Robert Kaiser wrote:
(1) "[Zero] pushs Shahak's anti-Jewish propaganda"
An absolute lie. I have not supported Shahak's position on
anything. I have only been concerned with Kaiser's attempts
at dishonest smearing of Shahak.
(2) "in [Zero's] view, Shahaks' claims about the Jews are true"
An absolute lie. Since I am a good editor, I have not stated
my opinion on Shahak's claims and don't believe that my opinion
is even relevant. Kaiser, on the other hand, breaths hatred
of Shahak in everything he writes. Should we allow Wikipedia
articles to be dumping grounds for someone's emotions?
(3) "[Zero's] belief that Jews are racist"
Another absolute lie. Kaiser knows that I have never made any
such claim or even come within a hundred miles of it, but of
course he is not here to tell the truth.
Why am I bothering to write this?
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Again, Zero is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He
said that he wanted to engage in moderation. Yet at the
same time he pushs Shahak's anti-Jewish propaganda as
facts, he deletes vast chunks of multiple articles when
they include info he does not agree with, and has started a
web page dedicated to banning me from Wikipedia. Does that
sound like a sincere desire to engage in moderation?
The issue is simple: Do we follow NPOV policy or not?
Zero has a partisan agenda. Israel Shahak is not accepted
by any mainstream historians; that is in indisputable fact.
In every insitution I have studied or taught in, Shahak's
views are considered false and racist. In contrast,
Shahak's claims are only accepted by Neo-Nazis, White
Supremacists, radical Islamic groups, and the like. (Again,
please do not take my word on this. Please do a Google
search on this subject and see for yourself who his only
supporters are.)
Yet this statement of fact enrages Zero; he doesn't want
anyone to know this. Yet this is no different than our
articles on Richard Wagner or on Holocaust deniers. Last
year, a number of anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers tried
to damage our articles on these subjects. Fortunately,
cooler heads prevailed by merely following NPOV policy. Why
should this article be any different?
Zero has filled the talk page on the Shahak article with
personal comments (e..g in his view, Shahaks' claims about
the Jews are true.) Well, even if all Jews were as racist
as Shahak and Zero imagine, we would still have to follow
NPOV policy. This means we say that according to Group A
and author A, all Jews are racist, but according to group B
and C, and authors D and E, they are not.
Remember NPOV? A contributor may have a prejudice, but they
can stay here if they follow the rules. We have to allow
articles to present points of view, even if they are points
of view that we disagree with.
The long-standing problem with Zero isn't his belief that
Jews are racist. That's irrevelant. He can believe anything
he likes about Jews, blacks, gays, whomever. However, the
long-standing problem is that he refuses to let any POV be
mentioned except his own. Zero constantly refuses to follow
POV. And *that* has always been a bannable offense.
So we have a choice. (A) Ban Zero. (B) Privately talk to
him, and explain that all points of view must be included,
even those we happen to disagree with. And mention that
discussion on Talk pages should be about how to phrase
facts in the article, and not focused on one person's
beliefs about the content.
I hope that he can convinced to follow NPOV.
Robert (RK)
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This morning, I removed two images from [[Childlove]], an article about
pedophilia. One was a brochure put out by a group called CLogo, which is devoted to
promoting the "mutually beneficial" possibilities of pedophilia. It showed a
doll (at first I thought it was a young girl), sitting on someone's lap. The
other was a magazine cover by Martijn, a Dutch group, showing a young,
shirtless, preadolescent boy.
Frankly, I am quite disgusted by this abuse of our NPOV policy.
Danny
"Anthony has engaged in an edit war on the Main Page. I blocked him for 24
hours. "
Good for you Danny - tried to pull the same thing yesterday and I came within a whisker of blocking him myself. I'm glad I wasn't involved this time. I think the Arbcom really needs to consider his case.
--Mark
The situation with John Ball and the Islamophobia article
is now totally out of hand. John Ball is also publicly
slandering religious committed Muslims, such as Muhammad
Hisham Kabbani, of racist anti-Islamic propaganda. That's
not just incorrect, it borders on insane.
"John Ball" is revealing himself to be an Islamist
contributor who wants to remove all facts, statistics and
points of view from anyone who themselves is not
pro-Islamist. He sees any form of Islam as an enemy, except
for his own form. People like this rarely learn to follow
NPOV.
In any case, the original point stands. All of our article
smust be written in accord with NPOV policy. People who
repeatedly refuse to allow others points of view to be
expressed in an artuicle are in total violation of
Wikipedia's basic policy.
Robert
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John Ball has started a revert war on the Islamophobia
article. He insists on allowing only one point of view to
exist, and he has described all other points of views as
"vandalism". He has faked quotes from other sources,
describing estimates from Islamic scholars as really coming
from American non-Muslims (He's lying do a Googl seacrh and
you can chekc for yourself.)
He even has picked his own favorite pro-Muslim group which
he has insited must be quoted, in full, without quotes, as
NPOV material. Totally disregarding our NPOV policy, he
writes:
The statements of the Runnymede Trust should stand as
stated by that body and not be altered as they do not
then represent that organisation's opinion. The 8
points were the result of a RT multi-faith commission
and should be accepted as NPOV.
I did try to work with John. I wrote that no statement by
*any* one organization is accepted is NPOV. You must read
the article on Wikipedia's NPOV policy. I noted that
nowhere in the article were there quote marks. Therefore,
that section was plagiarism, and Wikipedia policy demands
that all plagiarism automatically be removed.
However, I want to work with others. I told John Ball that
we can include quotes from groups, *if* the quotes are
explicitly references ad such, and clearly demarcated from
the rest of the text with quote marks or some other form of
formatting.
I have no problem with including the point of view of this
group. However, other points of view exist and they must be
included as well. In response, John Ball deleted all points
of view other than his own, labeled me a vandal, and
started a revert war. He clearly is convinced that the POV
of one particular group is "NPOV" and that the article must
follow the POV only.
Like Zero and others, John Ball is not acting in good
faith. What do we do when someone publicly states that they
will refuse to follow our NPOV policy, and simply engages
in non-stop revert wars to remove all POVs that they
personally do not hold?
Robert (RK)
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Robert is correct when he asserts that:
* We are obligated to follow NPOV policy, which states that
we phrase things like this: Israel Shahak claims X, other groups
disagree claiming Y.
If it's a question about how much weight Shahak's opinion should carry,
in comparison with the opinions of others -- well, that is not for the W
to say. Better to have an [[Israel Shahak]] article which addresses the
issue of the group's credibiliity -- also written from the NPOV.
The problems of the Middle East cannot be _resolved_ by Wikipedia
articles. It's not even clear that accurate, unbiased descriptions of
these problems would help men and women in that region reconcile.
But those of us who support Jimbo and Larry's original policy, i.e., the
mission of this encyclopedia, will continue to help craft articles that
describe as clearly and accurately as possible this situation and others
like it.
I daresay an essential element of this accuracy is the scrupulous
refusal to take sides on whether any particular source is creditable.
Better to say "most historians agree that" or "Islamic and Western
historians disagree over", etc.
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
It should come as no surprise to people who have been around
for a while that Robert Kaiser's claims concerning myself and
Dan Keshet contain barely a syllable of truth. Now we have
been accused of being anti-Semites repeatedly. It is a sad
sad indictment of our procedures that such offensive behaviour
towards other Wikipedians does not earn an automatic ban.
Zero.
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Dan Keshet writes:
> Please don't personalize the issue as if Zero were the
> only one who disagrees with your text. It is wrong on
> many accounts, accounts which I have described on the
> talk page.
Huh? I haven't seen any errors noted by you in the article
text. All I have seen is your personal support for Israel
Shahak's claims about the Jews. (i.e. you haven't disputed
the views of anyone mentioned.)
You repeatedly claim that YOUR OWN READING of Jewish texts
leads you to conclude that Israel Shahak attacks on Jews
are correct, and that people who disagree with him are in
error. But that is YOUR OPINION. This article is not about
your opinion, it is not about Zero's opinion, nor is about
my opinion. (Nor, for that matter, are you qualified to be
an expert on interpreting 2,000 years of rabbinic
literature.)
We are obligated to follow NPOV policy, which states that
we phrase things like this: Israel Shahak claims X, other
groups disagree claiming Y. You and Zero, however, keep
insisting that Shahak is correct, and you are not allowing
the article to fully mention Shahak's views, nor are you
allowing the views of other people to be cited. That
behaviour is a serious violation of Wikipedia NPOV policy.
Both you and Zero have failed to identify a single error in
the text that you keep deleting. Rather, both of you merely
claim that IN YOUR OWN VIEW it is wrong for people to
disagree with Shahak.
You and Zero need to re-read our NPOV article. If we write
an article on "Dan Keshet", in that article we can mention
your views on Shahak and on the Jews. If we write an
article on "Zero000", in that article we can mention Zero's
views on Shahak and on the Jews. But none of your personal
views on this issue should be included in the article on
Israel Shahak.
> I have repeatedly indicated my willingness to use
> mediation to try to improve the discussion, in an
> attempt to lead to a better article. Zero was hesitant,
> but said he would try it. Will you join us?
Zero has stated that I am a lunatic who should be banned,
and he uses non-stop reversions to censor every fact that
he doesn't want people to learn about. He refuses to allow
any contributor to use NPOV terminology to mention people
who disagree with Shahak. This is harassment. Zero is
acting in bad faith, and needs to learn that our articles
include info *whether or not we feel comfortable* with such
info.
Robert (RK)
=====
"No one is poor except he who lacks knowledge....A person who has knowledge has everything. A person who lacks knowledge, what has he? Once a person acquires knowledge, what does he lack? [Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim, 41a]
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