On 13/07/07, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote: Urgh. Is there any of this sort of idiocy on en:wp? That's a silly question. *How much* of this sort of idiocy is there on en:wp? - d. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

On Jul 13, 2007, at 4:53 PM, Steven Walling wrote: FWIW, the word "genocide" didn't enter the lexicon until 1943, according to several articles on en:wp.... But that's not really the point/problem, per se. Since I know my own culture the best, I'll use articles from its space, to demonstrate that this is possibly a universal human failing. The english language wikipedia, for example, doesn't really take the perspective that the biggest number of civilians ever outright slaughtered by an external government in *one single event* is really a nightmarishly terroristic, immoral, and wrong thing, to do. Instead, it equivocates and quibbles, repeating old party lines *justifying* the action, and combines articles on two separate events: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki How about the United State's first major genocidal policy? Is it called a genocide? Nope. Again, Quibbling and equivocation, and an "official policy name": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal How about the deplorable white supremacist, ignorant, racism, of a man who said he was "not in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races" and "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it"? Is he condemned for it? Nope. Instead, there's non-stop hagiography and justification for his blatant racism, and a blatant cultural white- washing (*cough*) of both his character and actions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_on_slavery I could keep going on, but I'd better get to my point. Within cultures, there is usually a dominant language (and languages is where wikipedia divides), and those cultures each carry their own narrative style, and with it, their own perspectives on history. Where wp is *very good* is that those narratives actually get stored, and carried forward, to future generations. Where wp can be argued as 'bad' (on these kind of topics) is that different cultures, through their language spaces, are allowed to actually display their different perspectives. This tends to upset folks who want *their* perspective, *their* cultural narrative, to dominate the narrative landscape *across all cultures and languages*. That's not gonna happen until we have one global mono-culture, and whoo boy, we are nowhere near that. -Bop _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

On Jul 13, 2007, at 8:15 PM, Steven Walling wrote: [citation needed] :) It looks like our article on the topic is possibly confused, or you are or.... ?. Several social groups seem to want to "claim" it as an initial offense upon them. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#Coining_of_the_term_genocide> My list so far: Assyrians Armenians Jews As I alleged to in a prior post, there seems to be something of a cultural argument/demand made by some cultures to adopt and 'own' words that indicate a particular term for their cultural identity. -Bop _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

The english language wikipedia, for example, doesn't really take the perspective that the biggest number of civilians ever outright slaughtered by an external government in *one single event* is really a nightmarishly terroristic, immoral, and wrong thing, to do. Instead, it equivocates and quibbles, repeating old party lines *justifying* the action, and combines articles on two separate events: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Well one cogent example is the article on Martin Luther. The German and Danish articles feel quite laid back about mentioning that he had a potty mouth but at the very least for a long time, the en:wp article (presumably affected by more puritan-influenced American Lutherans), was a remarkable piece of portraying the man as a saint, without blemish of any kind, or even simple human failings. Which, if you leave aside his letters and table talk spewing vitriol and scatological language, for all that, he was definitely of flesh with all that comes with it. Even Melancthon said it after his death, that Luther was (paraphrasing here) certainly remarkably potent medicine for the time but that the times ills were potent too.

[[WP:OWN]]ed by those few who kept it closely bowdlerised and spit and polished.

On 13/07/07, Steven Walling &lt;steven.walling(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Urgh. Is there any of this sort of idiocy on en:wp? That's a silly question. *How much* of this sort of idiocy is there on en:wp?

the armenian holocaust is at this moment a rather *hot* political issue inside turkey itself, with possibly legal consequences for people who publish other than an "official view" in or from turkey afaik. there is a discussion going on even on eu-level about these things. writers and journalists in turkey are often in a difficult position when writing about these historical events. of course our mission is to collect, develop and desseminate npov content, but this may in such cases collide with present-day political situations and power, present-day political points of view and interests of a nation or a regime, perhaps in some cases even encompass certain dangers for some of our editors as well. in all projects, a fine balance needs to be found on all its controversial subjects, which may at times be slightly different in different projects and languages, a phenomenon that i consider acceptable if and when within certain limits of *linguistical compromise*, since they are meant to address different "audiences" (the speakers of that language: each language also has its own context of at least history, literature, science and politics), but not when it becomes a *political compromise*. descriptions of and terminology for historical events in an encyclopedia should generally be based on the science of history, concurring with and referring to relevant international scientifical sources (if available also in the language of a project), not on current political views or nomenclature. but what if there are different views among different scientists, different views in different scientifical literature, possibly in different languages, whether linked to politics or not, how and who are we to judge? content may perhaps differ slightly in various languages, incorporating linguistical compromises, but i agree this does not seem to be the case here. the title [[Claims_of_an_Armenian_Genocide]] does suggest a pov, and the article itself possibly needs serious revision as well, maybe an article [[Armenian_Genocide]] is still missing on tr.wikipedia as well as an article [[International_recognition_of_an_Armenian_Genocide]] (or [[International_recognition_of_the_Armenian_Genocide]], change "international" for "scientific" or "political" and you have 2 more) and probably a whole bunch more like [[Denials_of_an_Armenian_Genocide]] and [[Historical_demography_of_the_Armenians_during_the_Ottoman_period]]. it may be that the situation in tr.wikipedia at this point also simply reflects the present status quo in the published turkish language and its publically available sources. yet i do not know 100% for sure, i am no historian myself, and also my turkish (though "tr-1") is simply not good enough to evaluate all this on my own. that said, i would like to suggest {{sofixit}} to Bogdan Giusca as well, since i think it is finally up to (editors of the) projects themselves to gradually develop an acceptable npov over a period of time, even when this means lengthy and difficult discussions. these had best take place first of all on the project itself imho. best regards, oscar -- *edito ergo sum* On 7/13/07, Bogdan Giusca &lt;liste(a)dapyx.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Minorities don't win edit wars. If they get even close to win... they get banned for vandalism, and that's it. That's the way a wiki works and we all find it normal.

In your case I'd say people seem more interested in ending a war than in having a majority POV expressed as such. Probably the best thing to do in such cases is to define an external authority (as an independent source of information) that can be trusted as "mainstream" on the subject. I have to warn you that no such choice is going to be perceived as "perfect" (cfr. ISO and languages), yet at least you won't have a few local wikimedians "playing God" over the others.

There cannot be an immediate list of all such possible external references, because the field is too wide. Possibly you might want to ask your ArbCom to analyze such edit wars and to define such a source for a given subject when needed.

"extending and correcting history" sounds a bit arbitrary, to say the least. I have LOTS of things that I would rewrite in mainstream history, and even evidence for at least some of them, yet... this would be a new history book, not an encyclopedia. Honestly, I don't understand how they can keep such a stance within the bounds of the NPOV policy, let alone original research. I understand documenting alternative views on a given issue, but ignoring a mainstream view altogether seems wrong to me.

I kind of believe that breaking tribal taboos maybe involved in the death of many early missionaries, yet one needs evidence for this. I can hardly imagine a way to find it. To be sure the early Christian times were close to soviet censorship regarding whatever data about any form of organized pagan resistance. AFAIK no pagan tribal documents have remained, either. So what can he use for evidence? Because unless he really has some serious academic evidence... he is not reporting about anything apart from his own beliefs.

"extending and correcting history" sounds a bit arbitrary, to say the

I have LOTS of things that I would rewrite in mainstream history, and even evidence for at least some of them, yet... this would be a new history

not an encyclopedia. Honestly, I don't understand how they can keep such a stance within the bounds of the NPOV policy, let alone original research. I understand documenting alternative views on a given issue, but ignoring a mainstream view altogether seems wrong to me.