Wikipedia talk:Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard

Formation of notice board

For previous discussion concerning the formation of this noticeboard, please see User:Folantin/Userspace Folantin5 and User:Folantin/Userspace Folantin5/Archive1. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 17:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Did these get archived somewhere? 70.24.249.190 (talk) 05:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Champagne

Glad to see this board created! I am delighted, as a member of the Working group on cultural and ethnic edit wars, to add it to my watchlist.  :) --Elonka 19:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Format and length of the notices

Would someone please clarify precisely the format and length of the notices that ought to be posted here. Additionally, what level of discussion is appropriate? I have frequently seen talkpages overwhelmed with discussions on naming issues alone. In order to preserve the utility of this noticeboard, we ought to establish some sort of guidelines. Aramgar (talk) 15:40, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• I to think this noticeboard could be useful but perhaps it could point people to the discussion place where there is a dispute in a similar idea to Wikipedia:Requests for comment. The distinguishing factor between this noticeboard and say Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Language and linguistics or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/History and geography is that the point of an alert at this noticeboard is to request assistance in Enforce existing policies more thoroughly including civility. At Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard the top of the board says COI affected editors may use this board to get help with proposed article changes. Propose changes at the article talk page, and then leave a message here if more neutral editors are needed to establish consensus. and then gives specific direction that

• Please limit statements to 200 words or less. Long, drawn-out speeches may be ignored.
• If you are discussing the actions of another editor here, please notify them.
• You can tag COI affected articles with {{COI}}.
• You can warn editors about COI concerns with {{uw-coi}}.

I think this looks a useful model. --Matilda ^talk 00:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I see this as being more like Fringe theories noticeboard. While I would recommend that editors be concise, I don't see the need to impose word limits. If debates become lengthy then they can be moved to sub-pages (as happens at ANI). This board should be useful for centralising arguments which are currently spread across several talk pages. --Folantin (talk) 09:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I assume new posts go at the bottom? I've seen one go at the top (I moved it down) and one go second (which has just been fixed). BalkanFever 12:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Every other noticeboard and talk page does this. --Folantin (talk) 12:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Working Group on ethnic and cultural edit wars

As some may know, as part of the ArbCom Palestine-Israel articles case, a Working Group was established to spend six months investigating the problem of ethnic and cultural edit wars, provide data about the problem, and recommendations on how to proceed. The final report from the working group is now available, so anyone that wishes to review it, please see: Wikipedia:Working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars/2008 report. --Elonka 19:51, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Rename?

"National and ethnic conflicts noticeboard" might be a more useful and accurate title and get this board noticed a bit more round Wikipedia. "Cultural" is immensely vague. The current war over South Ossetia certainly involves a national conflict. --Folantin (talk) 09:36, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Time to mark this as historical?

This board isn't active at all. Considering that the traffic here is almost non-existent and that nobody from the working group seems to be actively involved in solving disputes brought to the board anymore, is there any need for this noticeboard to remain active? AniMate 03:03, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

No. But lack of need doesn't stop all sorts of things in this project remaining active, sadly -- Gurch (talk) 14:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think lack of replies means lack of interest. Items that come up are by their nature very complex and editors may not feel they can contribute to resolution, but it is informative and serves a useful purpose for that alone. RashersTierney (talk) 14:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Schopenhauer quote

Could we get rid of the Schopenhauer quote at the top of this article? He who said Judaism must be destroyed? [1]? The most sociable of all peoples are the negroes, and they are at the bottom of the scale in intellect? [2]? Surely we can find a relevant quote about ethnic and cultural conflicts from another source. Novickas (talk) 01:43, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

so Schopenhauer said stupid things. And he also said smart things. The point is that we are quoting one of his smart aphorisms. If you're going to criticize every quotation on the basis of what the person quoted also said during their lifetimes, you'll find you won't be able to quote anyone short of yourself. That said, grumpy old Schopenhauer of course cannot compare to Saint Einstein,

Nationalismus ist eine Kinderkrankheit, sozusagen die Masern der Menschheit "Nationalism is a childhood disease, as it were the measles of mankind" (Albert Einstein Mein Weltbild, 1934)

So perhaps this one could be added. --dab (𒁳) 09:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't quote myself, altho some of my Spoonerisms have been described by family members as memorable. But see, both of these quotes lend themselves to dispute escalation - nationalistic is so frequently used as a perjorative. Maybe something on pluralism, which posits that our individual backgrounds don't rule out mutual respect. Novickas (talk) 14:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

This notice board and the quote is not about Schopenhauer, nor about Judaism and "Negros" but about people, Wikipedia editors whose every-day primary self identity goes with their nationality/ethnicity, who "adopt as a last resource of pride in the nation to which they belong". Therefore anything negative about their fatherland on Wikipedia causes them distress and since it's personal in cases like that, it's the main cause of all the ethnic and national battlegrounds in Wikipedia. And no quote other than the one above has ever nailed it better than that. So, in case anybody objects it for whatever reasons, the name Schopenhauer could be removed perhaps. But not the quote that speaks for itself.--Termer (talk) 05:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

PS.Regarding the quote by Einstein, I think it's too cosmopolitan, an abstract that is taken out of context and therefore has no relevance in my opinion. The problems represented on this notice board are not about an abstract nationalism that has many forms but only individual editors who "adopt as a last resource of pride in..." I mean, it could be argued that the driving force behind the Olympic Games or any other international competition is also nationalism. It might sound like a stretch but let's say should we call the Olympic Games also a childhood disease because 'nationalism' might fuel it? So I personally think that Albert Einstein is currently at the wrong place at the wrong time. Thanks!--Termer (talk) 05:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 1

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Move Parsecboy (talk) 00:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm requesting that this page be renamed and moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Ethnic and cultural conflicts, as a subpage of WP:AN. It is currently inactive, and I don't see it getting much attention unless it's an admin board. Not that only admins can deal with ethnic issues, but people are posting the issues at AN, ANI and AN3 anyways. Other than marking this board as historical and moving it to an archive or somesuch, I think it should be moved to where it can be put to use, and where it can be more easily found, under AN. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 15:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Once this might get moved, I'd suggest "Ethno-political Conflicts" instead, that's what this notice board is all about instead of "Ethnic and cultural". I mean, cultural conflict might happen if a Turkish guy and westerner meet and a head shake gets interpreted as "yes" by one and "no" buy another. A cultural conflict can happen if a westerner gives a complement in South-East Asia. Over there "I like it" means "give it to me" etc. I mean, cultural conflicts most often are caused by simple misunderstandings that a notice board doesn't need to deal with. Unlike ethnopolitical conflicts that are all about someone having an axe to grind. So I think it would be much more straight to the point if the notice board was called accordingly: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Ethnopolitical conflicts--Termer (talk) 18:52, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

More like "National and ethnic conflicts noticeboard" as I suggested above. Many (if not most) of these arguments are quarrels between nation states, e.g. Korea and Japan over Liancourt Rocks. I agree, "culture" has very little to do with this kind of dispute. --Folantin (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

"National" is a better phrasing for the current functionality, "political" is the same but with expanded functionality. The American Presidential election would be covered by the second, not really the first. Religion would be covered by the current title, not either of these alternatives. I'm almost for "Ethnic, political, and religious conflicts", just to be safe. It's (in my thinking) a logical combination, or does that seem clunky? An expanded functionality makes a board more useful, and therefor more used. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 19:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

A board that is all things to all conflicts born of variations in personal background will be useless. If we have all ethnic, policital, and religious conflict it will be too broad. I would suggest separating out the geopolitical ethnic conflict--which is political and territorial but regularly plays the ethnic card--from cultural, religious, and ethnic conflict which is a conflict of individuals and peoples born of adherence to disparate customs and teachings (and not directly related to territorial ambitions, past, present, or future). To lump them all together is to detract from both. PetersV       TALK 19:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I would also keep a discussion of true religious conflict (conflict of religions, not people claiming religion as a justification for territorial ambitions) separate from the above. PetersV       TALK 19:56, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that they don't 100% mesh, 1) is it a good idea to separate functionality of a board that (at this point) is practically inactive? 2)will the average editor know which board to post to, especially if a large number of them will (likely) be non-native English speakers? As it stands currently, there isn't much to detract from, as nobody posts here. The reason I was thinking "Ethnic, political, and religious conflicts" is that they must be handled in a similar fashion, and are different than most content disputes. They are delicate and inherently non-NPOV, so people who monitor the board know what to expect in that regard. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 20:09, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

If we do combine, then at a minimum, "political" needs to be "geopolitical." This is not the place to discuss Republicans versus Democrats versus Libertarians. PetersV       TALK 20:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent)Agreed, and those situations aren't usually as delicate anyways. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 21:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Are there then any objections to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts? The shortcut would then be WP:GERC, I don't know if that's good or bad. If it's okay, I'll reflect this in the template at the top of the page, for the purpose of finishing the 5-day discussion. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 00:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

While pondering I still had reservations about including religious conflicts, I had an Archimedal AHA!! moment--or it might be the caffeine talking, they say 7 cups a day makes you 3 times more likely to hallucinate. Consider the proposed title without the commas: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts

After all, what do these conflicts come down to? All have something to do with territory somewhere, present and/or past. All have as their basis the politicization of ethnic background and religious beliefs, real or contrived or imagined. PetersV       TALK 19:59, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 10:35, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

just that they call "Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts" the Clash of Civilizations these days.--Termer (talk) 06:56, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 18:39, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Good lord! I'll never remember a name like that—or even understand it! Nihil novi (talk) 19:43, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Just think of it as the GERC board (pronounced with a soft G and a hard C) ;) Abecedare (talk) 05:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Well that settles it, it's positively encyclopedic. And a mere four syllables longer than Cryptanalysis of the Enigma, for example. ;-) PetersV       TALK 03:36, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Heaven knows I've tried to replace "cryptanalysis" with "cryptology" wherever feasible. But the Anglophones resist giving up William Friedman's pleopolysyllabic neologism. Sad to say, in their innocence even some Europeans are now succumbing to such Anglophone idiosyncrasies as calling ciphers, "codes." Nihil novi (talk) 05:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Informing editors

The introduction to the noticeboard says "When posting here, please link to the relevant article(s). If you mention specific editors, please inform them of the thread." Should this not be clarified a bit. As it stands, as long as you don't mention another editor in your post, you don't have to inform anyone. If there are two editors involved in a content dispute, not to inform the other editor is wrong in my opinion.

I would like to suggest that following on from the above statement mentioned above in the next sentence "Consider also including some background information, not only relating to the specific dispute, but also the relevant ethnic conflict" that we include the names of the editors involved. The new sentence would then read; "Consider also including some background information, not only relating to the specific dispute but the editors involved, and the relevant ethnic conflict."

The reason for my suggestion is this post here. One party to a discussion puts forward their view on the subject, which may or may not reflect correctly the nature of the discussion and is not obliged to inform the other editors involved. You have the possibility of getting a very slanted view and it will taint the discussion from the very first.

On a final note, good luck with the project, I consider it to be an important developement and has a very useful role to play. Regards, --Domer48_'fenian' 08:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Scope of board?

I found this board by clicking on the box at top where it is listed as "ethnic and religious conflicts". However, when I looked it over, it turns out to be "Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts". I want to give notice of a religious or theological editing dispute, and thought this might be a good place, but I am not so sure, because most of the subjects here seem to be more "geopolitical" than "theological". Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 00:42, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

At this point, I don't think this board is so busy that it quite matters either way. :) Go ahead and list the issue. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 00:59, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Complain

More than one week has passed since I have reported this but non of the admins has interfered. Why? and what's the point of the existence of this board? --Aliwiki (talk) 12:04, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The last time you were involved in a noticeboard incident (here) the decision was "This is a content dispute that should be resolved on the talk page and, if necessary, by content RFC. No admin intervention is needed." From your description of your current conflict, it appears that this is another content dispute that should be resolved the same way.

In addition, your User Talk Page shows that you have been warned and subjected to blocks multiple times. I suggest that you go back to your talk page, read the warnings again, follow the links contained in those warnings, and start behaving in a manner that will avoid the problems you have had in the past. In particular, I suggest that you:

Agree to behave. You were warned and blocked for something you did wrong. Make a commitment to stop doing the sort of things that got you in trouble in the past.

Take personal responsibility. You were warned and blocked because of what you did and not because of what others did. Any disagreements with others should be addressed through dispute resolution.

Make people trust you again. Promise, credibly, that you will stop doing whatever got you warned or blocked. Earn back our trust by proposing improvements to articles.

Don't do it again. As someone with a past history of not following the rules, your future behavior should be beyond reproach, without any hint of what you have done wrong in the past.

Tell us why you are here. Put up a section on your talk page saying how you intend to help contribute to the encyclopedia. Show us that you want to help.

Guy Macon 11:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 2

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved as requested Mike Cline (talk) 13:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical ethnic and religious conflicts → Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts – The addition of two commas here changes the emphasis from ethnic or religious conflicts (which happen to be geopolitical) to any conflict that is geopolitical, ethnic, or religious. In essence, it adds geopolitical conflicts, which carry all of the acrimony of ethnic and religious conflicts, and often times more acrimony (see WP:GS, where seriously about 1/3 of the conflicts are geopolitical in nature). The addition of a wider scope is entirely appropriate, IMHO. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:48, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support. I'm not a contributor to this noticeboard, but this seems reasonable. Jenks24 (talk) 06:03, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Commas in archive

I found that using the form on this page sent comments to the old name, and it didn't understand the redirect to the new name with commas. I think I've sorted that one, but I've not touched the various references to the archives, which I assume need to get moved across as well, but I didn't want to break anything.... FlagSteward (talk) 17:33, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Administrators' noticeboard?

I'm new to this noticeboard, and I assumed from the page name that it is a noticeboard for administrator action, similar to WP:AN, WP:ANI, and WP:AIV. However, it looks more like a noticeboard to ask for editors generally to give advice on content matters, more like WP:BLPN, WP:RSN, and WP:NPOVN. Is it, in fact, the latter? If so, should the name be changed? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point. I think this page has evolved since 2008. bobrayner (talk) 10:39, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Let me follow up, then, by floating the idea of renaming the page to Wikipedia:Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. If there are no objections to my informal question, I'll follow it up with a formal move proposal. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:41, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. bobrayner (talk) 20:47, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 3

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --regentspark (comment) 16:03, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts → Wikipedia:Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard –Proposed, in order to correct confusion about this page being a noticeboard for administrator intervention, per the discussion just above. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:29, 8 August 2012 (UTC) *Notice placed at WP:AN#Rename discussion, may be of interest. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I've got another idea - how about we redirect it to somewhere else, say the dispute resolution noticeboard. In the last three months, I count 12 threads in total - only a handful of threads were actual disputes. While I agree that in some situations, speciailised noticeboards are required, I don't think this one is really required. Streamlining noticeboards may make dispute resolution easier - we can always unredirect it later if it doesn't work out. Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 11:17, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, that would go considerably beyond what I proposed here, in that it would effectively be an XfD. That's not to say that I wouldn't support eliminating this specialized page if you were to propose it formally, only that I think a more extensive discussion would be needed before actually making such a consolidation. --Tryptofish (talk) 13:51, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support move. For all practical purposes, this has not really been an "Administrator's noticeboard" for years. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:16, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Discussion about this board

They are trying to get users of this board to comment at Wikipedia:Dispute Resolution Improvement Project/Discussion, but strangely enough nobody seems to have thought of dropping a note here for those who watch the board. So here you go. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 20:06, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that note, indeed it was overlooked. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 23:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to close noticeboard

There is currently a proposal underway at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Closing Wikipedia:Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard regarding closing this noticeboard. Please comment if interested in this discussion. dci | TALK 05:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Bug in Create Report

Attempting to create a new section, I typed "Persian Gulf / Arabian Gulf edits" in the textbox above the "Create Report" button and then clicked that button (not realizing it was intended for the name of the related article, not the subject). Instead of creating a new section at Wikipedia:Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard, it added the section to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts, which is a redirect page. This appears to be a bug in Wikipedia:Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard/Header. I believe the problem is at "page=Wikipedia:Administrators'..." (I'd attempt to fix it myself, but am uncomfortable fixing admin-related stuff without being an admin ) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 17:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)