User talk:Doron b8

Hello Doron. There's two things I'd like to say to you. First, I wanted to let you know that you've been repeatedly reverted for inserting an assertion of fact into the Battle of Shuja'iyya (2014) article. While I understand your position, and to a certain extent agree with it, we still require that all assertions be backed by a reliable source. Continuing to make the assertions you have while declining to provide a reliable source or engage in any sort of dialogue with other editors is considered bad form here and may result in restrictions being placed on your ability to edit here. Also be aware that your account qualifies as what we call a single purpose account and, in the context of edits being made to the aforementioned article, may give the appearance of bad faith editing to some experienced editors. If you have any question feel free to ask me, just please don't continue with your current editing habits.

The second thing I wanted to say is, welcome to wikipedia. There are a lot of resources in the template below and, again, if you have any questions feel free to ask. GraniteSand (talk) 06:41, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Battle of Shuja'iyya
I wanted to let you know that I received your message on my talk page. You seem to have gone back and forth on whether to replace a reply here or on my talk page. For the ease of your use I'd suggest we discuss the article you're interested in here. Contributing to Wikipedia can be hard, even infuriating. People who have been here a long time can get into a rut of sorts that hinders them from effectively dealing with new editors. In regards to the Shuja'iyya article, my understanding is that you're under the impression that the IDF won a victory there. That's a reasonable conclusion but I'd say that the very effective propaganda effort by Hamas in the aftermath of the battle did real harm to the Israeli position. This creates a situation of conflicting "victories". Does the "on-the-ground" displacement of Hamas forces mean the IDF won? Does the unusual number of IDF casualties make that victory Pyrrhic for the IDF? Does the strategic damage done in the wider propaganda war mean the ultimate result was a Hamas strategic victory? These are serious and legitimate questions that serious people can come to different conclusions on. If you wish to assert that the IDF was "victorious" in the battel then you need to find a reliable source that explicitly says so. Stringing together various accounts and measurements of the battle to justify a broader conclusion is in violation of a policy we refer to as "Original Research", or more specifically, "synthesis". If you can find a reliable source asserting that the engagement was a victory for the IDF I'd be happy to help you format the source and get it put into the article. I would also have you consider that now that you've disclosed your affiliation with the IDF you may run into problems with our guideline on conflicts on interest. Please understand that it's a divergently interpreted guideline but if you'll likely hear about it again. Lastly, you can "sign" your comments by using four "tildes", symbols usually found the left of your "1" key which will look like this: ~. GraniteSand (talk) 09:18, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Indeed i am having a hard time understanding some of the site's interface, even after reading parts of the tutorial. How do I reply to your messages directly? For now I am simply pressing the "Edit" button in my talk page.

Now for my "conflict of interersts"-I am aware of it, and this is why i did not try and change all the multiple, multiple factuall errors and general bias in the article, but only what i thought i can empirically prove. I did not know i needed an explicit "Israel won" in one of my sources-The IDF sought to capture the town and destroy the tunnels, and it captured the town and destroyed the tunnels. I thought that was enough, and i don't think either side's propaganda or causulty figure (wich i don't agree 16 soldiers is a high figure to capture a town, especially compering it to the enemy's) matter to the question of "who won?", or else, what would you say about the battle of fallujah for example?

Anyway, if this is the Wikipedia law I have no intention to argue with it. Would you agree for me to change the battle result to a more ambivalent "IDF captures town-known tunnels destroyed-significant damage to the neighberhood"? I assume none of these results are under any controversy. Doron b8 (talk) 16:02, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Any reply you leave here I will see because I have "watchlisted" your talk page. In the upper right hand corner of you page you'll see a star symbol to the right of the "edit" tab you're using. By clicking this star on any given page you'll watchlist it and it's corresponding talk page. Any time you then click on your "watchlist" link (found above the search bar) you'll see the most recent updates made to all the pages you've put in the list, anywhere in Wikipedia. Additionally, any messages left on another user's talk page will automatically give you a "notification" next to where you user name is displayed when you log in. If you want a user to received a notification of something you've said outside of their talk page you can mentioned them by name with a "Ping". Basically this is done by writing ? where "x" is their user name. Note too that you can indent paragraphs in discussion by using a colon in front of the paragraph to be indented. Multiple colons created deeper indentation. In this manner you can create a visual formatting which makes following replies easier.


 * As for Fallujah, that's an excellent example of what we're talking about. There was a lengthy discussion on this topic ant the First Battle of Fallujah article. I think we could start working on the "result" portion of the infobox as well as the body of the article itself, it is in rather sorry shape. Why don't you see if you can find a reliable source that says something specific about the result of the battle, something that could be parsed into a conclusion. Once you've done that we can go from there. GraniteSand (talk) 22:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)