User talk:Ekhornbeck8

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Controversy - Eliyahu family
On one hand, your addition to the R' Mordechai Eliayhu article is nothing other than WP:RECENTISM. Your creation of an article for his son reeks of WP:POINT. In either case, both sections are entirely unimportant, non-encyclopedic, and no one even cares this week about the comments made. IMO, we can remove the comments and not dirty up these articles like so many other articles are with them filled up with quotes, and other 'news'. On the other hand, we can be proud of what both these great rabbis have said. --Shuki 18:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Response
Hi! Thanks for the links - very helpful. I thought your comments were extremely reasonable and I'd just like to take a few moments to address some of your concerns.

Firstly, I'd like to agree with you about the "Shmuel Eliyahu" article. It is indeed very short and incomplete. However, I would highlight that the information I uploaded onto that article (which didn't exist beforehand) is all the information that I have - indeed that I could find - on Shmuel Eliyahu. The websites I list in the Mordechai article, especially the JPost one, identified him as the Chief Rabbi of Tzfat, which I included. I also included what I thought was relevant to the article: his quotes about the Holocaust. To me, and please correct me if you do not feel the same way, Wikipedia is a conglomoration of ideas - hundreds of normal, knowledgable people in addition to "experts" contributing information to create the most complete picture they can on a specific topic or person. That picture, however, is made up of manny different parts and points coming from different areas. In adding to the Mordechai article, I saw the need for an article on his son. In posting his occupation in addition to the quotes, I searched for more information on him but came up empty-handed. Thus, my reasoning on it is this - I contributed what I found (a credible and documentable source) to the article on Shmuel Eliyahu. I did not feel qualified to say anything else about him, simply because I don't know!;) My hope - and Wikipedia is designed for this - is that others more knowledgable than I, like you, will be able to go deeper and add to that article. I'm sure that Mr. Eliyahu has done great things in his life - you need to in order to be Chief Rabbi of Tzfat - but part of Wikipedia's purpose is to present a balanced and fair picture. Although I agree that one could interpret the quotes on the Shmuel page as "news," to me every credible and informative article is made up of news. Personally, I don't think that quoting somebody constitutes "news" per se - it just illustrates one aspect of his or her beliefs and provides more information (necessary and essential information!) on that person or subject. On the flip side, I do agree that that article needs to be expanded, but I am not the one to do it. I welcome your additions to that article (after all, just because I wrote it does not mean I own it), but I do belive that using quotes to justify a point is a valid way to present information within an encyclopedia.

Secondly, I'd like to address your point that "no one even cares this week about the comments [of Mr. Eliyahu and his son] this week." Frankly, I don't think that's really the point of the crux of these additions. As I said before, the quotes can be LOOSELY defined as news, but that certainly does not make them irrelevant. As the comments have not gotten much attention in the American news, I feel that it is important that they (the comments) be submitted to the "world stage," if you will. Wikipedia is not a repository for facts by any means. I do, however, think that the submission of facts is an essential part of the encyclopedic process, and these quotes certainly count as facts because they represent a belief that these Rabbis hold. Good or bad, any complete picture of their actions/lives/beliefs should include a dossier of their beliefs about this issue. I made sure in my edits that the information was presented in a coherent, balanced way. The fact is, though, that these words were said and have been confirmed by several major, credible news sources, which I cited. All I was doing was submitting the fact that these words had been said, not a judgement on their value.

In regards to your statement that the edits were not made in the spirit of Wikipedia (see the POINT and RECENTISM section), I read over the pages (thanks again for those!), and can certainly understand where you are coming from. The POINT page's nutshell is as follows: "If you think you have a valid point, causing disruption is probably the least effective way of presenting that point." I agree! I think, however, that that depends on your interpretation of the word "disruption." The facts I submitted were not a disruption but a valid point that needed to be stated. Instead of "Racism" or "Opinions," I listed my changes, in both places, under "Controversey." There has been controversey! Some people are, I'm sure, pretty mad about the comments, while others, I am equally as sure, couldn't agree with them more. That story, that dialogue, merits note. It is an aspect of their beliefs that evokes a lot of rancor and discussion from both side of the debate and is therefore more than worthy of mention. As to your point about RECENTISM, the article says, "Recentism is the tendency by Wikipedians to edit articles without regard to long-term historical perspective, or to create new articles which inflate the importance and effect of an issue that has received recent media attention." In regards to the Shmuel Eliyahu article, I agree somewhat - the article needs more (!), but again I am not the one to provide it because I am not qualified to submit information about something I don't know. What I do know, however, is that these comments were made and that they deserve mention, based on the reasons I highlighted above.

As to your suggestion that we remove the quotes, I think they can stay. As these articles expand over time, the belifs of these rabbis will certainly come out in some other form even if we delete the comments now. The Shmuel article needs to be expanded (as does the Mordechai one), but I think that the quotes do whatever the person looking at them wants them to do. That is the essence of providing information - it elicits one reaction from certain people, and another from others, depending on who's reading it. That's the essence of good journalism, and more relevantly, an aspect of good "Wikipedian-ship." The quotes are legitimate, relevant information in my opinion and merit a place in the articles, at the very least in the Mordechai one.

Please - I welcome your response! Dialogue is good in cases like this one where there's a gray area. Thanks again for the welcome, and I hope we can produce a better and productive article together! --Ekhornbeck8, 16:18, 25 April 2007 (EST)