Talk:Palestinian stone-throwing

Deaths and casualties

This section briefly mentions several blue-linked deaths of Israelis. I removed the non-blue-linked death of a Palestinian Arab. If we put it back in, we would also have to add several well-sourced but non blue-linked deaths and permanently disabling injuries of Israelis (and was there also a tourist?). What we CANNOT have without violating NPOV is a practice of only including blue-linked Israeli casualties, while including non-bluelinked Arab casualties.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:33, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Both this and below are purely subjective assertions. Where is the policy. More seriously, you have removed a mass of reliable sources regarding aspects of Palestinian stone throwing without discussion. It is not enough to do that and state:'I did this'. Concretely:

• (1) Removed unreliable source

I.e.John Brown and Noam Rotem, 'License to Kill: Stone-throwing while Palestinian could get you killed,' +972 magazine 24 August 2015

(a)You have been warned at RSN that going around articles and automatically removing ‘972 magazine when its status as unreliable has not been determined is improper.

I see that, even without waiting for this thread to close or a clear consensus to develop, E.M.Gregory is going through articles, systematically removing citations to +972 Mag. This is tendentious and disruptive behaviour, from which s/he should desist unless and until it is agreed or ruled that the magazine is not a reliable source and should not be cited RolandR (talk) 15:38, 31 March 2015

The RSN history of +972 magazine gives you no warrant to persist. There is no decisive view and its usability depends on context according to external input.

• 2012 not seen as problematical;2014 here;2015 here (ignore the sockpuppet;here etc.

In other words, if you are unhappy with it, given this indeterminateness, argue, as I have done regularly, ast the RSN board before proceeding. If you don't the edit summary is improper, implying a certainty for what is your personal subjective viewepoint.

• (2)See talk

The comment at talk, here, is, to me, incomprehensible policy-wise.

• (3)remove; misplced in this article which is about Palestinian stone throwing

You are contradicting the content of several undisputed RS by removing the following.

• Katie Zavadski, ['Palestinian-American Teenager Killed by IDF in West Bank'], New York Magazine 24 October 2014.
• Mohammad Daraghmeh, 'Palestinian killed in clash with Israeli military', Associated Press, 24 October 2014]
• WATCH: IDF stands idly by as settlers throw stones at Palestinians', Jerusalem Post 8 January 2014.
• 'Settler violence: Lack of accountability', B'Tselem
• Hebron, '3 video segments: Soldiers overlook settlers' violent actions, take measures when Palestinians throw stones', B'Tselem 2 August 2014
• Gili Cohen, 'Israeli Soldiers Did Nothing to Stop Stone-throwing Settlers, Videos Show', Haaretz 20 November 2014
• Avi Lewis, 'IDF: Rules of engagement now same for Jewish offenders, Palestinians', The Times of Israel 13 July 2015
• 'Israeli settlers filmed firing guns at Palestinians', The Guardian 21 May 2012.

En masse removal of material that has stood on a closely scrutinized article for years is dubious practice. There is a talkpage, so use it rather than act preemptively. I'm putting this material back in the meantime, since it is far too extensive and enduring to be eviscerated, as you did.Nishidani (talk) 13:09, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• Please look at this 2014/15 RFC, which I noticed because it is referenced on the talk page at Jewish Israeli stone throwing, much shorter talk page where decisions are not buried in the archives). Here:[1] it reaches consensus with the statement "There is a consensus against inclusion of incidents without their own Wikipedia articles." I assume that this decision still applies, and that is what I was referencing when I removed the menitions of non-bluelinked deaths in stone-throwing incidents. @Nishidani:E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:23, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I.e. When people have reverted, I take it to the RSN board. Now, be a decent chap, and take it to that board. There is no warrant in recent discussions for removing it at sight and just declaring in an edit summary it is not RS. Nishidani (talk) 19:47, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• Wait. Are you saying that the is a statute of limitations on the application of consensus decisions reached on a talk page? that after a while we can just move on and do what we want, disregarding an RFC?E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:02, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• @Icewhiz, John of Reading, Oshwah, Ynhockey, and ImTheIP:, the last 5 non-bots who edited the page. Gentlemen, is Nishidani correct on policy? I deleted a number of non-bluelinked incidents on the basis of a well-attended RFC that closed in January 2015, ruling that non-bluelinked injuries and deaths caused by stone-throwing could not be listed on this page. Here:[2]. Nish says that the old RFC can be ignored. Can one of you enlighten me on policy here. At what point do we decide to ignore the consensus reached by an RFC? I would have thought that a new RFC would be required to overturn one that reached consensus.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:02, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

That is an improper method. Two of those named are fairly predictable. I don't know the others. (b) as to the 'consensus' re incidents requiring a distinct page, this is WP:Systemic bias. There is a tacit agreement among one group of editors not to leap at incidents involving Palestinian victims, unless a month or two shows continued public focus, and even then few care to do that kind of lachrymose article, regarding it as an abuse of WP:Notability. You specialize in these articles, regarding acts of Palestinian terrorism against Israeli Jews etc., which is your right. However, as the page stands we have a list of 4 Jewish victims of stoning, which, if your view is accepted, can stand, but we must eliminate all mention of Palestinians in similar cases unless someone takes the trouble to write articles on the specific events. Well, I refuse to do that, because I think it an abuse of what wiki is about, encyclopedic coverage without playing politics. Your proposal, objectively, breaks WP:NPOV, for the rules are cited to keep Jewish victims of stone-throwing in focus, and toss out equally catastrophic evidence of the IDF standing by as settler youths throw stones, etc. Nishidani (talk) 20:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Finally, there is something troubling about the removal of several excellent mainstream sources on Palestinian stone-throwing without prior discussion, when that passage has passed scrutiny for some years. You should politely notify a page, and not do that under an incomprehensive es,Nishidani (talk) 20:17, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Umm, no. If consensus was reached in the RFC regarding this situation (or similar situations), that's what should be upheld unless a newer discussion takes place and consensus changes. The statements you made about "wiki abuse" make no sense to me and aren't supported by any diffs or evidence; why must we "eliminate all mention of Palestinians in similar cases" as you stated above? I know that I'm stepping in the middle of this discussion and there's probably more to this than I've seen here, but when something makes no sense and there are no diffs or links to back up the claims made, it'll make no sense and hold little weight regardless of where or what part of the discussion it takes place on. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:51, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Evaluations

Propose limiting this laundry list section to the opinions of blue-linked commentators, or comments and non-notable individuals whose comments have been discussed in some secondary RS.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:37, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Examining the mass deletions done before discussion was concluded.

Oshwah. Per the above, where you find my admittedly elliptical generalizations obscure, and the edits your post immediately generated, with extensive deletions here, here and here, while discussion is underway (did your comment wrap it up so quickly) let me explain.

User:E.M.Gregory is basically removing a mass of material based on this closure note, taken 3 years ago when the article was in a primitive state.

There is a consensus against inclusion of incidents without their own Wikipedia articles. Arguments are that Wikipedia does not cover routine news events, and there is concern that an indiscriminate list would either directly (WP:SYNTH) or indirectly be advancing a position not directly supported by sources. Sam Walton (talk) 21:55, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

This refers to the state of the page way before I noticed it, and though I am bound by prior decisions, the history suggests that decision requires review. User:Roscelese implemented that decision, removing all instances of Israeli victims of Palestinian stone-throwing, blue-linked or otherwise. User:Debresser correctly restored the bluelinked list. We are talking about a page with 12,500 kbs.

E.M. Gregory then introduced further material, the (Death of Adele Biton) on 22 February 2015, after creating that dubious (WP:Notability) article a few minutes earlier and then this equally non.-notable event with theDeath of Binyamin Meisner, an article he created for that purpose a day later and in addition a further note on Meisner.

I read this as an attempt to get around the Walton 2015 closure summation by creating articles ad hoc on non-notable incidents in order to consolidate the list of Jewish victims on the Palestinian stone throwing page. That, at least, is what it looks like, a violation of WP:NPOV. The Adele Biton article wasn’t nominated for deletion, as it was breaking news, but Roscelese nominated the Binyamin Meisner article for deletion, and it scraped by, with the help of the sockpuppet Ashtul.

The page was an attack page at the time, completely indifferent to the Palestinian POV, and wholly dedicated to Israeli victims. I thought it needed an overhaul, to give the complete historical context of stone-throwing. and so I made a subsequent 169 edits i.e 24.18 percent of contributions, doing most of the work to bringing it up to the 104,000 kbs we have now. It was therefore a radically different piece of work. The passages being removed have been stable for 2 years, and while Israeli victims are duly noticed, Gregory's edits are successively removing parallel details concerning Palestinians and stone throwing because I won't create separate pages on each incident. I could mimic him, and do this, since each incident or fact is documented, but I adhere strictly to WP:Notability and have always protested the abuse of that principle. As it stands Gregory adds material deleterious to Palestinians (his right), and at the same time, removes much material that relates to Israeli abuses of Palestinians, in the thematic context of stone-throwing.

I hope my earlier remarks are clearer now. I think Gregory's acting instantaneously on your none comment, as if an ongoing discussion were thereby definitively sealed, improper.Nishidani (talk) 12:58, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Nishidani: Why was I pinged here? I don't know what you mean by a 2014 decision, nor have I created any articles on 'non-notable incidents' about Palestine. Sam Walton (talk) 13:01, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't ping. I forgot that linking names (I do it for the record) means one is notified. The decision closure-note is the one you gave early 2015. Apologies.Nishidani (talk) 13:08, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Ah yes, sorry, I missed the quote of my close above. Sam Walton (talk) 16:54, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

• Nishidani, the RFC was concluded in 2015. I had supposed that it was still valid when I removed non-bluelinked material a couple of days ago, which you restored. So I asked edirots what the policy is. User:Oshwash (an experienced editor who doesn't usually do I/P) confirmed my supposition that Non-bluelinked material can be removed form this article based on that well-attended, 2015 RFC. Here [3].E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:30, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

• Okay, I'm looking at the recent changes as they stand now. Apart from some wording changes and a cite tag that I removed because the material was already cited, what seems to have been changed is:
  • Mention of Dina Matar being shot. I agree with this removal because it is not pertinent to the section in which it's included. There may be another place in the article where it would be appropriate, though.
  • A "better source" tag for a Human Rights Watch document. I'm not familiar with WP's current view on HRW's reliability. Do we not feel that they are reliable?
  • The death of Edmond Ghaneim. It wasn't clear to me how this text was relevant to the article because I needed to Google to find out that he was throwing stones at the time he was "passing by after shopping." If the story is included, this information must also be included because otherwise it's irrelevant; if this claim is not generally agreed-upon the content should remain excluded. I don't see it in most of the sources, so my feeling is that the incident should be excluded; Nishidani, unless you have an alternate body of sources?

Most sources state Ghaneim was killed in exactly the same way that Binyamin Meisner was killed. I could easily write a wiki article on it, but as I stated, I don't do lachrymose stuff to get some theatrical pull on wiki readers' political feelings. The general account (esp by Bowman who is a specialist is that he was out buying eggs for his mother at the market, and coming home. A late Israeli report stated he had been part of the stone-throwing, and just, accidentally, got hit by a cinder block when it fell off a roof where soldiers happened to be posted. So one has 2 reports. Go figure.

• Marshall J. Breger, Yitzhak Reiter, Leonard Hammer (eds.)Sacred Space in Israel and Palestine: Religion and Politics Routledge, 2013
• Hillel Bardin A Zionist among Palestinians Indiana University Press, 2012 p.44
• Glenn Bowman, 'A Death Revisited: Solidarity and Dissonance in a Muslim-Christian Palestinian Community,' in Ussama Samir Makdisi, Paul A. Silverstein (eds.) Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa, Indiana University Press, 2006 pp.27-49 p.29
• Henk Driessen, Ton Otto (eds.) Perplexities of Identification: Anthropological Studies in Cultural Differentiation and the Use of Resources, Aarhus University Press, 2000 p.59

In an intelligent universe, one would think that an article shouting in a bold section that a soldier was killed by a cinder-block dropped on his head, should equably include the mirror case of a Palestinian being killed by the same method. But Wikipedia is a bureaucracy, and the rules don't allow intelligent coverage. It's our minute technical finessing that kicks the door wide open to POV management like what's going on here. Nishidani (talk) 16:05, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

• • Ometz Lesarev soldier quote: The material seems pertinent and the sourcing seems fine. However, I don't think it needs to be quoted at this length. This could be restored in a cut/paraphrased form.
• Going to look at the rest too, just wanted to put this here now. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:34, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

• More:
  • The removal of the "grow up to become an enemy" bit under "Settler reactions" is very obviously proper, wtf. There's no indication in the source that it has anything to do with stone-throwing, that's just inflammatory synthesis.
  • I agree with not having a list of individual incidents of retaliation, but E.M. Gregory was wrong to completely remove them instead of replacing them with some kind of summary. E.M., you should replace the text you removed with a summary or overview statement. The bit beginning "The similarities" doesn't even make sense without it.
  • In the "Casualties" section, many news sources were cited, but mostly not as individual incidents, rather, to support a more generalized statement. The generalized statement is appropriate and should be restored if the sources are considered good, IMO.
  • We don't need a "citation needed" tag for stone throwers being shot, we already have sources for this, just cite them.
• Additionally, I was initially responding to this as a new addition before realizing it wasn't, but I don't think ideas that are simply floated for law/policy re: stone-throwing are worthy of inclusion unless they actually become law or policy (or unless long-view, non-news reliable sources take note). Which, if any, of the things mentioned in the "In September 2015" paragraph have actually gone through the whole process of becoming law or policy? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:46, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Detailed as usual.Nishidani (talk) 16:05, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I attempted to material that violates the RFC. If you have RS making generalized comments (such as: in summer of 199_, several youths were killed by Israeli security forces during protests where rocks were thrown), of course it can be used. Such sumarizing statements exist in the article and I have no objection to them. What I understand the RFC to forbid is anything along the the lines of in summer of 199_, a 17-year-old from Umm al-Fahm was killed by Israeli security forces during an August 1 protest in Umm al-Fahm where rocks were thrown, since this would be referencing a specific non-bluelinked incident. (By the by, did either of you happen to see Rock the Casbah (2012 film)? Wondering if it interesting enough that I should add it to my netflix list.)E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:49, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Have you even thought that there is a talk page, that preemptive mass removals without addressing the talk page look odd, a provocative invite to edit-warring; that there are colleagues who are amenable to discussing rationally any proposal, that in the presence case, the essence of the issue was not the content, but the style (dates) used, and that one could easily have hashed out a compromise? Nishidani (talk) 17:02, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

• Discussion at talk is not required preliminary to removing material in clear violation of an established rule, in this case, a rule established by an RFC, here :[4]. Nish, I understand that WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. I understand how shocking it must feel to have carefully worked on and added material to an article without being aware of a rule that was, after all, buried in an old archive until I happened on it while revisiting this and Jewish Israeli stone throwing. But the rule exists.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:54, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

That RFC was about including a list. This was not a listing, this was in the prose of an article. You removed material about children being shot over throwing stones which cited sources and replaced that with a {{fact}} tag. How exactly is that not bad faith editing? You removed sources for something that you know back up the material and then replaced it with a fact tag. And your reasons for this are because an RFC said not to include a list of incidents? How exactly does that justify removing the sources and replacing it with a fact tag? nableezy - 18:30, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Revisiting that RFC

1.) The 2015 RFC, [5] had the effect of imposing a sort of deescalation of this long page, from a WP:BATTLEGROUND, to an article where a limited number of edits are made per year, and there is relatively little flame-throwing, by I/P standards. However, the page had accumulated long sections enumerating long prose lists of incidents in which Arabs were allegedly killed or injured by Israeli soldiers. And also many mentions of such incidents. They were often problematic due to POV phrasing and unreliable sourcing. But they had certainly accumulated. I interpreted the RFC to forbid adding such incidents, unless the incident was sufficiently notable to be bluelinked. 2.) We could, of course, open a new RFC, and decide whether to allow an unlimited number of deaths and injuries to be added. There have been many such incidents. Many. Opening this article to non-bluelinked incidents and injuries will open a floodgate. And almost inevitably lead to nasty edit wars. 3.) Note that omitting the non-blue-linked incidents will not damage the article materially, since there is so much RS material about stone-throwing and its consequences. 4.) Or we could deescalate by interpreting the 2015 RFC as User:Oshwah, an editor not regularly involved in I/P, has done above, to mean not only formal lists but "similar situations". Agree to abide by the 2015 decision to omit non-bluelinked injuries, damage, and deaths. And avert endless bickering. E.M.Gregory (talk) 19:08, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

From reading the rfc, it appears to apply to lists of incidents. That means that it is inapplicable to incidents described in running text. In my opinion, examples can be given in running texts to demonstrate the existence of phenomenons and whether they have "blue links" or not is inconsequential. One should of course prefer to refer to famous incidents over less famous ones. The problem with the "blue link" test is of course that it has a tendency to bias Wikipedia's coverage to what its editors are most interested to write about and what Western media reports the most about. Therefore I don't think we should use it as a "notability" criteria.

A separate discussion seem to be about 972mag. And I must say that I don't know the rules about what is a reputable source and what is not. I believe that even though 972mag is a blog and many authors publish under pseudonyms, it is still a trustworthy source. It has, afaik, not been caught with publishing fake news. ImTheIP (talk) 18:57, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

972mag is WP:SPS per their own about page. There is no editorial board, each blogger to his own. Not a RS. Trustworthiness for 972mag would, if at all, be attributed to an individual author and not to 972mag (which does no vetting). It is also a highly biased source - vehemently anti occupation. Regarding assailants (Arabs, kids, whatever) that are killed or injured as they attack, frankly that should be seen as WP:ROUTINE unless the incident is truly notable.Icewhiz (talk) 19:56, 3 August 2017 (UTC)