[WikiEN-l] shutting people up about Bots

[Delirium]

Steve Vertigum wrote:

>     At least Im not preaching to the choir. :)
>
>     I have yet to see an direct response to my statements-- Rick said
>     "It's not from a questionable source" --(as if we were to accept
>     these numbers as gospel)  what utter crap is this? ...On the one
>     hand people argue 'there is no unquestionable source (its all
>     fine)-- there is no absolute NPOV. On the other hand they think
>     that an apartheid state is "not questionable."  (Its all fine.)
>     Then LD stated that 'if these numbers were from the Congo, he
>     wouldnt want them.' -- what standard is he using? What standard
>     are *you using?
>
>     I frankly dont care -- I raised the objections not because they
>     were popular, but because they were not. Nobody dealt with my
>     basic oppositon to using a bot to add these particular POV
>     statistics-- nobody could prove that they were accurate
>     --plenty of calls to "prove" that they were not. What utter nonsense.
>
>     But its irrelevant--All numbers be taken with a grain of salt,
>     right? Im afraid not-- the inclusion of these numbers sets a
>     precedent, where the WP takes a side in an ethnic dispute. When
>     edit wars do happen over these numbers, the use of a bot as an
>     "offical" WP-sanctioned body of data will hold weight disbalancing
>     any disputed terms. To say that this is not the case is heresy
>     against intelligence.
>
I suppose I'm not convinced, largely because I haven't heard any claims, 
even from anti-Israeli groups, that their statistics are false.  There 
are plenty of disputes over historical information, but the counts of 
who, at this exact moment, is living in various cities in Israel seem to 
be generally accepted (or at least I haven't been able to find any major 
groups who dispute them).  In particular, the count of Arabs living in 
Israel proper (i.e. not the territories) seem to be in line with 
generally accepted facts--it's the issue of which Arabs *used* to live 
in Israel and whether they should be allowed to return that's hotly 
debated, not the issue of who lives there now.

-Mark