[WikiEN-l] Please, no more personal attacks

[james duffy]

I'm a bit confused, Fred. Last week you told me I was the equivalent of a 
Holocaust denier, ie a right wing anti-semite (a bit bizarre, as I am not 
right wing, I am not anti-semite, and I know the Holocaust happened.)
This week, in the lexicon of Fred attacks, I am a "left wing historical 
revision[ist]", who is like one of the people in the Cultural Revolution who 
thought "Madam Mao was real cool." Now I am in reality slightly left of wing 
(ie, a social democrat, not a socialist, much less a communist - another of 
Fred's theories!) but I am not a revisionist. Fred may think that I am a 
right wing left wing, Holocaust-denying Madam Mao-devoted revisionist, but I 
am nothing of the sort.

Given the fact that I have been called simultaneously an Australian 
republican and an Australian monarchist for the same one edit, a "west-Brit" 
apologist for British imperialism and a provisional IRA propagandist (for 
the same article by two different people!), the truth is clear. I am simply 
concerned with articles achieving high standards of factual accuracy, 
relevance and NPOV.  And if that meant toning down Brit-bashing or Irish 
republicanism-bashing, and/or increasing the criticism of whichever had been 
let off, so replacing POV or NPOV, or stopping an article on Australia from 
following either a republican or monarchist agenda, I have done it, just as 
it meant stopping either pro-communist hero worship or anti-communist rants. 
NPOV means using facts and language that provide balanced accurate coverage 
that allows the reader to make up their own mind. It does not mean becoming 
Wikipedia's fundamentalist preacher, issuing sermons in articles by lacing 
them with loaded terms. Apart from anything else, loaded terms more often 
than not backfire, annoying the reader and leading him or her to take the 
opposite view to the writer.

Wikipedia deserves high standards and I have worked to ensure it got that. 
And if I am seen as a left wing right winger, a communist-conservative, a 
pro-British IRA supporting unionist republican, or a Catholic-hating 
catholic apologist, that simply means I am doing my job correctly. If Fred 
can write balanced NPOV articles he will have no problem from me.

JT.

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