Talk:Middle East Forum

message: Added clean up and neutrality tags due to the overdependence on the organization's own website for information about it.  (Prior to that deleted some inappropriate external links; if the sites represent notable and reliable and verifiable sources, then they can be added as full citations to development in the text that can be developed for the purpose of defining the subject better.  If they are  not notable, reliable, verifiable, then they do not belong inserted into the section of external links.)  If they are biased or not in keeping with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, they do not belong in this article.
Added several templates for missing citations for statements made by previous editors.  If the statements reflect the organization's perspective on itself, and they are not properly documented as such, they violate neutral point of view guidelines linked above.
This article needs to be cleaned up.  Its missing citations need to be added as full citations: author, title, publication, date of publication, date accessed, and so on.  It is not clear what "Islamist Watch" is and how it relates to the organization (subject).  The relationship is clearer re: Campus Watch; see the sections for comparison and contrast.
This article is not supposed to be an advertisement for the organization.  It is supposed to be an encyclopedia article and it needs to be written and developed as such.
In the light of the article on the journal published by this organization, I have provided parallel tags on this article (re: warnings concerning living persons--this article deals with living persons in that they have created the organization and will be linked in its development; controversy: the subject is controversial--see the article Middle East Quarterly for related information. --NYScholar 07:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tags

message: The following are links that are of dubious nature and value and that did not belong in the external links section (see editing history): (- = deletion in editing history)
*Middle East Intelligence Bulletin  [This is another publication of the Middle East Forum: it needs better definition in the article.] [I reordered the section of links alphabetically and it is still there, with a bit of annotation; but it needs to be discussed in the article I think too.]
*Analysis of Middle East Forum at RightWeb [This appears to be a bloglike, self-published website and not in keeping with Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view [Having checked the site, I see that "IRC" is "International Relations Center: Right Web": it is clearly a partisan site (see name); what exactly is it? It needs definition in relation to the subject of the article, not just listing in external links.]
*List of financial grants recieved by the MEF from 1996-2004  [More explanation of why this is relevant, pertinent, and notable needs clarification in the article itself.  There is no reference to this material in the article; it can't just be listed as an external link without some kind of explanation as to why it is important in the text of the article; it needs to be presented as a full citation, as do the other two links as well.
There is no need to list individually every webpage at the organization's website, especially if those are not being mentioned in the article.
If the information about the subject (Middle East Forum) is valuable and these sources notable and reliable and verifiable, then the material that they provide can be developed in the article and the sources given as full citations (not merely external links).  The nature of these items needs clarification as well.  External links are supposed to be briefly annotated to define their nature. --NYScholar 08:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: Dated tags.  See prior sections in comments in talk page and previous tags. --NYScholar 02:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Warning: continual deletions of pertinent information by another user/other users

message: I hope that the current version of the article suffices to redress the previously-noted problems. --NYScholar 07:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed tags that I added earlier

message: See the reports page. Again. --NYScholar 23:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Issuing a repeated [[Wikipedia:3RR]] violation warning

message: [Example of Chutzpah: "rv you tag too much; it disfigures the articles; you should improve it instead of relying on other editors to do so): Slim Virgin: editing history of this article)--NYScholar 08:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of tags

message: Isarig has continually reverted (deleted) that paragraph w/o any justifiable comment whatsoever on the talk page of this article (see above; I respond to his comment and he ignores it) or the article on Middle East Quarterly, where he has made the same multiple reversions of this neutral material, which, in my view, is in total conformity with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and WP:POV.
Without discussion and achieving consensus, he has no right to make these reversions time after time. --NYScholar 06:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: .... - I have provided my justification above. You may not agree with my justification, but that does not make it go away. If you wnatthat paragraph in - you need to get consensus for it on this page. Isarig 15:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Deletion of personal attack: WP:AGF WP:NPA. I will not engage with the above user any further (as I have already said).  I have made my objections to his particular repeated reversions of my intended improvements to this article clear to administrators.  I leave further attempts to "reach consensus" to unfortunate others.  --NYScholar 21:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I refer readers of this article and this talk page to:Conflict of interest report.--NYScholar 21:10, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The continual and continuing reversions

message: Most-recent form and content of the paragraph that I contributed (an improvement) deleted by Isarig as if it were the same as previous paragraph, which it is not:
The journal has been the focus of controversy relating to its publication by the Middle East Forum and its publisher, Daniel Pipes.See Michelle Goldberg, "Mau-mauing the Middle East", Salon.com September 30, 2002, accessed February 16, 2007 (pages 2-3).   
   
Most recently, the MEQ has published a controversial book review of former President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid by Kenneth W. Stein, which Pipes and Stein have posted via their websites.Kenneth W. Stein, "My Problems with Jimmy Carter's Book", published in the current issue of Middle East Quarterly 14.2 (Spring 2007), accessed February 17, 2007 (in print and online). (Link to the full text of this article currently featured in "MEF's recent releases".)Kenneth W. Stein, "The Carter Book: Ken Stein and the Carter Book", online posting, Institute for the Study of Modern Israel of Emory University, accessed January 26, 2007. 
===Notes===
:The passage documenting some of this kind of controversy about the journal and its publishing contexts/publisher (MEF, Daniel Pipes):
Pipes has a Ph.D. from Harvard and is the author of 11 books, including the recent "Militant Islam Reaches America." Yet the professors he attacks say he's an outsider in the field. "The Middle East Forum is not really a forum. Somebody rich in the community has set [Pipes] up with a couple of offices and a fax machine and calls him a director," says Juan Cole, a Campus Watch target and professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan. "They put out this Middle East Quarterly. It publishes scurrilous attacks on people. There's no scholarship. It's a put-up job. As for Pipes himself, let's just say that he's not a full professor at a major university." Indeed, aside from Pipes, the Middle East Forum has a single researcher, whose job, according to the Web site, extends into fundraising. (Goldberg 2)
--NYScholar 21:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If anyone's still watching this, where is this from? What Goldberg is this? Relata refero (talk) 10:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I see, its Salon. Well, it can certainly be added. Relata refero (talk) 10:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Note that I had changed the word "locus" to "focus" and fully documented what "controversy" was referring to (cited it with source and quotation from source) and a cross-reference to an article with more information (as well as full citations to sources here and in that article), and yet the other editor(s) still deleted it via reversions.  There is no POV in reporting on the existence of various POVs: cf. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view in conjunction with reading WP:POV.  What is going on here? It is Wikipedia policy to present a full  account of representative viewpoints on a subject in an encyclopedia article.  In this article, every time someone tries to do that, the same editors (Isarig et al.) delete the material.  Scroll up and read the entire history of comments on this page.  --NYScholar 08:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

text: For more discussion by other Wikipedia users, editors (incl. me) about this same matter concerning MEF and MEQ, see the articles Middle East Quarterly, Daniel Pipes, and their talk pages: Talk:Middle East Quarterly and Talk:Daniel Pipes.  There is no legitimate reason that this material cannot be presented in a neutral manner in this article's section on the journal MEQ.  If the way I have done it (as cited above) is satisfactory to most people, I suggest that others come up with a better way to incorporate the information.  I have done what I can do. --NYScholar 08:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The paragraph that Isarig deletes in various revised forms

message: :The passage documenting some of this kind of controversy about the journal and its publishing contexts/publisher (MEF, Daniel Pipes):
Pipes has a Ph.D. from Harvard and is the author of 11 books, including the recent "Militant Islam Reaches America." Yet the professors he attacks say he's an outsider in the field. "The Middle East Forum is not really a forum. Somebody rich in the community has set [Pipes] up with a couple of offices and a fax machine and calls him a director," says Juan Cole, a Campus Watch target and professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan. "They put out this Middle East Quarterly. It publishes scurrilous attacks on people. There's no scholarship. It's a put-up job. As for Pipes himself, let's just say that he's not a full professor at a major university." Indeed, aside from Pipes, the Middle East Forum has a single researcher, whose job, according to the Web site, extends into fundraising. (Goldberg 2)
--NYScholar 21:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If anyone's still watching this, where is this from? What Goldberg is this? Relata refero (talk) 10:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I see, its Salon. Well, it can certainly be added. Relata refero (talk) 10:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Note that I had changed the word "locus" to "focus" and fully documented what "controversy" was referring to (cited it with source and quotation from source) and a cross-reference to an article with more information (as well as full citations to sources here and in that article), and yet the other editor(s) still deleted it via reversions.  There is no POV in reporting on the existence of various POVs: cf. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view in conjunction with reading WP:POV.  What is going on here? It is Wikipedia policy to present a full  account of representative viewpoints on a subject in an encyclopedia article.  In this article, every time someone tries to do that, the same editors (Isarig et al.) delete the material.  Scroll up and read the entire history of comments on this page.  --NYScholar 08:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

text: For more discussion by other Wikipedia users, editors (incl. me) about this same matter concerning MEF and MEQ, see the articles Middle East Quarterly, Daniel Pipes, and their talk pages: Talk:Middle East Quarterly and Talk:Daniel Pipes.  There is no legitimate reason that this material cannot be presented in a neutral manner in this article's section on the journal MEQ.  If the way I have done it (as cited above) is satisfactory to most people, I suggest that others come up with a better way to incorporate the information.  I have done what I can do. --NYScholar 08:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes

message: [where typo. corr. now needed due to rv. by Isarig]
N.B.: This directory listing cites only the website of the organization as a source; hence, it reflects only that perspective.
My embedded editorial interpolation there reads:
"other sources are needed; too dependent on the organization's own presentation of itself; e.g., there is no other justification for calling this organization a "think tank"; it claims that." --NYScholar 21:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Clearly, parts of this directory's listing are merely lifted )word for word, but omitting necessary quotation marks) from the MEF website's descriptions of itself and its statement of "Mission" (see the long quotation of that in this article, which also appears to be redundant):
*3. Actual primary source: Middle East Forum "Mission" statement as currently quoted in the article:
The mission of the Middle East Forum is defined in "About the Middle East Forum" on the organization's website as follows:</blockquote>
The Middle East Forum, a think tank, seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East. It defines U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam, whether terroristic or lawful; working for Palestinian acceptance of Israel; improving the management of U.S. democracy efforts; reducing energy dependence on the Middle East; more robustly asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia; and countering the Iranian threat. The Forum also works to improve Middle East studies in North America.
MEF sees the region, with its profusion of dictatorships, radical ideologies, existential conflicts, border disagreements, political violence, and weapons of mass destruction as a major source of problems for the United States. Accordingly, it urges active measures to protect Americans and their allies.
Toward this end, the Forum seeks to help shape the intellectual climate in which U.S. foreign policy is made by addressing key issues in a timely and accessible way for a sophisticated public.
</blockquote>
Basically, the current version of this Wikipedia article on MEF repeats much of the same information from the organization's own website, twice (redundancy).  Other information in the directory listing is also taken off the website (without use of quotation marks).
Moreover, in such a situation, Wikipedia:Cite and Wikipedia:Reliable sources guidelines are to cite the primary, not the secondary source (espec. since the secondary source omits required quotation marks for words and phrases taken from the primary source).  See Wikipedia:Reliable sources and WP:Cite.
Citing this directory is like citing a Wiki repeating information from online websites.  Moreover, leaving off the quotation marks in a Wikipedia article is plagiarism.  The director 
I see no way in which this directory provides any kind of reliable source for this article which is in any way any more reliable than the organization's own website (cited repeatedly throughout this article).  Logically, presenting it as a "reliable source" is like a dog chasing his own tail: circular logic; arguing in a circle; both Circular definition and  Begging the question; each a logical fallacy.  --NYScholar 04:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletions from current note 1 (in line 1 of article)

message: [section added by --NYScholar 04:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: On including the information since deleted from the article by the multiple reversions

message: ===Comments===
====Pro====
#NYScholar: reasons given throughout this talk page and the talk page of Middle East Quarterly, where I have also provided the same material (also reverted many times by Isarig et al.): Talk:Middle East Quarterly. --NYScholar 21:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Desire for consensus

message: ====Pro====
#NYScholar: reasons given throughout this talk page and the talk page of Middle East Quarterly, where I have also provided the same material (also reverted many times by Isarig et al.): Talk:Middle East Quarterly. --NYScholar 21:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: #NYScholar: reasons given throughout this talk page and the talk page of Middle East Quarterly, where I have also provided the same material (also reverted many times by Isarig et al.): Talk:Middle East Quarterly. --NYScholar 21:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pro

message: See Middle East Forum: It is a "Roundtable" whose webpage is hosted on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations [there's currently a typographical discrepancy in the website address (cfr--council for foreign relations--but it's the same organization], which identifies itself on its website as (using quotation marks) having "a 'think tank'", providing links to its funding and various other projects.  This organization is not related to the "Middle East Forum" founded by Daniel Pipes.  I question further Pipes's identification of his own organization as a "think tank" (without his using quotation marks).  At best, it is "so to speak" "a 'think tank'", given comparison perhaps to the "'think tank'" (The David Rockefeller Studies Program) of the much better-known sponsoring organization of this other Middle East Forum: The Council on Foreign Relations (see its board members).
The existence of more than one "Middle East Forum" indicates the need for a disambiguation page and tag to it on this (Pipes's) organization Wikipedia page.  But I myself will not add anything to this article's own page right now, due to multiple reversions today and past violations of WP:3RR by Isarig, et al., who would report such a correction as a revert, even though it would just be intended as an editorial improvement to this article.  I cannot even take the time to correct an obvious typographical error (I did that [removed a stray "b" (left over from his deletion of part of note 1 that I had contributed), and Isarig still reverted the rest of my information in the footnote--see editing history!].).  Nevertheless, it does appear that a disambiguation page is warranted, and someone else can develop it, beginning an entry on this other Middle East Forum (Roundtable).  I have visited Wikipedia's page for Council on Foreign Relations and found very misleading presentations in "External links", in which was included a Middle East Quarterly article criticizing this other "Middle East Forum". (I just worked on trying to improve the citations in that article, citing the MEQ article in a full citation there, now placed in a better section of References.) A disambiguation page (if there is to be one) would need to make these organizations of the same name distinct from each other.  [So far I've come up with Middle East Forum of the Council on Foreign Relations for this other one.]  --NYScholar 05:34, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please find better sourcing rather than defacing, then. Thanks. Jayjg (talk) 16:31, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's rather the point of tags. They remain until the given problem is fixed.--Kitrus (talk) 05:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No, in this case they're the usual weapon. Fix the problem, don't deface, and please review WP:DRIVEBY. Jayjg (talk) 00:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Another organization called the Middle East Forum

message: As of now, the article has no 3rd party sources besides the footnotes in the Campus Watch section and footnote #1. Partly because of that, the article lacks neutrality and reads largely like a press release.--Kitrus (talk) 08:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Please find better sourcing rather than defacing, then. Thanks. Jayjg (talk) 16:31, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's rather the point of tags. They remain until the given problem is fixed.--Kitrus (talk) 05:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No, in this case they're the usual weapon. Fix the problem, don't deface, and please review WP:DRIVEBY. Jayjg (talk) 00:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Reference and NPOV Tags

message: I've moved the following newly inserted material here for discussion:
In November 2008, the MEF launched the Obama Mideast Monitor to examine the Obama Administration's Middle East policies. The Monitor is edited by former AIPAC foreign policy head, Steven J. Rosen.(Obama Mideast Monitor) Rosen is awaiting trial on an  espionage indictment over allegations that he passed sensitive classified documents to Israeli officials while working for AIPAC. (Bush officials subpoenaed in AIPAC trial, N Guttman, Jerusalem Post, 13 March 2006, retrieved July 2007)
The first sentence is pure original research; the source used is merely a link to a part of the website, but in no way discusses any of the claims made - that the website section was "launched" in November 2008, that is it edited by "former AIPAC foreign policy head, Steven J. Rosen." I note that the link to Rosen is to an entirely different person. The second section is pure original research too, since it links to a non-existent, 2 1/2 year old article that nowhere discusses the Middle East Forum or the "Obama Mideast Monitor". I would add that using articles as coatracks is discouraged. Jayjg (talk) 05:14, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Obama monitor" material 

message: I corrected some quotes that had been tampered with: "Israel" had been changed to "Zionism" and so on. A reminder: tampering with quotes is vandalism. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 23:13, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears we are dealing with an old version here: the infobox disappeared, less categories, more linkspam, and the 2006–chief of Islamist-Watch is mentioned, instead of the one who took over in 2012. Moreover, an old extensive discussion between the MEF and Salon.com had returned in the text, while it is questionable if it is notable enough for the weight it brings in (see WP:UNDUE).  My idea is to revert to the last version of 2015. Any objections? Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 09:59, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of vandalism

message: Doug Weller talk 15:03, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV - so bad I'm taking it to [[WP:NPOVN]]