[WikiEN-l] Re: Bot for generating articles on cities in Israel

[Jimmy Wales]

Stan Shebs wrote:
> Oh geez... If you have some proof, let's see it.  Otherwise you're
> just spreading FUD. Almost every official statistic in Wikipedia
> has a political opponent or conspiracy theorist ready to challenge
> its validity; that's why we say "according to the Census Bureau"
> or whatever, so if somebody has some differing numbers, they
> can add those, citing the alternate source, rather than having an
> edit war.  In the case of Israel, there are plenty of reasons to
> challenge any UN numbers - and plenty of books doing just that, in
> great detail - so it's not neutral to simply declare that UN
> numbers must be better than Israeli numbers.

I agree with Stan completely.

This would be much more of a sensible argument if Stevertigo could
give us an *example* of how the Israeli statistics differ (if they do)
from other sources.  Does Hamas publish detailed statistics of Israeli
suburbs?  (Of course not.)  Does the UN?  (I doubt it, but...)

If there are competing statistical numbers, then *of course* we should
include them all somehow, *and* link to a discussion of the
controversy over the numbers.

But.. if there is no actual controversy other than a general dislike
of Israel... what's all the fussing about?

--Jimbo