Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palestine

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

1947-48 Palestinian civil war

I have noticed no article on the 1947-48 Palestinian civil war, though the French Wikipedia has a featured article on the subject. Anyone think they would be up to the task of beginning the article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Twas Now (talk • contribs) 06:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC).

Does this article (1948 Arab-Israeli War) cover it? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 06:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone did create such an article recently. See 1947-48 Palestinian civil war. It was just turned into a redirect because of its lack of development. I have just done some searches and found a few references and listed them here: Talk:1947-48 Palestinian civil war#Sources. Also Ian Pitchford rated the article as being of High importance, thus it may be something worth revisiting. --Abnn 22:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What is the the best article link for "country" references?

Re-posted from Talk:Palestinian territories, as no response provided there yet

I am conscious of POV issues surrounding the name "Palestine", so I'm not trying to stir anything up here, but I would like to know what the best article link is for Wikipedia lists of nations etc. I am asking here purely from an implementation perspective, as I have been doing a lot of work recently for Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template. There are a lot of articles that contain lists of nations, dependencies, etc. List of countries is perhaps the best example. On those lists, there are flag icons followed by a wikilink to the main article for the nation. (e.g. France). What is the most appropriate article link to be used in conjunction with this region? I have seen two articles widely used, namely Palestinian territories and Palestinian National Authority. Use of the latter as the wikilinked article seems a bit odd to me, as it refers to the governing organization rather than the region, but perhaps for some NPOV reason, maybe it is the best choice. I don't know - that's why I'm asking here. Is there any consensus on what we should standardize upon for Wikipedia? Andrwsc 18:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Bilateral relations discussion

I would like to invite you all to participate in a discussion at this thread regarding bilateral relations between two countries. All articles related to foreign relations between countries are now under the scope of WikiProject Foreign relations, a newly created project. We hope that the discussion will result in a more clean and organized way of explaining such relationships. Thank you. Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 18:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Al Zaghab

Our discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Al Zaghab could use some help from experts. --Kevin Murray 22:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Working Plan for starting this project

I think the most efficient way to get this project off the ground is by starting to think where do we want to start? How do we want to do it? I propose that we do this chronologically, what do you think guys? We just have to agree on a starting date and then go from there, we can split into groups and do extensive research on different subjects, we can invite our friends and organize a community that is ready to dedicate some time for Palestine. Zaki Saadeh 00:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

We should make sure to collaborate with other WikiProjects, too. Like on something relating to Arab-Israeli conflict we'd work with that wikiproject and also Israel wikiproject. I agree chronlogical would be great.--Urthogie 12:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed we should collaborate with other Wikiprojects. That would be beneficial to everyone and to the evolution of this project as well. I think to start with this project it is important to first establish a guideline in which every article being created through this project will be guaranteed to maintain a neutral point of view. I expect we are to follow Wikipedia's official guide on this, and we could add more clarifications to it. To access wikipedia's official guide on how to maintain a neutral point of view click on the following link:[1].

Another thing that I will work on is attract more members who are interested in this project. I will create a facebook group to recruit people to join this project. ~~Zaki Saadeh 18:12, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above. As I see it, our main goal should be countering the systematic Zionist bias that dominates far too many Palestine/Israel articles on Wikipedia. They use really underhanded tactics too. Please see my edits on Baruch Marzel. Shuki, openly supporting Marzel, has the cheek to claim I was the one violating NPOV because I put a mug shot of Marzel in an Israel police station after he was arrested. Get that: it was "POV" to add a picture illustrating a fact -- that he was arrested. Now the picture has been removed AGAIN and a POV version of the text put back in.

We need to counter such nonsense with organized, consistent application of NPOV rules. The Zionist bias on some articles is quite outrageous and they probably do not quite believe they can get away with some of the stuff they do. College of Judea and Samaria article used to say it was "in Israel" and did not even mention the word settlement! AW 09:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Asa, I don't think I was openly supporting Marzel but rather trying to promote some NPOV on that article by countering your open antagonism to the subject which does not help while editing ANY article on WP. On the other issue, you should 'assume good faith' when an editor mentions 'in Israel'. Using 'Israeli college' as opposed to 'college in Israel' seems the same and also NPOV in a direct referral. And seeing the word 'settlement' in a 'West Bank' article amuses me too. But I would asume that you know that while there is an issue of current 'state of Israel', a historic entity of Land of Israel that had larger borders did exist, so '...in Israel' is not a myth either. On the other hand though, can you assure me that there are no 'Palestinian' articles which refer to places in current 'State of Israel' 48-67 territory as '...in Palestine' or do you patrol those sites and promote NPOV there as well? --Shuki 06:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Timeshifter, like I say below, I'm still unfamiliar with a lot of modern Wikipeida conventions. So I'm not allowed to remove the above comment, even though it adds nothing constructive towards building a working plan for WikiProject Palestine, and is clearly an attempt to derail this discussion. Does that mean I'm allowed to go to WikiProject Israel's discussion page, say whatever annoying stuff I want and they can't remove it as long as its not a personal attack or something? Asa 08:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Asa. You can say anything as long as it somewhat concerns the topic that the talk page is for. And as long as it doesn't violate other wikipedia guidelines concerning civility, personal attacks, and talk pages. Talk pages are not political forums, though. It is all covered at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. I will also put the main guidelines sidebar at the top of this talk page. It has some of the relevant guideline links in one handy location. --Timeshifter 09:30, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Article merges and title changes being discussed

There are discussions about changing the names of these articles:

• Al-Aqsa Intifada‎
• Allegations of Israeli apartheid - Also a merge discussion.

Discussion is occurring on their talk pages. --Timeshifter 07:39, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Recruitment for this project

Although I've been part of Wikipedia since almost day one, I am not a very active contributor. Especially, I am not familiar with the increasingly byzantine systems and conventions that Wikipedia seems to operate according to these days.

It seems to me that a good way to get people involved in this project would be to go onto user pages of people who make a lot of Palestine-related edits and invite them to join (maybe with a nice user box, which one of us should create -- I would but can't figure out how). Is this considered OK Wikipedia etiquette or not? If it's OK, I will start. Asa 08:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

bias on wikipedia

I think the bias is towards mainstream interpretations, not towards Palestinian or Israeli. I always hear about "Israeli bias" but then why is it caled Palestinian political violence even if the mainstream calls it by its name-- "terrorism."--Urthogie 16:24, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

From al-Aqsa Intifada:

The wave of violence continued on both sides throughout 2006. On December 27 the Israeli Human Rights Organization B'Tselem released its annual report on the Intifada. According to which, 660 Palestinians, a figure more than three times the number of Palestinians killed in 2005, and 23 Israelis, have been killed in 2006. From a December 28 Haaretz article:[57] "According to the report, about half of the Palestinians killed, 322, did not take part in the hostilities at the time they were killed. 22 of those killed were targets of assassinations, and 141 were minors." 405 of 660 Palestinians were killed in the 2006 Israel-Gaza conflict, which lasted from 28 June till 26 November.

Why is the term collateral damage used so often in the media? And why are no stronger words used in the media and in that section in wikipedia. Words such as "intentional, indiscriminate, sloppy Israeli counterattacks and massive, brutal, military overreactions". Why is the term "surgical strike" oftentimes laughable? --Timeshifter 17:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia can't control how the media reports things. In fact, using the language of the media is a sign that we're reflecting the cultural environment rather than POV editors.--Urthogie 18:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it interesting how different sides of the conflict complain about the same things from opposite angles? Pro-Israelis claim that the media is anti-semitic and pro-Arab, Pro-Palestinians claim that the media downplays killings and attacks. Well, for one thing, my conclusion is that the 'mainstream media' in the world a) is filled with mostly ignorant workers (you can't even call most of them journalists anymore), b) could not really care less about Israel or the Palestinians, c) the ridiculous western notion of 'political correctness'. The final piece fell into place for me when watching the BBC (what a mess!). They reported about an attack on British troops in Iraq in which one or more were killed. Even for 'local boys', the story was dry and not connected. Another story reported about Condi Rice in Israel in which the reported then went on a rant about Israeli settlement expansion. Another story was about a day of violence in Gaza in which Israelis killed Palestinians, and Palestinians killed Palestinians, in which the news reader was totally apathetic. I've stopped worrying about the 'mainstream' media. They couldn't care less about us.

As for bias on WP, since we are basically a bunch of amateurs who are policing ourselves, and also dependant on finding eloquent language editors as well (most of us didn't pay too much attention in English class and aren't), I don't think that many articles will become completely NPOV for a long time. There are several high-profile articles where teamwork has managed to neutralize the otherwise natural POV 'feelings' of editors from both sides, but there is just too much for too little people. --Shuki 22:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Well said. --Timeshifter 08:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, that depends on what you're refering to when you say "mainstream interpretations". In the US it appears to be a very pro-Israel bias. I guess this is the remains of cold war thinking when USA supported Israel and the Soviet Union supported various Arab states. This may be changing to a more unbiased US reporting and that certainly would explain why pro-Israelis claim that the media is anti-semitic and pro-Arab. // Liftarn

Incident report filed for United States military aid to Israel

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#United States military aid to Israel

Here is the incident report and replies so far:

Some editors are trying to delete the weapon systems list from this article. It is the main part of this article. Here is the last revision of the intact article:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_military_aid_to_Israel&oldid=127900153

This article already survived a recent AFD, a recent incident report, and a recent DRV.

United States military aid to Israel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). See: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States military aid to Israel. The original closing admin (Doc) wrote: "The result was KEEP - merging is of course an editorial decision to be worked out on the talk pages." Another admin deleted that closing improperly, and changed the closing admin comment to "The result was Delete - with a strong suggestion to merge." See: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive235#User:Jayjg and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States military aid to Israel. During the DRV, Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 April 26, the original closing admin (Doc) clarified his closing comment and changed it to, "The result was No Consensus = default KEEP - merging is of course an editorial decision to be worked out on the talk pages". The DRV closing admin wrote: "After examining the comments carefully (and ignoring the boldfaces here, which were often confused), there is a ~75% consensus in support of Doc's original closure. Relisting is at editorial option; merge discussions belong on the appropriate talk pages." There are overall articles called United States military aid and Israel-United States military relations. The list of U.S.-supplied weapons systems in the article in question here, United States military aid to Israel, is already too long to merge with those 2 articles. It is also too long to merge with Israel-United States relations#United States military and economic aid. WP:NPOV help is needed to maintain and to fill out this spinout article more. --Timeshifter 08:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Surviving an AfD or DRV doesn't mean the article can't be edited as normal. If you disagree with the edits, you're probably better to discuss them on the talk page, or seek dispute resolution if agreement can't be reached that way. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion has already been tried and failed. Dispute resolution suggests protecting the page while further discussion continues. I am also asking other editors and admins who are reading this to come to the talk page. I am also asking those MANY editors and admins who commented on the AFD, DRV, and PREVIOUS incident report to also come to the talk page. I also am asking those who understand better the dispute resolution processes, and incident boards, to take the appropriate actions. I do not know all of them. I have used many of the dispute resolution processes in the past, but I have found that until some admins get involved, genuine discussion frequently does not occur on the talk pages dealing with Arab and/or Israeli articles. But the bottom line is that an attempt to delete the main part of the article is happening YET AGAIN. The weapon systems list is the reason this article can not be merged with other articles, and should not be merged. It is another roundabout deletion without having to go through AFD. I am requesting that the last intact revision be protected, so as not to allow this roundabout deletion to stand. Here is the last revision with the intact article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_military_aid_to_Israel&oldid=127900153 --Timeshifter 08:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

---

I now support the merge. This has been favorably resolved. So far. Please go to the talk page, Talk:Israel-United States military relations, for more info. The new condensed format for the list of U.S.-supplied weapon systems greatly reduced its length without deleting any of the list. That allowed the list to be added to the merged article, and there is no longer a need for the spinout article. An editor, though, is already trying to delete some items from the list. --Timeshifter 17:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of talk page info

(Note: The above section is titled "Incident report filed for United States military aid to Israel". If it is missing feel free to return by using the revision history. --Timeshifter 14:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC) )

I copied the info in the above section from the incident report. Please comment there, and below. --Timeshifter 08:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Tewfik tried to remove the above talk section with this edit comment: "this has nothing to do with Palestinians - please stop canvassing." I returned this talk section with this edit comment: "Revert. Israeli weapon systems have nothing to do with Palestinians? It is against WP:TALK to edit comments of other editors. I will file another WP:ANI report if this continues."

I would appreciate some other project supporters commenting on the obvious relevance so that Tewfik stops deleting this section. Here is the diff of his deletion. --Timeshifter 09:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is the diff of Tewfik's second deletion.

Tewfik will soon be approaching a 3RR violation. --Timeshifter 14:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that "canvassing" can be used to describe inviting people to discuss an issue on WP:ANI, particularly since it's not a vote. I don't really understand why Tewfik is so adamant against this being posted here. It would be nice if he could articulate rather than edit summary explain and revert. Tiamut 14:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is the diff for Tewfik's 3rd deletion.

Thanks Tiamut for pointing out the obvious in your edit summary "rv to timeshifter - it's not canvassing to post a notice regarding an administrator's board notice - that's not a vote, it's a discussion and of course the article is related to Palestine project". --Timeshifter 15:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Invitation Template

WikiProject Palestine is looking for editors to help build and maintain comprehensive, informative, balanced articles related to Palestine on Wikipedia. Start by adding your name to the list of members at WikiProject Palestine. Ahlan wa Sahlan! Welcome!

What do people think? Tiamut 16:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

For project members wishing to be bold and just edit the template page with their suggestions, go to Template:Palestine Project Invitation. Typing those words between these kinds of brackets {{ }} will make the template appear on the user pages of those you might wish to invite to join. Have fun. Tiamut 16:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

What does Ahlan wa Sahlan! mean? I fixed a misspelling in the banner. Here is the link to the template page: Template:Palestine Project Invitation. Here is the code for the link:

[[Template:Palestine Project Invitation]]

And here is the code to get the banner:

{{subst:Template:Palestine Project Invitation}} --Timeshifter 18:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It's Arabic for "Welcome". We can take it out or translate it, whatever you guys decide to do. Just thought I'd add local flavor. Tiamut 18:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Translation sounds good to me.--Timeshifter 20:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Other suggestions, thoughts? I would like to begin using this invitation if possible. Tiamut 10:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. It can always be revised further later. --Timeshifter 14:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

As it should. I'm hoping it and other related articles and activities here will just get better and better once more and more people can get involved. Tiamut 16:12, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Urgent: Need for proper "WikiProject Palestine" template

I have placed the standard WikiProject Palestine template-based notice on +250 talk pages of Palestine-related articles, see here. I hope that helps raise awareness. I tagged most of the highest profile pages dealing with this topic on Wikipedia, but I am sure that I didn't tag them all. --70.51.232.124 00:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Eventually a pretty WikiProject Palestine template should be created similar to the existing Israeli one. Then someone can ask a bot operator to run a search and replace on the old standard template in order to replace them all with the new pretty one (which would save us a lot of manual labor.) --70.51.232.124 00:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

We really do need a proper Template:WikiProject Palestine template as soon as possible to replace the standard WikiProjectNotice template I have been using. The new template should be modeled on Template:WikiProject Israel as closely as possible (note that there is a lot of complex code within the WikiProject Israel template and it is those types of features that we urgently need.) There are a few reasons for why a proper template is needed: it will include all articles in a WikiPRoject Palestine category, it will allow for us to properly rate the class and importance of articles (so that the best and most important get included in offline article collections), and it allows for us to include a TODO list to help publicize which articles and areas need work (expand the Israel Wikiproject template by clicking on the [show] to see what I mean.) --70.51.232.124 02:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for spreading around the project banner. What did you mean by "it will include all articles in a WikiPRoject Palestine category". Can you give me an example of another project page with such a list. The exact URL, please. --Timeshifter 02:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

When you add assessment information to the Template:WikiProject Israel template, it automatically includes the article in the appropriate category.

Here are the class categories:

• Category:FA-Class Israel-related articles
• Category:GA-Class Israel-related articles
• Category:B-Class Israel-related articles
• Category:Start-Class Israel-related articles
• Category:Stub-Class Israel-related articles
• Category:Unassessed Israel-related articles

Here are the importance categories:

• Category:Top-importance Israel-related articles
• Category:High-importance Israel-related articles
• Category:Mid-importance Israel-related articles
• Category:Low-importance Israel-related articles
• Category:Unknown-importance Israel-related articles

Also, all articles tagged with the WikiProject Israel template are included in this category:

• Category:WikiProject Israel articles

You can see how it does this by looking at the underlying code for Template:WikiProject Israel. The same strategy and similar code is used by the Template:WikiProject Politics, thus I think it is a "best practice" that we should adopt. --70.51.232.124 03:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like some good ideas there. I also like this template:

{{WikiProjectCSBTasks}}

I am not familiar enough with making templates yet though to do much. Maybe some others can help us out on this too. --Timeshifter 17:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I gave it shot. At least it looks okay, but those with knowledge of how to make some of the hyperlinks active (like the drop-down menu and the categories link) are encouraged to tweak it. It's at Template:WikiProject Palestine. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tiamut (talk • contribs) 19:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC).

Nice. I have started to look for a bot operator to help us out (see here.) --70.51.232.124 20:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I found a bot operator who gladly helped out! :-) --70.51.232.124 23:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Assessing article importance

Now that we have that snazzy WikiProject Palestine template, we can rate articles for their importance and level of development (i.e. class). Myself and a few others have started to assess articles, mostly with regards to importance. This can be done by adding the parameter "importance=???" parameter, the value of which can be either "Top", "High", "Mid", "Low" or "NA. Have a look through the following importance categories to see how we assessed things so far and feel free to assess some articles yourself:

• Category:Top-importance Palestine-related articles (26 articles)
• Category:High-importance Palestine-related articles (27 articles)
• Category:Mid-importance Palestine-related articles (62 articles)
• Category:Low-importance Palestine-related articles (58 articles)
• Category:Unknown-importance Palestine-related articles (486 articles)

--70.51.232.124 03:04, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Also needed: WikiProject Palestine UserBox

The other WikiProjects have user boxes, this project should probably have one as well. --70.51.232.124 06:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Project banner

Hello. Since your banner supports nesting, would you mind if I added it to the list here: Template:WikiProjectBannerShell#Converted projects? -- Avi 17:16, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer not to. The template is brand spanking new, it looks nice and the project needs as many newcomers as it can get. Sometimes people don't notice that those things can open. Also, when the banner is by itself on a page, its not obtrusive to let it all hang out. Perhaps suggest again in a little while after we have had a chance to enjoy it for a bit? Thanks. Tiamut 17:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Eminently reasonable, although if it is on a three-fer, things may get crowded. Good luck with the project! -- Avi 17:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again Avi! After we have gotten settled in, I would definitely reconsider. :) Tiamut 17:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Two pages with same purpose, delete/redirect one of them?

It is my belief that having two pages for the same purpose reduces their overall effectiveness because it dilutes effect and attention. Right now we have two pages that appear to me to serve the same purpose. Can we delete or redirect one of them?

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine/to do (this one is included in Template:WPPalestine Sidebar creating by Ian Pitchford)
• Portal:Palestine/Opentask (this one is included in Portal:Palestine, Template:WikiProject Palestine and Notice board for Palestine-related topics)

I myself prefer the second one as it is more compact than the new one. --Abnn 19:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC) (formerly User:70.51.232.124).

Done. Good suggestion. I've also just run the bot to populate the table . If there are any suggestions for "collaboration of the week" go here. --Ian Pitchford 19:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've inserted the assessment table into the project's main page. I was really hoping it was a bot generated table. --Abnn 19:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for getting rid of the redirect and for improving the sidebar. I was relieved to find the bot too! --Ian Pitchford 19:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

2000 Camp David Summit

The section of the article called "Reasons for impasse" needs some help. See the talk page. There seems to be an attempt at spin control through selective use of sourced info. Leaving in some significant viewpoints, and leaving out others. Sweeping claims keep being inserted too. Reminds me of similar problems with the Taba Summit article. I made some attempts to clean up some of it, but it may get reverted, because one editor does not understand WP:NPOV. The editor seems to be coming at this from the angle of expressing an official viewpoint in the narrative tone of the wikipedia article. Instead of putting out all significant viewpoints in the messy wikipedia way that allows people to come to their own conclusions.

See Talk:Taba Summit for similar problems. On that page some editors had the audacity to say that PBS, Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's negotiator, and Saeb Erekat, Palestinian chief negotiator, were not significant viewpoints concerning how close the summit came to success. These editors never allowed the sourced info on the page. They got the page protected for several months. I gave up. Some others need to get involved.--Timeshifter 22:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Working on the university articles

I'm going to be working first on the university articles, just to bring up their quality to B across the board. Hopefully, I get the time to complete this project and I don't leave it half done. I'm tracking progress so far on my user page. I know there are a lot of POV conflicts going on, but someone has to raise the quality of the core Palestinian articles. Sometimes it seems that the POV conflicts prevents us from presenting the Palestinians as real people with real lives, which is something I would like to remedy. WikiProject Palestine needs all types. --Abnn 00:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

New geography stub and Massive work to be done on List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war

Hi everyone. First off, I was going through the articles on villages depopulated in the 1948 war and tagging them with the project template. I noticed that we need many new entries to be made for some of those on the list and others need expansion. I will continue marking which are stubs and which are more today, but would appreciate others to take on some work in expansion and creation.

I also created a new geography stub after noticing that this stub Template:Palestine-geo-stubs was being added to depopulated villages. I will be replacing that stub with this new one Template:1948 Palestine-geo stubs so that readers do not think that these depopulated villages continue to exist in the West Bank or Gaza. Tiamut 12:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Help

Can someone ask for a bot to add the Template:1948 Palestine-geo stubs to all articles listed in the List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war? If the Template:Palestine-geo-stubs is there it should be replaced and if not, this one should be added anyway to all. Going through them one by one is getting to be very tedious. Thanks. Tiamut 12:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The template is now up for deletion. See the project page for more details. Tiamut 03:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I think having a Palestine-hist-stub is the best solution. I think it could be very useful. --Abnn 03:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

It might be, but I fear that it might be creating another level of unnecessary complexity due to its extremely wide scope (from the first to 21st century). It might be a better idea to understand what task we want the template to accomplish and to scope it on that basis. To which I ask, what task do we want the template to accomplish? :-) Tewfik^Talk 03:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

See the talk page for the new template and the listing for deletion (links to that page). I explained why in both places. Tiamut 03:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Deir al-Balah stub

Hi I've recently helped construct the article of Deir el-Balah, it is still quite small but I want to know whether it is considered a stub or not. I also need to know if this site - http://www.palestineremembered.com/ is a reliable source for destoryed villages and towns articles. Thanks, User: Al Ameer son 4:14 May 8 2007

Dear Al Ameer son. PalestineRemembered is a reliable source. You can read about the sources they have used to compile the tables in more detail here: [2]. There are some editors who might try to dispute your right to use it as a source, but that is based on a faulty interpretation of WP:RS or WP:ATT, often (quite unfortunately) influenced by a strong opposing POV. I did look at the article and think it could still use some expansion. In my mind, the line between a stub and a start level article is hard to place definitively. It's a great start though. Good work! Tiamut 20:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

PalestineRemembered can be helpful as it presents certain sourced information in an accessible manner. If and when information on the website is attributed to Morris or Khalidi (or whoever), then there is no reason not to cite the actual source. If information is not attributed to a such an RS, then I'm sure you would agree that it shouldn't be cited. Tewfik^Talk 00:22, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Read the link provided Tewfik. The sources and what they are used for is listed there. The tables provided are aggregate charts based on those sources as specified. They are all reliable sources. Tiamut 00:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I did read the link, and my comments were specifically directed to what you said. To rephrase, for information sourced to RS, we should attribute the RS directly. For information not sourced to RS, we should obviously not include it. Tewfik^Talk 02:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is not a reliable source there Tewfik? Tiamut 02:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure where the misunderstanding is happening, but all I said is that any RS cited by it can be cited directly. If there is information not cited to RS, then we wouldn't reference it whether it appears here or anywhere else... Tewfik^Talk 02:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The misunderstanding is that the link I gave you very clearly states that it does not cite the specific source out of those listed for each item of information. This would make it very difficult to locate the originals for every piece of information, unless we have copies of all the books they use. Is there a particular source amongst those listed that you have a problem with because they all seem to be reliable sources to me. Tiamut 03:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand that, but we can't treat everything on this personal website as sourced without the ability to check the specific bits of information. I agree that it is a resource inasmuch as it can direct further research into these sources, but it shouldn't be used directly unless it modifies its policy and tells us what information can be found where. Tewfik^Talk 06:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree this could be "stub" or "start". I have added a little more material. Additional information on the interesting archaeological sites in this area would be a boon. With regard to depopulated villages I have two of the main academic works "All That Remains" and "Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problems Revisited" and can help with references. --Ian Pitchford 21:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I added a History section. It's by no means comprehensive but it's what available to me from the book cited. Those with other sources are encouraged to add more. Tiamut 21:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Palestinian refugees & refugee camps template?

Why not a template that brings together all the Palestinian refugee topics including the full listing of camps organized by region? It seems like a logical thing to "template-ize". --Abnn 21:55, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

That's a great idea. What template design do you think would be good for that? We already have Template:Palestinians but it might be good for that to link to lots of different template on sub-categories, like a template of the camps, template for destroyed villages, etc, etc. Tiamut 22:15, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

That seems like the most logical way to go about things. Also, we really need pictures for these refugee camps and destroyed villages, in fact there is an overall dearth of photos in most Palestine related articles. We need to find someone who recently took a vacation over there and upload their photos or find someone who is planning to take a trip and have them take a lot of photos of these places. Does anyone know anyone associated with the UN refugee association that operates in this area? They might have some photos we could use. We literally could use a hundred or more photos. --Abnn 22:34, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

List of Palestinian refugee camps has some good information to start, but it's not comprehensive. I know there are about 20 more camps in addition to the 12 listed for Lebanon for example. I'll try to update that page before we get the template going, because if we dealing with a huge number, a template might not be the way to go. (My suggestion for the destroyed villages might be impossible to incorporate in a template for example.) About pictures, I'll see what I can do. I know I have a few of Nazareth, but I'll check what else I can scrounge up too. Tiamut 22:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:Palestinian refugee camps. I just copied another template. I'm not totally happy with the organization, but it will due for now. --Abnn 01:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Consistent Palestinian naming standards

There have been a number of CfD renamings of late. See:

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_January_1#Category:Palestine
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_January_9#Palestinian_territories
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_May_11#Palestine-related_CFRs

I just wrote this to Tewfik in an attempt to solidify a consistent way of handling these things so that any renamings become simply procedural and straightforward:

"Consistent Palestinian naming standards

You, Tewfik, seem to know a lot about naming standards with regards to Palestinian related articles. Maybe we could write this out formally at WP Palestine so that we can avoid problems in the future and ensure that the standards are not shifting aimlessly. I am also concerned about appropriate parent categories so that we tie everything together, it may eventually be impossible to have a single category as the root category, and thus I am thinking that maybe a template that lays out the naming standards can be applied to each of the many base categories thus tieing them together in such a way that it is relatively equivalent in effectiveness to a singular base category. Your thoughts? --Abnn 23:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)"

Of course, I am asking Tewfik for an initial attempt, but a standard appropriating naming scheme upon which everyone is in agreement is needed so that it can be referenced in future discussions rather than having a disjointed argument every time the issue comes up. --Abnn 23:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

First attempt at a standard naming scheme

The standard, from what I can tell from Tewfik's comment in the CfD is the following:

• Government related articles are to use the term "Palestinian National Authority", for example:

1. Category:National symbols of Palestine to Category:National symbols of the Palestinian National Authority
2. Category:Elections in Palestine to Category:Elections in the Palestinian National Authority

• Topics related to the general region are to use the term "Palestinian territories", for example:

1. Category:Airlines of Palestine to Category:Airlines in the Palestinian territories
2. Category:Aviation in Palestine to Category:Aviation in the Palestinian territories
3. Category:Sport in Palestine to Category:Sport in the Palestinian territories

• Topics related to one of the two main regional divisions, West Bank and the Gaza Strip, should make use of those restricted regional terms, for example:

1. Category:Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza Strip

And I guess I should add one more:

• Topics related to individual people or products of those people should use the term "Palestinians", for example:

1. Category:Palestinian politicians
2. Category:Palestinian musicians

I also now notice that there is no base category Category:Palestinian National Authority, I'll create that now. --Abnn 01:28, 12 May 2007 (UTC)