User:Timeshifter

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Have PC, will travel. Just another guy with a PC. :)

Image:Intifada deaths.svg
Category:War casualties and Second Intifada

Contents


[edit] WikiProjects and more

Wikipedia policy
Article standards
Neutral point of view
Verifiability
No original research
Biographies of living persons
Working with others
Civility
Consensus
No personal attacks
Dispute resolution
No legal threats
Global principles
What Wikipedia is not
Ignore all rules

I am a member of these WikiProjects:

Learn about:

[edit] Userboxes

This user is a member of AWWDMBJAWGCA
WAIFDSPBATDMTD.
This user has been on Wikipedia for
2 years, 8 months and 4 days.
This user has been a member of Wikipedia since 7 October 2005.
This user is a member of WikiProject Illustration.
Kindness Campaign This user is a member of the Kindness Campaign.
CSB This user is a member of the Wikiproject Countering Systemic Bias
This user strives to maintain a policy of neutrality on controversial issues.
This user is a member of WikiProject Userboxes.
This user is a participant of WikiProject Lists
This content has an uncertain copyright status and is pending deletion. You can comment on its removal. This user is a member of WikiProject Drug Policy.

[edit] Graphics tools, methods, links

Related categories for diagrams, charts, graphs, maps:

There are additional resources below that are not directly listed in the above links.

Another online charting and graphing tool: Zoho DB and Reports [1] is the name of the online database and reporting application in the Zoho Office Suite. It can also "create charts, pivots, summary and other wide-range of reports through powerful drag & drop interface". Here are some samples of reports, graphs, charts, and tables.

IrfanView is a great, highly-rated freeware image editor.

GIF images are fine for graphics on wikipedia. See this discussion, and this one.

Transparency works in GIF images. I am not familiar with all the intricacies though. Many graphics do not need transparency. Especially when used on wikipedia pages. I noticed that GIF images using transparency have to be done correctly if the images are to be scaled. Otherwise one gets the jaggy, laddered edges. There are ways to make the transparency work correctly with GIF images according to this:

[edit] Copying maps and charts from PDF files

Ask for map help of any kind on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps talk page, or ask the project participants directly on their talk pages.

Another very active place to seek map help is at:

See many map sources, help, work, and template links here:

It is usually better if uploaders make and upload PNG or GIF copies of maps and charts found in PDF documents. PNG and GIF are free, lossless, uncompressed, sharper formats. Please do not use the JPG image format for map and chart graphics. JPG images, and subsets cropped from them, get progressively more and more blurry since JPG is always compressed. Even at the highest quality levels.

I use the freeware IrfanView. It is great for pasting in full or cropped sections of PDF maps, and then converting to GIF or PNG. One can continue to crop further subsets without loss of clarity.

Image formats such as JPEG (JPG) that use lossy data compression, are generally not as good for images that have sharp lines and text in them. When scaled the compression process used for these formats can make lines and text appear "fuzzy" (especially at higher compression levels), even if they were sharp when originally created.

This is not usually a problem with thumbnail JPG images in Wikipedia articles. People can click the image to enlarge it and see a sharper version of the image. But with scaled, intermediate-sized JPG images in a Wikipedia article it can be a problem. That is because the MediaWiki software compresses the image somewhat while scaling it, and the image may look "fuzzy", and have compression artifacts. MediaWiki does not scale JPG images using the highest quality settings.

Even at the highest quality settings there is no JPG setting for saving an image that will not compress the image a little. It is always a lossy compression. See: [2]

[edit] WikiProject Countering Systemic Bias open tasks

WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks
This project creates new articles and improves neglected ones.


[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine/Open tasks

WikiProject Palestine open tasks
This project creates new articles and improves neglected ones.


[edit] My bias

I support WP:NPOV.

I am pro-Palestinian. I also support progressives from any wing of Israeli politics. I support a two-state solution concerning Israel and a future state of Palestine.

[edit] Systemic bias in English Wikipedia and English media.

See:

Ultra-nationalist editors and tag teams are bad enough. Systemic bias is even more difficult for wikipedia and WP:NPOV neutrality. Wikipedia is about neutrality (WP:NPOV). If more editors fully understood it, there would be less problems. If more people allowed all significant viewpoints to be shown (from reliable sources), then there would be less complaints, because people could not say that their POVs were not being expressed.

People who insist that ONLY their particular POV be expressed on a wikipedia page will not be happy, and should leave, or be banned (at least temporarily), from wikipedia. It is against a core wikipedia policy (WP:NPOV). WikiProject "Countering systemic bias" is about expanding wikipedia's expression of all significant viewpoints. Especially, those viewpoints suppressed by institutionalized bias, racism, bigotry, ignorance, culture, etc..

I usually say something concerning unbalanced POVs (even ones I agree with) when it is brought up concerning parts of articles I have worked on. I try to be intellectually honest and fair. I don't just do this out of charity. I want my edits to be treated the same way by others.

When I point out some unbalanced POV that an editor has inserted, I want them to be intellectually honest too. Fair is fair. It is common-sense fair play. When I say "Unbalanced POV" I am referring to a POV being expressed in an article without the balance of other POVs. Wikipedia maintains a neutral point of view in the narrative voice of the article by expressing the various POVs in the form of X says Y.

[edit] Israeli human rights violations in the Palestinian territories

Note: It seems things have been improving since the creation of Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration after this section was first written.

The following discussion between the lines was copied from

There doesn't seem to be a good article on the Israeli occupation of the territories, including such things as security arrangements, the barrier, checkpoints, travel restrictions, settlements, citizenship, roads, water rights and so on. There is some information in Allegations of Israeli apartheid, but that's focussed on the word "apartheid" rather than more general. —Ashley Y 09:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Please see
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Arab-Israeli_conflict#April_2007
I copied this from that section:
As for human rights abuses under occupation please see
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Arab-Israeli_conflict#February_2007
Here is the relevant info copied from there:
Accusations against Israel of war crimes during the Al-Aqsa Intifada (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Allegations against Israel of war crimes during the Al-Aqsa Intifada (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)
Some editors and admins improperly deleted this page, and blocked all attempts to restore the page, and to rename the page. See Talk:Allegations against Israel of war crimes during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. It has been suggested that the info in the article that this talk page refers to could be merged with Al-Aqsa Intifada. See this AFD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Accusations against Israel of war crimes during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The closing admin for that AFD said the material should be kept. Currently the article redirects to Al-Aqsa Intifada. The article can no longer be found at its original location except in some of the page revisions such as this one. The original page is also found here: User:Timeshifter/Al-Aqsa Intifada Archive. Old page‎. In that location the embedded links have been converted to footnote links. That way the relevant material can be more easily moved to other wikipedia pages. There is probably too much material to move all of it to existing pages, because no page focuses only on the topic of human rights under Israeli occupation. One suggestion has been to put the info in a completely new article with a new title. This title could not be used: "Human rights in the Palestinian territories". It currently redirects to Human rights in the Palestinian National Authority. That page does not cover human rights violations by Israeli occupation. There are other possibilities for titles: "Human rights under Israeli occupation," or "Human rights in Israeli-controlled territories" or "Alleged human rights violations in Israeli-controlled territories" or something else. There are parallels in article names such as Human rights in pre-Saddam Iraq and Human rights in Saddam's Iraq. This may help: Wikipedia:Naming conflict. See also: Portal:Human rights and Category:Human rights for ideas. Over time WP:NPOV help is needed to move the lengthy info. You can help. It may be possible to move some of the info to here: Human rights in Israel#Israel's record: human rights in the occupied territories. Maybe a "further information" link from it could link to a spinout article titled "Israel's human rights record in the occupied territories." --Timeshifter 03:39, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
So, it seems that it will take some dedication and WikiProject teamwork to get WP:NPOV info into wikipedia in articles focused specifically on those topics. --Timeshifter 10:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

There is the article Israeli-occupied territories. Its scope includes the Golan Heights as well as the Palestinian Territories. Sanguinalis 13:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to that article. I think that article needs to be vastly expanded, and/or WP:SPINOUT articles created, to include more info on the things mentioned by Ashley Y (especially the hardships experienced by Palestinians): "such things as security arrangements, the barrier, checkpoints, travel restrictions, settlements, citizenship, roads, water rights and so on." Also, the human rights abuses that are alleged in the info I linked to higher up.
Occupation of the Palestinian territories redirects to Palestinian territories. I can find no wikipedia page focussed on the Israeli-imposed hardships, or on the alleged Israeli human rights abuses, in the Palestinian territories. Looking at the edit history of Israeli-occupied territories is enlightening.
The main little bit of focussed info on the topic is at
Human rights in Israel#Israel's record: human rights in the occupied territories.
I think it is an obvious systemic bias to put that info there. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. The Palestinian territories are NOT in Israel. Read the article Palestinian territories. Israel occupies the Palestinian territories, at least according to the UN and most of the world. So why does wikipedia treat it differently at times? Why is the main discussion of alleged Israeli human rights abuses buried in a non-obvious location? It would take a determined reader to find it. The average wikipedia reader may not find it.
Please see also:
Wikipedia:Notice_board_for_Palestine-related_topics#October_2007 --Timeshifter 14:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with all of the above. Sanguinalis 02:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

End of section copied from

[edit] Israeli Foreign Ministry's organized campaign on Wikipedia

Please see:

Related administrator arbitration, actions, incidents, etc.:

[edit] DMI Comparison between Anonymous Palestinian and Israeli Wikipedia Edits

Using WikiScanner the Digital Methods Initiative (DMI) site has an analysis in progress called:

So far, Israeli anonymous edits outnumber Palestinian anonymous edits by around a 4 to 1 margin.

[edit] Isarig and his sockpuppets banned from editing anything relating to Arabs and Israel.

Note: It looks like Isarig has exercised his right-to-vanish since this section was first written. See this deletion log and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles#User:Isarig is no longer with us. See also the "right-to-vanish" reason mentioned here. His past contributions can now be found here:

Isarig was almost permanently banned from wikipedia because of his use of sockpuppets in order to favor the ultranationalist Israeli POV in many articles. I call this the "Israel can do no wrong" POV.

December 20, 2007 diff. Avi wrote (emphasis added): "Just for reference, I talk with Fayssal before he performed the block, and I agree with his action. Isarig, you have to demonstrate the ability to consistently edit articles completely separate from anything relating to Arabs and Israel, in a neutral, sock-free fashion, for a significant length of time, before the ban is lifted. Continued violation of the terms of your probation may result in ban extension or permanence."

August 30, 2007 topic ban placed on User:Isarig for at least 6 months, with possible extensions. See:

Sockpuppets confirmed August 24, 2007. See:

Confirmed. The following users are the same:

These may not be all the Isarig sockpuppets. I don't believe Isarig should be allowed to edit any part of wikipedia until he reveals all his sockpuppets. Some "Truth and reconciliation commissions" require public confession of all crimes before any leniency is allowed.

I believe the topic ban should be extended to at least a year. Other people have gotten a complete ban from editing all topics for a year for smaller infractions of the rules.

[edit] Related Portals, WikiProjects, Notice boards

[edit] Barnstars

These were copied from my user talk page, and its archives. The latest one is on top.

The Working Man's Barnstar
For your work on compiling detailed maps, free images, and in your efforts in categorization. Tiamut 20:24, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Diligence
For your efforts at organizing regional maps in the commons and your patience in explaining those efforts Tiamut 22:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
For remaining cool and encouraging others to do so, while retaining editorial integrity and passionately advocating for the truth (all POVs) to be presented :) Tiamut 10:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Diligence
For diligence on the Iraq War subtitle debate and for helping solve a very tough issue. Also, nice work on keeping everyone (myself included) honest on the various casualties sections. Nicely done. Publicus 21:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Impolite spam fighters

Some of the info from this section has been moved to the archive page:

Many spam fighters and spam admins need a crash course in civility. See WP:CIVIL.

Better yet would be to create a new policy that says that unregistered users can not add links to the external link sections of articles, or to lists.

This policy could be pointed out in the edit window of articles. Since everyone would know of this policy, then anyone could enforce it. We would no longer need the specialized services of most of those disruptive spam fighters and spam admins who create so much ill will among both newbies and experienced editors.

This new policy would not be an arbitrary policy like the current spam policy that is enforced in many cases by robotic spam-fighting fanatics who rarely actually contribute to articles themselves, and thus have little understanding of the compromises made to get articles written. These spam fighters parachute into articles and delete links agreed to by the editors of the articles.

The current spam policy is just another example of an ill-conceived, arbitrarily-enforced policy on wikipedia. No inexperience editor (like most spam fighters and unregistered users) should be using their interpretation of WP:EL to override the considered consensus of the registered editors of an article and their interpretations of WP:EL. Even spam admins with real experience in creating articles (and not just deleting links) should not be parachuting into articles and overriding a rough consensus.

Rude, disruptive spam admins are the root of the problem because they set the example for the other spam fighters.

If the more cordial spam admins (if any exist) really wanted to solve the spam problem they would push for the new policy about unregistered users not being allowed to add external links. But then spam fighters would lose nearly all of their arbitrary power and the self-gratification that many of these spam fighters evidently seem to get from abusing their power. The cordial spam fighters would probably be outvoted by their rude comrades.

So wikipedia as a whole, and especially admins outside spam central, need to step in and rein in another group of tendentious tag-team disrupters on wikipedia.

[edit] Spam-fighting fanatics support Microsoft and big commercial interests

Note: This may be of interest too: Portal:Free software.

Some of the info from this section has been moved to the archive page:

There needs to be some sort of equivalent to Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration. Something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists, Spam, and Free software.

Wikipedia policy
Article standards
Neutral point of view
Verifiability
No original research
Biographies of living persons
Working with others
Civility
Consensus
No personal attacks
Dispute resolution
No legal threats
Global principles
What Wikipedia is not
Ignore all rules

Lists are just another info presentation format. Just like images, tables, charts, diagrams, bullet points, tables of contents, "see also" sections, paragraphs, sentences, etc.. List policies and guidelines are already covered in detail in various guideline and policy pages.

Much of the deletionist frenzy concerning lists comes from groups of rude (see WP:CIVIL) tendentious spam fighters and their closely-associated admins. A simpler solution to spam is to make a policy forbidding unregistered users from adding external links to the external link sections of articles, or to lists. Then all registered users could enforce the policy, and control of articles would go back to the registered editors of the articles.

Wikipedia as a whole, and especially admins outside spam central, need to step in and rein in this spam-fighting group of tendentious tag-team disrupters on wikipedia. They parachute into many articles and disrupt carefully worked-out consensus agreements, and/or delete large sections of articles that took years to create.

There needs to be some sort of equivalent to Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration. Something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists, Spam, and Free software. Free software and freeware seem to get frequently deleted from articles by spam fighters in their evident support of Microsoft and other "notable" monopolies or commercial software.

All info in articles has to meet wikipedia guidelines. See the table to the right. Lists shouldn't have to meet a higher standard arbitrarily set up and enforced by outlaw spam admins and their followers.

It took multiple WP:ArbCom rulings, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration, to finally control several outlaw admins, and those who followed their example, in that topic area.

[edit] The Wikipedia Signpost

[edit] Your comments

Please do not comment here. All comments found here from other users are moved to Timeshifter's talk page.

Please comment there.