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For future reference, keep in mind the exact figure is 6,042,783; the other 4-5 millions can be discounted. --victor falk 11:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

question

• Ceedjee (talk) 10:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

notice

per this diff - i request you try to keep it civil. we don't want these type of threads to reappear. Jaakobou 14:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Merges

Hi. I don't quite see the point of merging a 27kB article into another one of 144kB size. The opposite is true. We should be creating new articles. See also WP:SIZE. —Viriditas | Talk 03:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Media Coverage Rewrite

Hi. Might I enlist your help for filling in this TODO? Thanks. ← Michael Safyan (talk) 19:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your time and effort in writing the previous example. Unfortunately, I cannot include the example because:

• It cites Electronic Intifada (citations to Electronic Intifada, ZMag, Arutz Sheva, or Zionism-Israel do not meet Misplaced Pages's standards for sources, in my opinion).
• It is factually inaccurate:
  • The Haaretz article states that the victims were returning from services, suggesting that the term "worshiper" had been correctly applied.
  • The individuals were attacked when not engaged in combat; hence the individuals were "military personnel" but not "combatants."
• It fails to parallel the pro-Israel example in length and style.
• It used improper Misplaced Pages markup, causing the bottom half of the page to disappear.

Thank you again for your time and effort. I apologize for taking your time. If you don't mind, I would greatly appreciate another example. I can understand, however, if after rejecting the first edit that you would mind. I hope that you do not take the reversion personally. ← Michael Safyan (talk) 02:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the courteous note. Some thoughts:

• First, it's a pretty dubious comparison between Electronic Intifadah and Arutz Sheva. EI's honcho Ali Abunimah regularly appears as a commentary source or TV interviewee, and has published op-eds in very reliable newspapers including the Financial Times, Jerusalem Post, and even the Wall Street Journal (!). EI's second man, Nigel Parry, has also been quoted in the Chicago Tribune, Philly Enquirer, The Nation and elsewhere. The director of A7's website, Hillel Fendel, has by contrast not so much as one-line quoted in any English-language publication on Google News. AFAIK, we judge the reliability of a source chiefly by which other sources cite it, and how. In any case, EI was only referenced for a quotation from Ha'aretz which was also mirrored by two (admittedly weak) internet sites. It could be replaced with the original citation, if I can dig it up, or with similar statements made in sources more to your taste.
• The Ha'aretz article states that "the Islamic Jihad fire was not directed at worshippers but at the security forces escorting them". I can't for the life of me figure out how you determine that calling them "worshippers" was inaccurate based on the Ha'aretz article which states that the victims were not worshippers, but the security forces escorting them. The Jerusalem Post (later syndicated by AP) ran an article which began, "The "all clear" sounded over the Israeli soldiers' radios, meaning Jewish worshippers were safely home after Sabbath prayers in the downtown Tomb of the Patriarchs, when shots rang out from an olive grove..." (my bold)
• On combatant status; I know of no definition of "combatant" which considers armed soldiers in a conflict zone to be "non-combatants" until they start shooting at somebody. Combatant has a specific meaning in the law of war, and that's what I had in mind when using the term. We could equally state "all of the victims were soldiers or paramilitary police and security guards", I guess. Although it's a strange request, given that Amos Harel in Ha'aretz made it very clear that "Those killed Friday were killed in combat. All of the victims were armed fighters, who were more or less trained."
• Your point about paralleling the pro-Israel example is well-taken, now that I review and compare the two. A little less detail might be appropriate, although actually I would think another sentence or two on Jenin is a better way to balance things.
• Sorry for forgetting to close the "ref" tag, mucking things up. It happens.
• And finally, btw, your summary of the Jenin media reports is inaccurate in that it states "early media reports claimed that Israel killed hundreds", when in fact, no reports claimed this. Reports stated that Palestinian sources and other sources alleged hundreds of deaths, but never confirmed these allegations, and often took pains to make the uncertainty clear. Your second ref, the Times piece, very clearly states that the number of dead is unknown, and your first ref juxtaposes unconfirmed Israeli and Palestinian counts with a forensic expert's suggestion of "massacre" - which has no numerical value and cannot be interpreted as claims of "hundreds".

Shalom. <eleland/talkedits> 05:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• Electronic Intifada does not even pretend to be objective. It's partisan stance makes it an unreliable news source, and it can be cited only for the purpose of proving that Electronic Intifada said x,y, or z. The other two links were equally sketchy. Also note that op-eds are very different from news articles in that op-eds can be subjective.
• The Haaretz article (Victims of the Hebron shooting attack) seems to confirm that the victims were also worshipers in stating:

"Twelve people were killed Friday night as Palestinian militants opened fire at a procession of settlers and security forces who were on the way back from Sabbath prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron."

• Because of drafts and widespread membership in military or paramilitary organizations in the region, the distinction between a "combatant" (individual actively engaged in combat) and "military personnel," "militant," or "member of a military/paramilitary organization" is important.
• Also note that, according to the Jerusalem Post, three of the victims were civilian members of the Emergency Response Team - Casualties of War. The Haaretz article seems to corroborate this; the names of these individuals are listed without a military rank.
• Your points on the Pro-Israel example are well-taken. I have added more details and replaced the links. (BTW, early reports did claim that -- but not the early reports to which I originally linked).
• Anyway, if I've attacked the example, it will definitely be attacked by others. Which means that a different example is necessary. Thank you for the discussion and for your understanding. Peace, Salaam, Shalom. ← Michael Safyan (talk) 08:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• Right, EI is a partisan commentary source. That doesn't mean it fabricates quotes from Israeli newspapers and passes them off as fact. Ali Abunimah is treated as a respectable commentator in the English-language press, and I don't see how being a partisan makes him unreliable. Anyway, since I can see you object to EI, I'll use better sources for the factual information, such as the Salon.com piece which makes substantially the same point.
• The Ha'aretz article makes it clear that the civilians killed were combatants who "set out with the emergency response squad to help with the fighting" and "managed to shoot at least one of the Islamic Jihad members." The JPost piece you linked states, "terrorists opened fire at a security forces safeguarding Jewish worshipers," and that the civilians killed will be buried with military honours, since they died fighting. There's a plethora of articles which make this clear; the other Ha'aretz piece, the JPost piece, the Washington Post piece called "Israel Storms Into Hebron After Attack; Army Reveals Ambush Didn't Kill Worshipers", the Salon.com piece, and so on. The attack was a full 15 minutes after the worshipers had returned home. The mayor of the Hebron settlement called it "a purely military event." The facts here are quite well-established.
• I'm confused by your point about combatants, since the word does not mean "individual actively engaged in combat". B'Tselem, for example, correctly classes a Hamas militant asleep in his bed as a "combatant". But anyway it's irrelevant. As I've said, we can say "armed soldiers or paramilitaries", or some such, if there's some problem with "combatant". I don't understand why such a semantic quibble would exclude the entire entry.
• I noticed you've updated the summary of Jenin, but it seems to have gotten more muddled, not less. Again, you've supported the statement, "early media reports claimed that Israel 'massacred' hundreds of Palestinian civilians" with a media report which does not say this; it simply features the claims of a Palestinian witness, noting they were "impossible to verify," and "questionable," and quoting an Israeli official calling it "science fiction". The ADL released a report intended to prove that the media rushed to report a massacre, but literally every source they quoted reported "allegations", "rumours" or "reports" of a massacre, without confirming them. They had to scrape the bottom of the barrel - free ethnic-community weeklies and such - before finding anybody who actually claimed a massacre, as opposed to reporting others' claims of massacre. Despite all of the accusatory rhetoric, I have yet to see a single piece from the Western media which reported a massacre of hundreds. They reported the allegations, and they framed the story to give unusual prominence to the allegations, but they never confirmed them, and almost without exception they took pains to note their non-verifiable nature. So I'm standing on this point: unless you can provide the dates, titles, and publication outlets of these "media reports" which claimed massacres, I'm going to have to object to including the claim. <eleland/talkedits> 18:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I've added the example, but don't be surprised if it comes under fire. ← Michael Safyan 03:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Junkers Ju-88

Please be more careful in your edits. Bzuk 23:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC).

OK. My bad. <eleland/talkedits> 23:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Indef block

Yes, indef may be too long - I think I'll downgrade to a year, but all the edits seem to be on topic so it may be a static IP. I'll send it to a checkuser type to sort out. Carlossuarez46 00:14, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXI (November 2007)

The November 2007 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 01:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Ed O'Loughlin

Your deletion of verifiable cited sources seems arbitrary. If you want to balance the article with evidence to the contrary please cite your evidence, but please don't just delete. It would have been inappropriate to have written that the evidence suggests that O'Loughlin is a propagandist without citing it. Unfortunately this is the reality and as such it is important that it be included in his biography.

There is not a biography for all Fairfax correspondents. The reason O'Loughlin is in Misplaced Pages is partly due to the nature of his reportage.

The article as it stands is all concerning O'Loughlin. Studies pertaining to him are as relevant and integral to the article as his date of birth.

To attempt to suppress this information is to introduce bias 124.191.92.25 08:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC).

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Ed O'Loughlin. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions in a content dispute within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Editors who delete such material may be warned and blocked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.191.92.25 (talk) 19:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

please

please stop with the "wastes everybody's time" tantrums. Jaakobou 10:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

your recent edit summary -- "rv: not your blog, jaakobou" -- to a more than legitimate edit, is in breach of WP:CIV and WP:NPA. Jaakobou 14:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Rashid Khalidi

The Washington Times is reliable, even if you may not like the author of the piece. Shall we throw out all of Said and Khalidi's work because other's do not like them? Nice job on your other edits so far, by the way. -- Avi (talk) 01:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it's reliable enough for opinion purposes. Thank you for the compliment otherwise. <eleland/talkedits> 01:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The USAAF bombing Dresden

Please see Talk:List of war crimes#The USAAF bombing Dresden. IMO the edit you restored to Allied war crimes during World War II‎ does not carry a citation the passes WP:PROVEIT. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

question

Discussion removed as more and more trolling from User:Jaakobou. <eleland/talkedits> 04:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Vegetarianism

In your edit of of 02:47 7 December to Allegations of Israeli apartheid, you made the comment: we should add a critique of hitler to vegetarianism. I note that you have not done this yet. I hope that you will find time to do this soon. Maybe if Hitler had eaten a proper balanced diet, he would not have been so mad as to think that murdering millions of Jews and Eastern European people was a good idea. I am a great admirer of Linda McCartney, who sold great nutritious vegetarian products to millions of people. It was a great pity that it got out that these products contained meat; better by far to feed vegetarians meat without their knowing. ;)--Toddy1 (talk) 11:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

civility

• "do what I say, not what I do"

Guy, who do you think you are !
After throwing to people personnal attacks ones after the others you dare to complain to be answered.
Be civil yourself and you will receive construcvite answers ! Ceedjee (talk) 18:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• "Is somebody on a campaign here?" - personnal attack by Eleland.
• "besides the fact that you don't like al-Husayni. Or Palestinians generally?" Personnal attack by Eleland that would deserve a blockade of several days. Ceedjee (talk) 18:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Stop edit warring

Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly, as you are doing at NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Misplaced Pages. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions in a content dispute within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. Rather than reverting, discuss disputed changes on the talk page. The revision you want is not going to be implemented by edit warring. Thank you.

If you can point to any article where I am edit warring, please do so. Otherwise, cease your baseless allegations. You are edit warring on multiple article, and this behavior has to stop. Isarig (talk) 19:54, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of notable spoken word performers

I have nominated List of notable spoken word performers, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Misplaced Pages's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of notable spoken word performers. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. meshach (talk) 21:37, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Edit summary usage

Constructive contributions to Misplaced Pages are appreciated, but a recent edit of yours to the article Saeb Erekat has an edit summary that appears to be inaccurate or inappropriate. Please use edit summaries that accurately tell other editors what you did, and feel free to use the sandbox for any tests you may want to do. Thank you. Stifle (talk) 09:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to resolve this issue

Referring to my work as "your bloggish bloated idiotic version" is uncivil, , and suggesting I am a troll is a personal attack. I would appreciate it if you would stop making personal comments of this nature. Jaakobou 22:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

personal attack

• "covering hadanah"

you don't know anything about this topic. Read books about the topic and then come and discuss ! Ceedjee (talk) 16:49, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

sra mediation

I just wanted to let you know, that if you want me to mediate in the dispute about satanic ritual abuse, I will be pleased to do so. It would be helpful though if you could describe exactly what the core of the disputes are. Furthermore I would like to point out that I have much knowledge about the discussion in the Netherlands and the United States and some knowledge about the situation in Belgium and Germany, but that I do not know a thing about the situation in other countries. But I guess, that it is possible to be of help in disputes about these countries too, because the arguments of believers and non believers are almost always very similar.

The most important thing with mediation though is that you acknowledge the expertise of the mediator and that you trust his or her findings. My experiences on Misplaced Pages with regard to my article about the situation in the Netherlands are not very positive. Although I have tried to explain that all my sources were genuine, reliable and scientific, editors continuously blocked my neutral article and replaced it with a biased and a factually incorrect paragraph. The main reson that they blocked my page was that they did not know the sources and that they could not read Dutch. The fact that someone cannot read Dutch and therefore cannot control the content of an article, is no reason to block it. If there are doubts about the content of my article, it would be a good idea to contact some of the people I mention in the article. If you want addresses or telephone numbers, I can give them to you. There is a world outside Misplaced Pages, where allegations and facts can be checked.

Therefore when people ask me to mediate and I use e.g. Dutch or German sources in the solution of the dispute, you will have to trust me that the sources are genuine, reliable and scientific. Otherwise the mediation will fail.

Criminologist1963 (talk) 12:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)