Talk:Apartheid (disambiguation)

This article was nominated for deletion on 31/5/2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

Jay, how does redirecting to segregation deal with the term "global apartheid" or, for that matter "Israeli apartheid" when neither of those phrases appear on that page?Homey 03:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

And how can you possibly argue that terms such as Apartheid wall and Israeli apartheid do not justify a disambiguation article?Homey 03:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should disambiguate ritual murder and say that it "is a term used by some critics" to describe Jewish customs? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 05:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

There is one article on Israeli apartheid and another called Apartheid wall. How do you justify not including these articles in an article disambiguating the word apartheid? Can you set aside your POV and answer that question?Homey 06:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It is clear you are trying to introduce pov into a disambiguation page. It is obviously not needed. Please desist.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 06:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

What POV would that be? The articles exist, one of the articles has existed for some time. Our practice on disambiguation pages is clear. How do you justify violating this practice? Homey 06:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Adding Israel here is not encyclopedic. This was a slanderous allegation, applied to Israel specifically with one purpose - to demonize it. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 08:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Some simple questions:

• Israeli apartheid
• Apartheid wall

1) Is Apartheid (disambiguation) a disambiguation page, intended to differentiate articles associated with the same title/word, in this case "apartheid? Yes or no?

2) Do the two articles in question have "apartheid" as part of their official titles (that is, they're not redirects)? Yes or no?

3) Are the two articles legitimate articles? Yes or no?

So if the answer to the above questions are all "yes", what POSSIBLE justification is there for excluding the two articles from the disambig page? Try to answer without resorting to the coy "we're part of the Zionist conspiracy ha ha" nonsense (it's an intellectually dishonest cop-out intended to make your opponents look like conspiracy nuts) or the handwaving "I don't like those articles" nonsense. And try to answer these simple questions without insulting my intelligence. --Calton | Talk 08:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

From the edit summary Those are not encyclopedic terms. They are slanderous allegations. Sigh. Try not insult people's intelligence: are these actual encyclopedia articles? Yes? Then by definition they're encyclopedic. If you claim they're not, take it up with WP:AFD. --Calton | Talk 08:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand the meaning of "unencyclopedic" in the context. It means it does not belong in an encyclopedia, in fact wikipedia has several unencyclopedic articles, it is not necessarily an oxymoron.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 08:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Calton is 100% correct. This is a disambiguation page, an index page. It must link to all the articles we have which contain the word 'apartheid'. Whether it's a slanderous term doesn't matter in the slightest - that's something to discuss in the relevant article, or AfD. From the post above you seem to be more concerned with the term itself than the mechanical function of disambiguation, and you're in the wrong place. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Moshe, this is not slander, though your insistence that your opponents are trying to demonise Isreal may well be slander. Please take a look at some other disambiguation pages, such as Allah (disambiguation) (which links to, among opther things, a satirical blog).

Someone should probably restore the links soon. -- Ec5618 15:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I support the reasoning of Calton and San Blanning above. I'd ask a non-involved admin to unprotect the page so that the disambiguation links can be restored. This is not the place to argue about the POV of one or more articles that are linked to in a dab page; if you have problems with the contents of those articles, discuss them on their respective talk pages, attach a cleanup or NPOV tag, bring them to AfD, or whatever, but trying to exclude them from a dab page on the grounds of being "slander" is simply against Wikipedia policy and precedent. MCB 16:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I find the arguments above flawed. In this case, terminology is intentionally misused/abused by pundits. This slanderous allegation was applied to Israel with one purpose - to demonize it. If you insist to include everyone/everything subjected to slander in disambigs, consider starting with Fascist (disambiguation). ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 19:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Once again, you're talking about an issue that isn't relevant here. I'm not sure whether those articles should exist or not, but as long as they do exist and contain the word 'apartheid' in the title, they must be linked to from the relevant disambiguation page. And there is no fascist (disambiguation), so I'm not sure what you're getting at there. There is a Template:Fascism, which includes our articles on clerical fascism and neo-fascism, two terms which could also be seen as abusive terminology. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Basques

I am removing Basques as well. There are hundreds of events somebody called apartheid, fascism or any other slander terms. They are not belong to the disambig article. abakharev 08:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I completly agree.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 09:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. We don't seem to have articles on those with the word 'apartheid' in them. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

We *do* have articles, however, on Israeli apartheid and Apartheid wall

See Wikipedia:Disambiguation:

• "Disambiguation in Wikipedia and Wikimedia is the process of resolving ambiguity—the conflict that occurs when a term is closely associated with two or more different topics. In many cases, this word or phrase is the "natural" title of more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different topics that share the same term or a similar term."

Homey 13:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• • Yes, it looks like as so far as we have articles with the titles Apartheid wall and Israeli apartheid we should include these into the disambig. I would personally support renaming of these articles into something less POV, but thats just me abakharev 18:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Then unprotect the article. Homey 18:35, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

So that you could resume reverting? What a great idea! Pecher ^Talk 20:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Pecher, read this page. Most of the editors on it now agree that the articles should be listed. You'll have to accept that. Homey 20:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

If that is true it is only by one or so editors. Hardly an example of consensus.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:46, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Let's see. Thusfar, 8 people have voiced support for including the links, and have cited policy to show that the links are valid disambiguation links. Homey, Calton, Sam Blanning, Ec5618, MCB, JoshuaZ, Sandstein and abakharev. These people were opposed by Humus sapiens and Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg

Still, this isn't about majority rule. This is about the point of disambiguation:

"When a user searches for a particular term, something else might be expected than what actually appears. Therefore, helpful links to any alternative articles with similar names are needed."

Perhaps the term 'Apartheid wall' is offensive. It is certainly not slanderous, in itself, to acknowledge that the term exists. Even if the article is deleted, and a redirect is put in place, this disambiguation page should include a link to it. -- Ec5618 06:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should have those articles, but as long as we do, they should be presumably listed in the disambig. Someone may want to AfD the two articles. JoshuaZ 19:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I entirely agree with JoshuaZ. Sandstein 21:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Poll

I think it is time to have a poll. Poll is ended on 23:09 (UTC) June 4 The poll seems to be not very popular, but it looks like a consensus emerging on the talk page. I have unportected the article abakharev 23:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposal 1

Return:

• Israeli apartheid is a term used by some critics of Israel's policies towards the Palestinians.
• The apartheid wall is a term used by the same critics to describe the Israeli West Bank barrier being built to separate Israel from the West Bank.

Support

1. Reluctantly support, would support removing the items back, if the articles themselves would be renamed abakharev 23:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

m:Polls are evil

1. Consensus seems pretty clear on this issue. I don't see why a straw poll is necessary. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 08:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
   1. Polls are way to measure consensus
   2. Polls are evil but Edit warrings are worse than Polls
   3. Compromises and consensuses are better than polls, but I do not see any proposals for the compromise here - the articles are either there or not abakharev 09:08, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
      1. But since a supermajority of editors has already expressed support for the inclusion of the links, the poll adds nothing of substance. -- Ec5618 09:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

         Just look onto the history of the article, before I protected it the article it was reverted every half an hour or so. No 3RR violations, no obvious socks just a crowd of supporters on each side. If it is named consensus on your planet then what color is the Sun there? abakharev 10:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

         Since you protected the article many more editors have commented on the issue. So far there are 8 for the links and 2 against. That's a pretty clear consensus. Also, the 2 against have not addressed the argument that the real issue is with the existence of the articles, and that this should be addressed at WP:AFD, not by trying to remove them from a disambiguation page. Note that I don't believe we should unprotect the article yet, I think we should wait for discussion to become stale or, failing that, about a week after protection was applied. However, I do think the discussion is easy enough to follow that a poll is unnecessary, and the arguments against having one laid out on the Meta page very convincing. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 10:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

      2. Alex, there is a clear consensus here. Can you please unprotect the article - it's ridiculous to delay any longer. Homey 23:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

If Israel is to be mentioned here, we should make it clear that it this expression is a propaganda epithet used in order to demonize it, and not a factual description. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 05:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation?

I've read some of the discussion here, especially Abakharev's comments. My question is, do we need this disambiguation page at all? The term "Apartheid" refers to the South African regime. There is no ambiguity in that - even in phrases like "Israeli Apartheid" or "Basque Apartheid" or "Global Apartheid" the word "Apartheid" refers to the South African regime. I suggest that we simply put this disambiguation up for AfD. Possibly with a note in the Apartheid article that some has used the word "Apartheid" as a pejorative epithet, but I am not sure this is notable enough for the article. -- Heptor _talk 09:41, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it may be that the existence of this disambiguation page is in fact wrong. From Wikipedia:Disambiguation: "Lists of articles of which the disambiguated term forms only a part of the article title don't belong here. Disambiguation pages are not search indices. Do not add links that merely contain part of the page title (where there is no significant risk of confusion)." This seems to apply here. Given that, I would support deletion on an AfD for this page. That doesn't mean I'm reversing my position on the Israeli links above though - as long as the article is, rightly or wrongly, a list of articles which contain the word 'apartheid', it should contain all of them. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 10:41, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

A) that's a guideline not a policy B) Look around at some disambiguation pages and you'll see that, in fact, they do often disambiguate between articles that share only part of their title. For instance, see Abbey (disambiguation), Acadian (disambiguation), Achilles (disambiguation), Acid (disambiguation) (I'm not even finished the "A"s yet- I could probably list another 20 before getting to B). Homey 23:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

So just because a few other disambiguation pages made a similar mistake this one should as well? It is clear that guidelines are supposed to be followed.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Do you really want me to finish the "A"s? There are not a "few other" disambiguation pages, there are hundreds that do this. Homey 02:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Moshe, look at the previous section, eight editors favour the links, two oppose. There's a consensus. Homey 02:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry buddy but that is not a consensus, and more than two oppose it anyways. Even if it were true does that mean we should disregard wikipedia guidelines? Of course not.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:32, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines are not policies.Homey 02:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

So you think that means you can disregard them for no reason?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Moshe, do you know the difference between a guideline and a policy on wikipedia?Homey 02:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes I do, but a guideline is not supposed to be completly disregarded because you feel like it, it is clear that there is no reason to not follow it here.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:40, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not disregarded because "I feel like it" but because most editors do not support it. Disagree with me? Why don't you start going to other disambig pages and removing the links that contradict the guideline? I guarantee that you won't get very far doing that before a) dozens of irate editors start "whooping your ass" and b) the guideline is changed.

BTW, how do you justify leaving "global apartheid" while removing the other links. Doens't global apartheid also violate this guideline that you suddenly find so sacred?Homey 02:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I actually think it should go as well, but if I deleted it I would feel obligated to make up an afd which I don't feel like doing right now.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:56, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

That's understandable as you'd lose an AFD. But fear of losing (or laziness if that's what you claim) does not excuse a double standard. Homey 02:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Protected

I've protected this article again as it seems that the edit-warring has not yet come to an end. Please resolve your differences and reach a compromise. Once that has been done, I will unprotect the article. AmiDaniel (talk) 02:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

There is no way to compromise between "X" and "not X", however, if you read the talk page you'll see there is a general consensus even if Moshe refuses to adhere to it. One obsessive editor should not be allowed to stand in the way of consensus and you shouldn't be enabling one editor to do so.Homey 02:56, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do see that there is a general consensus, or at least a wide majority, here, but I still don't think that a couple of days of protection will hurt--perhaps after that time Moshe will calm down and refrain from edit-warring. It's not a particularly good sign when edit warring flares up not an hour after the article is protected, and I don't want to see that happen again. AmiDaniel (talk) 03:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Not to raise Wikipedia:The Wrong Version but don't you think you are encouraging him to edit war by protecting his preferred version of the article? If your intent is to encourage him to "calm down" you're doing it in a counter-intuitive manner. By protection his version you're encouraging him to resume edit warring once protection is lifted. Homey 03:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, in looking over the talk page again, I think it's quite clear that there is just one user standing against the consensus of four or five others, and so I'm going to revert the page to the last version by Homeontherange and unprotect. Please, refrain from revert-warring any further, especially as both Homeontherange and Moshe... are one revert away from being blocked, and be aware that 3RR does not discriminate on the basis of where consensus on the talk page stood. Note as well that my reversion is not an endorsement of that version (nor was my originally protecting "his" version)--I'm not involved in this dispute at all. I'll let it run its course for a few hours, though I do so grudgingly, and if it turns into the same old edit war, I will protect again. AmiDaniel (talk) 03:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

This is ridiculous, one user against four or five others? Samuel Blanning, Humus Sapiens, and alex bakharev have all expressed agreement with me. Also the fact that the wikipedia guidlines support me as well makes me question your motive.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 06:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Add me to that list, specifically I think that if this page is here it should be this version. Given its current state, I edited it to be more NPOV, and I believe someone else continued further in that direction, so it is certainly better now than it was. However, I would defer to Moshe's version. (Oops, I neglected to sign: 6SJ7 11:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC))

I have no motive here except ending this edit war. I only placed a 3RR warning on your talk page as I had already posted one here for Homeontherage, but I apologize if I gave the impression that I was taking sides--I was merely acting upon what I saw as the consensus here. I don't want to mediate this dispute or force an opinion upon anyone--there was consensus to unprotect and so I unprotected; I believed there to be a stronger consensus for homeontherange's version than yours and so I reverted, with an edit summary that I was not endorsing that version, merely following what I saw as consensus. I apologize if you find my actions here to be mistaken, and I intend to stay out of this dispute altogether from now on. AmiDaniel (talk) 06:40, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Moshe, please withdraw your, to AGF, erroneus interpretation of what I said. Which part of "Calton is 100% correct" did you misread? As I made very clear, as long as this page exists, it must contain all relevant terms. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 09:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay sorry, if I was wrong about your position then I apoligize. However while you did say that Calton was correct, you also later seem to have retracted that position with the statement: "Actually, it may be that the existence of this disambiguation page is in fact wrong". So I thought I had ample reason to believe you were expressing agreement with my conclusions.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 09:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

What criteria did you use to gauge there being more support against me than for me? The above editors all made their positions clear before you even arrived.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 07:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

As I said before, I made a mistake by not more closely examining the discussion. Homeontherage approached me, stating in full confidence that there was a consensus against your opinion. I saw that the majority of reverts were done by Homeontherange and yourself, and I read a few comments like "Thusfar, 8 people have voiced support for including the links, and have cited policy to show that the links are valid disambiguation links. Homey, Calton, Sam Blanning, Ec5618, MCB, JoshuaZ, Sandstein and abakharev. These people were opposed by Humus sapiens and Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg." It seemed there was a consensus at the time, but quite obviously there was not. Given the current state of the AfD and the edit war repeat that is already brewing, it seems obvious that you are all pretty divided on every aspect of this article, but I think it best for me, being quite an outsider, to just stay out of the debate altogether. I will not voice support for one version or the other, nor will I say that there is consensus for one version or the other. I hope you can accept my apology and let this go. AmiDaniel (talk) 07:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I still see no evidence of a lack of consensus. An obvious supermajority has suggested the links be reinstated. Some people have additionally (and unrelatedly) questioned the logic in keeping this page at all. Consensus is to readd the links, and consensus is moving toward deleting the page entirely.

Humus sapiens' version states that "Israeli apartheid is a controversial propaganda epithet used to demonize the State of Israel." Clearly, this is rather emotive language. Both 'propaganda' and 'demonise' are not neutral words, in any sense of the words. Though there may be references to back the use of such harsh language, they too are rather onesided and emotive. The original wording neither promotes nor dismisses the term, which is clearly preferable, from a NPOV POV. Finally, please don't assume I have a POV, as I have expressed none. -- Ec5618 07:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

It would seem that the whole point of a disambiguation page would be to differentiate between a few different uses or meanings of the word. In my experience this word has expanded beyond its narrow, literal definition and this page should include a few of its more recent applications, whether rightly or wrongly. The current version seems more useful than Moshe's. Also, while it isn;t exactly what a disambiguation page is supposed to be, it is still useful, so I wouldn't delete it. Have fun warring y'all! Obhaso 00:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

AfD

I have nominated the article to AfD per User:Heptor, User:Samuel_Blanning and User:Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg. I really do not see any real purposes of the article rather to incite the edit wars abakharev 06:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Reversion

, soI am reverting this edit, on the grounds that it was vandalism, plain and simple. This is just a note, for clarification, as it might seem like a violation of WP:3RR on my part. The edit in question changed the description of Israeli apartheid from:

"Israeli apartheid is a controversial phrase used by some critics of Israel's policies towards the Palestinians."

to

"Israeli apartheid is a a focused, targeted propaganda epithet which is at the center of a campaign for a political platform is attempting to rewrite and redefine the history of Israel as that of a "racist apartheid state".it's sole purpose is to to demonize the State of Israel"

Without judging the original text, the change can, in my view, not be seen as a good faith edit, and must be either vandalous, or WP:POINT. Either way, I am reverting. -- Ec5618 22:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

It is not vandalism and therefore you violated WP:3rr. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 00:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

At least it is not a slabby attempt to sneak in a POV. it's sole purpose is to to demonize the State of Israel entertaining! Bertilvidet 22:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Ec5618, and was in the process of performing the same revert when I noticed Ec5618 had already done so. MCB 22:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not vandalism. It's blatant POV, but WP:VAND explictly states that violations of WP:NPOV are not vandalism. And it's not WP:POINT either. It's well known that there are more false accusations of violating WP:POINT in a given period than there are actual violations of the guideline. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

You're correct; it's not WP:POINT, but it is clearly a violation of Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Nevertheless I think that Ec5618, you, and I would all agree that reverting was appropriate.

This sounds like a parole violation by Zeq. Please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zeq:

Zeq banned from articles he has disrupted and placed on Probation

1) Zeq is banned indefinitely from 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Palestinian exodus, and is placed on Wikipedia:Probation. He may be banned by any administrator for good cause from any article which he disrupts by tendentious editing. All bans and the reasons for them to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zeq#Log of blocks and bans.

Passed 10 to 0 at 09:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

If any admin views Zeq's edits in this article as tendentious they can take the remedy outlined above.Homey 23:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Creative usage of WP:RULES

I notice that certain overzealous editors are trying to bend the rules under the guise of NPOV or by accusing others in vandalism. This should not be tolerated, the rules are for all of us to follow. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 01:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Humus, do you honestly not see your edits yesterday as overzealously POV and one-sided?Homey 03:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

No. As I said elsewhere, this Cold War period political epithet was slapped together in order to demonize Israel. Serious neutral encyclopedias should expose propaganda rather than promote it. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 03:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I have restored neutral wording. Either NPOV text or the POV tag, you cannot he it both ways. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 05:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

Can someone please explain how exactly the wording of the article is not neutral?Homey 03:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody seriously expect a reader to come to this page in search for Israel? Of course not. Read WP:D to see why it doesn't belong here. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 03:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I expect people to come to this page looking for different uses of the term apartheid. Humus what, exactly, is POV about the content of the article. Your POV argument seems based on the existence of the article itself rather than its content. If so then that should be dealt with through the AFD not by tagging.Homey 03:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

See the section above. As long as the content is POV, the tag stays. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 03:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Be specific - what phrase do you find POV? If you're interested in making the article NPOV then you have to actually engage and tell the rest of us what your specific objection is and what might be done to address it. Otherwise the tag has no constructive purpose. See Wikipedia:NPOV dispute. Homey 03:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Homey took the tag out, I put it back. As noted in my edit summary, we need to remember that the tag expresses no opinion on whether the article is in fact neutral. What it says is that the article's neutrality is disputed. Can there really be a dispute over whether there is a dispute going on here? 6SJ7 05:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

6SJ7, please list below the specific phrases in the article that you find POV.I've asked for this several times but no one seems able to do it. Homey 05:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

What part of "See the section above" you don't get, Homey? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 05:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Humus, the issue is not a tag or not to tag. The problem is using wikipedia to what it is clearly not (see WP:Not)

Every user who lookup the words "Apartheid" is directed to these two articles which have severaly disrupted wikipedia editors and are confusing to any reader. the word should ONLY be used in the context of South Africa. See [1] see quote from Fred below: Zeq 05:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

::I think you made some very good points on the talk page. I don't like that article. Apartheid really should be used only in the South African context. (Not that the Palestinians don't have legitimate complaints). Fred Bauder 13:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

What should be and what is are very different things. The fact is the term apartheid has entered widespread usage to describe other situations by analogy. Homey 16:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I am fine with that. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 06:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

So we need to remove any part that has nothing to do with south Africa from this page and keep only two items

• aprthide in south africa context
• the word is used as political propeganda when ever someone does not like something but has no better argument (no examples needed)

Zeq 06:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Homey, in response to your question about what parts of the article are not neutral, I do believe people have been clear about what parts of the article they object to. However here's another take on it: Articles "should fairly represent all significant viewpoints, in proportion to the prominence of each." The article currently describes several labels used by people with certain beliefs, but it does not describe any of the equally-inflammatory labels that the people with opposite beliefs would sling back.

I've done a lot of thinking about this over the past few days, and I believe what we're all looking for is fairness. I would like to see more clear guidelines in Wikipedia about usage of epithets as article titles; it is important that everyone has equal opportuntity to make articles out of their epithets and to put epithets on disambiguation pages. I can't see a way to solve the undue-weight we're seeing here given what the titles of the articles are. The undue-weight problem is one of several reasons that I think (IMHO) Wikipedia should generally discourage having inflammatory (and, in particular, accusatory) epithets as article titles. Perhaps in order to reach consensus here Wikipedia guidelines need to be clarified, and then applied to all articles about epithets, not just the ones listed here. Su-laine.yeo 09:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

That's really an argument for the AFD and as the AFD has failed we are left with an Israeli apartheid article and an Apartheid Wall redirect. The question is how to deal with them on a disambiguation page. As to your first point, this is a disambiguation page and not an article so there's no place for the "equally inflammatory lables that the people with opposite beliefs would sling back," all we can do is list the articles with a minimum of prose and in a neutral manner but we do have to list the article names. If the POV objection is to the names themselves then that's not really an issue for the disambig page and, as I mentioned, that issue has been dealt with (or is being dealt with) via the AFDs.Homey 00:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose a solution to the issue posed by the guideline regarding disambiguation pages (and the resulting AfD): keep the article, and simply remove "(disambiguation)" from the article title. Thus, this would become the article Apartheid, with a short definition and citation to the Afrikaans origin, and then links to the various usages, with History of South Africa in the apartheid era being the first and most prominent link, with the others following, retaining the language about usage being an analogy to South African apartheid.

This solves the disambiguation guideline issue. I don't believe there is a consensus to delete this article, and argued in favor of keeping it, but I acknowledge the argument that it is less of a literal/classic disambiguation page and more of a "here are some uses of the term which have Wikipedia articles" page. I believe there are a number of precedents for that type of page, where a term is discussed in different contexts, some or all of which have individual articles. --MCB 06:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The primary use of the term apartheid is in regards to South African apartheid. In cases when a term and a single overriding use it is typical to have the article on the word or phrase be on that use and have a second page with "(disambiguation)" in the title. See, for instance Holocaust and Holocaust (disambiguation) or National Socialism and National Socialism (disambiguation). Homey 16:33, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

• IMHO, there is no need for "various usages" because they are not encyclopedic. I suggest the disambig to be removed, and History of South Africa in the apartheid era renamed into Apartheid. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 06:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

• IMHO, every minority or fringe view can be found on the web.

This is why there are wikipedia policies (such as WP:RS which specigy clearly what not to use in cases of sensitive subjects.

Not adheering to WP:RS also caused this article to become a violation of WP:Not because it turned the article (and the accompaning Israeli Apartheid article) to become a "news group" in which the merits of the issue are debated.

• We should keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia, not a Bultein group or indymedia or a discussion group.

As a result there is no place for this political propeganda in wikipedia. "Aprthide" was the political system in south africa, that is it. Zeq 07:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

PS

• Editors who continue to push political view by using these articles are also violating WP:Point by disrupting wikipedia to make a point. This is an issue for ArbCom. Zeq 07:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that this proposal is a good one in that it incorporates the various criticisms of the current dab page and points to a way forward. It is similar to my "Apartheid (metaphor)" suggestion. --Ben Houston 20:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

I've cleaned up the article to abide by Wikipedia guidelines on Disambiguation pages, specifically:

• Minimal prose
• No wikilinks except to those articles being disambiguated Fagstein 06:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Can this edit [2]argued to be anything but vandalism? Bertilvidet 08:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Read the policy which is cited in edit summary and decide for yourself. Zeq 08:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Here is the policy:

"Lists of articles of which the disambiguated term forms only a part of the article title don't belong here. Disambiguation pages are not search indices. Do not add links that merely contain part of the page title (where there is no significant risk of confusion)."

Zeq 08:22, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

By now, you should be aware that the term apartheid is used in several contexts - regardless of your persoanl approval of the uses - and there is thus indeed a significant risk of confusion. Bertilvidet 08:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Look, I am not here to argue with you because wikipedia is not a discussion board. You should be aware of the relevant Wikipedia policy and now that you are you know your edit had violated it. Suggest you self revert. Zeq 08:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

It is obviously not vandalism, if you scroll above there is adequate justification for its removal, and the guidlines about it are clear, the only reason it is still usually there is because of the tenaciousness of a few editors.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 12:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

An outside opinion

Hello everyone,

I know there is a lot of disagreement going on regarding the dismabiguation of this page. I've read over the discussion and the various AfDs, and having worked on disambiguation pages a bit, I thought I'd add a few outside opinions that might help with the discussion.

One of the issues is what entries belong on disambiguation pages. As has been stated, Wikipedia:Disambiguation does state that disambiguation pages should not simply be lists of all the articles containing the term being disambiguated. This is certainly true, but at the same time, it does not mean that just because an article has words other than the word being disambiguated, it should be excluded from the disambiguation page.

Although this seems like a tough call to make, it may not be as hard as is thought. A pretty good way to think about it is "if someone searches for this term, is it possible that they could be looking for this article?" So in this situation, "if someone searched for 'apartheid', could they really be looking for <whatever article is in question>?"

It should be noted that since this page is at Apartheid (disambiguation), the primary topic has already been established. Apartheid redirects to History of South Africa in the apartheid era, meaning that this disambiguation page is only accessed if someone searches for "Apartheid" and isn't looking for that article. This should relieve a lot of issues from the disagreement - there is no issue with the Apartheid in Africa being the primary topic. All the other articles listed here are ones that are much less likely to be searched for, but still may be valid.

I might suggest waiting until the various AfDs regarding all the articles currently liked to on this page complete, and then deciding where to go from there. Once it's determined which articles are appropriate to be articles, then it can be decided which are likely to be searched for with the term "apartheid".

Remember, the goal of disambiguation pages is to aid in the searching of Wikipedia. We do not want to have a myriad uneeded articles linked to from the pages, but at the same time we don't want to cause people to have to search to much to find the article they are looking for.

-- Natalya 01:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't you find the circumstances of the creation of this "disambiguation" page, and the subsequent discussions regarding it and its associated articles, to be at all troubling? You can see those circumstances for yourself in the edit histories, the related articles and AfD pages and related talk pages, but just start with these:

• • This disambiguation page was created only 90 minutes after the same editor created the "Israeli apartheid" page;
  • During those 90 minutes, the same editor's first move was to move the article about South African Apartheid to just "Apartheid" and then place on that page the following statement: This article refers to apartheid as it originated in South Africa. To see an article on the term as used to describe Israeli policies see Israeli apartheid. (Of course, this statement was advertisement for the "Israeli apartheid" page that the same editor had just created);
  • When this d. page was created, the only pages to which it referred were the South African apartheid page (to which "apartheid" had previously redirected); the just-created "Israeli apartheid" page; and the "Apartheid Wall" page;
  • Both of the non-South Africa pages to which this page originally referred are thinly-veiled propaganda attacks on Israel;
  • Over the two days after this article was created, as the controversy erupted, the same editor created pages on "global apartheid," "gender apartheid" and "sexual apartheid" in order to create more articles for this article to "disambiguate" to...

I could go on, and talk about the same editor's use, and in some cases abuse and misuse, of both the rules and policies of Wikipedia and of his position as an administrator, to fend off all attempts to reduce or remove the POV implications of this article and the related articles, or to redirect or delete it; his twisting of the words of other editors on talk pages (including mine); and other conduct about which others know more than I. But even apart from the conduct of the creator of these articles, I believe the most important point is that while the purpose of a disambiguation page is to reduce confusion, the effect of this disamabiguation page is to create confusion. not reduce it. I believe that the circumstances show that this is not only the effect of the page, it was its purpose, as well. It is part of a propaganda attack on Israel. I do not think Wikipedia should allow itself to be used for such a thing. 6SJ7 05:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Natalya, thanks for stepping in. I'm glad you're here. Could you provide any examples of dab pages that have been as controversial as this one? I wouldn't be surprised if there are some controversial dab pages, but in this case people feel that they're being attacked through the page and that kind of brings it to another level. Maybe looking at a different examples would give us some ideas for getting to consensus. Su-laine.yeo 05:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

6SJ7, you have to look at the content of the articles, not attribute motivations to the edtors. The fact remains that in today's world the word apartheid has been applied in myriad ways and has been adopted by various political interests. This was originally developed in the Apartheid article but there was a POV war to purge that article of any references to "Modern" usages that resulted in that article being moved to History of South Africa in the apartheid era. This meant that any "modern" meanings were orphaned. I guess I could say that was done for POV and propaganda reasons in order to insulate Israel from any association with apartheid in wikipedia, despite the fact that in the real world the association is made by many people and thus should be referenced here. But it's not for you or me to impugn the motives of editors. All you can do is judge the articles on their merits. Apartheid wall exists as a term in wikipedia and is redirected to Israeli West Bank barrier. Israeli apartheid is an article on wikipedia and it looks like Sexual apartheid and Global apartheid will survive their AFDs.

The fact is that for anyone under 30 their exposure to the word "apartheid" is increasingly likely to be in these senses than in the original meaning. This is particularly the case on campuses where students are exposed regularly to debates about the "apartheid wall" and "Israeli apartheid" and "global apartheid" but less so to the historical qeustions of South African apartheid. That means a disambiguation page is necessary despite the resistance of a small group of pro-Israeli editors who virtually shut down the Apartheid article a year ago for POV reasons and have been fighting the creation of an article on the *phrase* Israeli apartheid tooth and nail despite the phrase having over 300,000 hits on google. You can't censor wikipedia for political reasons. Homey 10:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

You, Homey, can't use wikipedia for political reasons. As we can see, "a small group of pro-Israeli editors" is not that powerful, so leave your conspiracy theopries for another occasion. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 10:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh please, there's no conspiracy theory and I never asserted any particular "power" aside from the usual advantage gained from tag-team editing. There are various circles of editors on wikipedia with common or overlapping interests. Just as there is a group of editors who are strongly pro-Serbian and will intervene in any article they think impugns Serbia, just as there is a group of editors who have a strong interest in libertarianism and will intervene in any article that they think impugns libertarianism, just as there is a small group of Muslim editors who will intervene on Muslim issues there is a small group of editors who is strongly pro-Israel and will do the same. There is no conspiracy but as in any environment there are clusters of people with interests who work together. Homey 11:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Look at the history and debates in the Apartheid article and Talk:Apartheid and tell me that it isn't completely out of whack with reality that we have no apartheid article today. Can you explain to me why that is?Homey 11:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Lets all please try and refrain from personal attacks. That should make the discussion much calmer and easier. It seems that the discussion on the various apartheid pages is overflowing onto this page. A disambiguation page does not need to be a controversial article. It is one thing for the articles listed on the disambiguation page to be in dispute, but until those disputes are corrected, the disambiguation page should just be there to do its disambiguating. If an article is AfDed, then it should be removed from the page. If it is not, then it has some purpose, and should be left on (if it is appropriate from the page). It is absoultely fine to disagree with the articles listed on this disambiguation page, but those issues are more usefully addressed when brought up at the specific articles. I know that they are already being discussed at great length, but it seems like the overflow from those discussions to here is what is causing much of the issue, which does not need to happen.

As for previous conflicts with disambiguation pages, there certainly have been a lot, a few examples including Kaffir, Ravi Shankar, and Greenwich University. -- Natalya 14:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Another proposal

Nothing to lose at this point by making a new proposal. Actually this is a recycling of someone else's idea buried somewhere in an old Talk page I can no longer find. How about something along the lines of:

• Apartheid usually refers to Apartheid in South Africa, the system of racial segregation in South Africa prior to the early 1990s.

• The term "apartheid" is also sometimes used as a political epithet to describe practices that segregate and discriminate against ethnic groups. For example, the term is used to describe past and current practices in Israel for its treatment of the Palestinian population, Canada for its treatment of aboriginals, China for...

• The "apartheid wall" is a controversial epithet to describe the Israeli West Bank barrier.

Depending on the outcome of the AfD discussions, we might need to include references to Gender, Sexual, and Global apartheid.

Some remarks about this approach:

• For the reader's convenience, it provides a direct link to the articles. If a user is looking for "apartheid" with Israel in mind, this page will meet their needs.

• It does not single out one country for criticism. I hope this will satisfy those of you who feel that Israel is being unfairly singled-out. As a Canadian, I don't mind seeing Canada in a list of many countries; I would be upset if Canada was the only country other than South Africa named on the page.

• It does not publicize the "Israeli apartheid" epithet that many people find offensive. I find the use of offensive epithets to be offensive even if I agree with the gist of what the epithet says.

• It educates the reader with the relevant fact that the analogy has been applied to many countries.

I don't expect this proposal to be perfect. In particular we can probably work on the best examples for the countries to be named. Do you think the proposal is something we can refine into something acceptable? Su-laine.yeo 05:15, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

this is a great suggestion just be more bold and accurate:

"*The term "apartheid" is also sometimes used as a political epithet to negativly portray one side ina political debate and present it's action as a refelection of the south Africa policis during Apartheid era. It is a controversial comparison, sometimes used to demonize a specific group or country and usualy based on drawing controvesial and false analogies to South Africa practices to segregate and discriminate against ethnic groups. For example, the term is used to describe past and current practices in Israel for its treatment of the Palestinian population, Canada for its treatment of aboriginals, China for..." Zeq 05:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• For the reader's convenience, it provides a direct link to the articles. If a user is looking for "apartheid" with Israel in mind, this page will meet their needs.

Not really, it doesn't even mention Israeli apartheid - instead it makes the user think the link is just to Israel. Rather than conveniencing the reader it does quite the opposite. Why not just be straightforward and a) acknowledge that the term (and article) exist and b) acknowledge that the term is controversial and contested?

• It does not publicize the "Israeli apartheid" epithet that many people find offensive. I find the use of offensive epithets to be offensive even if I agree with the gist of what the epithet says.

The article survived AFD, no point in trying to hide it now or pretend it doesn't exist. We have many articles for controversial phrases and words and many of them are listed on disambig pages. There's no reason to act differently here. Instead of censoring or bowlderizing simply acknowledge that the phrase *is* used and acknowledge that it is controversial. It's not like the term "apartheid state" or "Israeli apartheid" never appear in the Israeli media. Homey 05:25, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

As for Zeq's suggestion it is completely POV, polemical, one-sided and inappropriate. You are writing as if you are putting together an op-ed piece or an argumentative essay. Homey 05:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• actually the use of the word "apartheid" is by itself polemical and designed to create negative emotional response so we need to mention this fact right at the start in order to NPOV the impression this word creats. Zeq 06:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Zeq, has it occured to you that there is no difference between your concept of an NPOV article and your concept of one where you are pushing your POV? Homey 06:20, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Homey, you are the one using Wikipedia to push your POV. You do it in so many issues (your objection to israel is just one) that I don't understand how you get away with this but I am sure at some point it will stop. PLease try to understand wikipedia NPOV policy and what wikipedia is WP:not Zeq 06:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Homey, you are the one using Wikipedia to push your POV. "Mr Kettle? It's Mr. Pot on line 2. He say's you're black." --Calton | Talk 06:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I have to say I prefer the page as it is currently, however I also think Su-laine.yeo's proposal has it's merits. It seems that the only criticism Zeq and Homey have is towards how to list the Isreal stufff, so how about this? (Boy am I glad we haven't riled up the Canadians with this article, yet...)

• The term "apartheid" is also sometimes used as a political epithet to describe practices that segregate and discriminate against ethnic groups, a controversial comparison to the practices of Aparteid era South Africa. For example, the phrase Israeli apartheid has been used by some critics of Isreal's past and current treatment of the Palestinian population, as well as Canada for its treatment of aboriginals, China for...

It does seem to me that Zeq's suggestion goes a little too far, but is there any more that would be appropriate to add? Obhaso 06:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

A couple notes about disambiguation pages: to follow the manual of style for disambiguation pages, there are a couple of standard things that will help. Since Apartheid redirects to History of South Africa in the apartheid era, it is the primary topic, and would be at the top of the page, looking something like:

The Apartheid was a system of racial segregation that was enforced in South Africa from 1948 to 1991.


Apartheid may also refer to:
*Entry
*Entry
*Entry

The opening line could be rephrased as needed, but the primary topic belongs on the top. I have a couple ideas for making the entries more NPOV, which is both personal preference and MoS related, but take a look at that first. -- Natalya 12:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)