Talk:Legal status of Hawaii/Archive 4

Jere: This page was actually started as a template which got deleted, but it was carefully written in concert with IslandGyrl, and was the work of both pro-sovereignty activists and sovereignty skeptics. We worked diligently to make sure that both sides were represented well in the information presented, with the best arguments of both sides asserted. To assert that the introduction somehow promotes an "anti-sovereignty" viewpoint because it does not affirm the beliefs of the sovereignty movement regarding the actual, observable history of law and jurisprudence, isn't really fair.

It does not say that the pro-sovereignty viewpoint is incorrect, but merely factually states the argument is an academic one that has had no traction in any court, with any nation, or any international body. Although certainly important to the people who believe it, we must consider the Wikipedia policy regarding NPOV and undue weight. --JereKrischel 04:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Laualoha:Actually, you know itʻs only the prologue to the page which I have edited at all, and you & I both know it is quite POV as it stands as-is. Please donʻt play with words in pretense; Iʻm asking you to speak sincere ʻoiaʻiʻo truth here, as I ask all people to do.


 * Iʻd also kinda like to know why you removed the information I edited in; even if you felt that that information was lacking in the ways you pointed out above (Iʻll address those when I have time), it doesnʻt seem right to me to erase it, as it was not incorrect. I mean, maybe you know Wikipedia policy better than me, but isnʻt it kinda bad form to go around deleting peopleʻs stuff just because you think it might give people the wrong idea? I mean, if you think the information biases the article, it seems to me it would be more respectful to the readers to add your evidence to it, not remove it from view.  E malama pono, Laualoha 07:07, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Jere:I removed the information because my initial response was to edit it in place, and push the POV back to NPOV. As I started, I realized that what would happen is a tit-for-tat expansion of every single point - both of us being literally accurate, but pushing POV one way or another.


 * It is common in wikipedia to revert POV pushing edits, even if factually correct. Being a "fact" does not make it appropriate to include (I learned this on the Hawaiian Sovereignty page, when I started inserting undeniable facts that pushed POV:


 * (quoted from the Talk:Hawaiian sovereignty movement page)


 * In a sense, WP policy does indeed represent a "virtual throwing up of hands"&mdash;if by that you mean that in conflict situations we are not to try to play the arbiters of what is fact. Directly quoting Wikipedia policy:
 * The vast majority of neutrality disputes are due to a simple confusion: one party believes "X" to be a fact, and—this party is mistaken (see second example below)—that if a claim is factual, it is therefore neutral. The other party either denies that "X" is a fact, or that everyone would agree that it is a fact. In such a dispute, the first party needs to re-read the Neutral Point of View policy. Even if something is a fact, or allegedly a fact, that does not mean that the bold statement of that fact is neutral.


 * Neutrality here at Wikipedia is all about presenting competing versions of what the facts are. It doesn't matter at all how convinced we are that our facts are the facts. If a significant number of other interested parties really do disagree with us, no matter how wrong we think they are, the neutrality policy dictates that the discussion be recast as a fair presentation of the dispute between the parties.


 * So, it is with some experience in engaging over the issue that I decided to revert your statements of "fact", instead of trying to "add" my facts to them to twist them around the other way. What we really want is NPOV, something we can both agree on - and it is difficult.


 * One of the things that sometimes helps, is to try and write from the other person's POV - pretend for a second you're completely convinced that sovereignty activists don't have a legal leg to stand on, and write from that perspective. You'll often find that brings you to a nice comfortable center.  I try to do it all the time, to varying degrees of success.


 * In any case, thank you very much for engaging in this process. Please don't be offended by my revert, it was intended to give us a chance to avoid an escalation of "facts" and POV pushing.  If you could try to express some of your concerns with how you feel a certain POV is being pushed currently in the article, perhaps we can find a way to address that issue together.  Mahalo! --JereKrischel 09:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)