User:JoshuaZ/Juan Cole

Armon's Versions

Hi Joshua. Thanks for the attempt, but just to clarify, I'm not interested in any more mediation attempts, informal or otherwise, with sloat. A formal attempt went nowhere, and he and I are not the only editors on the page who need to "approve" anything which is discussed here.

As far as I can see, sloat is the only one pushing for his version of the Cole/Hitchens paragraph, and setting them side by side as below is proof enough of sloat soapboxing Cole.

As for the tags, because he objects in principle to any mention of the criticism, or of Hitchens, or of anything else i might object to, there's no way of resolving disputes with him in order to remove the tags. It's either removal, or soapboxing, which are both non-NPOV choices. I believe this is an abuse of the tags.

This simply needs to be firmly pointed out to him. <<-armon->> 04:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

BTW this is how the full version of the section reads at the moment which appears relatively stable:

Cole, Hitchens, and "Wiped off the Map"

Main article: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel

Cole and Christopher Hitchens traded barbs regarding the translation and meaning of a passage in one of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speeches, which Fathi Nazila of the New York Times's Tehran bureau translated as saying that Israel should be "wiped off the map". Hitchens accused Cole of attempting to minimize the meaning of the speech that "...the state of Israel is illegitimate and must be obliterated", and of being an apologist for Ahmadinejad. Cole rejected the charge, stated his opposition to the Iranian regime, and defended his translation and interpretation of the speech, which he did not see as a threat. He also accused Hitchens of stealing his private emails, having a "debilitating drinking problem", and being a warmonger. This produced furious debate among bloggers.

If "warmonger" and "stealing" is too truncated, we could rewrite the last sentence to read:

Cole rejected the charge, stated his opposition to the Iranian regime, and defended his translation and interpretation of the speech, which he did not see as a threat. He also accused Hitchens of unethically using his private emails, having a "debilitating drinking problem", and pushing for a neoconservative-backed invasion of Iran. <<-armon->> 23:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Sloat's Versions

There are many problems on this page. It is my perception that Armon and Isarig have since mid 2006 been on a mission to make this page into a character assassination rather than a BLP. I have already made a statement in mediation about this; I refer you to that page for the statement. I don't wish to go over the points made there, but let me add a couple of things that have transpired recently on the page. The mediator apparently has left, and Armon and Isarig have gone back to edit warring on the Juan Cole page itself. There are a number of issues to resolve but let me focus on a couple:

(1) Armon has removed NPOV-section tags from two sections under dispute. I pointed this out in talk and replaced the tags, indicating they should not be removed until the disputes over those sections were settled. He restored the tags again and again without a clear explanation of why (see the talk page under "Warning tags as permanant fixtures" for discussion). I feel that if we are going to keep going back and forth editing those sections for NPOV and BLP issues, the tags should stay on until the disputes are settled there. It is true they should not be permanent but that alone is not a reason to remove them. When there are valid and ongoing disputes about a section, the tag serves as a reminder to the participants that the dispute must be addressed.

(2) In the section "Cole, Hitchens, and 'Wiped off the map'," I proposed the following version:

Cole and Christopher Hitchens traded barbs regarding the translation and meaning of one of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speeches, which Fathi Nazila of the New York Times's Tehran bureau translated as saying that Israel should be "wiped off the map". Hitchens accused Cole of attempting to minimize the meaning of the speech that "...the state of Israel is illegitimate and must be obliterated", and of being an apologist for Ahmadinejad. . Cole defended his translation and interpretation of the speech, which he did not see as a threat. He responded specifically to the charge that he was an "apologist" for the Iranian regime, noting, "I personally despise everything Ahmadinejad stands for, not to mention the odious Khomeini, who had personal friends of mine killed so thoroughly that we have never recovered their bodies." Cole also noted that Hitchens actually held virtually the same position as Cole on the threat of Iran; Cole quotes Hitchens: "The recent fuss about the obliteration of Israel is largely bullshit: Ayatollah Khomeini’s call for this has been intoned pedantically and routinely ever since he first uttered it, and it only got attention this year because of the new phenomenon of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the scrofulous engineer who acts the part of civilian president for his clerical bosses."[1]

Armon deleted Cole's response from this version claiming it was a violation of WP:SOAP, yet it is Cole's explicit response to Hitchens' charges. Armon instead replaced Cole's response with the following:

Cole rejected the charge, stated his opposition to the Iranian regime, and defended his translation and interpretation of the speech, which he did not see as a threat. He also accused Hitchens of stealing his private emails, having a "debilitating drinking problem", and being a warmonger. This produced furious debate among bloggers.

While this version has the virtue of being shorter, it grossly misrepresents the issues at hand. First, important parts of Cole's response have been removed. Cole's opposition to the Iranian regime, and his charge of Hitchens' hypocrisy, should not be deleted. Second, it brings in the entirely nonencyclopedic claims that Hitchens is a warmonger, a theif, and a drunk. These claims do not belong in wikipedia. The thief charge is ridiculous; what happened was Cole complained that Hitchens got ahold of an email from a private list -- that was a complaint that Cole later backed off of. Cole did point to Hitchens' drinking problem; that problem is well known and is something that Hitchens himself boasts proudly of. I don't see how it is relevant here. The problem is that Cole's legitimate responses have been replaced by name-calling. I'm not trying to whitewash Cole's name-calling, but I don't see how it is notable. When WP:RS's have cited this dispute, they cite the controversy over what the Iranian leader meant; they do not cite Cole's and Hitchens' name-calling. We don't quote Hitchens saying "Cole is a minor nuisance" or that he is "a fool and an ignoramus" for example -- not because he didn't say it, but because it is non-notable name-calling. Third, Armon's version elevates the response of bloggers to this whole dispute. This controversy is notable and relevant because it was discussed in Slate and the NYT (among other sources), not because some bloggers found it amusing.

That's all for now on this page -- there are other disputes but I believe those are the major ones at the moment. In the longer term, it may be useful to provide some checks on behavior on the page -- strict enforcement of WP:BLP, for example, and even a 1RR (or 0RR) requirement for the page. In fact, I would even be willing to stop editing the page entirely, and only participate on the talk page, if Armon and Isarig were similarly constrained. That way both sides could present our cases but it would be up to other parties to actually make the relevant changes to the page. (There is another user, Elizmr, who is also party to this dispute - see the mediation page - but she does not engage in revert wars nearly as often as Armon or Isarig). These are just possible suggestions; I just wanted to indicate my willingness to work toward some kind of acceptable mediated solution here. Thanks again for initiating this process. csloat 19:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)