User talk:Nishidani/Archive 2

WP:MOS-JA
Hello. I would like to make sure that you are aware of WP:MOS-JA. When transcribing Japanese, Wikipedia uses macrons for long vowels instead of the circumflex. Also, the nihongo template may be of use to you. Regards. Bendono 12:53, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Message received, Bendono. My apologies for the oversight and my thanks for the corrections, and for your many contributions. Regards Nishidani 10:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

(== A query Bendono's homepage== Dear Bendono, A clarifying link to Kizama Kiyozo on the Ono Susumu page, with a stub on that linguist (I would be interested eventually in creating a category of profiles on Japanese scholars of classical Western languages) has been deleted by an administrator apparently interested in birding and rock groups, Jimfbleak. Is it normal practice for administrators unfamiliar with a terrain or discipline to interrupt work in progress so mercilessly, without even signposting for the author that the article they wish to delete is unsatisfactory, or without consulted with informed colleagues in the area concerned?

Regards (Nishidani 19:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC))


 * Hello. Unfortunately really short articles with little information and references are often deleted quickly. Ideally it would be best if a little bit of time was given to allow that to be improved. Kazama Kiyozō is an important linguist, and I would like to see an article on him. As a start, you could begin with the Japanese content: ja:風間喜代三. I suggest that you take the issue up here: Deletion review. Regards. Bendono 21:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. Actually, I have one of his books awaiting me in the library and will do more when I get to read it. I know quite a bit from memory, but can't clearly write from personal recollection.

I'd like to restore my stub, adding the little the Kazama Jap.stub has, but I have the distinct impression Jimfbleak looks bleakly on my stubs as bumf. For, unfortunately, after I took up the issue with the administrator who deleted that small stub, I suddenly found he'd taken umbrage within minutes, and started hunting or stalking through the entries I'd written on Japanese scholarship, branding 'unreferenced' 'could be deleted unless' (Ueyama Shunpei, Takeda Taijun (which is a translation of the Japanese text in Wiki (unbannered), slightly touched up); Murayama Shichiro etc.)on every single stub that could warrant the banner. (I note that no adminsirator has wasted time bannering the Japanese stub on Kazama, which has no footnoted references). I've done twenty in the last several days, some reasonably detailed, but I must admit that this behaviour does not strike me as 'neutral' but rather a petty abuse of authority. I'm rather disappointed that an administrator/editor, when questioned on one issue, especially in an area he knows nothing of, can be allowed to run amuck, running down everywhere I have posted and putting up 'banners'. That smacks of personal vendetta, and I confess I feel like withdrawing from what has been an interesting new hobby. I dislike working, freely and happily as I have until now, under conditions of an abused right of surveillance. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Sorry for this note. But I have been impressed and instructed by your many contributions, and have appreciated your own mode of quiet but firm suggestions, not bannering but by direct intervention in the problem at a textual level, or by dropping notes on a user's discussion page. Forgive me the impropriety of discussing another administrator/editor on your page, but I don't know how to protest to Wiki at what looks like a personalized campaign against my honest efforts to pitch in. Please feel disobliged from replying, which would only embarrass me, and perhaps the person referred to.Best regardsNishidani 22:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)).)


 * I think the page you meant was Kazama Kiyozō. It was deleted because it did not give sources or references for notability, that doesn't necessarily mean he's not notable. Please be aware of WP:OWN. I don't have to be an expert on Japanese topics to see whether notability is demonstrated. Also note that messages should be added to the bottom of talk pages or they may be overlooked. If you haven't saved the text, it will shortly be here Jimfbleak 19:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Intense dislike of an edit you have no valid arg.against. A ring-in(?) happens by, draws the editor into a viol. of rules, and he gets banned. A black mark as a precedent if it comes to a challenge, and persistent efforts to restore than disagreeable edit. If the trapped person persists, call him for vandalism, and cite the precedent. Possible, and possibly paranoid. Let's see.Nishidani 19:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

deleted page

 * Well, could you do me a favour and flag the problem before deleting pages on Japanese matters the next time round. That stub clarifies another text in Wiki where his notability is evidenced, with references. The link I made to Kizama is now useless, and readers of that article will not know who he is. (2) I am still waiting for a book that will assist me in defining Kizama's work. I consider this erasure an abuse, since it should have been preceded by a query, a note or a heading flagging the reasons for your dissatisfaction.


 * p.s.WP:OWN. I can't see the point of your referring me to this. I have a lifetime's reading on the subject, and freely give to the public domain things I know about the subject in question. I have no problems with other people using 'my' material. I do object to someone who knows nothing about a topic erasing it as soon as a squeak of an outline is made of it, because it is not, apparently, a full and complete article. Sir, I am not at your beck and command to write full articles. I do them when interest and time allows. Stubs are indications to surfers that there is a page they may know something about which they are invited to improve. I'm quite welcome to mark out the large number of areas in Wiki's English-Japanese section where collaboration is needed. All you have done is to badger the initiative, and destroy the possibility for others who might have caught the stub of improving on it. Read Aristophanes, 'Ornithes' and get a sense of humour, and patience.


 * Thanks for your work on the Japan-related articles. A few things: it is a generally established practice to delete incomplete and unverified articles that do not establish the notability of the subject, because it is thought that they detract from the reliability and professionalism of the encyclopedia. Some may laugh at applying the terms "reliability" and "professionalism" to Wikipedia, but that is precisely why such policies are in effect. In actuality the page was temporarily flagged before it was deleted, and it required the judgment of two editors (the person who left the tag, and the person who hit the delete button) for the article to be deleted. I highly doubt that the article will be deleted again in its current state.
 * Next, a few conventions: by the manual of style for articles related to Japan, we use Western naming order for modern Japanese subjects, particularly when those subjects have never published works in English. Accordingly, I have moved Kazama Kiyozō to Kiyozō Kazama. Also, when creating articles that utilize macrons in the title, please be sure to create redirects from the unmacronned forms. Most users cannot type the macronned o into the search box, and this can cause navigation trouble. I created the redirects this time. I'd appreciate it if you could do the same fixes in the future, although you are not at my beck and call. Dekimasu よ! 11:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm seventy five years old, and I'm afraid I haven't the time, health and patience to learn all of the conventions you speak about. I tried to apply what you requested and found I was messing up articles. Particularly on the issue of Japanese name order. My generation learnt to despise eurocentric impositions on the non-white world, and why I should have to sweat and fiddle with dots, brackets and programming mumbojumbo, when a vital young pup like yourself can fix it all in a jiffy, and leave the grind of actual writing to sappers in the front-line like myself, is beyond me. Why, uniquely, do we have a convention for the Japanese wiki of imposing a eurocentric world order as 'defaultsort' (?) when Korean and Chinese names are left in their proper, and natural order?

There are quite a few of us out here, of my wrinkled generation, who have much information, but a poor understanding of what you call netiquette, and whatnot, and not enough time left to learn. Just a little time left to instruct. I can contribute in several languages, but I'm afraid it looks like taking more trouble than it is worth it for an old 'geezer' like myself. I know this sounds prickly, but you youngsters have the instinctive knack for the clean-up side of things, with all of its odd (to folks teetering on their anecdotage like me) conventions and it would be nice if in looking at contributions, you could just adjust them technically. Sorry for the grumbling, but I don't like being hounded by editors who know nothing of the subject they are bungling about supervising, and the editor in question began stalking posts in my name as soon as I asked him what he was up to on the Kazama file. (Nishidani 15:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC)).

Stalking behaviour by an administrator
Thank you for your message. I have not taken up any interest in articles dealing with Japanese scholarship, I was simply housekeeping, based on your recent contributions.

You are welcome to work through my contributions if you wish, all non-deleted edits are open to everyone to see. Your message implies that adding a ref tag is an abuse of admin power; adding tags is not an admin-only function, it is one that any editor can do. I would accept that one may have been incorrect, but that can easily be removed and isn’t exactly an issue deserving what seems to me to be a disproportionate response.

I’m sorry that you find the refs tags silly, but they are not designed by me.

You should be aware that any editor can edit any page, and they should not be viewed as personal property. I don’t remember (I’m sure you will correct me if I’m wrong!) changing any of the actual content, so I’m not sure why I’m being accused of meddling with material I know nothing about, or why I need to consult anyone else. If you don’t like my edits, just change them (none of these pages are on my watchlist, so I won’t even know), you don’t need to leave a message to tell me.

All the best, Jimfbleak 16:22, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * A civil answer, Jimfbleak. Had I had a note like this dropped in earlier I should have saved myself the shot-nerve syndrome, with its ticklish sensitivities. I went, to borrow a youngster's idiom, "ballistic" when I noted several tags placed on my work-in-progress within a half-and-hour of my initial query. You know, paranoia afflicts all ages, but old-fangled gits like myself are especially prone to it when finangling with new-fangled media like the Internet.

Best regards Nishidani 19:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I myself was worried that the article might seem like hype. I'm far more comfortable with the dead! I generated this in order to provide background for the Gill citations in the bibliography of the Nihonjinron article. I have taken the information from Gill's website, and from reading 7 books, some two thousand odd pages. Though he frequently alludes to his life in these books, the allusions are scattered all over the place, and it has taken a lot of time to draw them in. He doesn't even have an adequate curriculum posted on his own site, since he appears too busy to trouble himself about one. If the curriculum is fine, the problem remains of summing up what he is doing, without promoting him. One could just leave a bibliography, of course, but that is not informative, since it is hard to gather from the titles exactly what he is doing, which strikes me as important. I have adjusted the text, but would ask Dekimasu or others for further precise indications on how to present the material. Biographical articles on contemporary authors vary from excessive, if carefully hidden hype (the most notorious example I know off is the wiki article on Ayn Rand, which is several pages of promotion for the institutions associated with her philosophy), to moderate synopses of works (Le Carré) to simple bibliographies after the CV (Donald Keene and Roy Andrew Miller). I suspect that part of the problem is that Gill, unlike many, is an unknown quantity for academics, save for a handful of specialists, so that merely mentioning him looks like hype. Some way round the impasse must be found, preferably with help from you guys out there, because it would be silly to wait round for an obituary to write up the fact that he is the most productive translator of Japanese haiku in the history of Western studies on Japan, as far as I, who have never met him, am aware. Nishidani 08:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Dekimasu et al. Re Robin Gill:-


 * I myself was worried that the article might seem like hype. I'm far more comfortable with the dead! I generated this in order to provide background for the Gill citations in the bibliography of the Nihonjinron article. I have taken the information from Gill's website, and from reading 7 books, some two thousand odd pages. Though he frequently alludes to his life in these books, the allusions are scattered all over the place, and it has taken a lot of time to draw them in. He doesn't even have an adequate curriculum posted on his own site, since he appears too busy to trouble himself about one. If the curriculum is fine, the problem remains of summing up what he is doing, without promoting him. One could just leave a bibliography, of course, but that is not informative, since it is hard to gather from the titles exactly what he is doing, which strikes me as important.


 * I have adjusted the text, but would ask Dekimasu or others for further precise indications on how to present the material. Biographical articles on contemporary authors vary from excessive, if carefully hidden hype (the most notorious example I know off is the wiki article on Ayn Rand, which is several pages of promotion for the institutions associated with her philosophy), to moderate synopses of works (Le Carré) to simple bibliographies after the CV (Donald Keene and Roy Andrew Miller). I suspect that part of the problem is that Gill, unlike many, is an unknown quantity for academics, save for a handful of specialists, so that merely mentioning him looks like hype. Some way round the impasse must be found, preferably with help from you guys out there, because it would be silly to wait round for an obituary to write up the fact that he is the most productive translator of Japanese haiku in the history of Western studies on Japan, as far as I, who have never met him, am aware.Nishidani 08:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Munich massacre
Hi! Regarding this edit to Munich massacre, do you have a published source supporting that striking analogy? I have no problem with the text being in there, as long as it can be sourced per Verifiability. Please do cite your source, as otherwise the analogy will almost certainly be removed. Thanks! -- Jonel (Speak to me) 01:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Dear Jonel.


 * Your remark 'otherwise the analogy will almost certainly be removed' is odd in its peremptory threatening. In the overwhelming number of cases I am familiar with, editors who query an edit that is unsourced post 'citation required' and leave it at that. Will you please explain why my single contribution is to be wiped out because it requires, according to you, a source? If you do go ahead and wipe it out, then you legitimate the application, by anyone, of this arbitrary critierion to every unsourced line in the article, which will only make a mess of it.


 * The verifiability of the factual content is in the links in the passage I posted, which will send the reader to the relevant facts. (2) The analogy is precise, in that the Munich Massacre consisted of the elimination by terrorist groups of athletes at a prestigious international competition, precisely what occurred with the Posada Carriles downing of the Cuban airline. In the text, nothing that is subjective is asserted, but only factual correlations, and therefore it cannot with any editorial justification be eliminated simply because it happens to be an analogy. I could overcome your objection by simply removing the word ‘analogy’, and rewriting, in perfect accord with the rules again, that the Munich massacre’s terrorist assault on athletes is only superceded by the Cubana airline downing. Would the slight word change alter anything? No. I might add that the quotation from Simon Reeves preceding it is sourced, but demonstrably untrue (nb. Wiki rules state:'Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptional sources.'. Reeves has made an exceptional claim, but he is not an exceptional source, since he has no technical qualification in the area he writes about). The Lod Airport Massacre of May that year was far more violent, and costly to Jewish lives. In the relevant Cubana Flight 455 article, that massacre is defined as ‘what was then the most deadly terrorist attack in the Western hemisphere.’


 * (3) A large part of this article lacks ‘publishing sources’ for each ‘fact’. There is much irrelevant information (that murdered athletes had children is not pertinent, to note but one example, and it is not sourced). I would suggest that if you wish to blue-pencil, go to these numerous passages first, before challenging the ‘analogy’, which you agree is striking. If I wished to annoy or damage contributions by others, I could apply wikipedia verifiability criteria to the article strictly and wipe half of it out. I do not do so because were those criteria applied with relentless mechanical efficiency, no article would ever be written. It is facile for individuals to erase, quite difficult to write consensually. I prefer the latter approach.


 * (4) Look at the Qibya Massacre and Deir Yassin massacre articles where numerous unsourced and tendentious assertions bury the historically verifiable record, and which is a disgrace to careful neutral historical writing in what it carefully omits. Since it deals with Arabs, these prior episodes can be fiddled down to a minor ‘incident’, understandable in context, though one could find many better scholars within Israel who take these 'incidents' (like El Burj in Gaza which has no article in Wikipedia), like Reeves does Munich, as a defining moment in modern terrorism and Arab-Israeli relations. In all cases of an Israeli massacre of Palestinians, the articles have a 'background' that contextualizes the massacre in a prior record of Arab provocations. In the Munich massacre, there is no such 'background'. Personally I am opposed to such 'background' contextualizing, which frames the obscenity, whoever commits it, in some form of retaliatory justification. Wiki articles on massacres are disturbingly partisan (5) To remove an analogy which, you yourself say, repeating my words, is ‘striking’ cannot but strike a neutral observer as aleatory, or make many wonder whether it is not an invasive and unscrupulous use of editorial niggling censoring details in order to maintain the semblance of ‘singularity’ which Reeves’s tendentious opinion has underlined.


 * Woah, calm down. I guess I wasn't clear:  I wasn't saying that I would remove it.  I agree with your analysis here of Wikipedia's articles on massacres.  They tend towards partisanship, there are often major problems with sourcing, and so on.  Editing them can be like stepping onto a battlefield.  But that's exactly why I expected your addition to be removed (especially with your aggressive edit summary--that was just asking for someone to revert).  I also note that my prediction was accurate .  The bottom line here is that no matter how blindingly obvious the comparison is, you'll probably need a source to make any addition stick when faced with those who disagree with you (which you'll find plenty of in any of these sorts of articles). -- Jonel (Speak to me) 14:05, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Jonel. I can assure you I am quite calm. And not, I think, aggressive. Stern, yes. It seems that when I am voluble in explaining what went on to make me form the judgements I do make, it is taken as intemperate. As you will appreciate, when someone writes 'it will be removed' the impersonal future form in English often functions as a threat or a warning of automatic penalty ('People who deface buildings will be fined' etc). As to people not agreeing with me, and therefore exercising the right of erasure, I fail to see how sourcing the point makes my contribution safer. There is a vast amount of material throughout wikipedia which is sourced, uselessly, because the opinion quoted is not really relevant to the article. In the Qibya article one datum is sourced to the New York Times 1954, with no link, and therefore unverifiable, unless you go to a public library. If you do, and check it out, it turns out that the article was based on reportage of what government spokesmen said at the time to cover up the scandal. But it sits there, unchallenged, as a 'source', a convenient one since it allows the poster to filter in misleading evidence that no historian, in retrospect, would now use.


 * Sourcing simply means 'I patched this bit in after reading it elsewhere', independently of whether it is appropriate, germane or insightful. The quote from Reeves is demonstrably wrong, since, as I have been now forced to add, the Munich massacre cannot be said to the a defining moment in modern terrorism by any competent student of the subject (I'm ethnically Irish, which gives me some personal feeling for the subject, as the IRA bombed its way through England in the same period). Whoever stuck that Reeves piece in, did so however in order to create the false impression that the Munich Massacre was different from so many other massacres. Since this is not the case, it requires balance. I'd much prefer that the Reeves quote be eliminated, since it is tendentious. If eliminated, then I would be happy to excise my own clarification. But if it stays, it requires a corrective that allows the reader to balance the tendentious perspective purveyed by Reeves with information on the public record which counters its subjective interpretation of the significance of that event. Sorry to be long-winded.


 * I'm sorry to hear you have so little faith in sourcing. And my initial comment was indeed meant as a warning, but more in the manner of "People who pour grease on fires will get burned" than anything else.  A probabilistic expectation of result rather than a threat of penalty; my apologies if you took it otherwise.  And now, since I am no student of terrorism and have little interest in getting embroiled in articles on that topic, and since you seem quite well equipped to argue your case, I guess there's not much left but to wish you the best of luck in future editing. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 16:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Jonel, in response, closing the issue.

It is not that I have little faith in sourcing, but rather little faith in pseudo-sourcing. I could source the statement of analogy I made (Noam Chomsky, “Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World,” South End Press, Cambridge Mass. rev.edition 2002 p.99 footnote 8) but I don't think it necessary, because an analogy of this kind does not need sourcing since the given, uncontrovertible facts speak for themselves. I.e. you do not need to, but may of course, source the obvious, put a link under 'is' and refer us to Parmenides, or 'fact' and refer us to the dictionary, as any academic knows. The Reeve quote was sourced, but was a misleading item in that page in so far as it was one of any number of subjective opinions immaterial to the article in question. Wiki cruisers should have spotted that before my intervention. In erasing both Reeve's exaggerated and strategically placed 'quote' I have also eliminated my counter-example. And I think the article's first paragraph gains in lucidity.

1929 Hebron massacre
i found you a clear explanation to the discrepancy, please stop reverting to include false material as if it were factual.  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  04:51, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Three-revert rule
You are in serious danger of violating Wikipedia's three-revert rule. I suggest you review the policy and self-revert.  Tewfik Talk 17:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for informing me, I hadn't noticed. Mind you, I don't think I am the only one to have engaged in extensive reverting. I will 'self-revert' and then post my version tomorrow. Thanks


 * Between myself and Jayjg there are only three total reverts - you've reverted far more than both of us combined. The point of the rule is to signal that your position is against the consensus on the page (else yours would have stayed). The solution is not to simply revert back later, but to work things out on Talk, though if you hadn't realised it on your own, I can assure you that charging "censorship" will not end productively. Please self-revert soon (Hertz only repaired the mark-up that you inadvertently broke).  Tewfik Talk 18:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, well, then, I haven't checked, but I take your word for it that I am in violation. Moral. Never play by a 'game' without mastery of the rules. I was trained as a youth to take the scrupulous ascertainment of facts, textual or historical, as a moral obligation, in a community of scholars. Perhaps I fall short of the ideal inculcated into me, though I've never had that charge laid against my academic work. It only appears to function in wikipedia.

Pity, I would have liked to do this on a daily basis, collaboratively, but this is pointless. Without alluding to yourself or jayjg, obviously the rule which convicts me, can be rigged, like any system of rules. You only need 1 revert each by 3 people who agree in disagreeing with a single poster, to make him trip the wire, and have his record marked as a rule violator. Now that you have clarified this rule for me, I can see it militates against day by day work on wikipedia. I'll take it more casually. Indeed I'll drop it, and Sozomenos and the terebinth ritual, and so much else, to my gain - I much prefer reading up history in real books, that being sucked into the subtle politics of editing. Politics it is. What is remarkable about this and so many other sites, is the inability to be informed adequately. It's Orwell's memory hole, under daily revision. Thank goodness the Encyclopedia Britannica, and scholarly journals still exist.

I won't 'self-revert', because I'm too tired to check out how to do that (it's a new word to an old man like myself), so denounce me to the appropriate authorities. I won't resent it. It is the rule, and rules are there to be obeyed. The law does not admit of ignorance.Regards Nishidani 18:53, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Blaming this on 'politics' seems quite unfair to me, as very specific norms in play across Wikipedia are what I have been attempting to preserve. Imagine the mess if everyone could add whatever point they felt was relevant to whatever subject, or the same point to a dozen articles. It is natural human urge that many a contributor have felt, but the result is a mess. We all very much appreciate any new attributable and neutrally presented information you could add to broaden the coverage of this entry, but they must be just that. Cheers,  Tewfik Talk 19:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Tewfik

 * In my opinion, you both misuse the norms, and are incoherent in your application of those norms, often, in my view, abusing them. You never reply to the points raised by those who contrast your judgements, but simply repeat ostensible violations of rules. I am not to cite other wiki pages for evidence. Okay. I remove the link. I note that the remarks on 700 BC seals links to a wiki page, not to an independent archeological document, and, thinking to impose the policy I just learn about, remove it. It is immediately restored, in violation of the principle which I was accused of transgressing. No comment from Jayjg or Tewfik.I have no problem with the evidence. It seems fine to me. But it needs a specific non wiki-source, relating to reliable sources reporting the digs of 1998.


 * Hence what is not good for the goose is great for the gander. You are both obsessively strict on what you regard as anything that might upset the sensibilities of Kiryat Arba settlers. On this material, the pedantic scruples of pilpul are exercised. You both wasted time, with Jaacobou,dithering anxiously over the 59/67 figure, even though I had a source that fits wiki rules. The ref. at last, was kept, but the figure erased, so that the curious can not see it, but must tramp off to a library to consult the material book. It was suppressed, challenged, doubted, erased, reverted. I will note that in all cases where Arabs are the victims of a massacre,the pages allow at the beginning the issue of disputed figures (see Deir Yassin). In pages, like Hebron, where a dispute exits, this is disallowed. That is incoherent, and your dual failures to address the incongruity show most lucidly your parti pris.


 * All this finangling amused me, because I was waiting for a NPOV scruple to emerge about the loss of the number of wounded in that other Hebron massacre by Baruch Goldstein (and it merits an independent wiki page 1994 Hebron Massacre, since the place in modern times has had two, one against Jews, one against Arabs (the latter with higher casualties, by the way). How many of those wounded by BS, namely, 150, died afterwards as a result? This interests no one. What passionately interests people here, by contrast, is the rigid confirmation of the figure of 67 at Hebron, maintaining the difference of 8 is due to fatalities following the 59 apparently killed on that day. (citation required. One of that 8 died not of 'wounds' but of a heart attack several days later. Not that it makes much difference to the horror, but technically it renders the word 'wound' inexact, and perhaps accounts for why the figure 66 occasionally crops up). The dead and wounded are meticulously defended in one context, the Jewish one, the details in the other disattended to. It doesn't interest you. Go to the Baruch Goldstein site and most of it is filled up with material saying what a decent guy he was to Arabs, testimony coming unilaterally from members of own community who praised his act as saintly, worthy of a martyr, on the day of his burial, and then testified before the Commission, of his respect for Arabs later on! Such are the indignities to truth enacted by a very well planned intent to play the pedant with adversary but reliably sourced information, and close a generous eye to whatever is passed off as 'reliable' by biased posters on your side of the interpretative line. The partisan POV is structural, in short, as much in what never catches your eyes on a page marked by unbalanced reportage, in the silences of a waved editorial posture, as much as in what you do censor, for no other word fits the behaviour.

Cheers Nishidani 13:51, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Raymond Tallis
Nishidani, the formatting problem with this article is now solved. The chnages I made to the punctuation were to conform to Wikipedia house style, rather than necessary for the tags to 'work' properly. See Footnotes if you need further details.

Cheeers. Philip Cross 19:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Scholem edit
Nishidani, Congratulations on a very short and elegant, but so precise and accurate edit to the Gershom Scholem page. One word makes all the difference! Thanks, warshy 12:22, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * warshy My pleasure. Nishidani 12:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Eternal return (Eliade)
I tried to incorporate that Kirk quote you mentioned on Talk:Mircea Eliade into Eternal return (Eliade) as Dahn had suggested. When you get a chance, please take a look. Thanks! --Phatius McBluff 03:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Request from a neophyte
It's impossible to understand the criteria for who is a reliable source and who is not. There could be a campaign going on against anyone who dares to criticise Israel, of course - look at Finkelstein's denial of tenure.
 * Lustik quotes an unidentified Rabbi at Goldstein's funeral as saying 'A million Arab lives are not worth one Jewish fingernail". There should be no problem here, it was Rabbi Yaacov Per(r)in, conducting the service(s?) at Goldstein's funeral on the 27th of February, 1994. Quoted on the front page of the The New York Times the following day.
 * Shahak however was recognized as a reliable historian by the Council on Foreign Relations at Washington, whose house journal published his papers. Israel Shahak gets the most bizarre treatment in his biography here (which is/was protected from editing).    Compare Shahak's treatment in his article with the article Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Or see what I posted on the subject here.
 * rejects sourcing from Noam Chomsky, on the grounds that he is a linguist, not a specialist historian. Very disturbing - particularily when Shmuel Katz is used as a "Reliable Source" on other pages to deny and/or defend the Nakba. PalestineRemembered 13:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you. In brief, it's a war of nerves, and a battle of attrition, won by whoever, wiki rules or not, can jam up the objective writing of material on Arab-israeli relations until exhaustion prevails in his adversary, and the page, with all of its tendentious bias, is left to stand.Nishidani 13:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Please consider joining the discussion on Reliable sources (talk) here. The discussion specifically mentions Noam Chomsky. --DieWeisseRose 04:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

You have violated 3RR on Hebron
Revert or risk a ban. Amoruso 14:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

== No I haven't, even though your game-plan was to get me to do so. Check each textual revision.Nishidani 14:11, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for violation of three revert rule on Hebron
You have been temporarily blocked for violation of the three-revert rule. Please feel free to return after the block expires, but also please make an effort to discuss your changes further in the future. The duration of the block is 8 hours. — Nearly Headless Nick   {C}  16:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Please consider Amoruso's behaviour in terms of the following rule:
 * Do not revert good faith edits. In other words, try to consider the editor "on the other end." If what one is attempting is a positive contribution to Wikipedia, a revert of those contributions is inappropriate unless, and only unless, you as an editor possess firm, substantive, and objective proof to the contrary.

I considered Amoruso's objections (all opinions, no sourcez) seriously at each step. So Would someone please verify if I have indeed violated the three-revert rule. I was very careful not to, and an accusation is not a proof. A certain Amoruso tried to push me into violating that rule by twice reverting a page that had not been challenged by other users, and one which he had not participated. He kept trying to reinstall a statement that is palpably untrue, and refused to justify that unsourced statement (Kiryat Arba is not technically part of Hebron. It is classified by Israeli government documents and maps as outside of Hebron (see www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Hebron2000map.html).

He complained that in my attempt to repair his vandalism (for his reverting was unmotivated) I’d violated the 3 revert rule, which, I presume, was what he designed me to do. By blocking me, you have now punished the person who was endeavouring to hold the page, as agreed by others, intact against an intruding and uninformed Amoruso’s falsifications. Amoruso did not read the discussion page before reverting twice. A lengthy discussion ensued, in which I noted that I had reverted automatically, but in successive replies to Amoruso, rewrote phrasing to suggest an equable compromise, and restored a link that was lost either by Amoruso's edits, or by one of my own. I repeat, the discussion page will show that before conducting any edit, I analysed and replied to objections, and did not revert automatically the page three times.

Still, the ban is rather a gift, even if improper. No enmity: to the contrary. It means, 8 hours, a book and a half to be read, instead of trying over that time to remove a falsification on one wiki page. CheersNishidani 17:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Please note that blaming someone for vandalism over content disputes is not allowed. Please read WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. Amoruso 20:59, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Then why was Amoruso not blocked? Memo to self

 * Ah, Eureka, now it is all clear!! I never repeated the same text. Amoruso did. Perhaps he was right to report me for trying to cancel his wilful vandalism, and managed to checkmate me in the game. Still, it follows that he too is guilty, since in a brief space he reverted thrice. For the record:-


 * What is counted as a revert is this, a slight change in Tewfik's suggestion after mulling it over four several hours. Note this, as per the talk, is provisory.

Tewfik
 * ‘city at the center of the Biblical Judea region in the West Bank, along the eponymous Mount Hebron.

Nishidani.
 * ‘is a southern city of the Plaestinian West Bank, at the center of the Biblical Judea.

There is an error here the misspelling of ‘Palestine’. Otherwise it is a perfectly normal edit. I explained why I did the edit. It is not a revert in any normal sense I can understand of the word.

(1) An hour later Amoruso makes his first change (12.23), which is a revert to Tewfik’s prior posting, adding to it a false report, whose falseness I had registered on the talk page.


 * is a city at the center of the Biblical Judea region in the West Bank, along the eponymous Mount Hebron. It is home to some 166,000 Palestinians and 700-800 Israeli settlers; another 7,000 Israelis live in the suburb of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron.

Which I revert. My first revert. i.e. of Amoruso.


 * is a southern city of the Plaestinian West Bank, at the center of the Biblical Judea. It is home to some 166,000 Palestinians and 700-800 Israeli settlers. Hebron lies 930 metres (3,050 ft) above sea level. It is the second holiest city for Jews, after Jerusalem.

Amoruso makes his second revert:- (12.31)


 * at the center of the Biblical Judea region in the West Bank, along the eponymous Mount Hebron. It is home to some 166,000 Palestinians and 700-800 Israeli settlers; another 7,000 Israelis live in the suburb of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron

which I revert, for the second time, (12-36) only in the sense that I restored the earlier page, correcting ‘Palestinian’


 * is a city in the Palestinian West Bank at the center of the Biblical Judea region. It is home to some 166,000 Palestinians and 

Amoruso reverts for the third time at 12.45:-


 * is a city at the center of the Biblical Judea region in the West Bank, along the eponymous Mount Hebron. It is home to some 166,000 Palestinians and 700-800 Israeli settlers; another 7,000 Israelis live in the suburb of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron

My third entry if it is a revert At 13.54


 * Note I have varied the language.


 * is a city in the Palestinian West Bank in the old Biblical region of Judea.'

At 14.06 Amoruso (more ruse than 'amor'!), asks me to revert since I have violated the 3 revert rule, forgetting that so has he, and that he is the cause of it. </BR>

I don't because if reverting is the sin, I'm not going to compound it, and secondly I can't, because if I revert to his prior text, I am obliged to restore the false text re Kiryat Arba and Hebron. I've no choice but to sit it out.</BR>

But Amoruso, after meditating on this infraction, which he induced and committed himself, addresses me on the Hebron Talk page 'an hour and a half later:-</BR>


 * 'Nishidani, first of all altering the text and playing with 3RR is not allowed. You are obviously a NEWBIE and I won't bite you, but you should read WP:3RR. Amoruso 15:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC) </BR>

Well, that is decent, I thought. 'I won't bite you', means contextually, I won't complain about you.</BR>

Which of course is what he had already done several minutes before he assured me he wouldn't. I.e.</BR>
 * 3.29 User:Nishidani reported by User:Amoruso (Result:8 hours)</BR>

Well, congratulations Amoruso, nice game, I lost, and you won, technically in the sense that you spent a lot of time to manoeuvre me into a three-revert ruling (I was under the impression that different language meant it wasn't a revert, which I thought meant simply 'undoing' a prior post)</BR>

The only mystery is: Why, since you broke the three R rule to induce me into the trap, why weren't you suspended as well, on the strength of your own denunciation and the evidence? Particularly since you repeatedly introduced false information into the text, against my repeated remarks not to? It reminds me of what squatters do in Hebron (source the Guardian, ex-IDF soldier, 2004). They run amuck in Palestinian areas, Palestinians react, the IDF are called in, and the Palestinians are punished for reacting to vandals. From now on I'll have to call this the Kiryat Arba gambit! Regards Nishidani 20:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, you used the word "vandalism". Please be aware of this, it's a second warning. And your final sentence stinks of antisemitism (I'm some big bad Zinoist soldier in Hebron for reporting your violations ? That shows bias and I'd stay out of Hebron article then!) I never said I won't report you, biting is something else. In fact, I told you in this user page that you will face the risk of ban. Read WP:BITE. And again please read WP:3RR if you don't understand the rule (3 compared to 4 reverts etc). Cheers, Amoruso 21:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

On Amoruso's repeated charge that I am anti-Semitic

 * Fine, I can master several exotic and difficult languages, but cannot understand the text of Wikipedia rules. Fine. If that is way it works.</BR>


 * Okay I'll make it simple for you and whoever monitors this, if the game is to kick me out of contributing to this Encyclopedia. In the normal English meaning of the word, Amoruso vandalised the page yesterday. This of course may not fit wiki's special language</BR>


 * He did so by posting three times a statement that is false, and that had been removed for some time without objections on this talk page from either Tewfik (who now however, during my banning, which I don't protest, restored it), Hertz, Jaakobou or Currie, the last posters in here regularly. I posted that with prior explanations, which in the silence that ensued, had no reason to believe were not accepted. No one gave me any evidence that the distinction drawn was not acceptable to them.</BR>


 * Kiryat Arba is not a part of Hebron. Is not a suburb of Hebron. I could cite much technical sources, but no one seems to read them. So please look at the map at Jewish Virtual Library, here:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Hebron2000map.html,


 * which shows that according to established agreements negotiated between Israel and the Palestine National Authority, Hebron consists of two zones:-</BR>


 * H1 Under Palestinian Authority</BR>


 * H2 Municipal Area under Israeli rule, including the Old City with 700-800 settlers (and please don't say as before 'settlers' is anti-semitic. It is the word used in the literature, and in the Bible concerning Abraham's sojourning. See Robert Alter</BR>


 * The area of Kiryat Arba is placed in a third zone, Outside the City Limits (source:Jewish Virtual Library), in the West Bank, another word Amoruso contested.</BR>


 * If to affirm this truth, and insist that a truthful and verifiable statement that can be sourced reliably is, as again Amoruso asserts(3rd time this cheap insinuation has been made against me, twice by Amoruso) anti-semitic, then in his understanding I am anti-semitic. In the normal world, I am merely someone scrupulously adhering to proper scholarly distinctions accepted the world over. I'm biased, yes, towards a truthful writing of pages, against malicious harassment.</BR>Nishidani 06:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

If It Makes You Feel Any Better ...
''I have been attacked as a self-hating Jew, as an anti-Semite, but it does not matter to me because I consider the accusation of anti-Semitism to be the first refuge of scoundrels. Patriotism is the last refuge, anti-Semitism is the first. In [ the United States ] it has been used to silence so many people.''
 * Source: Interview with Jeffrey Blankfort

--DieWeisseRose 23:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Blankfort is quoted in Nov 2006 as saying the Israelis he met in the 50s were emigrants, sick of the racism and violence that Israel practised on Palestinians, comparing the attacks on them "pogroms". PalestineRemembered 08:36, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There is by now a very substantial literature on this accusation of self-hating etc., in Jewish critics, going back more than a century. I find these accusations too jejune to be even considered seriously. Those who make them do so because they lack the capacity to argue in logical terms on the evidence. They play to the gallery of the ignorant. They are merely a variant on an old tribal hatred of 'black sheep'. Anti-American, anti-English, anti-German, anti-Jew, anti-slavic anti-Hindu, anti-Arab, anti-Chinese, accusations abound and the substance is, if you are born of a group you must subscribe to the ideology or one of them governing that group's identity, or be branded a traitor and punished. It would be profoundly boring were it not so prevalent at this level of public discourse Nishidani 18:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply
There is absolutely no need to apologize, and I do agree with all your points. Alas, this is not the first case where this is happening, and does not look like it will be the last. I tend to agree that those articles are now a playground for partisanship, to the detriment of common sense edits like yours. Technically, the others did not break the rule, since each individual only reverted twice; if it makes you feel better, I too can be said to have preferred punishment for breaking a rule. The only reasons why I did not become more involved in supporting your position were that, just as you indicate others do, I do not want to confront myself with editors who have an agenda on a subject I know this little about (even if anyone can immediately see what that agenda is), and I would not want to give them a reason to pretend that you have been canvassing (and thus risk weakening your position without meaning to).

If you want to revert your edit there, I will delete my answer, but it looks like you would also have to talk to Phatius to do the same. I must say, though, that you should not worry about the posts taking up space there: it was not an abuse of the mainspace, and the discussion did not divert too much from the focus of the article (I only asked you to continue it on the talk pages because it was the best and quickest way for us to exchange opinions on this issue).

As expected, the quotes you provide are embarrassing for the editors who posted them. What they are saying is basically "I don't know what you said, but it is antisemitic". Oh, well...

Speaking from the side, I can only hope that the situation on those pages will improve with time, and that common sense will prevail. I will refrain from intervening further on this particular issue, but I hope that a collaborative effort like the one we are engaged on will function in many, many more places, and that the standard of quality you help enforce there will become a staple of this project. In the meantime, you may consider asking for a third opinion or even a more formal comment. Going through this process also leaves the door open for arbitration. Dahn 20:55, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Dahn. Well, I repeat, thanks, and I apologize for the incidental time my minor note caused you to waste. I think personally that Wikipedia's editors should be saved as much time as possible from useless altercations, and prefer to plug away without recourse to them. Reasoning is a delicate process, and I am willing to spend whatever time is required to discuss contentious issues with anyone amenable to rational exchanges. As for further accusations, they are water on a duck's back, and I personally amd not offended by intemperate language, and won't report it. I shall however register it meticulously, if it does recur, on these pages. Now, let me get back to the proper study, which is helping you guys out over there. I'll give you a quick sum-up this afternoon of what Furio Jesi's two books have to say with regard to Eliade presently. Finest regards Nishidani 12:19, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Eisenman on John the Baptist's messianic role
Hi, from Eisenman's "James the brother of Jesus" (softback) top of p69: "... Messianic leaders such as Jesus and John the Baptist .."

See also p62.

But as I said I'd rather get the generic issue dealt with first, before moving onto specifics. --Michael C. Price talk 11:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks Michael C. Price


 * The passage runs:-

<BLOCKQUOTE>'It is easy to recognize in Josephus' presentation of Titus the presentation of the behaviour of Pontius Pilate and Herod towards Messianic leaders such as Jesus and John the Baptist in the Gospels - not surprisingly since all these documents were produced by similar mindsets under similar constraints' (Eisenman, ''James The Brother of Jesus' Watkins, London,2002 p.69</BLOCKQUOTE>


 * The passage clearly draws an analogy between two textual representations, i.e.


 * Josephus on Titus::the Gospels on Jesus and John the Baptist.</BR>


 * There is some interpretation required, evidently. I can see your point, but it is one based on an ambiguity in Eisenman's exposition. I.e. is it, as you argue, Eisenman who takes the two to be 'Messianic leaders', or is Eisenman simply saying, as I believe he intended to do, that the presentation of both figures as Messianic figures is what the Gospels give us?


 * It is undoubtedly the case that the Gospels take Jesus to be a Messiah figure, and John as a prophet of Messianic incumbency.


 * You are quite correct in believing that Eisenman's wording lends itself to the interpretation you give it. But his wording is, for his own thesis, as developed later, problematical, in that (and I am relying I admit on memories of a very slow and close reading of that book made over four years ago). Eisenman entertains very strong doubts as to the existence of an historic 'Jesus' as the Gospels presents him: indeed, in several loci, he seems to embrace the idea that Jesus is a fictional figure patched up from a confusing mishmash of historical people as a result of the Pauline redaction of these oral legends to create an anti-Messianic figure outremer whose essentially pro-Roman, apolitical outlook would be fully compatible with the imperial politics of Rome over the ebulliently unsettled world of Ist century Jewish nationalism. Secondly, he prefers (elsewhere) Josephus as a contemporary witness to the times to the Christian tradition, on very goods grounds, but here he charges, with good reason, Josephus as distorting the probable historical realities. I.e. Josephus in his representation of both Vespasian and Titus tricks out the text to produce an image that Rome indeed has an integral function within the Messianic ideology, and therefore should not be challenged by those within the Jewish messianic tradition who oppose Roman imperial dominion. Just as Josephus does, so do the Pauline Gospels, they give us 'Messianic' figures, in a form of Messianism however that twists the original nationalistic messianism Eisenman hypothesizes. I.e. John runs foul of a local Jewish potentate, and Jesus of local Jewish authorities, neither run foul of Rome, in the Gospel account. Thirdly, Eisenman struggles to disentangle these strands of intricate editorial redaction to tease out the primeval 'facts' they confound. This is an immensely complex task, given the state of the texts we must rely on, and Eisenman hazards numerous concatenated deconstructive readings, without coming out, as far as I know, with a lucid, tersely formulated picture of the probable background to this mythopoetics of historiographical fabrication. This means that when Josephus or the Gospels are cited for a 'Messianic' figure, Eisenman isn't necessarily endorsing that picture, since he doesn't believe in the veracity of the two sources. Fifthly, to show that Eisenman himself does believe that behind the Gospel-Josephean depictions, both or either was really 'Messianic' in the classical jewish sense, you need to point out other pages in his text where he sets forth that thesis. On John, the pages I have looked so far do not bear out this interpretation. This is my own provisory judgement, and may well be wrong. I think Ovadya should see this as well. Perhaps he/she has other grounds for challenging you. A note on the original Ebonim page averting Ovadya would be a courtesy. Regards Nishidani 12:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I had not considered that Eisenman might be merely representing the view of the Gospels -- but perhaps that is because I first encountered p62, where Eisenman contrasts the Josephus' Messianic view of John with the "mythologized" (his expression) Gospel view. So, taking both pages together, he seems to be saying that the Messianic view is his view (or at least that of Josephus, remembering that the Slavonic version suffers from less pro-Roman distortion).


 * That's a good point about Eisenman's view of Jesus' historicity (I nearly commented on that when you updated the Eisenman article), but I believe that Eisenman is not necessarily seriously doubting Jesus' existence, although many of the stories about him he attributes to James and other people. He does, however, regard James' existence more attested than Jesus', but he regards the description of James as the brother of Jesus as evidence for Jesus' historicity (pg xxix).


 * We can cut and past this dialogue to the Ebionite talk page if you wish. :::--Michael C. Price talk 12:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the delay. Afternoon coffee rituals take hours in some countries. On the Slavonic version, I've always thought that that is a highly suspect text, and a lot of scholarship up unto some decades ago agreed. I don't know where it stands now, though.


 * p.62 seems to indicate Eisenman's view that 'Messianic' can be a generic term to gloss anyone deemed by Herodian princes as exercising influence over popular opinion, and having qualities of piety. Now, as Eisenman's own evidence, and certainly that of Josephus's narrative amply shows, oppositional, charismatic, religious and/or political figures, ranging from desert shamans, prophetic figures, healers, rabbinical students, and outright murderers (sicarii) abounded throughout the centuries leading up to and through this period down to the Fall of Jerusalem. To use the word 'Messiah' however in its proper technical sense, one must not splash it about so erratically. That messianic/new age expectations were intense (not only in Judea - see Virgil's 4th Eclogue, but also elsewhere) is well documented. He says 'these Messianic or 'opposition' figures,' doesn't he, evading a clear statement of his own beliefs at least on p.62. Eisenman's illation is not, technically, justified. It is pure guesswork on his part, as you will readily note if you consult the relevant passage in Josephus:-

<BLOCKQUOTE>'2. Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God’s displeasure to him.' (Josephus Antiquities'', Bk.18, ch.5)</BLOCKQUOTE>


 * Now, what is said of John here would fit a large number of the pious within the general Jewish community, whose exemplary purity of conduct aroused widespread respect. It does not fit a 'Messianic' figure unless it is read against the Gospel accounts of Jesus' mission, which, however Eisenman thinks a mythologizing patchwork of distorting legends. Eisenman may be sure John the Baptist is a 'Messianic' figure, but if he does indeed believe and assert this, it is just his opinion. There is no external evidence extant I am aware of to warrant it.


 * Eisenman indeed does appear to be associating John with 'messianism' here on p.62 and p.69. But that or weakens the case. His problem is that there is no evidence for this, and as stated so far Eisenman would be just voicing a person suspicion, since the passage in Josephus does not lend itself to such a deduction.


 * Eisenman doesn't believe in the Christian Jesus (neither do I, for that matter. Very large parts of the Bible and associated religious material are historicized mythology, just like the early history of Rome), but he thinks, as a long tradition of historians (Joel Carmichael in the 60s) do, that he is someone else, i.e. perhaps the son of Sapphias to whom the book is partially dedicated. That dedication, by the way,should be savoured like a wine for the delicate suggestiveness of its named heroes for Eisenman's own 'politics' of radical hermeneutic, his 'agenda' if you will. It is a brilliant if profoundly confusing book, one which struggles mightily, with pernickety erudition to reappropriate a lost part of Jewish national history from the distortions of foreign overwriting, and heretical slander. The echoes in it of a parallel between this critical period and modern times (Kenedaeos/Orde Wingate who trained the Palmach forces, and the ex-PM Netanyahu's brother, who fell heroically at Entebbe) are undisguised. There is no scandal in this, most great books make such connections of relevance, but these very connections often compromise the quality of specific elements in the scholarship. Regards Nishidani 15:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the considered reply. Where you say "Eisenman's illation is not, technically, justified. It is pure guesswork on his part, as you will readily note if you consult the relevant passage in Josephus:" -- I agree it could be regarded as a Eisenman's "pure guesswork" (although I would rather say "informed guesswork"), but that's the whole point, it is clearly Eisenman's view and therefore admissible (to Wikipedia) and should be reported as such.


 * I took the opportunity to read Slavonic Josephus (which I think is regarded as more historically reliable) this afternoon and I was struck by the phrase (in my Williamson translation) of the description of John as


 * "He was a strange creature, not like a man at all."


 * which struck me a redolent of Josephus' phrasing about Jesus' humanity ("if he was a man"). Okay, capable of interpretation, I know, but interesting.
 * --Michael C. Price talk 17:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Dear Michael C. Price. You write: 'it is clearly Eisenman's view and therefore admissible (to Wikipedia) and should be reported as such.'


 * Might I hazard the suggestion that this simplifies? It is not clearly Eisenman's view. It is, stricto sensu, a passing remark in his introductory section which represents a personal intuition he fails to follow up with the requisite professional argumentation. For good reason, nothing in our textual resources for the period would allow him to document such a claim. So he limits himself to a casual opinion, that has no more value that what a non-specialist might think. Einstein was much impressed by Immanuel Velikovsky's catastrophic rereading of Middle Eastern chronologies. That authority does not lend Velikovsky's work a respectability it must gather purely on internal terms. Or, to make a closer analogy, Newton thought that there was a hidden arithmetical solution to the problems of Biblical chronology, and devoted more or his life to this than to pure physics. His opinions in this are laughable.  Or closer still, many great Biblical scholars believed in the literal truth of the Bible, but this private belief is not germane to specific issues of textual analysis their erudition may have contributed greatly to clarifying. The world of scholarship judges as pertinent only that part of their work which elucidates mysteries by close analysis of sources, not their personal beliefs or opinions. In the matter of John the Baptist's 'Messianism', Eisenman's opinion is not corroborated by a sustained argument, but is an impromptu suggestion, and merits no serious regard from scholarship because, unlike his work on the Qumrum fragments, it is casual and not argued with the appropriate focused scholarship any opinion requires if it is to win over the interest of peer review. In Wikipedia, as in any encyclopedia, one is required to write succinctly, with articulate depth when necessary, to lay out the essential elements of the page under construction. If we put everything available on every page, then we would have, as the Hebrew phrase from Genesis has it, a tohubohu, pure chaos. Eisenman is an important source on the period, but of the several thousand suggestions he throws up, only the broad outlines, and some detailed conclusions merit inclusion.


 * As to the Slavonic Josephus passage, you are overconfident. These things have a very large scholarly history of dispute, especially since Robert Eisler's 'classic study. You can look at translations and form a opinion, of course. But the only people who are qualified to judge this are experts in Aramaic-Greek-Old Church Slavonic translation. Eisenman can't judge it either, since he is not a specialist in the crucial issues of how an Aramaic, as distinct from a koine Greek text, would betray itself as the real source through the peculiarities of a rendering into Old Church Slavonic. These questions require rare competence, and we can only watch from the sidelines. It has to be filtered through the many intense academic debates over its authenticity.


 * The passage you give (from the Jewish War) is about John and can equally be rendered:-


 * 'Now his disposition was extraordinary and his mode of lifenot that of a man; indeed just like a bodiless spirit,'


 * which as the surrounding text clarifies, refers to John's vegetarian way of life, not any divinity.


 * You say this reminds you of the passage in The Antiquities about Jesus:'Now about this time arose Jesus, a wise man, if indeed he should be called a man'. However you fail to realize that the fourth Slavonic passage/interpolation in the 'Jewish War' also contains a passage: 'At that time also a man came forward, if even it is fitting to call him a man. . .His works, . . were godly' This passage is clearly apocryphal since whoever wrote it was not a jew, but an antisemite of a much later generation. (Paying Pontius Pilate 30 pieces of silver reflects early medieval Christian suspicions and 'crucifying' Christ 'according to the ancestral law' is pure un- historical nonsense. Crucifixion was a Greek idea, and regarded as alien to Jewish law etc.)


 * Hunches, intuitions, guesswork by browsing won't do, I'm afraid, whether from editors like us, mere bystanders to controversies waged by specialists, or from men of Eisenman's stature when they drop, rather unguardedly, personal opinions which the naive might be led to take as 'gospel.' Still, best wishes. Plug away. There's a huge mass of reading ahead of you if these things exercise their due fascination, and I'd suggest you start with Eisler's 1928 work (the English version) before rushing too far into forming a judgement.Nishidani 20:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback. Actually I was aware that the Slavonic 4-th passage is widely judged to be a later Christian interposition; and for pretty much the same reasons you gave.  As I said, there are other interpretations, but nevertheless it is an interesting coincidence.  Did the later interpolator deliberately mimic the form of the John the Baptist passage from Slavonic Josephus?  That would be my guess.  Anyway, Jesus is a side issue to the Ebionite text under discussion.


 * I have to disagree about how clearly JTB's messianic role is Eisenman's view. To me it seems quite clear, even taking on board your critique, but that is a subjective matter, I'll grant.  I don't see that that these are passing remarks lessens it in any way -- in a book about James I wouldn't expect Eisenman to go into John the Baptist in any detail.  As for his competence in judging Aramaic sources, I couldn't say -- and it would be a mistake for our judgement of Eisenman to influence how we report his views.  I would like to see Eisenman's promised sequel on the Essene-DSS material, which would presumably go into JTB in more depth, although I rather doubt he'll ever produce it.


 * Your example about Isaac Newton's bible chronology is interesting. From a Wikipedian POV it is worth reporting, but of course we would also report what the more modern writers have to say on the subject (that it is mostly crackers). Interesting, though, that some of the passages in the Bible that Newton identified as trinitarian interpolations have been backed by some modern scholarship.--Michael C. Price talk 21:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Michael C. Price Thanks for the note. But I still insist that what you are doing is pressing a highly dubious throwaway statement by Eisenman to squeeze from it an importance it does not have. We will never know what occurred, lacking new textual discoveries, because we simply lack the necessary documentation. All this is extremely intricate hypotheses, not subject to the sort of criteria, Popperian or other, governing scientific hypothesis-formation. It requires great tact, and erudition, and, especially a congruent understanding of the extremely demanding qualities of textual mastery, knowledge of comparative sources, capacity to suspend quick judgements until minimum requirements for the theory shape themselves. Eisenman's book is a great book. It is also, as it stands, a dangerous book, because he himself, evidently, hasn't ironed out a clear laconic formulation (that I know of) of what he is driving at. It is a mass of sometimes belaboured readings, often ingenious readings, that raise as many questions as they hint at resolving. So, I hope more politely than my rather intemperate words on the Ebionim page, I would ask you to suspend this insistence for a while and read a little more widely, especially on the problems, and they are huge, involved with adjudicating the reliability and authenticity of ancient texts, what can be deduced, and what cannot be deduced. You strike me as making too much of an idea that can never be anything more than a marginal hypothesis, because as our sources stand, they deny us any real knowledge of the persons being spoken or written about. Regards Nishidani 21:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Just so there can be no confusion, I agree with "We will never know what occurred, lacking new textual discoveries, because we simply lack the necessary documentation. " Where we disagree, it seems, is on the validity of reporting the speculation of reliable secondary sources.--Michael C. Price talk 21:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, where do you draw the line. Speculation is a distinct activity from off-the-cuff opinionizing. Eisenman's remark re John may be, idiomatically, 'speculative' but practically it lacks the reflective intensity of proper speculation and is just an arbitrary personal take, delivered en passant. As such, it holds no water, and doesn't merit a mention. If you come up with a scholarly source that actually argues for this position with a detailed study of the ancient sources, then use it. You can't in Wiki cite obiter dicta on what is a technical issue. Paul Tillich, one of my teachers told me from personal knowledge, like reading Playboy and other  porn. I don't think this should be mentioned in an article on Tillich's theology, though it might qualify in an article on John Updike's use of Tillich's theology in his vivid descriptions of sexual ecstasy. Regards Nishidani 21:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Where to draw the line is always tricky. But I still maintain that passing remarks by experts are relevant.  As for other, more in depth sources that draw on the ancient sources, well there is Tabor -- the Eisenman cite merely supports Tabor; its relevance is to show that Tabor's views are not as isolated as might otherwise be thought.--Michael C. Price talk 21:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay.Time's up. get off my page. Tabor's book is a wretched piece of pseudo-scholarship and if you can't twig that, then you can't even begin to understand Eisenman. Tabor is so stupid that he places Jesus's death 6 years before the date Josephus appears to assign to the death of John the Baptist, and which Eisenman himself tends to approve, while maintaining the latter died before the former. Tabor has a chair, but is not taken seriously, and his book is widely regarded as a travesty of what is required for sober critical Biblical scholarship.Nishidani 22:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Tabor is so stupid that he places Jesus's death 6 years before the date Josephus appears to assign to the death of John the Baptist, and which Eisenman himself tends to approve, while maintaining the latter died before the former. That point has already been raised on the Ebionite talk page, by me.  Goodbye. --Michael C. Price talk 23:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Qibya massacre
Hello Nishidani, I hope there is no misunderstanding. I saw the evolution of the article before and after your intervention ! It is clear you made a very good job ! There was no negative critic from my side ! In fact I had in mind to translate the french version and to replace the former english one by the translation but now it is embarrassing because thanks to the improvement you brought, a replacement is not justifed any more ! I think I have been "crude" on the talk page. Sorry for that. If you read French, we can discuss how to improve both articles : fr:massacre de Qibya and Qibya massacre. NB: My english is not "wonderful"... :-( Kind Regards, fr:user:ceedjee

On a fait un bon boulot là sur la page française. Naturellement, si vous voulez discuter avec moi en français ici pour nous offrir des idées et pour améliorer la page anglaise sur Qibya, (sans doute la votre page est nettement supérieure) je serai content de me mettre à votre disposition. My French is less fluent than your English, I'm sure. But it would occasionally be ideal for everyone to write in their own language, and have others reply in theirs, on the principle of equality, and indeed perhaps fraternité! (Il est presque temps de partir pour mes vacances mais j'espère reprendre bientôt mon collaboration sur ces articles à mon retour).Meilleurs souvenirs Nishidani 16:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Nishidani !
 * It will be pleasure for me.
 * See you soon and have de bonnes vacances :-)
 * Kind Regards, Alithien 20:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Request
Hi Nishdani - I'm bowled over by the careful effort you put into the work and edits that you do, and hope that everyone else appreciates your scholarship. But I sometimes find it difficult to follow where your posts start and finish. Would it be possible to indent each one of your posts a single extra colon from the previous one, but not indent further? You might have to use paragraphs and italics for quoted material instead of blockquote, but the improvement in readability for me would be very great! There is also a much smaller problem when you sometimes put one posting straight after another. In those cases, I often indent the first post an extra ':'. It's not a perfect solution, but it does make clear that both edits are distinct from each other, but both follow on from one. Thankyou. PalestineRemembered 17:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC) PS - I'd have e-mailed you this, if it was engaged with you. I discovered I'd not ticked sufficient boxes when I thought my e-mail was engaged, I had to make another attempt before I got it right. PalestineRemembered 17:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * (forgot to indent!)I must apologize to the one or two people out there who muster the patience to read my contributions. I try to be extremely synthetic on the actual article, but expansive on the Talk page attached. I'm glad you find some worth in them. Yes, you're quite right. Trouble is, writing quickly off the cuff (I regard 90% of the stuff I'm required to write in order to clarify why I do an edit, and to defend that edit against reverts, a pure waste of time since they state the obvious. But what is obvious to many is not so to others, and this is a democracy, with obligatory duties) and I often slip up on minor details like that. I'll give you formal permission here publicly to rearrange my colon (that would get laughs in Frisco. Reminds me of a great poet who was very precise about his punctuation. He got what John Wayne called 'the Big C' and what in my dialect we call apotrophaically the 'Dancer', down south, and had a partial colonectomy, justifying it by saying, 'better a semi colon, than a full stop.') if I overlook applying the just suggestions you make. Cheers. p.s. I don't have an email on Wikipedia. Sounded too complex for my old brain Nishidani 18:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem. Just for reference, if I post here, you're better posting to my page in reply. (Copy it here if you like).
 * Remember, in the end, this is a serious project, Jimbo (who is spending a lot of money on it) presumably wants people like you on board. PalestineRemembered 19:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I share PalestineRemembered's mind here.
 * I noticed we both were engaged in long discussions with user:Isarig. Good luck...
 * When do you come back from holiday ?
 * Kind Regards, Alithien 19:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you Alithien. I should be back within two weeks, and will be busy for at least another one or two, with family matters and reading (one of the problems of this intensive explaining to others of things they should know were they to read books and original sources instead of newspapers, is that it cuts into the most important part of a real life - which is of course reading books). I hope I can drop in to one or two pages in the meantime. I really am concerned at this wasteful war of attrition. As to user Isarig, he misunderstood me, and I misunderstood him. He has suggested a useful compromise. We all get short-tempered at times, mostly because this medium runs at velocities which militate against considered study and detailed reflection. A little good will goes a long way, but less newspapers more books is probably the only solution. Regards and à bientot. Nishidani 19:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Susumu Kuno
Hello. The Susumu Kuno article is being considered for deletion for "lacking notability". The page is in need of improvement. From past discussions with you and your contributions, I thought that perhaps you may be able to make some valued contributions. Regards. Bendono 05:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Arab Jews
Thanks Nishadani for the compliment. It's hardly deserved since there's still more that should be added, particularly about the identity crisis Zionism posed for Arab Jews and the reprisals directed against them by Palestinians that helped sever the communal ties that had existed. But I must admit I'm kind of enjoying leaving it on that incomplete but happy note for the moment. If only ... <font color="#FF0080">T <font color="#800000">i <font color="#FF0080">a <font color="#800000">m <font color="#FF0080">u <font color="#800000">t  20:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * No need to apologize. I should be thanking you for pointing out the gap in the article in the first place. Sometimes, it's easy to overlook the absence of something. As per your other comments on the problem Zionism posed for Ashkenazi Jews, I agree it's worth exploring further, though probably not in this article. Thanks for your encouragement and your own fine contributions. <font color="#FF0080">T <font color="#800000">i <font color="#FF0080">a <font color="#800000">m <font color="#FF0080">u <font color="#800000">t  21:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Vagn Bennike
Dear LiftarnIs there any Swedish, German or other source you know of for Vagn Bennike that might help us to make a wiki page in his memory? Regards Nishidani 14:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I found one short bio and some articles . fr:Vagn Bennike and he:ואגן בניקה already exists. // Liftarn


 * I started the Vagn Bennike article. // Liftarn

qibya
you seem to have inserted information that you feel was taken out (albeit i think it's already in the article and you simply missed it). however, i believe that you've accidentally messed up the timeline, placing a US decision from the 18th in front of a note written on the 16th - please correct this error. <font face="Arial" color="teal">Jaakobou <font color="1F860E">Chalk Talk  13:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Jaakobou. Your intervention and my own taught me one thing. Never do edits while eating lunch with guests. You eliminated a passage from para 1. I looked at it, and saw it had a keyword 'bulletin' and so searched to see if the same word and the passage was in the lower part of the text, using a search vehicle. It wasn't.I presumed you had removed the passage, without placing it below. You object, saying below the topic is dealt with.


 * My edit may have altered the time line. But on reflection, I think the simplest thing is to restore the earlier edit. For the first para should contain the main features of the article succinctly. The article deals with a massacre and its international repercussions. Therefore, it was quite proper for a hint of the US request to be mentioned in para.1. Often the first para.1 suffers editing to get unwelcome information off it, which is shoved down the page where quick readers or lazy readers won't find it. I don't think this is the case in your own edit of course, but the reason given is not adequate in my view, and thereore I have reverted to a stage preceding both your and my last edits which both confused a simple introduction. Nishidani 14:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * i disagree with your assessment on the phrase in the lead, but i think we should discuss it on the article's talk page rather than yours. <font face="Arial" color="teal">Jaakobou <font color="1F860E">Chalk Talk  14:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course. Nishidani 15:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

3RR
I find exact mastery of all of the nuances of Wikirules a daunting task, and gave up after a brief preliminary reading of the guidelines. My normal approach is to write sensibly, in the light of some decades of academic experience, and hope for the best, with, however, an eye keyed to POV issues.

It strikes me now that in handling Jaakobou's interventions on the Qibya page (see here and Qibya talk), that I may have inadvertently, once more, infringed the mysterious 3RR rule. If so, any hostile onlooker is welcome to supply me with a warning and then proceed to ask for disciplinary measures from the appropriate authorities. I won't object, and won't revert to avoid eventual sanctions. I prefer to take it on the chin, wait out my detention in the lowest of dudgeons, and then get back to helping write these Wikipedia articles.Nishidani 16:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Norman Finkelstein
Well deserved. — [&#8239;aldebaer&#8288;] 14:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

new subsection
i'm sorry i'm opening up a new subsection after you've mentioned some type of info regarding your concerns... however, due to the volume of the issues and how they intermix, i request you post them indiviually into the "issue1","issue2",etc. subsections within' this new subsection. a copy paste with minor changes is probably a reasonable request to help promote the discussion regarding the dispute.  Jaakobou <sup style="color:#1F860E;">Chalk Talk  16:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Jaakobou No need to apologize for using this page: that's what it's here for. I appreciate it actually, since it's where I'm notified more rapidly. I'll check your link out.Nishidani 16:29, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * actually, my apology was for a new subsection on the other talk page after you've made some mention of your concerns. anyways, thank you for noting some of the issues on the talk, if you have more, don't be shy about openeing issue 4 and 5... to the issues themselves, i'm a bit backed up, but will try to participate seriously on the talk soon (hopefully by tomorrow i'll give some proper response to all), i guess you can try to sliightly implement a few of the changes that you think are less objected to in the meantime.. but in general, i don't think i've missed anything in my edit.  Jaakobou <sup style="color:#1F860E;">Chalk Talk  17:26, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Qibya massacre (2)
Hello. We can start working on this whenever you like. Kind Regards, Alithien 18:49, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't give up at 1929 Hebron massacre
There appears to be a serious problem with ownership in this article (and others) by people with quite poor grasp of English and very poor understanding of reliable sources. This behaviour is having a serious effect on the project, driving away literate editors such as yourself. I noted two other cases and  of people apparently driven from the editing  of another article under similar circumstances. PalestineRemembered 16:49, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I knowPalestineRemembered. Jaakobou considers it his territory, and jumps at any effort to touch it which does not meet his personal approval. I haven't given up. I think under the circumstances that the only way, since there seems to be no governing authority that can check this proprietorial self-assertiveness and editorial monopoly and curtail its abuses, is to write up, using primary and secondary sources, the article in private, and when completed, begin posting it in pieces, which is what I intend to do. Jaakobou on the evidence has a very weak command of English, particularly of style, and I'm not going to help him smooth out his heavyhanded lashings of dull prose. He can frig about with it as a private toy as long as he likes, but sometime in the future, a serious and concentrated effort by several hands, with a good record on the area, will make it a respectable article. It worries me rather that he is trying to intrude elsewhere, trying to mess up hard-work done on other pages dealing with Palestinians. As for the 1929 page, I will simply post remarks on the Talk page, noting what is wrong. If he cares to try and improve the page along the lines suggested, well and good. By the way, just to see what sort of games are being played here, click on the 700-800 settlers ref. in para 1 of Hebron. It will take you to the Kiryat Arba page (infrawiki referencing for sources is forbidden, I am told). Click on that ref. in turn, which is supposed to back the figures and, lo and behold, it will update you to the same Kiryat Arba page! An example of ouroboric obiter dicta(torial) self-referentiality* I find this astonishingly amusing. Don't worry, then. I don't give up on things that easily, but I take a longer perspective. RegardsNishidani 17:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, note to self: I've just rechecked, and it seems the ref is updated, since I am now sent to the bottom of the page. And the three references consist of an article one cannot see without payment in the NYT and 2 Jerusalem Post articles which simply assert there are 800. If there are 800, why are we given 700-800? Of course the only reliable source is the Israeli Bureau of Statistics.

notice.
it may not have been your intention, but you have now twice reverted the article of Qibya massacre blindly.

in this revert, you've broken the fix to the npov tag, and in this one, you've readmitted an npov tag to the now resolved intro debate dispute and also removed the farsi cross-wiki link from the article.

i also note to you that adding phrases like "Jaakobou. You cannot edit English texts if you write with a tin ear. The phrasing is absurd." into a content POV dispute, is unhelpful.  Jaakobou <sup style="color:#1F860E;">Chalk Talk  18:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

p.s. i've just noticed you allow this content conflict slip into personal attacks on articles i was not even invloved in.  Jaakobou <sup style="color:#1F860E;">Chalk Talk  12:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, don't mess with the text in a way that the next time I am forced to mend clumsy phrasing these ancillary problems recur. What the 'farsi cross-wiki link' refers to I do not know but will check. If it refers to that ridiculous link to Arab terrorist acts against Israel as further reading, I will continually remove it. That should not be allowed, no more than, in the massacres of Jews I would allow someone to ref to a justificatory page on Palestinians killed by Israelis. It is sick to 'justify' or contextualize massacres in terms of the logic of 'retaliation', and violates elementary rules of neutrality.


 * As to style, there's no defence. Before making edits in English check with a native speaker, or if you are one, with someone who has experience in writing English prose professionally. It will save us a lot of time. Drafting these articles is often a question of style and feel for the nuances of language and you constantly miss them in what others write, and don't notice them in what you write.Nishidani 19:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * if only the native speaker was a little less POV and uncivil.  Jaakobou <sup style="color:#1F860E;">Chalk Talk  06:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Nishidani - Many non-native speakers of English manage to contribute usefully to the project but I wonder how long it will take before this matter explodes at ArbCom. Your e-mail is not engaged, I think you need to tick 2 more boxes under preferences. PalestineRemembered 06:48, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Jaakobou. Jaakobou. I have used strong language, in good part out of an understandable exasperation at your inability to listen to other editors, and also because you often appear to be scrounging around for tidbits of any information whatsoever that might 'prove the case for Israel', as in that extraordinary instance over at the Deir Yassin talk page, was it?, where you were going to investigate the possibility that behind the atrocity there were justified fears that the Arabs would destroy Jerusalem's water-supply, something which, as I had to remind you, wasting my time on telling you what is common knowledge, that the attempt on Jerusalem's water supply occurred after, not before the massacre, and secondly, that the Haganah High Command was assured months before that massacre that no eventual damage to the water mains would imperil Jerusalem's Jewish community. That is what I mean by reading unilaterally to a purpose, and then, perhaps worse, using language which cogs the text towards a strong POV. I repeat, a neutral integral page anywhere here could be written by one hand by simply reading reliable sources in a library, and writing it up according the standard professional criteria, within a day or two, and much behaviour in here looks like high school pro and con debates, with the lessons of historical method ignored in order to score points.


 * It is quite absurd that one has to spend weeks if not months trying to get a proper figure for the Jewish Hebronite population, which is linked to another wiki page, which in turn links to unreliable newspaper reports, when any well-intentioned editor could merely give the correct figure from ther Israeli Bureau of Statistics. Every request this be done is met by fribbling excuses, though the request is one of using correct Wiki procedure for RS. One is left with the impression that the absurdly wobbly 700-800 figure, is defended because any other figure might be marginally lower, and look bad against the native resident Arab Hebronite population. Facts are facts, but in this case, 'ascertaining' in two minutes the correct data is held hostage, apparently, for considerations of image. I don't care if the Israeli Bureau of Statistics gives 2,000, instead of what other sources say (which I don't trust because they are not official), namely 500-600. I can't access the Bureau, you all can, and you refuse to, and I suspect it is because one order of facts is best kept under wraps in order to help the image of the Kiryat Arba community. So, why not relieve me of this suspicion by spending two minutes checking that IBS data and providing us with the correct link, and the exact figure? It would lighten the atmosphere round here, and show bona fides. To any such gesture I will correspond in kind, and supply data that improves the page.Nishidani 07:40, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * PalestineRemembered. I'm afraid I haven't 'engaged' my email at Wiki for a simple reason. I decided when I noticed the option that, potentially, enabling that facility would militate against the propriety of contributing neutrally to these articles, in that conduits off-the-public-page that allow private communication between people who perhaps share similar views lend themselves to abuses. Any communication with me, at least, I decided, must be public, i.e. on this or another wiki editor's page, so that all those who may disagree with me can see precisely what I am doing. I certainly don't wish to imply you, for example, would abuse a private channel, to the contrary, I find myself in substantial agreement with your outlook on many of these questions, and admire the considerable effort you put into Wiki. But the unfortunate problem remains, at least in my mind, that using a private channel, back-door communications, to which others are not privy, would create an impression of a cabal, or of off-line rigging of the agenda. In my readerly way, analysing the quickness of a new editor jumping in to intervene in a dispute, I have suspected that this occurs quite frequently, and do not wish that I, or yourself, for one, give grounds to others to a similar suspicion. In terms of functional efficiency, it no doubt is invaluable and useful. In the long view however, it is one of those pleasures and tools I find myself obliged to surrender. Perhaps I don't trust myself. Best regardsNishidani 07:40, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * (1) i don't think this conversation about the actual content dispute belongs outside of the article's talk page. (2) i don't make the habit of attacking you for POV (seems you just noted you see things the same as PR) and i request you consider applying the same civility towards me. (3) regarding the "you don't listen to other editors" notion you seem to have adopted, i suggest you try to notice things from my perspective, where not every statement by benny morris or moshe sharet or sir martin gilbert overrides that of other important israeli figures and historions. (4) please consider that keeping it short and to the point would certainly help our communication and dispute resolution.  Jaakobou <sup style="color:#1F860E;">Chalk Talk  12:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Jaakobou I've tried to understand your perspective, and see you are extremely sensitive to any material that might lend itself to damaging what you consider to be the right perspective on Israel. Historiography doesn't work that way. It ascertains the salient facts, usually from written documents, organizes them into a coherent narrative, and only at the end are deductions to be drawn (which we don't do here). I don't take Morris, Sharett, or Sir Martin's word for things: they represent a very small number of hundreds of reputable historians whose work should form the basis of our texts, instead of that fossicking in search machines for newspaper accounts of hearsay, opinion, and whatnot which dominate the composition of so many articles here. You surprised me the other day by mentioning Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal's Palestinians: the making of a nation. That is a very fine work of scholarly repute, and if you have read it and find material for these pages, by all means harvest it. No one can object to that as a reliable source, nor to thousands of other books. My point is, I hardly ever see books cited here, it is all skimmed off the froth of the internet through tertiary sources.Nishidani 13:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * i agree with your last point 100% and hope we can get along better with future disputes. to your first concern, i assure you that no, i am not overly sensetive to materials against israel if they are correct and not abused. i believe i've been able to demostrate that with how i rephrased the problematig intro on the Qibya article. other than a few "fluffing up" of the terms (which i partially contest), is has stayed the same until now. i can only hope you will attmpt to apply WP:AGF as i do with you despite our POV differences.  Jaakobou <sup style="color:#1F860E;">Chalk Talk  16:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I take people as I find them, I think.WP:AGF? My primary assumption is to practice good faith with the historical record. If it tells me something that runs against my natural prejudices or POV then good faith means I must honour that difficulty truth and adjust myself to it, not try to twist the facts so that my POV remains untroubled. I judge editors by their good faith with respect to the arduous ascertainment of historical truth. That is something that requires an integrity which most of us naturally fail to honour. I trust, instinctively, people who are aware of this, and worry their self-assurances about being in the right. I distrust people in whom I see no trace of doubt, no readiness to entertain a doubt, and in whom the capacity to understand an adversary's position, as one entitled to an exact and empathetic hearing, is deficient. This makes me conflictual, perhaps, but I prefer direct confrontation on issues to diplomatic blanc mange. I.e., I call a spade a spade, so my interlocutor doesn't have to waste time reading between the lines to work out that POV we all have, ineludibly Nishidani 08:54, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

A. Toaff and the Passovers
Please note that, as an effect of the splitting and rejoining of the articles, they are now diverging: the risk is that Passovers of Blood: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders is being modified independently from Ariel Toaff. I have not a strong view whether make separate articles or not, but if not, "Passovers" should be deleted. Happy editing, Goochelaar 16:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Dear Goochelaar. An old medieval dictum says: 'Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate' which, in Wikispeak translates: 'Pages should not be multiplied, as if they were the progeny of Genesis, unless absolutely necessary'. I was working on the Toaff page, when Beit Or created a separate page suggesting that this was an improvement. I am not convinced. True, the draft is bulky (I could paste it into Toaff's talk page eventually) but should be able to be winnowed down to a few pages once all the chapters have been described. Other editors, for example, on the Oriental Pages, tell me brief biographical pages are usually eliminated unless they are expanded enough to justify their existence in Wiki. Without a discussion of the 'Bloodlibel' book on his bio page, Toaff, by this criterion, will also eventually be dropped. My suggestion then is that the separate page be cancelled. My work on the Toaff page is highly provisory, and requires some patience, since the synopsis is being posted there so that others, who haven't read the book (which is no longer in print) if they are so minded, can use my précis to get an idea of the book, ask me to elaborate or prune, and discuss it without leaving the article to a survey of gossip about it at third or fourth hand.Nishidani 18:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

On reporters
Hi! I saw your message on the Noticeboard about Reliable Sources, specifically concerning CounterPunch. You might, perhaps, be interested in knowing that CP was not the only Western newspaper to have real reporters in Iraq; L'Humanité also had one, at some point, and I'm pretty sure that Il Manifesto also had - has? - one. Of course, there's not many of them... Tazmaniacs 00:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks Tazzie, it's always refreshing to be shaken out of one's intellectual complacencies. Il Manifesto did have one, Giuliana Sgrena, but after her kidnapping, and the tragic killing of the heroic agent who twice saved her life, Calipari, by an American soldier, the editorial board decided to cancel their policy. Newspapers use Iraqi stringers mainly. Regards Nishidani 06:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi again! And today, just found out that Rue 89 has one now ), Anne Nivat, whose report has been diffused first by Rue 89, and then TSR. The problem is, for a lots of this kind of reporters, is that the embassies are often not too keen in having let them do their work, so they are also under political pressure... Cheers! Tazmaniacs 12:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * G'day again,Tassie. Thanks for the links. I'll keep an eye on her work. I wouldn't be too hard on the embassies. Kidnapping reporters was a profitable business. The tragic thing is, we knew everything that would happen long before the war itself. Most of the disaster was forseeable down to small details. Reporters can give us scant details. I think they function best there in correcting the endless disinformatsia put out by those who conduct the war. I.e. they do best in reporting to us on how what we read in the mainstream press is calibrated for local political effect, and has little to do with Iraq or elsewhere.Nishidani 13:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree... By the way, you might be interested in taking part of the debate here, not that I know if it's going to lead somewhere, but I think we need some sort of guideline on this subject... Talking about disinfo', I'm sure you've heard of Alexis Debat?... Tazmaniacs 13:28, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for these English references, I'll probably try to add them to the relevant entries. Tazmaniacs 15:09, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edits
Hi, there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot 13:19, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Ebionites
Please note that a request for Arbitration from the Arbitration Committee regarding the above article has been filed here, in which you are named as a party. John Carter 16:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right. My mistake. I will correct it now. John Carter 16:25, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Beit HaShalom
I understand you reasoning you posted on the talk page for Hebron and I agree. I had first placed Beit HaShalom only in the "See also" section. This was deleted though. I only included the few sentences in the Post 1967 section, so as to contextualize Beit HaShalom's place in the history of Hebron. I will do as you have suggested above and add only the following wording,


 * "Beit HaShalom, was established in 2007." Thank you and take care. Culturalrevival 19:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)