Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts

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This noticeboard aims to serve as a place where incidents of the principle of neutrality being violated due to chauvinist and nationalist sentiment can be reported. It is common for edit wars, revert-warring, and general disruption to be caused on Wikipedia by real-world ethnic, national, and cultural conflicts, as the partisans in these disputes take their quarrels into cyberspace.

When posting here, please link to the relevant article(s). If you mention specific editors, please inform them of the thread. Consider also including some background information, not only relating to the specific dispute, but also the relevant ethnic conflict. Everyone knows about the Israel-Palestine conflict, but the Nagorno-Karabakh War is rather more obscure. If you do this you are far more likely to get an effective response.

Situations requiring immediate administrative action should go to the incidents noticeboard. Situations requiring immediate enforcement of arbitration committee remedies should go to the enforcement noticeboard.

Archives
1

Contents 1 Cornwall 2 Little Monkeys 3 Talk Page comments on Rachel Weisz article 4 qualified Brazilians 5 Addressing naming guidelines in West Bank - Judea and Samaria by July 13th 6 User:Mytestid1980 is damaging an article 7 Kosovo organ theft 8 Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 9 Macedonia centralized discussion 10 Greater and Lesser Tunbs dispute 11 Israel#Religion and references to sites in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. 12 Mass rape in the Bosnian War 13 Macedonia request for comment 14 Anatolia 15 List of cities by time of continuous habitation

[edit] Cornwall

In my view there are some problems at the Cornwall article, although i am the only one who appears to see it and everybody there would like to ignore my concerns. Cornwall is a county of England and has been part of England for 100s of years and this is not disputed by the vast majority of the population of Cornwall. The main problem at the moment is in the introduction where it currently states

"Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and diaspora, and is considered one of the six "Celtic nations""

My concern is the article is declaring Cornwall a "celtic nation" despite this not being a majority held or mainstream view and without valid neutral 3rd party sources. Now there is no doubt Cornwall has a rich celtic history and that organisations such as Celtic League (political organisation) and Celtic Congress consider Cornwall one of the 6 Celtic Nations, but these are political organisations with a clear interest in promoting a certain point of view. In my opinion the sentence does not even belong in the introduction, but the other editors on the article have refused to even allow an explanation as to WHO describes Cornwall as a Celtic Nation. Without that explanation, this seems grossly misleading and could be offensive to some. There also seems to be a problem at Celtic Nations where i am not the only one who has raised concerns about declaring a place like Cornwall a Celtic Nation, without proper explanation as to who has and what others think about it. At the moment because i am the only editor who seems to have a problem with the wording, it is impossible for me to make the changes with out them being reverted, so i placed some tags on the article but those are also continuing to be removed. Please can someone suggest what i should do next or should i simply leave the article the way it is if i think its misleading the reader? Thank you BritishWatcher (talk) 09:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC) I have restored my post as the recent change which removed the problem has been undone and the editor responsible said i should see what the admins say here. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget that "nation" is not synonymous with "state" or "country", viz. Tibetan nation, American Indian nation, Aboriginal nation. You do seem to be the only person, as of yet, who takes issue with the article's wording. The article has used that wording for ages. Could you possibly be mistaking your own opinions for fact? --Joowwww (talk) 13:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Nation can mean different things to different people. If i was born in Cornwall i may consider myself Cornish but that doesnt mean i consider myself "celtic" so i still dont see how the whole of Cornwall can be described as a celtic nation, if only a small number of people think that way. Either way, i do not see how its not possible to explain WHO describes Cornwall as a "Celtic nation" rather than an open ended claim which sounds like its a mainstream view. Earlier on Ghmyrtle added that Celtic league and Celtic congress call it a Celtic nation.. this change was far more accurate which is why i removed my post from this board. But then User:Daicaregos undid the change and in his normal friendly way suggested i repost my comment here. It should ofcourse be pointed out that on Daicaregos's user page he lists Cornwall as a country he has visited, so im not sure how neutral his views are on this matter. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Also just because something has been a certain way a long time doesnt mean its ok, i was reviewing the history of the article and in the first few years it seemed some people refused to even describe Cornwall as a county of England, which is a very radical position to hold. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

In my view, issues over detailed wording on the Cornwall page, and on the tone of individual editors' comments, don't need to be discussed in any detail here - they can be addressed adequately elsewhere. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ghmyrtle, had i seen the change you made to the article moments before i posted on here i wouldnt of posted it (which is why i removed it), but at the time it seemed like this matter was being ignored as its lasted several days now. I agree progress can be made on the articles talk page, but it didnt seem like that this morning. The only reason i reposted it was because of User:Daicaregos saying i should, and i do think a neutral point of view on this matter may be helpful. BritishWatcher (talk) 14:05, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The interesting thing about your comments British watcher, is that although you feign objectivity with your calls for 3rd party sources etc etc, you are blatantly using this for your own particular poltical agenda. Your username and Union Flag with motto shout out your Unionist political views, to which you are entitled no doubt- yet render your comments on Cornwall, the Celtic nature of Cornwall and so on, completely and utterly biased and one sided. As a Cornishman, I could tear your argument about Cornwall being part of England to bits. You make assumption after assumption about what is mainstream view or not, based on what may I ask? Where are your facts? I ask myself if you have ever been to Kernow..oops, that's a bit too Celtic, Cornwall?

)

14.05.09

You are one person from Cornwall, you do not speak for the 500,000 people who live in Cornwall, or less than 40,000 who described themselves as Cornish in the 2001 census. Wikipedia can not declare the whole of Cornwall is a Celtic Nation when this isnt recognized by the British government or by mainstream or neutral organisations.

Im a British citizen, my user page makes very clear my loyalties but certain people involved at the Cornwall article clearly also have their own interests and agenda. We have several confirmed separatists, one of whom declares on his userpage that Cornwall is infact a country, which is an even more radical view than just saying its a "Celtic nation"

My request does not seem that unreasonable. I simply think that if Cornwall is declared a celtic nation in the introduction we should say BY WHO, otherwise it sounds like this has universal support which is certainly not the case. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The wording has now been cleared up and consensus reached. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:08, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Little Monkeys

User Ninguém reported that Argentine "love to call Brazilians macaquitos (little monkeys in Spanish).

Systematically using the verbiage "afro-brasileiro" instead of negro is POVed: it is the Point of View that Brazilian culture is not essentially different from North-American culture, and that American usage can be employed in explaining it without further clarification and qualification. In this way, Brazil become a mere intellectual suburb of the United States, a country with no cultural autonomy, or - like our "hermanos" would love to point - a pack of macaquitos, always trying (and failing) to copy the intellectual fads in the metropolis.[1]

I think this is an ethnic issue, since this user is claiming that people from Argentina call people from Brazil of "little monkeys". This type of comments should be allowed to be posted in talk pages of articles. This is a mere disruption and offensive for both Argentine and Brazilians. Opinoso (talk) 17:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

This is the second time you raise this issue ([2]). Is there something new you want to say, or are you going to repeat this again and again? Ninguém (talk) 00:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Talk Page comments on Rachel Weisz article

• Rachel Weisz (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

At the bottom of the Talk page for this article, a Wiki user makes comments saying that "for their own safety," Jews need to hide their Jewishness. (Apparently, this user pulled something similar on an article about Mila Kunis and the Adyghe people.) I'm new, and I'm wondering how to play this and if anything can be done.(DarkKnight613 (talk) 19:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC))

Thanks for the notification. I have removed it here. It was unhelpful and a personal attack against Jews. American Eagle (talk) 19:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] qualified Brazilians

This is related to the short thread "Little monkeys" close above. That part of it can be considered resolved. Unfortunately the bad feeling underlying it cannot.

There are multiple disputes among a number of editors, and particularly between two, over White Brazilian, German Brazilian, and so forth. These seem to reflect two points of view, which I think I can describe very simply here but about which I'll remain silent: those interested are free to work them out for themselves, and I'll avoid the risk of being accused of misinterpretation.

I first noticed complaints at WP:AN/I. I was a late arrival to this and noted the tiredness with which people greeted these complaints. At least one of the dismissive comments made on a complaint struck me as fatuous and I took the time to look at what was involved. I was surprised to see that some of the complaints were about apparently clearcut matters; see Template talk:Largest cities of Brazil.

The closest I have been to Brazil is Manhattan and I know very little about Brazil and its history. So I'm uneducated and uninformed, but I hope I'm open minded. I arrived with the intention of being evenhandedly sceptical and firm, and I hope that I am still fair. However, I've gradually come to respect the efforts of one of the two parties in this brouhaha and think I may be on the verge of losing patience with the other. I don't think that this would necessarily be bad. Still, if I did lose patience I'd probably be accused of bias. And so I invite another administrator to take a long look through Talk:White Brazilian and to step in. (Another reason: "RL" is about to take up a lot of my time.) -- Hoary (talk) 03:49, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

This is more or less the tale of two strong-willed editors with clashing PoVs (some underlying) who were both skirting en.Wikipedia editing policies (knowingly or unknowingly, doesn't matter) to edit war in the name of Truth (TM). The first task was to stop the blistering loops of personal attacks flying between them, along with the edit warring. Happily, this seems to have happened. Next, editing had to be targeted only onto sources, in chunks, which also seems to have happened. Hoary helpfully stepped in whilst one of the editors began trying to deal with the content much more carefully, from the outlook of sourcing. The other editor answered this only with a sweeping revert as before, which is worrisome. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:14, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes. What's alarming is that there's a pile of these articles, and while one editor is amenable to an invitation to concentrate on one knotty point in the talk page of one article, the other pays rather less attention to this and freely edits another article. I start to suspect that the fact that one editor's time and energy is taken up in the talk page of one article is taken by the other as an opportunity for relatively carefree editing elsewhere, though I am busily attempting to "AGF" and all that. Neither editor is an extremist; both understand WP:V and the rest (even if they have their lapses): there's hope here, but more eyeballs would be welcome. -- Hoary (talk) 11:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

In fairness, one of them has been saying for some time that he's been snared by an utter lack of any other outside input on these topics and has only been answered by reverts by that single editor. When one looks beyond the blizzards of personal attacks and edit warring going both ways, this is more or less supported by the contrib history. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:23, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Addressing naming guidelines in West Bank - Judea and Samaria by July 13th

Voting or commenting on each segment of the Proposed guidelines in relation to remedy 13.1 of the recently closed West Bank - Judea and Samaria arbitration case. Please comment here on preferred usage in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria area, to determine consensus by July 13th 2009.

The more comments/votes/consensus, the better. We really need to firm up consensus by community input into some of these areas to reduce the drain on admin and editor resources in policing naming disputes. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:26, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] User:Mytestid1980 is damaging an article

See [3] and all contribs. He is putting hoaxes on 2008 attacks on North Indians in Maharashtra even when we warned him. All warnings are gone from his talk. Some more bad eits also ocurred. See history

i hope its the right place (WP:AIV asks for recent disruption and I don't smell a 3RR violation.) Hometech (talk) 19:12, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Kosovo organ theft

This article urgently needs an eye. I toned it down a bit, stating at the beginning that the story is an "allegation". I hope I've done it correctly, but I'm not an expert on the former Yugoslavia conflict. It does seem to be a very important issue and our article on it ought to be impeccably in line with NPOV policy. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:44, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009

Is it Ok that almost half of the article is dedicated to "controversies", most of which are not even notable? For instance, allegations in Belorussian media were never officially confirmed, and their reliability is doubted even in Belarus. The Iranian image was never a controversy, because the Iranian government never objected to its inclusion. The only real controversy was the Armenian-Azerbaijani picture scandal, and it received enough coverage. It now seems that the controversy section is being expanded beyond any reasonable limit, as if the speculations in non-notable media are the most important info about one of the top 3 Eurovision 2009 entires. Grandmaster 12:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

• I should comment that User:Grandmaster's description here is not entirely factual or neutral and it is mostly his point of view regarding this topic. There is an ongoing debate on the talk page that discuss all angles of the question:Talk:Azerbaijan_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest_2009#Maqbaratoshoara--St. Hubert (talk) 15:19, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Controversies aren't required to have factual confirmation (e.g. the suspected Berlusconi-Noemi Letizia affair). If there's enough of a hubbub generated in the media, then it's something worth mentioning in the article. That being said, WP:UNDUE should always be applied as appropriate. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 15:27, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Macedonia centralized discussion

Following the conclusion of the recent Macedonia Arbcom case, there is now a new centralized discussion at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Macedonia, to decide on the final page title for the Macedonia (country) article and to finalize a general guideline on how to refer to the country in other articles. Fresh input will be welcome. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:51, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Greater and Lesser Tunbs dispute

We need a few more eyes (again) on Greater and Lesser Tunbs (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs), an article about a minor territorial dispute in the Persian Gulf. Two editors stubbornly revert-war to monopolise the article with the POV of their country, denying even the existence of a dispute (which, needless to say, is abundantly sourced and notable). This is very much a long-term problem and has been going on with interruptions for years. It has reached a point where further discussion seems senseless: these two editors simply do not want this project to be neutral; there is thus no basis for cooperative dispute resolution. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:55, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm completely uninvolved in this, but looking at the page history, I'd suggest the following:

• The page should be semi-protected - it's being disrupted repeatedly by someone editing from 75.75.*.* IP addresses.
• I suspect that this IP editor is the alter ego of Axamir (talk · contribs), who is also disrupting the page along the same lines. I recommend a checkuser of Axamir to determine whether he's the IP editor. If he is, he's engaging in repeated and ongoing edit-warring.

Hope this helps. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Things look to have settled down since yesterday. It looks like the IP vandalism has gone on for some time though, so I would be happy to place a 3-6 month semi-protection on the page if you think it is still necessary. Let me know on my talk page. Hiberniantears (talk) 17:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Axamir was blocked 24 hours per a complaint at the 3RR noticeboard. I'd support semiprotecting the article six months if we see further edits from 75.75.* IP editors who don't participate in discussions. EdJohnston (talk) 17:50, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Israel#Religion and references to sites in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

This is a reference to something I've been trying to get changed over the past couple of days but I keep being reverted. The relevant paragraph currently reads:

The city of Jerusalem is of special importance to Jews, Muslims and Christians as it is the home of sites that are pivotal to their religious beliefs, such as the Old City that incorporates the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Other landmarks of religious importance are located in the West Bank, among them the birthplace of Jesus and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

My issue that all the sites mentioned lie in East Jerusalem or the West Bank. Neither of these Occupied Territories are generally regarded as part of Israel and therefore should not be mentioned in this section without qualification. There have been numerous UN motions in both the security council and general assembly on this matter and most Western nations regard the final fate of Jerusalem as a matter to be settled. For this reason, it is my view that the unqualified inclusion of these sites in an article on Israel carries with it an implication that they are in that country and therefore violates WP:NPOV by giveing WP:Undue weight to a nationalist position. My last three edits (one each for 20th, 21st and 22nd of this month) are attempted fixes. I've tried approaches such as describing the Old City as "administered by Israel since the Six Day War" but keep on being reverted with the reverters either stating baldly that the Old City is in Israel, nitpicking about one part of East Jerusalem (Mount Scopus) being already Israeli pre-67, or claiming that the mention of the occupied territories as an issue in another section is sufficient. In all cases the text qualifying the implication that these sites are in Israel has been removed. I don't think the text as it stands is acceptable but the discussion thread I started Talk:Israel#Religious_sites_in_Old_City_are_not_internationally_recognised_as_being_in_Israel has received no response. Therefore I feel the need to escalate to this board.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I added my 2 cents to the thread on the article talk page. This is the wording you are trying to add, and I don't see any reason why it should not be allowed in the article, since it doesn't make or suggest a value statement on the legitimacy of Israeli control over the area. Hiberniantears (talk) 16:34, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought that "occupied", while the majority terminology was certain to trigger an edit war while "administered" had a chance of sticking.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:01, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mass rape in the Bosnian War

Originally, I was going to go to ANI but this issue is big. Mass rape in the Bosnian War has a section that was reinserted even though it was a strong BLP violation: Individuals convicted of war crimes related to mass rape. Even though there is no such thing as "mass rape", there is a list for this neologism. Furthermore, the list is not an attempt at fairness, neutrality, or anything. It is a part of a great claim that Serbs, not individuals but the whole ethnicity, committed "mass rape". Ottava Rima (talk) 18:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Macedonia request for comment

The Centralized discussion set up to decide on a comprehensive naming convention about Macedonia-related naming practices is now inviting comments on a number of competing proposals from the community. Please register your opinions on the RfC subpages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:23, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Anatolia

Reporting IP 69.116.12.93 for deleting references to Armenian and Greek ethnic conflict in Turkey in 20th century. Requesting comment and administrator action. Thanks! Jaybird vt (talk) 01:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] List of cities by time of continuous habitation

This is in regard of the article "List of cities by time of continuous habitation". The location keeps getting changed by diferent parties from Israel to Palestine to Israel/Palestine to "see status of Jerusalem" etc... East Jerusalem is considered by the international community as part of the occupied territories of Palestine and hence the location should indicate such as issue. I believe this needs a resolution.

I see a back and forth on this from early June, but nothing recently. Could your provide more details on your request? Hiberniantears (talk) 14:18, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was hoping for some sort of lock on the editting of the location, to change the location to something that's more internationally accepted such as Israel/Palestine or a link to "the status of Palestine". I am not sure if that's doable, but i sure there is a way to make sure that the location doesn't keep getting editted to something that suits the editor's Point of view! -- 02:49, 5 July 2009 (UTC)