Would someone please attempt to explain what the hell went on here?

One would not think it was more pro-Israel squabbling and POV-ing.....until one reads the thread, and sees oft-familiar names (Jaakobou, JzG, and especially Tiamut) who have taken sides in past Jayjg-ish editwars.

Hans Adler (T-C-L-K-R-D) rewrote it heavily, causing the squabble to fall flat. Apparently.

(And for completeness, here's Reddit talking about it.)

Interestingly, just a few days ago I was trying to figure out this comment fron Nableezy on the talk page of then new user Factsontheground (who recently has been the subject of some discussion on AN/I).
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=279091309
Factsontheground showed an unusual amount of WP technical knowhow for a new user, and (if I understand Nebleezy's comment correctly) had created an earlier version of the Israeli Student Scam article that had been deleted.

This is Factsontheground's 3 March 2010 contribution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=347480229
This is the current version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_student_scam

You can decide for yourself which you like better. I have no idea why WP considers type of article to be justifiable encyclopedia content.

This demonstrates how NPOV works in practice. There's my POV, and then there's your POV, which is, of course, an Urban myth.

Even if your preferred editing of Factsontheground (who is a SPA) was left in the article unchanged, what would be the point of having such an article?

This is why I have largely disengaged from the never-ending cesspool that is the I-P topic area, and stick mainly to political areas. Political ideologues are relatively easier to deal with than religious zealots.

9 section breaks were needed to discuss a 1,500 word article? Fucking christ. Then again, the gaping cornhole DRV has gone on for several pages of discussion now, so whatever.

What's not to understand? The article was called Israeli Art Student Scam and had media reports about about Israelis supposedly posing as art students and tracking 9/11 bombers before the fact. Even if total nonsense (which I have no doubt is the case) these media reports being subject of an article unto themselves, was just too much to bear for the pro-Israel-WP-knuckleheads whose job it is to see that Israel never recieves the least hint of unopposed bad press in WP. Hence, a number of them succeeded in removing "Israel" from the article name (it is now called Art student scam) and mentions Israel only at the very end, as an incredibly minor and mythic variation of a vast global tourist scam which itself is not unlike the Nigerian email thing. You see. Move along.

Ay, come on, the thing WAS a POV coatrack, particularly the Israel spying allegations stuff. And then the other side got into it and slapped anti-Palestinian crap into it. There was a point at which it very clearly deserved deletion.

Hans is a really good editor and a common sense kind of guy. Wish he was more involved in Polish-German articles as well.

Bro Tarc, you shit into it plenty yourself.

I can remember the first time I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance on WP. It took about three days of putting up with your crap, and a trip to AN/I, before you stopped arguing over a change just that made the content correspond to the source you cited.

Yes, no, maybe. I could take deletion if such policies were followed across the board, but WP itself is nothing if not one giant COATRACK for all cultural epiphenomena. Did you miss the big discussion we had here about Death of Jeremiah Duggan, whose death serves mainly as a COATRACK to attack the Lyndon LaRouche movement? Even though the evidence linking his death with any significant wrongdoing by anybody connected with LaRouche (let alone LaRouche himself), is basically zip?

Here's the basic hypocrisy of WP (and I'm amazed I'm explaining this to you). The media reports an awful lot of crap, some of it as fact, and some of it as simply reporting reports of reports, without comment. Wikipedia picks this up, because it's sourced.

Now, what to do with it with the pile of crap, much of it from tabloids? If editors with WP-juice look at the subject and decide WP:ILIKEIT, it's going to be extensively written-about and documented, per WP:V, WP:NOTABLE, WP:NOTPAPER and the usual inclusionist arguments. Soon, the ARS people will be involved. It will then expand like Jimbo's meat-place article about Mzoli's, and screw you on the issue of WP:NOTTRAVELGUIDE.

On the other hand, if some editors of a powerful clique look at the issue and decide WP:IDONTLIKEIT, it's going to get {prod}ed per WP:NOTABLE, WP:POV, WP:COATRACK, WP:RS, WP:TRIVIA, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and so on and so on. The usual deletionist arguments. If the PROD fails, it will be re-written, watered down, shortened for conciseness, retitled, stubbified, orphaned, and finally merged down a rabbithole with something else vaguely related. Following which, inevitably somebody at the other large article will notice that it doesn't add that much, and delete what vestigially remains of it, in the interests of keeping a 100 K article length down below manageable limits.

Bro Roe, this is not the first time that I have noticed a decidedly hostile attitude toward what you characterize as "pro-Israel-WP-knuckleheads." If I was not so naturally trusting, I might start to think you have A POV problem that you have carried here to this otherwise totally unbiased forum.

Sure, all of this is true. But this instance is probably not a good illustration of this general point. Sometimes people happen to be right for the wrong reason (and of course other way too). The original nom for deletion was correct, since it didn't look like much could be done with it, whatever the motives of those voting delete. And Hans' version, which proved that wrong, deserves to be kept - as it gives it attention and coverage proportional to the topic's (borderline) notability, again whatever whoever's motives; scant.

In my view (and I got no stake or much of an opinion on this conflict), however dysfunctional the process, the article's now precisely at where it should be.

I haven't look at the LaRouche thing (yes I did miss it - another tempest where none of my dogs are involved and maybe it happened before my time here) and I'm happy to take your word for it.

As Awbrey says, the correct term for a people who has no POV is "cadaver". Perhaps you will argue that cadavers are technically not people at all, but that doesn't hurt the point.

I'm one of those people who thinks there's something vaguely wrong when the mightiest country on Earth cannot criticize Israel's actions without our Secretary of State feeling she has to go straight to Israel's biggest Lobby PAC, like some errant schoolboy who is obligated to write 50 times "We will protect Israel's security, no matter what shit they do, yes we will." It's unseemly, at best. A country with balls would be telling Netanyahu: "Hey, maybe you can get your next set of F-16 parts second hand from the Russian Federation. And since you're selling advanced radar, part of which is ours, to China, maybe they'll sell the rest of our F-35 to you"

And perhaps Obama told him just that, but not publicly. We don't dare say such stuff publicly. Apparently our politicians have been bought.

And you've no doubt missed another thousand of my posts criticizing much the same problem when it showed its face on Wikipedia, and that was long before Chip Berlet and JzG got formally called to task for it. Many of WP's most infamous admins climbed the social power structure by POV-warring in Israeli and Jewish-related articles, as this seemed to be the surest route to power on WP, outside of nookie with Teh Sole Flounder (and I'm not sure there is total disjunction between the groups but it appears that there is).

I have managed all this without being a holocaust-denier, a neo-Nazi, a skinhead, a racist, an antisemmite, a neoantisemmite (although it's possible this may be a new and odd term for Republican). However, due to my lack of "total support for Israel no matter what she does" (gasp) it has been suspected that I'm all of these things. Maybe EVEN a Republican, too.

You're welcome to your own opinion.

Around 1999 or 2000, a group of the supposed Israeli art students came to the place I worked at the time. One of my coworkers was a gifted linguist (I forget how many languages he knew fluently - 8 or 9) and he was suspicious when they didn't know anything about art in Hebrew or in English.

A few weeks later, we got a memo from the DOD alerting us that there was a scam where they were going around to DOD contractors for the purpose of spying. We were a sub on one DOD contract (a very tiny portion of our business) but I'm sure that we showed up on a list somewhere and that's why they came.

WP:OR. But even if not and you added it, it would get paired down ("single instance proves nothing") and even if you had different groups in different places, it would get buried among other "scams" (no, no, not spying) which happened this particular time to be perpetrated by people who happened to be from Israel rather than Nigeria. Which is sort of irrelevent, so could be later deleted, since who cares about where a scam artist is born? I mean, really.

You do not understand Nableezy's comment correctly, that was a different article that went through 2 AfDs, the first NC, the second delete

I checked Infotrac and NewsStand and it appears that a group or several groups of young Israelis were operating this scam in several cities in the US and Canada between 2000 and 2004 before enough of them were caught and deported to end it. The sources don't have enough information to show that this was part of a single effort and therefore deserves its own Wikipedia article. I wonder if some of them targeted DoD contractors because they thought that they would be more receptive and friendly to Israel?

Anyway, this may be similar to the young Israelis who sell cheap jewelry and knick-knacks to drunk Japanese people on the street in night-life areas here in Japan. In the past I became friends with some of those youngsters and they told me that they were just trying to make a few bucks before returning to Israel to go to college or whatever.

This forum has methodically tracked the activities of a number of Wikipedia's most egregious POV posses, including the Global Warming advocates, the Intelligent Design grouping, the Animal Rightists and others. However, the Pro-Israel-WP-knuckleheads are one of the most visible and contentious of these groupings and have included such luminaries as Jayjg. It is our responsibility to continue to chronicle their exploits.

By the way, why did that article get so many hits on 18 March?

Now that's very strange---it ran on Reddit around March 6. And it wasn't on Digg, Slashdot, or other tech aggregators at the time.

Although I did find this from 2003.

(Don't Google this--it leads to innumerable paranoid right-wing rumblings about 9/11 and Mossad spying. Anything reported on Stormfront's forum should not be taken too seriously, especially when most of their links come from rense.com.....)

Thanks for the reply, Nableezy. But, of course you have not explained anything.

I do want to make it clear to you that my curiosity was about Factsontheground's unusually high level of wiki-knowhow for an apparently new user. That was not meant as a criticism of you personally, your editing, or your general editing goals, which I respect....even if we are in disagreement.

You seem to be out of touch with the present, and perhaps with reality.

The I/P conflict articles are not controlled by one side now. If they ever were, I can not say because I was only involved in editing such articles for the year past.

Your apparent attitude toward the I/P conflict, that one side, (the side you think is in the wrong) is completely in the wrong, and the other side (the side you think is right) is completely in the right, models the nature of the I/P conflict itself. It may be fun to think of oneself as a wiki-warrior fighting on the side of justice, but that approach is a important factor in what is destroying WP. The verbal attacks against all things Israeli that are so frequent on this forum comes across as an extreme bias, which is not helpful to the general level of discussion on this list. It has not done anything to solve the I/P problems on the ground either.

If you want to use this forum to engage your personal vendetta against Jayjg, there is nothing to stop you from doing that. But please do not pretend that your doing that is helpful to WP, or to this list.

I was only saying that the article you seemed to think was recreated into this one is not the same article.

Nota bene: SlimVirgin was so enamored of her article that she was preparing to run it for FA this month. But it looks like she got cold feet.

Defining Pro-Israel POV pushers as "knuckleheads" (presumably in contrast to Pro-Palestinian "towelheads") has been taken up the Anti-Definition League of the B'nai Brith (also known as the "Brithers", not to be confused with the "Birthers").

I have no idea what you're talking about, but I have never been sanctioned or warned or anything of the sort as the result of several petty An/I reports, that I recall.


But, seeing how you come across just like Ironduke or Zeq, or any of the other countless ltitle Jayjg foot- soldier wannabes, I'm glad to say that my memory of your past whinging is wiped.

Addendum: ahh, I should've looked at your wiki-link first! Malcolm Schosha, now there's an ass from the past I haven't thought of in quite a while. How ya doin, buddy? Still smarting from that ban that I am rather proud to say I had a hand in?

Well, that tells the whole story: work hard to get your editorial opponents banned, and of course work to defend your editorial allies from getting banned...no matter what. For your information, there was never once I voted to ban (or even voted to give a brief block) to anyone, although there were opportunities. Even though I thought there was plenty in your editing, and in others on the P side of the I/P conflict articles, that was objectionable I never wanted to make any of them go away. I really think both sides need to be there for NPOV.

Instead, you and others, on both sides of the issues, continued to play your usual Zero-sum game. I see that you are still the same dumb dick you always were, but so what? There will always be dicks like you in this world. Così è la vita.

Not my fault if you and your AIPAC/CAMERA/etc...propped-up buddies cannot handle yourselves maturely and wind up getting the boot. I'm just around to make sure everyone can see it.

Nice lateral movement, Tarc.

But I don't know anything about AIPAC/CAMERA. Something on the political right, I suppose. Pretty much every time I get into a disagreement with someone from the New Left (who mistakenly think they are Leftists) about Israel, there is soon an accusation that I am affiliated with the political Right. That is quite incorrect. And even if it was correct it would still not be an argument, just an insulation. House Un-American Activities Committee type thinking, with the politics reversed.

Malc, you're just as much of a pedantic, boring troll now as you were then. I miss Zeq; horribly, disgustingly partisan, but a little spitfire of bundled energy nonetheless. Sparring with you just brings on teh yawnz.

The fact that you think this forum exhibits "extreme bias" on this issue indicates that you have some seriously deep tint in your shades. WR members are all over the board on this issue, as they are on nearly every other political issue.

You don't have to hate Israel to conclude that Jayjg is and has been harmful to Wikipedia.

I have seen a lot of one sided comments against Israel this list, but very little in the way of defense. Personally, I don't mind the criticisms of Israel, and have some of my own, but the dismissiveness and the heavy weight on one side is troubling.

As for Jayjg, I do not see that he is more harmful than other editors on either side of the I/P conflict. At least one of them on the P side is constantly collecting material on opposing editors to build a case for banning. I think that is deplorable wiki-lawering, but that is just what editors in I/P conflict articles must live with. Like it says in the Leadbelly song, ...if you wanna ride it you gotta ride it like you find it...

The "apparent" bias against Israel in criticism is only because Israel has most of the pie, and is engaged in getting even more. Those of us interested in a balanced solution to this problem are not happy with the present big winners, is all. Especially when we're paying for them. Especially when they act like ungrateful pricks.

When I think of the Israelis, I think of the dead guy whose last will and testiment read: "To my eldest son, I leave the pleasure of making a living. For these last 20 years of his adulthood, he thought the pleasure was all mine." Israel is now past 60. It's time they fully supported themselves.

They have hundreds of nuclear weapons and advanced systems to deliver them. Any country that has that and whinges about needing more and more money to insure its "security," is not being realistic or honest. Does nuclear France ask the US for money, so that Germany won't invade it again?

My problem with AIPAC is that it doesn't collect $15 million a year to buy Israel its next new jet fighter, like the March of Dimes. Instead that money goes to leverage other private contributions so that the mass threatens US congressmen and presidental candidates, so that they give $2 BILLION a year to Israel (I believe it's set to go to $3 billion/year now under Obama). And that's just the tip of the iceberg, as US defense technology-transfer to Israel through joint development programs is worth uncountable tens of billions a year more.

Now, there are many good things about Israel which have been left unsaid, because probably most of us take them for granted. If I were King of the World, I would leave Israel right where it is (though I might redraw its borders a bit). They're a good influence in the Muslim Middle East, because they're democratic, highly educated, and comparatively secular in outlook (despite the national sense of God Is On Our Side, that's hardly any worse than many countries, including the US, and is certainly no worse than any country that surrounds Israel). And most people who have dealt with both Israelis and local Arabs will tell you that the Israelis, on the basis of their long international business experience, are more honest to deal with than the average Middle East Arab. Which does not mean they are completely honest-- all these judgements are relative.

And the Israelis are naturally better friends of the US, and that would be true even if the US had never given them a nickel or a shekel. It's simply a matter of more shared culture, plus the fact that a lot of Israelis originally came from the U.S.

However, the Israeli budget is roughly $55 billion a year (again US dollars) and their defense budget is around $13 billion (almost a quarter of the total government budget). If we cut off that $3 billion we're going to give them in cash, they could certainly find it elsewhere. If their defense budget was slashed by 25%, perhaps they wouldn't have enough money to bedevil the Palastinians so much. If it came out of the general fund, perhaps they wouldn't have enough to build walls or new settlements. If that $3 billion came out of the $16 billion that Israeli citizens spend on their own health every year, they might find themselves living nearer the health of the average Palastinian (though it still wouldn't be even close, as Israelis get $2200 a year in healthcare and Palastinians get about $140 = 11% of that).

If we sent the $3 billion a year to the Palastinians for care in Israeli hospitals (of course we'd have to get the Palastinian Authority to agree to this; certainly the Israelis would do it if there was money for it, because they have in the past), it would still only get them up to 50% of the per capita health care of Israelis, but it would be almost 6 times better than what they have. That would be good, and come to think of it, is not a bad idea. A U.S. voucher for Palastinian health care, to be delivered in Israeli hospitals, instead of the crappy 9 hospitals in Palastine. Of course, getting some of these ill people over the wall in some places, might be a problem. Perhaps catapults?

Snigger.......

Huh? This is meaningless. Sounds like you just emptied the bottles you have just below you user name.

There is quite a bit of this I agree with, but

1. Israel does not get the US money to buy, for instance, fighter planes. The US taxpayer money goes directly to Lockheed Martin for the F16s. If it were not for that, the US government would tell Israel to go shit.

2. Israelis are not the only ones in the conflict that thinks God is on their side. Both sides suffer from that delusion to a certain extent.

3. After Arafat returned, and a Palestinian government was instituted, many nations contributed money to build infrastructure (like hospitals), but much of that money disappeared into Arafat's personal bank accounts, making him one of the richest men in the world. Now, despite a lot of supportive talk, many governments hesitate to pour more money into a barrel without a bottom. There are also, it should be noted, Islamic nations with the funds to do all that is necessary to build a descent Palestinian economy....if they choose to.

There are, it should be noted, other problems in the world than Israel. For instance, conditions at Pine Ridge, not to mention Darfur, or Mexico's horrible treatment of its very large Indian population. Need more examples of problems other than Israel? I can make as long a list of problems as you want.

1. Yes, but they still get the weapons for free.

2. Yes

3. Yes, and because of that corruption the Palestinian people democratically elected as their representatives, in what was widely called one of the "freest and fairest elections" the Arab world had ever seen, Hamas. We know how all these nations fighting to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan reacted to that. As for your note, the Arab nations are bitches too, whats your point?

4. Yes, there are many terrible things in this world. Israel's occupation is one of them.

I never let anyone draw that many inferences on a first date.

In regard to

1. My point is that it is mistaken to think the US is concerned with the well being, or even survival, of Israel. It is just one more example of the US Government channeling money to its own powerful business interests. The rule that has applied throughout history is that in relations between countries 'The big ones eat the little ones'
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_17.3.859.jpg

2. --

3. My point is that things could be better if it were not the Palestinian's own protectors. It could be better. I would love to see, for instance, an independent Palestine, or joined with another country, that is a center for the best medical treatment in the entire area. This is certainly possible considering the capabilities of Palestinians. I would love to see a Palestine with doctors and hospitals so good that the Israelis would choose to use them rather than their own hospitals.

4. The land has been partitioned. That was done by UN vote because no other solution seemed possible. The only way for the Palestinians to undo that is to continue attacks, and hope that, by attrition, Israel will succumb. That prolongs an ugly situation. There are other options more likely to result in peace and prosperity. Personally, I think the fight will continue until Israel is destroyed. I would be very surprised if any good follows from that even for the victors.

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. If that were the case the US would be clearly better off if it gave the same tax money to its own contractors to build F-16s (or now F-35's) for itself, and just kept them. Come on.

This is getting further from the topic of the thread with every post. Suffice it to say that the US does have (or has on order) all the fighter planes that are in appropriated funds. But the manufactures want to sell more of their product than that. What goes to Israel is part of that more. Capice?

See also: DYK.

5.7k is still on the high side. My best was worth a third of that, even with a photo.

I noticed that Factsontheground, the user who created Israeli Art Student Scam, also has a blog. http://www.factsontheground.co.uk/

Interesting that her blog is used as a source in two articles: Middle East Media Research Institute and Tomorrow's Pioneers. Strange that her blog would have survived as a source in articles that seem to have been closely argued.

That is high for a DYK but that must have been the reason for the surge in views.

Especially for being the last item listed. As beheld on the main page it would have sat about two full screens downward (on my monitor).

By contrast the football duo of Harold Pogue and Perry Graves (two names in adjacent bold-face on the second line) had 949 and 979 views each, so I'm not sure DYK alone could explain 5.7k for the "art scam" at the bottom.

I'd have to speculate it was linked prominently from elsewhere on the internet.

I think in general biographies, unless of course they're of topical interest (Michelle Obama, etc.) tend to do worse than average. Food usually does really well. So do video games, movies and tv show episodes. Battles are hit or miss. Economics (unless of topical interest) does crappy unless you can sell it well.

That's assuming an average level of hook quirkiness.