Talk:Criticism of Human Rights Watch

message: There's no section about Russian HRW criticism. HRW had a big blackout on Tskhinvali bombings and had a full coverage on Gori region. SkyBonTalk\Contributions 08:28, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually this post here discusses accusations of bias on Russia:
http://thebricspost.com/hrw-report-on-russia-is-clearly-biased/#.UgPcY4WfvLY
--MusicGeek101 (talk) 18:00, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Russian criticism

message: :This move seems like an okay idea. There is precedent for this.Hkelkar 01:46, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Aye. - Francis Tyers · 12:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have preferred keeping this in the main article and trimming to notable criticisms, but I'm willing to work with this if it is what everyone else wanted I guess. --YoYoDa1 18:46, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

text: It was not my first preference, but too many pro-HRW editors were POV-pushing against the criticism section and so this seems like the only viable compromise, particularly in the light of precedent. Hkelkar 18:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Okay

message: Yatindra Bhatnagar, chief editor of "International Opinion", has criticized Human Rights Watch representatives and those of related organizations of having an anti-India bias with regards to their reports of communal riots in India between Hindus and Muslims, particularly in reference to the 2002 Gujarat violence. He writes that, instead of trying to heal the wounds of such incidents, organizations like Human Rights Watch focus disproportionately on blaming Hindus exclusively for the incident and trying to deflect attention from the violence perpetrated by Islamists in the Godhra Train Burning that precipitated the riots. In particular, he criticizes Human Rights Watch representative Smita Narula and her colleagues for providing a "blatantly one-sided" account of events and dismissing his concerns to that effect
Hours of Anti-India, Anti-Hindutva Rhetoric at “Indian” Muslim Meet, bu Yatindra Bhatnagar,International Opinion.
In addition, the reports on the Gujarat riots compiled by Human Rights Watch have been criticized by Arvin Bahl of Princeton University as "one-sided" and "biased". He claims that the reports generally "are based on half-truths, distortions and sometimes outright falsehoods". He points out that Human Rights Watch's claims about the Bharatiya Janata Party advocating a Hindu Nation as its core ideology are false. He further says that his analysis of the reports accuse the Gujarat government for planning the riots but do not provide any evidence to back those assertions. He also criticizes Human Rights Watch's labeling of the attacks on Hindus by Muslims during the riots as "retaliatory". In his analysis he states that while he does not deny that Hindu extremists were responsible for the riots, he "objectively analyze[s] the complexity of communal conflict in India and avoid[s] the generalizations associated with Human Rights Watch reports."Politics By Other Means: An Analysis of Human Rights Watch Reports on India,saag.org.
:Er, when you write "Soandso of Random University," it's generally taken to mean that Soandso is a faculty member at the university, not that they're an undergrad. In any case, according to a facebook search  he graduated from Princeton in 2005, so he's not even associated with the university any longer. (He's also not in the Princeton directory anymore). So I'm removing those three words. --Xiaopo (Talk) 00:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well he wrote for the University and it was endorsed and sanctioned by the team of reliable editors, fact checkers etc who are affiliated with the university.Hkelkar 00:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually, he wrote for the South Asia Analysis Group website, which specifically mentions that the views expressed are his own. He also seems to be a writer for the Daily Princetonian, but articles in school newspapers aren't endorsed by the university. And again, people generally don't refer to undergraduates at Random University as "of Random University." --Xiaopo (Talk) 01:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The SAAG should be referenced as the place where he published.  Also someone should create an article on SAAG at some point to verify their credibility and perspective.  --Deodar 01:05, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Very well. I have done so myself.Plus, I also agree that an article should be written about SAAG at some point.I think that they satisfy the WP:RS criterion, though feel free to look at their literature and judge for yourself (also, read the Bahl article, you will find that it is not partisan).Hkelkar 01:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Sure, I agree that that's a good idea. But keep in mind that Bahl's column is specifically marked as a "Guest Column," and the Director mentions that the views expressed in it are Bahl's own (though he or she does agree that HRW's coverage of India is one-sided and biased). So we should be careful not to misrepresent Bahl's views as "SAAG's position" or something. Man, all this talk about SAAG is making me hungry. --Xiaopo (Talk) 01:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: SAAG makes you hungry??  Must be a cultural difference here.  --Deodar 01:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ahh... Saag.  --Deodar 01:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Lol!Hadn't even thought about that.Hkelkar 01:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Allegations of bias against India

message: South Asia Analysis Group is a non profit  non commercial think tank that appears to be modeleld on the Middle Eastern think tanks of the US government.The objective of the group is to advance strategic analysis and contribute to the expansion of knowledge of Indian and International security and promote public understanding. In so doing, the SAAG seeks to address the decision makers,  strategic planners, academics and the media in South Asia and the world at large. 
reference to saag by UColumbia:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/southasia/cuvl/govt.html
The google search that shows numerous refs to the organization, none of them negative:
http://www.google.com/search?q=South+Asia+analysis+group&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
I will start discussion in 24 hrs per agreement with mostly harmless.Please peruse this information and know all you can about SAAG.Hkelkar 01:16, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We're having a voluntary abstention for 24hrs to avoid an edit war Mostlyharmless 01:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As of this post, I abstain from continuing on this matter for 24 hrs in the interests of fairness.I will, of course, monitor the article for overt vandalism or copyvios etc like what happened with that Waqvi chap.Hkelkar 01:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Some info on SAAG

message: Quite aside from the question of whether they belong in a separate article, there are other problems with the criticism section.  Some of the same information is presented more than once.
* Paragraph 2: The second CAMERA citation merely points to the first, which is basically a summary of the NGO monitor study described in paragraph 6.  As is, it is misleading as it implies CAMERA has done a study of its own.
* Paragraph 3: likewise, based largely on NGO Monitor (para. 6) and Gerard Steinberg's material from paragraph 9.
* Paragraph 4: ADL's web site is down right now, so impossible to evaluate.
* Paragraph 5: AIJAC's criticism is found only in one sentence, which is refuted in the Wikipedia article.
* Paragraphs 6-8: these at least appear to have an actual basis and can remain.
* Paragraph 9: seems original but the link reveals that Gerard Steinberg is actually the editor of NGO Monitor, so it is not clear this can be decoupled from the preceding.
* Paragraph 10: Not sure why this is there, as Leibler is just another columnist, and the citation only mentions HRW in passing.
* Paragraph 11: Citation on ADL's web site which is down.
In fact, even paragraph 1 is quite misleading as it gives the impression of a chorus of independent criticisms, when what is actually cited is based almost entirely on two sources - NGO Monitor's studies and the allegations about the Durban conference.
I think paragraph 1 should be reworded, while 2,3,5, and 10 should be deleted entirely.  If that were done I'd be willing for the section to remain in this page and not a sub-article.  Tyronen 21:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Problems with the criticisms

message: The article is clearly missing this section.  Why haven't we addressed directly what we're all thinking but no one is saying?  Human Rights watch is biased against genociders.  It's also expressed a strong bias against people and governments who torture, who suppress political dissidents, and who deny rights to minority populations.  Let's face it, Human Rights Watch is biased against those who violate human rights.  This terrible secret agenda needs to be published for Wiki readers everywhere to learn about.  Mjgilbert 15:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They preferred to be called genocidalists--70.112.236.174 18:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I seriously agree. HRW's full bias needs to be exposed. --68.253.59.172 14:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of HRW by genociders 

message: To the interested: an article related to this, Human rights groups and the Middle East, is currently being considered for deletion. You may refer to the article for more information. This is intended to be neutral and a friendly notice. --Nosfartu 06:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human rights groups and the Middle East 

message: WP:RS: "Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." NGO Monitor, an Israeli NGO with the stated aim of stopping "certain self-declared 'humanitarian NGOs'" from promoting agendas which are perceived as anti-Israel, is a highly political website with an open agenda and does not independently meet the criteria for being a reliable source. If its material can be found in a reliable third-party publication then the material should still be used in the article though.--76.214.115.168 (talk) 23:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's an NGO that critically examines other NGOs, it's the ideal group for this. Wikipedia quotes the opinions of the International Solidarity Movement and currently cites the propaganda site palestineremembered.com over 80 times. NGO Monitor is head and shoulders above those sites in reliability, and more than meets Wikipedia's requirements for properly cited opinions. And, note, the opinions are all brief, and cited to NGO Monitor, not stated as fact. Jayjg (talk) 01:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you could provide a few links to the Wikipedia articles quoted opinions you cite, this would be helpful. Thanks..--76.214.115.168 (talk) 01:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Barqa (village) is just one example of dozens, and in that article, as in many others, the claims of that propaganda site are stated as fact. Jayjg (talk) 02:12, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no knowledge about the claims or the site but this seems to address my question.--76.214.115.168 (talk) 02:37, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

text: So long as the opinions of NGO Monitor are properly attributed to it, and not stated as fact, there is nothing wrong with using it. It is no more a 'self-published' source than other NGOs. NoCal100 (talk) 02:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:RS]] 

message: Since HRW supports reproductive rights, the topic of pro-life/pro-choice opposition should very likely come up among ideological criticisms of the institution, they already exist, I think. ADM (talk) (talk) 12:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Abortion

message: In this edit, I removed the section due to WP:RS violation.
The Hellenic News is not a WP:RS - it's a tiny publication, and the article in question doesn't really say much substantial, aside from criticizing HRW for not covering the areas that the author wanted covered. I see nothing in the article that is really of quality or verifiability to be worth including.
In this edit, I removed the section, again on the basis of WP:RS (and others) - the Asian Tribune is not a reliable source. The Asian Tribune is a tiny online newspaper published by an expatriate living in Sweden, and NGO Monitor is an Israeli partisan group that defends Israel against its repeated run-ins with various human rights groups over Israel's human rights record. The Asian Tribune source in question is a five-paragraph editorial in the online paper that serves as an introduction to a reprint of an editorial written by NGO Monitor's Executive Director that appears in the New York Sun. This is hardly an appropriate source to be using in a Wikipedia article. 
Additionally, there was a partial sentence left dangling in the section. Clearly, User:Historicist simply did a copy-and-paste of his Amnesty International edit, and stuck it here, simply changing the name of the organization being criticized. (hint: search for the sentence he left here - "as part of the latter")
I believe these are strong enough reasons to warrant their removal. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 08:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Also Gerald Steinberg and NGO Monitor are not, themselves, reliable source, though reliable sources that quote them are of course allowed. —Ashley Y 09:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:RS]] violations removal - "Asian Tribune" and "Hellenic News" 

message: This edit doesn't really make much sense to me. NGO Monitor and the Anti-Defamation League are quite well documented to be pro-Israeli. I see no reason why this was taken out. I'll leave it for a few days so folks can comment, before I come back and restore it. GrizzledOldMan (talk) 08:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  ADL and NGO Monitor - nor pro-Israeli? 

message: Although the source states that those who wrote the letter are "experts", from what I have seen, a large number of them do not have any direct relationship to research on Latin America or Venezuela. Although the source portrays them as experts, I am not sure that some of the signers would portray themselves that way. I like the way it's worded in the main HRW article: "scholars", who are not necessarily experts on the particular area. Awickert (talk) 02:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scholars and Venezuela 

message: *Ref #1. Fake. Wikilinks to articles on the publishers. No actual sourcing.
*:Perhaps the links to the periodical articles are not readily available?  Could you possibly check around for them?  I think it's a bit of a stretch to call them fake right off the bat.  --Merovingian (T, C, L) 09:35, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: *Please see WP:BURDEN. When tendentious material is inserted into an article, it is not the responsibility of the person removing it to dig around for reliable sources if none are provided. It's the responsibility of the person who wants to add it. *** Crotalus *** 13:33, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: * Wow, ZMAG is a source on the opinion of ZMAG and thus according to the policy a reliable source. Checking what Noloop says is here is truly a time waster as he is not even the slightest idea of how references are used in Wikipedia. Pantherskin (talk) 16:41, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. We check sources in our articles, not sources in someone's blog. A blog isn't a reliable source, according to Wikipedia policies. Noloop (talk) 16:35, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

text:  Lies and distortions, indeed. Problem is that not the sources are lies and distortions, but what Noloop posted here. Pantherskin (talk) 16:41, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: *Ref. #3a. true. Aristed isn't mentioned in the source, except in a footnote, but the overthrow of Hathis govenemrnt is mentioned in the body of the text. I think you need to check again source 6 and 7 are from either HRW quoting a newspaper or a major newspaper. I don’t know if this is due to sources being removed and thus resting the source e numbers of if the above statement is just plain wrong, it needs checking.Slatersteven (talk) 14:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lying with References 

message: I have removed material that does not meet our standards on verifiability and sourcing or undue weight. The following material was taken out:
*"Allegations of anti-Eritrean bias" — Only sourcing was to something called the "American Chronicle". I have been unable to find any additional information on this site, and there is no reason to think it is a reliable source. I searched for the Chronicle's parent corporation, Ultio LLC, and was unable to find much about them. There is no evidence that this site has a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" or, indeed, any reputation at all. Nor was I able to determine any reliability for the author, Sophia Tesfamariam, who doesn't have a Wikipedia article and doesn't appear to be a recognized subject-matter expert.
*"Allegations of anti-India bias' — I don't know whether the South Asia Analyst Group is a reliable source or not, but the article cited is labeled as a guest column. "The writer is an undergraduate from  Princeton University. The views expressed are his own." Clear violation of WP:UNDUE — this is little more than a non-notable op-ed by a non-notable writer.
*Also removed a reference to a speech by Ana Palacio which mentioned HRW once. Just the usual "any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic" garbage, and no evidence that this speech had any real notability. *** Crotalus *** 14:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I was also tempted to take out a bunch of stuff. But, I thought I'd wait for the results of the proposal to  delete the article. I think if everything illegitimate is removed, what's left is a stub that can easily be incproproated in the article on HRW. Noloop (talk) 16:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: An overarching problem with this page is that it confuses criticism of the organization with disagreement on specific matters. I haven't actually seen any allegations of systemic criticism here; it is just a few  cases of people disagreeing with HRW's finding's on some specific situation. Noloop (talk) 16:32, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Which mean they disagree wtih those findings. Thus they disagree with HRW, it does not matter if its oonce or over time.Slatersteven (talk) 13:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed tendentious material

message: Given the notability discussions that have taken place here, a few important points are:
* the 2004 Haiti coup was the second coup d'etat in Latin America since the year 2000 of only three in total (so far), making it a notable event
* given that Haiti is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, WP:BIAS is necessarily a strong concern, meaning that it will necessarily be difficult to find sources written by Haitians who are critical of HRW reports about Haiti. If someone can find better sources, then please do so. Have a look at WP:BIAS if you have not done so.
For both Haiti and Venezuela, as i stated above, it should be easy to find HRW responses, if they made them. 
* Haiti: no response according to google nor on the internal hrw.org search engine
* Venezuela: there seem to have been letter by Grandin etal, response by HRW, and counter-response by Grandin et al, including: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/29/hrw-response-criticisms-our-venezuela-work  i'll let other people do the work on this :). i'll just quickly note that HRW states, Human Rights Watch takes criticism of this nature very seriously. IMHO this confirms what many of us said in the recent deletion discussion: HRW is a serious organisation and is not upset by criticism; moreover, it takes the criticism seriously, or at least claims to. So respect for HRW, while being common sense rather than a wikipedia guideline, suggests that we should list the criticisms and responses and counter-responses etc seriously as well. Boud (talk) 22:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Haiti, Venezuela 

message: In this edit, User:GHcool removed a sourced paragraph in which HRW claims that it is accused of being "soft" in Israeli HR violations, and also inserted a section relating to HRW's stance on al-Qaeda re-education camps in Saudi Arabia. 
# i do not understand the removal of the HRW-soft-on-Israeli-HR-violations paragraph.
# i do not understand how the stance-on-al-Qaeda-etc paragraph is a criticism of HRW. The title of the article is about HRW criticising Saudi Arabia, not the reverse. 
Probably other editors had the same idea as me, which is why the edit was reverted, and a later editor explained This article is about criticism of HRW, not criticism of the [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia].
* In this revert, GHcool restored the reverted material.
* In this edit, GHcool restored the stance-against material once again.
i will now restore the sourced paragraph in which HRW claims that it is accused of being "soft" in Israeli HR violations, because i fail to see how this can be controversial - it's HRW itself that claims that a claim about it being biased exists.
i suggest we have a discussion about the stance-against paragraph, in case GHcool or someone else disagrees with "This article is about criticism of HRW, not criticism of the [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia]":
Boud (talk) 23:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've attempted to impose a reality check on this section since GHcool appears keen to include it. I think I probably went too far and turned it into HRW hasbara festival. I'm sure more sources can easily be found that have criticized HRW on this issue. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a section on this below. IMHO (and probably not just mine), the best (only?) critic we've found so far makes a very casual criticism in his blog. But feel free to look for more sources. Boud (talk) 22:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  HRW soft on Israeli HR violations; stance on al-Qaeda reeducation camps 

message: See the above. Does someone see a justification for including the "stance-on" paragraph? Please let's use this as one small example of building consensus! i can see that CSM may have been hoping that readers would infer that this is a criticism of HRW. However, this is OR and not valid for the article. CSM does not say, "The Christian Science Monitor strongly condemns HRW for its criticism of the Saudi re-education camps... and is appalled that HRW is being unfaithful to the defence of the Fatherland" or something similar. 
Are there any arguments for keeping the section? Boud (talk) 23:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've attempted to impose a reality check on this section since GHcool appears keen to include it. I think I probably went too far and turned it into HRW hasbara festival. I'm sure more sources can easily be found that have criticized HRW on this issue. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a section on this below. IMHO (and probably not just mine), the best (only?) critic we've found so far makes a very casual criticism in his blog. But feel free to look for more sources. Boud (talk) 22:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: stance-on-al-Qaeda-etc paragraph

message: Just for convenience for people not wishing to check through a possibly long future revision history, in this version there is an attempt to NPOV the overall structure of the Arab-Israeli conflict related criticisms of HRW section. i have not included the "Stance against teaching suspected terrorists the value of tolerance" section as a subsection, since IMHO it has no chance of being accepted by consensus (see above).
Also, for clarity, here's a repeat of my comment above: If we as editors of this article cannot constructively work together, we could add the  tag to the top of this talk page - see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles#Final_decision and Wikipedia:General_sanctions. This is not the first article related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in en.wikipedia history. In the interests of minimising the need for us to be "supervised", i suggest we try to avoid this need. i am not an administrator (for anyone curious), and in any case, administrators implementing the sanctions rules would have to be non-editors of this article, and, i guess, non-editors of Arab-Israeli conflict related articles in general and would have to not have any COI's (conflicts of interest). Boud (talk) 23:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  attempting NPOV with respect to the Arab–Israeli conflict 

message: Given the editorial difficulties on this article and the two AfD's, i suggest that we wait a few weeks before attempting to summarise the content in the lead/introduction, which at present is blank. Otherwise, we will waste a lot of energy over it. At the moment, something like a geographical organisation seems to me to provide a reasonably neutral categorisation of different criticisms.
My suggested moratorium would end on 23:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently someone did object, and inserted an original research lead rather than a recommended type of lead. Probably i will at least myself respect the moratorium (since i proposed it :). i suggest that anyone who disagrees should at least try reading WP:LEAD. Boud (talk) 22:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead/introduction: suggested moratorium for a few weeks 

message: The organization was founded to watch human rights abuses in the former Soviet Empire. When did it start employing marxists? how did this come about?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.111.71.197 (talk) 08:03, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is only the "criticism" article; the main article, Human Rights Watch has a brief history section explaining how the group grew and changed, especially between 1978 and 1988. It may not answer all your questions, but it's a better place to start looking. Good luck, Doc  Tropics 16:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: When and How did the former "Helsinki Watch" Switch Sides?

message: I've reverted all this material that has been added in disregard for the concerns of User:Crotalus horridus and myself. You are expected to work toward consensus. That means when you know material is opposed, and reasons have been given for the opposition, you make a serious effort to negotiate those principles on the Talk page. You do that before continuing to pile on contentious material. You also don't take advantage of a block to shove what you want into an article. The conerns about this article have been outlined above; the additions have been reverted by myself, they've been reverted by Crotalus horridus. 
Again, the article as a whole is POV-fork. It just provides a platform for bashing an organization. Several editors expressed the concern about a POV-fork in the deletion discussion, and it needs to be addressed. It's been proposed that fairest way to discuss these criticisms in the context of HRW as a whole, so we should work toward merging it back to the main article. Taking criticisms out of the main article takes them out of context. Please take the time  to address Crotalus's suggestion that our goal should be a merge, and the guidelines I gave above that seem like common sense to me. Noloop (talk) 21:30, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You should also not delete material with out consensus. Besides consensus was reached, you rasied your concersn and a majority rejected them, that is a consensus decision. 8 eds decided it should be retained as an article. by the way please note that ther is a crtisim of amnesty international page as well. Why should we work towards a desision thyat goes against a clear consensus that the article should reamain?Slatersteven (talk) 22:00, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No, "the majority rejected them" is not how consensus works:
Consensus discussions should always be attempts to convince others, using reasons. When a discussion breaks down to a mere polarized shouting match, there is no possibility of consensus, and the quality of the article will suffer.
That said, consensus is not simple agreement; a handful of editors agreeing on something does not constitute a consensus, except in the thinnest sense. Consensus is a broader process where specific points of article content are considered in terms of the article as a whole.....
....In determining consensus, consider the strength and quality of the arguments, including the evolution of final positions, the objections of those who disagree, and existing documentation in the project namespace if available. Minority opinions typically reflect genuine concerns, and their (strict) logic may outweigh the "logic" (point of view) of the majority.
...you are directly acting in opposition to these principles. Noloop (talk) 22:03, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You are also refusing to listen to others. Niether of your first two points say that when a minority disagress then no consensus is reached, indeed if we take your attutude to its logical conclusion consensus means unimimity. your third point is about Community discussions not Wiki articles, please stop quoting rules out of context. 
"Developing consensus requires special attention to neutrality and verifiability in an effort to reach a compromise that everyone can agree on." the material is verifiable. You shgould not delete material wiht out forst achiving consensus, now I am willing to reset the page back to the state it was in on 26 July and then discuse each subject you object to in turn, but please refrain from just mass deletion of material that is sourced.Slatersteven (talk) 22:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

text: Very well put! If we have to have articles like this (and it seems necessary in this case), then it might as well be thorough and well written. Doc  Tropics 02:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consensus 

message: Sean.hoyland, I have two concerns:
#Does the blog post meet W:RS?
#The title of HRW reports is:
This 144-page report documents the arbitrary arrest and detention of individuals for vaguely defined crimes or behavior that is not inherently criminal. Once arrested, suspects often face prolonged solitary confinement, ill-treatment, forced confessions, and are denied a lawyer at crucial stages of interrogation and trial.
 
whereas the blogs title is "HRW Sez: Don't Teach Terrorists Tolerance". 
Isn't this twisting of facts? Imad marie (talk) 07:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Imad, I put a short comment in a section higher up about this issue. Okay, let me set out my position on this first. This criticism from the usual suspects like Goldberg is utterly worthless non-encyclopedic nonsense that grossly misrepresents information to advance a partisan agenda. In that sense it is consistent with the majority of the other criticisms in this article. Now, having said that I respect GHcool's desire to include something and I expect many other editors out there would regard this as worthy of mention so essentially I am just accepting it's inclusion as inevitable. Is the blog an RS ? No, but it's a reliable source for Goldberg's opinion (which I think he probably just gets from NGO Monitor) and he is notable as a critic of HRW. Is it twisting of facts ? Yes but if the inclusion criteria for opinions critical of HRW is factual accuracy then this article is in serious trouble. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

text: ..if it's removed again I won't revert the removal. I'm okay with consensus efforts to take place with or without that section being present in the article while the discussions are ongoing. Sean.hoyland - talk 08:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have my doubts about it, but having said that I am not sure that (as this is a pagew about opinions) Goldbergs are not relevant. But we should also make efforts to inclide HRW's response (i9f there is none then that starts to raise questions as to just how inportant his views are).Slatersteven (talk) 12:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: To the extent that we assumed good faith on the part of GHCool, we need to find a section for the Saudi reeducation camp section. Given the content of the Jeffrey Goldberg article, i think that it would be OR (maybe a reasonable speculation, but still OR) to conclude that Goldberg is criticising HRW in the case of the Saudi reeducation camps because of his role as a US-Israeli journalist commenting on the century-long Arab–Israeli conflict. So trying to take his blog comment as the best thing we have to a serious source, his criticism seems to be that HRW "fails to see the bigger picture". However, that's a bit too vague for a section title, and given that quotes HRW regarding human rights law, the only reasonable description of his complaint is that it is part of the class of criticisms that HRW takes HR law too strictly, instead of "seeing the bigger picture". IMHO this seems to be a reasonably objective class of bias. We can in fact expect HRW to be biased towards HR law. That may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on one's POV. In any case, maybe someone can see a more NPOV description. Please remember, anyone who has not seen my comments above, this is not the USA nor Israeli wikipedia, and HRW is an organisation that claims to be concerned with HR violations all over the world. For this reason, a reasonably objective way to structure the article is according to geography, where possible. In this case, this doesn't seem (overtly) to be directly related to the Arab–Israeli conflict, so it seems to me we need a separate section. Boud (talk) 22:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that the suggestion to organize the article geographically is a good one. Not only is it a very logical way to structure the layout, it might let us rewrite some of the section headers so as to seem a bit less convoluted. Since this article has seen a lot of turmoil recently, I'd suggest  discussing the details of the organiztion in their own section of this talkpage before implementing though. Doc  Tropics 22:48, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I would agree to the nidea of regional (or geographical) organisation. I bleive that hte cesction on reeducation camps is not sufficiantly large (or well soourced) enough for its own section. I would susgest creating a Saudi section and moving both  this anf the funding issue there.Slatersteven (talk) 12:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

text: I don't understand.  Do you not agree that Jeffrey Goldberg is an RS? Do you not agree that The Atlantic is an RS? I'm restoring it.  --GHcool (talk) 17:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Some comments. The Atlantic is an RS, Goldberg is an award winning journalist and see Wikipedia:Rs#Statements_of_opinion for "reliable source for Goldberg's opinion". Meanwhile I'll read WP:BEANS. GHcool, unconvicted is a word. Rights groups use it frequently in their reports about the teatment of unconvicted detainees around the world. It's the word used in the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment (Body of Principles) which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1988. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:25, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

text: I think the issue is whether this qualifies as well sourced patent nonsense. It's a throwaway one line quip by Goldberg rather than a serious analysis of the issue. On that basis I don't think it merits inclusion. Talk is cheap in the blogosphere and it would be unfortunate if we set the inclusion threshold so low that material like this makes it into articles. I'm just off to add "It's too hot" to the Saudi article. I'm sure I can find an RS with a blog by an award winning travel writer to provide WP:V compliance. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:53, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

text: ..and if I'm not convincing you GHcool try imagining the sentence as "Goldberg has criticised HRW for telling the Saudi Government that they should comply with UN General Assembly Resolution 43/173". Sean.hoyland - talk 18:15, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough.  I accept that "unconvicted" is a word, but "prior to conviction" is more accurate since that's how the article refers to it.  I am unconvinced that Goldberg's opinion is "patent nonsense," but that's neither here nor there since Sean admits that it is "well sourced" (i.e. complying with WP:V and WP:RS).   On Sean's lame counterargument, I imagine that if such an unlikely stance was taken by an RS such as Goldberg, I would accept its inclusion into this article.  --GHcool (talk) 22:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough, so the most pragmatic way for you to gain consensus is to find more sources that have brought this issue up, preferably sources that know the difference between serious journalism and twittering. I'll have a look too (since I've already said I would). Sean.hoyland - talk 01:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand.  Is one reliable source not enough? Since Goldberg wasn't "twittering," but rather, writing on his blog sponsored by The Atlantic, I fail to see how Sean's argument above is anything but a false analogy.  --GHcool (talk) 03:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The false analogy that a sentence in a blog by X sponsored by Y is equivalent to a sentence in a tweet by X sponsored by Y. Yes, I can see that someone could argue that the words blog and tweet have different spellings but then if they had the same spelling it wouldn't even be an analogy. :) Would you acknowledge that the encyclopedic quality of the proposed content would be increased by finding better sources and that this would increase the likelihood of you getting consensus ? After all Goldberg is essentially criticising HRW for not changing their stance on human rights despite there being a 'war on terrorism' bigger picture. It would better in my view if a source could be found that explicitly spells out this line of argument e.g. the US/UK govs perhaps. Sean.hoyland - talk 03:54, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stance against reeducation of unconvicted detainees 

message: i have restored the subsection title Anti-Arab-League or pro-Israel bias because as most of us should surely know, the Arab–Israeli conflict is a major source of conflict in the world and in wikipedia, so we need to be very careful to NPOV things. The restored section includes: Jonathan Cook's criticism of HRW, HRW's response, and Cook's counter-response. If HRW has a further counter-response, then someone please add it.
i'll again repeat my above comment: If we as editors of this article cannot constructively work together, we could add the  tag to the top of this talk page - see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles#Final_decision and Wikipedia:General_sanctions. This is not the first article related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in en.wikipedia history. People interested in having the sanctions tag should probably read the links and see what it involves. i suggest we try to work things out step by step and avoid needing any form of "external" mediation. Boud (talk) 22:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I would fully support this article being within scope of the discretionary sanctions. It would be entirely appropriate in my view. Sean.hoyland - talk 01:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-Arab-League or pro-Israel bias 

message: I think that any response from HRW to allagations should be put after the accusation.Slatersteven (talk) 12:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Without doubt, substantive responses from HRW should be included, and you've described the proper format. However, the second section currently ends with the phrase: "However it has been suggested that this is motivated by politics rather then genuine concern" which is absolutely atrocious. The assertion is not attributed to anyone, and the sentence contains no substance whatsoever. It amounts to nothing more than speculations about motive, no factual response at all. Despite being sourced, text like that needs to be either removed, or revised so that it says something useful. Not every criticism requires us to list a response; if no direct, meaningful response is available, it's better to do without. Doc  Tropics 12:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Im HRW and i'll cry if I want to

message: Stork has written a rebuttal to the Ma’Ariv article if anyone wants to incorporate it. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good find Sean.hoyland, and very interesting. As an FYI, about 2 days ago user:joestork deleted references to Joe Stork from both this article and Human Rights Watch. I reverted both deletions and another editor warned him. I reviewed the article that contains his recent "rebuttal", but can't really see that it merits inclusion here. Stork's major defense seems to be that he was young when he made such profoundly hateful, anti-semitic statements, and he no longer recalls everything he said. He makes much reference to the social value of his more recent works without ever actually recanting or denying his previous positions. Furthermore, the sourcing is problematic as the essay doesn't come through any of the "official" channels which would be at Stork's disposal, but is relayed second-hand through an outside party, without the original statement being available for review. Still, thanks again for pointing this out and providing the link, it made for very interesting reading. Doc  Tropics 19:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I saw that user:joestork account. I thought the vandalism warning by User:D climacus was a bit harsh. Telling the user to submit requests for changes on the talk page would have been better given the WP:COI-potential of the user name. I'll have a look for better sourcing. I didn't see any anti-semitic statements in the Ma’Ariv article or the original material that was posted by CAMERA->NGO Monitor when Stork started issuing reports about Cast Lead. I'm not sure whether anyone has ever accused Stork personally of hating Jews because they are Jews. If they have then I suppose that should be in the article if it's well sourced. I saw allegations of him being anti-Zionist, anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian in the past but conflating that with anti-semitism is to take the New antisemitism view which isn't the norm for the definition of anti-semitism. Sean.hoyland - talk 02:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, yeah, let me clarify: the phrase "...hateful, anti-semitic statements..." was both a personal opinion (mine), and intentionally heavy-handed prose to highlight the extremity of what's been attributed to him. I would never suggest adding any of those actual words into the article; it was written entirely in the vein of rhetorical debate. Sorry if there was any confusion about that....Doc  Tropics 21:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, no problem, understood. Many people would share your view. In contrast probably no one shares my personal opinion that HRW would have a lot less problems if all of their senior staff officially changed their names to Marvel superhero style names like "The Investigator", "Justice Woman" etc. They didn't even reply to my email. Typical. On a more serious note I do think we need to do something with this Ma’Ariv material to balance it. It's ironic that in an article mainly about alleged selection/ideological bias we are struggling to avoid selection/ideological bias ourselves. I did come across an opinion piece by the editor of the Middle East Institute which I think qualifies as a suitable source if we wanted to use it.  Sean.hoyland - talk 04:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like he is the editor of the Middle East Journal at the Middle East Institute, and yes, we can definitely agree that his credentials make him an RS. Very nice. And it seems the points that should be highlighted are the age of the events (mostly the 1970s), and that the  "Munich morale" statements attributed to him were apparently unsigned and possibly not his? Does that sound about right? Doc  Tropics 05:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Stork's response to accusations

message: i've dropped the "pro-US" part of the Latin America section title, putting Allegations of bias concerning Latin America instead. It does seem to me that most of the criticisms (Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras) are inferring that HRW seems to have recently (last 5 years) been too closely aligned with US foreign policy than it should be as an independent, non-governmental organisation, but at least in the sourced information we have in the text of the section at the moment, we don't have pro-US bias stated overtly in all cases. E.g. for Honduras, the authors of the criticism of HRW and appeal to HRW don't overtly say "You seem to be supporting US foreign policy". That does seem to be implied, but not stated outright.  We do have a direct statement by Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy regarding pro-US-govt bias, which is relevant in the intro to the section, but i don't think it's strong enough to keep "pro-US" bias in the section title. Boud (talk) 21:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I remember reading a paper a while ago by Columbian human rights reseachers who attempted to do quite a rigorous statistical analysis of HRW (and AI) reports covering many years of the civil war with the benefit of hindsight. They had all sorts of interesting results and if I could remember where I read it this comment might actually be useful. I'll try to find it again. Sean.hoyland - talk 09:12, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  title of latin america section 

message: ::Having just reviewed the last dozen-or-so changes made by different editors, I definitely feel that they were largely positive contributions and the article is improving incrementally but steadily. Productive talkpage dialogue helps a lot and the improvements seem to be evidence of that. Well done :) Doc  Tropics 20:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: stability of constructive work on page

message: i removed the old lead/introduction, since it had almost nothing to do with the content of the article. HRW's own summary of criticism against it  cannot be expected to be a particularly good NPOV summary of that part of knowledge. We do not have any discussion of selection bias in the article, nor ideological bias. Geography is not ideology. i did suggest above that we wait a few weeks before trying to write a lead/introduction that summarises the content in line with the suggestions at WP:LEAD, since i didn't see much point trying to summarise it before it had stabilised.
Anyway, i've mostly picked out the refs that have name= tags. i suggest we avoid putting any refs in the lead/intro that are not already present in the main sections of the text, i.e. we only use repeat references. This seems to be consistent with the recommendations in WP:LEAD. i also think it's safer to err on the side of more (repeat) references in the lead/intro rather than too few, though we shouldn't include all of them.
i started with a 2-paragraph structure. One with a list of the criticisms based on  the geographical structure of the main body of the article, and a second with HRW's responses, for those geographical areas where it did respond. The Arab–Israeli conflict occupies a lot of ink and bytes, so in the 1st paragraph that got split into a sentence of its own, for clarity.
An interesting side effect here is that it becomes clear that either HRW did not respond to the bias claims for Africa, or we have not found its responses yet. Boud (talk) 01:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead/introduction 

message: *User:Sean.Hoyland continues to censor reliably sourced material critical of HRW.Historicist (talk) 19:19, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Historicist continues to use unreliable sources and needs to watch his 1RR restriction. nableezy - 19:23, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In this matter I would question NGO Monitor, they seem to be in part relying on information that stems from a wikipedia page, that renders it a bit dodgey.Slatersteven (talk) 19:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

text: Historicist, take your pick, comply with mandatory policies or I will ask an admin to talk to you about the discretionary sanctions. Don't bring your personal battles with HRW to Wikipedia. Go work on another article if you are unable to follow policy on this issue. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:34, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Historicist is a aware of the discretionary sanctions and is currently under a 1RR sanction in the topic area. nableezy - 19:36, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: White phosphorous

message: There don't seem to have been any objections to the sanctions tag, and in any case, part of the article Criticism of HRW necessarily relates to the Arab–Israeli conflict, so we automatically come under the sanctions structure, it would seem to me. So i've put the tag up the top.
As i said in a comment a few sections above, my impression is that the information that Historicist wishes to include in the article probably is relevant, notable and source-able, but editors will not reach a consensus on that through excessive reverts. Discussion on the talk page would (should) have more chance of achieving consensus. i thought i saw somewhere that "uninvolved administrators" could impose a WP:1RR rule on difficult editors, but i can't find the specific place in the arbitration texts. In any case, here is a description of the sanctions, which you can find by following the links in the box anyway. Just for the record, i'm not an administrator, and i have made some edits to the article, so both facts disqualify me from the set of people who can "meta-intervene" here. Boud (talk) 22:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  sanctions tag 

message: Somebody consistently published in the JPost and US News and World Report cannot be described as fringe and you cannot remove responses that you do not like. Take a look at WP:NPOV. This is not a personal playground to attack whoever you want without any response. nableezy - 04:53, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the reason for the Derfner piece self-revert ? Sean.hoyland - talk 05:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I am trying to control my tendency to say "fuck that" and revert. nableezy - 05:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: oh noes, you used the forbidden word 'that' which is regarded as offensive in many cultures where assignment of words to either a male or female is required. okay, fair enough but i'm going to revert because each section ideally needs to have local npov compliance volume/weight-wise me thinks. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I shall make a sugestion. Lets keep the section on qulifications (and allow both Camera and NGO Monitor to be used as long as thier quotes are attributed). But the sectio on collecting and book writing a left out untill a neutral third party biographical source can be found to back up the claim.Slatersteven (talk) 13:59, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Like any source it depends what they are talking about. If CAMERA and NGO Monitor have opinions about the best way to do a Voronoi deformation density calculation then we wouldn't include them. Do they have necessary expertise to provide a reliable and meaningful statement about qualifications required by military analyst in a human rights organization that adds value to an encyclopedia ? Are they qualified to talk about weapons systems in any technical sense in a way that ads informational value ? Are they within scope of Wikipedia:Rs#Extremist_and_fringe_sources which says "Organizations and individuals that express views that are widely acknowledged by reliable sources as fringe, pseudo-academic,[3] or extremist may only be used as sources of information about those organisations or individuals." ? I don't know but if they are to be used then my view is that their views should only be included via reliable secondary sources. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:38, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "fringe" rebuttals 

message: Someone quoted an IPS article as saying that David Bernstein apologized for saying that HRW didn't raise Saudi abuses on its fundraising trip to Saudi Arabia. That's inaccurate.  No one from IPS ever spoke to David Bernstein (me).  IPS instead butchered an original blog post that I wrote: 
"For my part, if Ms. Whitson did indeed criticize Saudi human rights abuses during her trip, I apologize for suggesting otherwise." http://www.volokh.com/posts/1247622550.shtml
NOTE THE "IF"
Given that Whitson has refused to release any transcript, video, or audio of her remarks, I have no idea what she raised or didn't raise, other than her anti-Israel quotes noted in the Arab News.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.172.198 (talk) 14:46, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As you do not know what she said what you claim she did not say can hardley be regarded as relaible.Slatersteven (talk) 14:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

text: Has Whitson refused ? Is that what she said ? "I refuse to release any transcript, video, or audio of my remarks". Where did she say that ? Or has she not responded to a request ? Those would be two quite different things to me. Not that it will make any difference but it seems reasonable to assume that Saudi nationals with interests in human rights attending a HRW presentation would be aware of the "comprehensive, detailed, and thorough body of work on Saudi Arabian human rights issues in recent years" published by Human Rights Watch. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:41, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bernstein 

message: *The pro-Israel organization NGO Monitor has asserted that HRW military analyst Marc Garlasco lacks the knowledge and training that would qualify him to work as a military analyst, arguing that he has no military experience or training and that his Pentagon job did not deal with "the details of weapons systems."Experts or Ideologues: Systematic Analysis of Human Rights Watch, NGO Monitor, September, 2009, p. 21, 
*On her Blog Helena Cobban has said that " also share some of the concerns his critics have voiced about the actual military expertise Garlasco brought to the job at HRW," and that "made some serious-- and very basic-- mistakes during the Russian-Georgian war"http://justworldnews.org/archives/003787.html.
I think that criticism of HRW by member of HRW board of directors Helena Cobban is significant, as is ceiticism by an NGO like [NGO Monitor.  If you agree, do put the material back in.Historicist (talk) 21:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Err the Cobban quote is still there. And has not been removed since its insertion.Slatersteven (talk) 21:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Material recently deleted form article

message: is not a reliable source. See here, here, and here. nableezy - 23:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: OK what about the Blog (I assume the objection is that its a blog)?Slatersteven (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examiner.com 

message: Howto: this is a point-wise list for helping to guide discussion in order to converge on possible compacting (compression) of the Anti-Israel/pro-Arab-League section of the article. The problem is concern that the section dominates the article out of proportion to its importance. Please add/remove/clarify/sort/re-structure this list of points and add longer explanations/comments below. Boud (talk) 20:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Just an FYI, the policies you cite don't apply to that section in the fashion you suggest. If there are more allegations regarding the Arab/Israeli conflict than other conflicts, then that topic will get more coverage. This is not a problem at all, but a natural result of the quantity of material available to be covered. Undue Weight only applies to covering insignificant topics or opinions, not the length of a given section within an article. Thanks though, and I hope this explanation helped. Doc  Tropics 00:59, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

text: They do not ignore terrorist attacks against Israel, they have produced a number of reports critical of the Palestinians. But it is also worth remembering that the number of death on the Palestinian side (civilians targeting for use of) is far higher on the Palestinian side (by a very large margin), so inevitably there will be more to report. Also how often have the Palestinians shot at white flags or used weapons against civilians that have been prohibited for use in civilian areas by international law (well in truth how often have been accused of this)? However I do not bleive that the issue has recived undue coverage in this article.Slatersteven (talk) 12:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

text: One you said "terrorist attacks against Israel", you your self admit they have porduced reports crtitical of the Palestinians. Two, I would susgest you check the figures, you are wrong. Three this does not actualy seemed to be aimed at inproving the artci8el, at this time there is more space given over to crtitism of HRW with regards to vanti-Isralie bias then Anti-Arab Bias so I need to ask what are you objecting to?Slatersteven (talk) 14:06, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV list of the most notable, most-reliably-sourced points in the  Anti-Israel/pro-Arab-League section

message: "bla" is just an example that obviously needs to be modified. Boud (talk) 20:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Just an FYI, the policies you cite don't apply to that section in the fashion you suggest. If there are more allegations regarding the Arab/Israeli conflict than other conflicts, then that topic will get more coverage. This is not a problem at all, but a natural result of the quantity of material available to be covered. Undue Weight only applies to covering insignificant topics or opinions, not the length of a given section within an article. Thanks though, and I hope this explanation helped. Doc  Tropics 00:59, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

text: They do not ignore terrorist attacks against Israel, they have produced a number of reports critical of the Palestinians. But it is also worth remembering that the number of death on the Palestinian side (civilians targeting for use of) is far higher on the Palestinian side (by a very large margin), so inevitably there will be more to report. Also how often have the Palestinians shot at white flags or used weapons against civilians that have been prohibited for use in civilian areas by international law (well in truth how often have been accused of this)? However I do not bleive that the issue has recived undue coverage in this article.Slatersteven (talk) 12:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

text: One you said "terrorist attacks against Israel", you your self admit they have porduced reports crtitical of the Palestinians. Two, I would susgest you check the figures, you are wrong. Three this does not actualy seemed to be aimed at inproving the artci8el, at this time there is more space given over to crtitism of HRW with regards to vanti-Isralie bias then Anti-Arab Bias so I need to ask what are you objecting to?Slatersteven (talk) 14:06, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: discussion of adding/changing/removing points

message: I'm not a Wikipedia guru, but it strikes me as absurd that if Helen Cobban (or Noah Pollack, or Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor) is quoted in a newspaper, the fact that it's in a newspaper makes the quotation a reliable source, even though newspaper quotations are often inaccurate and even more often incomplete or out of context.  But if the same person made the same remark on the same subject on his or her blog, then the source is "not reliable," even though it's straight from the horse's mouth.  That's just nonsense.  The reliability has to be the person, not where his opinion is published.
:The material then simply becomes more notable and reliable enough to be repeated, with attribution, and any appropriate replies. I do worry about including unreliable allegations about living people though.--69.208.131.94 (talk) 13:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly this stems from a misunderstanding of how the RS policy applies. Blogs are considered reliable sources, but only for the opinion of the author, not for factual material of any kind. The reason for this is that most "real" publications, like newspapers, magazines, and especially academic journals, engage in some sort of fact-checking before they print information; blogs don't. Compared to other forms of publication, blogs are just opinion pages where the bloggers can (and often do) say anything they want, unburdened by ethical obligations to truth or accuracy. A "fact" which appears only in a blog, and not in any other reliable source, is highly dubious to say the least. Furthermore, if we are going to include someone's opinion in an article, it must be a qualified opinion. For example, it wouldn't be appropriate to include the opinions of religious bloggers in the article Black hole because they don't have education or experience relevant to the subject. In summary, blogs can be RS, but only in very limited circumstances. I hope that clears things up, Doc  Tropics 18:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blogs v. Newpapers 

message: link it to the page and reduce it I think is a boog idea.Slatersteven (talk) 14:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The Garlsaco section is a bit large

message: Why was the section on anti-semitism removed?Slatersteven (talk) 14:55, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Anti-semitism

message: pro-HRW and anti-HRW. --Sceptic from Ashdod (talk) 13:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  advocacy and rebuttal 

message: Anyone mind if I change state of Israel to a capitalised State of Israel? I know it's a small thing, but it's the actual proper name. Also, there is a State of Palestine referred to as well, but that isn't yet even recognised by the UN as being an actual country yet (and it gets to be capitalised) and I'm not sure they've adopted State of Palestine as their name --- Correction, I now see they did in 1988 (they really should pick a better name than a silly Roman one meant to insult the Jews imo, but that's just me, maybe State of al-Quds or Republic of al-Quds). Hpelgrift (talk) 18:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I would just leave it as Israel. As for the State of Palestine term, the lead is just a summary of the article and the article says "HRW has also been criticised for taking Israel's side in its condemnation of the Palestinian use of human shields". There's no criticism or mention of a Palestinian state. That term needs to go. It was a criticism of the actions of Palestinian militant groups encouraging people to protect buildings according to HRW. So, the lead should just say what the article says...but with less words... Sean.hoyland - talk 18:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Meh, that works too. I thought when they put "state of Israel", they were referring to Israel by its official English name and so capitals are a must, it's down in section eight I think (don't want to backspace) That lead bit is very very sad. Hpelgrift (talk) 04:19, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  State of Palestine and state of Israel 

message: sean - i wrote the facts, not POV. it makes no difference that hrw has been publishing reports about libya for years, as you say. what comes out is that the hrw head of the middle east division actually felt that reforms in libya were taking place two years ago, and only now, acknowledges her mistake. not sure why you feel this is not appropriate. Soosim (talk) 17:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Being soft on Libya 

message: There is talk about Allegations of bias against India but the article is missing that section, did someone delete it? --Neelkamala (talk) 09:28, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Have a look at the Talk:Criticism_of_Human_Rights_Watch#Anti-India_bias section. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  What happened to India section? 

message: I've removed an old POV template with a dormant discussion, per the instructions on that template's page:
::This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
::#There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
::#It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
::#In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.
If editors are continuing to work toward resolution of any issue and I missed it, however, please feel free to restore. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:10, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  removing POV tag with no active discussion per [[Template:POV]] 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Criticism of Human Rights Watch. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20091002081517/http://www.google.com:80/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gN0ozL3Zpc5Wv8369sfOpffXmA6Q to http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gN0ozL3Zpc5Wv8369sfOpffXmA6Q
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090905212531/http://www.hrw.org/en/bios/marc-garlasco to http://www.hrw.org/en/bios/marc-garlasco
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20140226022600/http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090918/OPINION/709179888/1080/NEWS to http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090918/OPINION/709179888/1080/NEWS
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Yeah. When HRW released this total bullshit report on Egypt, the government criticized them. When I checked the HRW article, I saw no section on Egypt, so I thought, "Why not?"
As a result, I added this new section. Didn't you guys feel there was a missing section? Zakawer (talk) 13:19, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  I added a missing Egypt-related section 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Criticism of Human Rights Watch. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20131205035245/http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/02/bangladesh-court-asks-human-rights-watch-to-explain-why-it-shouldnt-be-charged/ to http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/02/bangladesh-court-asks-human-rights-watch-to-explain-why-it-shouldnt-be-charged/
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Criticism of Human Rights Watch. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7086749.ece
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/latin-america-scholars-ur_b_265282.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/08/21
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/08/25/honduras-rights-report-shows-need-increased-international-pressure
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130105141253/http://www.unomaha.edu/religion/goldstein.home.htm to http://www.unomaha.edu/religion/goldstein.home.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130120085513/http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/selling_out_to_soros_iYfn7YXaZg8xEFCp5iEcCJ to http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/selling_out_to_soros_iYfn7YXaZg8xEFCp5iEcCJ
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090902102146/http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47685 to http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47685
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070310234300/http://www.zmag.org:80/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11048 to http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11048
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110628232148/http://www.counterpunch.org/cook11302006.html to http://www.counterpunch.org/cook11302006.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: please, before removing this content again , discuss why you do not agree with it. Maybe we can find a better wording. The Venezuelan government is not a impartial actor here because the report of the HRW is about Chavez administration. The point of view of the accused HRW investigators involved has to be taken into account.--ReyHahn (talk) 06:35, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  HRW and Chavez 

message: There is some online criticism of HRW's position on recent (2019/2020) developments in Bolivia, but none of them are great quality sources, ex: https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/20/human-rights-watch-bolivia-coup-massacre/ - the responses to this: https://twitter.com/hrw/status/1305186958990172161
Are these enough for a new section? Does anybody have a better sources?
Miserlou (talk) 05:00, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bolivia 

message: Similar to Bolivia, there's criticism of their activities in Colombia: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/did-human-rights-watch-sabotage-colombias-peace-agreement/
Miserlou (talk) 05:06, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colombia 

message: :https://www.aei.org/op-eds/human-rights-watch-reports-are-no-longer-credible/
:https://www.ajc.org/news/5-things-you-should-know-about-human-rights-watchs-report-on-israelXx236 (talk) 07:15, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: https://www.abc.net.au/religion/who-is-watching-the-human-rights-watchers/13306530 Recent text by Steinberg.Xx236 (talk) 07:20, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  AEI and AJC