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Project Talk Page Guidelines

  • This talk page is only for the discussion of how to organize the WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration. Go to this page to LIST Current Articles Issues. Go to this page to DISCUSS Current Articles Issues.
  • About Moderators: Our discussions are moderated and incivility and other problematic postings will be deleted. Moderators will move any Current Article Issues topics posted here to that section. They also will archive resolved or dated discussions.
  • Moderators will be chosen by: 1) Nomination by a project member and 2) Consensus of members, which means that there are no reasonable objections. NOMINATIONS OR VOLUNTEERS WELCOME! The following members have been appointed as moderators:
    • HG
    • Carolmooredc

To Do List

Archiving icon
Archives

January - February 2008
February - March 2008
April - Sept. 2008


WikiProject Middle East Textbooks is Looking for Members

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Middle East Textbooks/Invitation Hi. All of you are invited to join WP:WikiProject Middle East Textbooks. I look forward to seeing many of you sign-up. ← Michael Safyan 19:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration

This project recently started. They were inspired by Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration. It started after discussion at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Nationalist nonsense in AfDs, RMs etc --Timeshifter (talk) 18:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Additional moderation sought

As folks can tell, I have not been able to devote time lately to this project, which I continue to think could help identify and smooth out some of the I-P topic editing conflicts. So, another moderator or two would be helpful. At a minimum, if a (relatively) neutral party could help archive this page, that would be great. Any additional efforts to facilitate discussion of pro-active IPCOLL work, of course, would also be beneficial. Thanks muchly. HG | Talk 13:42, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone object to #Member statements being moved to a subpage? I could do that if no one objects. I will wait a week or so before doing anything. Is this OK to everyone? --Timeshifter (talk) 12:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
First, per my recommended changes I actually cut out a lot of other stuff but leave member statements on front because most other projects do and makes it clear it really exists. Now that I've read the whole article in order to re-write, I figured out what the moderator does. ;-) I am willing to be an administrative moderator for archiving or moving misplaced messages (if new regime created) but not for removing negative comments since I can be pretty combative myself - one reason I wanted to streamline these pages to make it easier for me to review and clean up my act :-) So I shouldn't be judging others. CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
It seems that there is no objection to this nomination; I will therefore add Carolmooredc to the list on top of this page. — Sebastian 07:10, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The politicization of Misplaced Pages

A few months ago I wrote an essay about some ideas I had for resolving political conflicts in the Misplaced Pages. I wrote it mostly for myself, but in the last couple of weeks, a few people have found their ways to it and commented on it favorably.

So anyone that's interested is welcome to read User:Ravpapa/The_Politicization_of_Wikipedia. --Ravpapa (talk) 06:05, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Page and Process Unclear, Talk becoming Overly Contentious - Needs Reboot

  • Ongoing_monitoring_and_collaborations says:
    • Collaborative editing of a low-tension and/or higher tension article, (help choose an Article in Talk), initiated by Durova
    • Facilitated discussions/interventions at disputed articles: Palestinian people (Padillah and HG), (others-to-be-named)
It is not clear how this is supposed to work, especially on alerting people to issues/problems in other articles. While some announcements of need for help get a response, I made one where one of the editors I was disagreeing with in article told me here, "no, you can't bring that here." Ttat doesn't seem appropriate given the above. (I think someone came by anyway and helped resolve problem.) I have a note about an RFC:Bio going to post here which hopefully I won't be chided for again.
  • The merging of collaboration and monitoring on one page can make things very confusing.
  • This has become a place where some of the more contentious editors feel free to enage in WP:Gaming the system and personal attacks - too reminiscent of the other pages we are having problems with.
  • I'm thinking of just rewriting the main page to be a COLLABORATION PAGE with BATTLEGROUND STATISTICS as the only monitoring page and moving What's Happening and a couple other relevant things there. Might provide an outline here in the near future. General comments welcome! Carol Moore 17:20, 20 November 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc
Hi Carol, yes I agree. I think part of this problem was highlighted in this posting asking for additional moderators to volunteer. Would you consider volunteering to become a wikiproject moderator? PhilKnight (talk) 17:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
You know I couldn't figure out what he was talking about when I first read the posting and still unclear without my studying the Collaboration article page (or talk above), which as I noted about is pretty confusing. Thinking about it, I think a first easy step we could do now would be to have two talk pages for collaboration, one for project structure and process (where for example JIDF actions v. wiki editors would go) and one for current issues on articles (where for example JIDF itself article would go). Then people more interested in one or the other would not be getting others confused. What do you think? (and if current posts above overlap, put a copy in each talk for past discussions). Carol Moore 17:45, 21 November 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc
Hi. just a brief note to let you know i'm still here. I haven't looked at these pages in a while, but I can try to maybe look a little bit more now and then in the future. not sure whether my edit activity will change much though. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
By the way, Carol, I like both your ideas. however, you might want to start them perhaps as separate sections on a single talk page, just to see what kind of responses you get. how to structure those pages might depend on how much interest they get. does that make sense? thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Good to know you're still paying attention. I was going to do a short outline here and then do whole page on my Talk Sandbox page for people to look at at their leisure. Just waiting til latest controversies die down (including one I'm about to start) so can look at with most neutral eye. Carol Moore 15:36, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Noticed above in the description of this talk page that "community lounge" was supposed to be for a lot of the discussions currently here. I think renaming it something more goal oriented like "current article debates" and then moving any debates that accidentally get her might might be part of the solution. So no need to create brand new pages. Also, as I'll note elsewhere, the criteria of when to bring an article issue here might be specified. We could brain storm a bunch of reasons and then decide which seem appropriate and which not. Carol Moore 00:43, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

The idea of this page

One idea of this page, in my opinion, is that anyone who makes their way here to proactively start or join a discussion is doing their part to help solve the problem. so various controversies may emerge here, but that does not negate the value of this page. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Alerts board

Would it be appropriate to provide a space here where people can simply list active controversies informally, without any "scientific" or official tabulation? --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:15, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Simplification is definitely needed! Carol Moore 00:45, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Draft Restructuring of Wiki I-P Collaboration pages

Per recent discussions above...and the statement on the main page For the time being, all sections on this page may be considered provisional -- this WikiProject is open to your creative input and editing. I came up with greatly simplified structure that allows busy users to read and understand what the project is about and how it works. As other subprojects arise and become active, they can be added. Feel free to comment on the talk pages of those draft articles pages listed below. Temporary links deleted after changes made.

  • Sandbox 1: Main page explains project; talk page only for discussion of project, not specific articles; Sandbox includes notes on changes. New page is about 1/2 current size.
  • Sandbox 2: "Current Article Issues" (formerly Community Lounge) which includes "Current Article Issues List" as main page and "Current Article Issue Discussion" on talk page
  • Sandbox 3: Lists/tables moved over from the main page which have to be integrated into current Battleground Statistics page. Something which hopefully others will do.

CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Silence means consent...don't wake up next thurs or fri morning to find everything changed to new version which isn't quite like you would have liked because you didn't comment ;-) Also I am going to ad a short draft invite to the project main page for people to use when I find the existing page where the long ones are hiding, to check them out. CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi Carolmooredc, I think your proposal would be an improvement. I agree that it's probably best to go ahead, unless anyone objects. PhilKnight (talk) 00:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Agree with PhliKnight. (And I'm sorry that I didn't bother to give any feedback earlier or thank you for your efforts.) It sounds a very logical breakdown with room for add-ons as necessary. Good work. Tiamut 00:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Changes to pages per talk above

Ok, I have made the changes per above. Below is a summary. Please discuss what needs reinsertion after you have looked at all three relevant pages. Lots more can be done, including integrating some excellent ideas from this talk page's archives into our process. Doing the archiving I did see how the discussion deteriorated from great ideas on how to improve process to usual wrangling over specific articles. Hopefully this page can be used to bring more light and less heat to: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration/Current Article Issues!

(talk) 08:07, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Check Article Issues List and Watch the Page for Discussions

Can the project be re-booted to address deteriorating condition?

  • First, I hope that separating Articles discussion here from process discussions here will let process people come up with ideas they can then bring over to articles discussions.
  • FYI. I just put an announcement about an important reconsideration of a deletion of an article on the Articles discussion page - start watching it. :-)
  • I know we were all excited that some of the destructive editing habits would change after the early 2008 administrative moves and there were lots of good ideas on process which are on this page's archives. Things did seem to improve a bit, but then over time this page turned into mostly article discussions that were too much like the discussions on article talk pages.
  • Now things seem to be getting as bad or worse than they were before and part of me just wants to announce on my user page that I'm boycotting all articles on Is-Pal topic -- or at least those that involve certain groups of editors - and give a list of policy reasons why. But I'd probably get in big trouble for that!!
  • Also, relevant to all this, note that the new draft Wikiscanner is really beefed up including a check user. Of editors I searched, I only found one so far that produced IP results, an infamous longtimer -- who seems to post from all over the world. What's up with that? So there will be a lot of issues once the new wikiscanner really gets going regarding some of the games some of us suspect people are playing. Thoughts on any of the above??? CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
The check user function looks very interesting. Regarding your other comments, I think we need to recruit more neutral editors and admins to help moderate discussion. PhilKnight (talk) 21:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Carol, I don't know what the last part of your statement was supposed to mean; I used the checkuser thing on myself and it had me in County Cork and Sao Paolo, two places I've never even been. I have a guess as to which "infamous longtimer" you're talking about, and every edit from anywhere but where we already know he edits from was an obvious false positive (and who cares anyway.) Conspiracism unsupported by evidence is unlikely to help fix the deterioration you allude to. <eleland/talkedits> 01:05, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
It only seems to catch long-time users of whom there are many on the many pages I edit, so why go out of your way to assume it's any one individual? I'm not sure how to identify false positives - the ones in green that a few of them had? (Even though a couple had same ones in yellow also.) Anyway, its still in draft/testing mode. Obviously, people who don't know how to read it shouldn't be drawing conclusions - but why can't they ask what certain information means without people assuming conspiracy theories? Those who do know might make some constructive use of the info. Wikipolicies on using it still uncertain so we probably could have a more constructive input if we could discuss it here without making negative comments. Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 02:16, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Re: Phil's comments on more neutral editors to moderate discussions. Do you mean like a list of neutral editors willing to mediate article talk page discussions informally like the Mediation Cabal that we would present on the front page?? More thoughts welcome. Also, I had some ideas for making clear problems and where to go to get to help I might put together as a proposal for input. I know I sure still need lots of guidance, with so many options, some confusing, and some of which work better than others. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I personally look forward to the re-boot. The collaboration project should be used to set overall guide lines and should stop a lot of hot air getting repeated endlessly on individual articles...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 02:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Mentions of Wikiprojects/Noticeboards?

I just discovered the Israel-related topics and Palestine-related topics noticeboards and added them to the main article page this section. However, looking again I see the Israel one says go to wikiprojects so I fixed that. My question: is this a good idea for the variety of political reasons one might think of which I won't list? CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:32, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Can we have an automated mailing list? The idea behind that is to halt tag teaming on articles...as most contentious issues are repeat performances and standardised formulae for the various issues should be worked out in advance by involved editors...Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 02:15, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Need List of Volunteer Neutral Editors here???

Per the above and my own recent experiences trying to find help for problems, I was wondering if it would be helpful to have a front page section listing volunteer neutral editors who want to help and then for us to go out and get some?? It would make it less haphazard trying to find editors neutral on and willing/unafraid to deal with the topic. And if there were complaints they were just overboard biased, we could remove them. (Of course, that whole process in itself might make doing this difficult.) After 1.5 years of active editing, it took me rewriting these pages and looking at or trying the variety of dispute resolution resources I had not yet tried to get a better picture of how to deal with issues. I find that sometimes you get good advice, sometimes none, sometimes POV viewpoints that reek of canvassing and tag teaming, and there's the problem I'm having with at least one, maybe two, editors following me around saying negative things to sabotage my requests for help. Having a neutral editor easily available would help with all those problems! CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Questions on "Citing and reporting incidents" section just added

First, I'm hoping more people will come back here once holidays really over next week. ;-) Plus more problems should be arising related to 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict‎ and related changes across various articles. Second, see my proposal on [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Israel_Palestine_Collaboration/I-P_editing_battleground_statistics#Reorganizing_article.3F| Reorganizing IPCOLL statistics to basically list just an analysis of actual Misplaced Pages:ARBPIA#Log_of_notifications and Misplaced Pages:ARBPIA#Log of blocks and bans. Third, I just moved Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Israel_Palestine_Collaboration#Citing_and_reporting_incidents back to main page as a separate section but have a few questions of things I don't understand that should be made clear/corrected. But I think we need some examples of what raises to that level, as opposed to the other places to report mentioned in the next paragraph. (Incivility, sockpuppets, etc.) (Looking at the Warnings and Blocks helpful and if there's an analysis page, that might help explain.)

  • I am unclear on difference between citing and reporting. Citing means mentioning past Arbitration issue on talk page of article one is editing, like "User:PartisanPest has been blocked twice of disruptive editing."??? Where as reporting evidently means to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement.
  • I am confused on when an editors pattern of disruptive edits on one or a series of articles becomes a behavioral pattern that should be reported as that and what would be the policy to quote. I think that needs explicit explanation.
  • This issue is partially raised by this current sentence: When criticising particular edits, comment on the content and not identity of the contributor. Aside from the fact that attempting to challenge a particular argument by challenging the person who offered the argument constitutes a logical fallacy, it is likely to be a violation of WP:NPA.
  • To Do not make allegations of harassment (including stalking) unless you have fairly strong proof of such I'd like to add specific example, like: for example, his/her following you to at least __ pages they have not edited previously to delete your edits or to follow you to various help pages to comment on your attempts to seek advice or help. Or whatever people think is most relevant.
  • Is there a wiki page to point to that already details how to do this? Couldn't find one and there should be one. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Flagged Revisions Discussion and BLP articles feeler

I finally figured out what WP:flagged revisions are and oppose them because I can imagine a POV clique taking over I-P articles. Share your opinion here Misplaced Pages talk:Flagged revisions/Trial Also on what to do about BLP's with flagged revisions one option here: Misplaced Pages:Protecting_BLP_articles_feeler_survey CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:34, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

From my experience with this in our sister project, I can assure you that there's no reason to be afraid of that. They are quibbling over it a lot, but I haven't seen anybody who raised any concern like this. — Sebastian 02:17, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

RfC on Arbitration Enforcement

Obviously this could be relevant to this project and people might want to comment. Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_enforcement. Runs til Feb 21. If people want to run their own thoughts by here, first, feel free. I might later. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

RfC on Checkusers

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Community expectation of Checkuser Considering there are checkusers with strong POVs on both sides of the issue, this is quite relevant. In fact I opined that people who edit a lot on this issue should not be checkusers at all. One of the issues is a Board to hear complaints, which I think may have arisen as a proposal because of complaints about at least one of the check users. It makes one question whole process. (Of course there is wikiscanners Poor Man's Check User but it's not very good, at this point anyway, and certainly not "official."} CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Project barnstar?

What do people think about having a barnstar that can be awarded by the project? (I'm thinking of something like the {{Section link}}: required section parameter(s) missing.) I just came across this message by user talk:JGGardiner, which was well received. How about an award for him? — Sebastian 18:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Draft guidelines for placename usage

  • 1) "West Bank" or "the West Bank" (capitalized) is the most commonly used name for the land area known by that name, and is to be used when referring to that land area as a whole in the context of events after approximately 1970. In the context of events before 1970, and especially 1967-1970, it may sometimes also be appropriate, either capitalized or uncapitalized.
  • 2) In the context of events during the British Mandate, terms used by the British administration are probably most appropriate.
  • 3) In the context of events in ancient times, "Samaria" and "Judea" are appropriate placenames.
  • 4) When discussing specifically the administrative region of Judea and Samaria, in the context of that administration and not merely referring to a specific land area, the term "Judea and Samaria" is used.
  • 5) As of the time these guidelines were proposed (in March 2009), given the references which had been examined, some editors were not convinced that there was a proportion of nonpartisan usage in reliable sources of the terms "Samaria" and "Judea" to refer to places in the context of events in modern times sufficient that the terms could be used without qualification while conveying a sufficiently neutral voice. On the other hand, the terms are used in sources to refer to land areas which may not have other common specific names referring to exactly the same areas. The terms can be used inside quotations from sources, (for example, putting "in Samaria" in quotation marks if it's a quote from the source), in phrases such as "the area sometimes called Samaria", or in phrases such as "the biblical region of Judea", etc., but not in plain unqualified use. In particular contexts, sometimes "northern West Bank" or "southern West Bank" is sufficiently precise and conveniently concise. Ideally, the proportion of mentions of the term "Samaria" and "Judea" as compared to the mentions of "West Bank" in Misplaced Pages articles in general will correspond to the overall proportions of those mentions in similar contexts in reliable sources, but each case depends on what works well in the context of a given article.

I prefer that the above copy remain intact as my original proposal, but I encourage others to suggest alternative versions or to make a copy to be edited collaboratively. If people should happen to be inspired to comment on the above draft in poll format (which may not be necessary at all if other versions are discussed) I suggest that it may be helpful to indicate "Support", "Oppose: too restrictive of the use of the terms 'Judea' and 'Samaria'" or "Oppose: not restrictive enough of the use of the terms 'Judea' and 'Samaria'". ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment' on (1). Why 1970? West Bank, the Jordanian name from 1950, was quickly accepted in international usage, and stable by mid-50s (the American administration always talked about the 'West Bank scenario' ). Even Israel accepted this, and Government documents in Hebrew down to 1960 refer to it as 'the West Bank/Hagadah HaMaariv). I can't see why Israel's desire to rename it unilaterally after 1977 should alter this 6 decades usage.Nishidani (talk) 20:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Comment It is simply wrong to suggest that "West Bank" was in common usage prior to 1967 or '69, or that the "American administration always talked about the West Bank scenario'." I have demonstrated in my evidence that there was not one reference to "West Bank" in the Unispal documents prior to 1968. I am quite sure you are mistaken on this point. In fact, on page four of Benny Morris' 1999 book Righteous Victims, A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict he says, "The population has tended to concentrate, in both ancient and modern times, in the hilly central areas of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee..." This is just one more contemporaneous use of Judea and Samaria by a distinguished historian, an historian often referenced by the Palestinians as an authority. Tundrabuggy (talk) 23:53, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
I suggest you do your homework. Read the primary documents from official Israeli government correspondence with the United States, from 1956-1964, for example (two crisis periods) as cited in specialist histories of the period, and you will find ample use by American diplomats, Israeli diplomats and politicians, of the term 'West Bank'. As for always, Abraham Ben-Zvi, whose two books I was thinking of in particular, says 'repeatedly use'. So, back to your books, chum. They're in what they call libraries.Nishidani (talk) 11:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)Nishidani (talk) 11:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
When West Bank was used prior to '69, it had a different meaning from today, as it was then in Jordan, and was the "West Bank" of the river. It did not suggest "Palestine," at that time, but meant "Jordan." It had no specific boundary. Even today, the "boundary" of the West Bank is merely the '48 Armistice line with Jordan. Oh and when Ben-Zvi wrote "repeatedly used" he was referring to the repeated use of the "Scenario," not the repeated use of the words. Homework doesn't help with that. Good reading skills do, however. The library is so passe ;) Tundrabuggy (talk) 05:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
What has changed? Surely it does still refer to the west bank of the Jordan river? That is, it's a geographical term, which has/had political implications in terms of suggesting that the area was part of Jordan (ie, not part of "Palestine" nor of Israel) And of course, the fact that it is not primarily Israeli or Palestinian terminology is presumably one thing that has helped it remain, since at least the 1960s, as the preferred standard term to this day. Today, "Palestine" would be the term to use to suggest "Palestine". --Nickhh (talk) 08:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
In short, points (1) (2) and (3) are acceptable if we simply adopt the respective terms for (1)1950-onwards (2) Mandatory period refs use Mandatory period language (1920-/1948/1949) (3) References for antiquity follow sources and use Judea and Samaria for the relevant periods. (a note) A little problem exists for the Roman, Arab and Ottoman periods, but that is minor. The only sticking point I can see is that peculiar qualification in 1 ('In the context of events before 1970, and especially 1967-1970, it may sometimes also be appropriate, either capitalized or uncapitalized'), the point of which is hard to see.Nishidani (talk) 20:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Good work. Excellent ground-work for compromise and consensus. Thanks, Coppertwig. Jayjg 01:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Ideological support - it's great that someone is finally trying to resolve this in a civilized way again, and I highly appreciate the effort! IMO, it is very important however to include a geographical clause, about using the terms in a purely geographical non-political context, for example, Umm al-Qutuf is located on the Samarian foothills, near the Wadi Ara region of Israel or Reihan is located on the Samarian foothills in the West Bank. -- Ynhockey 01:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Support - with Ynhockey's "purely geographical clause" - NoCal100 (talk) 03:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I see actually zero movement towards a compromise in the formulation, in several points. 'the land as a whole,' just means, technically, slipping 'Judea and Samaria' in through the backdoor, for the whole period, from antiquity to 2009. I.e. it means 'West Bank' is generically acceptable as a political identification for the period 1970-2009+, but for any other geographical, political or administrative context, Judea & Samaria qualifies. Thus phrased, the minority view comes out as dominant usage. Clever tableturning. Nishidani (talk) 21:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment. Given attempts to replace references to "occupied territories" with "disputed territories", then maybe a policy should also include these and also "occupied Palestinian territories" (to exclude the Golan Heights and, where relevant, Sinai).--Peter cohen (talk) 09:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Support up to a point, more clarity needed. 1) to 3) seem good, subject to Nishidani's point that West Bank would seem to be the common term for some time before 1970. Perhaps some more evidence is needed on timelines for this - as ever, one-off uses one way or the other not being enough of course. 4) and 5) seem to be a little unclear, and offer some leeway for people to start throwing in the terms, eg by saying "ah, but I am talking about the J&S administration, not the area itself" or "I'm just quoting this source which talks about Samaria" or "well 90% of settlement pages say they're in the the West Bank, so let's give this one as in Samaria/Judea, to be fair" or "ah but I don't mean one half of J&S, I'm referring the area which traditionally extends into Israel" etc. I'm afraid this is a bit of red line for me - no settlement, Palestinian town or geographical feature should ever be described as being in "Judea" and/or "Samaria". They don't add anything except for a load of political baggage, however we might try to argue around it. If we mean the top half of the West Bank, say "northern West Bank" like all mainstream contemporary sources do. Of course I agree with Ynhockey's point that beyond that we can and indeed should also be referring to more localised areas - eg "X is a Palestinian town/Y is an Israeli settlement in the Jordan Valley in the northern West Bank, 2km east of Nablus" (apologies I haven't checked if that works or not, but you get the point). It can also then specify which Israeli or Palestinian local authority (council or governate) it comes under.--Nickhh (talk) 11:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Suggestion regarding 4): wouldn't it be wiser to use the phrasing "the administrative district of Judea and Samaria" whenever referring to the administrative district? i.e. explicitly stating the administrative district part? This avoids confusion about using "Judea and Samaria" as a general place name. Cheers, pedrito - talk - 01.04.2009 11:54
  • I very much appreciate all the comments. When I posted the draft guidelines, I neglected to mention that I didn't create them out of thin air: they're based on the considerable work that has already been done by many in this discussion, including compromises already established or being worked on; I was inspired particularly by Nishidani and Canadian Monkey, but also by many other editors. I'm sure many of you know a lot more about these issues than I do, so I hope you'll contribute suggested changes in the wording to help improve and fill out the details in these guidelines. (By the way, I see that when I posted the draft in a hurry a few days ago, I accidentally posted to the project page instead of here as I had intended; I thank SebastianHelm for fixing that.)
    I would appreciate it if people would suggest wording for the guidelines to cover the period 1948-67, and perhaps suggest talk pages to look at where there have already been discussions about this. It may be that "West Bank" was used (sometimes uncapitalized?) during that period but not as universally as it was later; I don't know the status of other terms during that time. I'm sorry: I thought I had read "1970" somewhere within the last few days but I can't find it and I might have remembered wrong. At the same time I thought I had read about the use of "west bank" without capital letters. It might be better to just say "1967".
    I've made a copy of the draft guidelines below and invite users to edit it. I'm going to make some changes, largely to try to accomodate some of the comments above; they're just suggested changes and can be changed back if people don't like them. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I think that where I had seen mention of the year 1970 and "west bank" without capital letters was in Tundrabuggy's evidence. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:57, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
OK, I've made a bunch of changes to the draft guidelines below, and invite others to also edit them collaboratively.
Some remaining questions: Should the "modern times" part say after 1948, after 1950 or after 1967 (or what)? Is "modern times" a reasonable phrase to refer to that? (Though perhaps it doesn't really matter much what it's called within the guidelines themselves.) What would be some initial proposed wording for guidelines about "occupied territories" and "disputed territories", an issue raised by Peter cohen above? (Or, where are some links to previous discussion of this issue?) ☺Coppertwig (talk)
I reorganized the draft guidelines to be in chronological order and what seems to me to be a somewhat logical order. I reduced the level of indentation compared to the previous edit. I added a sentence about "northern West Bank" and "southern West Bank", and made some other smallish changes. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:57, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I've put notices about this discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Palestine#Draft guidelines for use of placenames and Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Israel#Draft guidelines for use of placenames. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 02:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Support Guidelines are at least something to hang your hat on and specific problems can be argued in that context. The draft is really quite good on first look. Tundrabuggy (talk) 05:14, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Second comment/broad support still: the updated version seems fair enough to me too (if very legalistic .. although I guess that's what we need), however I will be quite honest and say that given that it seems to be garnering support from the "other side" I'm a little confused as to whether a) I've missed something; or b) people have actually come round to understanding the problems with the use of "Judea" or "Samaria" as simple, neutral descriptions for placing things that are found in what everyone else refers to as the West Bank. One problem sentence I have spotted though is this one - "On the other hand, the terms are used in sources to refer to land areas which may not have other common specific names referring to exactly the same areas". I know this has been claimed quite frequently, but I'm not sure this is the case - to my mind they are not commonly used in a modern context, individually or combined, to refer to anything other than the geographical areas more usually known as northern and southern West Bank, whatever the history behind them. As noted, I wouldn't want to see this used as a get-out clause to slip the words in on the basis that they were somehow being used in a different, and supposedly totally neutral way. Anyhow, this is being looked at (in respect of Samaria at least) in more detail here. And if it is not the case, then the sentence becomes redundant anyway. --Nickhh (talk) 09:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Draft guidelines: editable version

Anyone may edit this copy of the draft guidelines, with the goal of achieving consensus. See also the discussion in the previous section.
  • 1) References for antiquity follow sources and use Judea and Samaria for the relevant periods.
  • 2) In the context of events during the British Mandate (1920-1948/1949) , terms used by the British administration are probably most appropriate.
  • 3) Guidelines 4–10 refer to modern times (After 1948? After 1950? After 1967?).
  • 4) "West Bank" or "the West Bank" (capitalized) is the most commonly used name for the land area known by that name, and is to be used when referring to that land area as a whole in the context of events after 1967. In the context of events before 1967, it may sometimes also be appropriate, either capitalized or uncapitalized. The terms "northern West Bank" and "southern West Bank" can be used to refer to parts of it.
  • 5) When discussing specifically the administrative region of Judea and Samaria, in the context of that administration and not merely referring to a specific land area, the term "Judea and Samaria" may be used. The first time it is mentioned in an article, it is to be clarified by the use of a phrase such as "the administrative district of Judea and Samaria", or by a wikilink to its article or both.
  • 6) As of the time these guidelines were proposed (in March 2009), given the references which had been examined, some editors were not convinced that there was a proportion of nonpartisan usage in reliable sources of the terms "Samaria" and "Judea" to refer to places in the context of events in modern times sufficient that the terms could be used without qualification while conveying a sufficiently neutral voice. On the other hand, the terms are used in sources to refer to land areas which may not have other common specific names referring to exactly the same areas. The terms "Samaria" or "Judea" cannot be used without qualification in the NPOV neutral voice; for example, it cannot be asserted without qualification that a place is "in Samaria". Any uses of the terms must be in one of the situations described in (7) and must use one of the following qualifications.
    • 6A) The terms are used inside quotations from sources, (for example, perhaps putting just "in Samaria" in quotation marks if the source uses that phrase), or
    • 6B) In phrases such as "the area sometimes called Samaria", etc., or
    • 6C) In phrases such as "the biblical region of Judea", etc., or
    • 6D) As an adjective as part of a phrase which appears in a source, for example "on the Samarian foothills", or
    • 6E) The term is being mentioned rather than used, as in "Samaria is a term used for ...", or
    • 6F) The term is being used within the article about itself, where its meaning and usage has already been explained to the reader; although additional qualifications may be needed for some uses even there.
  • 7) Qualified uses as described in (6) will be used only in one of the following two situations
    • 7A) The term is part of a longer quote from a source; or
    • 7B) All three of the following conditions hold (or there is rough consensus that each of them holds):
      • 7B (i) The term is used in the source; and
      • 7B (ii) the term is being used primarily in a geographical sense; and
      • 7B (iii) use of the term allows for a more precise, concise geographical specification than "northern West Bank" or "southern West Bank" or avoids awkward phrases such as "in northern southern West Bank".
  • 8) Since some sources do use the terms in modern times, phrases such as "what was once Samaria" or "what was once Judea" are not appropriate in the NPOV neutral voice, although e.g. "what was once the kingdom of Samaria" may be OK in some contexts, for example when discussing archeology, or in one of the situations in (7).
  • 9) Ideally, the proportion of mentions of the terms "Samaria" and "Judea" as compared to the mentions of "West Bank" in Misplaced Pages articles in general will correspond to the overall proportions of those mentions in similar contexts in reliable sources, but each case depends on what works well in the context of a given article.
  • 10) However, when one of the placename terms appears in a quote from a source which is being used for other reasons, the placename is not to be elided from the quote for the purpose of reducing the number of mentions of the placename.

Any objections to removing these two pages from IPCOLL?

From the "to do" list above: Article methods and Article workshop which haven't been used, at least until they are made more workable and/or used CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

No problem in leaving them. It might inspire usage.--Cerejota (talk) 00:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
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