All of you: stop accusing me of things that simply are untrue. I cross-linked to what I believed was (the last time that I myself had edited it) two NPOV articles. Since then, other people posting in various places have gone to the article and made changes that are POV changes. The article was NPOV until these people (since I last posted in this talk page) started putting their own POVs into it. [Since then, I restored NPOV, but that could change if people start doing that again; always a problem in Wikipedia. --NYScholar 01:58, 1 March 2007 (UTC)] There was no "POV fork" in this article on Jimmy Carter. There were two cross-references to NPOV articles on the book and its commmentary, which both cross-ref. each other. As long as NPOV articles on the book and its commentary already exist in Wikipedia, all the subsection on the book (not on Jimmy Carter, but on the book) needs are the cross-refs. You are involved in contentious editing disputes and need to follow Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. This article is marked "controversial" as are the other two articles. They are also articles pertaining to living persons; reread the tagged notices. Stop this POV editing.
There needs to be no mention of anything specific if the full articles are cross-referenced. Giza D is promoting his own POV, which is not in keeping with Wikipedia editing guidelines. Jimmy Carter did not want to debate Alan Dershowitz; that is his prerogative. The discussion is already well covered in the "Brandeis visit" section of the main article (the last time I looked at it, yesterday). Palestine Peace Not Apartheid#Brandeis University visit; all the source citations are already there (see also References section), along with ample cross-refs. to the related main article and sections on Dershowitz. Giza D. won't let this go. Why not, one might wonder. Has he even read the other articles? I doubt it. Has he read the "References" section in the main article on the book; I doubt it. In my view, he has quite a bit of reading to do to be informed about what Wikipedia already includes on the book. (I oppose the POV editing war now going on in these articles on Jimmy Carter and his book.) --NYScholar 03:12, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- Perhaps it would be productive to discuss what specific elements we have a consensus to include? For example, clearly you, Jiffy, and I take the view that the debate business has no place here. It's just too picayune. But, what about other elements such as the anti-Semitism charge? Derex 08:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- That would be entirely out of place as it relates to this book, and it is already fully documented and discussed in the other article(s): both in Palestine Peace Not Apartheid and in Commentary on Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. Moreover, the main article on the book also cites Carter's responses to such opinions of others (and they are just that, opinions). The References include several articles documenting such opinions.
- This is a biography of a living person: see WP:BLP. See also anti-Semitism and linked articles there. This is not a place for such accusations. They are extremely POV opinions, not facts. That such opinions exist (the fact that they exist, not that Carter is or is not such and such) are properly presented in a NPOV manner in the other articles on the book.
- In terms of the topic ("anti-Semitism") in relation to other matters in this article (not related to that specific book), I also caution that this is an article on a living person and unsubstantiated opinions about the person are really not considered facts; they are opinions. What are the opinions based on? Are they reflective of POV held by those with those opinions? Consider the slippery slope....
- This is an encyclopedia article not an argumentative term paper or a newspaper or magazine editorial. Try to maintain some perspective on what a Wikipedia article is aiming to present about a living person.
- You can find all the "anti-Semite" charges to your (collective) hearts' content in the critical book reviews and verbal reactions and editorials and other "opinion" pieces cited and documented in the already-cross-referenced main articles on the book and in their Wikiquote pages (also linked in them).
- No one who reads these Wikipedia articles cares about the "opinions" of Wikipedia editors; they care about facts established by notable, reliable, verifiable sources. Such sources are already provided in the main articles: if it is a "fact" that someone or other or representatives of organizations have expressed the view that Carter is an "anti-Semite" or "anti-Semitic" (which many have actually qualified after suggesting that; even the Anti-Defamation League has done so), then that fact is already documented well enough in the other articles. Try to put yourselves in the position of being a subject of a Wikipedia article. Would you want someone calling you pejorative names? "Anti-Semite" is a very loaded word. See the way the term (as a topic) is handled in the other two articles on the book. --NYScholar 08:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- I'm well aware that it is a loaded word, and what should be a serious charge. It also makes me cringe to see the charge bandied about so cavalierly, because it serves to discredit the accuser and weaken the force of the term. I have previously, in the now archived discussion, opposed its inclusion. However, if it has by now been made by several notable people/organizations and been reported in notable outlets, then I would reconsider. I don't know that it has been; I raise it as an example, since someone else had recently included it. However, there's absolutely nothing POV about reporting the charge so long as it is a clearly attributed and sourced opinion, and doing so has nothing to do with BLP. The only relevant question is whether it rises to the standard of notability that it should be mentioned in the summary. For that to be true, I beleive we would need evidence that it's being taken seriously by parties with no particular axe to grind. Derex 09:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- I've no axe to grind and never called Carter an Anti-semite, I believe he is ignorant and arrogant. But for the entry page it seems NY Scholar and Jiffy object to any criticsm of Carter. ((unsigned -- by Giza))
- Seriously, we have tried very hard to work with you guys.Jiffypopmetaltop 22:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- Seriously, you've got to be kidding. "My insistence is that the crit be summarized pungently. Everything else is negotiable...And I see literacy and pungency in the crit of PPNA is now reduced to 'although several critics have questioned whether Carter has consistently presented actual 'facts' and other aspects of the book'..." (see above) And then all the content was deleted on the grounds that reporting that there has been caustic response to PPNA is somehow POV. I don't see the "working with". What I saw was the article put in a form acceptable to you two and then discussion invited. Well, it is not POV to report the existance of criticism without enervating its description, and my patience with the censored state of this article is wearing thin. Andyvphil 23:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, you are the very model of flexibility and are the near perfect state of an editor looking for consensus. Nobody has tried to compromise except for you and the discussion has dragged on so long because other editors don't understand the brilliance that is your opinion. In seriousness, this entire page is dedicated to other editors diligently trying to work with you but you have little patience for compromise and at the same time accuse you accuse others of bias. I will wait until a compromise version has been produced and then I will weigh in. Way too much time has been spent on this page trying to suit a clearly biased point of view. Jiffypopmetaltop 04:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
- I meant found notable by notable non-Wikipedia parties with no axe to grind. You clearly do have an axe to grind though, as you keep insulting Carter and trying to insert massively loaded wording. There's a difference between having a POV and pushing a POV, and you have been doing the latter. Jiffy & Scholar & I have all been willing to include criticism. Where everyone has differences is on which criticisms are important enough to note in the main bio and in how to phrase them. I'm trying to start a discussion on what substance to include. With that settled, we can work on how to phrase it. Derex 23:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- The anti-semitism charge is usually attenuated by responsible critics and I don't need it here. I haven't noticed the plagarism charge take off yet. "Apartheid" was a pre-Carter partisan characterization and Carter's adoption of it needs to be noted as such. The well-supported charge of gross factual errors (and if you don't like "gross", find some other term to indicate that we're not talking about errata -- we're talking about charging gross mischaracterization of 242, etc.) needs to be mentioned. So, "Carter's adoption of the partisan charge of 'aparthieid' is controversial, and he has been accused of grossly misrepresenting the historical facts (see Criticism of PPNA(wikilink))"is, I think, an NPOV formulation. If you think not, why not? Andyvphil 23:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- ok. i'm good with apartheid & accuracy. "gross" is a loaded word. so is "misrepresent". critics have challenged the book's accuracy on several important historical points would be a more neutral phrasing. It's also loaded to say that 'apartheid' is "partisan", because that endorses the critics' view. Derex 00:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
- That "apartheid" was a semantically pre-loaded partisan charge that Carter adopted (see my quote from the excerpt, somewhere above) seems to me a simple factual observation (do you disagree with this as a matter of fact?) but if you want to attribute that observation to "critics" in the mainspace I'll only grumble a bit here. But critics haven't "challenged its accuracy", even if you add the emphasizer ~"important points"~. That sounds like they're accusing him of bad research. No, they're accusing him of knowing and partisan misrepresentation. Toning that charge down misrepresents it, and is a form of editorial distancing only slightly more sophisticated than the "scare quotes". I hope I can get you to see this. Andyvphil 00:41, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
- It's your opinion that he adopted apartheid from some certain political context. It may be correct opinion, but it's not verifiable. It's a fairly obvious analogy after all in many dimensions, whether fair or not. All we can verify is the controversy. As to charging intentional misrepresentation, that may be, as I'm not immersed in the details of the dispute. Can you document that the interpretation of lying is common? Derex 03:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
- First, thanks for actually addressing my points. It's refreshing. Anyway... (1) Note that I didn't specify where Carter got the analogy from in my proposal for mainspace. The possibility that he adopted it without reference to the previous usage is not excluded, although I (and notable others whom I could cite -- consider this parenthetical usually implied; that's what I mean by "not idiosyncratic") find it completely implausible that Carter was unaware of its widespread propaganda use beforehand. But I made no unverifiable or uncited assertion of any fact other than that it was an analogy (contra NYScholars assertion that previous discussion elsewhere had settled it was merely a "word") and that Carter approved of it as such (see my quote from the excerpt). (2) My mainspace proposal was "grossly misrepresenting the historical facts", not explicitly "lying", because that is the level of assertion practiced by Carter's notable critics. I'm thinking specifically of the CAMERA crit in the Jerusalem Post and Stein's various letters and articles, and -- I don't have time to look right now because I'm off to work -- I think I would find most of the notable crit at that level of assertion. Can we agree that assertiveness of the notable crit should not be further attenuated in the reporting of it, here? Andyvphil 00:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
- Unindenting previous: I understand that critics used emotionally charged phrasing in criticizing; it's called "spin". We don't repeat spin; we report substantive charges in a neutral phrasing. You want "gross" because it indicates importance. Well, what's wrong with "important"? You want "misrepresent", but haven't document an explicit assertion of malicious intent of inaccuracies. But, then all you've really got is "inaccurate". I understand that you want to emphasize the critics are strident. So, we can write "strident criticism". What we can't do is use loaded words to describe the actual substance of the criticism, because that's implicitly endorsing the critics' views. As to apartheid: yes, I understand that you made no explicit link. However, there's absolutely no purpose to having the 'partisan' tidbit unless such a link is meant to be implied. Juxtaposing two facts is almost always taken to imply a connection, if one can reasonably be made. And this is exactly what you intend "parenthetical usually implied". So, I don't see much difference between you explicitly making the link and implicitly making the link. However, if you can attribute the position to a notable critic, that would be a different matter. Derex 01:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not ignoring your response, just don't have time right now to provide the requested documentation. Maybe this weekend... Again, thanks for engaging on substance. "Touche" re mentioning "partisan". I wasn't looking at my proposed text, and I take your point. But more on this later. Andyvphil 23:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
- Clarification: the point I'm conceding is the implied connection (not the "absolutely no point" part, though), not the impropriety of implying the connection, particularly after revising to meet your first request re attribution. That is to say, I intend to make sure there is attributed crit on these points in the article summarized... gotta run. Andyvphil 00:31, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
- The anti-semitism charge was inserted here: .
- The "scare" quotes were added here:
- With elimination of "scare quotes" and a tighter 2nd sentence, I could live with something like this:
- Instead, NYScholar created the POV fork here: . Andyvphil 16:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- Oh, please; stop it! It's not a "POV fork": that's your own misleading POV. It's tiresome. --NYScholar 03:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
- Repeating myself: "...you deleted the PPNA content in order to exile the criticism of PPNA 'so that the main article can favor some viewpoints ((the uncritical ones)) over others'". The guideline is clear that doing what you did for the reason you did it is a POV fork. Your several gaseous "responses" have been off-point. Andyvphil 23:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
- Thus, repeating myself: It is not a "POV fork"; I have not intended it as a "POV fork". Focus on the content (by reading it) and not on the contributor. If anything is "off" the point of editing, it is your comments. I stand by the content that I have contributed by providing cross-references to existing Wikipedia articles (that existed before I saw the section on Palestine Peace Not Apartheid in this article on Jimmy Carter; I object to your perverse characterizations of my responses above. See the tagged talkpage header and start focusing on reading content of articles so that you know what you are talking about when you try to edit material in other articles relating to what they already discuss. See also the links within those articles to the Wikiquote page and to other Wikipedia articles. --NYScholar 00:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
This is the link to the "Brief summary" of "Critical reaction and commentary" on the book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid (current version, as I write this comment); it is in both main articles on the book (which are split off from one too-long article by an administrator after a consensus discussion on their talk pages): the main article Palestine Peace Not Apartheid and the main article Commentary on Palestine Peace Not Apartheid; each of these main articles has a cross-link to the other one, prominently featured right after the heading: Palestine Peace Not Apartheid: Critical reaction and commentary: Brief summary. The articles have complete notes sections; the article on the book has the References section and the Commentary artilce has a cross-link to it. I suggest reading this brief paragraph and the references listed in it and the longer exposition in the rest of both main articles, and I suggest reading the Wikiquote page for the book (also prominently linked).
- Also please stop quoting older versions of since-edited material out of context. If you scroll up this talk page, you can see how these versions developed and where and when they changed and various earlier comments on them. Some of you just keep ignoring the previous discussion and re-hashing the same old arguments. Read the articles on the book and commentary about the book and read their sources. They already document representative concerns of both supporters and critics of the book and the issues that they have raised as well as Carter's responses to both positive and negative criticism. See these articles in relation to guidelines provided in Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, WP:POV, WP:BLP, WP:Cite, and Wikipedia:Reliable sources, as well as WP:AGF and other Wikipedia editing policies nad guidelines. --NYScholar 01:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
- There you go again, gassing on and on again about about the articles that are linked to from the main Jimmy Carter article as a substitute for responding to my simple point that even if they were flawless articles you would still have to accurately summarize the critical response to PPNA here to avoid violating the POV fork guideline. I'm not rehashing the argument, I'm repeating it to emphasize the fact that you have not once responded to it.
- I can certainly see your hand at work in those other articles, though. I love the weaseling in this sentence from []: "Some of the book's critics, including several leaders of the Democratic Party and of American Jewish organizations, have interpreted the subtitle as an allegation of Israeli apartheid, which they believe to be inflammatory and unsubstantiated.[1][2]" Some do? You mean there are others who read Carter saying "A system of apartheid, with two peoples occupying the same land but completely separated from each other...with Israelis totally dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights...is the policy now being followed," and don't conclude that Carter is alleging Israeli apartheid? Who? Andyvphil 14:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
- As usual, you are taking the sentence out of context: the sentence has other sentences before and after it that relate to its point. There are critics of Carter who focus on other issues (discussed fully in the article following the summary. That is one example of an issue that some critics complain about; not everyone who criticizes the book criticizes the word "apartheid" in the title. The sentence (with citations to sources following it is:
Some of the book's critics, including several leaders of the Democratic Party and of American Jewish organizations, have interpreted the subtitle as an allegation of Israeli apartheid, which they believe to be inflammatory and unsubstantiated.[1][2]
Notes
As far as who edited parts of these articles on the book, the editing history establishes clearly who attempted to improve it over quite an extended period of time. Obviously, I've worked hard on those articles. I find it too bad that those complaining about these articles here (in this contentious discussion of a subsection on the book in this talk page about an article about Jimmy Carter) can't or won't or don't even bother to read the whole articles and the sources cited in them. They might learn more about their subjects (the book and commentary on the book) if they did to overcome their obvious POV and biases about them (subjects of those articles). No one is interested in Wikipedia's POV and biases; they are interested in facts about the book and facts about commentary on it (both positive and negative). --NYScholar 07:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
- As usual, you've entirely failed to engage my point, instead gassing on about how no one who hasn't read every bit of repetitive nonsense written about PPNA could possibly have anything worthwhile to say on the subject. Well, you may have read it, but unless you've done a better job of understanding what you read than you've done understanding what I've written, it will not have done you much good.
- Perhaps I can attempt help you with my meaning, at least: The sentence I find so typical of your work is, again, "Some of the book's critics, including several leaders of the Democratic Party and of American Jewish organizations, have interpreted the subtitle as an allegation of Israeli apartheid, which they believe to be inflammatory and unsubstantiated."(emphasis added) That there are critics of PPNA that do not object to his use of apartheid is irrelevant, for they are not the noun at issue. Now, if you had written "Some of the book's critics...believe Carter's allegation of Israeli apartheid is inflammatory and unsubstantiated" I would not have recognized the sentence as yours, and I would not be pointing at it with derision. As I've pointed out before, Carter explicitly states that: "A system of apartheid...is the policy now being followed" You've inserted an invented uncertainty of interpretation in your sentence for no other reason than to make its meaning more vaporous. Andyvphil 15:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)