Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 10:37, 25 May 2005

I checked out the "quotation" that someone just deleted and found that it is distorted. For example Pipes didn't write "and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene" but rather "maintaining different standards of hygiene". It isn't much better, but the distortion is unacceptable. There is also missing context. As I've written elsewhere, this quotations game is a crock and I'm not going to make an exception just because the target is someone who richly deserves it. Btw, the date of the issue is Nov 19, not Nov 15. --Zero 23:48, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This page is uniformly critical of Pipes without stating his views. Indeed, it moves from biography straight into criticism without noting the work by Pipes that has engendered this criticism. Some semeblence(sp?) of balance, if not the real thing, is needed. OneVoice 16:42, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

So. . . write the needed sections. (And one other thing: Before you change "don't meet its approval" to "according to the Middle East Forum, fall short of academic standards" again, read about Campus Watch -- its goals are explicitly and overtly political, not academic.) --No-One Jones (talk) 13:55, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Tons of people wrote about the threat of Islamic extremism - Huntington, for instance. The Hart-Rudman report on terrorism. Lots of people...it is not as though Islamic extremism was hidden from our sight before September 11. john k 21:52, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

article protected

I have protected this article due to a prolonged, low-intensity edit war between Zero000, John Kenney, Mirv and several anon users. -- Viajero 13:45, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Re-write

I have added quotes and re-written sections for better organization and clarity. If you have objections (Virditas), please describe them. --Pravda 03:16, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Quotes have already been moved to wikiquote, and deleted passages reinstated. --Viriditas | Talk 03:33, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You deleted text without explanation and so I will add it back. --Pravda 03:43, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yet, as early as 1983, Pipes' anti-Muslim agenda has been noted. An otherwise positive Washington Post book review noted that Pipes displays "a disturbing hostility to contemporary Muslims...he professes respect for Muslims but is frequently contemptuous of them." (Washington Post, 12/11/83)

The statement, "Yet, as early as 1983, Pipes' anti-Muslim agenda has been noted," is unattributed and is not neutral. It has been removed. --Viriditas | Talk 03:57, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It is a description of the book review, "As early as 1983, Pipes' anti-Muslim agenda has been noted. An otherwise positive Washington Post book review noted that Pipes displays "a disturbing hostility to contemporary Muslims...he professes respect for Muslims but is frequently contemptuous of them." (Washington Post, 12/11/83)" You can actually find it quoted on many sites, including Pipes' own Campus Watch!

Wonderful, but it's not the duty of other people to cite sources in articles you edit. That's your responsibility. --Viriditas | Talk 05:24, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Professor Rashid Khalidi of the University of Chicago commented, "This noxious campaign is intended to silence such perfectly legitimate criticism, by tarring it with the brush of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, truly loathsome charges. They reveal the lengths that these people apparently feel impelled to go to in order to silence a true debate on campus." --Pravda 03:43, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Khalidi's comment has nothing to do with Pipes and belongs in an article about Campus Watch. --Viriditas | Talk 03:57, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If Khalidis comment about Pipes' Campus Watch activities belong on the Campus Watch article then shouldn't Pipes comment about CAIR belong on the CAIR site? --Pravda 04:14, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If you wanted to remove the entire section about CAIR (not just Pipe's comments) then the answer is yes. However, if your intent is cherry picking comments you don't like about CAIR and leaving in comments you do like, then the answer is no. Khalidi was criticizing Campus Watch, not Pipe himself. Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox. --Viriditas | Talk 05:23, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The statement, "Campus Watch was immediately labeled a "McCarthyist blacklist"; and similar epithets, not only by the listed academics but by more than 100 others who demanded to be listed as well," is unattributed and lacks a source, so it has been removed. --Viriditas | Talk 03:57, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I should have your initiative to remove everything I don't like from articles until someone finds a source for them! This particular paragraph was apparently plagiarized, along with most of the rest of this article, from Information Blast. Information Blast doesn't appear to be a mirror of Misplaced Pages because the article contains more detailed information than the Misplaced Pages article. --Pravda 04:14, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Come now, Information Blast is an obvious copy of Misplaced Pages, it even says so at the bottom. It just happens to have copied an earlier version of the article. Jayjg 04:55, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You are correct. I didn't see the small print. I thought it looked very close to this article but seemed to contain more detail - detail that has apparently been deleted over time from the Misplaced Pages version. --Pravda 05:11, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The McCarthite accusations against Pipes are pretty common. The quote may originate here or here or here or here or a number of other sites. --Pravda 05:20, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You need to attribute and cite sources. --Viriditas | Talk 05:23, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I didn't edit the McCarthyite blacklist line that you deleted. That's been in the article for a long time. Do I still need to find more sources for it? --Pravda 05:49, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've removed the long list in the intro of American television shows Pipes has appeared on, as it made the article look like his CV. I also moved the Campus Watch stuff into the intro, as it's what he's most widely known for (in my view), and also because the intro was too short without it. I also toned down some of that paragraph, including the 100 others who demanded their names be listed too, which wasn't explained, and we didn't say what kind of list it was, so it looked kind of silly. If someone re-adds it, we should explain what the list was about. And I uploaded a photo because he's a handsome beast. Slim 07:32, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

I also rewrote his list of books and papers in the usual chronological format, and readjusted the number of books he's authored or co-authored to 18. Someone wrote in the previous list that he has co-authored 11 books. Does anyone know if this is right? I could only find two on Amazon. I've left the previous list, which broke the books down into categories, in the article but made it invisible in case you all prefer it that way. If so, feel free to swap it back. I prefer the chronological list, because it indicates something about his development. Some of his books are collections of policy papers, but I said "18 books" in the article so as not to get too bogged down. Slim 08:39, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

To the anon author, I reverted your edit of "Critics have called Pipes "the dean of Islamophobia." It's a good quote to use, but it does need a name attached to it, so if you want to re-add it, please have a look around for a reference. Many thanks, SlimVirgin 05:53, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

POV section title

Why call them "Islamophobe quotes"? That adds a POV unnecessarily. Simply call them "quotes" and trust our readers to be intelligent enough to see if they are Islamophobic or not. At most, note after the quotes what public or scholarly reaction has been. But let's not bias the section heading. If no other consensus builds here, I'll change it to "Quotes" -- it's not very lively, but it certainly avoids being POV. Jwrosenzweig 23:22, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fixed, and fixed some other stuff. Jayjg 23:40, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This article has a link to wikiquote, and any quotes should be added there. Stereotek 08:26, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

All of the Examples section contains quotations. These ones are no different (unless you mean more embarrassing). --Zero 11:52, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Daniel Pipes and Tariq Ramadan:

For a discussion of Daniel Pipes' criticism of Tariq Ramadan see:

http://www.islamicamagazine.com/why_tariq.htm

Daniel Pipes and the University of Toronto

Visit by pro-Israeli prof causes uproar at UofT

I think this information is relevant. The article says he was initially denied access to York University, maybe a secion about responses to this mans speaking engagements is relevant.

Any comments?

--Uncle Bungle 03:33, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The incident itself seems mildly interesting, not sure its encyclopedic. What kind of responses did you mean, man in the street/protest mob type of interviews? Jayjg 04:55, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In the globe and mail article above (use bugmenot if its asking for registration to continue), it mentions an open letter from 90 faculty and former students, thats what I meant more than "mob type of interviews". There is a short note that "Pipes is also controversial in academia" I'll just add a note about the UofT event there, if enough are collected over time then an additional section could be added. --Uncle Bungle 14:07, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Expertise

Yuber, Pipes is considered an expert on Islamism by all reasonable people, whether they agree or disagree with him. To say it's just his supporters who regard him that way is POV and inaccurate. Can you supply a reputable reference disputing his expertise? SlimVirgin 05:20, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

If you are saying that Pipes is considered an expert by everyone then that is a very ignorant statement. Pipes has a certain POV and so therefore there will be people who do not consider him an expert. The only thing he has going for him is his basic knowledge of Arabic, but that does not put him above any other analyst of Islamism or terrorism in my own opinion. There are many sources that dispute his expertise, but they also come from a certain POV :

] ] ]Yuber 05:40, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

He's an expert. He has a PhD from Harvard and has written I've forgotten how many books and papers on Islamism. The sources you link to simply argue that he's not an objective source; that he has a POV. You'd need to find an authoritative source saying he is not, in fact, a recognized expert. I'm restoring the edit in the meantime. SlimVirgin 05:48, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Please re-examine those links. There are many claims to his lack of expertise in them, such as this, "Furthermore, his pieces appear largely in newspapers that go without documentation or support". Here the article says that he knows nothing about what he's talking about, "Pipes suggests that Islamic states are inherently war-like, ignoring the fact that the war was started by secular Iraq." If you're looking for a specific sentence that says "Pipes is not an expert", you are thinking in simplistic terms. Still, if you really need it, here is a link to an article that has an excerpt from a letter someone sent in to them that said Pipes is not an expert ].

This is similar to what happened at the Edward Said article. A few weeks ago, a line in the first paragraph said Said was one of the most influential scholars in the world. The complaint was brought up that that was largely an opinion, and so it had to be attributed to a source. In respect to this article, the distinction has to be made that he is not regarded as an expert by everyone in the world (as the first sentence is implying) and mostly by his supporters.Yuber 06:11, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

But this is to misunderstand what the word "expert" means. Same with Said. He *was* one of the most influential scholars in the world, and it's simply false and unreasonable to deny this, even if you think he misused his scholarship, held a strong POV etc. Same with Pipes. The sources you link to have no academic expertise themselves that I could see. Pipes is a recognized academic expert, though admittedly he does write in newspapers, but his books are respected, as I understand it. I think you'd need to find an academic source casting doubt on his expertise. It isn't encyclopedic to say "some people think X, some Y" and the supporters/opponents construction is weak for the same reason. SlimVirgin 06:49, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

My position is between these two. Most people recognise that Pipes is an expert in the sense that he knows a lot, but they also see him as an activist rather than as an academic. He writes opinion pieces rather than research. There are plenty of examples in the academic literature of Pipes' writings being called bad names, like "tendentious", but what I have seen suggests that his critics regard him as biased rather than ignorant. So calling him an "expert" without qualificiation is strictly speaking correct, but also somewhat misleading. One should also mention in the same place that his opinions are frequently controversial. --Zero 08:37, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

There's no contradiction between being an expert and being an activist: in most countries, there's a proud tradition of academic and intellectual activism. It's POV to try to argue that he's not an expert just because some people (or many, or even all) don't agree with his views, and when I last checked, the intro said he's regarded as an expert by "many of his supporters," meaning that even some supporters think he's not. That's unencyclopedic and false, so I'll be changing back to the previous intro as soon as I'm sure I'm not violating 3RR (the previous intro says: "Daniel Pipes is an internationally known journalist, author, academic, and expert on Islamism and terrorism,") and I'm asking please that it be left as it is, because it's correct as it stands. If someone wants to add a well written sentence saying he's regarded as controversial, I'd go along with that, though the article makes that more than clear. And please no "some believe this, and others believe that": any questioning of his expertise has to come from his peers i.e. from people with a similar expertise. We should have some respect for genuine scholarship, so long as it's an academic working within his area of expertise, even if we don't like the way it's being used. SlimVirgin 20:13, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

First, drop the "academic" since he does not have a university position (and only had brief teaching appointments in the past). Second, it is necessary to add "activist" to the same list of roles; since that is his primary role, leaving it out is misleading. --Zero 03:42, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

If you want to interpret academic strictly, fair enough, but he taught at University of Chicago 78-82, Harvard 1983-84, Naval War College 84-86, joined policy-planning dept at State 83, then director of Foreign Policy Research Institute until the mid-90s (from memory). Plus the 18 books translated into 19 languages. But no, he's not an academic, scholar, or expert on anything, just a jumped-up upstart compared to all of us, who know so much. SlimVirgin 04:14, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

All this discussion has shown is that in order to prove someone's an expert you must rely on details of where he got his degree and what achievements he has made. Instead of being blunt and POV in the first paragraph and saying "he's an expert" (which implies that you can't dispute him), we should let people infer from his achievements whether he is an expert or not.Yuber 04:22, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

You're POV pushing, pure and simple. SlimVirgin 04:29, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's that simple, truly. Look at articles for Edward Said, Chomsky, and other activists. Do any of them mention in a blunt and uncompromising way that they are experts? Taken from the Wiki article on expert,

"The term is widely used informally, with people being described as 'experts' in order to bolster the relative value of their opinion, when no objective criteria for their expertise is available. The term crank is likewise used to disparage opinions. Academic elitism arises when 'experts' become convinced that only they understand their field of study.".

Add to the list of Pipe's achievements and where he taught if you want to improve his image, but calling him an expert is pure POV.Yuber 04:40, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Said's says he was one of the most influential scholars in the world. It's attributed (and I don't disagree with it), but does this mean if I can attribute that comment about Pipes, you'll stop arguing with it? Chomsky's doesn't mention expertise, but you know if it did, you wouldn't be reverting it: at least be honest enough to admit that. SlimVirgin 04:46, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

If you can attribute it, then that would be fine. There are already a number of quotes in the article praising him so you might one to use one of those.Yuber 04:52, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the Chomsky approach is excellent. It simply states the basis for believing that he is an expert. Grace Note 02:12, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Who considers Daniel Pipes an expert?

This allegation needs to be sourced. Until a citation is found, the allegation will be removed. --JuiceLayer 01:57, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Here's someone who thinks he's an expert. Grace Note 02:12, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

This page links to two sources that describe him as an expert. I believe the WSJ says so too. While editors here accept newspapers are sources of incontrovertible fact, I'm afraid that we will have to allow Pipes to be described as an "expert", a word that is entirely meaningless and rendered ever more so by our misuse of it. Grace Note 02:15, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

widely criticised as an Islamophobe.

I suggest we remove this one sided generality in the intro or mention that is also widely respected by for his penetrating analyses of Islamisms which is the opposite POV.--Yhulkop 03:27, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

He is called an "expert on Islamism and terrorism" without even the standard NPOV weasel qualifications such as "widely viewed" or "generally regarded". Isn't that enough? —Charles P. (Mirv) 14:44, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I removed the phrase "particularly in the Muslim community". There are plenty of non-Muslim liberals who hate Daniel Pipes and call him a racist and a bigot, that phrase seems to be put in there to water-down the criticism of him. As Mirv said above, he is already called an expert, that should be enough.Yuber 02:49, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

The problem with removing it is that it gives the impression that the criticism is more widespread that it is. He's published in reputable newspapers all over the world, and appears frequently on network television; this wouldn't be the case if the view that he's a bigot were widespread. I did write "particularly within the Muslim community" to make clear that the criticism isn't confined to them, but it does stem largely from them, and it's fair enough to point that out. I feel you should allow this to stand, Yuber, as the only reason Islamophobe was added was because you wanted to get rid of "expert." SlimVirgin 02:54, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't the one that added the Islamophobe description, please keep that in mind. As for appearing on network televsion, Ward Churchill, Chomsky, and Ann Coulter have all done so as well. I don't think we'd keep criticism from their articles, would we? It certainly does not make them any less bigoted in people's minds. Publishing books and essays doesn't either. Daniel Pipes is a neo-con, he has opposition from all sides, Muslim, Liberal, etc etc. Saying that he's only criticized within the Muslim community is misleading. Perhaps you should edit the article to better reflect the diverse array of communities the criticisms come from. I will stay out of this because I do not feel like getting into a pointless edit-fest over the first few lines of this article, so edit as you see fit.Yuber 03:05, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, Yuber. I realize you didn't add it, and I'd just as soon get rid of it (from the intro), but I thought it better to leave it and qualify it somewhat. I wouldn't call Ward Churchill, Chomsky, or Ann Coulter bigots, which is not to say they can't be criticized, but I doubt any of their articles has such strong criticism in the second sentence. Also, I'm not saying he's only criticized within the Muslim community; I'm saying that he is critized as an Islamophobe; and particularly (not exclusively) within the Muslim community. SlimVirgin 03:24, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Strange, an anonymous editor inserts "a Jewish-American" in the intro right after his name and Yuber completely missed that obvious well-poisoning. Astonishing. Jayjg 03:42, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

I didn't add Jewish-American, so why are you blaming me for it? By the way, criticized is a more accurate term.Yuber 10:37, 25 May 2005 (UTC)