Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Apartheid/Archive2

This page functions as a central discussion place to resolve issues of what various apartheid-related articles should exist and what they should be called. Concrete workshopping should be put on this page. Discussion and archives can be found on the talk page.

Pages involved:
 * Allegations of apartheid (formerly "Apartheid outside South Africa")
 * Allegations of Israeli apartheid
 * Crime of apartheid
 * Hafrada
 * Apartheid (disambiguation) (now a redirect)

Question 1
Given how some of the previous controversies have been resolved, now might be a good time to reconsider the proposal to rename "Apartheid outside of South Africa" to "Allegations of apartheid outside of South Africa".

Arguments for:
 * The poll that decided that "Allegations of Israeli apartheid" is appropriate sets a precedent, and this article should be renamed for consistency
 * The existing title is not NPOV because it implies that the article is cataloging bona fide instances of apartheid; all of the instances cited are disputed as to whether or not this is an apt term.
 * "Allegations" implies that the existance of the apartheid is disputed, and does not make any claim about whether it actually does or not


 * Support No one has ever been convicted of apartheid by the International Criminal Court. Obviously if such convictions are ever handed down, a non-allegational article title would be needed at that point. On the other hand if reliable sources give an editor all the evidence necessary to show, for example, that Cain killed Abel, do we need to wait for a court to call the murder more than an allegation? Apartheid and murder are both legal terms of art, so do what extent do we approve their vernacular, non-legal, meanings? I am voting in favor of saying allegations, so as not to confuse the reader. I still think the "outside of South Africa" part will ultimately be deemed silly, especially if there are ever any allegations of apartheid inside of South Africa (which, I seem to recall, there historically have been -- that might even be where the word comes from?), but future generations can figure that out. -- Kendrick7 21:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Arguments against:
 * "Allegations" implies that the apartheid does not exist


 * How about this: I suggest we rename these articles Israeli apartheid analogy and List of apartheid analogies. "Analogy" is a more accurate description of what the articles' sources are doing, the wording would be less awkward, and we won't have the problem of "What's next, Loch Ness monster analogy"? Kla'quot 06:37, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
 * It's quite sad that a politically-loaded term like "Allegations" has been allowed to remain in the title of even one article for this long. There's no need to compound our error now.  CJCurrie 22:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * How about this: I suggest we leave all the merged stubs created by HOTR as a WP:POINT (well, really copied by him, since I wrote the material, and he just copied it into his articles) in the articles in which they were merged, as this seems to be the consensus, as confirmed by at least 1/2 dozen editors so far. I also suggest that we not act on behalf of banned editors when the act disruptively. Jayjg (talk) 22:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * No one has acted on behalf of a banned editor, Jay. In terms of ensuring the that project functions properly, how about we limit the information in Apartheid outside of South Africa to concepts that are geographically distinct from South Africa.  Global apartheid and Sexual apartheid are not.  CJCurrie 23:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I have an even better idea; let's limit the information in Apartheid outside South Africa to examples of the use of the term outside the official policy of apartheid instituted in South Africa. Since almost all the material in those two perma-stubs were lifted from the Apartheid outside South Africa article in the first place (see their histories, and compare with the source), there should be no real issues. Jayjg (talk) 23:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * CJ, you're facilitating disruption by acting as Homey's proxy. If you have any influence with him, you could try to persuade him to edit with one account, stop acting provocatively, and try to become a regular editor again, as he said he would; and if you don't have any influence with him, you might want to reconsider doing his bidding. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * If we move Apartheid outside South Africa to something along the lines of Allegations of aparthied or List of apartheid analogies, I see no problem with keeping Global apartheid and Sexual apartheid merged into it. Kla'quot 09:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Moved to List of apartheid allegations. Kla'quot 09:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Question 2
A poll decided that Allegations of Israeli apartheid would be the correct name for this article. Should Hafrada be merged with that article?

Question 3
Should these articles be required to relate all the information they contain to apartheid analogies that can be attributed to sources?


 * What I'm thinking is that for these articles to meet WP:NOR and WP:NPOV, they should describe comparisons that are made by the sources cited, and not describe comparisons made only by Wikipedia contributors. Consider the section on Identity cards in Allegations of Israeli apartheid. I don't question the factual accuracy of this section, but what I want to know is who brings up the identity card issue when comparing Israel to South Africa. If the answer is "nobody, but it sounds apartheid-like to me," or "so-and-so (who has used the term "Israeli apartheid") criticized identity cards in an editorial which did not mention apartheid or South Africa," the section should go. We should report on analogies that other people have made, but not expand the scope of their analogies. Kla'quot 07:04, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Chris McGreal, a former South African correspondent, brought up the identity cards as a point of comparision in a Guardian article comparing Israel with South Africa under apartheid.216.13.88.86 18:47, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It's the same with the marriage section; so far as I can see, none of the sources cited mention it in terms of the apartheid analogy. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Pardon me? I type the whole page out for you in full. What part didn't you get? -- Kendrick7 20:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment
The Apartheid in South Africa article should really be called Apartheid, as it is in other encyclopedias, because the term refers to the system of racial segregation in South Africa. We're making Wikipedia look POV and foolish by pretending otherwise. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:11, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Who came up with idea of calling these other things apartheid in encyclopedia!Opiner 00:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The United Nations, q.v. crime of apartheid. -- Kendrick7talk 02:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't followed any of the wranglings about this and don't know what the latest status is. My involvement is through editing and monitoring the Allegations of tourist apartheid in Cuba page and the latest plans to merge that with another page. I've discussed this use of the term "apartheid" outside wikipedia, and it's my feeling that this is getting rather silly - an Apartheid article should refer solely to South Africa, other uses should be merged or explored in relevant pages. And the whole business of this series should be scrapped as an unhelpful WP:POINT exercise. Is it really worth presenting a whole series of articles simply because various groups of sabre rattlers have in passing melodramatically referred to Israel, Cuba or France(?!) as conducting a form of "apartheid"? The issues themselves are important and worthy, that they are referred to as apartheid isn't really very important. I fear that the term is in danger of obstructing proper presentations of these various complex issues. I'm probably 3 months late to make my point, but I'll make it nevertheless. Scrap the whole series, the disambig page etc, merge the material and move on. --Zleitzen 05:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't scrap the disambig page. I mean, if even the National Review is using little-a apartheid, this says to me this use has long since passed out of the halls of liberal academia. Apartheid in South Africa should be moved to Apartheid though; I believe the WP:POINT issues have come and gone. -- Kendrick7 05:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The WP:POINT issues are still very pertinent if this contrived series gets in the way of presenting information accurately and neutrally on a number of pages across wikipedia. Which at the moment I believe they are. Discontent is brewing in the Cuban quarters of this series. And as one editor from over here noted, "I don't see anything special about Cuba that would absolve this case". If and when the Allegations of tourist apartheid in Cuba breaks its shackles and is dispersed into the relevant pages, in Cuba's case Economy and Tourism, it should only be a matter of time before the Israel article and others follows suit. To put it more bluntly, users aren’t going to like seeing the progress of the Cuban articles compromised, just to allow what is in effect a needless attack page on Israel. Better to jettison this business now. --Zleitzen 12:32, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it would help if Wikipedia had notability criteria for ideas. Over at Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience/Proposed decision, Fred Bauder proposes, "Notability of scientific theories, thus eligibility to be the subject of an article, may arise in a number of ways: the theory may be part of the corpus of generally accepted scientific knowledge; it may be considered a possible explanation by part of the scientific community; it may be of historical interest; it may be advocated by a prominent persons or for political or religious reasons; it may be well known due to extensive press coverage; it may be notable because there is strong criticism from the scientific community; or simply because it is absurd."

Something along those lines could work for political and historical ideas as well. The Israeli apartheid debate is probably notable because some prominent people have discussed it, it's received significant press coverage, and it's influenced policy. (Having said that, an is-it-or-isn't-it-apartheid debate it's such a poor lens through which to view the issues that I still wonder if we serve readers well by having this page around). The Cuban tourist apartheid debate looks much less notable to me. Also, is the term "tourism apartheid" common enough to be the de facto name of the practice? Would it be weird to move the article to, say, Preferential treatment of tourists in Cuba? Kla'quot 08:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Scratching the above as I'm realizing that whereas the Israeli apartheid debate is about opinions of Israeli policies, the Cuban article is the main place for describing the policy itself, so the articles can't really be compared in terms of notability and they also shouldn't be forced to have similar names. Is the term "tourism apartheid" common enough to be the de facto name of the practice? If it is, I'm in favour of calling it Tourist apartheid in Cuba. Or is there a more common name for the practice, e.g. Preferential treatment of tourists in Cuba? Kla'quot 09:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, Zleitzen, the Israel debate is not the sole problem. South Africaner's claim they own the word by historical right, and meanwhile the generic sense appears more and more often in the English-speaking press. That's why you end up with weird opening statements like in the article you mention -- "Allegations that Cuban policies towards its citizens are comparable to those of apartheid era South Africa" -- which is completely absurd from the refs there I looked at. Here's [ http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52687 a British editorial] from today's WorldNewsDaily saying British Muslims are "creating a system of 'voluntary apartheid'". Here's an Austrailian article yesterday talking about a homosexual "apartheid" in Austrailia. Here's even and article from today's Manila Times which compares the situation of its Muslims to the bad-old days of "American Apartheid". Just using the word doesn't mean there's an inherent comparison to South Africa; maybe there's one WP:RS in Allegations of tourist apartheid in Cuba that actually makes the comparison explicit, yet bizarrly there "South Africa" sits in its WP:Lead. -- Kendrick7 08:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Apartheid (disambiguation) is superfluous
I also posted a version of this on the talk page for the page in question, but since it necessarily relates to several other articles as well, I am also posting it here. I am having great difficulty seeing what purpose this page serves. As some have pointed out in the past, it is not really a disambiguation page at all -- it does not clarify meanings among the same or similar terms. The Allegations of apartheid article serves the same purpose as the "disambiguation" page, and is far preferable, since it is a substantive article. All this page really does is to proliferate the word "apartheid" on Wikipedia without adding any actual content. What does anyone else think? 6SJ7 01:17, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I have now redirected the page in question to History of South Africa in the apartheid era. 6SJ7 16:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

in the hopes of breaking the deadlock and improving the encyclopedic value of apartheid related entries
Let's be honest folks, titling things "allegations of"... is totally unencyclopedic. Take the case of "Israeli apartheid". There are a number of people with respected academic and professional backgrounds and relevant life experiences who have characterized the system in Israel as apartheid. There is a hafrada article here and Crimes of apartheid article that make clear the realities behind the use of term. "Israeli apartheid" gets 281,000 hits on google as opposed to 664 for "Allegations of Israeli Apartheid"). Wikipedia should not be allowing the contentious nature surrounding the legitimacy of such an analogy, distort how it is titled to favor a particular POV.

Now how about we write an article entitled “Israeli apartheid” that begins along these lines:

'Israeli apartheid'' is a term often used by those who make political arguments that draw analogies between South Africa's treatment of non-whites during the apartheid era to Israel's treatment of Arabs living in the West Bank and Israel. As with many other issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the term and the surrounding debate, is deeply contentious.'''

C'mon folks! Let's be real. (Note, this is a reprise with edits of a posting I made on the the talk page for Allegations of Israeli apartheid. Tiamut 20:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)