Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:30, 27 January 2009

You are invited to look at my user page, where I am making an attempt to start a new article on Money and the Money Supply. Your advice and suggestions are invited Martycarbone (talk) 17:05, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

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Middle East Textbooks Invitation

WikiProject Middle East Textbooks is looking for editors to create, expand, and maintain complete, accurate, and neutral articles on school textbooks used throughout the Middle East, with a focus on textbook controversies and textbook analyses. You can start by simply adding your name to the list of members at WikiProject Middle East Textbooks.

WP:AE#User:Jaakobou, fresh off a one-week topic-ban, on a rampage again

Just thought you might like to know... Cheers, pedro gonnet - talk - 28.03.2008 09:09

New AS mediation

The mediation im getting rolling as its been a long time waiting so i think its best to get moving. Most of the mediation will be on the talk (discussion) page. so make sure its in your watchlist. Seddon69 (talk)

todo: Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani

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Happy holidays

Toddst1 (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXIV (December 2008)

The December 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 02:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Some Info for WikiProject Palestine

The recent changes that I made to the UN Partition Plan for Palestine did quote solid academic sources. Oddly enough the 'Arab' propaganda that got deleted was written by the Jewish Agency's advisors on international law, or other Jewish jurists.

You might find some useful information in my notes:

User talk:Harlan wilkerson/UN Partition Plan

User talk:Harlan wilkerson/Non-Sovereign States

harlan (talk) 18:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Civility

I suggest you consider well the civility that each editor ought to extend to each other, and avoid provocative comments on talk pages and edit summaries which are not used for the purpose intended. You'll do better here. Just a suggestion.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

How about this: fuck off. Just a suggestion. <eleland/talkedits> 00:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Nice block log you got there. Five priors, and edit warring and 2x incivility. Hmmmm. Of course, I wouldn't block you myself, not proper, but jeez, keep it up on I-P articles, and you'll be having plenty of spare time.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:45, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Eleland, you know that's not okay. I started a thread at Wiquette here. IronDuke 00:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Eleland? Wow, look at how blatantly uncivil Wehwalt's tauting is! He came here to provoke a blockable response from Eleland and it looks like he succeeded. He even broadly hinted that some other admin should jump in and do the dirty deed. Amazing. Spotfixer (talk) 02:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Now at AN/I

FYI, discussion now on AN/I --Onorem♠Dil 02:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

January 2009

Oh God! What the hell is the matter with people here? Admins go around violating BLP for months with no consequences, while those who lose patience with them and tell them where to go get blocked? Everywhere in the world it seems the law fucks the poor, weak and marginalized and supports the already rich and powerful. One would have thought a people's encyclopedia would be different.

I see Wehwalt has removed the BLP notice from his talk page. It seems that he enjoys patrolling the pages of pro-Palestinian activists (see Rachel Corrie for another example of where his ownsership tendencies are quite clear). I voted against his admin nom a couple of months ago because I was concerned by his edits there. It seems my concerns and those of NSH001 were well placed, though ignored by others afraid of being sucked into I-P issues. Oh well.

Anyway Eleland, I hope you don't get discouraged. I was blocked four times for 3RR before learning how not to let the edit-warring bad faith socks before me draw me into those kinds of battles. In the future, when you feel the need to vent, I recommend my User talk:Tiamut/Archive 9 where Nishidani and I share our neuroses and plaints so as to be able to get on with editing without getting sucked into the penalty box.

Be well my friend. Tiamut 14:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the first bogus block Sandstein has been involved in. He even had a cameo role in some of mine. These things happen; don't let it get you down. And next time you tell someone what to do with themselves, say it politely and with a smile. That's how admins do it. Spotfixer (talk) 02:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with Sandstein on much but if he hadn't made this block, I suspect that some totally uninvolved admin would have. Maybe the duration would have been different, but it's a subjective call. Who cares. <eleland/talkedits> 02:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

You're probably right. I'm sure that, if Wehwalt could have gotten away with doing the block himself, it would have been much longer. In any case, you have the right attitude: who cares? Petty tyrants have no more power over you than you grant them. That's what makes them petty.

See you in a couple of weeks, and if you want some interesting reading (mixed in with lots of crazy ranting and whining), I suggest you spend your enforced downtime as I did: reading Misplaced Pages Review. You are not the first, nor the last. And you are not alone. Spotfixer (talk) 02:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I've been on WR for a good while. There's some useful critique, there's some entertaining rambling, there's some outright nonsense, and there's some despicable bile. <eleland/talkedits> 02:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, that's WR. I only found out about it after my first, blatantly bogus block, but I'm a lurker, not a ranter. I did get (dis)honorable mention by an observant contributor there, which was jumped all over by a WP admin here as proof that I'm part of an evil, anti-WP conspiracy.

Speaking of which, what's I-P? Spotfixer (talk) 02:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Israel-Palestine. WR holds limited appeal for me. You've heard of "inside baseball," yes? Well, WR is "outside baseball" - just as esoteric, even less consequential. <eleland/talkedits> 02:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh. Oh! That explains a lot. Especially after all I've read about people like SV, and some of the odder so-called cabals. Yes, as topics go, I'd be hard pressed to think of a more controversial one, and half of my edits involve abortion.

But, sure, I understand what you're saying about WR. After all, there's a reason I only lurk. There are some pretty messed up people on there; not everyone who's abused by admins here is an innocent, and some innocents were corrupted by their victimization.

I guess the big take-home value from WR is learning that this is a systemic problem, not personal persecution. That and the fact that the game is rigged. I know that if I edit with integrity, it's only a matter of time before I get banned for good, but I'm ok with that. Spotfixer (talk) 03:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

(r to my favorite editor, started before Spotfixer commented:)

Not months, years. He'd been shoveling that shit on Shapiro since 2006. Anyway, thanks for the kind words - coming from one in your time and place it's especially touching that you'd be aggrieved over my two week time out from a website.

I often despair of ever getting anything done here. The most basic, obvious, and straightforward applications of policy often take many man-hours, and even a victory never establishes any kind of precedent - the same discredited arguments are just brought to a new forum. Outright deceit goes unpunished; editors say X=100, citing a source that says X=-5, and get away with it. I mean, look at my own block log, for example.

The first time I was blocked, it was because a devotedly Jewish and obsessively Zionist admin baited me until he ran out of his 3 reverts - he actually put "rv#1, rv#2, rv#3..." in his edit summaries - then, literally five minutes later, a notorious "kamikaze edit warrior" with a laser-like focus on Israeli-Palestinian articles shows up to make his first ever edit to the article, I revert him, and then I've crossed the magic 3RR trip wire and I'm blocked. Ffs, even the guy that blocked me - who incidentally was a United States Air Force reservist with a combat record over Afghanistan - ended up scolding Humus Sapiens for his actions. But no sanctions, of course - that's reserved for people who say "fuck" or click "undo" four times instead of three, not for deranged ethno-nationalists who conspire in secret. Those types get admin bits instead, in honour of all the vandalism they've cleansed from articles about Pokemon.

The second time I was blocked, it was because I lost my temper with a semi-literate buffoon, who quoted in boldface "huge numbers of Palestinians were also driven out of their homes by their own leaders and/or by Arab military forces" claiming it supported his text, "the vast majority of Palestinians fled of their own accord." He quoted this triumphantly, as if he had convincingly refuted my argument and exposed me as a liar. The microcephale in question now appears to be on track to becoming an admin. He'll be in good company.

This is not an anomaly. Just prior to my block, I was working on the lede of our article on the 2008 Gaza war, which for some reason still bears a euphemistic title "Israeli-Gazan conflict" or some such nonsense. The lede claimed that "other Palestinian estimates differ" from the "Hamas-run" Gazan hospital system; the only relevant article cited, a piece in the conservative "home team" Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post, actually noted a very close correlation between Ministry of Health estimates, endorsed by the World Health Organization, independent estimates, and even the Israeli estimate of overall fatalities (although IDF insists that the number of combatants was far greater, but only off the record and without specifics.) Two separate editors reverted my correction. I mean, how can we stand for this? Who the fuck cares about "incivility" and "personal attacks" when editors are lying about the content of sources and getting away with it? These people didn't read the sources. They didn't care about the sources. They just knew, because they wanted it to be true, that Palestinian casualty counts were all lies, so they edited the article to say so. I am sick of dealing with this kind of bullshit. What can I say, my patience is not unlimited.

I don't mean to make this out as if every editor who has a pro-Israel point of view is some kind of Satanic monster. I respect Steve/sm8900. I respect Avraham. I respect Ceedjee (and I still don't know where he stands except that he's downright mean to anybody who doesn't stand with him!) Hell, I even respect JayJG in my own twisted way, at least he's entertaining, if only in the fashion of a heel. But this endless stream of nonsense wears one down. I genuinely enjoy reasoned debate on talk pages, ok? But when people lie, cheat, dissemble, and filibuster, I'm going eventually to blow up. Deal with it.

(I note with irony my own advice to a newbie: Try and keep your cool, because WP seems to take an extremely hard line against "incivility" from editors perceived as pro-Palestinian. They will always portray you as a crazy extremist, so it is best to support your arguments with solid "mainstream" sources. You have to be kind of single-minded, I think. Don't allow any opportunity for them to turn the discussion away from the real issues. Word your comments carefully so they cannot be twisted into some alternate interpretation to be used against you. Even when you know full well that somebody is lying, just say, "I'm afraid I can't understand how you read the source material in that way: it clearly says XYZ..." WP doesn't punish people for intellectual dishonesty, bad scholarship, or really any of the things that a "real" publication would take as gravely serious. So just try and ignore it. If you really can't, then just take a break. You can afford to leave a dispute for two or three days without the risk that it will decided in your absence.
Honestly I haven't always followed my own advice; there is so much vicious propagandizing and thuggishness around here that one is always tempted to fight fire with fire. But it's the only approach that I've found to have even a chance of success.

Oh well, can't say I didn't warn.... me..... <eleland/talkedits> 03:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm much tempted to join you. Much of this is indeed futile. The problem is the herd niggling away is perfectly aware that a tactic of attrition towards exhaustive futility is the best way to rid the place of serious content editors, and that wiki has no remedy, since its own procedures encourage endless litigation, and the suspension of all obvious understanding of the games and psychological devices people play in power relations. I'm perfectly aware that this is almost a total waste of time, since the numbers game, and the off-line organization (there can be no doubt of that) means one is reduced to pushing crap up hill with slippy fingers just to get to the summit for some fresh air and light. I've decided to rephrase your remarks as 'the Eleland commendation', and have already used it once of obnoxious posters. The only reason one doesn't call a spade a fucking spade is that, as we all know, it's irresponsible to allow oneself to get consistently banned and leave Tiamut, al-Ameer son and a few others, exemplary editors with a real personal stake in getting these articles balanced, alone against a hydra-headed brigade of tendentious hasbara recruits.Nishidani (talk) 11:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

p.s.Apropos hasbara, here's the Israeli PM's former media adviser saying that Israeli reportage was less balanced than that of both Western and the Arab mainstream media.Nishidani (talk) 11:44, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Can I just say that I love you guys? I love your commitment to intellectual honesty, to humanity, to scholarship, to fair play, to representing all significant viewpoints in an article and not just those of my people, but all people. I love your passionate defense of these principles. I love your stubborn refusals to let people play dishonest games here, even though its so fucking time consuming to probe into this quagmire, figure out what's going on, and to correct. I just really truly love you. Please, if (god forbid) you ever do go away from Wiki forever, you have to make sure to send me an email giving me your real life contact info so that we never lose touch. Big hugs and kisses. Tiamut 16:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

PS. Eleland, the Supreme Court has since overturned the Knesset decision to ban the Arab parties. But the Knesset is going to propose new legislation that might make it much harder for Arab parties to run. Also, polls show that 61% of Israelis support banning Arab parties to the Knesset. So yes, its hard times. But when I see the genocide in Gaza, I feel like my complaints are seriously bourgeois in comparison. At least for now. The future though looks increasingly bleak. Thanks for caring my friend. Tiamut 16:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I have only just noticed this. For what it's worth, I agree that your block is entirely excessive, and probably unjustified. Looking into the background, I see that Wehwalt's contentious edit is identical to one by a sockpuppet (as confirmed by checkuser) of the Runtshit vandal, editing from a now-blocked ip registered to Haifa University. See Checkuser report. This confoems to a pattern of systematic abuse of anti-Zionist Jews, and vandalism of related articles. Maybe a case for a further CU request? RolandR (talk) 21:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)