Talk:The Awareness Center

Remove Page

I am requesting this page be removed from Wikipedia and that it is blocked from being recreated along with my name. It is being used as a method of slandering myself and an organization that has been addressing sex crimes in Jewish communities for the last 11 years. Over the years various volunteers attempted to stop the attacks, yet it has become futile. I asking the legal department to get involved with this issue.

thejewishstar

Is this a reliable source? http://thejewishstar.wordpress.com Wordpress sites are usually blogs, but this doesn't exactly resemble a normal blog. OTOH, they don't list editors or owners, so it doesn't quite resemble a newspaper either. Do we know anything more about it?   Will Beback  talk  16:58, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks like the blog of an existing printed periodical. See http://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/about/. -- Avi (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I missed that. It looks like it qualifies. Thanks.   Will Beback  talk  18:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I missed your question, Will. I thought that was covered because Wikipedia helpfully linked automatically to its own page on The Jewish Star in the credits. In any case, this is what we've been trying to say about the organization for years. The problem is that even when a person's psychological issue directly affects their position, it's not something considered a polite topic for an article. So those "in the know" simply stop relying upon her for quotes about abuse issues, while those not "in the know" just keep using her. Now, finally, the facts are emerging in print. We must protect the community from the real danger of abuse; unfortunately, her reputation is such that any reference to "The Awareness Center" is counterproductive when the person is actually guilty. SunAlsoRises (talk) 16:08, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Having an article on Wikipedia (which I hadn't seen) is not a sign of being a reliable source, but that's a moot point now.   Will Beback  talk  20:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant, there's an article on Wikipedia which explains that it's a periodical that meets WP:V. I should have been more clear. SunAlsoRises (talk) 21:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

youtube

Will, you removed the link to "Rachel" on youtube. This video speaks directly to the motivations of the founder of the organization. Was the organization founded because she is a tireless victims' advocate as she says, or to continue to tar the Jewish community with accusations true or false? To me at least, the video is not tangential. Could you explain your reasoning? SunAlsoRises (talk) 20:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

See WP:ELNO. Unless that video was posted by Harpo Productions, the owner, it is a likely copyright violation and we can't link to it. It has nothing to do with the contents.   Will Beback  talk  20:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah. Understood. SunAlsoRises (talk) 21:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, a better link would have been WP:ELNEVER. Same page, different section.   Will Beback  talk  21:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

David in DC's Edits

Let's not resume the whitewash of Vicki Polin and her organization. Vicki Polin created a false accusation of sexual abuse and ritual murder, which the ADL called a modern-day blood libel against the Jewish community. You don't think that has direct bearing upon the purpose of her organization? It is not something to stick in the last paragraph of the controversy section. SunAlsoRises (talk) 19:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not a whitewash to enforce the special rules on wikipedia requiring special care with derogatory information about a living person. It must not be given undue weight, even if it is properly sourced. This is an article about The Awareness Center. Sourced derogatory information about TAC's director must not be festooned all over TAC's article. A brief, sourced mention in the lede, with fleshing out in the criticism subsection is far more easily justified than turning the TAC article into a coatrack for attacks on TAC's director, no matter how deserving of such treatment an editor feels she is. Please recall that, at the TAC Director's request, the BLP about her has been blanked. David in DC (talk) 20:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I won't contest the latest edit. My priority was that the summary at the top tell readers immediately that the TAC Director has a track record of attacks with no credibility.

This is not simply about the misuse of a Wikipedia page about an organization in order to attack a person. Her accusation of Satanic rituals speaks directly to her motives and her credibility as the sole known employee of TAC. Her web site -- which is all the TAC really is, her personal web site -- attacks Rabbis and others, often, as stated, without anything more than anonymous blog posts to back her up. Stories that charges against Rabbis were dropped and found lacking in substance are never posted -- only the calumny of those found innocent. Is she seriously interested in stopping abuse, or is TAC the next chapter in her efforts to tar & feather the Jews? Her Oprah appearance is directly relevant.

I was not aware that it was the Director herself asked anything, but her page was not "blanked." Type Vicki Polin in Wikipedia search and you will not get a page of search results -- you will get this page. They were merged. She is only known because of TAC, and it makes this information about her still more relevant to this page. SunAlsoRises (talk) 21:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Would someone who knows how please fix the archives link?

Right now it leads to a blank page. It's my recollection that somewhere in that long convoluted archive is reference to Ms. Polin's page being blanked at her request, with what useful information about the Center it held transferred to the Center's article.

Once The Jewish Star finally put the Rachel material into a reliable source, it could be added to the Center's article. But WP:BLP and especially WP:UNDUE argue for less prominent treatment of this sourced derogatory information about a living person than for derogatory information about the Center, which is neither living nor a person.

All the information is in the article. The dispute is about prominence, placement and wording. It's best to err on the side of caution. David in DC (talk) 21:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

•  Done The archive was left behind in a page rename; I've moved it. -- Avi (talk) 16:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Todah rabah. David in DC (talk) 16:36, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

יור וולקם -- אבי - Avi (talk) 16:46, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Regretably, my mom learned her conversational Hebrew in the 50's, at Young Judea camps. So she taught me that the proper response to thank you in Hebrew, was "ayn davar". As an 18-year-old using that archaicism in 1979 Israel, I got razzed for sounding like a 1930's socialist kibbutznik.David in DC (talk) 18:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

My conversational Hebrew is middling (which is why I claim he-2, my comprehension is a bit better). The classic response is "B'vakasha" which means you're welcome although when I was last speaking Modern conversational Hebrew daily on a regular basis (about 18 years ago or so), the "in" response was "al lo davar" which literally means "on no thing" and is the equivalent of a "de nada" kind of response for you're welcome. -- Avi (talk) 04:23, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why David messed with the compromise we reached earlier. I would remind David of what I said before: "Is she seriously interested in stopping abuse, or is TAC the next chapter in her efforts to tar & feather the Jews?" Now that the Jewish Star has published what we already knew, it is directly relevant to why she created the center in the first place. It is the foundation of the controversy surrounding TAC and the way it publishes the flimsiest of accusations as if they were true, and it is hardly wrong under WP:UNDUE to have it at the beginning of the controversy section. SunAlsoRises (talk) 00:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm unaware of a compromise being reached. I think we're both trying to hone the article, though coming at it from different angles. Outside of the Undue Weight issue, I think the rest of the diffs are about style, usage and avoiding adjectives that modify nouns when the noun is sufficient. I'll start a separate thread on undue weight only. And I'd welcome other editors' counsel.

YooHoo! We know others watch this page. Come, let us reason together. David in DC (talk) 16:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Well I liked how you tuned it before (that was the compromise), but honestly now I like your current version even better. You de-emphasized the material about her, but also expressed the primary criticism of TAC much more clearly than any previous version of the page. As the archives showed, the merger of her named page with this one was not by request, but because she had no other reason to be known -- so including the material about her is relevant as I argued. Nonetheless, it's fine that you move it to the bottom, putting it in the context of criticism of TAC with Bell's article as a segue, as you said. SunAlsoRises (talk) 20:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Undue weight

In an article about The Awareness Center, the focus must be on The Awareness Center. Criticism of its director is relevant, but even on pages that are not biographies of living people, the rules on derogatory information about living people apply.

That means the Rachel material needs to be the second sentence in the lede and the final part of the Criticism section. I've renamed that section, to make explicit the fact that both sorts of criticisms lay below the subhed.

The last section works better as writing qua writing, too. It starts with explicit criticism of the Center and its methods. Then comes the Catalyst material, which straddles the line between critique of the Center and characterization of Ms. Polin. Then the Rachel/Oprah/ADL stuff, which focus on Ms. Polin.

Also, as noted above, putting "Rachel" after the Catalyst stuff gets rid of that ugly business of ending on a block quote.David in DC (talk) 16:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)