[WikiEN-l] Re: Nationalist POV-pushing on Wikpedia: what to do? (was Azerbaijan and Iran related articles)

Tue Aug 10 00:28:42 UTC 2004

Dan Drake" <dd at dandrake.com> wrote:

> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 19:14:11 +0000 (UTC)
> From: "Dan Drake" <dd at dandrake.com>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nationalist POV-pushing on Wikpedia: what to
> 	do?	(was Azerbaijan and Iran related articles)
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Message-ID: <vhIsdqY67dTD-pn2-0ig5CprxYtIw at localhost>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> On Sun, 8 Aug 2004 14:37:15 UTC, Jens Ropers
> <ropers at ropersonline.com> wrote:
>
>> IMHO nationalist POV has been a problem on Wikipedia for a LOOONG 
>> time:
>> U.S. nationalist POV, that is.
>> ...[snip fine example of malicious idiocy from a US source]
>> ...
>> Really folks, I do rarely, in this day and age, ever see people whose
>> moral compasses and standards of truthfulness are so *seriously* out 
>> of
>> whack as a certain group of U.S. "patriots".
>
> Really?  You don't follow the various Middle East discussions much, do
> you?

I do. And IMHO the Middle East would be one prime example of what I 
said. I would have agreed with you a few years ago, 
however.^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W Must. Not. Get. Political. :-|

>> ...
>>
>> What I'm trying to say is that, _especially_ with the inherent 
>> pro-U.S.
>> slant that's simply due to the large number of U.S. WP contributors,
>> it's IMPOSSIBLE for "the rest of us" to go it alone in trying to
>> balance things out. Given the said slant, I would like to appeal that
>> seriously minded U.S. NPOVers _help wherever they can_ and -- keeping
>> the above in mind -- always seek to apply _more_ restraint and a
>> _stricter_ standard whenever there is a possible U.S. side to an 
>> issue.
>> It's probably the only way we're going to get a lid on U.S. 
>> nationalist
>> POV.
>
> This, though, I have to consider a wee bit presumptuous.  This 
> particular
> list is infested with Americans, and I'm not sure I can even exhaust 
> the
> fingers of one hand in counting all those who are notably 
> "conservative"
> in the US sense, let alone rabid right-wing nationalists. The first 
> one I
> think of is no rabid nationalist, but a peace-maker.  As for the
> hot-headed American who dismissed the above posting as another
> anti-American rant: he contibuted, as apparently his most recent 
> political
> posting, a reply to some rabid nationalist loony concerning Michael 
> Moore.
> Perhaps what we really need is that all of us who reply to American
> loonies (which I admit I don't often do because my main WP interests 
> are
> outside the polical-rants subjects) need to sign everything with "(US
> citizen)".  Would that help the perception problem?

I wouldn't have sent the above email to this list if I didn't actually 
think it to be "infested" with numerous seriously minded NPOVers (as I 
wrote).

Thanks and regards,
Jens Ropers

There are two types of IT techs: The ones who watch soap operas and the 
ones who watch progress bars.
http://www.ropersonline.com/elmo/#108681741955837683

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