Clandyboye

Re: Gaddafi POV

(from here)

Chovain, remove your preferred wording "involvement in terrorism" from the Gadaffi article. You have no basis for that. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Get off your pretentious high horse. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.193.232.137 (talk • contribs) 01:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The wording I keep reverting to is that which has been chosen by a large number of edits. Please see the IRA page for discussion of the IRA's categarisation as a terrorist organisation. I'd also like to remind you to sign your talk posts with four tildes (~), and avoid making personal attacks against editors (but feel free to openly discuss the edits) Chovain 01:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Chovain: I respect your comments re. communication. New to this and took a bit to realize who was editing the edits. You must realize your insistence on using the word "terrorist" to marginalize and label the Republican Movement in Ireland during the 1980's is a naively generalist and ill-informed opinion. I encourage you to read up on the subject of Irish Nationalism and journey towards self-determination. I recommend you don't choose Wikipedia to educate yourself. Do not waste my and other reader's time to vainly suggest to me to "see Wikipedia for terrorist organizations" as your reason for ignorantly compartmentalizing the IRA. It is true that Gadaffi engaged in trade for procurement of military weapons with IRA leaders. During the 30 years between 1969-1999 a war was being waged between the British Army and the Irish Republican Army. According to your simplified definition, the British Army is clearly a terrorist organization. I don't see you writing that. It's funny how my last edit assuaged you, judging by your last comment. Please educate yourself and do not attempt to inflict your uneducated views through this forum. Good luck. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.193.232.137 (talk • contribs) 03:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

You seem to have missed most of the points in my post:

1. Again, please sign your posts by appending 4 tildes to the end. Read this link if you do not understand this.
2. Again, do not make personal attacks. Suggesting that I am "inflicting" my "uneducated views" by reverting POV (see below) changes is uncivil. Read this link if you do not see the problem here.
3. Two important tenets of Wikipedia are Neutral point of view, and verifiability. The NPOV policy prevents Wikipedia from being used to promote individual points of view. The verifiability policy prevents users from making false claims. The Provisional Irish Republican Army page has a section named "Categorisation" that discusses IRA's status as a terrorist organisation. If you disagree, discuss it on their talk page (and be ready to provide references!). I am not wasting anyone's time by posting links to articles where this kind of thing is and has been discussed already.
4. No-one is suggesting that the Irish Republican Movement is a terrorist organisation. The article suggests that the international community viewed the IRA as a terrorist organisation at the time the article is discussing. This is not a controvertial claim.
5. My reason for leaving your last edit alone is not because I believe it to be superior to the original version. While it is the better than the edits I reverted, I left it because I did not want to be blocked for the three revert rule (this is an important policy to know about if you wish to make changes that others are reverting - it will apply to you too). Assuming I have the support of other editors, I plan to revert your edit still, but want to make sure my reasoning is correct, and I wanted to give you a chance to explain why your edit wasn't attempting to promote a minority POV.
6. I do not think "regime" means what you think it does. The IRA is certainly not a regime.
7. I never gave a definition for a terrorist organisation as you claim. There are plenty of places that try to do that already. While not everyone agrees on the definition of terrorism, it is true that the 1980s IRA was seen as a terrorist organisation by the international community. Whether or not the British army counts as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant to the Gaddafi article.

Finally: The Gaddafi article is not the right place to discuss this. If you want to argue against the PIRA's terrorist status, I suggest you do so on the PIRA talk page.

Chovain 11:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The point of an honest discourse is to acknowledge, and hopefully learn something from another viewer. You are clearly neglecting this. On this point of discussion, you have failed to effectively present any merits to your discussion. You should heed your own request for civility, by not patronizing others with comments such as "missing most of the points in my post". The only reason I'm taking time to respond to someone who is failing to communicate is to educate you. As per your requests regarding communication, feel free to continually waste your own time by informing me of Wikipedia etiquette. While the recommendations are there, you seem to have neglected yourself to read the suggestions, the recommendations are just that: Guidelines, which are only recommendations, and do not have to be adhered to. That pretty much addresses the first half of your response. Regarding your lecture about Neutral POV and verifiability, if you had read, or should I say u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d my last post, you would realize you still have no authority to associate the IRA with terrorism. It is extremely naive and down right dangerous of you to provide your easy characterization of this situation based on your own viewpoint. You seem to have ignored my points about the IRA's war against the occupying forces of the British Government. Maybe you ignored it because you do not understand it. Repetition does not mean you are making a point, or any sense. I am writing this on behalf of the average Wikipedia user who does not need to be misguided by your own flagrant POV stating Gadaffi financed "terrorism". If you do not want to debate the definition of terrorism, as you clearly do not understand Irish history, the IRA or the troubles, do not state it! For your information, all prisoners in most cases illegally convicted or convincted on false evidence, through collusion, etc. fought and died to be recognized as Political Prisoners. Take a page out of your own preaching papers and provide references in your posts. You are ignorantly expressing your own misguided opinion by stating the IRA is viewed as a terrorist organization by the "international community".

You clearly are insecure in your knowledge of this subject, otherwise you would have left the last minor, compromising change. Your comment, "whether or not the British army counts as a terrorist article is irrelevant to this article" clearly illustrates your inherent bias and POV. It disturbs and saddens me you do not recognize your hypocricy. I'm not asking you to apologize for your ignorance, I'm just advocating a true reflection of unbiased fact. The debate of this topic could very well be conducted in another area of Wikipedia. You, however, must acknowledge that you are irresponsibly advocating unproven and misguided opinions in this forum. This is unacceptable, whether it is in an article only related to the IRA, or not. Again, good luck to you, as I truly fear you're going to need a lot of it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Clandyboye (talk • contribs) 03:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

But you did miss most of my post: You still aren't signing your posts, and in just your last post, you described me as "insecure", ""ignorant", "misguided", "irresponsible" and "hypocritical" just to name a few. WP:NPA is a policy, not a guideline. It is not optional. If you make personal attacks, you may get blocked. Let's discuss the changes on the talk page. There is no need to resort to edit wars and name calling.

I did read your post in detail, and responded to each part of the post.

You are correct in stating that I have very little knowledge of Irish history. Nor do I have any particular interest in the subject. I came into this argument with virtually no point of view. I am not personally affected one way or another if the IRA, the British army, or both are terrorist organisations. I only care that this particular article improves over time.

I did not revert your changes because I have any particular issue with removal of the word "terrorism". Note that I did not write the version that I keep reverting back to. I keep reverting it because your versions are attempting to portray a non-main-stream point of view in an unrelated article.

I have not said that the IRA is seen as terrorist organisation by the international community. I said that the IRA was seen as a terrorist organisation in the 1980s by the international community. I did not include references because I linked to an article where this has been discussed to death already (which has references and explanations). The IRA was seen as a terrorist organisation (in many cases, their status has been changed since disarming), by the US, the UK, Ireland, Spain, Australia. See [1] [2]. The president of the UN general assembly referred to the IRA as terrorists (in reference to last century) here. An interesting article discussing groups that support the IRA can be found here. It is not difficult to see that the view of the IRA as freedom fighters was not a mainstream view.

If you'd like me to look up references for more countries, I will - but I'd like to see references suggesting that the broader international community didn't view the IRA as a terrorist organisation first.

Let's please discuss this on the talk page, so that we can get input from other editors. Chovain 04:44, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Clandyboye: I'd like to get this dispute resolved. I've summarised the current situation on the Gaddafi talk page in the section titled Third Opinion. Would you be willing to get input from an independent third party on this? There is a process called WP:3 where we try to summarise the dispute, then put in a request for an independent opinion. If you're happy to go through this (painless) process, then feel free to check that I've got the details right, and add a section for your supporting arguments (with 4 equals signs like I have). Chovain 08:08, 23 November 2006 (UTC)