On 7/29/07, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
Well said Bryan.
KP, just because you have things to bitch about in Pashtun articles doesn't mean that governments encouraging the subversion of Wikipedia'a neutrality with paid sponsorship is acceptable. To use the AFD example: WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an excuse for this to go on.
On 7/29/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/29/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I say indef block any IP's originating from the institution in
question. A
stated goal of trying to influence Wikipedia in a POV way would get
any
individual anon blocked, so why not a pseudo-governmental
organization?
Technically, their stated goal is to present Israel fairly and accurately (ie. NPOV). Their blatant COI means they are unlikely to do that very well, but they aren't openly intending to introduce a POV.
Actually there are all sorts of nationalistic interests alive and functioning quite well on Wikipedia--how arrogant of the Israels to want to join the crowd?
Most every Pashtun article on Wikipedia is written from a Persian-nationalistic perspective, and attempts to change that run one afoul of those largely responsible for supporting this silliness--although these editors are falling by the wayside one by one, because, generally nationalists have one-tracked minds. In the meantime, there are some very poor, rather silly, and some very unique (okay, POV) articles on the history of Afghanistan and Pashtuns, that have very little to do with anything but the Persian declaration that that section of the world is theirs, always has been, and always will be. The Brits would have liked that to have been true about 100 years ago, admitedly. Ironically much of the information is copied en masse from the bery Brittish biased Encyclopedia Iranica, which, when challenged, is met with the rallying cry of nationalism, "scholarly source, scholarly source."
So, how dare the Israels do on Wikipedia what every one else is doing, or how dare they announce that they are doing it when everyone else is so cleverly hiding it?
KP
I don't have things to bitch about in Pashtun articles, because there are no real Pashtun articles on Wikipedia.
It's worse than a double standard, that which is known is beaten down, but the undeclared is unworthy of being investigated, or even noticed. I'd rather have the enemy I know than the one every one is too scared to identify.
So Israel acknowledges what every one else is doing, and we crack down on the Israli's declaration, but leave the rest to go on.
KP