User talk:PalestineRemembered/Archives/2007/December

Just a reminder

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. However, please be aware of Wikipedia's policy that biographical information about living persons must not be libelous. Any controversial statements about a living person added to an article, or any other Wikipedia page, must include proper sources. Thank you. This is in regards to your statements about Robert Spencer on the Reliable Sources noticeboard. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 16:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Could you please point to the edit where PR has used a libelous source? I'm not sure how this template is helpful, especially with no explanation as to what it is about. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Note the "header" where PR labels the author as a "hate-source" with no sourcing. [1] Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 17:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Well it would have been much better to state the problem rather than templating PR. PR - it would be good if you didn't label sources as hate sources. If you don't think they're reliable, just simply state that they aren't reliable and the reasons why. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

He did point to the title of the book as prove of the sentiment, so it's not unsourced, nor does BLP apply in the way Kyaa is attempting to make it to talk pages. This seems like political correctness run amok. Do we start calling hate speech "extreme dislike speech" now or something? ::sigh:: Ryan's advice is probably best though; PR: just try and bite your tongue. -- Kendrick7^talk 17:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

BLP applies to every single page on Wikipedia. Period. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 17:32, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Still, it troubles me if that means we can't freely discuss whether a source is biased or not when making such an accusation could be construed as violating BLP. -- Kendrick7^talk 19:42, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

In the case of a criticism of Islam, Spencer's views, albeit controversial, often unpopular and cherry picked, are reliably sourced. As long as we adequately source him, the reader should be left to decide per Wikipedia's rules. Verifiability, not truth, is the key. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 20:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

As long as they are being presented as his views and not objective truth that probably fine, though I'd expect the use of secondary sources which would demonstrate his given view is notable. Simply because he's gotten a few books published doesn't make wikipedia his personal WP:SOAPbox. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:35, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Saeb Erekat

There is a huge problem at this article, whereby the consensus of careful and literate editors has been systematically over-ridden. By my count there is just one editor wishing to make out that Erekat is a lier, whereas there are (or have been) seven opposed. I can see nothing in the reliable sources or common-sense for the former position, and lots against it (with BLP concerns as well). Administrator action would be very much appreciated - but not on the article. PR^talk 22:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

It's barely been edited since it's been unprotected. What do you want me to do? Stifle (talk) 16:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

As administrator, we look to you to maintain the standards of the project, or at least to guide us towards a resolution of glaring problems as there are in this case. There are "content dispute" issues in this case which you cannot touch - but it cannot be very difficult to identify which of the editors involved are literate and are writing the article on the basis of the sources. Alternatively, like I said, act as a neutral third-party advising us to take it to RfC (or, in a case like this, direct to ArbCom, since there are several other examples of nearly the same thing). PR^talk 17:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

(Sorry for the slow reply, I missed this as it was further up my talk page.)

I would recommend an article RFC but there have still been no edits so there really is no dispute to resolve. Stifle (talk) 15:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Finkelstein Mediation

Dear PR,

I don't mind when you clean up the mediation case, but I'm not sure about GHcool. I'd prefer if we let the mediator take care of this. Thx. --JaapBoBo (talk) 23:12, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

My comments

I have commented on your mediation page. I hope you don't mind. David Sher (talk) 20:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I have moved David's comments to his own TalkPage and attempted to answer some of his points there - I trust that was alright. I've been itching to make interjections into the mediation myself (particularily as a result of seeing such seriously distorting edits as this being entered into the record).

However, I've not interrupted at that mediation page becaue I've taken the view that it is vital that you should be given space to come to your own conclusion as regards the worth of the different arguments. Are you aware that GHcool's objection to Finkelstein, as well as being apparently undefendable, is also entirely against consensus? I did a "relative reliability" chart here, and I did a "consensus of editors" chart here. These indicate that GHcool is not in compliance with policy, and has not been abiding by consensus. I trust you have the right tools in your box to deal with this kind of disruption and allow the article and the project to move forwards. PR^talk 21:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I am becoming alarmed at the very dubious tactics now on display at this mediation - edits such as this look like flat out falsehoods made to poison the atmosphere and defy anyone else to label them as lies. Here is the text: "JaapBoBo's last post grossly misrepresents Finkelstein. ... Finkelstein goes much further than that alleging that Zionism also entails calling "into question any Arab presence in Palestine" and "that transferist thinking is close to the core of Zionist thinking" even before 1947-8. These two points are highly debatable and rejected by virtually all mainstream historians."

I trust that, by this stage, you are in a position to recognise what is going on here, an attempt to defame one of the foremost scholars of the Israel-Palestine business and block good information from appearing in this article, and the whole of the project.

I further trust you're prepared to rule definitively who is right and who is wrong. While one tiny bit of the excellent scholarship of Finkelstein has been bitterly edit-warred out of this article, considerable chunks of quite atrocious work from the likes of Schechtman has been edit-warred in. This is more than "a content dispute", it's a systematic attempt to undermine the integrity of articles. And all in total opposition to consensus, which appears to be 5.5 to 1.5 against GHcool! PR^talk 12:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If you haven't noticed, I'm not taking your comments into account. I'd prefer you not interfere. -- tariqabjotu 23:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Dear PalestineRemembered,
I'd appreciate it if you did not contact my and JaapBoBo's mediator for the duration of our mediation. If I start to feel as though the mediation is being tampered with by outside forces, I will immediately discontinue the mediation. This mediation is meant to find a compromise that we can all live with. I will be unwilling to compromise if I am given the impression that the mediation is an unfair one. Thank you. --GHcool (talk) 02:41, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Dear PR, can you please refrain from making edits on TariqAbjotu's and the mediation page during the mediation. I think it's better if we handle it with the three of us. If you have suggestions you can always put them on my talk page. Thx!!! --JaapBoBo (talk) 20:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

article edits

I see some validity in some of the sugestions and concerns which you have raised at Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Would you like to add some of your proposed/considered edits to the article? thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

israel article

well you see the "israel" article is a clear violation of peacock terms. the editors, who objected to my observation that they were all hebrew speaking users that has links with Israel personally, are not allowing anyone to be frank, and state the facts, it is certainly clouding there judgement. i think the article, is therefore suffering from one-sided views, that only shows Israel in a good light, and try to promote it as a tourist destination, which is not the purpose of wikipedia. Frankly there is nothing that we can do to rectify the mistakes, as all the editors that seems to be bullishly censoring the page, do not like to see any controversial issue being discussed, though more thought is given to lesser topics. is there not anything we can do to eradicate this bias, and un-NPOV as it is becoming hostile, with users verbally attacking. i think if a neutral editor looked at the page, and saw the information that is missing, or given priority above others, it would certainly make their eyes roll.86.163.1.210 (talk) 20:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Response to messages

I've responded to your messages on my talk page. I am not going to transfer over the entire conversation as it is quite long. Stifle (talk) 20:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Please don't start slipping back into your old habits. I'm not sure what's up here[2] but it's the kind of diff that could land you back in hot water. Blanking material, no edit summary? Not good. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)