[Wikipedia-l] Helga Jonat on [[Berlin]]

[Tom Parmenter]

<removed Mike Irwin's interesting essay on unpopular points of view
and wikipedia, which I urge everyone to read>

The fact is, everyone has bent over backwards with Helga and given her
every opportunity to collaborate, explain, discuss, proffer evidence.
People have given her questions to answer, opportunities to give
sources, suggestions on NPOV, ideas about how to enter controversial
points of view, and none of it has worked.  All has been met with what
I would call truculent ignorance.  She is more interested in "proving"
that Copernicus was "German" and that this fine "German" reformed the
coinage of some long-lost province of the Holy Roman Empire than she
is in whether the sun revolves around the earth or the other way
around.  She translated dubious material from German and cannot
understand that translation doesn't remove the copyright.  She thinks
one speech in 1946 by James Eastland trumps the entire history of the
20th century.  That one anti-Hitler article in a Jewish newspaper in
1934 (!) justifies the Holocaust.

The history seems similar to the notorious "24", whom I missed by
coming in late on all this.  It is not the controversial point of view
that makes these people wrong for Wikipedia, it is the refusal to
engage in any dialogue to improve their contributions, a refusal that
amounts to trolling in my view.  Poor old 24 was bound and determined
to prove that there was censorship in the wikipedia and he finally
managed it at the cost of never getting anything he wanted heard into
the work in any form.  I'd say Helga is on the same path.  The Ark guy
too. 

In contrast, Mike Irwin (and Ed Poor and several others, maybe even
me, not to single anyone out) are willing to soldier along, bringing
up sticky points, discusssing them, defending themselves, attacking
other views, apologizing on occasion, giving in from time to time,
sticking to their guns on other occasions, enlivening the talk pages,
and generally engaging in synthesis that assures that most of what
they (we) want to say makes it into the Encyclopedia, however cloaked
in NPOV it may turn out to be in the end.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88