88
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org