Titkos27

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. If you can't type the tilde character, you should click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 03:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: 2006 Lebanon War article editing process

Hi Titkos27. Welcome to Wikipedia! Regarding your questions:

• What personal experiences, background, etc. has made you interested in editing the 2006 Lebanon War article?

I watch articles about places I've visited or lived, sports teams I like, philosophies or areas of study that interest me, and certain public or historical figures. I have some Lebanese ancestry in my family tree, which is why I joined WikiProject Lebanon – a group of editors who try to write and improve articles related to Lebanon. As an American (and native English speaker), I try to lend my help cleaning up the (often poorly written) articles, and learn a bit about the subjects in the process. After editing such articles for a while, the war broke out, and there was a rush of editors editing the new article about the war. While we all have our own biases, my goal was to lend a more neutral voice to article edits and talk page discussions, as a sort of peacemaker when editors got too hot under the collar. There were many Israeli editors who seemed quite biased one way, and many Lebanese, Arab, and Muslim editors who seemed quite biased the other, so I tried to help them reach a consensus on a very divisive subject.

• Were you editing this specific pages as news was reported or did you turn to the discussion board before making direct changes?

Generally speaking, I would make edits directly to the article itself as news became available. If I thought I needed more justification for my edits than the one line edit summary, I would start a discussion on the talk page explaining my reasoning for the edit, and inviting others who felt my reasoning was misguided to explain their stance on the subject. If a topic was very controversial, then I would open the conversation on the discussion page prior to making the edits, but my edits were usually more "ironing out the wrinkles" than adding lots of new information.

• What sort of page vandalism did you notice as the article progressed?

There was a lot of vandalism from day one, as with any article that has many editors working on it. It wasn't the typical vandalism though (people writing their names in the articles as a joke), but vandalism of a more personal nature. It became apparent that some editors, on both sides of the discussion, had a much more personal stake in the events, sympathizing with their friends, family, and countrymen in harms way. Sometimes that sympathizing would boil over into edit wars, vandalism, name-calling and the like, but luckily it wasn't too bad. I think as the article became more neutrally worded, the vandalism of this nature did die down a bit, though you'll still see the occasional burst of outrage still today.

• What was most upsetting about the edit wars going on with this page?

I don't know that anything was really upsetting per se. I believe most editors were open to compromise, and acted in good faith. Some editors weren't interested in playing by Wikipedia's rules, and those could be a headache to deal with, and with others discussions had to be pushed through Wikipedia's lengthy dispute resolution process, but all in all it wasn't too upsetting. However, it was quite disheartening when, months and years later, it came to light that some of the editors that we had worked with in good faith on this article had in fact been part of a pro-Israel group that conspired to circumvent Wikipedia's rules and policies.[1]

• Do you think this article is a good example of neutrality?

I can't really say whether or not the current article is neutral, as I haven't been active monitoring and editing it in nearly year. At one point I do believe it was quite close to neutral, and it could be still; Wikipedia articles are very fluid like that. The article's rating can sometimes be used as a heuristic to determine how neutral it is. One thing to understand about Wikipedia's neutrality policy is that it's not black and white, right and wrong. Sometimes just telling all sides of the story is the most neutral solution. When editors and the reliable sources they cited disagreed, we could still achieve neutrality by just laying out both sides opinions on the subject, and stating who agreed with which side.

I hope that helps; good luck with your research! If you have any other questions, by all means feel free to ask. :) ← George ^[talk] 05:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Titkos27. You have new messages at Cerejota's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Cerejota (talk) 03:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

2006 Lebanon War

Apologies for the late reply, but I'm not that active on Wikipedia any more. I doubt you are still interested, but if you are, let me know. Iorek (talk) 11:39, 1 June 2009 (UTC)