[WikiEN-l] Reddi's POV edits of Current Events

[James Duffy]

Reddi had added many links to [[Current events]]. Most are OK but s/he has a 
habit of adding highly questionable stuff -

i. adding in lines in the page that are generally seen as totally irrelevant 
and completely Americocentrist, eg announcing the launch of US TV show 
premieres and re-runs as if they were of internationally newsworthy, or 
could remotely fall within the ambit of current affairs, eg.,

*  [[Entertainment]] : "The Partridge Family" to take the psychedelic bus 
for another spin, returning to television in an updated remake, according to 
The Hollywood Reporter. [22]

*  [[Entertainment]]: The "Star Wars: Clone Wars" episodes premieres. A new 
episode of the Lucas-approved series airs each weeknight, repeating at 
midnight. Another 10 will air next spring. [4] [5]

* [[Movies]]: Russell Crowe attended the London premiere of his movie Master 
and Commander. [2]

** [[Nudity]]: Porn publisher Larry Flynt states he bought reported nude 
photos of Iraq war heroine Jessica Lynch - to keep them from ever being 
published. Jessica Lynch is frolicking topless with male soldiers in the 
photos before she went off to war. [10] [11] [12]

ii. using highly POV language, eg.,

*  [[Mass media]]: An example of European media coverage distorting the 
Mideast conflict is publicized. [47]

* [[United Nations]]: The UN votes again and overwhelmingly for an end to 
sanctions against Cuba; only the USA, Israel, and the Marshall Islands vote 
against. [12] The US's United Nations ambassador John Negroponte avoided the 
UN propaganda forum.

iii. uses as /single/ sources references that are not highly regarded as 
NPOV, for example editorials and commentary columns and controversial 
sources such as FOX News.

iv. Adding in names of countries, definitions and links at the start of 
sentences that are at this stage OTT and in most cases wrongly defined 
([[Scotland]], [[Nudity]], [[Entertainment]], etc, as if the page was a 
tabloid TV news channel. Mav among others have constantly had to revert 
these, for example:

# (cur) (last) . . M 20:39, 16 Nov 2003 . . Maveric149 (removed bastard 
contextualizations; place is not context! Nor is subject! )
# (cur) (last) . . 01:27, 14 Nov 2003 . . Snoyes (removing POV on news 
article (no place for debating on this page - it is meant to be short and to 
the point - see talk))
# (cur) (last) . . 23:26, 13 Nov 2003 . . Snoyes (add link to judge-story; 
rm official statement from other news story (official statements are 
frequently useless, as they mostly don't add anything))
# (cur) (last) . . M 03:22, 12 Nov 2003 . . Jiang (rm pointless 
contextualizations)

Snoyes wrote - Regarding my removal of, as you (user:Reddi) put it, the 
"pentagon view": The Current Events page should not be some kind of forum 
for posting points of view on News articles. It is about the News itself. I 
don't think that it is a good idea to post responses by involved parties if 
they don't contain significant relevant information that has not already 
been said. . .  If this continues we'll be writing entire news stories 
pretty soon. Which I don't think Current Events is designed to do. --snoyes 
01:28, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Jiang, Snoyes, Mav, Viajero and others have complained repeatedly about some 
of these additions. I raised the point of the nonsensical listing of a 
cartoon series. Reddi's response was to write a weird largely unreadable 
reply which he signed "Not an irish drunk", an offensive characture link 
mocking my Irishness which, if it was made against someone because of their 
gender, race or jewish identity would rightly be criticised.

It is not the only place on wikipedia that Reddi has acted in a POV manner, 
but while thankfully s/he doesn't engage in edit wars, they keep adding in 
links, adding in categories at the start of lines, creating ever growing 
right wing Americocentrist lines and using controversial sources as single 
sources, rather than, as requested, offer other sources alongside with their 
beloved FOX News and the Washington Times. And so far appeals from everyone 
else to stop fall on deaf ears. Have people any suggestions, before what is 
right now just a constant irritant on the Current events page requiring 
frequent culling of irrelevant stuff, as so happens grows into something 
worse and provokes major rows on the page?

JT

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