Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:16, 19 June 2009

Welcome!

Hello Harlan wilkerson, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Misplaced Pages
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!  Dolphin51 (talk) 00:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion on creating a subpage.

See Palestinian Territories. TalkNishidani (talk) 17:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Arabian Peninsula/ Arabistan

Hi,

I see you've encountered this keyboard warrior Hisham. He is known to save an official site, modify it and then reupload it to a free web hosting server and use it as a reference for his POV. I have reverted his edits in the past using the rationale "Your sources are obvious forgeries" so I think he's trying to use my legitimate rationale for reverting on you, when it is entirely inappropriate. Lawrencema (talk) 23:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Arabian Peninsula

Hello Harlan. I notice you are one of the more active editors on this article, and you've also commented on the Talk page. Through the vagaries of the noticeboards, the recent edit war has been posted at both 3RR and RFPP, so now we have a 24-hour block of User:Chaldeaan as well as 3 days of protection on the article (that I put on). An outsider who comes to look at the Talk page will probably be very puzzled as to what the various disputes are about. It would be helpful (if you are interested in doing so) in summarizing on Talk what the recent edit wars have been about. If this could be adequately clarified, it might be possible to lift the protection early. EdJohnston (talk) 16:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello Ed. The initial revert from your current version to my old version was bot-generated on the basis of suspected vandalism. I also placed a user report of the vandalism on Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism and mentioned the edit war on the article talk page. The 3RR specifically provides an exception for vandalism. Several other editors have reverted to versions containing my edits and left Edit comments mentioning vandalism.

There was no lack of scholarly citations or links to scholarly works and dictionaries in the changes to the article that I had made.

I have no idea what the nature of the dispute might be, since none of the so-called 'editors' - Hisham, Chaldeaan, NoPity2, Patrick0Maran, and etc. have chosen to use the talk page to discuss the matter. I simply responded there to the brief comments they had placed in their edit summaries. I also placed messages with the citations and links on the user talk pages of Hisham, Chaldeaan, and Patrick0Maran, but they have not responded.

You have reverted the article to a version that has no mention of the disambiguation page for Arabistan, which is hardly an improvement on the situation I set out to correct, i.e. The disambiguation page for Arabistan is pointing to an article about the Arabian Penninsula that makes no mention of that term. The Merriam-Webster Geographical Dictionary contains a completely unambiguous entry which says that the Arabian Peninsula is Arabistan. I had already mentioned that under a separate section heading on the article talk page. harlan (talk) 00:51, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I actually didn't revert the article; I simply protected the current version, whatever it was. Since you have made several edits to the page I just assumed you might know what the heck was going on there. Were you actually trying to make an improvement from the long-ago version, and are the other people reacting to that, or what? In this edit, which you described as 'Revert vandalism', you made a large change and it would take quite a bit of explanation to understand everything that's going on there. That's why I gave up and thought I would ask some editors what the argument is really about. The term 'vandalism' probably should not be used lightly, but are you saying that Chaldeaan was the vandal here? EdJohnston (talk) 01:46, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes Chaldeaan has repeatedly violated the integrety of the article by blanking the section on medieval history without bothering to discuss his reasons on the talk page. I posted citations and references on the article talk page and on his user talk page to no avail. Freezing the version without any mention of Arabistan or its medieval history isn't likely to motivate him to discuss things. harlan (talk) 03:44, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Acctry2

I've indef blocked this user as a sock of User:Acctry, who is also indef-blocked. I notice that you recently crossed paths with Acctr2 at Arabian Peninsula. This article is still on my watchlist due to the previous edit war, which I hope is now safely in the past :-). EdJohnston (talk) 00:10, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Heyo

Interesting notes on the Palestine article but regardless if it falls under WP:OR or not, it doesn't change the fact that the current lead structure just doesn't have room for these notes. Cheers, Jaakobou 12:52, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The fact that US representative Jessup recited the requirements of the article 1 of the Montevideo Convention when he spoke out in favor of Israel's membership in the UN is a well documented fact, see for example "Was "Biafra" at Any Time a State in International Law?", David A. Ijalaye, The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Jul., 1971), pp. 551. The fact that Israel and the Palestinian National Authority have rights and duties as persons under international law is also a well established fact. Both were involved in cases or lawsuits involving reparations prior to de jure recognition. The Bernadotte case was important since it established the locus standi of the United Nations as international personality in its own right (i.e. a person of international law) and held that Israel was a "responsible state". see for example International Law and International Relations, J. Craig Barker, Continuum, 2000, ISBN 0826450288, page 46 harlan (talk) 13:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

British Mandate of Palestine

You seem to be missing my point. It's not the information that I'm disputing, it's that the particular sentence doesn't follow from the preceding sentence, and doesn't belong in an introduction. It reads as just a random piece of data tacked onto the end. It belongs in the article body. Ledenierhomme (talk) 12:57, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine

United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine - hi there Harlan. it appears despite their being no rationale for the removal of the CIA report on this article there seems a strong agenda to prevent it being included. The user Mashkin (talk) has revealed it's the content he finds objectionable anti-Israel drivel. Just thought I'd let you know. Vexorg (talk) 21:26, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

hi there harlan. Is there anything we can do to overcome the obvious bias, tag-team tactics and Admin bullying of those editors who simply do not want the CIA report included in the article? I have left it for sometime before restoring the section. I fear that if I restore they'll just come straight out of the woodwork start an edit war and cite more inapplicable WP regulations and I'll be the one to get blocked again. Vexorg (talk) 01:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

If you can show

where editorial positions, reflected in several pages, allows content that international law regards as sanctionable, as prejudicial to a party, or something along that line, perhaps a case could be made. If you could be more concrete, and cite pages, and content, that may require further review in this sense, I'd be happy to underwrite a submission. Unfortunately this is highly technical, requires the kind of brainwork only you have in here, and I am almost completely useless as a source for how such material would be received in terms of the labyrinthine mechanisms of wiki policy making and arbitration. Best wishes. Nishidani (talk) 13:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Harlan. Thanks for your note. I found the post you directed me to very interesting. I need some time to think about it before I can make a substantive response. I'm a little busy with other projects at the moment and hope you do not mind if I postpone a response for the immediate time being. Your efforts at identifying how some of the problems besetting I-P pages might be contextualized, approached and dealt with though, is very much appreciated. Please do not be discouraged by my lack of an immediate response, it's just a lot to chew on and I need to reflect. Happy editing. Tiamut 19:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I'm watching too. Banias, Golan Heights, Mount Hermon, Ghajar, Shebaa Farms, and likely many others, suffer from the same malady and include the usual euphemistic hasbara suspects ‘occupied’, ‘controlled by’, ‘annexed’ and others. It is now called Public Diplomacy, officially. I have given up trying to keep Misplaced Pages encyclopedic by correcting them, repeatedly.

You make the point, again repeatedly, but I find you tend not to stress enough the higher sanctity NPOV'ity (or whatever) of law, convention, etc, over any pov’d RS. Take a look from another perspective; isn’t the law the law, no matter what an RS says? That is how the world works (unless of course, you’re a lawyer or propagator, and then it’s your job to oppose). If we are heading toward a high-level decision, shouldn’t that decision be based on the law, rather than the best opposing RS. The law is number one (and hopefully the decision), with the dissenting opinion only noted as such. Does Misplaced Pages operate under the law? Should Misplaced Pages operate under the law? Should Misplaced Pages accept the law as NPOV; that is a good question, and I believe that is the one you are asking. How do other-language-Wikis operate? What exists at other hot-topic dispute areas; how is it handled. Are there instances where apathy or inordinately skewed consensus have gone here, or not?

There is one Wiki-law that is sacrosanct; it is that of NPOV, being RS and V’d. A neutral presentation, in my mind, is an official position/decision, with the dissenting opinion attached as such. That is neutral. Anything else tends to accept a minority pov’d opinion to a higher degree than that accepted officially by law, governments and the Rest of the world, whatever. Is neutral Misplaced Pages going to say 'the opinion says this, and/but the law says this'. That undercuts neutrality and a lot more. Try that move on a pot/drug page, how is its cousin handled here, or any number of pages. A neutral statement, like it or not, is an official position/decision, with the dissent opinion appended. In limited usages one might say ‘he lost’, or the rule of law won.

A serious but humorous note on dissenting opinions: As few consider, but all recognize, ‘opinions are like assholes, everybody has one’, and that is a fair statement of NPOV. On the other hand, the follow-on ‘and everybody else’s stinks', is not NPOV. It is however, a tactic for dissenting assholes opinions in our editorial area. Regards, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 11:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Palestine Article

Thank you for the long post, impressive as always. I think some such material should be incorporated in general articles, Dependent territories seems the closest, perhaps we should have one on Dependent state. I also think people overestimating the importance of the word "state" is a major problem. I think some read the title "State of Palestine" as meaning Misplaced Pages hereby declares Palestine is a STATE, with as much control and recognition, etc as UN member states. But the main problem imho is the nonexistence of a separate "State of Palestine" article.

There's a POV that restrictions on sovereignty mean no state legally exists, although both of us, and I think most RS's would disagree and contend that Palestine has an international legal personality. But again, even from this POV that "there is no State of Palestine" held by some here, it does not at all follow that wikipedia should not have an article on it. We have plenty of articles on such dependencies or semi-sovereign states, as you point out. Without such an article, there is no good place to treat such legal questions without putting undue weight in already overstuffed places.

A consensus among wikipedians, the international community or legal scholars that Palestine is a State is far more than needs to be shown to have an article. We have articles on Narnia (world) and Middle Earth, without implying Narnia is a world, and Middle Earth has some similar ambiguity problems. Unfortunately, standard wikipedia guidelines and practices were completely ignored - not even mentioned in the afd and the old talk page discussion.

Another problem of course is the multiple meanings of "Palestine". If the 1988 state had another name, XYZ, then we would just have an article titled XYZ, but since Palestine is reserved for the history and geography, we need something else, and no one has thought of anything better than "State of Palestine".

There is no question that the UN doesn't recognize or determine entities as states; I've been annoyed by this misconception myself and corrected it here and there. Regards, John Z (talk) 19:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Notification of the existence of editing restrictions

As a result of an arbitration case, the Arbitration committee has acknowledged long-term and persistent problems in the editing of articles related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, broadly understood. As a result, the Committee has enacted broad editing restrictions, described here and below.

• Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process.
• The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.
• Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines.
• Discretionary sanctions imposed under the provisions of this decision may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the appropriate administrators' noticeboard (currently WP:AE), or the Committee.

These editing restrictions may be applied to any editor for cause, provided the editor has been previously informed of the case. This message is to so inform you. This message does not necessarily mean that your current editing has been deemed a problem; this is a template message crafted to make it easier to notify any user who has edited the topic of the existence of these sanctions.

Generally, the next step, if an administrator feels your conduct on pages in this topic area is disruptive, would be a warning, to be followed by the imposition of sanctions (although in cases of serious disruption, the warning may be omitted). Hopefully no such action will be necessary.

This notice is only effective if given by an administrator and logged here.

PhilKnight (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)