User talk:Weber1~enwiki

Pius XII
"The remaining information in this article is brought to you by defenders of Pius XII" is entirely inappropriate and borders on vandalism, personnal frustration or not. Do not put this kind of snarky commentary in an article again. Tom Harrison Talk 14:41, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I'm glad you have registered; I hope you will stay and contribute.

First, process. Large-scale rewrites usually go over badly unless they have been work-shopped on the talk page first. What works better is a process of incremental change, discussed on the talk page and well-supported by citations from prominent historians. You could probably add a short paragraph like:
 * "John Toland writes in 'title, edition, page' that then-Cardinal Pacelli agreed to the dissolution of the Centre Party in exchange for Hitler's acceptance of the Reichskoncordat..."

(Just a made-up example from the talk page)

In practice it is virtually impossible to force a version on a majority that doesn't want it. The resulting page would not be stable.

Now content: "...the efforts of Pius XII on behalf of all victims of war-time fascist aggression were well known and unquestioned, according to his defenders. His critics note that..." You write "according to his defenders," and follow with "his critics note that..." This is not neutral writing. Neutral writing might use a construction like, "Supporters say...detractors say." You write, "defenders of Pius XII claim" while "His critics point out the bald fact...", and then you support his critics with an unabashedly emotional appeal: "It is not a time for much celebration and praise when you barely survived yourself, and most of the people you knew and loved didn't." Finally, "The remaining information in this article is brought to you by defenders of Pius XII. You will have to look elsewhere for sources of unbiased information." Again, this is totally inappropriate, regardless of your frustration. Tom Harrison Talk 19:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

"My point--yes, it is an emotional point but a historically valid and unarguable point--is that the Holocaust was a DISASTER for the Jews--it was the most horrible thing that ever happened to the Jewish people, and many would say it was the most terrible thing to have ever happened to any people at any time."

I did know this, actually. Most people do, and of people who take an interest in writing about Pope Pius XII, I think you can assume all know at least as much about recent European history as you do. Almost all the people who regularly edit that page know more than I do about it. (My interest is less in content than in seeing that everythinig proceeds in good order.) Start on that basis, and with a presumption of good faith.

"Anyway, how to get some of this perspective into the article?"

Briefly: by citing known, published historians who have that perspective; by reasoned argument on the talk page; and by working incrementally over time. How strongly we feel about something really has very little to do with what should go in an encyclopedia article. Best regards, Tom Harrison Talk 17:47, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

"If I find a direct quote from a published source from a survivor, can I add that to the article to refute this false opening statement?"

This is the kind of thing that should be taken to the article talk page for discussion. "I have a citation from ... by ... written in 1948 that says Pope Pius didn't do as much as he could have. How might we include that information in the article?" Be polite, and assume good faith.

Will it work? It depends partly how well-respected is the historian you cite, how well-supported is his thesis, and what other historians say pro and con. At any rate, that kind of approach is more likely to work than, "This page is completely biased; you're all a bunch of propagandists; This is the real truth, about which I feel very strongly; I demand that it be included!" That almost certainly will not work, regardless of the rational merits of your position. Wikipedia is a collaborative operation; you have to work collegially with people you disagree with. It's a slow process.

Usually we sign our comments on talk pages with four tildes, ~, which gives this: Tom Harrison Talk 21:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Weber1. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Weber1~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 03:36, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:25, 22 April 2015 (UTC)