User:PalestineRemembered/Geni

Statement by PR - a campaign of harrassment in e-mail and in public has been launched against my mentor, User:Geni, accusing (her?) of not doing her job. I have been forced to make my own complaints against Geni "two edits [1][2] which suggested to me you were toeing a hard-line ideological attitude that would have a significantly distorting effect on articles".
Here are the 2 "good" edits of mine that I felt had been blocked for non-encyclopedic reasons - a Palestinian's biography cannot use the word "massacre" for a particular event (even as it's implied he lied over it) and the very well known web-site JewsAgainstZionism are guilty of having an "extreme minority view" and (in addition?) cannot be cited for the eye-witness testimony of a Rabbi.
The complaint I've been forced to make against Geni is here - I made it then (and show it y'all now) only as proof that, to my mind, Geni was actually harsh and "biased against me" and not "biased towards me", as alleged.
But my complaint also proves that I have been entirely compliant and non-complaining about the "ideological restrictions" imposed by my mentor, though I felt they were harmful to articles. I do not believe I have been a "difficult mentee" and (so far) I've had no indication that I have been difficult.
The complaints reached such a pitch that (it would appear), Geni is stepping down as my mentor, and I (will) have a different one with more teeth. Allegations of "Forum Shopping" have been levelled at other people in this imbrogolio - doubtless I'll now be accused of "Mentor Shopping" - I trust nobody thinks it's me behaving this badly. Most people would be very, very puzzled why such desperate efforts are being made to muzzle me, and why the evidence is so trivial as to be effectively non-existent.
Please note, I posted the following "Mentor" Geni under attack to the AN/I in progress before I became aware that Geni was being forced to stand aside by the barrage. I trust this affair will not stop her from offering her careful services to others and to the project and have awarded her a barnstar.
These are the words with which I greeted Geni on 15th Sept "If you're to be my mentor, it's important you know that various subtle and not-so-subtle pressures will be applied to you ..... if you think I'm trying to bully you now, be aware that I'm a pussy-cat compared with some of the other players on this field!" PR^talk 12:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I owe the community an apology - I've claimed that Geni and myself never exchanged e-mails - and that's not the case after all. She warned me in e-mail once (perhaps urgently) that instructions to translate by "finding a speaker of the language and asking them to do it", (coming from the inserter of non-English references to Palestinian terrorism) was liable to cause really serious offense. Finding this makes me even more grateful for her excellent and only slightly intrusive mentoring. PR^talk 09:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Interference with the Mentoring process

User:Jaakobou of mentor Geni: "I've been recently getting a tad frustrated with Geni's lack of response to the accumulative and exauhstive nature of the problem, to which i recieved a response that she not only does not see a problem, but also that she never believed there was ever a problem to begin with. 07:59, 8 October 2007
User:Jaakobou of mentor Geni - "Geni is aware that PR has not made any "breaches of 2RR" (perhaps one) and she's managed to come up with a suggestion that circumvents all the raised issues. in retrospect i'm not entirely sure Geni's proposals are in good faith 01:01, 12 October 2007
User:Jaakobou to mentor User:Kendrick7 what to do with "edit summary ... is something that the mentorship should discuss rather than dismiss" (this after just days, 7th to the 9th Nov 2007!) That comment mysteriously disappeared - but evidence for its existence is still visible here.
User:Jaakobou to mentor: "User:Zscout370, care to make a mission statement such as "what sanctions would you implement for which breaches" and how do you perceive each of the violations mentioned on the open ANIs? this is no joke, two mentors already allowed repeated violations and I see no statement by you to suggest you take this issue seriously" 19:13, 11 October 2007

Saeb Erekat

(WARNING - this page is structured completely differently from the regular WIKIPEDIA fashion, it has the last contribution at the top.)

The name the subject uses is not normaly a reason to use that name as the title of a section.Geni 03:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I find that really difficult to accept, perhaps to the extent of saying that you're wrong. We refer to Khruschev and the Great Patriotic War, we don't use the English name for the same event. The Arabic name apparently translates as "Jenin Massacre". Under no circumstances should we force on Erekat the name prefered by the perpetrators. What next, Elie Wiesel and the Final Solution? In this case, we know (or strongly suspect, anyway) it's actually the regular name in English too - the Hated Google Test gives "Jenin Massacre" 30,900 hits and "Battle of Jenin" less than 1/3 as many, 13,400.

There are many serious problems with this biography, straightforward lies in there eg "The UN put the final death toll at 52 Palestinians ... and it concluded that no civilians were killed deliberately." in order to make it appear that Saeb Erekat is a liar. So BLP issues too, the fact that those who carried out these killings did a cover-up and we'll never know the number of deaths should *not* mean that we jeer at him.

You never tell me what you think of my maundering justifications - but it strikes me that every "query" you've made I've answered in full, and some/much/most/all of my reasoning is valid, including on this occasion. What do you think of my putting latest additions on a TalkPage to the top? PR^talk 06:56, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Great Patriotic War has a reasonable recognition as the Soviet name for WW2. Jenin Massacre has almost no recognition as the arabic name.Geni 11:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

My change was reverted once, before I saw this, I reverted again. I cannot believe we insult people in their own biographies by putting someone else's words into their mouth. (We'd not even do that if he'd made an unacceptable racist slur against Israelis - why would we do it on grounds of notability?). And I think you're wrong about the notability in English (even more so in Arabic) anyway - as I detailed above. PS - Jaakobou is complaining that you're not agreeing with him when you should ..... I trust you don't think I'm wilfully argumentative! PR^talk 15:32, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The words are not being put in his mouth they are the title of the section. The level of awareness amoung the wider english speaking population of the world of what anything is called in arabic is limited. Just accept that Jenin Massacre is not going to be used as the name for event on wikipedia.Geni 21:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

policemen

Why did you remove mention of policemen [3]?Genisock2 01:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

For the reasons I explained here - User:Jaakobou's reference appears to come from the people whom an Israeli "senior military man" accused of carrying out "a pogrom against the Arabs of Hebron, with no provocations on the Palestinian side." It beggars belief that he could remove (from the reference listing at the bottom of the page) an excellent eye-witness account of very good Jewish-Arab relations in 1929 Hebron and then, in the very next edit, put a hate-site reference into the lead. (And of course, the reference is non-English and incompatible with verifiability, a core principle of the encyclopedia). Note - it's a blocking offence (likely perma-blocking on the first occasion) to quote from hate-sites, and this one is much, much worse than, for instance, David Irving and the Institute of Historical Review.

And when I looked again, I realised there was something even more bizarre and disturbing going on - Jaakobou claims that Rabbi Baruch Kaplan's words "no one in the yeshiva ever told me it was dangerous to go by myself among the Arabs. We just lived with them, and got along very well" come from a hate-site, meaning JAZ. So Jaakobou (who has big problems with the English language anyway) knows all about this particular rule - but is unable to recognise the concept of "hate-site". No wonder he causes such damage! PR^talk 07:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

www.jewsagainstzionism.com

I can understand wanting to link to a personal account but a less ah controversial site would be preferable.Geni 00:14, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't wish to carry on using your Talk for long and potentially excited defenses of edits I make, which is why I've created this page. (It has another advantage, if I talk rubbish, you can tell me so).
Defenders of Israel have huge problems with www.jewsagainstzionism.com because these folk are outraged that their faith is so horrendously abused. The fact they they're real practitioners of Judaism is only further reason to hate them, top administrator have accused them of extremism and compared them directly with the real thugs of Kahane, without giving any grounds whatsoever. This time, the reference of the JAZ I've used is not attacking Israel (elsewhere they credibly claim that supporters of Israel contributed to the Holocaust), but defends the pre-Israel state of Jewish-Muslim relations in Palestine, which they claim were always good. The "Real Torah" Jews are by no means the only ones to quote historical accounts to do this. Supporters of Israel seek to silence these real practitioners of Judaism and make constant accusations of antisemitism, against Palestinians, against editors like me - and play such very nasty tricks as accusing survivors of the Holocaust of collaboration against the Nazis on patently false grounds. (Find the link to this if you're interested).
Ultimately, it comes down to how WP should balance race-hatred against protests against race-hatred. I think WP should stamp out the former and big up the latter. But I know I'm in a tiny minority, I earned a 1 month ban for this protest against the constant ethnic labelling that goes on. PR^talk 06:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
PS - see this exchange - another editor (a seriously knowledgeable and productive one) has multiple issues with the editing of this particular article, and references my introducing the testimony of Rabbi Baruch Kaplan as likely having been proper. My reference, is a vastly better source than this one introduced by the very same editor who has just removed my JAZ reference. The reference introduced (into the lead, not just references at the end!) is non-English and appears to be the work of the notorious Hebron settlers, so unpleasant that an Israeli "senior military man" has called one example of their behaviour a pogrom against the Arabs of Hebron, with no provocations on the Palestinian side. PR^talk 10:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The rightness or otherwise of their POV isn't that important. They are in a fairly small minority thus it is best to avoid bringing them up in general articles.Geni 23:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

As my mentor, I'm looking to you to guide me through reaching some kind of consensus of editors (perhaps uninvolved ones?) about, in this case, the relative RS level of two articles for inclusion in this article.

As best I can tell, there are no serious objections to including this article (I'm now told that the Rabbi Baruch Kaplan is only one testimony of about 5 saying the same kind of things, relations between Arabs and Jews were generally good in Hebron 1929. JAZ presumably publish this one simply it because it's something they recorded - something I'd call a "mark of scholarship"). It cannot be right to exclude a sample of these "positive" testimonies (particularily the one that is most accessible). There is no obvious reason why JAZ should have cheated.

Whereas I believe I can provide very good reasons to exclude at least some of the links that are dripping with material liable to (if not intended to) incite hatred. Nobody would dream of quoting from the Institute of Historical Review (David Irving's web-site), and we should not quote from www.hebron.org.il for the same reason). Hebron.org have every reason to cheat, their presence in Hebron seems to be such a huge problem that Israel is evicting some of them.

By any standard of RS, the JAZ article has to be much better than this link aggressively being inserted into the lead of this self-same article. (JAZ is also in English - the specified part of Hebron.org is not). I'd like the project to work to a consistent standard of RS, but if that standard is being dragged down to such a low level in this particular article by partisans, then it cannot be right to exclude the JAZ article. PR^talk 07:20, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Again it doesn't matter JAZ are an extream minority view. And thus should not be brought up outside their own article. If there are other accounts link to them.Geni 15:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

You're taking the side of the bullies in this affair, the people who are ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, and want the massacre of 1929 in Hebron to be twisted to prove that Arabs are diseased. The fact that real practitioners of Judaism lived in peace with Arabs is poison to their way of thinking, and they apply heavy pressure to stop that evidence ever coming to light.

The views of JAZ are not those of an "extreme minority" as you seek to imply, they're the views of many/most practitioners of Judaism until (I think) around 1967. Jews (even more than others) suffer the very most unpleasant attacks for daring to criticise Israel (look at Finkelstein, sacked from De Paul), it's no wonder few are prepared to speak out. But some do, and it is gross to marginalise and ignore them for their courage. Would you similarily denigrate Emily Hobhouse, who insisted on travelling to Cape Town in the middle of the Boer War and blew the lid off the scandal of "Concentration camps invented by the British"?

It's not even as if the list of Jewish groups highly critical of Israel wasn't long - the very name "JewsAgainstZionism" is used by at least two different groups, both from the strongly Torah-believing practising religious, a small minority. See this, the other lot presenting a quite different set of the same kind of things - well referenced testimony from people who were on the spot, trying to save people from the Holocaust but getting only obstruction from the Zionist organisations. I won't bother you with a long list of such organisations (I'd want to double-check each one, and the list is a lot longer than when I first downloaded it, containing many more Israeli organisations than it did then).

And fortunately, in this one case, we have an article that is actually being improved, even against bitter opposition - and the architect of that improvement doesn't rate the personal testimony of this particular Rabbi as highly as I do (he believes there are at least 5 more, the real part of this story can be added later). So we can do without this one. I trust your dedication to the project is never subsumed to gunmen in the future. PR^talk 18:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm yet to meet a relgious group that didn't think itself the original version of X which everyone else had corrupted but no matter. There are multiple eyewitnesses yes? Someone else must have reports from some of them perhaps "Between Jerusalem and Hebron : Jewish settlements in the pre-state period" by Yosef Kats.Geni 21:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

C'mon, Geni, for 2000 years Jews did not practise self-defense, had no intention of setting up a separate state, put the good of their birth nations first and were good regular citizens in every way (perhaps better than many). JAZ comes squarely from that tradition. There's been a massive drop-off in the proportion seriously practising their religion, but the JAZ people are definitely the ones keeping the faith. Calling them "extreme" is more than a might unfair.

In addition, there are said to be multiple eye-witness/participant accounts from 1929 Hebron saying that Jews and Arabs rubbed along pretty well. I only have access to one of these accounts, but there is no reason whatsoever to damn the source as a "hate-site". PR^talk 21:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

another edit

In this case do you have acess to the ref being used?Geni 00:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Which reference? Everyone the slightest bit interested knows that Kiryat Gat was built in the "Faluja pocket" and al-Faluja was "emptied" not "abandoned", exactly as I've said. I have the reference I used (Morris), though there is no particular reason I should have, this story is well known and easily found on the web. The article had been stable until there was a puzzling attempt to exclude the details of this atrocity (these details particularily valuable, because they're the most detailed international eye-witness accounts of the Nakba that we have). See this, it's clear that nobody doubts my claim it happened as described. And nobody seriously doubts that Kiryat Gat is the same place as Faluja/Iraq al-Manshiyya, (though Kiryat Gat was actually built on the less famous second of these villages and the satellite picture shows that some of the ruins of Faluja have not yet been covered by Kiryat Gat). There is very aggressive partisanship going on in this article, as in so many others - but the aggression does not come from me - as both these examples prove! PR^talk 09:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Geni, greetings. FYI a simmering dispute is heating up between Jaakobou and PR. Take care. HG | Talk 14:56, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Jaakobou refused to play ball with your clarify Jenin page and the damage he causes to lots of different pages continues. He's recently been harrassing me on my TalkPage, but he does that constantly to all sorts of people, including admins. It would not surprise me atall if he's been following all my edits and trying to build a federal case against me. Geni has apparently puzzled over two of the edits I've made - but as far as I can tell they were entirely proper (well, one was a mistake, but I'd already lain down and accepted the kicking I got for it). PR^talk 22:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

adding content without ref

Please don't. For example here. Google search suggest the guy was anti-zionist so you had better have some very good refs to back the claim that he was pro.Geni 23:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Simple mistake, I confused Glubb with Wingate (famous for the Chindit Campaign against the Japanese - he'd earlier 1939 been sacked from Palestine by the British for siding with the Zionists in direct opposition to British policy).

This mistake of mine (possibly the first I've made in a year and several thousand edits?) was reverted and I have coweringly apologised to the person who spotted it. Shame, because the rest of my edit is good (more detail if you want it) - but I'm much too frightened to try and improve the article now I've slipped up once.

Presently, you will start to wonder why someone already so intimidated needs watching, and why such a trivial allegation (so easily and quickly sorted and closed over 36 hours ago) was ever passed to you. If you were to examine my record in depth, you'd see I've persistently suffered really nasty and aggressive accusations over references (refs in particular, though many other things too). And yet, I'm exceptionally good and careful about references, and have been so right from my first days in the project. In an attempt to justify these allegations, all my contributions have been (and are) exhaustively and aggressively scrutinised and challenged - see my highly credible rebuttal of that particular set of 3.

That set of 3 are only the 2nd documented charge of abusing references that's ever been made against me, coming after 10 months of my participation. (The first documented charge was utterly false, as proved in great detail, though I was virtually blocked for 6 weeks over it, and forced to send a photograph of myself with the book in question to a neutral party). The editor in this second case can only find three "questionable" uses of references by me - and to do that, he's had to go right back to the beginning of my participation (that's where the first two edits come from). Even back when I was a newby, my edits were good, containing highly credible, "unsurprising" and relevant information. The references I used in those two early cases should be perfectly adequate to purpose (and likely RS to policy even for much more "surprising" claims). The third reference *is* RS, since it's a link to a satellite photograph (from a research source we should probably be using a lot, but mysteriously upsets some editors, perhaps because of the ethnicity of those who run it).

These persistent claims that "PR cheats over references" are not only untrue, they're often from people who really do insert unsuitable references. This one (Glubb/Wingate) probably comes from people who have successfully edit-warred the reference "A Study in Palestinian Duplicity and Media Indifference" into the article Battle of Jenin. That very article from CAMERA contains such material as "despite copious evidence of their blatant lying ... refuting their fictitious 'massacre'", so it's completely unsuitable to be used in the encyclopedia anyway (and would be utterly unacceptable due to separate accusations that it practises serious distortion, amounting to lies). The same people who successfully edit-warred over that nasty link then try and make out that my three good sources (one was a big group of US service men, one a big group of Israeli service-men and one a link to a photograph) have no place in the enyclopedia? How do they have the brass neck to do this? May I use a Hebrew word for their boldness, or will that lead immediately to even nastier accusations?

I'm very pleased to have you as my "Mentor" - after all, one day I might make a really serious mistake (eg use the word "chutzpah", thereby causing immense offense) and have to grovel to you to be allowed to stay on board. But you'll not find a lot of meat in the reports you're being peppered with at the moment. PR^talk 09:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:BADSITES

I would suggest staying well away from this. Even I'm not crazy enough to get seriously involved. As for Deir Yassin massacre disscuss on talk page.Geni 19:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, bother .... PR^talk 19:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Jenin

It is important to describe as exactly as posible what the sources say and who is saying it thus I would suggest something along the following lines

On 29 March Israel began Operation Defensive Shield. In giving his reasons for the action Ariel Sharon listed 3 suicide bombings.[4] A briefing released by the Israeli embassy in Washington claimed the scale of attacks by the palatines combined with the lack of cooperation on the part of Yasser Arafat made the operation necessary.[5] Geni 01:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations, you drew together the two sources and accurately reported what they said. It is depressing that so much time has been wasted by involved editors who have failed to grasp some of the most basic policies of the project. On a similar topic, can you suggest how I could overcome blind and ungrammatical reverts like this one, apparently suggesting it's one of the least serious problems in the article? PR^talk 11:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

News - the consensus reached (and underlined by yourself above) that "three suicide bombings" was Israel's reasoning for attacking Jenin has again been removed. And the "also known as" Jenin Massacre has been removed, despited it apparently being 3 times more popular (even in the English-speaking world) than "Battle of Jenin". The latter gets 13,400 hits by the Hated Google Test, and the former 30,900, over 3 times as many. PR^talk 06:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
News - The section you created at the Battle of Jenin TalkPage has today been interfered with and turned into a near invisible sub-section. This action was part of a sequence, in which this and this archiving took place, with some comments less than 2 weeks old being summararily disappeared. This AN/I was raised on this exact subject less than 2 weeks ago, it is clear that some editors (involved and uninvolved) take serious objection to it. I'm informing you of this in case you think that normal rules apply. PR^talk 08:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Please check these edits

In an already heated environment I've made two edits you might consider inflammatory or worse ..... please check [6] and [[7]. If you think I should strike them out (or part of them out) then I'm perfectly prepared to do so. The first of these edits is actually me disagreeing with someone who considered becoming my "Mentor". (Although this is 7 or so days after I backed out from accepting him as such). You might think that the dignity of the process requires me to be ultra-careful in this context.

(What do you think of my new sig - do you think it will help reduce some of the really serious harrassment I've had in the past?). PR^talk(New Sig for PalestineRemembered) 10:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

First edit fine. Second it is generaly not a good idea to chnage section titles on tlak pages.Geni 13:26, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. You'll see I'm again being harrassed on my TalkPage on the basis that contacting you is a sign of a guilty conscience. I'm not the first or major victim by any means, much worse has happened elsewhere. I may have offered you some examples, I'll not risk doing so again. Question - would it be inflammatory of me to revert it with the summary "Remove nonsense"? That's almost as strong as I've ever dared to say in the past. PR^talk(New Sig for PalestineRemembered) 15:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Something else - is there any objection to my disagreeing with the community and posting my support to an editor who has suffered sanctions for (I think) being angry and making a nuisance of himself over policy? PR^talk 07:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Bitten off more than you can chew?

We're supposed to be on a voyage of discovery, charting a course to a workable system of "Mentorship" for editors with problematical patterns of behaviour. (This is a process that's never worked before and isn't really expected to work this time). Your challenge is doubly difficult because you've got absolutely no material to work on - nobody has come to you and said "this", "this", "this", and "this" are in breach of WP policy - or even just generally disruptive of the project. Then, just to make things really absurdly difficult, 95% of the people I'm editing with have only "content dispute" type problems with my edits anyway, they spend 0% of their time fending off any issues they have with my "behaviour". Do you wish you'd not offered yourself?

However, to try and kick this thing off again, tell me what you think of this edit, removing both the reference to "Jenin Massacre" (3 times more popular than "Battle of Jenin" according to the hated Google Test) and the personal testimony of the bulldozer driver. These removals look a lot like a case of "IDONTLIKEIT" and nothing else - what do you think? Being a pussy-cat, I refuse to go in there and simply reinsert these two excellent pieces of information. PalestineRemembered 21:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the bulldozer driver bit but in line with articles such as Indian Rebellion of 1857 popular alturnative names should be mentioned in the opening.Geni 21:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou. I've taken your advice and made the edit with the summary "Alternative names are always shown, especially in cases like this, where the Hated Google Test shows the alternative name to be 3 times more popular than the article name we're using." - I trust you approve!

I'm absolutely convinced that the other clip belongs in there, diff the interview with the bulldozer driver - or see the whole interview and tell me what you think. Note - Jaakobou, Kyaa and Tewfik have all confirmed it's genuine, but they seem to have a severe case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT over including it. I think it's highly pertinent to the whole event. How about you? Note that I'm only using a quite small part of it, but there's no question of my distorting it's significance. PalestineRemembered 21:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

PS - as soon as I posted you the above I discovered I'm being accused of "edit-warring" over use of the word "massacre" - but you weren't to know how very sensitive people can be! PalestineRemembered 22:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know who gush-shalom.org are so I can't really comment. Idealy the name should be the two english names (don't try and cover geographical area without a cite so drop first world and middle east claim) and the arabic and hebrew names.Geni 22:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I fail to understand why we need non-English in articles in en-WP. In fact, that's one of the practises that is excluding editors/being abused to exclude editors (and hence damaging articles). Our previous discussions didn't exactly fill me with confidence that translations were easy to come by (certainly not into minority languages, it's bad enough getting them out!). PalestineRemembered 22:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It is generaly useful to know what those involved in conflicts call the thing. Anyway that is a long term aim not something we need worry about in the short term.Geni 22:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, great. I'm testing this thing we're supposed to be running, but there's a possibility it might start to work quite well! PalestineRemembered 22:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

terrorism-info.org.il not worth getting translated.

Hi Geni - thanks for warning me that "terrorism-info.org.il is not a valid source thus not worth getting translated" - why is it classed as a "very interesting source" at the top of the TalkPage of Battle of Jenin, and is not subject to archiving (or has an archive period over 20 times longer than some discussions?) PalestineRemembered 14:21, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Hussam_Abdo#The_YouTube_video

Non english sources are allowed on wikipedia (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias for why this has to be the case) however translation issues being what they are I would suggest choseing some random people from Category:User_he-N to provide an opinion on the translation. At the same time it should be made very clear that what the source is so the phraseing should be along the lines of "TV station X reported that whatever".Genisock2 19:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what to make of this ... the WP page you reference is not even a guide-line (I don't think?). Are you telling me it trumps WP core policy verifiability?

I'll take your word that it is possible to get translations of minor languages (7 million speakers of this one worldwide?) - but only if you can point me to a quick and hassle-free way to do it eg - I'd very much like to know what goes on at the articles referenced here (entered with this diff). The articles in question are these: [8], [9] and [10]. The contents are clearly very important, since relevant discussions at this TalkPage are being archived in as little as 4.5 days, barely before they're completed - but the diff I've given you above is from June, over 90 days ago. PalestineRemembered 18:31, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

If you want something closer to policy then see Wikipedia:Citing_sources#When_you_add_content. For translations as I said try asking a few people in Category:User he-N. As for the links to terrorism-info.org.il I doubt they pass WP:RS given the content of this.Geni 19:24, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I find it disturbing that anyone thinks they can link to a foreign-language video, that has an English translation, and tell us the English version is wrong according to another translation, in a different language, to which we (as I understand it) do not have access! And then boast of what a good editor they are in consequence.

I'm very happy you should be sampling my contributions and picking me up on anything I do that may be over-robust, down-right rude, lacking in logical consistency or laced with terminological inexactitudes. However, in this case (assuming I've picked up all the details correctly) we have an editor who is simply driving a coach and horses through WP:Policy. My protests at this behaviour may be lacking in subtlety - but all other protests are being ignored too. PalestineRemembered 20:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Zee problem is that the english translations are not original and are thus no more valid than any we do ourselves.Geni 21:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I've only bothered with this article because a recent entry to Talk was held up as proof that it's originator was a "good editor". Do you want an AfD on whether an article on this kid has any business in the encyclopedia? PalestineRemembered 21:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: PR mentorship

I don't really know you, and I was against the idea of involuntary mentorship for PR from the beginning, because I don't think he's done anything nearly serious enough to warrant it. This being said, you seem like a fair-minded and capable person and I certainly wouldn't object to your stepping in. Eleland 12:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm cool with that. :P Kyaa the Catlord 14:19, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I also am not big on mentorship as a concept. If you can make it useful, great. If it has no effect, my expectations will be met. I have no objection to you being the mentor. Good luck. GRBerry 02:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. As I have no experience with you, I can't hold any opinion either way, though I would be thrilled if you could ultimately effect a change. I would have been more comfortable with someone like an administrator, who is already confirmed by the community as having the proper skills, but I suppose it is worth another go to get PR in line with WP norms... Tewfik^Talk 19:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

You seemn like a reasonable editor, and I support your effort. Also, Palestine Remembered seems overall like a fairly reasonable person, despite our differences of opinion. --Steve, Sm8900 21:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Mentorship offer kindly received

Hi Geni - all previous offers of "Mentorship" for me have been torpedoed by a blizzard of accusations, complaints and even administrator actions against those who dare to deal with me in a collegiate manner. User:HG is just the latest to have buckled under (in his case) relatively mild pressure of "you're much too buddy buddy with PR" and other such accusations (HG doesn't like them refered to as attacks). Despite the mountain of aggressive accusations against me, there's only a single instance in 10 months and 1500 edits of me doing anything anyone has has bothered to quote and consider offensive, and the community is split on whether it amounts to a "legal threat". A plea of "not guilty" to the charge of "making a legal threat" evinced only an accusation that pleading "Not Guilty" made me an even more recalciturn offender.

Having said all of which, and without knowing anything about you whatsoever, I'd be delighted to have you as my "Mentor". All it requires from you is to examine this evidence page and express your opinion on whether I'm indeed working to improve articles. (Be prepared for even more bitter flack as I attempt to carry out further urgently needed edits detailed at this page).

I'm sorry to be operating as a single purpose account for this topic - extensive (robust) discussion finally proved that my doing this is to WP:policy after all. I've virtually stopped operating my regular account (the one I used to add a whole bunch of other material I was interested in). Doubtless when things calm down I'll return to regular editing and this onerous duty you've volunteered for can be laid aside and buried. PalestineRemembered 23:44, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I don’t think it is possible to make such a judgement based on a single page. You are making an effort to follow WP:CITE and WP:RS but the one sidedness suggests you need to consider Wikipedia:Writing for the enemy. One condition of my taking the role of mentorship is that as far as possible past events on Wikipedia are left in the past. Is this acceptable.Geni 00:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

You are a wiser person than me (but that's not a big hurdle to clear!) I'm sorry my "list of suggested edits" appeared one-sided, but it included just the edits I fear would be most resisted on "non-legitimate" grounds, since I don't think there's much doubt about the evidence I've presented. (I say that - no effort has been made to dispute what I'm claiming, so there could be small details wrong). I provide it as evidence that I don't edit-war. I've attempted to insert some of those edits and been knocked back, in other cases I've not even attempted to make the edits, despite my conviction that the evidence is excellent and the events belong in the article.

Events of the past will indeed be left behind. It will less easy to forget some editing patterns .... repeated efforts have been made to conflate the Washington Times (owned by the Moonies and operated to save the world) with the Washington Post (an RS, the only kind of thing we should be using in articles, at least for "surprising" claims). Sources such as CAMERA are not simply partisan, but widely distrusted, and there was an RfC rejecting them as an RS. And yet, "facts" from these very dubious sources continue to be vigorously shoe-horned into articles, while much better (even "official") RS material is ruthlessly excised.

"Writing for the enemy" is an excellent idea, I've requested it some 4 times to 3 different people over the "Kurdi Bear" interview (see my list again). Nobody's (yet) requested it of me. If I can harp back on previous events for a moment, my requests for this "collaborative assistance" led only to accusations I was trying to operate meat-puppets. If you're to be my mentor, it's important you know that various subtle and not-so-subtle pressures will be applied to you ..... if you think I'm trying to bully you now, be aware that I'm a pussy-cat compared with some of the other players on this field! PalestineRemembered 08:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

User:HG is warned of the danger of being my mentor

Something I noticed when HG was offering himself as my mentor - it was already clear (to me) that personal harrassment of anyone dealing with me in a collegiate fashion would be a significant factor.[11]

There are three major problems with what you're trying to achieve. One is that any "friend or ally" (or even exchanger of collegiate posts in between complete disagreemnt, like yourself) is going to be harrassed with accusations aimed at their integrity (or more serious attacks, such as sock-puppetry or meat-puppetry, as you and others have discovered). Secondly, with illiteracy and edit-warring rife in some of the articles that most need attention, careful editing is often a complete waste of time. Good edits will be turned into garbage, even if they're not edit-warred out immediately. (I think I just caught one of the editors I'm thinking of demanding to be free to edit on topics they'd just told us they knew nothing about!).

And there's a third problem - because despite what you might think, I spend very little time arguing over edits (I refuse to edit-war, as I'm forever telling people). I put most of my effort into attempting to either act to WP:Policy or asking (demanding) people tell me what they think policy is. I find an article quoting "an historian" who says things such as :"Until the Arab armies invaded Israel on the very day of its birth, May 15, 1948, no quarter whatsoever had ever been given to a Jew who fell into Arab hands." That is gross indeed on two unambiguous levels, making the guy utterly unsuitable to be used. Note, I've done nothing to interfere with the article, I'm only pointing it out in Talk, resulting in a small explosion of anger. (This "historian" also wrote a book called ""Israel Explores Deir Yassin Blood Libel, 1969" - I've no idea what's in there, but I think I can guess!). You were canvassed to go to the Battle of Jenin article in order to stop me pointing out that 'The minority view sources we're offered themselves tell us that their claims were ignored in the western media' - I wasn't editing, just pointing out something very obvious, and "demanding" the article be edited to the "Major View", not some trivial "Minor View". (Another editor has told me that "the world bought the Palestinian propaganda" on this subject - and blusters when I point out that the article most certainly doesn't match what he's just claimed to be "The World View"!).

In other words, each of your aims "improving collaborative interactions, anticipating and satisfying the objections of other editors, and strengthening the use and critique of reliable sources" is unobtainable. It strikes me that editors of good-will such as yourself don't much suffer from problems of the kind I get, so you imagine there must be something wrong with what I'm doing (even though nobody can put a finger on it with diffs in all the CSNs, ANI, etc etc). You recognise that I have information and some forms of "logic" behind what I seem to be trying to do, but you keep me at arms length because I'm having lots of problems that you manage to avoid. You believe you can "help", and I'm almost embarrassingly eager to accept ..... until you tell me what you see as the problems. It's then immediately obvious (to me, at least) that we'll not get anywhere.

However, I've said I'm agreeable, and I am. If you are open to a suggestion from me, it would be that you open a sandbox page (either your space or mine). I suggest this space has a top half (edits nearly ready to be entered into articles, waiting your approval or further suggestions) and a bottom half (issues with articles that are not ready to be dealt with as yet). Shall I voluntarily limit myself to 50 issues at any one time? PalestineRemembered 08:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)