Talk:UNICEF/Archive 1

If you want to improve the article by adding detail, you are welcome to it. If you want to censor material because you think you are the self-appointed keeper of the flame for Israel, you should stop pushing your POV on Wikipedia and "leave for other channels". Alberuni 22:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• "One of my important roles on Wikipedia is to protect Wikipedia from these POV warriors until they understand what NPOV is, become familiar with Wikipedia norms, and either decide they can actually work within the Wikipedia paradigm, or leave for other channels in which they can evangelize their POV" - quoted from User:Jayjg.

Devoting a significant portion of this tiny article to a deliberately misleading and irrelevant description of NGO Monitor's publisher is both against Wikipedia standards and against common sense. Jayjg 22:37, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Like I said, you are welcome to enlarge the article. Do you ever do anything productive on Wikipedia? --Alberuni 22:40, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, and I used to do even more productive stuff before a series of extremist anti-Israel POV warriors showed up with an agenda of inserting anti-Israel bias into any article they could get their hands on. Now I end up wasting my time NPOVing their propaganda and vandalism. Jayjg 22:43, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Jayjg, I hate to break this to you but it is your extremist POV that causes you to perceive neutral information harmful to Israel as something that needs censoring. You go to ridiculous lengths to sanitize everything dealing with Israel. It's unhealthy and unwholesome, dare I be uncivil to say neurotic? Paxil and Prozac might help. It's just not worth wasting your life over very minor issues. Whether Dore Gold is mentioned as the publisher, geeez. Who cares? It's a minor fact but it is a fact that you want censored. That's wrong on principle. NGO monitor and Dore Gold are financed by Michael Milken who robbed millions of Americans with his illegal financial dealings. I should go and do more research. You actually encourage me to do things I would never even think of doing. Thanks! Before you attacked me, I wandered around Wikipedia working on random articles of interest. I didn't know what POV pushing was. Now you have turned every edit into a war just because you hate my anti-israeli opinions expressed on talk pages - even though they are not reflected in my edits. It's ridiculous. You are paranoid and obsessive. Excuse me if that diagnosis is not civil.--Alberuni 22:55, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The Dore Gold thing is irrelevant, a waste of time and space, not Wikipedia standard, and only included by you to poison the well, as you have admitted on many occasions. Your POV pushing is fairly extreme, though I suppose it could be worse. And I don't excuse you, particularly over your lack of honesty, but also over your extreme rudeness and consistent violation of Wikipedia's rules about personal attacks, which you promised to stop doing, and then promptly started doing again (getting back to the honesty problem). However, I do ignore your consistently ranting ad hominem speeches, though I occasionally skim them for chuckles. Jayjg 23:01, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is an example of what makes you a troll. You can state your opinions but when you write, "only included by you to poison the well, as you have admitted on many occasions" you are twisting my statements and putting words in my mouth. THAT is dishonest and you do it frequently. I have written MANY responses to you that attributing smears to their source is Wikipedia:NPOV policy. I never said I am poisoning the well, a slur that you use frequently. And then you accuse others of being uncivil. It's not being uncivil to point out your hypocrisy. Alberuni 00:19, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your very first statement defending referencing Gold's name each and every time you mention NGO monitor was Don't delete Dore Gold's name because readers have a right to know where the accusations of partisanship against humanitarian organizations come from; they come from partisan and extremist Zionists. As I stated at the time, your motivation here is clearly poisoning the well, which is "a preemptive logical fallacy where unfavourable information about someone (or something) is presented to an audience, with the intent of discrediting everything said by that person (or group) beforehand". In many other statements you have made it clear that you include Gold's name specifically in order to (in your mind) discredit NGO Watch. Though you didn't specifically use the words "I am poisoning the well", you certainly admitted your intent in doing so. Moreover, the dishonesty of doing so is made clear by your insistence that any mention of NGO monitor must mention the name of its publisher, as if they were identical, when you know well that NGO monitor actually has a staff of several individuals who write the reports, and Gold is only the publisher via his role as president of the JCPA. So to is the absurdity of insisting that every mention of NGO monitor must include the name of Dore Gold and his former job; if we mention NGO monitor in 200 articles, I suppose we'll have to have 200 repetitions of Gold's name and his title as well, right? And if Gold leaves the JCPA and someone else takes over, then we'll have to edit those 200 articles and change the name in each and every article to the new president, and include a new mini resume of that new president? The notion is idiotic, and undermines the whole purpose of live links. And your incivility so vastly exceeds mere claims that I am a hypocrite that your even suggesting that that is the extent of your incivility points out the fundamentally dishonest nature of so many things you say. Jayjg 03:07, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The only good point in your diatribe was the issue of updating links. I would point out that NGO Monitor is a small and insignificant operation. You will likely be one of the few people who will notice when Dore Gold moves on to his next scam. The issue of updating links will be a problem for numerous pages (imagine all the updates that will be needed after next Tuesday if President George W. Bush is defeated) and the technical issues do not diminish the need for transperancy (what you, in shame, incessantly decry as "poisoning the well"). (Why is the publisher's name "unfavorable information"? It's only unfavorable to people who have an negative opinion about his bias. To people who like his bias, the name will add to the credibility of the NGO Monitor.) You see, I am for honesty and transperancy and letting people use their own judgement. You are for censorship, deception and limiting the available information readers use to form decisions about the data quality. Aside from the content of the article, your dishonest statements on Talk page are again available for all to see. I just finished telling you that my intent is not to poison the well, as you put it, yet you again repeat your calumny, "Though you didn't specifically use the words 'I am poisoning the well', you certainly admitted your intent in doing so." Could you please cease your baseless accusations. If it is your impression that my intent is such, please word it this way. "Though you didn't specifically use the words 'I am poisoning the well' and you have repeatedly denied that is your intent, I perceived that you are trying to prejudice readers by inserting the name of a known Zionist hack mouthpiece in articles bearing the name of his propaganda front organ" or something along those lines....Your inability to differentiate between your opinions about my edits and my true intent is reflected in many of your POV edits where you appear to believe that your narrow point of view is "actual reality". Please make an extra effort to check your opinions at the door and make edits based on solid substantiated facts - not your opinions. Thank you.--Alberuni 05:13, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

(Moving left) NGO monitor is not an "operation", it is one of a number of publications of the JCPA, a significant organization which has been around for over 30 years, long before Gold joined it, and no doubt long after he leaves. If the publisher's name makes people reject the information, it is poisoning the well; if the publisher's name makes people accept the information it is an appeal to authority. Neither is valuable. As for "checking my opinions at the door" concerning the "true intent" of your edits, this is egregious hypocrisy coming from someone who in most Talk: comments makes wildly inaccurate and often defamatory statements about the "true intent" of my own edits (including the most recent), and has been doing so for over a month now. It's even worse coming from someone who complains so often about hypocrisy. Jayjg 16:22, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If the edit can be perceived as either an appeal to authority OR poisoning the well then it clearly IS a neutral, balanced and factual NPOV edit. As for the hypocrisy of defamatory accusations; like alot of things, what goes around comes around. --Alberuni 17:27, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The issue is not whether the information is factual, but whether it is useful and apropos. Its presence can only damage neutrality, not aid it, which is why it doesn't belong. And the ratio of what goes around from you to what comes around back to you is approximately 100 to 1. Jayjg 19:01, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What you refer to as "neutrality" is actually an effort to cloak the source of POV accusations. When you make the same effort to apply Jew Watch allegations against B'nai B'rith and other Jewish organizations while cloaking the neo-Nazi origins of the Jew Watch publishers, I will believe that your efforts to spread NGO Monitor's POV allegations are balanced. Alberuni 00:50, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Point of view?

Clearly there is a two-person argument going on here about points of view on Israel and the Palestinian situation. Whatever your views on this debate, I don't think it is fair to UNICEF that this debate should be conducted in the context of an encyclopedia article about a humanitarian organisation. UNICEF, like most such organisations is occasionally criticised by people or organisations who have particular partisan viewpoints (eg pro or anto abortion people's views on family planning programmes). Such discussions normally relate to a tiny proportion of the organisation's work and are often inaccurate. By devoting a significant part of the encyclopedia article to such a discussion you are distorting the balance of what should be a factual summary of the organisation's history, scope and work. Please take your argument to an article on Zionism or Palestine or elsewhere - an article about UNICEF is not the place for it. Rather than delete the section myself, I would prefer it if the contributor would agree to remove it on the grounds I have indicated above - how about it? --DnB 11:41, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you 100%. I would like to see the NGO Monitor right-wing Israeli think tank smear campaign accusations all moved to the NGO Monitor page as suggested by User:Mirv. The sole purpose of these accusations is to smear Palestinian humanitarian organizations and their sponsors. Unfortunately, User:Jayjg comes from a POV that supports the NGO Monitor smear campaign and he has insisted that its accusations be described on Medical Aid for Palestinians,B'Tselem, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and other pages. In the interests of fairness, every organization smeared by NGO Monitor will be treated in an equivalent manner. If it is deleted here, it should be deleted on other pages. Even when Wikipedia editors reject User:Jayjg's POV and suggest that the NGO Monitor smear campaign be conducted on the NGO Monitor page, User:Jayjg refuses to comply. --Alberuni 00:44, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that it doesn't belong in the UNICEF article, as the criticisms relate to such a small part of its work, and as the article itself is much smaller than it should be. Of course, this argument does not apply to smaller organizations where the criticisms apply to much of their work. Jayjg 01:01, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In other words, Jayjg wants the freedom to use NGO Monitor to smear Palestinian organizations but doesn't want NGO Monitor's smears to appear on the pages of international organizations. --Alberuni 01:12, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why not just let me speak for myself, rather than creating straw man arguments for me? Jayjg 02:25, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your intentions are clear to anyone familiar with your pattern of edits. Others who are not familiar with your Wikipedia hasbara campaign may not recognize the nature of your deceptive practices. You regularly use special pleading to excuse your hypocrisy, POV pushing and manipulative pro-Israeli editing. The reason you want to smear Medical Aid for Palestinians, B'Tselem, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and Palestine Children's Relief Fund but not UNICEF has nothing to do with the size of the articles or the organizations. It has to do with your attempts to target Palestinian human rights groups for abuse. --Alberuni 02:47, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please use Talk: pages for discussing article content, rather than for violating Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Jayjg 03:00, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

We are discussing article content. The content of the article is related to your campaign of inserting NGO Monitor smears on pages dealing with Palestinian humanitarian organizations, remember? --Alberuni 03:24, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd prefer to discuss article content rather than me; in fact, that is Wikipedia policy. Please restrict your comments to that. Jayjg 07:09, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

We are discussing article content. The content of the article is related to a Zionist extremist's campaign of inserting NGO Monitor smears on pages dealing with Palestinian humanitarian organizations. Happy now? --Alberuni 21:23, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So, it appears that all three of us are agreed that this reference is not appropriate for the UNICEF article. I'm not experienced with editing Wikipedia, so Jayjg, would you please remove it? I'd be grateful. Thank you.--DnB 20:53, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wrong. I agreed that NGO Monitor smears should be removed from this article IF it is also removed from all other articles in which it appears. The accusations can be moved to the NGO Monitor page. Jayjg refuses to accept its removal from Palestinian NGO pages therefore I do not accept its removal from this page. Editing should be consistent and not based on Jayjg's biases and desire to smear Palestinian NGOs. The NGO Monitor criticisms should be on all related pages or on none of the related pages. I do not accept a selective and biased approach to editing Wikipedia articles based on the prejudices of bigots and political extremists. --Alberuni 21:17, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I didn't put the information in, and Alberuni is unwilling to allow it to be taken out. Editing on Wikipedia should be done based on Wikipedia rules and a dash of common sense. While the reference doesn't make sense in some articles and does make sense in others, Alberuni will not agree to this. I also do not accept a selective and biased approach to editing Wikipedia articles based on the prejudices of bigots and political extremists, so at least Alberuni and I can find common ground there, if hardly anywhere else. Jayjg 21:51, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If you were sincere, you would be consistent. Your definition of common sense on Wikipedia is "Jayjg's POV". --Alberuni 03:19, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". Ralph Waldo Emerson. Jayjg 03:27, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Your inconsistency betrays your POV bias. --Alberuni 04:26, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So, it appears that it was Alberuni who put this NGO Monitor piece into the UNICEF article in the first place. Yet you said you agreed with my earlier comment "100%". You seem to be insisting on it remaining in the UNICEF article in order to make a point which has no relevance to the creation of a balanced encyclopedia article about UNICEF. Why not take this argument one article at a time? Starting by removing the entry which you inserted in the UNICEF article. Perhaps the rationale for not including the NGO Monitor reference in this article is that UNICEF is not an organisation which appears on the list of NGOs in the NGO Monitor article (as well as the balance question)? UNICEF is an organisation which works for children in 157 countries - it does not deserve to be used in this way. I appeal to you to remove this element of the article. In return, I am willing to make a commitment to expanding the stub of this article so that readers can learn more about the organisation and its work around the world (though I won't have time for the next few weeks). I would very much appreciate your assistance and understanding. Thank you. --DnB 22:27, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have as much sympathy for UNICEF as you and Jayjg are showing for Palestinian humanitarian NGOs. I am amused that your definition of balance in Wikipedia assumes that Palestinian NGOs should be forced to suffer smears from NGO Monitor but that UNICEF shouldn't. I look forward to you building the article so that the NGO Monitor's smear does not take up disproportionate space. By the way, you might want to register for an account. --Alberuni 03:19, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Your idea sounds wonderful DnB, and I'm dismayed at seeing the UNICEF article being used as a political hostage in this way. I can only hope that eventually reason will prevail. As it is, any edit of mine is bound to be reverted. Jayjg 03:27, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If you showed such "sincere" concern and wish for "reason to prevail" on Palestinian NGO pages, we would never have a conflict. Never pushing your POV unless Arabs are involved. You are just such a saint. --Alberuni 05:18, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Alberuni, I have no wish to see this reference in other pages either, but that is not an acceptable reason to put it here. I hope that others will deal with other pages through discussion and reason, if possible. if not there is an arbitration system that can ultimately be used. meanwhile, there is no rationale which is related specifically to UNICEF supporting the inclusion of this element here. I have therefore edited it myself. I appeal to you not to revert. Thankyou. (I thought I had registered an account already?!) --DnB 07:09, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have made a request for community comment (Wikipedia:Requests for comment) and requested the assistance of an aribitrator (Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance) in the hope that others may be able to help to find a resolution to the situation affecting this page. meanwhile I have again removed the offending section and appeal once more to you not to revert, (given that you actually agree with my position in relation to this specific article), at least until these other processes have had an opportunity to help us to make progress constructively. Let's agree to leave the article without the NGO Monitor section while we seek a solution. If others agree with your position, and we have not made progress, we can then consider mediation or arbirtration. --DnB 00:04, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)