Talk:Jewish views of poverty, wealth and charity

Sanctions applicable to this page
As a precaution, I would like to make all editors at this page aware of Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander, which applies to all edits made to this page and talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:38, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There are no discretionary sanction in that case, as the arbitrators have clarified. Jayjg (talk) 01:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * As my link indicated, the section of the Arbitration decision to which I linked is called "Discretionary sanctions". As to what the Arbitrators clarified, I will refer readers to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander. With respect to this page, my advice would be to steer clear of any content or comments that might appear to be of the form (quoting from Roger Davies' response) "Because Blue people are thieves, they looted and plundered after the battle in 1358" or "Because you are Blue, it's typical that you run to support other Blue people, no matter whether they're right or wrong", where the word "Blue" would be substituted with the word "Jewish". If you want to disagree with me about that, Jayjg, please feel free. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:22, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The arbitrators were very clear: "No discretionary sanctions were adopted in the Noleander case" (Newyorkbrad), "Noleander does not itself authorise discretionary sanctions" (Roger Davies), "Discretionary sanctions were not adopted in the Noleander case" (PhilKnight). If you want to disagree with the arbitrators, please feel free, but I don't think it will get you anywhere. Jayjg (talk) 17:30, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Editors would be well-advised to read what the Arbitrators actually say at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Which I've quoted. Now, please stop trying to intimidate editors, and focus on article content instead. Jayjg (talk) 18:07, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Which I suggest reading in full, instead of being misled by cherry-picked quotes. As for me trying to intimidate anyone, citation needed, and maybe a boomerang too. What's really ironic about all of this, is that I originally posted this thread to warn editors against putting up content that might appear to be a slur against Jewish people, and yet I appear to have touched a raw nerve with an editor who appears quite unlikely to do so. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:18, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There was no indication (or likelihood) that any editors here were going to "put up content that might appear to be a slur against Jewish people". The only issue was in ensuring that Noleander's material was fully removed. Now, are you all done talking about me? Please review WP:NPA and WP:TPYES: "Comment on content, not on the contributor". Jayjg (talk) 20:15, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that it is pretty clear that my opening post at the top of this thread was not directed at you. After that, you have been criticizing what I wrote, and I have responded. For the very same reasons that you felt that it was best to move this page back into user space, I felt that it was a good idea to point out this caution. I've been trying to avoid pointing at Richard by name because I think it's unfair to point at him, but I felt that the message needed to be here, lest he (or perhaps someone else, but I have no idea who) put something in the page that would further aggravate the concerns that have been raised. If anyone else thought that it was directed at them instead, they might want to ask themselves why they would have thought that. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Some article content came from Noleander originally
The content still has Noleander's fingerprints all over it. JFW &#124; T@lk  22:00, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeh... I admit that it has his fingerprints on the last half of the article. The first half is based on my own research and the last half is taken from the now-deleted Jews and money.  I read through that article several times to see what could be salvaged and the last half of the article is part of what I thought was salvageable.  IMO, a big problem with Jews and money is that it strung too much together that individually was sourceable and NPOV but, taken together, had a POV and WP:SYNTH odor to it.  My strategy has been to chop up his article into pieces that are encyclopedic, NPOV and not WP:SYNTH.  See, for instance, History of investment banking in the United States.  That article has a few paragraphs from Noleander but it would be hard (I hope!) to argue that there are POV problems with that article.


 * So, please, do me the courtesy of ignoring for the moment the source of the last half of the text and tell me if the material is objectionable in itself (i.e. regardless of who wrote it). My concern is that the last half is not so much about "Jewish views of wealth and poverty" but rather about "Christian views of Jewish views of wealth and poverty".  Does that material belong in this article?  I believe the material belongs somewhere in Wikipedia but I'm half inclined to move it to Jews and money, an article that I hope to create sometime in the future as a rewrite of Noleander's disastrous attempt.


 * --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 23:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Please start work on it immediately, because this highly contentious Noleander material, which was deleted at AfD and the last straw leading to his eventual topic-banning, cannot remain on Wikipedia. Either remove it, or restore the article to your user space until no Noleander-stuff remains. Jayjg (talk) 23:57, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * First of all, I have now commented out the last section of the article in order to remove it as a point of contention. I figure we can all discuss the issues more peaceably if there isn't a burning desire to remove it from sight.
 * Second of all, I would like to establish my bona fides wrt to the general topic of antisemitism. I am the creator of and a major contributor to the articles on Antisemitism in the United States and History of antisemitism in the United States.  As such, I hope I have earned enough good faith and credibility that other editors will trust my good intentions and earnest efforts on this article.
 * Finally, in light of the above, I would like to ask both Jfdwolff and Jayjg what concerns they have about the material that came from Noleander. Is the text that I have brought over to this article still POV and SYNTH?  I carefully went through his material and picked out only the material that seemed NPOV and unobjectionable.  Have you actually read the text of this article with an open mind or are you just rejecting it as a knee-jerk reaction to everything that Noleander wrote on Jewish topics?  Are there specific issues in the article text that need to be addressed?  If so, can you identify them to me so that I can try to fix them?  Thanx.
 * --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 01:39, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Problems with Noleander's material also included use of poor sources, cherry-picking, and WP:SYNTH. Your "solution" doesn't address any of those. Jayjg (talk) 02:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Richard, I have to agree, with sadness, with what JFW and Jayjg are saying here. As I told you at my talk page, I was concerned that you moved this out of user space before it was ready, and I apologize to you for not having realized that I should have said that to you explicitly before you did it. But ArbCom has ruled very clearly on this matter, and you need to bend over backwards to take it very seriously. My advice for a first step is to delete everything from the page, except for what you added or completely rewrote and re-sourced yourself (even if that results in a stub), and then add things back slowly, carefully, and with prior talk page discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:55, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Umph... I did not understand the ARBCOM topic ban to be retroactive but that does seem to be the way some editors are reading it and it's not worth the heartache to contest this interpretation. I still maintain that the material in this article is valid, NPOV and sourceable but it's easier to delete it than dispute it so it's gone. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 20:38, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Richard, I've moved this back to your user space, because (as noted above) it wasn't ready for main space. This was an extraordinarily contentious article, that was deleted with prejudice, and was the catalyst to an editor being topic-banned. Any new article on the topic must be based on none of the material from Noleander; as has been articulated many times, the issues with the material are so pervasive and fundamental that one cannot simply re-edit it into something acceptable. That was the whole point of the AfD. Please do not restore this to main space until it has been completely purged of anything provided by Noleander, and until there is consensus that it is ready. Jayjg (talk) 02:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Ugh... I was going to complain that what was left of the article after two large deletions by me was entirely my writing but, upon reviewing the current text, I found there was still one sentence from Noleander viz. "Max Dimont and Derek Penslar analyzed the Talmud's rules governing money. Penslar writes that, in premodern times, Judaism "inextricably" linked economics and religion, and that in the "heyday of rabbinic Judaism" the pursuit of profit was related to the fulfillment of religious commandments."[7]

I apologize... I forgot that I hadn't written that sentence earlier. My question for you guys is: could I return the article to mainspace if I deleted that one sentence? Everything else was written by me and is sourced to (IMO) darn good sources which I have seen with my own eyes. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 03:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, BTW, Jayjg's moving the article back to my userspace amounts to an out-of-process deletion of the article. I do not believe this sort of thing was sanctioned by the ARBCOM decision. Given my good-faith attempts to address everybody's concerns (even though I disagree), I think there was a much more collegial way to resolve the issue. In the interest of keeping a collegial working relationship, let's please not be so arbitrary in the future. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 03:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Three people commented here. All of them told you it was inappropriate to move this to article space. If anything was "sanctioned by the ARBCOM decision", it was putting this material in article space. A "much more collegial way to resolve the issue" would be to get agreement that the article is ready for mainspace, and then move it in. And please don't make fairly nonsensical claims about "an out-of-process deletion of the article" when it has not been deleted, merely restored to your user space - those kinds of statements do not, in fact, reflect "good-faith". Jayjg (talk) 06:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, two of the three comments (yours and JFW's) were made after the article was moved into mainspace. The comments indicated that Noleander's contributions should be removed from the article.  I made a good-faith attempt to do so and removed almost all of his contributions except for the one sentence that was overlooked because it was in the middle of my text and I just forgot that it was there.  Have I satisfied your concerns now?  Can I move the article back into mainspace now that "it has been completely purged of anything provided by Noleander" (per Jayjg) and " everything has been deleted from the page, except for what I added or completely rewrote andre-sourced myself" (per Tryptofish)? --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 09:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this article ready to be put into mainspace?

 * In my view, given that all Noleander material has been removed, it could probably be moved back to the mainspace now; but do you really think it's ready? Jayjg (talk) 16:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * And by "do you really think its ready", I would point out that it currently consists of a lede that doesn't actually summarize the article contents, two very brief sections, a third section that is one sentence and a quote, and a fourth that contains nothing but a "This section requires expansion" tag and a link to another article. Jayjg (talk) 17:12, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * My advice, Richard, would be to work on it awhile in user space. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... I think I've taken this one as far as I personally can. I did quite a bit of Googling and this is what I came up with.  (I was able to do better with the Christian views on poverty and wealth)  I was planning to move it into article mainspace with the hopes that other editors would come by and improve it.  It seems to be a relatively meaty stub.  Do you guys disagree? --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 21:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If you want to move it to mainspace now, I won't object, but you've seen my concerns. Jayjg (talk) 02:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Richard, let me throw out an idea, just in the spirit of sharing ideas, and not as a specific call to follow any specific course of action. Instead of working towards having this page in the main space, would it make sense to put this sort of material, as well sourced and expanded information, into existing pages instead? We already have a variety of pages about the history of the Jewish people, where perhaps information about economic history would be useful. We already have a variety of pages about ethics and philosophy in Judaism, where perhaps Jewish thinking on wealth and on the treatment of the poor might be useful. And we have pages about the history of antisemitism, where NPOV coverage of bigoted stereotypes about money would be appropriate. Please understand, I haven't looked in detail at these various pages and I don't know whether their coverage is thin in any of these topics, and I am not taking a position that doing any of this would necessarily be better than creating a stand alone page, but I want to suggest that you give it some thought. Just because you got to this draft page by way of that AfD doesn't mean that you can't consider other approaches instead. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:27, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Tryptofish, you make some valid points and it might be reasonable to merge this stuff into another article. I'll look around and see although I'm inclined right now to think that it could warrant an article unto itself, especially as a complement to Christian views on poverty and wealth.  (Yes, I know that articles are not supposed to be created in series or groups even though it's done all the time.)  I have expanded the article a bit since Jayjg's comment on May 9 so it's not quite as stubby as it used to be.  I do think an important thing would be to find an appropriate article to put a summary with a link to this article.  As you're often fond of saying, there is no deadline. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:34, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah deadlines, I'm not just fond of saying that, but extremely guilty of not meeting them! :-) --Tryptofish (talk) 18:37, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Scope and title of this article
I have changed the title of this draft to "Judaic views of poverty, wealth and charity" because that's what it's about at the moment. I may yet want to bring back the topic of usury but that alone does not encompass all of business ethics so claiming that this article is about "Judaic views of business" would be overreaching. I remain unsure whether to use the word "Judaic" or "Jewish" in the title. To me, "Jewish" has a strong connotation of modern rabbinical Judaism and includes secular as well as religious Judaism. I chose "Judaic" to suggest a more religious perspective and one that is tied to the ancient Hebrews and the Tanakh as well as to contemporary modern Jews. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Article Necessity
I am not one to want to delete articles on Wikipedia, but I do question the need for a topic such as this one worthy of its own mentioning. Are there other articles on Wikipedia about how Christians, Hindus, and Wiccans view poverty? By the way, people who are considered the most generous can be found here and none of them are Rothschilds. Conspirasee1 (talk) 16:25, 4 April 2016 (UTC)