Talk:Palestine Peace Not Apartheid/archive4

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Contents

Recent edits concerning Bronner's NYTBR rev. of the book

N.B. Editors (and anonymous users) who are dealing with issues relating to charges of "anti-Semitism" (exact quotation from Bronner as cited in article)––or "antisemitism" as it is spelled in Wikipedia –– need to be careful to cite and quote reliable sources exactly and not to misrepresent what reliable published sources are stating. Some recent edits reveal a tendency to change the emphasis of a source through paraphrase instead of quotation to suggest that Carter is still to some degree being "anti-Semitic" even when the source's actual words stress the very opposite. (E.g., see recent additions of comments from Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid#Other_book_reviews_by_journalists: I've corrected the presentation so Bronner's actual emphasis is clear). See also the WP:BLP as tagged now on this page and my previous comments re: this tag. --NYScholar 23:29, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

NYScholar, Bronner did not "defend" Carter against "charges of antisemitism." He merely wrote that Carter's tendency to overstate his case does not amount to antisemitism. This may seem like a small distinction, but on issues like this, writers tend to weigh their words very carefully. It was the earlier version that distorted Bronner's meaning, not me or anyone else. His exact quote is "But overstatement hardly adds up to anti-Semitism." I am pleased that you've revised the wording to make this clear, but your criticism is misplaced. --Leifern 00:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that my criticism is misplaced [especially given that anonymous user's comment as moved up from below notes above). You had placed a criticism only in the editing history that had minimized the value of quoting a word exactly (in that case, the word "anti-Semitism" (as spelled by the source, Bronner). In response, I restored more of the full sentence so that all readers could see Bronner's own emphasis on the word "hardly" (his precise choice of words). My word "nevertheless" is substituting for Bronner's word "But" in the current rendition of the quotation; the word "hardly" in the context of the full statement "But . . . anti-Semitism" makes all the difference (along with the "But"; or the paraphrased "nevertheless"). [I've restored the "But" now.] For some reason (I do not really know what reason), you had originally left out my quotation marks around "anti-Semitism" which made it appear that Bronner himself had not used the word, which he had, changing it to W's "antisemitism." In the sentence that he uses it, his own word "hardly" is important for me to have restored, given the (I think) misleading way you rendered the point originally. I've also corrected some emphasis since you wrote this reply to me. (Updated.)--NYScholar 00:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

"Allusion"

[I've Wikified the heading so that one can see the definition of the word "allusion" (allusion) in Wikipedia. Use other published dictionaries and published guides to literary terms for more information, if one needs it. Forms of the verb "to allude" also refer (not casually or in passing, but formally) to the multiple meanings [denotations and connotations] of the noun "allusion." --NYScholar 00:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)]

In the department of sloppy language, there is no "allusion" of the term "apartheid" in Carter's book or in its title. When the term is used in the title of the book, it can not under any circumstances by an allusion. Allusion means "a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication" [1]. I've corrected some of these in the article, but I would recommend that others review for this and other such terms. --Leifern 00:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

My use of the word "alludes to" or "allude" (as per allusion) is correct. [Carter's use of the word "apartheid" in his subtitle allludes to (refers indirectly to) South African apartheid; or, to Allegations of apartheid in relation to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories; i.e., by using the word "apartheid" in his subtitle, Carter's title alludes to the history of apartheid in South Africa).][1] Read the article and the sources cited in this article. Your reference (allusion) to an online dictionary is not authoritative. It is not a full definition of the word "allusion." Carter has specifically said in broadcast interviews that he purposefully intended to "provoke" (be "provocative") debate by the use of the word apartheid in his title; and he is very clear that he knows what the word "alludes" to; it alludes to South African apartheid (historically as well as linguistically). E.g., quoting directly from the W article Allegations of apartheid:

The term apartheid commonly refers to South African apartheid. . . .

Carter is alluding to, referring to (and not just "in passing" or "casually"), the history of "South African apartheid" in apartheid.---NYScholar 00:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

So to Carter it's an allusion and to his critics it is a controversial word in the title. If we are desrcribing Carter's view of it we should call it an allusion, if we are describing a critic's opinion then we should talk about how the source finds it controversial. Either way, use a quote from the source that way there can't be any debate. From what I could tell, the first source only complains about the title while the second source is very clear about their problem with the word 'apartheid' in the title. --YoYoDa1 00:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Please read the section: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid#Carter's_response_to_criticism with Carter's response to Larry King's question about the word apartheid and what it alludes to etc. This discussion of the word allusion is basically a waste of time, in my view. --NYScholar 00:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

NYScholar, the definition of "allusion" I use is also consistent with that found in Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary ISBN 1-56619-147-5, which I think anyone else would consider authoritative, to quote: "1.a. a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something." To say that Carter merely makes an allusion to apartheid when it is in the title of his book is grossly misleading. If you think it's a waste of time to worry about the meaning of words in this article, that's your perogative but hardly in keeping with what we're trying to do here. --Leifern 03:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
This is not a matter of interpretation; it's a matter of the use of the verb "to allude" in "alludes to"; I stand by what I have already written. I really don't know what your problem is with understanding that the verb "to allude to" has multiple usages (meanings are denotations and connotations); your insistence on "passing or casual" is simply one usage not all of them. Your insistence really qualifies your knowledge base. I didn't say "allusion"; I said he "alludes to" and what he alludes to is Allegations of apartheid in Palestine in comparison to the history of apartheid in South Africa (see History of South Africa in the apartheid era). I stand by that. Read the rest of the article and Carter's own remarks; he himself makes distinctions between apartheid in South Africa and the Allegations of Israeli apartheid in Palestine due to the subtitular word (allusion to the former in use of the word). You are nitpicking.--NYScholar 03:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
My "interpretation" is what every dictionary I've consulted with says. Words have specific meanings, and we're not free to just invent another meaning for a word when it suits our purposes. I am not nitpicking - Carter throws around the term "apartheid" and then in late chapters of his book and subsequent meetings with people says he meant it only in a limited way. We live in a world where blowing up buses with school children no longer is an act of terrorists but of militants, but Carter doesn't want to be held responsible for putting the word "apartheid" in the title of his book, and you only think that the term is an "allusion." Orwellian. --Leifern 14:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Your comment still makes no sense to me.
Towards the end of the article (already linked in my earlier comment), Carter acknowledges very clearly that he says "Peace Not Apartheid" in the subtitle of his book. He acknowledges that the word "apartheid" refers to (alludes to) what Wikipedia links in its articles (containing definitions) connected to the word "apartheid" (History of South Africa in the apartheid era, Allegations of apartheid (Please read the articles; this is what I linked to; the sentence that I originally contributed Wikified the word "apartheid." You are still nitpicking about this word (which was no longer in the article the last time that I edited it); you are interpreting what Carter may be or may not be doing in his subtitular word "apartheid," and presenting your own POV (not following Wikipedia:Neutral point of view on it.
I am simply linking to a Wikipedia article within this article (Allegations of apartheid). I changed the presentation yesterday, elimininating the words "uses" and "alludes to" and just linking the word to the Wikipedia article. I suggest that you read the Wikipedia articles on Allegations of apartheid, History of South Africa in the apartheid era, and Allegations of Israeli apartheid in the Israeli-occupied territories." Carter's use of the word in his subtitle alludes to many of the issues summarized in those articles. He acknowledges that in the broadcast interviews cited in this article (read them again); at the end of his book, he defines how he is using the term according to the commentaries and book reviews cited in this article. His use of the term "apartheid" (not your or my or others' views of his use of it and its consequences) is a matter of fact. See what Larry King says in asking Carter about Dershowitz's complaints about Carter's use of what King/Dershowitz call "a loaded term": the term "apartheid" is so-called "loaded" because (in today's world of the 21st century) it alludes to (refers directly and/or indirectly to ["echoes" in Bronner's word) the History of South Africa in the apartheid era.
I have now explained this usage of the verb "to allude to" and "alludes to" over and over, and, apparently, you still do not get what it means (signifies). I can't help that. I've have done my best to explain it to you. Words have multiple meanings (uses, usages); you have listed "1a.", which is only one subset of one of the senses of the word "allusion" and the verb "to allude to." Read all of the meanings of words in a definition, not just one of them. See allusion. --NYScholar 06:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Spare me your patronizing tone. You haven't explained anything, but rather you have tried to create a new meaning for a word that has a specific meaning. The problem isn't that I don't "get it." --Leifern 11:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Clearly, you don't know what you are talking about. Read the Wikipedia entry on the word allusion (again). Read all of the numbered definitions of a word in a dictionary; not just one of them. What I am talking about has to do with definitions of the verb (not just the noun); I still think that you just don't "get it." If you did, you would not be persisting in these comments.--NYScholar 08:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Your, my, and others' views of Carter's use of the word and/or his intentions in his use of the word are interpretations, not matters of fact. They are points of view on his usage (not neutral): read W:Neutrality. I do not use the verb "alludes to" in the present version of this article (read it again). --NYScholar 03:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

It should be assumed that Carter, like any published writer who presumably has editors, chooses his words with full knowledge of what they actually mean. If he only meant "apartheid" in a limited sense, he should have chosen a different word for the cover of his book. This reminds me of the Jostein Gaarder controversy, in which Gaarder wrote an op-ed that was demonstrably antisemitic, but afterwards for people to better understand what he was thinking rather than what he was writing. --Leifern 11:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

But if Carter calls it an allusion, then Wikipedia should say he is calling it an allusion. If a critic is complaining that he made it a word in the title, then Wikipedia should say the critic is complaining he used it as a word in the title. If we quote the sources, I don't think this debate would happen. --75.46.88.60 14:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Notes section

It is a real inconvience - and I'm not sure why it's necessary - to deprive editors of the ability to add a section by pressing the "+" button provided. Can someone explain why we're doing it this way? --Leifern 00:26, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Notes sections come at the bottom of the page. If they are not at the bottom, all the notes in the talk page will not post as notes properly. --NYScholar 00:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not an article, or in the article space. Are there other examples of this practice in the Talk: space?--Leifern 03:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Many. Notes come at the end of the page. That is why they are called "footnotes"; they are placed at the "foot" of a page; or, they are called "endnotes"; come at the end; after main text. (Please look at other talk pages with notes). [Updated: some of the notes in this talk page are parts of comments that occur earlier in the page. There was no "Notes" section for them to appear. I added the section at the foot of the page so that those notes would show up; then some of the content moved from the article to this talk page that also has embedded notes would post correctly too.] --NYScholar 04:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC) (UTC)

Absurd length

The length of this article is absurdly out of proprotion to the notability of the subject. It seems that two to three representative quotes from supporters and detractors of the book would be enough, as many of the critics are completely unnotable. They largely repeat themselves as well. Zavtrakat 01:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I've been adding information that identifies the professional and/or other affiliations of several of the "critics" cited in this article (initially by other editors); such identifications make clear who they are and what the nature of the "authority" or perspective is and what organizations they may be affiliated with or (in the case of "representatives of organizations") represent. --NYScholar 21:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

There's a problem when vastly more information is provided on the response to an item than on the item itself. Zavtrakat 01:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I agree. I gave up editing this article long ago because it became a grab bag of talking heads. However, as someone who has done great work on this article, I would like to hear what NYScholar thinks about this. Jasper23 01:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for asking for my response, Jasper. (It is not clear to me who wrote the first two paragraphs in this section. Please sign comments.) I was surprised to see the comment heading "Absurd length," as the article is not much longer than some other very controversial ones. Of course, this article is only about one book, and such articles tend to be shorter rather than longer, but the book has initiated a lot of press attention and controversy crossing boundaries (politicians, academics, journalists, etc.). But it is possible that the "reactions" sections could be shortened. People who contribute to editing this article sometimes seem to want to beef up the reactions that they agree with (adding more and more examples) and to limit the reactions that they don't agree with (subtracting those), which pushes it toward POV and farther away from neutrality. I think that the section on the politicians' reactions may be much longer than needed; the section on Dershowitz tends more toward developing the controversies between him and Carter than toward developing a brief statement about his reaction to the book. The "Carter-Dershowitz" disagreements (even about this book) are better placed in the articles on each of them. There is already a section on it in the Dershowitz article (which I cross-linked some time ago. I was away for a while (several days) and appreciated not working on this article and what was done to it while I was away, so perhaps I'll stand back again and see what happens as people who are more economical than I am work on tightening it up (if that's the consensus), without (I hope) losing neutrality. Thanks again for asking. Good luck to others working on this article. --NYScholar 03:18, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Overall, I do not agree with the comment "there's a problem . . . itself." The book itself is mainly "noteworthy" (worthy of an article in Wikipedia) because of its controversial subject matter and the controversial reactions that its reception has generated. These controversies are part and parcel of any article on this subject. Via the links in the citations to Carter's book, links to his commentaries relating to it and his reiterations of its "main points" in interviews and editorials and other articles, and the quotation of its entire table of contents with Wikified links to its appendices, there is a great deal of material on the book itself, and, in total, via all those links, far more than on the book reviews, other commentaries, and various "reactions" to it. The material relating to the book, including especially the separate box with W's entry on the publisher Simon & Schuster, which includes a hyperlink to its publisher's website (leading people to be able to search the site for the webpages about it), Amazon.com reviews, etc. (References section), other hyperlinked material about the book, I would say, far exceeds the emphasis in the article itself on the reactions to it. This article, in its current version, thus provides a great deal of resource material about and relating to the book, and, in my view, that is what makes it useful to Wikipedia readers around the world. So I don't have a problem with the focus of this article in the current version. I have been attempting to make it more neutral by identifying the nature of sources cited more accurately and/or more factually than was done in past versions of this article. --NYScholar 00:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I wrote the initial posting here about the length - sorry about the unsigned comment-and-run, I'm quite new at this. Anyway, I like the suggestion of putting most of the reactions about the book in the articles about the people making the statement - it says more about the people (pro or con) than the book. This type of media controversy has a logic and trajectory of its own - maybe even a seperate article on "Carter book controversy" would be a suitable way to detail the reaction and not burden the main article.Zavtrakat 04:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea of working personal conflicts between Carter and 'someone' in to the article about Carter and the article about 'someone'. We could then summarize what has to do with the book here, and link the reader to those areas for more information. We need to be cautious about giving the controversy it's own article. We would need to make sure that the controversy is notable enough by itself to be an article and that we aren't just setting up a POV-fork. --YoYoDa1 15:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I do not support the idea of "giving the controversy it's [sic] own article," as suggested above. The controversy that the book has generated is, as I stated earlier, part of the subject of this article on the book. It would be "absurd," I think, to make a separate article about the "controversy" with a separate title. This article is coherent as it is. Moreover, Carter's stated (and restated) purpose in this book is to provoke "debate" and thus the debate provoked is part of the subject of the article on the book. --NYScholar 00:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Question for NYScholar

Hello,

I'm curious as to whether or not it was my edit that you described as "misleading"? I acknowledge that there were insufficient details in the wording that I provided, but I believe that my edit was an improvement over the work of a previous editor, and I don't believe that I misrepresented the author's meaning in any way.

Please note that I'm not accusing you of uncivil behaviour: I respect the work that you've done on this page, and I particularly admire the role you've taken in resolving disputes. It's precisely for these reasons that I want to ensure a misunderstanding hasn't developed between us. If I've misunderstood your edit summary, I apologize in advance. CJCurrie 04:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

CJCurrie: I don't know what happened to your previous comment with similar questions that I moved from my talk page to this article. Maybe I didn't save it correctly. Anyway, I don't know who was the editor that changed what was (I thought) clear wording to vaguer and less clear wording; I restored Bronner's word "unfairly" because that is what he was saying; that the criticisms of Carter (such as the ads taken out by the ADL cited in this article already) "hinted unfairly" of "anti-Semitism". I wasn't directing my comment to any particular editor, just explaining why I made the changes that I did. I perceived a lack of clarity and greater vagueness than I had seen in that paragraph last night, and I just tried to improve it (further). I was not being evaluative; just descriptive. Taking out the quoted word "unfairly" in my view led to less clarity and less specificity (greater vagueness). There is no need for vagueness when one can cite specific words in an article used by a source to establish exactly what he or she is saying. Carefully-chosen quotations are useful when trying not to alter the source's emphasis; altering the emphasis of the source can be misleading. Anyway, that's my explanation. Nothing personal at all. --NYScholar 04:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, thank you. Please keep up the good work: the project needs you. CJCurrie 04:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking at this article for the first time in a few weeks

I did some significant editing to this article in the beginning (I wrote the Ross section and some other stuff) but I stopped contributing because I didn't feel like fighting over every sentence. I hadn't looked at the article in a long while and I was really appalled by what I saw. The worst part of this article is the lengthy section on the reaction to the book. Its too long! The most notable reviews, e.g. those from publications such at the NYTimes book review that actually shape public opinion are at the bottom. Nobody is going to want to read through paragraph after paragraph of non-notable people to get to important reviews. The whole thing needs an introductory paragraph that summarizes the critical and public reaction to the book - namely that it was mixed, with some critics praising its courage and others criticizing its accuracy and its fairness, with particular focus on the word "apartheid." The "positive" section needs to be chopped down considerably, as many of the people are non-notable. The result is that the section feels like its been padded, like we are adding anything we can find from anybody. In short, it feels POV and its not very readable. Nobody cares what the head of "Michigan Media Watch" thinks. Finally, the sections that are not straight reviews, but deal with specific controversies with this book (Ross, Stein) should be moved to a separate section (Controversies, say) to reduce the length of the review supersection. GabrielF 03:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Your views of who are "notable" and "non-notable" critics or spokespeople appear to be full of your own POV; see the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view tags and the earlier sections of this talk page. Clearly, if you have not participated in editing this article since early on, you need to read the entire talk page before tinkering with others' hard work. I have removed the "clean up" tag (as I've finished the work that I've been doing on citations and sourcing of statements); I've left the "neutrality" tag as a warning to people who drop into and out of this article. It is customary in editing articles with ongoing controversy (such as this one) to provide the passages that you want to create in the talk page for consensus discussion. You should not simply be deleting material already discussed at length above and already left in the article by earlier consensus. You also need to read the whole article in context, not just portions of it out of context. By consensus "representative" criticism (positive and negative) of the book have been included. Who is "notable" to one Wikipedia reader may not seem "notable" to another reader and vice versa. Those distinctions are rife with POV. "Representative" is not. --NYScholar 04:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I renamed some of the section headings to reflect that they are selective and representative of reactions and also moved up the section on book reviews by journalists (as per your comment re: NYT review); however, I suggest reading the linked commentary on that review in the References section so that you can see that every reviewer has a POV (his or her own POV); the NYT reviewer is no less arguing from a POV (his own) than any other reviewer in any other print or online publication. The publications that are sourced in this article are not blogs; they are representative of organizations, some of which have not yet had articles in Wikipedia devoted to them. If you look at the red links, you will see that their missing articles seem to support Carter's claim of too little attention to the Palestinians' interests. The fact that there are no articles on these organizations does not mean that they are not noteworthy. The lack of attention to them in American "debate" and in the English-speaking version of Wikipedia is something that needs to be redressed (if one extends Carter's POV in his book). --NYScholar 04:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not exist to redress the lack of attention a particular point of view receives in the mainstream media. The fact that you are trying to change the nature of debate in the United States and on wikipedia makes your accusation that my assertion that Michigan Media Watch is not notable one of the best examples of the pot calling the kettle black I have ever seen. Is notability a matter of POV? To a certain degree, yes, but are you honestly going to assert that "Michigan Media Watch" shapes public opinion to nearly the degree that The New York Times does? We are not a primary source designed to shape opinion, our job is to explain and summarize public discourse, not to change it. This idea that you are taking "representative" publications is fine, but you don't need paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs of them. Take the stuff from notable publications, get rid of the rest. Finally, you are ignoring my point that piling on non-notable source after non-notable source (and notability can be established by perfectly objective measures such as newspaper circulation, citations, etc.) gives more weight to one side of the argument than exists in the real public discourse, and this is POV, subtle POV yes, but POV none the less. GabrielF 05:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Do we really need three big paragraphs with statements from the ADL, CAMERA and the AJC? What's notable isn't what any one of those organizations say, its what the Jewish community as a whole thinks. All three should be combined into ONE paragraph that summarizes the opposition to the book from major Jewish organizations with a few choice quotes. GabrielF 05:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
What's the deal with these two-sentence titles? We don't need to have a resume for each person! For example:
Ambassador Dennis Ross, author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004), who was the United States' chief Middle East envoy during the Clinton administration, is Director and Ziegler distinguished fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the first chairman of a new Jerusalem-based think tank, the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, funded and founded by the Jewish Agency for Israel. In the fall of 2005, Ross taught a class in Mid-East Peace at Brandeis University, and taught it again at Georgetown University in the fall of 2006.
Who CARES what courses Dennis Ross has taught! This doesn't belong in this article, its just distracting for the reader. Talk about his job in the Clinton administration, which is why his comments are notable and get rid of the rest. GabrielF 05:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I didn't put that material in this article; it still needs sourcing if left in. It establishes his authority to make the statements that he makes. (I think it's too much; the positions are not.) --NYScholar 05:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
These other things that you dispute are, however, sourced factual statements; you cannot delete sourced factual statements. It is prohibited in Wikipedia to make such deletions just bec. you don't like them; see editing policy. Do not delete sourced content that other people have spent a great deal of time verifying.--NYScholar 05:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
That's absurd. Of course you can deleted sourced statements. The issue isn't the sourcing, the issue is that the article is completely unreadable. GabrielF 05:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
That's your pov, not mine. I am not impressed by what you are trying to do to this article. Try reading the whole article before claiming that it is "completely unreadable." Your pov is not consensus on this article, as far as I can tell. --NYScholar 05:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Editing etiquette in Wikipedia

See Wikipedia:Etiquette re: reminders about conduct in editing. Specifically:

Try to avoid deleting things as a matter of principle. When you amend and edit, it is remarkable how you might see something useful in what was said. Most people have something useful to say. That includes you. Deletion upsets people and makes them feel they have wasted their time: consider moving their text to a sub-directory of their user pages instead (e.g. saying not quite the right place for it but so they can still use it): much less provocative.

--NYScholar 06:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Longer than The Bible

This article is now about 20k larger than the bible. (78k versus 54k) GabrielF 06:08, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Ross section

It is absolutely ridiculous that you have to read 13 paragraphs to go from Ross's comments about the book to Carter's response. Assuming that the reader hasn't given up by then, he will have forgotten what Ross was saying in the first place. Second, the section on Ross completely misses the point of the allegations, the point isn't that the maps "derive" from Ross' book, the point is that they are reproduced without attribution and that they are mislabeled. Third, NYScholar's edit summary stating that we have to include about three lines worth of Ross' titles because they establish his POV is offensive. Are you suggesting that because Ross did some work for an organization which studies Jewish population that he must have an inherent POV? Because otherwise your edit summary: "restoration of positions held by Ross; relevant to identifying who he is, his current (relevant) affiliations, what his POV is; he is not neutral observer)" makes no sense. GabrielF 06:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

"The point" (Ross's claim that in your words--which don't match his--his words are/were quoted exactly before) is precisely what is in contention: "?the point isn't that the maps "derive" from Ross' book, the point is that they are reproduced without attribution and that they are mislabeled.?" Ross does not say that; Ross questions where Carter got the maps; and he implies that Carter's source may have gotten the maps from Ross's book; if Carter (or his research helpers) didn't use Ross's book but the Atlas cited (in Carter's responses to the criticism), then there is no plagiarism involved; Carter cites hissource, and it isn't Ross's book, according to Carter. You are calling Carter a liar, and that is not permissible acc. to WP:BLP. See tag above. This has all been discussed already: Read this talk page. This is very tiresome. --NYScholar 06:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

My brother is Ross's research assistant and the one who discovered the similarity between the maps in the first place. Ross did NOT accuse Carter of plagiarism, the allegation was that the maps were not properly attributed. GabrielF 06:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:NOR; your brother is not a source in this article. We can only use verifiable reliable sources; no one can trust what you say about your brother's work here. If you have a reliable published verifiable source to cite, cite it. Your claim in this talk page is not in keeping with Wikipedia:NOR; nor is it in keeping with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Clearly, you yourself (via your own brother, acc. to you) have a POV at best and an axe to grind at worst. Aim for neutrality. And stop deleting relevant material from this article. Wikipedia:Etiquette. BTW: "not properly attribut[ing]" sources is a form of plagiarism:

<<[quoting from Wikipedia]

Unlike cases of forgery, in which the authenticity of the writing, document, or some other kind of object, itself is in question, plagiarism is concerned with the issue of false attribution.

>> --NYScholar 06:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to use him as a source in the article, I'm using him to refute your claim on this talk page that you understand the issue better than I do. Further, you accuse me of POV, yet you ignore your own. Personally I think Carter is wrong, but I'm not editing the article because I don't like the book. I'm editing the article because I don't think the article is up to wikipedia's standards. GabrielF 06:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
GabrielF: You should not be citing your brother in the talk pages of articles relating to living persons making such a claim as you are making against a living person. See WP:BLP; read the linked material in the tag at the top of this page. I have no POV on this book. --NYScholar 07:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Clearly GabrielF does not understand Wikipedia's own definition of plagiarism.--NYScholar 06:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

removed bisharat paragraph

I've removed the following paragraph as it is not a review or commentary on the book, but rather an opinion on the current situation in the Middle East. Considering the length of the article (longer than our article on the bible by 20k), it is unnecessary dead weight. GabrielF 06:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

George Bisharat, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, agrees with Carter's stance and suggests: "The debate should now be extended," asking: "Are Israel's founding ideals truly consistent with democracy? Can a state established in a multiethnic milieu be simultaneously "Jewish" and "democratic"? Isn't strife the predictable yield of preserving the dominance of Jews in Israel over a native Palestinian population? Does our unconditional aid merely enable Israel to continue abusing Palestinian rights with impunity, deepening regional hostilities and distancing peace? Isn't it time that Israel lived by rules observed in any democracy - including equal rights for all?"[2]
This passage needs to have the following introduction (before incorporating the quotation from the same article, which is a "Commentary" on the book as per its very title):

Americans owe a debt to former President Jimmy Carter for speaking long hidden but vital truths. His book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid breaks the taboo barring criticism in the United States of Israel's discriminatory treatment of Palestinians. Our government's tacit acceptance of Israel's unfair policies causes global hostility against us.)Italics added.)[3]

. . . .

The debate should now be extended," asking: "Are Israel's founding ideals truly consistent with democracy? Can a state established in a multiethnic milieu be simultaneously "Jewish" and "democratic"? Isn't strife the predictable yield of preserving the dominance of Jews in Israel over a native Palestinian population? Does our unconditional aid merely enable Israel to continue abusing Palestinian rights with impunity, deepening regional hostilities and distancing peace? Isn't it time that Israel lived by rules observed in any democracy - including equal rights for all?(Italics added.)[3]

[Or that second section w/ all the questions could be omitted; the first part is more apropos to the book itself. The latter part is where the author's "commentary" on the book takes him. --NYScholar 11:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

removing finkelstein paragraph

I am removing the paragraph on Norman Finkelstein. (I note that while we have something like three sentences on Dennis Ross' previous affiliations in order to "demonstrate his pov", nobody has pointed out Finkelstein's previous books such as The Holocaust Industry, etc. I guess you can only be POV if you oppose Carter.) Regardless, the paragraph is not a review of the book. It is simply more dead-weight. It would be more appropriate on a separate section discussing the question of whether the word apartheid is appropriate. GabrielF 07:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

According to Norman Finkelstein, an assistant professor of political science at DePaul University, Carter's analysis is mainstream and uncontroversial outside the United States:
"After four decades of Israeli occupation, the infrastructure and superstructure of apartheid have been put in place. Outside the never-never land of mainstream American Jewry and U.S. media[,] this reality is barely disputed."[4]

"Michigan Media Watch"

I'm moving the Michigan Media Watch paragraph here. "Michigan Media Watch" gets exactly 88 google hits[2]. It is insane to spend 3/4 of a paragraph describing a person and then have a one sentence quote from them. Especially considering that the source is far too minor to warrant inclusion. No reader is going to be reading this article to find out what Michigan Media Watch thinks. Major national publications that actually are capable of shaping opinion are notable, small local groups are not. GabrielF 07:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The relevance is the publication that the article is posted in: it is the largest newspaper in America for Arab Americans according to its publisher's website; this material needs to be restored to the article. Who the writer is is less significant than who published her article and the size of its audience. (Large.) --NYScholar 07:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
What does this contribute to the article? GabrielF 07:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Obviously, it contributes the perspective of this prominent Palestinian American; by silencing her (deleting her perspective from reportage in this article), you are doing exactly what Jimmy Carter is claiming in his book. You are engaging in POV editing. Again, it is not up to you to delete representative sourced information (book reviews, book commentaries) from this article. You are clearly engaging in a pattern of bad-faith editing (perhaps without even realizing that you are doing so). What you are removing are mostly the positive comments that people have made about Carter's book. The pattern seems very clear to me. --NYScholar 08:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

On December 5, 2006, Sherri Muzher, a Palestinian American who directs Michigan Media Watch, an organization aimed at "Combating bias in Michigan's media by promoting accurate, factual and balanced coverage of the Middle East" (mmwatch.org), writes in the The Arab American News, a weekly bilingual newspaper representing Arab Americans published in Dearborn, Michigan, by Osama Siblani, a self-described "staunch supporter of Palestinian rights and opponent of Israeli occupation and aggression": "Nobody expects instant miracles to come from Carter’s book, but hopefully, it will spark the sort of robust discussions that even Israeli society and media already engage in."[5]

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Here is another paragraph that is mostly about the person being quoted and then offers a small quote that doesn't add anything new. Further, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha gets only 575 google hits, of which only 44 are unique[3]. Why should anyone be interested in what this person thinks? What does this paragraph add to the article?

On November 15, 2006, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, in an article published on the website of the Institute for Middle East Understanding (an organization which "provides journalists with quick access to information about Palestine and the Palestinians, as well as expert sources, both in the U.S. and the Middle East"), finds that Carter's book "eloquently describes the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip" and that "his book challenges Americans to see the conflict with eyes wide open."[6]

Statements by democrats

Is there any reason why we need to have six paragraphs on the democrats statements about the book? All of them are essentially saying the same thing. Why can't we just summarize it into two paragraphs quoting Dean and Pelosi and then list the other members of congress who issued similar statements? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GabrielF (talk • contribs) 07:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

I've rewritten this section to condense it down to two paragraphs. This new version is still rough, but it eliminates at least one place where we are duplicating text, (no need to introduce John Conyers twice). I cut the Steve Israel quote, as it doesn't really contribute anything.GabrielF 07:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


Bizarre Article

I have to say, that this is one of the strangest articles I've seen in Wikipedia. It reads like a treatise rather than an encyclopedia article. Encyclopedic articles are, by their very nature, designed to be simple summaries of a subject. If someone wishes to know more, they can do further research elsewhere. Wikipedia is not the appropriate place for this much information about one book. Also, why are there Notes on a talk page? They don't belong here. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 08:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This was answered above. Read the talk page before making such comments. Clearly, if people are moving material with embedded notes in them, in order for the notes to show up, there needs to be a Notes section. See above. It's already been discussed. Plenty of other talk pages that I've seen have notes sections in them. --NYScholar 08:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Pardon me, but I have read the talk page, and the complaint about length has been made many times. No adequate response has ever been made. This article should be about 4 paragraphs long, similar to other books of its stature. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 16:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
The article is somewhat long right now, but your suggestion that it should be 4 paragraphs long is out in left-field. Where is the precedence for such a thing? The important thing is to have balance, NPOV and to be well written. Right now this article isn't that well written, but that has to do, in my opinion, with the organization not yet being topically organized as I have suggested previously. We should not just cut out all the debates around the book because you find them uninteresting. If you find this book uninteresting, it may be better to contribute to other articles that more satisfy your need for stimulation. --70.51.228.233 16:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
You assumptions are incorrect and insulting. I am interested in the book, and am aware from both NPR, other talk radio, and newspapers the nature of the controversies surrounding the book. Nonetheless, this is an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias summarize subjects. That should be our objective here, not to recite endlessly every debate and mention of the President's work. To the extent that I'm biased about this work, I am biased in favor of it -- I respect President Carter, his grasp of foreign policy, and have read many of his books. That's not the problem. The length of the article is the problem. Please try to reduce the volume of material presented here, and present it in a summary fashion. Thanks. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 17:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Moving Tom Segev Paragraph

I'm moving the Tom Segev paragraph here. As it stands, we are cherrypicking bizarre things from Segev's quote. Segev concludes by saying that: "has no new ideas to offer and thus his book is something of a let-down, though this does not justify a rebuke. Not to Carter. We owe him for the peace with Egypt.", but this is not quoted. Segev points out several errors in the book and argues that the word "apartheid" was a poor choice, even though he agrees with the basic argument. Instead, we are quoting a section that is not a review or commentary on the book, but rather a commentary on the response to the book. This makes no sense to me. GabrielF 08:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Israeli historian and author Tom Segev writes in the Israeli daily Haaretz:

The book is causing an uproar among those in America who consider themselves as "friends of Israel," for one thing because of its title: "Palestine - Peace Not Apartheid." . . . Predictably, some are accusing Carter of anti-Semitism. Carter is closely following the responses, including on the Internet, and responding to his critics. He is prepared to lecture for free about his views –– but Jews don't want to hear, he complains. An Israeli reader won't find anything more in the book than is written in the newspapers here every day. . . . One reason the book is outraging "friends of Israel" in America is that it requires them to reformulate their friendship: If they truly want what's good for Israel, they must call on it to rid itself of the territories. People don't like to admit that they've erred; therefore, they're angry at Carter."[7]

Vandalism to this article

In due course I will report this article and the recent vandalism by some users editing it to administrators. Cease and desist. I have been working to present sources in an article that had few sources cited originally and which had completely-screwed up format. See the editing history over the past week or so. (updated)--NYScholar 07:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

If you believe that I'm vandalizing, than report it to WP:ANI, there's no need to threaten. We'll see if people actually think I'm vandalizing. GabrielF 07:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a warning to GabrielF: Please do not delete sections of text or valid links from Wikipedia articles. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. [Template] The sections that GabrielF is deleting are sections in which Palestinian-Americans and others sympathetic to Palestinians are expressing their comments on the subject of the article (Carter's book). GabrielF is removing them indiscriminately. They could (and will be in future) recast to read more effectively perhaps, but deleting them entirely is not good-faith editing; it is vandalism and it smacks of POV editing. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view violations abound in these deletions. Also, in the changes that he is making, he is introducing multiple typographical errors and not correcting them. (See the Democrats sec. that GabrielF worked on, e.g. Please proofread more carefully and make the corrections needed.)--NYScholar 07:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack removed

I do not appreciate the following comment that GabrielF posted on my talk page about this article editing dispute: I have moved it here so that all can see it: <<

note

I think you need to seriously read WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. Accusing someone of vandalism, having alternative motives, etc. is not appropriate. I could argue that you're pushing a POV just as easily as you could argue that I am pushing one. Further, see WP:OWN, you do not own Palestine:Peace not Apartheid, you are going to have to go with the consensus, and the editors who have recently looked at the page, including User:-Slash-, User:Morton devonshire, myself and User:Leifern all agree that the page is too long and difficult to read.GabrielF 09:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC) >>

Slash and Mortondevonshire and Leifern have not posted in this talk page in response to any of your comments, however. Leifern appears obsessed with a verb that for some time no longer appears in the article ("alludes to") in his section called "allusion" which I Wikified to no avail. Either you or Slash or Mortondevonshire seems to have lost all the note formats at some point, which I restored so that there were notes in the article. What a mess that created. I see no "consensus" here; it's the middle of the night and most people are asleep. Let this article alone for a few days so that other people can read it over the course of time and comment. I'm fed up with it at this point, given all the POV changes that you have engaged in. --NYScholar 09:13, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
This does not belong on the article talk page. You can dish it out but you can't take it. You have no problem calling people vandals and trolls, but it isn't acceptable for someone to advise you to read policy. You have no problem accusing others of pushing a POV at every turn, but you ignore comments on the POV that is inherent in the article at the moment (e.g. undue weight) and you happily promote insignificant pundits in order to fix what you perceive to be a bias in our culture.GabrielF 09:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I have also moved another comment replying to GabrielF from my talk page to this article page. I ask GabrielF to stop harassing me (both here and on my talk page): <>

I am not engaging in personal attacks: Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, we would like to remind you not to attack other editors. Please comment on the contributions and not the contributors. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you.. --NYScholar 09:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I did not create the material in the sections of reactions; I edited them to provide sources for the material that other people had added, and I provided transitions to identify or Wikified links to identify who or what these people are and/or are affiliated with as a means of providing information about their authority to be cited at all. When the quotations previously inserted by other editors were misleading due to partial quotations and wrenching the sense of the source out of context, I restored the missing parts of the quotations. They may be longer, but they are more accurate than they used to be. There were grave distortions in earlier presentations of quotations from sources.

If the some of the sources cited now appear to be less recognizably "notable" (famous, familiar) than others, it is because now it is clear who and what they are. (Before they were just names.) But their unfamiliarity to non-specialists in this subject (most editors) does not make their views not "notable." The reliability of the source is what makes it notable, as well as the representativenss of the source's factually-verified statement(s). However, it is also clear that one cannot delete their views if they are representative of a lot of other people's views of the book; the representativeness is notable. I don't think that GabrielF understands that. Also, despite the identification of the publications in which the article quotations inserted by other editors initially come from, GabrielF and some others do not seem to grasp the importance of those publications in that they are read by many people. Just because a Wikipedia editor is unfamiliar with a publication does not mean that a publication is not "notable." Some Wikipedia editors are better informed about the nature of publications and sources than others. To engage in such POV value judgments about what is or is not "notable" without any basis for making such judgments is not following Wikipedia's guidelines and policies linked in Wikipedia:Reliable sources. If a source is reliable, it is worthy of noting if it is concerned with the subject in a way that informs readers about the subject. The tendency to omit information because it appears not to be "important" from an editor's POV on the subject is not following "neutral point of view." What one editor finds important, another may find unimportant, but if it is factually relevant, "importance" is not a criterion for omission. --NYScholar 09:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Some general thoughts

Some general thoughts on improving this article:
1.The "Review and commentaries" section needs to be cut down considerably. Much of this comment needs to be moved to OTHER sections, because it is not a review or commentary on the book, but rather a specific issue unique to the book. Some examples of this are the Ross controversy, the Stein controversy, the use of the term "apartheid", the question of media suppression and anti-semitism. Carter's responses should be moved into these new sections so the response is right after the criticism and not 13 paragraphs away.

I disagree with these points. The material mentioned is from commentaries on the book and not on specific issues unique to the book. That is an absurd distinction; you are fudging things, clearly, to eliminate comments on the book. Carter's responses followed the sections of comments earlier, but other editors complained that the controversies were taking over the section on reactions. Carter deserves his own section of responses to the reactions (in general, and spefically; only a handful of sentences separate the sections and there are clear transitions reminding a reader what Ross, Dershowitz, Stein et al. said (briefly); anyone who reads the article from beg. to end (and not just piecemeal) can understand it. People print out these articles and read them offline too; one doesn't read articles only online as editors may do. --NYScholar 08:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

2. The "Review and commentaries" section should be ordered by the type of comment, rather than by the person. For example, "Carter has been widely criticized for misinterpretting resolution. Historian such and such says..., person two adds..., carter responds..." This way the notable part, the criticism, can go in the lead sentence of the paragraph rather than being buried at the end of the paragraph.

I suggest you propose the entire rewrite in talk; let's see what you can do. But don't delete the current version until you get a consensus on what you are proposing (an actual text); use sandbox for trial version.--NYScholar 08:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I suggested something similar earlier, see #Proposed new article structure. --70.51.228.233 16:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

3. Quotes need to be checked to see if we are accurately reflecting what the person is saying.

I've already checked all of them. They were accurately rendering what the person was saying as quoted until you started tinkering with them. The sources are all cited in the notes; try reading them yourself. I've already done all that work. --NYScholar 08:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
There are a lot of people checking quotes and looking over the changes NYScholar and others make. --70.51.228.233 16:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

4. If someone is so un-notable that we need three sentences explaining their title, why will a reader care what they think about this book?

Readers vary; their knowledge varies. Wikipedia operates with the assumption that its readers are of varied backgrounds and that articles must supply information either through Wikifying links to identify the person or item mentioned and/or through clear transitions. Apparently, you are unaware of the function of source transitions in identifying the nature of a source's authority. They are necessary. All sources are not equal in the nature of their authority. You are apparently a student, and perhaps you are not that well-versed in what teachers of research and writing (and Wikipedia) call "evaluating sources." --NYScholar 08:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Non-notability can not be judged by the number of sentences introducing an individual. For a while, most commentators were not being introduced in this article, just simply named, but after some discussion it was decided to describe them fully in this article. The question of notability is an important one, but it is better to use more objective measures. I strongly felt that GabrielF's removal from the article of Norman Finkelstein and Tom Segev based on claims of non-notability were prejudicial and inappropriate. --70.51.228.233 16:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I did not remove those quotes because the authors were not notable, I removed them because, in the case of Finkelstein, he wasn't talking about the book but the state of discourse in the US, which is redundant and not a review/commentary and in the case of Segev, sentences were cherrypicked from his article and his comments on the book itself were ignored (even though this is a section on reviews and commentary) in favor of his comments on accusations re: anti-semitism. GabrielF 16:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I see, if we went with the topic organization I suggested at the top of the talk page, we could have Segev' review in the review section and include his comments and Finkelsteins comments in the appropriate debate sections -- I would favor such an arrangement, it would make things a lot more clear and easy for the reader to follow. --70.51.228.233 16:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree that there should be one or two sections discussing allegations of suppression in the media and accusations of anti-semitism. It should start with Carter's op-ed claiming this. There are a number of quotes in the article regarding this allegation and many of them are redundant. I don't mind quoting Finkelstein and/or Segev but it should be one or two paragraphs summing up what critics are saying and then one or two paragraphs summing up the response. GabrielF 17:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

5. Rather than a section on responses from organizations, we should have a section on responses from the Jewish community, which should combine CAMERA, ADL and AJC into a summary of a couple of paragraphs.

Not all of these organizations are specifically "Jewish" organizations; e.g. the ADL deals with anti-defamation against others who are not Jews.--NYScholar 02:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Several people in this talk page have already questioned whether CAMERA is notable enough and reliable enough to include at all. People could add other organizations in the future that are not at all Jewish in make up; "Representative" implies that the organizations represent a community of people. The Wikified links make clear what the organizations are and who they represent (mostly).--NYScholar 02:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC) [my timestamps got lost somehow]
Doesn't this suggestion contradict directly with your above suggestion to that the responses "should be ordered by the type of comment, rather than by the person"? I think this is a very problematic suggestion since it involves trying to determine who speaks for the community. --70.51.228.233 16:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

6. I'm not sure that the Brandeis stuff is notable enough to include here. It takes up paragraphs and paragraphs and seems ultimately insignificant.

It is definitely notable enough to include. It is a controversy about the book that received a lot of press attention. To omit it is to mislead. --NYScholar 08:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
It is interesting. Why not summarize it into a few sentences -- 4 sentences with links to the original articles. It has become a non-issue because of how people reacted (and skillfully handled that hot potato), although it had the potential of being an issue for a while. (I should state that I am referring to the whole of the Brandeis incident, the invite requiring debate from Brandeis, the Op-Ed's from Dershowitz challenging and then mocking Carter, the refusal to debate from Carter and response to Dershowitz comments, and the pending (?) invite from Brandeis students to Carter and the clarifications from the Brandeis admins about the original invite.) --70.51.228.233 16:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

7. The Public Programs section also does not seem particularly notable and can probably go.

It too is highly notable. It is absurd to omit it. The book represents a "current event": see the tag. The programs are in the works (forthcoming), and updates to this article will add dates when they become available. [Had to add numbers so replies would post.]--NYScholar 08:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I understand why NYScholar put these links in, but they are pretty unusual for a Wikipedia article. It would be better if we linked to a single website which tracked up coming events of that nature. If you think about it, an Encyclopedia isn't for advertizing upcoming events. Anyways, once the event happens the notable results should be included in this article. --70.51.228.233 16:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
The event is "sold out"; this information is not an "advertisement" in any way for the event. The update is also that it is "sold out." It is noteworthy (see editing history for explanation).--NYScholar 02:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

GabrielF 08:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikiquotes alternative

One major suggestion that incorporates some of the above items (see tag re: quotes on article currently) would possibly be to reorganize most of the representative-reactions quotations into a very well-organized and very well-documented page of "sourced" Wikiquotes, with a tag to Wikiquotes placed appropriately in relation to a very brief summary about reactions. I've placed some summary sentences in the introductory part of this article entry (as a kind of guide for what follows). One could possibly rewrite very brief summary sections for topics relating to reactions if needed (but maybe they would no longer be needed, since the introduction now introduces the main issues of controversy [thus far; keep in mind: this is a "current event" and that could change). Almost all of the structure now organized as categories of organization and individual reactions (positive and negative) can be re-done as categorized sections in page(s) of Wikiquotes, in my view, as long as the material regarding sources in the notes remains properly and fully documented in a "Notes" or "References" section for such (a) Wikiquotes page(s). I would hate for all that sourcing work to go to waste. --NYScholar 11:13, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

GabrielF and others: Please stop putting all these additional sections in talk after the Notes section of this page. The notes will not post correctly if you do that. There are embedded notes in all this material that you have been deleting and moving to the talk page. (updated). --NYScholar 07:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey NYScholar. It is a great idea to have proper notes on the talk page but they just aren't designed for that and its pretty non-standard. You can push for it, but if GabrielF doesn't want to do it, there is little you can do. If you complain about it GabrielF can use it against you to claim you are disruptive or what not. Such arrangements only work if everyone wants to play together nicely, which isn't the case at the moment. The biggest issue with the notes is that the standard way of adding comments to the talk page, via the use of the "+" button at the top of the page, always places the new comments below your notes section. --70.51.228.233 16:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

If you need a place to park notes, please place them on Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid/Notes or similar page so that they don't mess-up the talk page. Thanks. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 19:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry; I really don't know how to do that. If you do, please do so. (See page that I provided for that purpose. It can't be a "Notes" page attached to the article proper; it is Notes for this talk page. The article link that I provided for this possible purpose is linked to "Talk" for this article (see "Note" below.)--NYScholar 20:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Talk pages don't need notes. If you need to mention a citation, just run it in-line like this: Whitehouse Pushes Hard on Iraq Plan, NY Times, January 11, 2007. Others need to be able to edit this talk page. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 20:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
You're missing the point; the note numbers are embedded notes (citations) in material that (mostly) GabrielF has been deleting from the article or embedded notes in other material quoted earlier. Without a "Notes" section, none of those reference citations show up. Yet there are numbers keyed to notes. I've archived them up to this point in time in Archive3. Much of what is on that talk page is in archive3 now. This page is getting too long for usefulness. It's time to start a new talk page? People can read the three archived pages up to today. --NYScholar 02:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment

This is a dispute over the length and readability of this article.

  • GabrielF believes that at 70+kilobytes of text, this article is too long. Further it is difficult to read because it contains too many quotes which are poorly organized. Further, in a number of cases a one-sentence quote is preceded by as many as three or four sentences explaining the background of the person being quoted, and GabrielF believes this information is unnecessary. GabrielF believes that the Reviews and Commentaries section needs to be considerably paired down, with non-notable quotes removed and other quotes reformatted so that the opinion is in the first sentence of the paragraph and not the last. Further, he believes that some material about specific disputes should be taken out of the giant Reviews and Commentaries section and placed in new sections describing those specific disputes. (E.g. disputes over the use of the word "apartheid", the resignation of Kenneth W. Stein, etc.)
  • NYScholar appears to object to deleting any sourced material from the page.13:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
That does not exactly restate my objections; please see them above. I object to removing sourced material violating Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. That is different from "any sourced material"; I do not object to removing "sourced material" that violates WP:BLP. See the links in the tagged notice and on that page; scroll up. The deletions are largely deletions of positive sourced comments from reliable and verifiable sources. That results in creating POV in this article; again, all this has been discussed at length by others earlier; scroll up.--NYScholar 20:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


Yes, I think the article is too long. But I think it's premature to reduce it, while it's controversial. My recommendation is that we let it grow organically until the "real world" controversy continues, and then work to shorten it while maintaining NPOV. --Leifern 15:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
The article is long, but one must admit that the debate over this article has been more charged and more wide ranging than most book discussions. GabrielF seems to favor trimming out those who defend Carter such as the very notable Tom Segev (removal [4]), and Norman Finkelstein (removal [5].) I would recommend that GabrielF, instead of just removing the people he doesn't like, work to summarize the opinions of them clearly thus reduce the quote bulk. Another way of shortening the article is to group similar quotes together where they are presented together in one summary, although with a slight extra for where they are different (an entropy reduction approach -- based on the idea of compression techniques, a subject that GabrielF as a computer science major should be familiar with -- if you will.) Outright removal of information, especially of notable individuals, is a disservice to our readers and will only lead to conflict -- imagine if I decided that Alan Dershowitz, who has written less books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and context than Tom Segev and Norman Finkelstein, wasn't enough of an expert to comment, it would cause an uproar of perceived censorship. --70.51.228.233 16:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
You are failing to assume good faith and ascribing motives to me where there is no basis in fact. You will note that I cut out Steve Israel's criticism of the book and cut the democrats criticism from six paragraphs to two. Also, I advocated cutting the ADL, AJC and CAMERA criticisms from three big paragraphs to a couple of shorter summary paragraphs. I think the letter to the carter center should be cut down to one or two sentences and the rest moved to that article. Dershowitz's stuff could also be cut down. I removed the positive reactions because they were from the most non-notable people (come on, Michigan Media Watch??) and because some of them were not really "positive reactions" to the book at all, but comments on the state of debate on the issue in the United States. My plan is to ultimately compress things, by adding introductory paragraphs to each section, summarizing the various positions, but if I just rewrite, I feel that someone will just add caveats and more quotes further contributing to the bloat. GabrielF 16:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Can you propose your topical organization on the talk page here in outline form for comment as I did earlier? You may be able to get some agreement if you approach it this way. BTW what is the difference from your position between Michigan Media Watch and CAMERA besides their stated POVs? --70.51.228.233 16:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
"Michigan Media Watch" gets 81 google hits[6], a fair comparison with CAMERA is not possible, because camera is a common word, but "Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America" gets about 42,000[7]GabrielF 17:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I've already responded to this misperception of the source; the article is not published by Michigan Media Watch; the article is published in a newspaper that says that it is the most widely-read Arab-American newspaper in America; Detroit, once the capital of Michigan, where it was established, has the largest population of Arab-Americans, including Palestinian-Americans, in the country; it is now published in Dearborn, Michigan. The notability and representativeness is the publication; the writer is simply identified by her position w/ Michigan Media Watch, which is defined for those who otherwise would not know what it is (most people who don't live in Michigan and who are not Arab-Americans. Apparently, she is a prominent Palestinian-American in Michigan. That is part of her notability; but the reason for including the information is so that people will know her affiliations (not that the affiliations themselves are notable). It is important to identify people who are otherwise unknowns by such information. This should be clear to anyone who understands the importance of evaluating sources in determining their reliability and notability. GabrielF misidentifies the organ (publication) by focusing on Michigan Media Watch as if it were the publisher, when it is not. The publisher is identified in his "about" webpage linked in the source citation note. One needs to read notes and follow the material linked in them!--NYScholar 02:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I will propose a new article structure sometime today. GabrielF 17:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

New article organizations

Various proposals, not in chronological order. Put together to aid discussion. --70.51.228.233 19:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal A

New article structure: I think the ipusers proposed article structure is a good start. For the first part of the article (up to Reviews and Commentaries) there are too many quotes. It is not encyclopedic to reproduce the author's words pretty much verbatim. We need to put this section into our own words. This is very rough, but it will give you a sense of what I'm talking about.

2. Critical Reaction
2.1 Summary - One paragraph summarizing the critical reaction to the book - mixed reviews, most notable reviewers (NYTimes, WaPo) criticized x,y,z. Other reviewers praised x,y,z.
2.2 1-2 paragraphs quoting from the most notable reviews, e.g. the reviews readers are most likely to encounter and are most likely to find useful in deciding whether to buy the book or what they think about it. This means the NYTimes and WaPo reviews, if there are reviews from other highly-notable sources (NYReview of books, London Review of Books, etc.) they should be included as well
2.3 Praise - One paragraph summarizing who praised the book and what they liked about it
2.3.1 Arab-American community (optional) - NYScholar thinks we need to include what the Arab-American community is saying about this book (see the Michigan Media Watch section above). Choose one or two representative quotes. If you label the section as support from the Arab-American community you won't need to spend three sentences explaining people's biases in the body of the paragraph (note that this applies for many different sections).
2.3.2 Carter's courage for speaking out despite a difficult climate - the electronic intifada quote and the Bisharat quote can go here
2.4 Criticism - one paragraph summarizing the reasons people are criticizing this book
2.4.1 - Fairness and accuracy - the David Harris quote can go here. The CAMERA quote can also go here, although it can be cut down a bit.
2.4.2 - Use of the word apartheid ( this might be better off in 3.something) - there are multiple quotes saying the same thing here, pick one or two that are notable, get rid of the rest. The Democrats could probably be moved here since that seemed to be the focus of their criticism
2.4.3 - charges of anti-semitism (brief) - response should go at the end of 3.1
3 - Carter's response to criticism
3.1 - Media bias - lead with a quote from Carter's op-ed piece, have a few sentences that put it in context (e.g. walt & mersheimer (sp), etc.) note that other's have agreed with him but don't spend a huge amount of space quoting them. In 1-2 paragraphs put responses to the criticism.
4 - controversy - a few sentences to summarize
4.1 - Stein resignation
4.2 - Ross stuff
4.3 - Brandeis stuff - I don't think it should be included, but here's where it should go
5. See also
6. Further reading
7. Notes

The public appearances section should be cut entirely. If the appearances are notable, they should be inline in other sections. GabrielF 17:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I like the semi-topical focus. A number of comments: (1) it is inappropriate to well poison any praise from the Arab American community by grouping them together, while you state that they have "biases" that the reader needs to be aware of the same can be said for other ethnic/ideological descriptors and we really don't want to start prefixing commentators as being simply "Jewish" or "Zionist" or "Christian", it leads to a poverty of thought and discussion because it is based on triggering prejudice, (2) the use of the term apartheid should be a controversies (although I prefer the term debate since it results in cooler discussions) since there are many that support its use (for example [8], triggered by Carter's book), (3) the charges of anti-Semitism should go in the debate section because there is a lot of responses to it, including from Carter. I still favor merging together Carter's response into the debates/controversies -- since I view it as part of the debates triggered by the book. Debates are what provocative books are supposed to do in open and free societies and I prefer describing it as such. It would be instructive to get the opinions of others as well. --70.51.228.233 18:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't see the arab-american section as well-poisoning at all. NYScholar insisted that the quotes were notable because "The relevance is the publication that the article is posted in: it is the largest newspaper in America for Arab Americans according to its publisher's website; this material needs to be restored to the article. Who the writer is is less significant than who published her article and the size of its audience." The only way I can see that this quote might be notable is as an example of the reaction to the book from one particular community. Otherwise, its redundant and non-notable. All I'm saying is that if you want to keep some of these quotes they have to contribute something and I'm suggesting that what they contribute is an understanding of one particular group's perspective. It might be better to get rid of the Institute for Middle East Understanding and Arab American News altogether. Your other two points are things that we can work out once we see what the text looks lie. GabrielF 19:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Let's move in this direction slowly? I would suggest pulling out the specific controversies and debates first into a separate section. That is straightforward and I think most will support it. I wish we didn't have so many parallel discussions going on, because it makes it difficult to get consensus decisions, we are like an ADHD kid off in all directions. --64.230.127.30 02:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal B

As per discussion immediately above and general recognition that the current article structure is inadaqute and leading to inferior results, I propose a new article structure which separates straight forward reviews of the book from the back-and-forth debates. The previous structure that separates "praise" from "responses and criticism" is really arbitrary and doesn't help the organization. The splitting of the responses into academics, organizations, politicians and so forth isn't that meaningful either. Thus I propose something similar to the below:

  • Introduction
  • 1. Book contents
    • Subsections
  • 2. Reviews
    • Subsections
  • 3. Debates
    • 3.1 Apartheid
    • 3.2 Stein resignation
    • 3.3 Plagiarism?
    • 3.4 Media bias?
    • 3.5 Anti-semitism?
  • 4. See also
  • 5. Further reading
  • 6. Notes

How does that seem? The debates probably should be listed in chronological order, which I think is roughly as given above. --64.230.125.2 03:19, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that structure. For example, no one has really accused Carter of "plagiarism" per se. To use the term is to inflate the map issue beyond what even the critic himself says on record. It is an interpretation of an as-yet unresolved issue regarding Carter's actual source of the map, which he has identified as not the critic's. The topical structure has a real danger of privileging the criticism that remains allegation and not fact. This is still a book by a living person--and WP:BLP prevails in constructing it. There is also the matter of according due process and respect to an author of a book that was published only last month and about which the reviews are still forthcoming--e.g., The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and other respectable book review publications. Too much reliance of second-hand (secondary) news reports and not enough on scholarly and critical sources. For example, until I located the actual Carter Center link to Carter's letter, no one had bothered to cite it. It is a primary source, not a secondary news report. It is more reliable and worthy of citation; I left the news report in because it provides a perspective on Carter's own words. But it should not be used instead of them in documenting what he actually says in the letter. There are these kinds of problems throughout this and other Wikipedia articles.
The structure needs to be as neutral as the content of the article needs to be. It needs to adhere to avoiding POV; and to follow W:NPOV. The proposed structure privileges the criticisms of the book and not its content. Adequate attention needs to be paid first to content, then to criticism in only reliable and verifiable sources, not mere second-hand reports. The criticism must be verifiable. --NYScholar 03:42, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it would privilege the criticism as much as you think -- for example, at least two of those debates would be headlined by Jimmy Carter, the apartheid debate and the media bias. Further more, if the plagiarism allegations are bunk it will clearly be seen in that section by the responses. Such a structure would be beneficial since it makes treats critics and supporters equally on the contentious matters -- we are not differentiating between "legitimate" debates and "overblow" debates in the structure, such distinctions would simply emerge in a reader from the properly cited and NPOV presentation of the material in each section. I would like to get the opinions of others on this matter -- because the article really does need a new more functional structure/organization. --64.230.125.2 03:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that the table of contents section be removed. It makes an already extremely sloppy article that much more sloppy. Do other book articles include tables of contents? (and if so, should they really?) Also, I hope there is an appropriate amount of skepticism regarding the overtly partisan and frankly ridiculous suggestions that pepper this whole talk page (e.g. the guy who suggests removing or minimizing the "criticism" section because it's just the Jewish/Israel lobby anyway.) Gni 19:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Until Amazon.com and other online booksellers provide a "look inside this book" or its publisher links to its table of contents, this article in Wikipedia provides information about the contents of the book otherwise not easily accessible (to those who don't already have the book). --NYScholar 04:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with organising the criticisms topically, because it will stop the article from turning in to just a large listing of information. I think the 'plagiarism' issue should be covered before 'media bias' and 'Anti-semitism' because the issue generated more coverage. --76.214.110.18 14:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposal C

This is still too much material. I suggest a more summary structure:
  • Summary, following Wikipedia Manual of Style
  • Introduction
  • 1. Book contents
    • Subsections
  • 2. Reviews -- limit to the 3 most significant.
    • Subsections
  • 3. Debates -- mention the 5 debates in summary fashion, but don't try to present the arguments in anything except summary fashion in the article (no pro this, con that)-- if you must, link to the external debates in the See Also or Further Reading sections.
    • 3.1 Apartheid
    • 3.2 Stein resignation
    • 3.3 Plagiarism?
    • 3.4 Media bias?
    • 3.5 Anti-semitism?
  • 4. See also
  • 5. Further reading
  • '6. Notes

Thanks for considering this. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 19:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

MD, one thought: Many of the book articles I've glanced though at do feature sections that describe the contents of the book. One extreme case is Harry_Potter_and_the_Prisoner_of_Azkaban which is completed dedicated to such a description -- but it is a work of fiction. More moderate cases of decent descriptions of the content of prominent non-fiction books are A_Brief_History_of_Time, Freakonomics, and How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People. From these precedents, completely removing any description of the books contents seems out of place, but it is longer than necessary in the current version. --70.51.228.233 19:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Another book article that I view as precedent for decent coverage of this one is Elie Wiesel's Night_(book). --70.51.228.233 19:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it's a matter of proportion, reflecting the importance and longevity of a work. Fifty years from now, people will still be reading and talking about Night, Potter, and Dale Carnegie, but Freakonomics and this book will just not be important, as they are topical and thoughtful, but hardly the most important works in their genre. Carter's work, Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation, is probably a good indicator -- it was well-received in 1993, but not on any academic or policy reading list today. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 19:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Interesting original research predictions, what is your academic background and track record? Either way, I still think you are out in left field and that your energy trimming excessive articles is better spent on the massive cancer that is Category:Pokemon than here. I don't understand your motivation and I guess you and I still don't agree. --70.51.228.233 20:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
You did not respond to the Carter example, and I finished my doctorate prior to the '93 book. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 20:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
The comparison seems invalid in that in 1993 Carter wasn't being called anti-Semitic by the ADL and others. I think the book is notable in the wide variety of conflicting opinions on it and the forcefulness of some who have commented on it. Quite a few, although not a majority, of people are saying it will permanently stain Carter's reputation -- and if you restrict the analysis of Carter's reputation to certain circles this is true. Your comparison and extrapolation based his 1993 book is original research first of all, and second it is crystal balling in a negative way. Googling for both shows that the 1993 book has 500 hits for its full title and the latest has 500,000 hits for its full title. A search of NYTimes archives finds two hits for the 1993 book and more than twenty for the latest. The 1993 book didn't hit the bestseller list, while this was has been listed for a number of weeks now. Apples and oranges. --70.51.228.233 21:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I might be wrong about the bestsellers list for the 1993 book, but I couldn't find any evidence either way in my searches, thus I assume it didn't. Please prove me wrong. --70.51.228.233 21:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The order (re-order) proposed:

5. See also
6. Further reading
7. Notes

(suggested in some of those alternatives) is not logical.

See current, in my view, more logical order:

Notes
References (including a subsection on Further reading last)
See also

Consult the earlier editing history for this structure as well as the talk page. Much discussion of this article's structure has already occurred on this talk page and some discussion is summarized in the history of editing changes. Notes follow text most logically. See also includes internal (Wikipedia) links. External links usually come last in Wikipedia articles if there is no See also. See also logically follows everything else in a Wikipedia article and serves as cross-references throughout Wikipedia, prior to categories, etc. There are various ways of listing See also throughout Wikipedia; as a reader, I generally prefer that section to come last, and find it most useful as the last item prior to categories (another Wikipedia list). --NYScholar 21:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This is the current structure of the article (from its table of contents): Before re-inventing the wheel, it needs to be posted as well for comparison:

Contents
1 The table of contents of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
2 Purpose, main argument, and major points
2.1 "The ultimate purpose"
2.2 Thesis: How to achieve "permanent peace in the Middle East"
2.3 "Some major points"
3 Published reviews and commentaries
3.1 Book reviews by journalists
3.2 Selected positive reactions to the book
3.2.1 Journalists and other representative media commentators
3.2.2 Academics
3.3 Selected negative reactions to the book
3.3.1 Representatives of organizations
3.3.2 Politicians and legislators
3.3.3 Academics
[omission of non-parallel heading; needs to be revised later] 4 Carter's response to criticism of the book
4.1 "A Letter to Jewish Citizens of America"[48]
4.2 "Reiterating the Keys to Peace" in the Middle East
5 Public and other programs pertaining to the book
6 Notes
7 References
7.1 Book excerpts
7.2 Book reviews
7.3 Related opinion-editorials and interviews by Jimmy Carter
7.4 News accounts by others
7.5 Further reading
8 See also

With the omission of a single heading that doesn't fit that structure ("Resignations" [sic]), that is a neutral structure. The proposals appear less neutral.

Once again, it appears to me that the "proposals" veer (again) toward POV and away from following Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. In the "restatements" and "summaries" POV is injected; privileging of some commentators' and reviewers' POVs over others (via deletions) occurs; restatement rather than quotation has in the past led to distortions of the sources' comments and the insertion of the editors' own POVs. See above talk sections for details of earlier editors' comments about the same matters discussed recently by returning editor(s).--NYScholar 21:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Needs reconsideration (re-formatting) before re-incorporation in article

[moved to talk page for work] <<

Resignations

In January 2007, fourteen advisors to Carter's human rights organization resigned in protest of the book.[9] >>

This external link was thrown in by someone without regard for the prevailing style of formatting of notes for sources in this article (see editing history and this talk page re: that problem earlier).

The source needs to be listed properly (information such as: author, title, publication, date of publication [online posting], date accessed); it needs to be deemed reliable; and it needs verification. The heading does not match the rest of the article's structure; items included are published sources of "Reviews and commentaries" on the book; not "actions" (e.g., "resignations"). This needs rethinking. This is an article relating to a living person: see tag above. Deletions of unverified material from unchecked potentially unreliable sources are appropriate; restoration can occur after checking, verification of reliability of the source, and re-formatting of the source as a note citation. --NYScholar 21:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Verification underway; note construction: Here's some material for a note: author: Associated Press [from byline: "The Associated Press - ATLANTA"] headline/title: "14 Carter Center Advisers Resign in Protest Over Book" (incorporate URL as link to title) online posting of AP report publication: AccessNorthGA.com date: January 11, 2007. date accessed: January 11, 2007.

Passage from which the information derives:

Fourteen members of an advisory board to Jimmy Carter's human rights organization resigned on Thursday to protest his new book, which criticizes Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories.

The resignations from The Carter Center board are the latest backlash against the former president's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," which has drawn fire from Jewish groups, been attacked by fellow Democrats and led to the resignation last month of Kenneth Stein, a center fellow and a longtime Carter adviser.

"You have clearly abandoned your historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side," the departing members of the Center's Board of Councilors told Carter in their letter of resignation.

The above passage could be useful in introducing or developing a section that is not part of "Reviews and commentaries," but part of a preceding general discussion of facts about the controversies and illustrations of the kinds of controversies generated by the book and its reception (which has itself led to additional controversies). --NYScholar 21:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Given the "current event" tag, I have updated the introduction to the article w/ a reference to the above information and a note citation. I've altered a heading in the table of contents listed to make it clearer that the article incorporates: "Published reviews and commentaries on the book." --NYScholar 21:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Talk Pages Don't Function Well With Notes

Talk pages don't function well with notes -- please show some consideration here. If you need to mention a citation, just run it in-line like this: Whitehouse Pushes Hard on Iraq Plan, NY Times, January 11, 2007. Others need to be able to edit this talk page. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 01:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The notes function if you leave them alone; GabrielF has removed so much sourced material that all the sources are lost without the Notes showing up here. Talk about "consideration!" Plenty of other talk pages that I have read have Notes sections in them. Removing the Notes is removing sources in material that GabrielF (mostly) removed earlier. See vandalism re: guidelines about such deletions. (I have to go back to the history to get something I lost in moving Introd. below. Bear w/ me.) --NYScholar 01:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

References here on talk page

Can we lose this or move to a subpage or something? It makes it hard to see what is happening. F.F.McGurk 01:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, it appears to be just limited to the section above [below]. That really shouldn't be at the bottom of the page; I thought someone had put a specific references section here for some reason. F.F.McGurk 01:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I've asked for help with getting this Notes section to work for people; I don't know how else to do it. See my "N.B." below. I just click on "edit" this page to add things. I don't think it's much more different than clicking on a "+"; it's just a question of trying to retain the sources that editors have moved into talk from the article. One does not want to lose the sources; they are needed for future editing and fixing problems in this article introduced by deletions being done, particularly in the past day or so. --NYScholar 02:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I have removed them. It is very non-standard. I suggest to NYScholar that he push for a change in Wikipedia software to this extent. I think he/she can make a good case. But I have removed them as that is the consensus. Sorry. --64.230.127.30 02:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I archived them. They are in Archive 3. The previous user engages in vandalism otherwise, deleting links and sources. --NYScholar 02:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
The notes are not appropriate. It is idiosyncratic and unnecessary. I recommend you bring up the issue in a discussion on the Wikipedia:Village pump - because it is an issue all Wikipedia talk pages have, and thus we should strive for a global solution, not fight it out repeatedly on this one particular talk page. --64.230.127.30 04:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

POV removed from article for discussion on talk page

This addition takes liberties with this article, ignoring the tag re: neutrality at top of article page.

Here's another version of it for discussion prior to putting anything like this in an encylopedia article on a highly-controversial book. Efforts need to be made to avoid POV consistently. No one has the right in editing this article to interject their own POVs in it. The "Introduction" needs better sourcing. A source can be found to document the "mixed reviews" statement. A word like "panned" (removed) is absurdly POV. I see no effort made in the previous version of this so-called "Introduction" to avoid POV and every effort to interject it prior to a neutral presentation of the various reviews and commentaries (which run the gamut from positive to negative. Generally, one presents positive viewpoints prior to negative viewpoints; it is just a matter of common courtesy and consideration. To focus on the negative first is misleading. --NYScholar 01:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, this is Slash. I(+some people from IRC) am trying to clean up the quote farm in this article, and feel that the quotes which only say "this article is good" and "this article is bad" should be removed and a short section should be added with the references. It should look like this (in my opinion):

Colonel Sanders(ref), Bob(ref), and ...(ref) support his policies while Person 1(ref), person 2(ref), and person 3(ref) object to them. { Slash | Talk } 01:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

What is this reference to "some people from IRC" supposed to mean in relation to registered editors of Wikpedia? This is not how one reaches "consensus" in editing Wikipedia articles, as far as I know. People have to post as Wikipedia editors; what on earth are we supposed to make of "+some people from IRC": this is not a "free for all" in that sense. Wikipedia has procedures, guidelines, and policies for editing. Editors need to sign in and comment themselves. No one can give credence to this kind of report of what some unknown people who may not be registered Wikipedia editors say. Anonymous IP users also are not reliable in the same way that those with some editing identity and editing history and identifiable following of Wikipedia's editing guidelines and poliices are reliable (relatively). I've never seen any kind of reference like this before (except perhaps in blocked users notices).
This is an article in Wikipedia and Wikipedia has procedures to follow. Please check the links to them on the home page of Wikipedia in "editing" and also please read the material linked in WP:BLP. This is getting really ridiculous.
Moreover, there are now 3 archives of material on this article; the consensus is not established that there is a so-called "quote farm" going on here; that is the opinion of some people who have been posting here only in the past day. This article has been constructed over now over a month, not the one day that I have seen these (I think) far-fetched complaints.
If that is a problem, one alternative that I suggested above is to construct a Wikiquotes page and link to it if you want, but stop complaining about too many quotations. The article documents its citations with sources. That's what articles do to maintain neutral point of view and reliability and verifiability.
For those who need to know what the sources contain, try reading the notes in the article for more information. If I hadn't constructed all those notes, you wouldn't even be able to do that. Don't throw in external links. The article has a prevailing format for documentation (see Notes in the article). Verification is easier if one has the full information (author, title, publication, date of pub., date of access, etc.) --NYScholar 03:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Moratorium on new material

The page now stands at 80kB, or nearly 1.5 times as large as Bible. I propose a moratorium on adding new material (except for developing events such as today's resignations) until the current stuff can be cleaned up.GabrielF 00:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

No such "moratorium" limiting (in effect censoring) what is added is reasonable (in my view). Not everyone agrees with GabrielF that this article needs as much "cleaning up" as he seems to think. There are widely differing opinions among the whole host of editors (throughout this talk page, not just in the past day that he has rejoined this community on this article). I do not feel that one day's viewpoint on the article suffices as determining its future direction. Too many people who have worked previously and recently on it are in disagreement with what he has been doing to the article recently. There is no general consensus on what to do with this article. (There appears only to be consensus among GabrielF and some of his friends whom he has apparently enlisted for assistance with this editing dispute.)
Further reviews of the book will appear (the NYT rev. appeared only this past weekend); there is no compelling reason why further developments of this article should be, in effect, censored by GabrielF or anyone else.
The development of this article is within the guidelines of Wikipedia (except perhaps for length warnings, which are also just guidelines and not policies.
GabrielF appears to want to establish his own policies about this article (and book articles in general), but no such policy exists to prevent development of this article within existing guidelines and other policies of Wikipedia. The policies that are already tagged and alluded to are those pertaining to WP:BLP, including Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which I think that many of his deletions were violating in his effort to retake "control" of this article. I have proposed (see above) using a Wikiquotes page or pages of Wikiquotes for some of the quotations to be moved to; I don't see him doing any kind of that work. I see him deleting and complaining but not really contributing new writing that resolves the issues about which he complains.
It is easy to complain; it is harder to contribute sourced material that is both reliable and neutral and in keeping with the importance of this article on a book by a former president of the United States of America on an issue of crucial significance to the world, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the future of the Middle East. If the subject (the book) were not important and noteworthy, it would not be generating the kind of attention and controversy that it has done thus far and will probably continue to do as more and more reviews and media programs occur relating to it. The problems that the book confronts are going to be with the world for some time to come, and it is not likely that in the near to mid-distant future (10-30 years) that they will be fully resolved. The pertinence of this "current event" is in that context. --NYScholar 01:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with GabrielF. This article needs a complete overhaul. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 01:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The article should be cut down, but there is no need for a declaration of a moratorium, which is needlessly divisive. --64.230.127.30 01:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Support. { Slash | Talk } 01:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Oppose, no precedent. Support sensible editing. --64.230.127.30 01:55, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I do want to see the article reorganized topically as discussed above, and to an extent I find that NYScholar is a little too enthusiastic. I would recommend that he/she take a break from this article for a bit. Sometimes opposition such as NYScholar's to change can create reactionary anger that leads to the perpetuation of conflict with everyone hunkering down in the trenches firing salvos at each other -- then it becomes a matter of who has the most editors in ideological lock step, a combination that doesn't result in high quality articles. Let me say this again, I recommend that we comment above on the proposals for article reorganization, because we have put this off for too long. --64.230.127.30 02:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Is this a vote? If so, I strongly oppose this rather odd suggestion. CJCurrie 01:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Just edit smart. F.F.McGurk 01:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Introduction

Revised version:

Palestine: Peace not Apartheid received mixed reviews from critics.[citation needed] Whereas a number of journalists and academics have been praising Carter's book, specifically lauding his courage for speaking honestly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially in a media environment which they believe to be hostile to opponents of Israel's policies, two reviews, appearing in The Washington Post and The New York Times, respectively, have faulted Carter's "anti-historical understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and his "narrow perspective."[8][9] Their negative views have been echoed by some Democratic politicians and leaders of American Jewish organizations.

This introduction requires discussion on the talk page; an earlier version veered back to POV and away from neutrality; it is not permissible to inject the editors' own POVs into this article. See the neutrality tag on the article. Highlighting negative reviews of the book is not in keeping with neutral point of view guidelines in Wikipedia.--NYScholar 01:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's GabrielF's earlier version:

Palestine: Peace not Apartheid received mixed reviews from critics. Two of the most influential newspapers in the United States, The New York Times and The Washington Post, panned the book, respectively faulting Carter's "narrow perspective"[9] and "anti-historical understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"[8]. These criticisms were echoed by several prominent Democratic politicians, as well as leaders of several major American Jewish organizations. On the other hand, a number of journalists and academics praised Carter's book, specifically lauding his courage for speaking honestly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially in a media environment they believe to be hostile to opponents of Israel's policies.

Notes on Introduction

The last version by NYScholar sounds best so far and more NPOV. Needs more sourcing though. F.F.McGurk 02:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I added the introduction; more sourcing would be helpful for the first sentence, I think; others may not think it necessary, but it would be more convincing with a source and look more neutral than that first sent. looks now. --NYScholar 02:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Current event

Added some new information to the article (refer to "current event" tag); see editing history for explanations. --NYScholar 23:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This article is tagged as a "current event" {{Current|date=April 2008}}

GabrielF keeps deleting relevant material from this article: restored:

On February 22, 2007, former President Jimmy Carter will participate in a "conversation" about Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at the Carter Center, moderated by Conflict Resolution Program Director Matthew Hodes. The event became sold out in early January 2007.[10]

This is a current event and updating it is within guidelines of current event articles. This is not an "advertisement" for the event; the event is now "sold out." It is notable, given that it involves both a former president of the U.S. and a former secretary of state of the U.S.

As there is a note number in that passage too, I've added a "Notes" section for it to post in [updated due to archiving; Notes now appear in Archives 3 and 4 (this one).--NYScholar 23:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)]

Stop reverting my "Notes" section; there are numbered embedded notes throughout this talk page that can appear if there is such a section; I've saved it (prior to this last note) in Archive3. There is no prohibition against having a "Notes" section in talk pages. I've seen a lot of talk pages that have them, so that people who post references citations can have them show up. Otherwise they are blank links. There is no need to contact Wikipedia because there is no prohibition against such a section in talk pages. See Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines I'm issuing a 3RR warning to the anonymous IP address user who is deleting this section continually. Wikipedia:Three-revert rule

In general: Please just post below now with "+" feature, as you wish; that was the only legitimate complaint that people may have had against there being this section. --NYScholar 04:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC) (updated due to archiving) --NYScholar 23:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Objectivity over Neutrality

I believe a review of current policy in the region should be revisited in order to provide clarity in deciding which reviews of President Carter's book, whether pro or con, can be considered a useful or meaningful contribution to this article which attempts to tackle a very difficult issue. Any reviews that are linked should, in my opinion, offer some type of alternative peace proposal to President Carter's. If not, why bother posting it? Israel and Palestine have both contributed in derailing the peace process. Its easy to post someone's book review but maybe more emphasis should be placed on identifying objective reviews. Neutrality is not always a good thing. The golden mean rule for example does not neccessarily reflect objectivity. Objectivity should always trump neutrality. I would try to stay away from news publications and the associated press reviews as they tend to parrot declarations. Emphasis should be balanced more toward academic or scholarly reviews, and former negotiatiors- specifically Dennis Ross and Zbigniew Brzinski. Maybe Kissinger but he does not reflect the expertise or depth of knowledge for this region. Their thoughts should be considered more appropriate for further analysis since they had each participated in negotiations along with Carter. Who the heck cares what a blow hard from the AP press has to say. They just want to sell papers. They provide more depth for people interested in learning about this horrible maestrom of failed leadership and unkept promises.--—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.108.65.188 (talk • contribs) 18:15, January 12, 2007 (UTC)

Your suggestions really do not seem to be in keeping with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view or to follow entirely the instruction at the top of [the talk] page: "This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject." "Neutrality" not "objectivity" (See the distinctions following links in W:NPOV) is Wikipedia's editing policy. Please see the various Wikipedia editing guidelines and policies linked in the tag at top for WP:BLP. For earlier comments pertaining to editing this article, please read the previous discussions archived now in archives 1-4, with 4 being the most recent comments posted on this talk page. Please sign comments. Thank you. --NYScholar 23:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC) (Updated, due to archiving. Changed "this talk page" to "[the talk] page." Please see the talk page of this article for the tagged headers with their links for further guidance. Thank you.)--NYScholar 23:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Notes

  1. ^ allude (The Free Dictionary; sources used by it). (Updated.)
  2. ^ George Bisharat, Truth at last, while breaking a U.S. taboo of criticizing Israel, Philadelphia Inquirer January 2, 2007.
  3. ^ a b George Bisharat, Truth at last, while breaking a U.S. taboo of criticizing Israel, Philadelphia Inquirer January 2, 2007.
  4. ^ Norman Finkelstein, The Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter's Book, CounterPunch December 28, 2006, accessed January 3, 2006.
  5. ^ Sherri Muzher, "Reality for Palestinians," The Arab American News December 5, 2006, accessed January 8, 2007; for further information, see Michigan Media Watch; About Publisher Osama Siblani; and Sherri Muzher, ""Do Israelis practice apartheid against Palestinians? South Africans See the Parallel with Wall, Other Methods Carter Describes," The Detroit News December 27, 2006, Editorials & Opinions, accessed January 8, 2007.
  6. ^ Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, by Jimmy Carter", Institute for Middle East Understanding, November 15, 2006. 
  7. ^ Tom Segev,"Memoir of a Great Friend," Haaretz December 12, 2006, accessed January 8, 2007.
  8. ^ a b Jeffrey Goldberg, "What Would Jimmy Do?" Washington Post December 10, 2006.
  9. ^ a b Ethan Bronner, "Jews, Arabs and Jimmy Carter," The New York Times Book Review January 7, 2007, accessed January 7, 2007.
  10. ^ Conversations at the Carter Center 2006-2007, accessed December 24, 2006. (Free admission, RSVP required. [Updated: "This event is sold out."])