[WikiEN-l] Please stop lying about the content of my letters

Wed Aug 6 15:23:05 UTC 2003

James Duffy, JTDIRL, has been causing problems on the
"State of Israel" article of late, because he refuses to
work with others in our Wikipedia peer-review. Instead of
working on the many Arab and Jewish refugee articles that
already exist, he keeps bypassing the peer-review by trying
to stuff his own biased statements into new articles.

When I noted this, he made personal attacks on me as
promoting "censorship". This is a violation of Wikipedia
protocol.  I have tried discussing this with him, and have
alerted members of this list about this incident.
Astonishingly, Jtdirl has decided to respond with total
frabrications. He is now screaming that I am accusing him
of anti-Semitism.  Huh?

Sure, it is wrong of Jtdirl (James Duffy) to do an end-run
around our peer-review, and for him to shove his POV essays
on this subject into other articles. And it is wrong for
him to falsely accuse me of "censoring" him, for the
"crime" of asking him to follow standard Wikipedia
protocol. But where does this have to do with
anti-Semitism?  Nowhere.  

JTDIRL claims:
> Any attempt to add in /anything/ that is not pro-Israeli
> immediately leads to RK going ballistic and screaming
> anti-semitism. 

That in of itself is false.  But more disturbing, Jtdirl
then starts mentioning something about the status of
Jerusalem, which has NOTHING to do with this topic. His
claims to the contrary are bald-faced lies. No one is
writing about Jerusalem. He is just making this up.  Jtdirl
just is in some sort of rage, because I AND a few others
have removed his POV essay and out of place statements in
the State of Israel article.

Sadly, though, his incoherent responses do come close to
Jew-baiting. Every time I disagree with him, he claims to
be the victim of false anti-Semitism charges...even though
the topic has nothing to do with Jews or anti-Semitism. He
seriously needs to lay of the Jews for a while. Seriously.

With concerns,

Robert (RK)

Jimbo writes:
> Robert, I really think you should moderate your tone,
> because I think that doing so will make your comments
> more effective.

In theory, I agree with you. However, I also agreed with
Jtdirl that these topics (Arab refugees and Jewish
refugees) should be discussed on Wikipedia. That's moderate
as well. I just was shocked by his false claims of
censorship. (Especially since we have more than three
articles discussing this subject!)

When we work together for months to whip articles into
decent shape, it seems inappropriate, and a violation of
Wikipedia policy, to do an end-run around them by starting
a new discussion on the same subject, pushing only Jtdirl's
point of view. I am not the only person who has pointed
this out.

Jimbo writes:
> Making a moral judgment in a case like this is likely to
> turn people off.  And, really, it runs a very strong
> risk of being _not true at all_.  It strikes me as more
> likely that jtdirl is mistaken, rather than actively
> dishonest.  Or that you are mistaken.

Ok, I agree; I could be mistaken. But Jtdirl refuses to
talk to me, so no conversation is possible. You saw for
yourself James Duffy's odd response to my points:

I said we *should* have articles on Arab refugees, but we
should no do an end-run around our peer-rview. I stated
that it is wrong to claim censorship is going on.

Jtdirl (James Duffy) responded, stop calling me an
anti-Semite!  And then Jtdirl started talking about
Jerusalem.

Huh? His statements have absolutely no relationship to what
is being said to him. He is in his own little world, and
that kind of freaks me out.  I get the idea that people
read his letter, and respond to his false claims about
me...even though my letter said nothing about what he
mentions!

It would be very easy to smooth things over, but that is
impossible until his responses respond to what I actually
write. (That is a truism, no?)

On a separate topic:  I am uncomfortable with the way that
Jtdirl and others slander me as a racist. For example,
Jtdirl again stated that Zionists are racists. He does this
knowing that I a Zionist, therefore the clear implication
is that I am racist bigot whose words should be ignored.

Such angry and false speech about Zionists (which includes
tens of millions of Jews and Christians) is not appropriate
here. Would we accept it if people said that Irish
nationalism is racist? That feminism is FemiNazism? That
black progressivism is really white-hating communism? I
doubt that most Wikipedias would stand for this.  But when
people here make these generalized and incorrect statements
about Zionists, no one says a word.

You and I don't speak this way about people of other
groups; I propose that this standard should be true for all
of us here. I hope that I am not perceived as being
unreasonable.

Robert (RK)

----

Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>

I am disturbed by the way that so many Wikipedia
contributors are libelling me. Time after time, people are
ignoring the words I write in lettesr, and somehow respond
to statements that I never wrote. 

For instance, I have worked with many others in articles on
Arab refugees and Jewish refugees from the Arab-Israeli
wars. Also, in recent days I have been concerned about this
topic in regards to the State of Israel article, and have
said so quite explicitly. I *agreed* with everyone,
including Jtdirl, that these topics should be discussed,
but I do not want him doing an end-run around all already
peer-reviewed articles. In all other cases, people here
have labelled that sort of thing as a violation of
Wikipedia standards; I only hold that we maintain the same
standards here. This should not be controversial.

Yet in response, Jtdirl wrote dishonest (or incoherent)
responses, mumbling about Jerusalem and anti-Semitism. This
proves my point. His response literally has nothing to do
with the content of my post. In fact, they never do. He
just keeps screaming about anti-Semitism, over and over. 
He can keep screaming about anti-Semitism until he turns
blue, but that won't change the issues. It is just a
diversionary tactic on his part, and one I am sad to say
that some of you seem to have fallen for.

And many of you were so fooled by his posts, that you
missed the truth: Jtdirl has been using me as a whipping
boy for his disagreements with all the other people who
also agree with. Many people have been bothered by Jtdirl's
recent POV writings to the State of Israel article. Try
checking the History option. Several Wikipedians, including
Jiang, me, and Uriber have been disagreeing with Jrdirl. 
But instead of dealing with them, he uses Jew-issues as a
smokescreen. For shame.

Chris Mahan also wrote a response to this issue... saying
"Boo hoo". Wow!  Real mature!  I had no idea that this was
the kind of problem solving that Wikipedia encourages.  I
am saddened that so many people find such responses
acceptable.

And let us considers two of Fred Bauder's recent posts.
When I pointed out that Jtdirl needs to respond to what
people actually write (as opposed to topics that no one
even mentioned) Fred bizarrely wrote that Jrdirl's
responses do make sense, and I am just not accepting NPOV. 
This isn't about NPOV; it is about the fact that Jtdirl
made some sort of response that had nothing to do with what
anyone on this list wrote.

Fred Bauder, out of the blue, then chastizes me:
> You can't have a legitimate Israel article that leaves
out the conquest
> and subjugation of the Palestinians anymore than you can
have
> a People's Republic of China article without a prominent
link to
> totalitarianism and authoritarianism. 
> You can't ignore an elephant in the room and maintain
> your legitimacy as an authoritative reference.

Huh?  I never said otherwise, and I am tired of certain
people here lying about my beliefs. In fact, my position is
the exact opposite of what Fred attributes to me. I have
always held that these are subjects that Wikipedia should
cover, and I am glad that we already have many articles on
them.

Do you see what I mean?  I have a certain position...and
people just write total fabrications about my beliefs. That
is just unacceptable.

Robert (RK)

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