I believe RK's material could and should probably be presented in several
paragraphs. What he has done is a piece of original historical research,
which by citing particular statements made by Palestinians builds a strong
case that at least some Palestinian leaders are insincere. However due to my
experiences with him I would hesitate to rely on what he has done as he has
often composed this sort of lengthy detailed article which by framing the
debate in his terms and sytematically misrepresenting opposing positions
distorts the situation. (My big edit war with him was in Chiroractic
medicine which I do know something about. Your chiropratic medicine article
remains unrecognisable to chiropractic practitioners or their patients). I
would certainly never attempt to edit an article he was actively working on
in an aggressive way. (Silly to get upset over a hobby like Wikipedia).
On Vfd, just recently someone tried to delete [[Communist government]], but
had to give up. That article which is quite toned down after extensive
editing remains deeply offensive to apoligists, however they have their
[[Communist state]] article which presents a sanitized version of things.
Thing is, Wikipedia is to some extent an ideological battleground, a forum
for struggle.
Fred
From: Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 06:48:08 -0800
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Effective bullying strategy. (RK)
Fred Bauder wrote:
Agreed, I was hasty. But you must admit a
struggle to put forward points of
view by partisan advocates is in progress. Deletion and thus silence is just
as much its expression as RK's overdone presentation.
Can you be more specific about what is overdone about his
presentation? I'm not sure what the word "overdone" means here.
Certainly, the material in question is too long and in detail for a
broad overview article -- but this only shows why it was a mistake to
delete the original article in the first place.
But in tems of actual content, I don't see the problem. There is no
question that a full understanding of the Palestinian situation
requires understanding what Palestinian views of the peace process
actually are. There is no question that one point of contention is
whether Palestinian leaders, in particular, view the peace process as
"permanent and irrevocable" (or similar) or whether they view it
merely as a short-term negotiating tactic in a longterm effort to
destroy Israel.
Simply omitting information on that question is unacceptable. This is
an important part of one of the major questions of our time.
I've read and re-read the passages in question -- they could use some
work, no doubt. But the only arguments I've seen for deletion is that
the material is biased (though just how it is biased, I'm not sure).
I've been trying to find the original VfD entry, but Wikipedia is
painfully slow at the moment, so I've been unsuccessful.
--Jimbo
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