Talk:Khmer Rouge/Archive 7

message: I've check with WP:ANI and there is substantial opposition to my proposal to block editors in this protracted edit war for disruption, so I won't be doing that.  There is substantial support for the dispute resolution path and I suggest that all involved take notice of that. For instance I see no sign of a RFC on this article, nor (surprising given the frequent allegations of user misconduct) do I see any evidence that there has ever been a user conduct RfC on  the principal involved parties.
The NPOV tag should remain; it's clear to me that there is substantial POV content in the article (see this item in my talk archive for my points on this). --Tony SidawayTalk 12:51, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding an RFC for this article - this article has gone on RFC several times.  Usually it gets put on, an admin wanders in, sees me and Adam Carr edit warring and locks the article.  This has happened several times.  That has been what happened the last few times the article has been in the RFC.  As far as the mediation committee, if I recall correctly both me and Adam Carr thought any mediator would be good, although both of us thought for various reasons Ed Poor should recuse himself as the mediator.  I said I would abide by the mediator's decision, Adam Carr has said he wouldn't abide by their decision. Ruy Lopez 05:40, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Well it doesn't matter who put the opinion there.  If it's there then the article cannot be described as conforming to our standards on neutral point of view.  Thus we should keep the notice there to warn readers of this. Just because the person who wanted to put the notice there is someone you usually disagree with, does not mean that he is wrong on this occasion. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:30, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

text: On your problems with Ruy Lopez, you cannot expect people to go trawling through archives to try to see what's going on and decide whether they agree with you.  We have a mechanism known as Request for comment on user conduct.  You and one other editor must fill out and sign a form expressing your complaint in terms of Wikipedia policy.  The time limit for getting two signatures is 48 hours after you first raise the complaint, to give you time to notify the other editor and get him to read, edit and sign it.  The evidence is presented in the form of diffs ("In this edit the person contravened policy X by doing Y".  You have to show what attempts you have made to resolve the conflict.  The editor in question then gets a chance to respond.  People can read the complaint and the response and get the opportunity to endorse either of them.  They can also add their own outside views, which can also be separately endorsed.  This enables you to establish your case in a manner that doesn't require people to trawl through archives, and for other editors to make their comments. You or the party you complain about can then change their actions on the basis of the response. --Tony SidawayTalk 19:39, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Tony, those POV you report, are positions maintained by scholars presented in a personal point of view way. Why don't you edit and make that part NPOV, insteed of adding a POV tag? Fadix 21:41, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Feel free to do so.  if there are scholars who hold the opinions that are expressed in the article, then the opinions can be turned into facts by reporting them as the opinions (with quotations if possible) of named scholars in cited publications at page such-and-such, line so-and-so.  I'm not getting involved in editing this article.  --Tony SidawayTalk 22:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

text: "I will go through the article (again) tonight, and do a thorough edit on it to remove accumulated bad editing." - this seems like the most disruptive thing Carr can do.  I also, would like to completely rewrite this article by myself, but considering that there has been an edit war over basically one question since May (who fought and won against Lon Nol from 1970 on - FUNK/GRUNK or the Khmer Rouge), the idea of making a "thorough" edit, when this one small matter has not been able to be handled for months on end, seems to be throwing fuel on the fire.  I am happy to work with resolution on the small issues (the GRUNK/FUNK issues, CJK's insertion while that was still unresolved, and now the discussion about the 1970 coup).  However, if Adam Carr decides to up the ante wit a "thorough edit", then I see no choice but to counter this with my own "thorough edit".  Then instead of concentrating on the three issues currently being discussed, we will simply have a major edit war between radically different versions.  Does this make sense?  Doesn't concentrating on as few issues as possible, one at a time, make more sense?  I ask those reading who is taking the more pragmatic approach to a solution, me or Carr?  I don't think Carr should do this, if he does, I will do the same thing, and this will spin out of control.  But he will have started it, which I do not wish to happen. Ruy Lopez 04:23, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Blocking/protection and the NPOV tag

message: Depopulation is the best and broadest name I can think of for a sub-section talking about depopulation in Cambodia.  Some depopulation was caused by emigration, some by death.  Some death was caused by US Air Force bombs, some through execution by members of the Khmer Rouge, some by just normal old age.
If we look on the Khmer Rouge page, further down it says "The CIA estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge, but executions represented only a minority of the death toll, which mostly came from starvation.  The United States Department of State and the State Department funded Yale Cambodian Genocide Project give estimates of the total death toll as 1.2 million and 1.7 million respectively."  Now let's look up top.
"The Khmer Rouge regime is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, through execution, starvation and forced labor."  Let us go over this sentence.  First, the "Khmer Rouge regime" is mentioned, meaning that the Khmer Rouge was in power when this happened.  But when was the Khmer Rouge in power?  Was the Khmer Rouge the sole group in power in 1975?  Adam Carr says absolutely yes, which I question, since Sihanouk, FUNK and GRUNK were in power in 1975 after Lon Nol's regime collapsed.  This is significant since most deaths in Cambodia happened right around the time of power transitions - 1975 and then 1979.  If the Khmer Rouge was not in power in 1975, then are they responsible for deaths in 1975?  Even if they were in power, are they responsible for people who starved to death in April 1975?  May 1975?  June 1975?  If there was no food available, and international food aid was cut off as soon as they took over, are deaths due to starvation due to their fault alone?  Weren't people in Phnom Penh starving to death prior to April 1975, even with international food aid?  Plenty of Westerners, including Americans (including the New York Times), talked about the lack of food at that time, and said that refugees in Phnom Penh being sent back to their farms to grow food, which is what happened, was the most sensible course action, although in this article it is portrayed as an act of ideological madness - "forcibly evacuating the cities to the countryside so that people could become self-sufficient. In fact the motive for the evacuations was ideologically reflected in the Maoist doctrine which the Khmer Rouge followed, which praised the rural peasants and detested urban city dwellers."
We move on in the sentence from Khmer Rouge to deaths.  This article gets terribly conflated, I think purposefully so, so that natural deaths, emigration, deaths caused by others and so forth all wind up in a big jumble.  Being that the sentence talks about execution, starvation and forced labor, one would think that the 1.7 million deaths means that above and beyond natural death due to old age and such, that all of the 1.7 million were due to execution, starvation and forced labor.  Cleverly conflating all these different things in an attempt to deceive the reader is something done a lot, which is especially attempted at these summaries on the top.
Then we get to 1.7 million people.  Well, this number is disputed.  Most of the numbers on the page are not from me - any estimates I have put up have been removed by Adam Carr.  Mr. Sidaway is probably unaware that most of what I have put up has been removed by Mr. Carr.  I will dig up my numbers and post them again.  And as I said before, what does this number mean?  Refugees?  People killed by US bombings in 1972?  People who died of old age?  Executions by Khmer Rouge members?  People who starved to death in April or May 1975 - and whose fault is that, and was the Khmer Rouge even in power in May 1975?
Then there are executions.  Here is conflating again - lower down it says the CIA estimated the KR executed 50,000 to 100,000 people, but here, the words 1.7 million and executions are thrown together in an attempt to confuse people into thinking the KR may have executed 1.7 million people.
Then there is starvation.  When did it happen?  Was the KR in power in April 1975?  May 1975?  Even if they were, are deaths caused by starvation in the days, weeks and months after April 17, 1975 entirely the fault of KR, or FUNK?
Then there is "forced labor".  Where is the reference to this?
To be continued... Ruy Lopez 17:54, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So basically you are citing a guy as the sole possible source because... he went to Cambodia and interviewed refugees? Other studies put the deaths at 3 million which are just as credible. And yes, the Khmer Rouge was in power in April and May 1975. And the FUNK issue is a reiteration of past arguements. Therefore we are stuck again. CJK 20:02, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  You don't see the relevancy of him interviewing, in the Khmer language, refugees on the Cambodian border?  What do you think the original source of much of the information posted on this page is?  Do you even know? Ruy Lopez 20:21, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, some interviews. That does not mean this study has more weight than others. By the way, when was this study written? CJK 20:30, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Depopulation 

message: "One thing that Wikipedia shouldn't do is interpret primary (or secondary, or tertiary) sources. We should provide factual summaries of all significant interpretations of source data. If there is little agreement between them we should note the fact, and we should also note the published margin of error on estimates. --Tony SidawayTalk 16:24, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primary and secondary sources 

message: I am somewhat reluctant to edit the actual page, since today is the first time that I have ever been to wikipedia.  I came across the article by accident as I was looking for something else.  However, I immediately noticed some things that could be called "mistakes" in the section on Recovery and Trials:
1.  There are not 300 people on the Khmer Rouge Trials Task Force.  The Task Force itself is 9 people.  They are listed on the website of the Secretariat of the Task Force.  Moreover, the number of members on the Task Force itself is somewhat misleading since all of the members of the Task Force have many other positions and probably spend something between none and very little time on issues relating to the KRT (Khmer Rouge Trials).  The more relevant number is the number of people who work for the Secretariat of the Task Force.  These are the people who do the day to day work preparing for the KRT.  There are 5 people who work at the Task Force more or less full time (the Executive Secretary of the Secretariat - Sean Visoth - holds other positions and AFAIK does not work full time on the KRT).
2.  I think some mention should be made of the fact that the early stages of the creation of the KRT are now underway.  The UN has nominated Michelle Lee to be the Deputy Director of the Administration, and her full appointment will probably be confirmed by the RGC soon.  In addition, the UN has already advertised five or six position on its Galaxy jobs website.  
3.  My own account of how much has been contributed indicates that the total is now $44.4 million.  I think the problem is that the $43 million number does not include the recent Indian contribution that is mentioned later in the paragraph.
4.  The sentence about the Cambodian share of the KRT's budget is a matter of some debate.  Many newspaper articles suggest that Cambodia is now trying to back out of its commitment to fund one third of the tribunal by seeking bilateral contributions.  However, the Cambodian position is that it had always stated that the Cambodian share would be raised through bilateral contributions.  At least one person who has knowledge of the negotiations of the budget has confirmed to me that this is true.  Thus, I think the tone of the sentence in the article is a little misleading.
5.  Some mention should perhaps be made of the Cambodian governments rejection of raising money through private sources in Cambodia.
6.  I think that the formation of the KRT should be watched very closely in the next month or two.  Things are beginning to move rather quickly and I expect that there will be lots more news to report soon.  Unfortunately, little other than Michelle Lee's nomination is public right now, but I expect this to change soon.
7.  It might be useful to have some discussion of the nature and structure of the tribunal.  There are several novel aspects that have not appeared at any other internationalized criminal tribunal - including: the use of the civil law system of investigating judges; the use of co-prosecutors and co-investigating judges; having a majority of the judges be local rather than international; a supermajority voting system; and the use of a pre-trial chamber to resolve disputes between the co-prosecutors and the co-investigating judges.
:Welcome, poke around, click on the links, read the pages on the Community Portal about how to edit.  I'm ready to cut you some slack as you admit that you just found the Wikipedia, but feel free to make whatever edits you feel are necessary so that the article reflects the truth of the matter.  --Easter Monkey 07:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I may indeed make the changes I mentioned above in the near future.  Give me a day or two to think about how to make the changes without appearing to support a point of view.  (I have been reading some of the more general articles on point of view as well as the somewhat acrid debate about POV re the KR on this page, and I don't want to get bogged down in that sort of argument.  On the other hand, I don't suppose the KR trial structure will arouse the same level of animosity as the question of how many Khmers died and who is responsible.)  I may also take the time to create an account =)
You should definitely do that. Many Users dislike debating with anonymous people and anonymous edits often get reverted without much consideration. Adam 09:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Khmer Rouge Trials