Jayjg returns to his POV pushing, on I/P topics, of course Options

[Sololol]

I checked back in on ol' Jay just to see what he was up to. He'd always seemed pretty mild-mannered when I'd run into him. If anyone would like to see Jayjg in all his full POV pushing glory go take a gander at his recent activity. After a stint of good behavior he's back at it again.

A particularly uproarious line culled from Jayjg's offensive against including the BBC as a source for "the international community thinks settlements are illegal":
"As is obvious, rock-solid sources also consider the term "international community" itself to be essentially meaningless; I'm sorry that this points out a fundamental flaw in the article's first sentence. You can try to play literary acrobatics as much as you want to, but there are several sources, written in the highest quality publications by experts in the field, that say that the "international community" is an essentially meaningless term."

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=449242561

The master is back in his workshop. Keep the lols rolling, Judah.

[Cla68]

I checked back in on ol' Jay just to see what he was up to. He'd always seemed pretty mild-mannered when I'd run into him. If anyone would like to see Jayjg in all his full POV pushing glory go take a gander at his recent activity. After a stint of good behavior he's back at it again.

A particularly uproarious line culled from Jayjg's offensive against including the BBC as a source for "the international community thinks settlements are illegal":
"As is obvious, rock-solid sources also consider the term "international community" itself to be essentially meaningless; I'm sorry that this points out a fundamental flaw in the article's first sentence. You can try to play literary acrobatics as much as you want to, but there are several sources, written in the highest quality publications by experts in the field, that say that the "international community" is an essentially meaningless term."

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=449242561

The master is back in his workshop. Keep the lols rolling, Judah.

If you guys are going to insist on trying to say that the Israeli West Bank and Golan Heights settlements are illegal in Wikipedia's voice or according to the "international community", you're going to continue to face understandable opposition from other editors, apparently including Jayjg. If you phrase it like this, "According to the International Court of Justice, Stephen Bowen, the BBC, and so-and-so, the settlements are illegal"[followed by extensive sources], then you might make some headway. Insisting on putting controversial statements in Wikipedia's voice or making sweeping generalizations, even if some of the sources are doing so, is not going to get you anywhere.

[Sololol]

If you guys are going to insist on trying to say that the Israeli West Bank and Golan Heights settlements are illegal in Wikipedia's voice or according to the "international community", you're going to continue to face understandable opposition from other editors, apparently including Jayjg. If you phrase it like this, "According to the International Court of Justice, Stephen Bowen, the BBC, and so-and-so, the settlements are illegal"[followed by extensive sources], then you might make some headway. Insisting on putting controversial statements in Wikipedia's voice or making sweeping generalizations, even if some of the sources are doing so, is not going to get you anywhere.

That's a reasonable argument. Unfortunately it's not what started this little skirmish. Here's the original edit Jay reverted. Here's the source the contested material was drawn from. And Jay's reasoning. In short, that the BBC can't be considered an RS for legal opinions and that its opinion doesn't belong in the lede.

Note, dear reader, that the BBC isn't actually weighing in on a point of law but reporting what world governments have said. "The British Government believes that Israeli settlements on occupied territory are illegal. So does every other government in the world, except for Israel."

[Cla68]

If you guys are going to insist on trying to say that the Israeli West Bank and Golan Heights settlements are illegal in Wikipedia's voice or according to the "international community", you're going to continue to face understandable opposition from other editors, apparently including Jayjg. If you phrase it like this, "According to the International Court of Justice, Stephen Bowen, the BBC, and so-and-so, the settlements are illegal"[followed by extensive sources], then you might make some headway. Insisting on putting controversial statements in Wikipedia's voice or making sweeping generalizations, even if some of the sources are doing so, is not going to get you anywhere.

That's a reasonable argument. Unfortunately it's not what started this little skirmish. Here's the original edit Jay reverted. Here's the source the contested material was drawn from. And Jay's reasoning. In short, that the BBC can't be considered an RS for legal opinions and that its opinion doesn't belong in the lede.

Note, dear reader, that the BBC isn't actually weighing in on a point of law but reporting what world governments have said. "The British Government believes that Israeli settlements on occupied territory are illegal. So does every other government in the world, except for Israel."

Look again at the text that Jayjg was objecting to. It was putting in Wikipedia's voice that the settlements are illegal. It isn't necessarily POV-pushing for editors to object to putting controversial assertions in Wikipedia's voice. I understand that there are other nuances to the debate, such as that the BBC is not qualified to issue a legal opinion. Therefore, you need to phrase it differently, "According to the BBC, the international community has decided that the settlements are illegal." Again, if you all keep trying to segway one side of the conflict into Wikipedia's voice you are going to continue to have time-wasting arguments on the article talk page. Are you all trying to bait Jayjg and other editors into arguing with you?

This post has been edited by Cla68: Sun 11th September 2011, 7:50am

[nableezy]

Look again at the text that Jayjg was objecting to. It was putting in Wikipedia's voice that the settlements are illegal. It isn't necessarily POV-pushing for editors to object to putting controversial assertions in Wikipedia's voice. I understand that there are other nuances to the debate, such as that the BBC is not qualified to issue a legal opinion. Therefore, you need to phrase it differently, "According to the BBC, the international community has decided that the settlements are illegal." Again, if you all keep trying to segway one side of the conflict into Wikipedia's voice you are going to continue to have time-wasting arguments on the article talk page. Are you all trying to bait Jayjg and other editors into arguing with you?

That is absolutely not true. The text did not put into Wikipedia's voice that the settlements are illegal under international law, the text put into Wikipedia's voice that the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law. And once again, this is not even cited to the BBC. The sources currently in the article for the sentence "the international community considers Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories illegal under international law" (the sentence that Jay is currently objecting to) are as follows:

Roberts, Adam, "Prolonged Military Occupation: The Israeli-Occupied Territories Since 1967", The American Journal of International Law (American Society of International Law) 84 (1): pp. 85-86, "The international community has taken a critical view of both deportations and settlements as being contrary to international law. General Assembly resolutions have condemned the deportations since 1969, and have done so by overwhelming majorities in recent years. Likewise, they have consistently deplored the establishment of settlements, and have done so by overwhelming majorities throughout the period (since the end of 1976) of the rapid expansion in their numbers. The Security Council has also been critical of deportations and settlements; and other bodies have viewed them as an obstacle to peace, and illegal under international law."

Pertile, Marco (2005), "'Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory': A Missed Opportunity for International Humanitarian Law?", in Conforti, Benedetto; Bravo, Luigi, The Italian Yearbook of International Law, 14, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, p. 141, ISBN 9789004150270, "the establishment of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been considered illegal by the international community and by the majority of legal scholars."

Barak-Erez, Daphne (2006), "Israel: The security barrier—between international law, constitutional law, and domestic judicial review", International Journal of Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press) 4 (3): 548, "The real controversy hovering over all the litigation on the security barrier concerns the fate of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Since 1967, Israel has allowed and even encouraged its citizens to live in the new settlements established in the territories, motivated by religious and national sentiments attached to the history of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel. This policy has also been justified in terms of security interests, taking into consideration the dangerous geographic circumstances of Israel before 1967 (where Israeli areas on the Mediterranean coast were potentially threatened by Jordanian control of the West Bank ridge). The international community, for its part, has viewed this policy as patently illegal, based on the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibit moving populations to or from territories under occupation."

Drew, Catriona (1997), "Self-determination and population transfer", in Bowen, Stephen, Human rights, self-determination and political change in the occupied Palestinian territories, International studies in human rights, 52, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, pp. 151-152, ISBN 9789041105028, "It can thus clearly be concluded that the transfer of Israeli settlers into the occupied territories violates not only the laws of belligerent occupation but the Palestinian right of self-determination under international law. The question remains, however, whether this is of any practical value. In other words, given the view of the international community that the Israeli settlements are illegal under the law if belligerent occupation …"

International Labour Organization (2005), The situation of workers of the occupied Arab territories, p. 14, "The international community considers Israeli settlements within the occupied territories illegal and in breach of, inter alia, United Nations Security Council resolution 465 of 1 March 1980 calling on Israel “to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem”."

Do you really contend that by saying that the "international community considers Israeli settlements illegal under international law" we are making a "controversial assertion" in Wikipedia's voice? If it were a controversial assertion, shouldn't there be at least one source that actual disputes the sentence. Because there are no sources, at least none so far presented, that actually do dispute that the international community considers the settlements illegal. None.

This post has been edited by nableezy: Sun 11th September 2011, 2:19pm