Saeb Erekat - 8:1 consensus defied for 19 months
editThis table (unveiled 19th Jan 2008) presented the views of every editor (9 in total) on this TalkPage since its creation in Sep 2006. The last edit-warring inclusion of the BLP version was on 10th April 2008, so the entire effort to get a crucial policy implemented took 19 months. There had been (and has been since) no other TalkPage activity on this important biography, which remains very deficient.
| Editor | Erekat a liar? | WP:UNDUE | Comments made |
|---|---|---|---|
| User:Jaakobou | Yes | - | Various. An anon comment of 16:13, 4 December 2007 supporting his case is presumably the same editor not logged in. |
| User:PalestineRemembered | No | Yes | We're here to report what reliable sources say ... The RS don't mention the Jenin Massacre in connection with Saeb Erekat, and there's no reason for us to do so. 18:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC) |
| User:Rama | No | Yes | Erekat might have spoken out of genuine concern ; he might have exagerated his own fears ; or he might magically have had a precise figure of the casualties and actually have lied ; we certainly have no proof that the third case of figure actually happened. 16:33, 10 September 2006 |
| User:Khukri | Possible | Yes | although there is a need for this info in the article, as Rama has stated I think it can be drastically shortened, and doesn't need to take up 60% of the article 12:11, 6 September 2006 (emphasis in original) |
| User:Eleland | No | Yes | Besides the grossly undue weight on this Jenin thing, the information there is very poorly verified and in some cases inaccurate. Furthermore, it ignores widely reported information in order to present Erakat as a manipulative liar. 21:35, 8 October 2007 |
| User:G-Dett | ? | Yes | Provide reliable sources about Erekat (not an article about Jenin that merely quotes Erekat) that present the Jenin episode as central to his life. Then we'll decide how much detail is appropriate 15:44, 20 October 2007 |
| User:Tewfik | Possible | Yes | I tend to agree that there was far too much space given to what isn't documented as a major part of his life. 01:06, 21 October |
| User:Nickhh | ? | Yes | ... stuffed with any old adverse comment partisan editors can drag up from the web ... Some people are genuinely controversial, others get involved in minor issues and disputes from time to time which are pretty irrelevant as part of their overall biography. 11:58, 4 December 2007 |
| User:Ryan_Postlethwaite | No | Yes | I've once again removed the part about Erekat being a liar - One source was unreliable, one source didn't even mention his name. I'm at a loss as to where to go from here now, I honestly can't see Jakobou acting neutrally in this - you've failed to look at any sources which suggest that Erekat might be correct which could have acted as a rebuttal to the claims that his remarks were false. From a BLP perspective, this needs to be done, and needs to be done quickly because pushing only one school of thought that makes the subject of a biographical article look bad is a very serious problem. Remember guys, this it Wikipedia, not congress. User:Ryan Postlethwaite 15:50, 22 January 2008 (UTC) |
You may reasonable conclude that one editor seized OWNERSHIP of this article, and edit-warred eight others into silence, driving at least two good literate editors out of the project in the process. The editor in question had to be finally over-come by edit-warring brute force in April 2008, though the article still contains a vestigal version of the worthless claim.
A great deal is known about Saeb Erekat (as a web-search will show) - not even partisan RSs think the arguments of 2002 worth mentioning.
Seperate to the above, my table here suggests (by original research) that the conclusion so bitterly fought for is factually wrong as well - Erekat sometimes exaggerated but did not lie - whereas every Israeli spokesmen deviated from their own official figure by such large margins it would be reasonable to call each one of them a liar. PRtalk 14:40, 17 August 2008 (UTC)