Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism/Archive 5

message: The main page proclaims:
:"The current viewpoint of articles tends towards a Conservadox (Liberal Modern Orthodox) point of view. Partially this is because other points of view find it more difficult to discuss all topics. However, this point of view is quite biased against more Orthodox viewpoints and possible against more liberal viewpoints as well."
I don't see the bias. We are following NPOV rules in all of our articles. As long as we continue to do so, we will be fine. All of our articles may be seen as being biased towards Conservative and Modern Orthodox Judaism, due to the fact that the intellectual leaders of these movements have policies similar to NPOV rules. In contrast, most ultra-Orthodox Jews, (Hasidic and Non-Hasidic) are virtulently anti-historical, and view all historical research as anti-Semitic and heretical. But that is always a complaint made by fundamentalists about all non-religious encyclopedias. Wikipedia has a long history of being attacked by fundamentalist Muslims as being biased against their interpretation of Islam; Wikipedia has a long history of being attacked by fundamentalist Jews as being biased against their interpretation of Judaism; and Wikipedia has a long history of being attacked by fundamentalist Christians as being biased against their interpretation of Christianity. What they offer instead is a total violation of NPOV methodology. Their objections merely prove that the historical survery, NPOV style of writing which we currently have in our articles is the correct one to have. RK 13:37, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
:My thoughts, exactly!--Josiah 16:58, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually disagree. There is not enough Conservadox viewpoint and a lot of stuff in the articles is pure reform pretending to be traditional Judaism. I know that comment will not increase my popularity, but I think my popularity is low enough so as not to make much difference even if I didn't post it.Zestauferov 11:05, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where is the bias? 

message: If the project branches out endlessly it will have more trouble defining its subject matter and will attract more edit warring that is warranted. The secret of keeping this project succesful and viable is limiting its scope for the time being. JFW | T@lk
:I agree with JFW here. What are everyone's thoughts on merging some of the categories together, if possible?--Josiah 02:23, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: At this time the categories are both sufficiently broad enough yet are divided logically. How on Earth would one combine categories with over fifty articles with others of a similar nature? We are not dealing with morons, any person with average intelligence will be able to very quickly find whatever they need simply and efficiently with the present categories. A lot of thought, time and work has gone into the :Category:Jews and Judaism. Who is to blame that Wikipedia contains thousands of Jewish-related articles? We have to work with what we've got. IZAK 19:41, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiproject categories 

message: *Jewish Books
(See :Category:Jewish texts)
*Rabbis (geonim, rishonim, acharonim)
(See :Category:Rabbis)
*Halachos of Shabbos
(See :Category:Jewish law and rituals)
*Prayers
(See :Category:Jewish law and rituals)
*Holidays
(See :Category:Jewish holy days)
*Time periods in Jewish History
(See :Category:Jewish history)
*Masechtot and/or Sedarim of the Talmud
(See :Category:Mishnah and :Category:Talmud)
*Books of Tanach (Hebrew Bible) (this template is functional)
(See :Category:Torah and :Category:Hebrew Bible/Tanakh
*Jewish cities
:I don't understand; what is a "Jewish city"? A city built by Jews? A city that has mostly Jews in it? A city in the State of Israel? All Wikipedia articles on cities should have the same format in all cases. RK 03:04, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
::I agree with RK in this regard. It is better to just call them places or geography. Contextually in an article it will be understood to what extent they were or are "Jewish". 
See:
:*:Category:Israel geography;
:*:Category:Torah places; 
:*:Category:Hebrew Bible/Tanakh places. 
::IZAK 06:51, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Topics That can use Templates

message: I see mentioned "Israeli Sefardi transliteration" and "Artscroll quasi Ashkenazi transliteration" but I can't seem to find articles on Wikipedia about either of them? Where should I be looking? — Hippietrail 02:01, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliterations 

message: I realize now that it was probably unwise to do all the work to migrate the category name without discussing it, and for this I am sorry.  I moved :Category:Israel geography to :Category:Israel-Palestine Geography when I noticed that many of the entries in the category were places in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  To me, it seemed like a clear-cut task of NPOVing it, and so I went to each article, one by one, and changed the geographical category from "Israel" to "Israel-Palestine", and then moved the category page itself.  But now it's appearing that this term — in my experience commonly used in neutral context to refer to the geographical region of Israel and the Palestinian regions — is confusing some people who think that it's trying to imply that Israel-Palestine is a political enetity rather than a geographical one.  To this blunder I attribute my autism and lack of theory of mind, things that often get me into trouble without ever seeing it.  The only contention I ever predicted was IZAK, which I thought acceptable since he contests virtually everything.  What really surprised me was contention from Nyh, with very reasonable arguments.  And now...well, my act of rational centrist NPOV seems to have developed into a logistical fiasco, and I have only my shortcomings of consideration to blame.  IZAK's category did need to be NPOVed, but I feel I may have made an error in trying to do so, though it seemed perfectly logical at the time.  I'd like to request help and discussion in ways the category can be adequately NPOVed in respect to the messy political issues regarding Israel and Palestine issues.  I plunged head first into an edit spree, and I'm not sure how to clean this up properly. - Gilgamesh 13:48, 22 July 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine, you move the category back, and I won't "destroy" it.  (And I destroyed nothing in the first place.)  I probably made a mistake with the name change anyway; I only did what I thought would avoid arguments, not start them, and I happened to be wrong this time.  But you still have to appreciate the POV challenges that may arrise from it.  I make NPOV edits out of compassionate secularism and political neutrality, two central principles of Wikipedia.  I don't ever want to hear you say such ugly obscene slurs again. - Gilgamesh 02:19, 23 July 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: at least this time he isn't calling you a murderer.--Josiah 02:46, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[:Category:Israel-Palestine Geography]]

message: See related discussions at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gilgamesh#Re_Category:Israel_geography
*Finally, the :Category:Israel geography is fully restored. Thank you. IZAK 10:16, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Resolution

message: Yet somehow, Gilgamesh cannot let go of this subject and insists on creating an article in Wikipedia on the subject : Israel-Palestine. IZAK 10:47, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: New article

message: In my attempt to learn about setting up a Hebrew Wikisource, I learned some things that may be useful here.  Specifically, there may be a legitimate need in certain articles to present a limited amount of Hebrew text.  (This should not be overused - it could also get messy in a similar way to what we've already seen with overuse of transliteration - but it certain contexts it is justified, as are the various transliterations.)
Here is what I learned: To add Hebrew text in a LTR environment such as this English Wikipedia, and to make sure that paragraph formatting and punctuation appear correctly (as in a RTL environment), use the following code: .
For instance: 
מאימתי קורין את שמע בערבין?  משעה שהכוהנים נכנסין לאכול בתרומתן, עד סוף האשמורת הראשונה - דברי רבי אליעזר.  וחכמים אומרין: עד חצות.  רבן גמליאל אומר: עד שיעלה עמוד השחר.
 (the first Mishnah in Berakhot).  The typing is not so easy to do within the edit box in a LTR environment, which is why a Hebrew wikisource in its own domain (just like the Hebrew Wikipedia) would be preferable.  Anyone who is interested in setting that up can let me know.Dovi 03:46, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)
*Do we need to put the div tags with existing Hebrew writing in the English articles?--Josiah 17:43, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hebrew Text 

message: I wrote a new section in the main project page about how we should deal with anti-Semitism on Wikipedia. Jfdwolff noted that it may be outside the scope of this Wikiproject, so did Jayjg. Ok, if so, then where would it be appropriate? RK 15:04, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)
Jayjg further writes "Actually it deals with alleged anti-semitism, which is both technically and actually outside of the scope of this project. I recommend it be removed from here. "
:As far as I can tell, the examples given were clear forms of anti-Semitism. Holocaust denial (aka pseudo-historical revisionism) is understood as anti-Semitic by scholars on the subject, and is instantly recognized as such by all Jewish organizations. The same is true for presenting Richard Wagner's virulently anti-Semitic statements as somehow not being anti-Semitic. The position of the Anti-Defamation League on anti-Semitic quote mining and quote forgeries by is also commonly recognized as anti-Semitic by the mainstream Jewish community, and by all scholars of anti-Semitism who have written on the subject. RK
::Holocaust Denial is indeed antisemitic, and presenting Wagner's statements as non-antisemitic may well be, depending on the statements and context.  However, I haven't seen the actual debates/revert wars themselves, so I can't tell if they match your perceptions of them. I must caution, however, against crying anti-Semitism in cases where it may not be warranted; this only makes it more difficult to gain support when true cases of anti-Semitism appear. Moreover, the use of the label tends to muddy the waters in any debate, so that the opponents end up debating the accusation itself rather than the substance of the article.  In the worst case, those making the accusation (and any supporting their position) are seen as overly sensitive and lacking credibility, and makes further attempts to NPOV articles impractical.  The accusation of anti-Semite should be used extremely sparingly, if at all, since it rarely provides any practical benefit. Jayjg 16:46, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm copying some of this to the project page. Jayjg 16:59, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: My issue is with accusations of anti-Semitism; I have seen plenty of them, and as I have said, I think they should be used sparingly, if at all. Jayjg 18:55, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dealing with instances of anti-Semitism 

message: To Gilgamesh: Just when one thinks there was perhaps some clarity settling in, as when recent articles on Jaffa, Israel and Ashqelon were switched from (newly introduced) Canaanite languages to the VERY CLEAR Hebrew alphabet for the given Hebrew lettering, now it is being switched yet again to the once again confusing definition of Hebrew languages and on that page take your pick from Ammonite language, Moabite language, Edomite language, Biblical Hebrew language, Samaritan Hebrew language, Mishnaic Hebrew language, Tiberian Hebrew language, Mizrahi Hebrew languages, Yemenite Hebrew language, Sephardi Hebrew language, Ashkenazi Hebrew, Modern Hebrew language, all in the name of a "better linguistics convention I had previous used for Jericho" (taken from User:Gilgamesh's changes, as an example, at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Jaffa%2C_Israel&action=history ). So now what is happening is that the name appears initially in a Wikipedia article, and immediately it comes up in Hebrew LETTERS but instead of the explanatory link going to Hebrew alphabet which lists all the letters clearly and beautifully on one page, rather, the reader is now being sent to Hebrew languages, as if the reader needs to know that once upon a time the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites also "spoke it" which is hypothetical, and that there are at least EIGHT other brands of Hebrew to choose from since then, when in fact ONLY ONE, the common spoken and most used one today would be expected according to all logical and practical assumptions. So far many articles are being subjected to this unfortunate regimen, such as Haifa, Beersheba, Jaffa, Israel, Ashqelon, Ramla. IZAK 05:25, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: IZAK.  You're totally impossible.  You may have experience in religious studies, and I respect and appreciate that, as well as your personal religious sensibilities.  But it's clear you have zero credibility as a scientist or as a diplomat.  You are a reactionary, you are a fearmonger, you are a troll, you are a vandal, and now you are also ignored by me from this point on.  Stay out of my hair, as you're not worth wasting time with.  I'll invest my time with Yoshiah_ap, Zestauferov, Woggly and other "heretics" instead. - Gilgamesh 06:07, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: New "twist and turn" as "Hebrew alphabet" is switched to "Hebrew languages"