Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:52, 2 May 2005

This article isn't neutral.

It only shows the critics of the right wing on Zapatero politics, which are not exactly fair.

The external links are unfair too. Note that "Right-wing website highly critical of Rodríguez Zapatero" and "News about Rodríguez Zapatero" are the same link, a page which is devoted to destroy Zapatero's image. Also, the link "Copy of the editorial of the Wall Street Journal "The Accidental Prime Minister" " belongs to a page right-winged.

It seems that the author wanted a site to promote People's Party ideas.

If you look at the page history you will see that the latest barrage of loaded statements comes from an anonymous user... In fact, there seem to be many anonymous users with an axe to grind in (in both directions) editing this article, which is a problem especially if their edits violate the NPOV policy. — Miguel 05:07, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

Miguel, I am sorry for you because you cannot take part in an open, serious discussion. If you don't like a comment you needn't insult people who do not think like you. You can change it saying something like: "Although some critics say ** sentence I do not like ** it has been also argued ** sentence you like because it reflects your point of view**". That's the way towards objectivity: mixing different points of view.

Actually, opinions should generally not be presented without attribution, and the prefix "some people say that" is frowned upon and discouraged by Misplaced Pages policy (see Misplaced Pages:Avoid weasel terms) although, to be sure, even the policy is a matter of disagreement.

When I said some critics I supposed it would be understood as something equivalent to x in Maths. You can put whatever you want. Besides, I have seen the articles about the NPOV policy before writing that and they advice exactly that. If you do not like something you keep that (that is, you do not destroy everything) and you write "According to X (if you prefer) this. According to Y this other thing".

And, unlike other people, I stand behind my edits instead of making them anonymously, which was the main point of my comment anyway. Miguel 23:41, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)

I am very sorry Miguel but I cannot pay for Internet access (I belong to that group of guys who are poor) and all my access to the Internet is limited to some hour from time to time in a Public Library with a terrible computer and a terrible connection, after several weeks in a row studying 10 hours a day. When you have only an hour even if it seems impossible to you, it takes too long to register (and to discover that you can register). Forgive me for neither having money nor time (and even for being too silly for not discovering at the first second that I could register). I cannot be so superb as you.

I added the link to The Wall Street Journal because it is a respected, old newspaper that published an article whose opinions are shared by millions of people in Spain and the rest of the world. Add additional information if you do not agree but don't try to delegitimize hard-working decent people because they include a link about Zapatero published by a newspaper read by millions of people all over the world.

Besides, the PSOE was a marxist-leninist party until 1979. In fact, Felipe Gonzalez had to resign temporarily to force the party to make the decision of renouncing to that ideology. So removing data that is so significant about the past of the current president of the government of Spain is quite Stalinist in my humble opinion.

PSOE may have been formally revolutionary Marxist until 1979, but González already declared himself Socialist before Marxist in 1974. And it wasn't Leninist. Even PCE had renounced Leninism in 1978. --Error 02:41, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, do not say that this page is not neutral, because in millions of Spaniards' opinion the best words to define Zapatero are lazy, stupid, arrogant, violent, dictator, murderer, friend of terrorists, useless, liar, cruel, traitor, selfish, manipulator, demagoge and a very, very long etcetera. Millions of Spaniards would love to include that in the article.

This article isn't neutral.

It´s a totally right wing vision of the matter.

It´s totally worthless but the dates. It shows a complete lack of knowledge of a lot of matters (from the concept of "freemason", the resolution of the ONU or the reasons for the withdrawal of the troops). Such lack of knowledge clearly is not a lack of interest but an obvious manipulation to support right wing ideas.

Freemasonry is forbidden by the current Spanish Constitution. It bans secret organizations and those that pursue illegal objectives (like taking control of the State) in its article 22. So if Spanish freemasonry was so good tell me why the people who carried on one of the most applauded Transition Periods to democracy thought it could not be tolerated if Spanish democracy was to survive.

The links work in the same way, specially the critical webpage and the article, that is selectionated for parcial reasons too.

So this article about Zapatero is totally unuseful except you want to know the view of an extreme right person.

Un saludo RHC

It says on the page that Zapatero ordered the troops home from Iraq immediately after being elected. I believe that he did not order them home, but rather he relocated them to Afghanistan.

(Note: they were not rellocated at all. Zapatero decided to send more troops to Afghanistan as a result of internationl pressure to avoid his increasing isolation.)

It seems that this page has been assaulted by extreme-left radicals that cannot bear a point of view different to theirs. The page has suffered several attacks destroying essential information about Zapatero or adding unclear information. One of the examples is the following comment in the version of 2004/12/21: "The manipulation of the information by the Popular Party of Jose Maria Aznar was instrumental in the vitory of PSOE when it was clear that the terrorist attacs were made by Islamic terrorists." This is clearly a partisan point of view as it has not been proven that there was manipulation (for example, serious newspapers -- such as ABC -- have published the names and surnames of policemen who supposedly hid information from the Popular Party government). "El Mundo" has also published (and nobody has denied) that the mobile phones used by the terrorists were bought by some Bulgarian citizens, with no known links to Islamic terrorism. It is not so clear that the attack were caused by Islamists.

It is terrible to see how a noble project as Misplaced Pages is damaged by the intolerance of some few radicals.

If people want to incorporate their perspective into the content of the article, that's fine, but I don't understand why people would revert fixes to the grammar of their own writing. Do they even read the changes before revrting them?

Recent edits

In my edits of yesterday, I tried to make the article conform better to house style, specifically as regards content. I removed assertions that appeared to be contentious, removed content that would be of little interest to the general reader seeking info on Zapatero, and limited the amount of content that will quickly become dated. With the info that remained, I tried to make it more concise and relevant to the theme.

Holdspa

This article is neutral

Hi, I'm the one who opened the discussion time ago.

I'm glad to see that biased comments have been removed, and also to see that unnecessary information have been removed too. I think now the article is clearier.

When editing a page, we should think that we are trying to make information useful for someone looking for general documentation on one specific matter. So, it is important not only to give information, but to present it concisely in the way the user find easy to use. Irrelevant info should be avoided. Also, "Political activism" has no place here.

I didn't want to insult anybody (I think a user confused me with Miguel), and reading the discussion I don't think that neither Miguel nor me have done it. Answering this user, I must say that yes, the Wall Street Journal is a prestigious newspaper, but the article linked is an opinion article- as valid as the opposite. If you bring an opinion, you should also bring the opposite opinion, or the article would be unbalanced.

The link to the Socialist Party is neural?

Last time I visited this article I felt I bit dissapointed, and thought that maybe Misplaced Pages weak point was politics, in the sense that people editing the article to make it next to their ideas was inevitable. I am happy to see that I was wrong.

Doubts

I have always thought that an encyclopedia was for people who wanted information and not only limited, general information. In Misplaced Pages, if anybody wants quick information he/she has only to look at the brief introduction included that important article includes. So I think we have detected a new thing you have not understood about how ikipedia works.

The other is that the NPOV policy is not about hidding the truth. In fact, if you read the interesting articles written about Misplaced Pages NPOV policy you would see how they warn people who try to do a serious work not to make that mistake. If something is true you must include it. Even if a political commissar (that is what you seem, I am sorry to say) does not like it.

Regarding the Wall Street Journal article, as far as I know I am not the owner of Misplaced Pages. So you can include that wonderful link that balances this article!!! In fact, why instead of seeing bad faith in other people you do not consider an article you do not like as a NPOV article in construction (I have also seen that idea in the articles about neutrality)?

Another thing I wonder is what you have said nothing about Aznar article. There you have a lot of non neutral links, satirical and those things you hate. I think I have read that "los genoveses" was removed (from the Internet only of course) because the person who maintained it was afraid of getting into problems with justice.

Neutrality

I think the sentence Against expectations isn´t true. Here, in Spain, public opinions gave the same probability to win to PSOE and PP. And the PSOE was increasing his results for months.

Also, I think a comentary about wrong informations said by Aznar´s goverment influence the results too will be good. Some people think 11 March bombing affected the results, but others think PSOE wins because PP lies.--FAR 09:17, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Newspapers and information

In this article, there are too many references to newspaper´s opnions that are given like facts when they are are opinions or simply, not contrasted. This kind of reference could be used as link, not as fact. The true is than newspapers have their view of reality, and quoting them as harbingers of the true is utterly wrong. It would be comparable to quoting a german newspaper`s article during the Hitler regime as a fact. I suggest that kind of information should be removed and situated in the link section like "article about Zapatero about...<matters>". Anyway, the article is more balanced than before. Un saludo RHC

Opinions and truth

As you should know RHC, there are facts and opinion. An article can contain both of them. If an article says: "Zapatero meets the fighter against poverty Fidel Castro" it is giving both a fact and an opinion. But if you are saying in the article "Zapatero met Fidel Castro" I do not realize what is your problem with including that article as a reference to support a fact. Besides I do not know why you 'remove' the links, if you want to change where they are placed why do not you change them yourself?

Problems with vandal

The user 80.58.14.X (X is 235 and 170) seems to find a strange pleasure in destroying other people's edits. However, he recovers an old incomplete version and because of that, following the directions of Misplaced Pages, his/her vandalism cannot be solved by including him/her address directly into the Misplaced Pages pages created with that purpose. Because of that I begged him/her to follow from now on the rules of Misplaced Pages regarding the resolution of conflicts. If s/he does not pay attention to this petition I consider it is clear s/he is a vandal and I will deal with him/her according to his real nature. Zapatero

I think the article is perfectly neutral

 Hello, i'm spaniard (from Albacete, Castilla-La Mancha, Quijote's land). I'm sorry because my english is very imperfect, but I wanted to express my opinion about our president.
 Zapatero won the elections against expectations (as says the article), and taking advantages of the attack on Madrid. Nobody knew who were the responsibles, but Zapatero was already saying "It is islamic terrorism", even inventing that there were suicide terrorists, when it wasn't. On my opinion, he isn't preparated for be prime minister. He's ministers haven't any preparation (only Solves, of the economic ministery, wants to imitate the economic polityc of Aznar gobernement).

  Zapatero criticized Irak's war, but now he sends troops to Haiti, India, and sells weapons to the ex-dictator of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.

Thanks yo for reading me.

Outside opinion

I know little about the article topic. But it does appear that one person is going against consensus. That is not the Misplaced Pages way.

I would suggest that instead of deleting or reverting, a better way is to note on the talk page any specific objections. Maurreen 18:14, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

/Dispute

Objetive/Subjetive

A couple of comments. About the not proven right comments.

"1.... Zapatero, representing a modernising faction known as "Nueva Vía" (New Way) ...". A lot of people believe that Zapatero in fact represents a return to a more radical Socialist Party and that he is obsessed with the Spanish Civil War. So to claim that his faction was modernising without any further information goes clearly against the NPOV policy of Misplaced Pages. "

The name of the faction was "Nueva Via" (New Way). It was modernising cause their members where more young, have a totally diferent view of the politic than the former factions and most of them all new faces.

" He has said that the government will not be "soft on terrorism" ....". This is a pure propagandistic statement as the reasons that moved Zapatero to make that declaration are not stated. Zapatero said that because of his pacts with some Spanish Parties that are in favor of the independence of their regions, what makes them close to the terrorist group ETA at least ideologically. Zapatero's declaration tried to tranquilize his voters. "

The article doesn´t say that "zapatero is not being soft with terrorism". That would be subjetive. Zapatero has said that lot of times and the fact that he pacts with nacionalist is cited below. And the true I don´t think that anyone will say Aznar wasn´t hard with terrorism for pacting with PNV.

The older articles have a lot of false assertions with obvius manipulative intentions. Some examples :

- " Resolution 1546 ( (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sc8117.doc.htm)), that asked all the Member States to send troops to Irak"

Thas false. It welcomes support for restoration of stability and security. it doesn´t mean troops. - About the law of gender violence "Finally, the text was changed and the term 'especially vulnerable victim' substituted that of 'woman' after which the law was approved by unanimity." That´s totally false. You only have to the header of the law. BOE 319, 29 Diciembre 1004. Organic law 1/1004

- "According to the Spanish newspaper ABC, Carod-Rovira promised to provide ETA with political support if the terrorist group did not act in Catalonia what seems to have been confirmed by the ETA announcement of a truce affecting only that region some months later." Ok! Acoording "El periodico de Catalunya" it was to ask ETA to stop terrorism. Using partial newspapers is not a way of helping. After that, there´s a supossition totally subjetive.

And so on. The true is that the articles of this user(That is so funnilly objetive that calls himself Zapatero) are so manipulative, false and wrong (and with intention of being so) that shows a real intention of make proselitism and false acusations with wikipedia and thas not right. I haven´t used this disccusion forum before just cause I didn´t knew how did it works. I´ll kept on learning how to do it.

I fear that you have been brainwashed

First, I want to welcome you to the world of the people who talk instead of simply trying to impose their ideas destroying other people's edits (it seems that now, at least, you complement both activities).

I will try to help you because I want you to learn to think for yourself.

I will start solving your mistakes about your appreciation of the 'real' article:

1. Regarding the Resolution 1546, as the real article states, it can be read in it the following:

"15. Requests Member States and international and regional organizations to contribute assistance to the multinational force, including military forces, as agreed with the Government of Iraq, to help meet the needs of the Iraqi people for security and stability, humanitarian and reconstruction assistance, and to support the efforts of UNAMI;" That is, it talks about troops. Learn to check your sources.

1. Regarding the Law of Gender Violence the change of the term woman for that of "Specially vulnerable victim" is the pure truth. Read the law, read the newspapers. I think that your problem is that you do not know what is the "Exposición de motivos". It only explains why the law is written and passed not what the law orders (that is established by its articles where no real reference to woman or women is made as it appears only within larger expressions like "Judges or Courts of Violence against Woman"). It has really surprised me that you have had any problem with that part of the article as it states simply something that has lasted for months in Spain. Besided, the law was passed by unanimity I do not know where you have been that you do not know it.

1. It seems very funny that you say that the ABC is partial. Could you tell me the name of an impartial newspaper? "El Periódico de Cataluña" has a very strong left-wing bias on the other hand. What I do not understand is why you do not include what it says instead of removing everything. That is how Misplaced Pages works and you would know it if you would read the Misplaced Pages articles about its NPOV policy.

They also state that nobody must never offend other user (as you have done with that comment about "real intention of make proselitism and false acusations with wikipedia and thas not right"). I can justify my edits with references. You cannot.

Regarding your comments about "your" article I would like to know the following:

1. Saying the Nueva Vía is modernizing is POV because there are a lot of people who think that Zapatero is an extreme-left radical obsessed with the Civil war as it is proved by his obsession with statutes that have spent more time in the street with the new Democratic System that with Franco or by his friendship with Fidel Castro. In Misplaced Pages you must reflect all points of view, this is not the PRISA group. That thing about young people is very funny. The Catholic Church has a lot of young members, does it made it modernising?

1. The comment about Zapatero's statements about terrorism is also POV because it is a propagandistic comment whose causes are not stated. You must include all the truth not only what Zapatero wants you to know.

The worst of everything is that you have been so terribly manipulated that you feel afraid of the truth when you confront it. Please learn to think for yourself. You owe it to yourself. Zapatero 17:17, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Brainwashed

Please use === Your title === if you add comments to the thread Objective/Subjective you started. In my humble opinion it makes clearer that it is being continued. If not, it seems that new independent topics are being discussed. Zapatero 16:37, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Back to the same.

First, about objetive newspapers, that´s funny cause, as I know there are not such thing like an objetive newspaper, I don´t quote them constantly. You do. And always the same. Again is funny to call somebody brainwashed when your nick is Zapatero, a sign that you are a bit obssesed (other kind of brain washed).

The Misplaced Pages recommends to indicate what your sources are. My sources, like those of everybody else, are the mass media. Newspapers are mass media available (sometimes) on the Internet. The reason why I made an effort to include so many references was that objective data reported by all kind of television channels, radios or newspapers was being denied (I do not know if you remember that about a UN resolution and troops).

Regarding the nick, don't become so angry about it. It was a joke, there is no need to act as if a god would have been desecrated. In fact, I use it only with this article because I am afraid that the people who do not like my edits in it could try to take revenge on my edits in other articles(as you know some Spanish left-winger are very violent) Zapatero 16:37, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

About the fonts (I think you mean sources Zapatero), clearly you have not read the whole gender violence law (It is true! Zapatero). It opens the possibility to be used in other cases at judge discrection but it works diferent for women and for men. And the the General Council of the Judicial Power (Consejo General del Poder Judicial), is an consultive organism without power to determine if something is constitutional or unconstitutional. For that matter there is the Constitutional Tribunal. So the reason why the law put and additional chapter for opening to other situations was purely political, not judicial. Your article is written to make it look different.

The law can be found here . The Title IV of the law included the term "especially vulnerable" because of the reasons I have already explained. The Constitutional Tribunal decides about the constitutionality of the law, but you do not need to be the Constitutional Tribunal to understand the Constitution and know if something might contradict it or not. The General Council of the Judicial Power simply stated its opinion and they said, among other things, that, in their opinion, it did not respect the constitution.

Besides, do not say that it is my article. You can change if you want. I do not oppose other people's contributions (I am not the owner of the Misplaced Pages to dare do that), I oppose other people destroying edits simply because they do not like it. Zapatero 16:37, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The same with the ONU (in English, it is UN :-) Zapatero). Again, "it asks for assistance to the multinational force, including military forces". So, to quote as "it asks for military forces" in exclusive is again manipulation. And you are quite fond of it.

To please your wishes I have only kept in the article the quote that reproduces exactly what is written in the Resolution. I do not know why you accuse me of manipulation. Everybody can change the article. I have neither the power nor the intention to avoit it. Zapatero 16:37, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, these are not in the Zapatero´s article. These are on the links so not sense in comenting here. But very funny your joke about brainwashed (Shouldn't it be brainwashing? In spite of everything, your English is too good, I think you must have attended an expensive private school :-) Zapatero).

More matters

One matter more to coment.

About the "poor" studies. I don´t have any access to the results. If you put the reference we will judge it. But it they were poor... how did he finished law studies in time? By the way, the post that he occupied it he university was not a titular one, that needs public examinations. It was by direct election, so the references to problems with the him being chosen for the post are pure speculation

That matter seems a little confusing. I remember testimonies of former teachers of him saying that he was not too good. I also remember a Professor (teacher of the University) that said that he did not pay too much attention to his courses because he centered most of his attention in his political activity. However other sources claim that he was better than average before studying PREU (the preuniversity year). From that year, he became a mediocre. I found the information in the book by "Óscar Campillo: Zapatero, Presidente a la primera". (You have an interview with the author here ) Zapatero 16:37, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Recent changes (Zapatancas 14:17, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC))

I did not consider this comment to be neutral:

"Zapatero came to power having pledged to withdraw Spain's troops from the US-led coalition occupying Iraq, which he promptly did after taking office."

because it is not exactly true (I have tried to reflect what he really said in Zapatero's foreign policy). Besides, I believe that its place is not the header of the artcile as it is reserved for very specific information. I have removed it as I consider the specific data about the withdrawl should be covered by the aforemontiend article about Zapatero's foreign policy.

I also find non neutral this comment

"By becoming the main spokesperson of PSOE's parliamentary group and actively critizicing the government of José María Aznar, Zapatero used his seat in the Cortes to try to shift the focus of opposition from the media to the parliament."

I humbly think that it stinks of the typical socialist propaganda (what I respect). Besides, as the article is really divided into several sub-articles (namely: Zapatero's years as an opposition leader, Zapatero and the Local and Regional Elections of 2003, Zapatero and the 2004 General Election and Zapatero's domestic policy) I think those pieces of information so specific should be placed into them (to respect Misplaced Pages rules as those relating to not using too much space for minor items, compared to other more important). So I have included in the article Zapatero's years as an opposition leader the following:

According to some opinions, by becoming the main spokesperson of PSOE's parliamentary group and actively critizicing the government of José María Aznar, Zapatero used his seat in the Cortes to try to shift the focus of opposition from the media to the parliament

I think this is an error:

the scheme to transfer water from the River Ebro to the mediterranean coast

If I am not wrong, the transfer affected all Spain. For example it was supported by the Socialist governed Castilla La Mancha.

I disliked also this comment:

vote but without a formal coalition, forcing himself to seek the support of other parties for every vote troughout the term. This was in line with his calm demeanor strategy and would intend to bring the parliament to the fore, but was criticised by the People's Party as leading to a weak government

Again, I think it reflects blindly the image Zapatero wants to project about himself. I have changed it to the following:

According to his supporters, this was in line with his calm demeanor strategy and would intend to bring the parliament to the fore, but was criticised by the People's Party as leading to a weak government.

I have removed the following:

", and one of his first legislative initiatives was a law on gender violence"

as it was already stated some lines below.

I have also moved the information about the Ibarretxe plan to the article about domestic policy. Zapatancas 14:17, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There is some good material here (despite, or perhaps because of, the disputes), but (a) the subarticles (eg Zapatero's domestic policy) need structuring (headings etc); (b) they need to be better summarised in the main Zapatero article. Rd232 13:16, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Historical revisionism

• It should be noted that the above comment was by a know sockpuppet of a baned vandal, the vandal was baed from making extreme POV edits, see Captain Liberty (talk · contributions) and Cap. Freedom (talk · contributions)for refrence of some this users previous activity. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 08:58, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• I do not find wrong to include some references to what is thought by those who oppose Zapatero's withdrawal. However, I think the best place for them is the article Zapatero's foreign policy, and not the main article as they then would have too many space compared with other important points. I have seen that a user has removed a comment about Chamberlain, Munich and so on in Zapatero's foreign policy. In my humble opinion, it would have been better to change it than to delete it. Zapatancas 17:24, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Moral Clarity (talk · contribs)'s comments have been removed as is the hardbanned user JoeM (talk · contribs). Do not replace as he is not allowed to edit wikipedia. plwease delete anything of his in the future immediately regardless of content, --SqueakBox 17:01, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Zapatero excess articles

All the excess Zapatero articles have been brought back here without overweighing this article. The POV and unencyclopedic styles have, for the most part, bneen removed. Anti-Zapatero rhetoric cannot be allowed to dominate this article, --SqueakBox 19:52, May 2, 2005 (UTC)