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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Article Overhaul

Hi WideAwake log-in

OK, I rearranged the site according to the structure you suggested, I also made the following changes:

  • credited coinage of "Oil Ticks," moved from "Changes and Controversy" to "History"
  • moved Daniel Pipes and Oriana Fallaci to "Frequently Quoted"
  • deleted account of Anil Dash contretemps
  • deleted accusation of hate speech from MSNBC
  • deleted link to pro-LGF site with rebuttal to MSNBC
  • changed "Islamophobic hate speech" to "Islamophobia"
  • changed "highly partisan" to "politically charged"
  • Added praise for LGF webmaster from INN write-up
  • deleted description of LGF Quiz
  • deleted rebuttal to LGF Quiz

The Changes & Controversies section now has 1 "pro" paragraph, 1 "con" sentence, and then another "pro" rebuttal paragraph so hopefully these changes will satisfy those who feel the site's critics were getting too much attention.

I don't really think that one sentence acknowledging that the site is controversial is too much information for the average reader to handle but there could always be another explosion of outrage demanding that that be stricken too so I guess we will just have to see.

- Dragula

Hello,

I am new to Wikipedia so I hope this is the proper protcol and place to edit.I am new to Wikipedia so I hope this is the proper protocol and place to edit in regards to a question I have. Specifically, in the Changes and Controversy section, the following is stated: “a view reinforced by Johnson's frequent defense of explicitly anti-Muslim authors and texts.” The above quote is too vague because it does not specifically state what authors or texts that Johnson has defended. Without that information, the seriousness and validity of this charge is left to the personal opinion and prejudice of the reader.

Follow Up to Proposal for Article Overhaul

Hi Wideawakelogin

I'll do my best to respond to your comments and suggestions

Dragula - Given the background over the Hitler quiz link, I think it's safe to say that it is a contentious issue... many people do not believe the quiz's inclusion is proper material for the a

The nature of the site itself is so polarizing that almost anything that can get edited out or added in has been. I will follow your suggestion later in this article and create list of "pro and con" external links, however the upshot of this is that there will be a lot more hit-and-run removals I think.


If that too proves contentions, another possibility exists. Subdivide the external links category into two sections: one with praises for LGF, the other with criticisms (naturally put the quiz one there with a brief sentence disclaimer). That way nobody can complain of favoritism being shown to critical links (and I must admit that there is an appearance of that too).

Right now in the external links there are

  • 2 pro links ("Rightwing News" and the "At Israel's Right" article)
  • 2 anti links "LGFWatch" and "Jewschool"
  • 1 pro & con (the "pro and con archives")

So it's a 50% split right down the middle.

There used to be one more pro-LGF link too, LGFWatchWatch, but the site which runs it discontinued the feature, posting the following message to their site on 10 Dec 2004:

"The LGF Watch Watch mission of the blog is dead, we don't have the time or motivation. We really love Charles and we're sorry, we tried to carry it on and couldn't."

PROPOSAL FOR ARTICLE OVERHAUL:

there is material located throughout the first three four sections that could be construed as critical of LGF (examples: characterizations of its terminology as pejoratives and "hate speech," and accusations of various "phobias" are found throughout several other sections in addition to the "controversy" section).

One of the things that does make it so interesting maintaining an entry about this site is that is is difficult to figure out how to treat the material. I mean, yeah, the webmaster of LGF coined the term "Idiotarian"; that's not exactly a secret, LGF is running its annual "Idiotarian of the Year" award poll right now.

A couple of years ago the winner was Rachel Corrie and the site was filled with cartoons of her getting flattened like a pancake - that sort of black humor and over-the-top political commentary is a huge part of LGF's appeal, it's why its so popular!

I did struggle with how to define it in a way that would please everyone and seem fair though. I discovered to my relief that there was a precise phrase already in use, on Wikipedia, no less, that covers colorful political insults: pejorative political slogan. Perfect!

RE: "Hate speech" - that is an exact quote from the article on MSNBC, I can just replace it and write "MSNBC shamefully smeared LGF" instead I guess.

RE: accusations of various "phobias". When I first started maintaining this page people kept adding "LGF has been accused of racism, fascism, etc." LGF regulars object to this, and they should, since Islam is not a race. The site is filled with "nuke Mecca" type comments though which they catch a lot of static for. So how to describe that? Fortunately again there is a mot just for this exact sentiment, again courtesy of Wikipedia Islamophobia.

But that's the only phobia mentioned here as far I can see, not sure what other ones you mean...?

First, perhaps the first 2-3 sections could be reorganized under one header into a "History" of the blog detailing its origins, the political debates it's been involved in, changes to the site, the major stories such as CBS memogate or whatever it's called, and its current activities. The accomplishments section could also be consolidated into "History" in timeline order.

A second section - titled something like "Format" or "Protocols" could address everything computer and site related about LGF including common slang and acronyms their readers use, registration protocols and stuff like that.

Third, a separate and distinct category called "Controversies" could include all the stuff about criticisms, flame wars, accusations of hate speech and various phobias, but also with fairness to LGF supporters, their responses to these charges.RIght now that kind of stuff is spread out all over the article - it needs to be consolidated.

Then fourth there could be the links section, containing two subsections - one for positive links the other for negative links.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see what I can do.

I think that rearranging the article into something along those lines would go a long way to reducing POV disputes and constant edits of the article. The history shows that from its very start this article has been subject to POV disputes, accusations of bias from both sides, and everything else imaginable. That itself should show that the article is in dire need of a major overhaul in addition to what's already been done cause where there's smoke there's normally fire. Just a few friendly suggestions to anyone who has the time to work on this one

--wideawakeslogin 1/4

This entry will always be that way, one group will find it insufficiently laudatory, another will find it insufficiently denunciatory.

Proposal for Article Overhaul

Dragula - Given the background over the Hitler quiz link, I think it's safe to say that it is a contentious issue. I see repeated requests to remove it and removal of it entirely throughout the history of this article. I also see it being reinserted each time, almost always by one person: you. And I see it's location in the article being moved to greater prominence esp. with the paragraph. While I'm sure you have your reasons for doing this, it seems that the record of this article itself is testimony that many people do not believe the quiz's inclusion is proper material for the article, at least in the way that it is currently or was historically presented.

Also in reading A2Kafir's comments, it seems that he/she was trying to question the appropriateness of its inclusion at all more than any objection with its placement. In his request to "weave" it in, he seems to have been seeking for a paragraph that justifies its inclusion beyond a reasonable doubt - not just throwing it into any old paragraph, which can still have a POV either implicit or explicit. I don't believe that the current paragraph meets that burden or justifies its own presence. That's why I suggested moving the link back to the external links section.

If that too proves contentions, another possibility exists. Subdivide the external links category into two sections: one with praises for LGF, the other with criticisms (naturally put the quiz one there with a brief sentence disclaimer). That way nobody can complain of favoritism being shown to critical links (and I must admit that there is an appearance of that too).

PROPOSAL FOR ARTICLE OVERHAUL:

You are also right that the article itself has been a mess. I think it still is and I still see a POV evident from the content that is included in some of the sections (refer back to the NPOV article guideline quoted below to see how this can become a POV violation even if there is no explicit opinion stated) - e.g. there is material located throughout the first three four sections that could be construed as critical of LGF (examples: characterizations of its terminology as pejoratives and "hate speech," and accusations of various "phobias" are found throughout several other sections in addition to the "controversy" section).

I don't have the time to overhaul it but some things should be done. First, perhaps the first 2-3 sections could be reorganized under one header into a "History" of the blog detailing its origins, the political debates it's been involved in, changes to the site, the major stories such as CBS memogate or whatever it's called, and its current activities. The accomplishments section could also be consolidated into "History" in timeline order. A second section - titled something like "Format" or "Protocols" could address everything computer and site related about LGF including common slang and acronyms their readers use, registration protocols and stuff like that. Third, a separate and distinct category called "Controversies" could include all the stuff about criticisms, flame wars, accusations of hate speech and various phobias, but also with fairness to LGF supporters, their responses to these charges. RIght now that kind of stuff is spread out all over the article - it needs to be consolidated. Then fourth there could be the links section, containing two subsections - one for positive links the other for negative links.

I think that rearranging the article into something along those lines would go a long way to reducing POV disputes and constant edits of the article. The history shows that from its very start this article has been subject to POV disputes, accusations of bias from both sides, and everything else imaginable. That itself should show that the article is in dire need of a major overhaul in addition to what's already been done cause where there's smoke there's normally fire. Just a few friendly suggestions to anyone who has the time to work on this one

--wideawakeslogin 1/4

Possible Resolution

Now that I think about it, a while back there was a lot of wrangling in this entry over the inclusion of the LGF webmaster's coinage "idiotarian." In a very similar way it was getting deleted and replaced on a daily basis, appended with comments, e.g. "Idiotarians is a stupid word made up by a fascist," "Idiotarians, or those who hate America such as Michael Moore," etc.

So I did a google search, discovered that it passed the threshold (500+), and then gave it its own page where the entry was greatly expanded and has been maintained since with very little controversy.

Plus this allowed the term to be examined and explained in its own terms - a helpful way to contextualize something with such an unavoidably partisan quality (as the LGF Quiz is also).

Response to WideAwake Log-In

Hello WideAwake Log-In

A brief BG:

I found that when the link to this "Quiz" was placed in the "External Links" section it was removed and then replaced by apparent sparring unregistered Wikipedians on a near-daily basis.

I also rec'd a request from another Wikipedian named A2Kafir to somehow "weave in" or contextualize other external links in the entry as it was becoming "linky."

For these reasons I undertook a rewrite of the article which had the additional benefit of providing context for each item, e.g., rather than a link to the "Quiz" or similar items with a simple description I now had room to aknowledge some of the back and forth RE: these and similar issues.

In addition, I have found that people seem less willing to vandalize entries or remove information when it has been woven into some sort of context in a balanced manner.

FYI that's how this article originally expanded from a "candidate for deletion" into the monstrosity it is now - all the subsections were created because I wanted something thorough, in context and well-organized.

That said, I do recognize that the squeaky wheel(s) gets the grease, so if I am outnumbered in this instance by folks who are strongly motivated to remove chunks of critical information from this entry it would be a pointless waste of energy on my part to continue maintaining it.

- Dragula

Request for dispute resolution

Dragula and others - I placed a request for dispute resolution. Attacking editors here for changes made on other articles is inappropriate & I advise you stop. -- Wideawakelogin 1/4

Hitler Quiz Dispute

Greetings Dragula and others - I reviewed this article at the request of another and it is now my opinion that some of the edits made by Dragula are not in the interest of Wikipedia's NPOV policies. Such incidents as the LGF/Hitler quiz, as noted by several others, are at best dubious choices for inclusion in the main text of this article. Several reasons have been given why it should not be included in the text on an NPOV basis:

  • It's placement is dubious - why should that one critical link be placed in the main body of text while most others are in the external links section?
  • It's subject matter is not serious - the link is a satire or joke on LGF. In this sense it has been compared to the Al Gore/Unabomber quiz (which incidentally has passed the so called "google" test and has been the subject of articles as well but is nevertheless not included on the Gore biography)
  • It is not necessary to include that link in the text of the article to convey your stated intent, viz. a remark on language controversies surrounding LGF
  • The link seemingly serves no clear purpose other than to promote an external site that is not distinguished or notable in its own right from other sites that are critical of LGF
  • An alternative placement for the link exists that seems to be agreeable to other parties who have commented on it so far - the final section that is specifically designated for links of that sort.

More specifically in terms of wikipedia, its inclusion in the article text in the manner you have presented it appears to violate the NPOV guidelines on article tone:

"A lot of articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting both points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization" (emphasis added)

Regarding your attempts to include the link in a paragraph - this could also reasonably be characterized as bias by insinuation (see Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial), the insinuation being that since the quiz compares statements by LGF writers with Hitler some sort of shared LGF-Hitler political beliefs exist when in fact the quiz is apparently intended as a satire of some sort. On this note linking to Hitler and Himmler in the article text reeks of the Reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy. An absence of balance may also be evident as very few specific responses in favor of LGF or items that are critical of the quiz have been included to counterbalance a clearly partisan link.

A quick glance at the history of this article reveals that the topic of the quiz link, and other similar inclusions of questionable POV content, have come up frequently with yourself, Dragula, almost always pushing for their inclusion. While I appreciate your enthusiasm for editing and refining this article and I am sure so do many others - it is evident that you have much enthusiasm - the recurrence of episodes such as this one and your seeming unwillingness to compromise on the placement of the link (several compromises have been proposed, most notably relocating it to the end external links section) provoke the issue of whether some of your contributions to this article are written with a true NPOV interest in mind or are simply settling old scores with LGF - an admittedly controversial blog that has both defenders and detractors.

I am neither, but I cannot say that for sure of many edits made on this article.

Next, regarding the "perceived hotbed of liberalism" issue. This seems to me to be more a matter of specificity than biased language. It seems perfectly proper in the case of some, though not all, of those sites to identify them as "liberal" - for example the Daily Kos and Indymedia as both are openly on the political left. Others may not be liberal and that should be noted as well. To group them all under a heading of "perceived" liberal sites is both speculative and imprecise. It seems to me that a better solution would be to nuance the description in a manner that recognizes most, but not all, of LGF's sparring partners are on the political left. Also remember that this article is intended to be read for reference purposes by the average internet user - not somebody who is deeply versed in the jargon and nuances of blogger disputes. Not everybody knows that LGF is a "conservative" blog site or that Kos is a "liberal" blog site, thus specificity is required in referencing them rather than broad based speculative categorizations.

Seeing as this is an apparently contentious issue I have temporarily reverted the edits by Dragula and, since their subject is a recurring source of controversy, I recommend that they stay that way until an agreeable compromise gets worked out. I've already hinted at one that's been suggested by others as well - moving the quiz into the external links section. If you or anyone else has any suggestions I would be happy to hear them.

Otherwise if this continues much longer I suggest that we restore the neutrality dispute header and seek administrator intervention.

--Wideawakelogin, 1/4/05

Follow-up w. 68.93.81.173

Hello 68.93.81.173
You opine "Though perhaps humorous, highlighting this quiz in the article text gives undue emphasis and attention to what is little more than an attack on the LGF blog."
Please note that the "LGF Quiz" is addressed in only 1 of the 16 paragraphs in this entry (not counting the "EXTERNAL LINKS" or "SEE ALSO" sections). One sentence pro, and one con - a 2 sentence graph - thats it.
As a point of comparison, 68.93.81.173, I would ask you to please refer to your own decision to leverage Zuniga's "screw them" comment into a THREE PARAGRAPH treatment in wiki's Daily Kos page, an expansion which almost DOUBLES the length of the original entry with only a very weak attendant attempt at balance!
Do you see the point I am trying to make here 68.93.81.173? "Undue attention" means something, but it does not mean what you think it means.

"It's inclusions seems to serve no other purpose than directing traffic to an outside link that is hostile to LGF and tells very little NPOV information about the blog itself."

On the contrary the quiz illuminates in a very striking way the source of the perennial controversy RE: "hate speech" on LGF.

Try a google search for the following keywords:

LGF littlegreefootballs racist racism hate speech etc

and you will see what I mean. Whether or not you or I believe such a thing as "hate speech" should even be regarded as a legitimate category of communication is irrelevant, many, many people seem to think such a thing exists and that LGF embodies it.

If you aren't aware of this controversy (which dates to 2002 BTW, see the MSNBC article) then you must not read blogs, or at least you must not read LGF.

RE: "Also, if the quiz is part of the "controversy" over LGF, why should it be specially featured over literally hundreds of other critical jokes, articles, and attacks on the site, both valid and not valid, serious and not serious? That seems to be showing favoritism to one particular critical article."

The LGF Quiz (regardless of its merits) does have the following things to recommend its contextual inclusion:

  • it illuminates an ongoing blogosphere debate (RE: "hate speech" on LGF) which dates to 2002
  • it was either addressed in or the subject of numerous LGF-related writings (some found in the external links below, e.g., INN, Jewschool, Yglesias, etc)
  • it passes the google test (somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,080 entries on google)

I selected it for mention the same way I selected the WaPo, MSNBC, Anil Dash, Spirit of America and dozens of others. It made a splash and was widely discussed in the blogosphere (which is, after all, what we're talking about).

"If you want to keep the LGF mock quiz put it in the external links section where readers know that it is just that. Just don't try to disguise a strong POV link as valuable information on LGF deserving of its own paragraph."

The LGF Quiz was originally woven into this article per the request of wikipedian A2Kafir, who wanted to see external links contextualized. Thus the "point - counterpoint" set-up in which LGF-user rebuttals to the quiz are made explicit.

P.S. per

http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&ns0=1&ns9=1&ns11=1&redirs=0&searchx=1&search=hotbed&limit=100&offset=0

the term "hotbed" is legitimate and useful.

- Dragula

Undue emphasis and attention to critics

LGF or Hitler et al quote quiz:

Though perhaps humorous, highlighting this quiz in the article text gives undue emphasis and attention to what is little more than an attack on the LGF blog. It's inclusions seems to serve no other purpose than directing traffic to an outside link that is hostile to LGF and tells very little NPOV information about the blog itself.

It's inclusion in the article text is comparable to including a paragraph in the Al Gore article on the similarly-styled Al Gore versus the Unabomber quote quiz [1] - again humorous, but also clearly anti-Gore and both unimportant and inappropriate for an overview biography on Gore.

Also, if the quiz is part of the "controversy" over LGF, why should it be specially featured over literally hundreds of other critical jokes, articles, and attacks on the site, both valid and not valid, serious and not serious? That seems to be showing favoritism to one particular critical article.

If you want to keep the LGF mock quiz put it in the external links section where readers know that it is just that. Just don't try to disguise a strong POV link as valuable information on LGF deserving of its own paragraph.

Weaving it in

A2Kafir, I wove it in, as per your request.

- Dragula

LGF Watch Watch

"Per the webmaster of the LGF Watch Watch site the site's focus is no longer to watch LGF Watch, but instead to serve as a continuation of LGF"

Dragula, I'm the webmaster of LGF Watch Watch and I never said such a thing. The focus of LGF Watch Watch is to debunk the lies of LGF Watch, hence the name.

rightwatch [[2]]

And to claim that they are lies is POV. This is a neutral site, and there are far more neutral ways to state your case. --Golbez 06:36, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

"Per the webmaster of the LGF Watch Watch site the site's focus is no longer to watch LGF Watch, but instead to serve as a continuation of LGF"

I'm the founder of LGF Watch Watch, and I've never said such a thing. If anything, I've indicated that our focus will expand to commentary on other sites similar, and like minded with LGF Watch, mostly because LGF Watch has become rather inactive. The intent is evident in my nick.

I've never said this, and none of my colleagues has. This quote is absolutely false.

Leftwatch

Howdy Leftwatch. You write:

"I've indicated that our focus will expand to commentary on other sites similar, and like minded with LGF Watch, mostly because LGF Watch has become rather inactive."

That's what I was referring to when I wrote:

"Per the webmaster of the LGF Watch Watch site the site's focus is no longer to watch LGF Watch, but instead to serve as a continuation of LGF."

Sorry if I misinterpreted you.

- Dragula 10/6/04

Update: discardedlies.com has discontinued the feature, posting the following message to their site on 10 Dec 2004:

"The LGF Watch Watch mission of the blog is dead, we don't have the time or motivation. We really love Charles and we're sorry, we tried to carry it on and couldn't."

Entries for Weblogs #2

Is Wikipedia to have entries on all weblogs? Or just the bullies'? Wetman 03:58, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Worth mentioning in an encyclopedia article?

On what planet is a particular entry of a blogger carping about a news piece worth mentioning in an encyclopedia article? For a long-form magazine piece, writers do a LOT of interviews and leg-work. A very small percentage of that actually goes into the article. Even if his reasoning weren't silly, though, it's a dangerous precedent to re-enact individual blog posts that have no historical value. I'm not going to remove it unilaterally, but I think it has no value. Carpeicthus 21:53, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

"Al-Reuters" and "Politically Correct"

I don't understand recent edits to this page. How much are we supposed to dumb this thing down?

RE: "NPOV" - the sentence using the LGF slang term "al-Reuters" mentions the "perceived" bias of -QUOTE- al-Reuters - UNQUOTE.

I assume we are writing for intelligent people who are capable of grokking context here - the above construction makes clear that "al-Reuters" is an LGF slang term and thus provides readers with insight into some of the langauge and POV-based disputes which surround the LGF site itself.

On a similar note, someone removed the term "politically correct." Why? the term PC (look up the wiki def) refers to people who critique language based on perceived inequity or implicit POV.

The LGF site is all about POV-based language and differing interpretations therof, a fact often discussed on and around the site.

It is certainly be possible to acknowledge that fact in a neutral way but not if the site entry keeps getting dumbed down,

Readers are certainly capable of understanding terms like "politically correct" "groupthink" "bias" "slang" "midset" etc - hey, they can even follow the Wikipedia links.

Regarding the al-Reuters topic as that was the one I changed, it read, "Fans value the website as an Alternative Media resource which provides a useful counter-balance to the perceived Anti-Zionist bias of mainstream media sources like "al-Reuters."". While I agree it is not too difficult to tell that the original writer was aware that he was quoting a term used on LGF that quote is not attributed to anyone in particular, but is instead used in a phrase that is non-neutral to Reuters. If a sentence was added that said "People of the LGF community often use pejorative terms for major media, such as al-Reuters, or had a section about common LGF slang that would be neutral. Using the slang in a sentence about another topic in the way that the community you're talking about uses it is not neutral.

OK, that makes sense. I have re-edited the entry in a way that hopefully makes this distiction clear.

Regarding the politically correct change, which I did not make so am only theorizing. The term is defined by Webster as, "conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated". It is plausible that people who do not share this belief would find statements on LGF to be hate speech. Eliminating speech implies censorship. It is entirely conceivable that people find LGF to sometimes include hate speech while at the same time not advocating censorship of that speech.
- rhyax 18:11, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Makes sense, that should probably be edited out then.

Thanks for explaining.

Yeah, that about sums it up, as well as that "politically correct" is pretty much a universal pejorative, and that there was no reason for that particular sentence to reflect the subject's POV. Recent edits look good, though.

- User:carpeicthus 4:27, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

Definition of "Idiotarian"

Changed from:

Johnson is also responsible for coining the word "idiotarian" (a pejorative term for opponents of the Bush Doctrine).

to:

Johnson is also responsible for coining the word "idiotarian" (a pejorative term generally applied to those who purvey what Johnson and other "warbloggers" view as uncritical Left-wing politics.

AFAIK the word "idiotarian" specifically refers to opponents of the Bush Doctrine (e.g., Fisk, Jimmy Carter, Rachel Corrie) so the first definition is much more accurate and specific than the second, which would seem to imply that "idiotarian" just means liberal.

The problem with this second definition is the fact that Johnson and other self-described "liberal" warbloggers are onboard with Bush's hawkish foreign policy (pre-emption) but don't necessarily side with traditional conservatives when it comes to domestic policy or social ideals.

For example, Johnson bans people who use racist or homophobic language to criticize blacks or gays and there is zero discussion of traditional conservative concerns like abortion, gay marriage, etc on the LGF site.

According to http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:PY18-FOnqpcJ:www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary_archives/002117.html+idiotarians&hl=en

"Idiotarian noun. A term of abuse for an advocate of what are deemed to be irrationalist and subjectivist values that have very little reference to the workings of the real world. Idiotarians are often socialist (quintessentially Noam Chomsky), but can also be paleo-libertarian or paleo-conservative. The defining phrase of idiotarianism is "it is all the fault of the United States": this is usually applied to geopolitics."

UPDATE: "Idiotarian" now has its own entry

Neutrality

Please don't use terms like al-Reuters, please read the Npov guidelines. rhyax 20:07, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Entries for Weblogs #1

Save at Weblog whatever material here is genuinely encyclopedic. Wikipedia does not list private websites. Wetman 23:28, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Reverted to a neutral form

The article has been reverted to a neutral form, and the user mentioned earlier has not attempted to reverse those changes, therefore I am removing the NPOV notice. Should the changes discussed above again occur, I will re-add the notice. FrankenBorst 00:01, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

NPOV dispute

User 12.27.54.34 has made a number of changes to this page that are not in line with NPOV.

Some observers charge LGF with encouraging racism and Islamophobia, but this accusation is hotly disputed by rational americans and the site's very loyal defenders, who call themselves "Lizardoids" (SEE: Reptilian humanoid).

The reference to "rational Americans", has been removed but it keeps getting added back.

More recently, Johnson's "Lizardoids" have engaged in defending the truth

This sentence does not reflect NPOV, but keeps being restored.

The idiotarians refer to them as [flame wars]], pitting Little Green Footballs against Metafilter, The Daily Kos, Indymedia and others.

The epithet "idiotarians" is does not belong here. It has been removed, but keeps getting added back.

Some of the dissenters who engage in trolling are appropriately reffered to as "Trolls" (or Morlocks in LGF parlance) by LGF regulars.

The word "appropriately" has been removed, but it keeps getting added back. FrankenBorst 02:26, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Answering Requests for Comment

I arrive as a complete outsider, thinking this might actually be an article about Footballs. I also speak as a political liberal. I think that the article as it stands (see date stamp) is fine, and probably the only way to write articles about politically controversial weblogs. You define what it is at the top, talk about it's history, give some space for reports of criticism and controversy, and then provide external links to pro and con articles about the blog. That's all you can do, right? I presume the "Hitler Quiz" referred to is currently the "LFG Quiz" in the external links section.

I don't think there should be a link to a parody site like this in the main body of the article - a link at the end is where is should be. Does this page still need to be listed in Requests for Comment? PaulHammond 14:43, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

btw - whoever wrote that "Opinion Journal" piece accusing Microsoft's site of "smearing" the writer needs to come here to learn about NPOV don't they? The person who listed Little Green Footballs added the warning/disclaimer "some people may find the comments hateful or even racist". That's perfectly true and NPOV isn't it? Some people do think it's racist, right? PaulHammond 14:55, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

LGF comments disclaimer

The article contains the following assertion:

Observers also point to the hyperbolic language and dehumanizing slurs employed by some commenters (e.g., "Palesimians," "Oil Ticks," "koranimals," "ragheads") and charge the webmaster with encouraging groupthink, jingoism, and Islamophobia. Supporters of the site counter this argument by noting that Johnson himself has never used ethnic slurs on the site and has posted a disclaimer disavowing responsibility for the site's comment section.

Where is this disclaimer given? I've spent some time searching the LGF site and found nothing supporting the above LGF defence, rather the opposite: the regular posting policy states Comments are open and unmoderated, although obscene or abusive remarks may be deleted. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Little Green Footballs, which suggests that comments the sites administrators regard as very obscene or offensive will tend to be deleted. I find the case that LGF generally is encouraging of the kind of comments it receives to be extremely strong. ---- Charles Stewart 20:47, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the most obscene remarks are removed. We cannot see them so we cannot make a comparison.

Wikkrockiana 16:36, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Moved out of the article

The discussion of flamewar tactics had an overlong list of various sites that have gotten into feuds with LGF over the years. I'll condense this into more readable prose, leaving the list here for anyone who is interested:

Michael Snow 00:50, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Some people

Have way too much free time.

Request for Source in 'History' Section

LGF was one of four sources, along with the Power Line and AllahPundit blogs and the Free Republic discussion forum, responsible for the initial stages of the 60 Minutes Killian memos investigation.

Can anyone validate this? I was under the impression that the contribution made by a large number of blogs (these four perhaps being the most prominent) was that they doubted the veracity of the memos, not that they actually raised valid criticisms from a position of legitimate authority, initiated an investigation, were cited by 60 Minutes, or anything else that could be accurately described as being 'responsible' for any investigation. I think it certainly needs sourcing, since it's a fairly important claim.

193.60.133.205 02:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)-Schmitt.

I imported the well-sourced text from the Killian documents article. LGF was there on September 9th. (Day 1) Kaisershatner 16:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Do we still need separate entries for "Idiotarian" and "Killian Documents"

Looks like the bulk of these articles have been imported into this one. Should we just go ahead and import the rest of those entries as well, and then redirect their titles here?


You're kidding, right, Dragula? The Killian documents article is currently 107k; the part that is imported here is one paragraph (not coincidentally, the part that pertains to LGF). Similarly, the Idiotarian article, as you well know from your extensive involvement in it, is substantially longer than the introductory information listed here. Kaisershatner 15:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure that its really necessary to repeat 3 paragraph sections verbatim in two such closely linked articles (lgf & idiotarianism) - they're redundant, and now have to be updated in two different places instead of just one. The killain thing is fine as I see it now.

17:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

There was a reference to supporters of LGF being "objective observers" of the site, which is certainly not a neutral pt. of view. I changed this reference to make it neutral. Also, the article as written contended that only LGF commenters displayed abusive, insulting attitudes toward Arabs. I feel it is also important to highlight, even if it is less incendiary, Johnson's own writing which might be contrued as at best critical of Arabs & at worst something more sinister. So I quoted 2 LGF headlines which attempted to portray Muslims in a highly unfavorable light.Richard 06:55, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Killian documents not forged?

I'm primarily objecting to the use of the term "forged Killian documents". Nobody has proven the documents to be forged or even faked. Indeed, Johnson's main contention that the memos can be easily recreated in MS Word can be very easily demonstrated to be false: try it with ALL of the memos and you will quickly find a very odd issue with the superscripting: in the memos, none of the "st's" are superscripted and only some of the "th's", and MS Word not only autosuperscripts them all, but make it very awkward to have it do some and not others. Also if you overlay the letterheads from the May 4th and Aug 1st memos, you get a dead-on perfect match that's much better than any Word recreation you can come up with. You combine this with the specs of a Diablo daisywheel printer (made since 1969, in wide use by 1972, becoming such a standard that its code set being included in most non-HP laser printers, including Apple's, in the 80's) and how the contents and timelines of the memos fit in down to the smallest detail with the official DoD docs located here, http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records, and the forgery claim becomes very dubious at best. Also Johnson is a right-winger by all common definitions of the term, and he is accepted by all other right-wing site authors as being one of their own. "Conservative" would be an inappropriate and misleading substitution. "Neo-conservative" would work though. -BC 209.6.203.244 21:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Anyone who revisits the relevant posts at LGF and elsewhere will find that the forger sometimes disabled the automatic superscripting by typing a space between the number and the "th". Also (to pick just one claim) Diablo daisywheels only came into wide use in the late 1970s. More important, the forger used Army terminology and formatting in purported Air National Guard documents. Sorry, User:209.6.203.244, you're not fooling anybody except yourself.
As to whether Johnson is a "right-winger", a "conservative" or a "neo-conservative": none of those terms have any widely-understood definite meaning these days, so we should go with the one he uses: "conservative". Cheers, CWC(talk) 01:49, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but the claim that the "forger sometimes disabled the automatic superscripting by typing a space between the number and the 'th'" falls apart and is easily proven false when you look at *ALL* the memos. The whole forgey claim depends on cherry picking bits of alleged evidence and ignoring anything that doesn't comply. For instance only *some* of the "th's" have that odd space before them (which by the way, is not exactly typical of standard modern office document formatting) but others don't and are still not superscripted, as with the "st's" -- *none* of which are superscripted regardless.

For a very simple test, bring up MS Word, any version, and type in -- do NOT just copy & paste -- the following: 187th 111th 1st 147th 9921st. And then try to configure Word so that only half the "th's" are superscripted and none of the "st's". If you look carefully at both sets of Killian documents, the 4 from CBS and the 2 extra from USA Today, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/08/60II/main641984.shtml & http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-09-09bushdocs.pdf, you will see this odd superscripting pattern, and the spacing "explanation" only applies to some of the "th" superscripts.

The fact that none of the "st's" are superscripted is very noteworthy: the only superscripting seen in the official DoD docs located here, http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records (most notably on page 45 of "Part 6") are "th's". Small font superscripting was not common then and often limited to "th's", as with Marian Carr Knox's mechanical Olympia typewriter.

The allegation that Diablo daisywheel printers did not come into wide use in the "late" 1970's is likewise easily disproven: Xerox bought Diablo Systems in 1972 for $28 million, which was a lot of money in those days. Indeed, Diablo's founder, David S. Lee, left Xerox to co-found Qume the following year, and Qume became the first Silicon Valley company to be sold for over $100 million a few years later. See http://goldsea.com/Innovators/Digital/digital.html

The other so-called "evidence" bandied about for proof of forgery, including things involving terminology and formatting, likewise do not stand up to any close scrutiny and quality Google time. And by the way, there's an Air Force Powerpoint writing guide floating around the web that covers how and why a "Memorandum for Record" is written. Look at the "Scenario 5" example located in a copy of the guide located here: http://airforcerotc.berkeley.edu/documents/AS100/Lesson 14 -- Communication Skills.ppt (Note: I can't find a graceful way to put this in as a clickable link since Tiny URL links are not allowed and the spaces in the ppt file name break the Wiki link. But the code for the Tiny Url shortcut is: 7zdmr.)

So again, the Killian memos have *not* been proven forgeries despite the common -- and very likely badly mistaken -- belief that they somehow were. While the independent Thornburgh-Boccardi panel heavily criticized the rushed and poor authentication procedures by Mapes and her people, the panel was unable (although their own evidently sloppy and often cursory work indicates they seemed more concerned with face-saving rather than a true, in-depth investigation) could only say, "The Panel was not able to reach a definitive conclusion as to the authenticity of the Killian documents."

That's not quite the same and claiming that they were forged.

While I'm personally 99% sure that they are not fakes, the issue here is whether any Wikipedia entry can legitimately label the memos as being forged despite the only thing actually "proven" is that the memos were not fully authenticated. And being not fully authenticated is *not* at all the same as saying that they were forged. While there are long lists of supposed "proof" for memos being forged located on plenty of right wing/conservative web sites, once you again spend any quality Google time going through those lists item by item, the supposed proof very quickly falls apart. I'm not using this venue to prove that the memos were not forged; I'm just pointing out that the forgery charges simply remain unproven, and that some very elementary key bits of info, including a very simple test, easily demonstrate problems with the veracity and logic of "they were forged by Word" claims at the very least, regardless of how widely believed they are. And this is aside from the not so little issue of how the contents of the memos, from dates to obscure forms, match up down to the smallest detail to what's shown in the official DoD records.

Therefore, with all of this on the table, labeling the CBS/USA Today Killian memos as forged or fake in any Wikipedia entry is extremely inappropriate by any definition of NPOV.

And as far as whether Charles Johnson is a right-winger or a conservative, we can use the porcess of elimination by seeing if Johnson meets the common definition of "conservative": From Answers.com -- 1. Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change. 2. Traditional or restrained in style: a conservative dark suit. 3. Moderate; cautious: a conservative estimate.

I think most would agree that Little Green Footballs in general and Charles Johnson in particular have not shown much if any restraint, moderation or caution in attacking the so-called liberal "MSM" media. Indeed, a good argument can be made that regular use of the terms "liberal" and "MSM" in regards to what is much more accurately described at the "corporate mainstream media" is a sure sign of a very right wing philosophy. -BC 209.6.203.244 16:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC) 209.6.203.244 17:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


Yes, I think we still need separate headings.

There are enough questions raised that it is exceedingly unlikely that someone who understands both the typography of typewriters and the Air Force and Air Force National Guard documentation standards of the late 1960's and early 1970's is going to believe that the documents presented are not forgeries. If, as some claim, they are recreated "copies" of real documents from the time ... then they are still forgeries, because they were presented as being the real documents (actually photocopies of the real documents, IIRC.) If you want to present a serious claim that they are not forgeries of either type, do so; you might start by presenting the typewritten orginals. Remember that that would be orginal research, though. --htom 01:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "belief" -- it's all about what can be factually verified. Did Mapes and her people prematurely go ahead with using the supposed Killian memos for a story without locking down their authenticity? Yes. Did she have some evidence at least that they were true? Yes. Was it enough? That's a judgement call, but despite my strong belief they are true (I actually did a wee bit of research), it's obvious that she and CBS were completely unprepared for the slings and arrows of the right wing blogosphere, which quickly spread to corporate mainstream media rivals. Do the forgery charges and the supposed "evidence" hold up any close scrutiny? No. A comment like "it is exceedingly unlikely that someone who understands both the typography of typewriters and the Air Force and Air Force National Guard documentation standards of the late 1960's and early 1970's is going to believe that the documents presented are not forgeries" clearly indicates a lack of knowledge of the very things it's commenting on. To someone in the know, that is.

Daisywheel printers are *not* typewriters, so the typewriter comment is irrelevant. The format of the memos *is* exactly in keeping with Air Force recommendations -- the confusion seems to involve how while the Air Force strongly recommends the writing of such memos by officers, the memos themselves are not official records and are hence not archived. The whole Killian memos controversy was no more than shoddy, sloppy reporting and research by the corporate mainstream media being overwhelmed by the avalanche of wild, very shoddy, very, very sloppy, and often very malicious charges from the blogosphere, with truth, knowledge and clarity being the primary casualties. Little things like how IBM Executive typewriters were common then and how they were fully capable of proportional printing, in different fonts, and could indeed do full super/subscripting with small typefaces were never discussed in the mainstream media at least. The only thing was that the proportional printing mode on the Executives was not standard. But the proportional printing mode of the Diablo daisywheels was.

Also overlooked was a PDF file with some, how shall I say, interestingly formatted documents, suspiciously released by the DoD literally only a couple of days after CBS backed away from authenticating the Killian memos. I'll just point out the PDF file and interested parties can rummage through and look for the odd documents on their own, some rather easier to spot than others (hint: one of those oddities is the *only* proportionally printed document in that entire DoD database of files.) Go to: http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records and click on the file labeled rather obviously enough "Documents Released on September 24, 2004" (For grins or grimaces, go look up when CBS backed away from the memos and also when the Thornburgh/Boccardi panel was named)

All the forgery charges, including the fact-free silliness regarding proportional printing, superscripting, signatures, terminology, formatting, Staudt, etc., etc., could have been cut off at the knees early on by a couple of bright interns doing basic research into what technology was commonly available in early 1970's, the format of Memos for Records versus official docs, samples of other memos from that time, a close scrutiny of official DoD docs, and so on. That never happened. From the media and blogosphere "coverage", you have initially thought that before there were PC's and MS Word, there were only IBM Selectrics and that was it.

Anyway, I won't go any further. My main point was to simply demonstrate that the phrase "forged Killian documents" has more than a few problems with it. -BC 209.6.203.244 03:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)209.6.203.244 13:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


There was no evidence that the documents were valid. Produced from an unknown location by an unknown person who can't be found, the reasonable supposition has to be that they may not be copies of the actual documents. The lack of providence is not proof of authenticy. Equipment available for purchase -- and purchased by the Pentagon -- is not always the equipment in use in National Guard offices. It has been proposed that the IBM Composer was used; look at how many of them had been sold at the time the document claims to have been created, and figure the odds that one of those units had wandered into a Texas ANG office. Comparing documents supposedly typed in Texas to documents known to be typed in Washington DC is comparing apples to oranges, and that the questioned documents look more like oranges than apples does not help in their claim to be apples. (not that it's at all relevant, but I ran a typewriter in the USMC in 1968-1969, and we used manual typewriters, not electrics; my personal typewriter was an Olympia that had attachments that allowed me to make smaller, raised, "th" as well as some math and other symbols. The typeface doesn't match the Killian documents, although the "th" can be seen on some documents of the period; the attachments fit into the ribbon holder, not onto the typebars. Going even further afield, typebars could be modified by the substitution of special symbols.) --htom 15:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

False -- there was actually plenty of circumstancial evidence that the documents were valid. Bear in mind that the charges that Bush shirked his Guard duty and got away with it thanks to his family connections did not originate with that CBS report -- they have been around at least as far back to when Bush ran for governor of Texas, and were brought up and analyzed more extensively during both the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections, most notably by the Boston Globe and the Associated Press, the latter successfully suing for the release of all Bush's Guard records http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,131961,00.html. A retired army colonel, Gerald Lechliter, extensively analyzed all of the available official Guard records for the New York Times and concluded that Bush essentially went AWOL: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/lechliter.pdf. And Mary Mapes correctly noted that the Killian memos perfectly meshed in with the released official DoD docs. And at least one of the experts Mapes used, Marcel Matley, thought there was a signature match-up, although the poor copy quality of the memos made true authentication highly problematic. Also, remember well that the White House itself released the memos to the other media outlets after obtaining them from CBS and made no comment disputing their accuracy, and that Bush himself, who would know for sure if the memos were fake or not has never commented one way or the other to this day on it. Ask yourself honestly: if the memos were indeeed forged as it's been claimed, wouldn't Bush be the first to point it out?

But with that said, this is still all circumstantial evidence that was borderline at best in termes of meeing responsible journalistic standards, especially in regards to CBS, which has long been the premier network news outlet. In comparison, FOX News regularly runs deceptive and misleading reports and commentaries with claims based on dubious rumors and cherry picking facts out of context, and they suffer no real consequences for doing so aside from a general mocking. Still though, if CBS had quickly investigated and addressed just the initial questions about proportional spacing and supercripting, there likely would have been no such thing as "Rathergate" or "Memogate". They didn't, though, allowing the forgery charges to escalate, with more and more frivolous claims of additional "proof" for forgery. It was amazing and somewhat disturbing to watch this onece proud new organization just freeze in the headlights like that.

And terms of what equipment, it's pretty clear that people's memory of what was around then is pretty shoddy and unreliable. Remember how there was all this talk about Selectric this and Selectric that, even by these supposed "experts" that came out of the woodwork, yet even the Olympia typewriter never came up until Knox mentioned it. Many of the early Diablo daisywheel printers had keyboards and could pass for a Selectric model to an untrained eye. If it wasn't your business to know the difference, you probably would have no clue who was exactly using what on base, nevermind off: the memos were not official documents; they were personal memos belonging to Kilian and so could have been created anywhere, and not just in a secretary pool. And it's very unlikely memos discussing a problem officer would exposed to staff like that (Knox was a pool secretary as well, apparently).

Again, my main point was to simply demonstrate that the phrase "forged Killian documents" has more than a few problems with it. -BC 209.6.203.244 14:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Think of the phrase as distinguishing them from those Killian documents not being labeled as forged. --htom 03:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Better yet, how 'bout reserving the phrase to those Killian documents proven to be forged? Cherry picking the evidence that supports your contention while blissfully ignoring all the evidence that doesn't, especially if the latter makes up the bulk of all the evidence, is not quite kosher. Seriously, facts are not quite simply whatever a group of people believe, however sure of themselves they may be. To paraphrase Anatole France: If fifty million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. -BC 209.6.203.244 06:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Are there any other documents of the period, known to be genuine, from Killian or the TANG typing pool, that are proportionally spaced? You seem to have a misunderstanding of what constitutes proof in forgery allegations. It is not usually possible to "prove" that a document is authentic (and that can't be done in this case, Killian's dead, his secretary says she didn't type them.) Any discrepency is sufficient to demonstrate that the document is to be suspected. That the bulk of the evidence says it's genuine merely shows that it could be a plausable forgery. It's like the claim that "there are no even prime numbers", there are millions and billions and trillions, googleplexes, even of odd primes; the counterexample is "two". Sufficent to demonstrate that the claim is false. Your believe that the documents are genuine, and the quotation is quite apt. --htom 15:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Ummm, did you just pop in to restate the same old unsubstantiated right-wing blogosphere dogma without reading any of my earler posts where I went into some detail regarding the evidence for and against? Unlike you and some others, I actually backed up my points with cites and evidence, including bringing up this rather curious Bush PDF record file the DoD released literally just after CBS backed away from authenticating the Killian memos, and which, as I pointed out, contained the *only* proportionally printed record in all of Bush's files, along with a couple of other rather funky formatted records: http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records, file "Documents Released on September 24, 2004"

Now bear in mind that all of Bush's military records were suppose to have been released much, much earlier in the year, but as I also earlier pointed out, it took an Associated Press lawsuit to force the release of many of them. Still, that Sept. 24th file was inexplicably delayed weeks after another release of DoD docs right about the time of the CBS story: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/090904Y.shtml A curious timing, no?

And again, if you had bothered to read more of my earlier comments, the forgery claims all fall apart under close scrutiny, a little Googling, and some rather simple DYI tests. Yeah, they could in theory be very craftily put together plausible forgeries made from painstakingly researching all the DoD files and any other info online (don't forget how James Bath's name was redacted from the DoD records but appears in one of the Killian memos: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_R._Bath), but that begs the question of if someone is going to be that careful, why not be simple and use one of the many, many Selectrics still in operation instead of this funky formatting -- which you really can't replicate that well in Word anyway? And don't forget that this is all about whether it's appropriate to use the term "forged Killian documents" when forgery has not been proven (and never will). They simply weren't fully authenticated enough by CBS when the story featuring them aired -- which is a far, far cry from them being forgeries; and therefore they should not be labeled as such. Inauthenticated, yes; forged, no. There is a wee bit of a difference. There is nothing "millions and billions and trillions" about any of this -- there are simply two choices: 1) the right one; or 2) the wrong one. -BC 209.6.203.244 19:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Having carefully looked at the documents on the DoD site you reference, I see that none of them have proportional type and that none of them have superscripting (raised or smaller) "th"s. I confess to not understanding what you think they show; we're looking for documents like the "forged" documents, to show that other documents of that time and place look like the suspect documents. We're waiting for you to find some. That Bush's records are a mess, to anyone who's served in the National Guard, is entirely typical. Strangeness in NG records would be that none of a member's records were misfiled, misplaced, lost and later found, or gone forever (or at least as yet.) As it is, the "forged" documents appear to have been typed on a typewriter that appeared and disappeared in that office, being used to type those documents, and only those documents, and then disappearing forever. The simpler explanation is that they are modern forgeries. Would you prefer the term "counterfeit Killian documents"? --htom 04:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

That's why amateurs should stay away from stuff like forensics (I'm not claiming to be anything other than an anonymous Internet troll, but I can still point out "discrepencies"). At that DoD repository of supposedly all of Bush's records, http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records, there are at least 5 interesting "tidbits" that got little or no coverage in the mainstream corporate media: 1) a document with clear, full small-font superscripting obviously not created with Word -- Part 6, page 45; 2) the same document making no mention of Alabama, even though it's suppose to be a summary of Bush's military service; 3) a document with proportional spacing -- "Documents Released on September 24, 2004," page 6 (probably created on an IBM Executive -- print it out and draw some even vertical lines if you need to make it more obvious); 4) a document signed off by both Killian and Harris, clearly stating that Bush was "not observed" while he was suppose to be in Alabama -- Part 2, pages 43-44; 5) an inquiry into Bush's missing Alabama rating report by Air Force Sargeant Harkness, and how he is stonewalled by a Major Rufus Martin (the same Rufus Martin who claimed he couldn't emember who suspended Bush in the Thornburgh/Boccardi panel investigation) -- Part 2, pages 39-42.

The fundamental problem with the "forgery" scenario is that it simply falls apart when you examine it at all in detail and try to fit it in with all of the available evidence. You can't just say, "well, this and this seem to support that they are fakes and I'll just simply ignore all that other stuff that doesn't." Charles Johnson's cute animated GIF of the CYA memo may look convincing to an untrained eye, but Word uses pretty much the same proportional spacing for 12 point fonts that was the default on Diablos, and if you try to create similar animated GIFs or even static overlays with *all* of the memos using Word replicas, you will quickly run into problems (go ahead and try, starting with just trying to dupe them in Word as they appear.) The core of the forgery scenario was that there were supposedly nothing in the early 1970's that could proportionally space and superscript, but that was just utterly shoddy "research" (if any was done at all). Both IBM Executive typewriters and Diablo daisywheel printers were common enough then and they could easily do both. The difference is that IBM's used non-standard proportional spacing while the Diablo's didn't. You then combine this with the other problems with Word recreations I went over earlier, and then mix in how the contents match up perfectly with the DoD docs, you end up with essentially *nothing* really pointing towards the memos being fakes or forgeries. But don't take my word (so to speak) on any of this -- the Internet is a vast repository of info, Google is a wonderful search tool, and while Word may not be so wonderful a writing tool, most people have access to it, so put them all together with a little research and you will end up with little reason to keep believing in the forgery myth. -BC 209.6.203.244 17:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


The daisy wheel printer was invented or debuted in 1970, depending on which wording you accept. The Diablo Systems HyType Printer was introduced in 1972 or 1973. That there were any of these in a TANG office in 1972 seems unlikely. The Cal State LA library installed three Diablo 630s in 1983 (when daisy wheel printers, not typewriters, were becoming common), not 1973. IBM introduced the Wheelwriter in 1984, so you don't need to do much research on those.

"Not observed" on a rating form is mil-speak for "he wasn't under my command during this rating period" -- and Bush was't! --, it does not mean "he wasn't here".

I understand that you believe they're authentic. Find documents produced in the TANG, then and there, that match. Should be easy, since the machine was in common use. --htom 18:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you know how to use Google or even to click on links? As I had already pointed out, Diablo Daisywheel printers were made since 1969, were in common use by 1972 when Xerox bought the comapany for $28 million, and Diablo's founder, Davis Lee, left Xerox to found Qume in 1973. Qume made Diablo compatible printers and was so successful that Qume was the first Silicon Valley company to break the $100 million mark when it was sold a few years later. The first Diablo model was the HyType I and was initially only sold to OEM manufaturers who put their own labels on them. Those are verifiable facts. In contrast, "The daisy wheel printer was invented or debuted in 1970, depending on which wording you accept. The Diablo Systems HyType Printer was introduced in 1972 or 1973" is unsupported BS. Sorry.

If you want to further "debate" me or anyone else about this, you really need to provide supporting evidence. Also in my last post, I pointed out several items in the DOD records, including answering your prior inquiry about the proportionally document and one with clear small font superscripting. Instead of responding to any of those, you simply offered an again unsupported opinion of what Killian meant with the term "not observed". This isn't Fox News -- opinion is *not* fact, and cherry picking only what you want to deal with doesn't fly here. -BC 209.6.203.244 14:32, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The document you're in love with (at part 6 page 45) is a summary released by an unknown party after his service with no date, but contains the a date in 1974. It might be a document from the TANG, or from the DoD, and it could be from any time after 1974. The raised, small, "th" reminds me of those I used that were placed in the ribbon holder and struck by another key, and I'd love to send them to someone for comparison, but they were lost years ago. It says little or nothing about typewriters available to TANG then. You've been trying to sell the Hytype as the mechanism used in a lot of places (google killian hytype) and it seems no one's buying (probably because even the Hytype had a mechanism that would back up the wheel, which would be needed to do some of the pseudo-kerning displayed.)

This discussion should be moved to http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents_authenticity_issues and I won't continue it here. It makes no sense to collapse Idiotarian and Killian Documents because they're about different (sub) topics. --htom 15:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not trying to authenticate the documents -- I'm just pointing out that the forgery claim has no clothes, despite what you and many others want to believe with your eyes closed. You're right, I have claimed this in many other places, and so far nobody has been able to contradict anything. And you and they really can't -- I've been simply pointing out so far unaccounted for and unexplained discrepencies. If you want to still believe the that memos were forged, fine, then please explain how you account for this, this, this, this, this...and so on. And so far nobody has even come close. Even my little Word superscript test than anybody with a PC or a MAC can run on his or her own in a few minutes -- nobody but nobody has even attempted to explain it. Were the memos forged with a modern PC or MAC running Word, as has been the central claim, or not?

And that's the central issue here. Johnson and some others leveraged the proportional printing and superscripting shown in the memos into the serious claim that CBS, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes used forged documents to smear George Bush's military service. This is a wholly separate issue from whether Mapes fully authenticated the memos enough to proceed with the story. But as I keep pointing out again and again and again, there are serious, obvious (to anyone who bothers to look and check, that is) and totally unexplained issues with the forgery scenario. Since you, like all the others, could only muster a couple of unsupported opinions against just only a small fraction of the discrepencies I've pointed out, I think I've more than made the basic case that the phrase "forged Killian documents" has no business being used here or any place in the wiki. -BC 209.6.203.244 18:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, we could muster lots of experts who say the documents are forged (Joseph Newcomer, for example: search for "indistinguishable from zero"), if we thought you'd take any notice. Those documents were forged; even CBS's expert, Peter Tytell, said so. Ask yourself: if you're so sure the documents have not been show to be forged, why are you spending so much time an energy on this talk page? (Why do I care? Because I want to WP:Archive this page.) Cheers, CWC(talk) 07:44, 28 September 2006 (UTC) who also added the "Killian documents not forged?" heading above (way, way above ...)


One needs to be very cafeful about the term "expert" and how it is applied. The widely cited Joseph Newcomer, PhD, is dealt with in another, and more central Wiki thread I moved to: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Killian_documents

Bear in mind that genuine experts have a history being knowledgeable either via direct experience, careful research, or some combination thereof in a particular field. For example, the global warming "debate" is essentially divided between the vast majority of climate scientists on one side and all sorts of characters acting like experts on the other. If you are a global warming skeptic, you can find comfort with a quick Google and maybe find something like this: http://www.junkscience.com/news/robinson.htm You might go somthing like, "Hmmm, it's in The Wall Street Journal, and it's by a couple of scientists, so there must be at least some truth to it."

No, The Wall Street Journal isn't a peer-reviewed scientific publication, it's an 1997 article and so hardly up to date, and chemists are not climate scientists. Also anything appearing in junkscience.com is, well, junk science. So be veddy, veddy cafeful of people claiming expertise, especially in a boastful way. A word to the wise. -BC 209.6.203.244 13:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Racism

how can there be no mention of LGF's islamophobic racism on this page, when commentors have advocated genocide against arabs on the website? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.89.240.80 (talk • contribs) .

I think the racist comments on LGF are already covered appropriately in this article. Rhobite 04:04, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
LGF's comments notwithstanding, I find it ridiculous that being against a religion is called "racism". Religious belief, just like one's political convictions, is a conscious choice and should therefore be open to criticism and even ridicule. One's race, however, cannot be chosen, and so is not fairly open to such criticism. Equating anti-Islamic sentiment with racism is nothing less than a cop-out, a dishonest tactic designed to stifle any and all criticism of Islam by playing the race card, even though it doesn't apply. I certainly hope it doesn't continue. — Impi 05:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
if it's just criticism of a religion, no, it's not racicm, but many statements on the website appear to be opposed to all people who live in islamic civilizations, regardless of their personal religious belief. see the discussion of forced sterilization of all palestinians.
None of this is on the site itself. Like many blogs, LGF has a nearly unmoderated discussion section where sometimes nasty comments appear; the website policy makes it clear that the comments do not represent the opinions of Johnson or other contributors. (I'd cite their policy but it looks like LGF is facing a denial of service attack at present.) Some out-of-line comments have, indeed, been removed in the past.
However, Imp is right. It is totally disingenuous to equate criticism or discussion of, or opposition to a religion with racism. ProhibitOnions 19:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Nobody has accused the webmaster himself of being racist, simply of hosting a site where racist commenters congregate and opine. Thus, citations of same (i.e., the commenters) are perfectly legit.
RE: the unmoderated discussion, yes, if a commenter belongs to the core group of regulars (registration to the site itself is almost always closed) then of course their comments are indeed uncensored.
In like manner, if I threw a party at my house and 99% of the invitees were Amish separatists, I certainly wouldn't make myself responsible for policing what they said, but it would be disingenuous in the extreme for me to express surprise that most of the guests were chit-chatting about Amish separatism.
Dragula 21:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

>>>> However, Imp is right. It is totally disingenuous to equate criticism or discussion of, or opposition to a religion with racism. ProhibitOnions 19:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)<<<<

I strongly disagree. Terms like 'rag-head' and 'sand-ni**er' are openly racist language. Islam has always been the subject of racist abuse by white westerners since its founder - Muhammad - was non-white. A brief survey of American history is easily enough to conclude that the opinions on LGF are a continuation of the openly hostile and dehumanising attitude towards non-whites displayed traditionally by Americans.

User:222.99.54.130 11.24, 8 June 2006 (GMT)

Removal of "hatred" references

Throughout the body of the article, numerous claims are made and references are given that Little Green Footballs is primarily a xenophobic hate site. The first paragraph is uncharactistically positive and contains no references to the fact that most of the posts on the site are strongly and violently antimuslem. I can see the need for neutrality, but when the body of the article says one thing and the lead paragraph says another, you have a problem.

Please sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). If this article identifies LGF as a "xenophobic hate site" then this is POV and needs to be changed. However, Wikipedia is not a place for axe-grinding. ProhibitOnions 21:31, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
ProhibitOnions is correct. It's a clear NPOV violation to call LGF a xenophobic hate site, or claim that the site "stirs up hatred". It is a WP:NOR violation to post random examples of racism on LGF. You can find idiots on any web forum.. doesn't make them notable idiots. "Ben" is not a reliable source and he should not be quoted here. Rhobite 23:52, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
This site does not stir up hatred toward arabs/muslims? Maybe you should visit the site, heres the link http://www.littlegreenfoootballs.com

Reverts to remove references

Please do not revert solely to remove references. Just because you don't agree with the references shouldn't mean they should be removed. 204.149.81.212 17:16, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Your edits are not sourced, nor are they NPOV. The word 'radical' for instance is potentially a pejorative term. Your generalization about the anti-Palestinian views is also troubling in this regard. The source you cited does not support your claim in that regard. Bibigon 17:38, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
The source I cited ([5]) shows protestors advocating peace. The site refers to them as "terrorist enablers". How is this not radical conservativism?
There are two concerns. First, your edits constitute original research, which is prohibitted on Wikipedia. From a more qualatative standpoint, those are not merely protestors advocating peace, as they are also calling Israel an apartheid state, and a terrorist state. Both of those accusations move beyond them simply being protestors advocating peace. However, the issue of original research is really paramount here, rather than issues surrounding Israel-Palestine. In order for your edits to conform to Wikipedia policy, you need to find a reliable source which documents that LGF is a radical conservative site, and similarly reliable sources for your other edits. Bibigon 19:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why there needs to be a complete reversion if a smaller problem (such as someone mentioning another blog) gets placed into the article. The points are still valid, just take the name out. Mlhoganjr
My issue with the citations isn't that they promote another blog. It's that they're original research, giving evidence of the hate speech, not of the critics pointing to the hate speech. Do you see the difference? Bibigon 21:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
In the case of the language test, I just don't see the notability of the langauge test. Again, if the NYTimes or someone had referenced this quiz as evidence of this site being racist or whatever, then sure. Right now however, it's just a blog criticizing the users of another blog. I don't see why that warrants mention. If it did, then we'd have a lot more comments in every article from various bloggers. Every article could be filled with the views of dozens of blogs on the topic at hand. I'm sure LGF has some negative thoughts on Islam. Should the article on Islam have a line to the effect of "One conservative blog goes so far as to routinely joke about Islam being a religion of peace, and is dedicated primarily to pointing out cases of Islamic violence"? Bibigon 22:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Bibigon's reverts

This user has a known history of reverting to remove references (please refer to his Talk page). He has been banned in the past for "revert bombing". He hides behind "NPOV" arguments, when the reality is he's removing information that further substantiates articles.

Let's face facts: LGF is largely an anti-Islamic site. You can easily click a single link on the site to note this. Referencing posts made by the founder or LGF members provides context for the claims in the Wikipedia article that the site is Islamophobic. They should not be removed.

I've seen a lot of references removed by this user in the past few days. The solution to "questionable" references isn't to carpet bomb reverts. Positive examples of non-hate speech should be put as a counter, if so desired. 216.254.64.246 22:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Rhobite 01:36, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
It's not a personal attack. It's a response to reckless rv'ing and trashing references. Under a guise of "NPOV" these posters ARE shifting it to their point of view. They should be dealt with appropriately. 216.254.64.246 02:07, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
All I have done is remove rants and unencyclopedic content from the article. Bibigon 14:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

ProhibitOnions's reverts

See above comment about Bibigon. This user also engages in revert carpet bombing (and he supports Bibigon for doing so -- again, see Bibigon's talk page). Unfortunately, as he's inexplicably a Wikipedia admin, I'm not sure there's much we can do about it. Ironically, he's against revert wars in his own talk page -- clearly a practice he does not follow.

Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Rhobite 01:36, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
It's not a personal attack. It's a response to reckless rv'ing and trashing references. Under a guise of "NPOV" these posters ARE shifting it to their point of view. They should be dealt with appropriately. 216.254.64.246 02:07, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I'm surprised at the accusation (made by 216.254.64.246), because I have only reverted this page once, when after attempting to phrase some of the criticisms more neutrally, the partisan ranting was immediately reinserted.[6]
In my previous edits, I have removed unsourced statements (generally added by anonymous editors) such as "The site's sole purpose is to stir hatred against Muslems" (sic), "comments which attempt to defend Muslims, or criticize other commenter are quickly deleted"[7], "Critics point out that in reality, dissenters are drowned in racist, hateful comments"[8], and "While many sites target solely Islamic fundamentalists, LGF targets the entire culture"[9], and that it is "frequented by xenophobes of the religion of Islam" (whatever that means)[10]. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and this kind of ranting has no place here. Considering the number of media outlets that have criticized LGF, it shouldn't be too difficult to put together a sentence that makes this point (that some people think the site is racist) in a coherent manner.  ProhibitOnions  (T) 07:52, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
216.254.64.246 informs me that he's read the NPOV policy, but he does need to make more of an effort to follow it. It's not OK to say that the site exists in order to stir up hatred, especially when we already cover these accusations later in the article, phrased in a more neutral way. Even the scare quotes around "coverage" are unprofessional. Bibigon's solution, changing "coverage" to "analysis", is good. Rhobite 16:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Removing references 2 - "It's not OK to say that the site exists in order to stir up hatred"

Ask yourself, "what is LGF"? You had a large number of references that refered to it as a hate site, and were subsequently removed. You have hundreds of comments ON the site that say "I hate muslims" and "I'd like to kill them". Why are we trying to sugarcoat hate with "neutrality"? Why are people trying to claim NPOV when they're really just removing references that show the site as it actually is? Why are we doing a disservice to those coming to Wikipedia, looking for unbiased information?

I don't see the point of removing references when they're used to accurately paint a picture. Continuing the analogy, if you want to add your own colors you're welcome to, but don't wash away the rest of the painting. Removing references is a reckless and dangerous practice. 204.149.81.212 16:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

See No original research. Bibigon 22:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Original research definition: "material added to articles by Wikipedia editors that has not been published already by a reputable source". Quotes directly from LGF don't qualify as "a reputable source"? By your logic, a politician's quotes wouldn't be permissable in an article about the politician.
By the way, these 2-3 word responses don't say much. "See No Original Research", "Don't use scare quotes". Explain your arguments, make your case. Don't just axe content.216.254.64.246 23:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Quotes directly from LGF if they are used to demonstrate a point that the site is a hate site are original research. You are doing research, and citing evidence that the site is in fact a hate site, or xenophobic, or whatever. If you want to discuss the site as a hate site, find a reputable source, such as the NYTimes, which documents that, and cite them. A politician's quotes wouldn't be permissible in an article about the politician if the point of the quotes was to demonstrate some character trait, no. Saying something like "Nixon was an anti-semite" and then backing it up with a quote where he rags on Kissinger is a no-go here. Find a reputable source which points that out, and add "The NYTimes believed Nixon to be an anti-semite." Just quoting from the site itself to demonstrate something about it constitutes original research. Bibigon 23:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


ProhibitOnions's reverts part Deux

Prohibit Onions, LGF has won the "Best Israel Advocacy Blog" award two years in a row, once in 2004 from the Israelly Cool website and once in 2005 from the Jerusalem post. Both times he linked to the polls in question and urged his readers to vote for LGF in that category.

Sure sounds to me like he wants the site to be recognized as an "Israel Advocacy Blog" indeed, the "Best Israel Advocacy Blog" in the whole world, 2 years in a row.

Is there something I'm missing here that makes describing his blog thusly a form of "subtle vandalism"?

Would describing Ben Kingsley as "Oscar Winning movie actor Ben Kingsley" also be a form of "subtle vandalism"?

Dragula 04:18, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Prohibit Onions, I went to the JPost and found the definition for this award (which LGF won by a large margin, garnering 50% of the total vote):

"To be considered an Israel Advocacy Blog, a blog must deal extensively with issues relating to Israel, in the context of promoting Israel and Zionism, or presenting Israel's side of the conflict. This includes blogs written by Jews and non-Jews alike."

I think we can both agree that this award category description is also an accurate and clear description of LGF - if we incorporated it into the entry somehow, would that be adequate context to lay your concerns to rest?

Dragula 04:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

It's simple. Calling LGF only an "Israel advocacy blog" in the introductory sentence implies that it is solely or mainly concerned with Israel, which is not the case. LGF is a blog that takes a number of positions, only one of which is robust support for Israel. I have no objection to this award being mentioned, but it's hardly the most important thing about the blog, and its use as the only pertinent detail mentioned in the introductory sentence was questionable, given the strength of feeling in some quarters about Israel. (Thus my concern about "possible subtle vandalism": it sounds a little too close to the likes of "Zionist blog".) Subsequent edits by others have improved it.  ProhibitOnions  (T) 23:16, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Accusations of Bias

Does this section title strike anyone else as odd? Accusations of bias aren't particularly interesting or notable with regards to a blog. It's a blog, it's spin and opinion about news and events, etc... At it's core, just like every other blog, it is the author revealing his own bias, and the reasons for it. My point is that the accusations here aren't of bias, but of racism, islamophobia, and whatnot. Bias is too a general and meaningless a term to be applied to a blog. This isn't a news organization which is trying to be unbiased. Quite the opposite. Bibigon 22:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... LGF is pretty polarizing - people seem to either really love it or hate and this angle is almost always mentioned in media accounts of the site, e.g., MSN, NRO, INN, WSJ, etc... I actually can't think of a profile of the site that doesn't mention that the site is "controversial" because of accusations of hate, racism, etc.

So, I guess we could either make this section more specific, and change the title to "Accusations of Racism" or else we could just go in the bland direction and say the site is "controversial" and then leave the reader to puzzle out why.

On a similar note, there is a modifier in the section that mentions the ubiquitous use of "allegedly dehumanizing" terms on LGF, e.g., ragheads, camel jockeys, oil ticks, sand fleas, paleosimians, etc.

Is there a better way to express this, perhaps to acknowledge that Arabs actually find being called "sand fleas" offensive but allow for the possibility that LGF commenters don't realize that?

Then we can get rid of the "allegedly" since this isn't just an allegation - one would be hard pressed to find an ethnic group whose members do prefer to be characterized as blood-sucking insects.

Dragula 05:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Alternately, that issue - the LGF user community's heavy reliance on ethnic slurs - could also be folded into the "slang & posting protocols" section. This would make sense since the site has helped popularized the use of not only "idiotarian" and "moonbat" but also "raghead" "cameljockey" "oil tick" "koranimal" etc. And wiki readers aren't idiots, people understand that ethnic slurs are polarizing, maybe they don't really need it spelled out for them - it can simply be noted and wikified. Then readers will have some context for the "controversy," such as it is.

Dragula 18:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

"Right Wing"

A certain user whose IP address I can't be bothered to cut from "history" & paste here is hitting this entry once a day to change occurences of the word "conservative" to "right wing."

Now, there are certainly many proud, self-identified right wingers in the US. However, Charles Johnson is not one of these. He may have extreme right views but he prefers to describe himself as a reformed liberal, so to call a spade a spade in this instance is simply to invite endless wrangling over semantics which profit no-one.

So, Mr. (or miss) hit-and-run editor, can't we please just compromise on the term "conservative"? "Right Wing" may be more accurate, but the longest that's ever going to stay on this page is about 5 minutes - in this country, the term "right wing" has a pejorative connotation, and so we instead need to settle on a term that everyone can agree on.

thanks,

Dragula 23:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

>> "Right Wing" may be more accurate, but the longest that's ever going to stay on this page is about 5 minutes - in this country, the term "right wing" has a pejorative connotation, <<

There are two points here:

Firstly, any encyclopedia requires a stringent commitment to an objective criterion for compiling entries. Accuracy is of paramount importance otherwise the knowledge in the encyclopedia becomes worthless - in this case you correctly acknowledge the term 'right-wing' as being more accurate than 'conservative'.

Secondly, and rather disturbingly, you suggest that accuracy can be compromised by national bias. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the Laws of Physics cannot be suspended in America any more than they can be suspended anywhere else on Earth - which is to say they cannot be suspended at all. In view of this, can we not agree that the perception of Americans towards the term 'right-wing' is only preventing a more accurate entry for LGF's in Wiki?

Thanks 222.99.54.130 D.

Well, what exactly does "right-wing" mean in this context? How exactly can we characterise Charles Johnson? Certainly, he is vehemently anti-Islamic, but since when did being against a particular religion mean the same as "right-wing"? I really don't understand how one can be utterly opposed to and hateful of Christianity and still be considered left-wing, whereas the same attitude towards Islam must automatically make you right-wing. Clearly, opposition to an organised religion can come from those on both sides of the ideological left-right divide. So, do you have any other evidence, through his statements and actions, which justify a labelling of "right-wing"? — Impi 10:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Lets look at the wiki def of "right wing":

In politics, right-wing, the political right or simply the right, are terms that refer to the segment of the political spectrum often associated with any of several strains of conservatism, the religious right, and areas of classical liberalism, or simply the opposite of left-wing politics. In some contexts, the term right-wing also can include authoritarian nationalism, but that is generally considered part of the far right, which this article does not cover in any great detail.

Now lets see "far right" on wiki:

The far right has often been associated with social and religious conservatism, reactionary nationalism, jingoistic chauvinism, economic protectionism, and/or racism, but this usage varies greatly. Most people and groups described as "far-right" don't see themselves as extremists, and consider the term derogatory. You could say that they would be considered conservatives or reactionaries.

LGF fails on counts #1 and #4 and hits the nail on the head with #2 and #3. #5 is ambiguous, for reasons which have been more than adequately covered already. (Is Islam a race? How about Arabs? Are the Palestinians an ethnic group? Is it "racist" to characterize certain ethnnic groups as blood-sucking insects or parasites? What if its not the ethnicity but the religion you don't like? How about "raghead" - is that a racist term? Or not, since distinctive religious headwear has nothing to do with race? How about "camel jocky"? How about "Koranimals"? How about "Oil Ticks" etc. We can argue on and on about this stuff until the cows come home. etc.)

That said, the last sentence of the definition quoted above is germane to the discussion above and bears repeating

Most people and groups described as "far-right" don't see themselves as extremists, and consider the term derogatory. You could say that they would be considered conservatives or reactionaries.

Which brings us back to the top of this subsection. "Far right" and "right wing" are considered derogatory in the US. Also, the center has moved considerably to the right, so that certain positions once perceived as fringe are now simply "conservative." So I still think we should simply go with "conservative."

21:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

taking a hardline on the War on Terror and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be conservative, but it is not "extreme-right," which is associated with fascism and, as you pointed out, "reactionary nationalism" (and believing with conviction, with reasons to back it up, that your country is right in a certain conflict -- in this case the Iraq War and the broader conflict -- is not "reactionary nationalism.") in terms of Islam, all LGF does is point out the obvious -- that "moderate Islam" isn't as prevalent as some have been led to believe, and that while many Arab Muslims don't explicitly endorse people like bin Laden, they do sympathize with them.
i'm not familiar enough with the commenters on that site to know just how "racist" and "Islamophobic" (that last word I really hate) they are, but if these racial insults are primarily being used against Islamic terrorists and their advocates, they're probably just using them as a way to put them down, rather than an expression of broad racism toward Arabs as an entire people. similar to how certain people think Bush's supporters mostly consist of backward-thinking, evangelical white-bread hicks.
and people who criticize certain aspects of Islam and Arab Muslim culture (including myself) aren't necessarly "Islamophobic," as I am in no way "afraid" of Islam. Dr. Trey 00:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
actually now that i have some experience reading user posts on that site, my earlier assessment was very wrong. most of it's reader base is phenomenally stupid, which isn't helped by the fact that Johnson simply blasts radical Islamists (perceived and real) daily without arguing about how to win the WoT in the long term. i still don't think it's a hate site, but plenty of its readers come close -- Islam the death cult, the problem is Islam, nuke Mecca, every majority-Muslim state should be treated as an enemy... it's all there.
one of the FEW times where i judged a book by its cover and came up with a wrong conclusion. i honestly didn't think much borderline bigotry really existed on the Right 'til i saw this site. thankfully, it's just Internet kids, so hopefully they don't represent much. iTrey 10:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

“Hadji Girl”

I've removed this section because this article is about the Little Green Footballs blog as a whole. There's no reason that the Hadji Girl entries deserve more recognition than any other entries. The paragraph is not any more notable than a dozen other entries that could be listed. For an entry on a blog, there's no reason to get tied down onto individual blog entries. It just leads to cluttering the page. If the Hadji Girl incident explodes, in a similar way to the Killian documents incident does, then it should be included. Until then, it's not any more notable than the other dozen pieces that are blogged about there daily. Bibigon 16:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Same LGF?

Does anyone know whether there is a relationship between this LGF and the group of developers for the Atari ST who were active in the early 90s? Somegeek 19:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


yep - same people - Chucky and his brother.

Amateur opinion vs. professional judgement

Given that Johnson - in his capacity as the webmaster of a political blog based in Los angeles - has strongly held opinions about everything from whether or not Saddam possessed WMD to how Rachel Corrie died and what the origins of the Koran are - there must be some way to distinguish between these - well, what really are partisan "talking points" - and the consensus judgement of professionals in the field.

Wikipedia has entries on a number of topics, from the structure of the atom to medieval French literature, but we do not, as rule - seem to need to balance each and every entry with some sort of caveat from an amateur pundit, e.g., "Joe Blow, the webmaster of biblicalvalues.blogspot.com, disputes Kaku's theory, noting that quantum gravitational fields are nowhere mentioned in the Old Testament," etc. Dragula 16:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

The way we normally do this is that we don't mention their qualifications, rather than go on a long diatribe about how unqualified they are. There's no reason to believe that Johnson's opinion is an expert one. If Johnson were an expert, we'd say something like "Johnson, who participated in the official investigation, nonetheless disputes the report." That's normally how we distinguish between expert opinions and laypersons. Pointing out his lack of qualifications on the other hand constitues original research. Bibigon 17:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Suppose, for example, that I claim on my blog that the Earth is square in shape. By the criterion you've described here, it would thus be perfectly acceptable for me to append my opinion to Wiki astronomy articles, but it would not be acceptable for other Wikipedians to note that I am not an astronomer - the fact that I have a blogspot account automatically places my claims on equal footing with those of professionals in the field.

Is that correct, or am I misreading you? Dragula 19:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

You are misreading me. Your blog does not meet the Wikipedia standards of notability. Charles Johnson's blog does. Furthermore, "blogger Charles Johnson" is not on equal footing with professionals in the field. Without credentials, people will take his opinions at face value -- the value of the opinions of a blogger without credentials. I think the vast majority of critics are unqualified to be criticizing just about anything, but that doesn't mean I can go around appending statements as to why they're unqualified before their names. That would be original research. There's simply no reason to believe a reader would assume that Charles Johnson is some sort of expert. We identify him in the article as a blogger, and that's about it. Actual experts are identified as being professors, or as being affiliated with reputable organizations, or whatever. That's how we distinguish between the Charles Johnson's of the world and the IDF or Human Rights Watch, or whomever. Bibigon 19:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I forgot to mention that my blog is very popular. That makes it notable and thus places my strongly held opinion about the shape of the earth on equal footing with the findings of Stephen Hawkings. In fact, I blog on a daily basis about any number of different topics - for example I also have theories about the origins of the Finnish language. The fact that I possess a MySpace account means that I am just as qualified as any of the so-called "experts" in the field and when my amateur opinion is rendered it must be respected by Wikipedians, not subjected willy-nilly to diatribes about my lack of qualifications. Dragula
If your blog is in fact very popular and notable within the field of astronomy, then yes, your opinions would be added. They wouldn't be given any credence because you have no apparent qualifications, but if you are as notable as you imply, then it should be mentioned. You wouldn't be given equal footing with Stephen Hawking unfortunately, because he is an expert in the field, and would be identified as such. You would be identified as a blogger, and nothing else. Bibigon 20:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Look, we are talking about the Rachel Corrie case, right? Corrie's status as an "idiotarian" and a "human pancake," etc., are indeed well-established themes on LGF. I agree that part should stay. But whether or not Corrie commited suicide by bulldozer (which is what the entry for the page now strongly suggests) strike me as a claim that should be either moved to the Rachel Corrie and hashed out there.or else we should expand this entry threefold, and make room for the eyewitness testimony, Israeli govt. report, etc. Dragula 22:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
No, we're talking about Charles Johnson. The specifics of the Rachel Corrie death are irrelevant here. We give a quick synopsis of Johnson's position, because the page is about his blog, and what he's written there. Bibigon 22:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Bigibon, As I understand it, your stance is that Charles Johnson is a "notable" blogger, thus his claim that a peace activist committed suicide by bulldozer in order to facilitate the flow of drugs and prostitutes into Gaza should be presented without caveat or qualification. On the other hand, Johnson is also just a "blogger", so the assumption any normal person would make - that his extraordinary claims must be based on his own background as a forensic pathologist or military tactician of some sort - can, and must, remain implicit, for to point out that he is neither of these things would consititute "original research." I appreciate the effort you've put into trying to explain why this should be so, but I remain fairly confused on this issue and so plan to mark this article POV. Hopefully a more experienced editor can clear this up for us - thanks! 18:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Sure. Go right ahead. Bibigon 19:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Blogs are not considered to be reliable sources, and are generally not used, except in articles about the blog itself, or the blog's author. The only exceptions could be when the blogger is a famous individual or noted expert in a field. In the case of this article, since it is about the blog, the article should describe the blogger's views on various subjects, including Corrie; however, as Johnson is not a noted expert on Corrie, and since his opinions have not been published in a reliable source, they do not belong in the Corrie article. On the other hand, Wikipedia editors cannot take it upon themselves to attempt to refute the views of the blogger, as described in the article about him (or the blog), as this is a clear violation of Wikipedia's no original research policy, which states that "original research" is something that introduces an argument, without citing a reputable source for that argument, that purports to refute or support another idea, theory, argument, or position; or introduces an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source. If you can find a reliable source which argues against Johnson's views regarding Corrie, then you should add them; however, your own personal arguments can never enter the article. Jayjg (talk) 19:54, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The IDF claims that Corrie was run over by accident while she was "standing" in front of a bulldozer which was digging up explosives; the ISM claims that Corrie was run over deliberately while she was "standing" trying to protect a house. Neither mention Corrie "jumping" in the bulldozer's path; neither mention prostitutes and drugs being smuggled in tunnels. So if everyone agrees that the IDF and ISM reports and eyewitnesses constitute reputable sources, and that it is legitimate to juxtaposition information from reputable sources with the partisan opinions of amateur political pundits then I will do so. I'm going to triple-check and seek an explicit confirmation in this instance, however, as my mind has grown weary from this rather intense and unanticipated back & forth: If the primary purpose of these Wiki entries is to broadcast the partisan opinions of amateur political pundits then to introduce reputable sources would not be appropriate. So please do confirm that introducing info from reputable sources is the best way to handle this.Dragula 20:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Again, you cannot use your own arguments to try to refute arguments that you don't like, regardless of the sources you use to build your argument; this is forbidden by the original research policy. If you have a reliable source that says "Johnson is completely wrong because...", then you can quote it, but you cannot make up your own refutations. The policy is very clear on this. Jayjg (talk) 21:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, if I am reading you correctly, then political opinion which has been introduced to Wikipedia entries needs to stand on its own without any sort of context, unless there is a specific rebuttal from a reliable source. For example, British historian David Irving asserts that the holocaust was a hoax. He has been specifically rebutted by other historians who dispute this. But if a hypothetical blogger named Jow X also claims that the holocaust did not occur but has not been specifically rebutted by name then his view should simply be presented as a truth claim by a "notable" blogger - no other context for the claim needs to be provided, and the reader may infer whatever degree of expertise or authority they wish. Is that correct? Dragula 21:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

That's a rather prejudicial analogy, but no matter. If the blogger was notable enough to have his own article, then his claims or statements could certainly be placed in the article about him, and if no-one notable had responded to his claims, then there would be no "refutation". Again, one couldn't use these claims in the article on The Holocaust, but one could certainly put them in the article about the blogger. Here's an example, if it helps; the David Icke article states that In 1999, he published The Biggest Secret, in which he wrote that the secret world government consists of a race of reptilian humanoids known as the Babylonian Brotherhood, and that many prominent figures are, in fact, reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie. There is no refutation in the article that insists that George Bush, Queen Elizabeth, et al are actually mammalian human beings, not reptilian humanoids, since no reliable sources have actually made that refutation. Jayjg (talk) 22:48, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi JayG, that is actually a very helpful analogy - thank you. On a related note, the "themes" section of this article probably does, in itself, comprise a context for assertions made both by Johnson and the LGF commenters and could probably be expanded to provide a more well-rounded overview of these. I'll work on that later when I have more energy! Thanks again. Dragula 01:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Bibigon's reverts getting out of hand

Bibigon continues to revert this article to slant it in his direction. His user history page details a laundry list of other offenses, basically taking any article involving Palestine, Israel or Islam and shaping it to fit his views. This typically involves removing clearly referenced information that goes against his opinions. He has been repatedly suspended for such transactions. Please see his talk page: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Bibigon

Any specific edits which you disagree with? Ideally having to do with Little Green Footballs, since it is the Little Green Footballs talk page after all. Bibigon 00:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Mainstream Sources

The Jerusalem Post is a mainstream source, as is the Washgington Post. The intro clearly describes the site's topical focus (commentary on Israeli and American politics) and acknowledges the attention the site has received, and influence it has had, in this endeavor.

While the Washington Post could be considered a "mainstream" source, the Jerusalem Post certainly is not, at least according to Wikipedia.216.254.64.246 02:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Please elaborate on how "Wikipedia" rejects the Jerusalem Post as a mainstream source. Nothing in the paper's article suggests it is not--to the contrary, being owned by one of Canada's largest media concerns it suggests that it is. 24.72.6.129 20:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

FBI not investigating

User 132.241.246.111 (talk · contribs) keeps adding the following

==FBI investigation?==
As of August 2006 members of LGF are reportedly being investigated by the FBI.[11]

Note that the link is to a blog post, which is not acceptable as a source. (The post does link to a WaPo article, but the only mention of the FBI is in quotes from a CAIR spokesman.)

Charles has categorically stated that there is no investigation: see WaPo Covers Reuters Scandal, Quotes CAIR and Lefty Blog Gets Its Smear From CAIR.

It seems to me that we should not mention this storm in a teacup unless/until a WP:RS reports something a lot more substantial than an unverified statement from one of LGF's opponents. So I've been removing it. What do other editors think?

BTW, the anon's last edit summary was "sorry but I can't find any newsmax coverage of this"!

Cheers, CWC(talk) 21:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree, the source is not in accordance with WP:RS. The editor also has a recent history of adding the same type of partisan POV to other articles. I actually found this edit while following his contribution history. Glad someone else caught it and reverted.Crockspot 18:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


Biography standards and negative information

Any Wikipedia article which contains information about a living person MUST comply with Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons. In short, this means that any negative information on a person (such as accusing Charles Johnson of bias) MUST provide a reliable source. Blogs are not considered reliable sources for negative information. If negative information is entered in this article without a reliable source it will be removed. --Alabamaboy 19:07, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

All entries that are unsourced should be deleted immediately as per WP:BLP. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, that is not correct. WP:BLP states "Unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about living persons should be removed immediately from both the article and the talk page." WP:BLP does not permit the removal of all unsourced material, only negative material. Best, --Alabamaboy 13:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Sure. But or our WP:V and WP:RS calls for sourcing all materials in articles.≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 13:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Definately. All material should be sourced. But as it says in those guidelines, "Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed." As a result, we have to first challenge unsourced material and give editors an opportunity to add a source. If no source is added, then we can remove the material. With negative bio material, it can simply be stripped from the article. --Alabamaboy 14:26, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

66 edits in only 44 hours !!!!

That's one edit every 40 minutes since the LGF webmaster posted his linked article about "Wikipedia's Fatal Flaw" on Wednesday afternoon - WAY TO GO TEAM!!!!

Dragula 21:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

...is too big. Wikipedia is not a web directory. See WP:NOT. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 21:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. CWC(talk) 10:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Recurring Themes / Netiquette & Redirects

Anyone else think that both of these sections should be deleted? They don't seem relevant.

Dragula 23:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I think they're both relevant, but both have problems other than the missing citations:
  1. I think the section on Rachel Corrie should be shortened, and made into a single paragraph.
  2. "Netiquette & Redirects" is probably not the best title (how about "Feuds with rival sites"?), but the content of the section is well-written and tells readers something important about LGF.
  3. The "'Palestinian Child Abuse'" section is very good (except for the missing cites, of course) and supplies some important basic info about LGF.
What do other editors think? Cheers, CWC(talk) 01:45, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
"'Recurring Themes and Squabbles'" perhaps. There are others. My memory, which can be very faulty, is that Religion of Peace is more a phrase that some of the commenters use, than one frequently used by Charles. The internet has a short memory. I remember seeing photos of Ms. Corrie standing in what I would consider a very dangerous place relative to the bulldozer (I didn't see how the driver could have seen her at all), but I can't find them now. --htom 18:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Kathryn Cramer and Nathan Newman

I've just deleted the following para from the section now titled "Investigation of Alleged Threats from LGF readers":

In an unrelated 2004 incident, LGF readers were also alleged to have issued death threats against bloggers Kathryn Cramer and Nathan Newman. [12]

BTW, the link to www.kathryncramer.com in the Crooked Timber post is broken.

Some background about Cramer: She alleged that murdered and dismembered contractor Michael Teague was a neo-Nazi. Only he wasn't; she had the wrong Michael Teague. Cramer (and Crooked Timber) have carefully covered up this rather despicable slur. (I couldn't find any apology on her website.) For more info, see [13], [14], [15], [16].

Very interesting information, and that certainly puts the death threats to Kramer's child in context - thank you. I hope Kramer will think twice before posting about Michael Teague in the future!

Dragula 22:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

On Newman, see [17] and [18]. Note that there's no mention of death threats.

Were alleged death threats against Cramer were mentioned in a newspaper or the like? Blogs don't meet the requirements of WP:RS; the dishonesty of Cramer and Crooked Timber shows why.

Cheers, CWC(talk) 19:21, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I just followed the Crooked Timber link and it appears to work fine; Nathan Newman link mentions "obscenities" but no death threats. On the page
http://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2004/04/ready_to_call_y.html
however, Cramer notes:
"This one was posted to my 17-month-old daughter's site. Real subtle, putting the death threat in the email address. What do you think, Charles?
From die@filthybich.com Thu Apr 8 15:06:34 2004
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 01:48:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: die@filthybich.com
To: kec@panix.com
Subject: [Elizabeth] New Comment Posted to 'Pretty Teeth'"
That said, I agree that the entry was inaccurate and will revise it to note that LGF readers are alleged to have issued death threats against Kramer and/or her child, but not Newman.
Cheers, etc.
Dragula 21:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Dragula. You sure are doing an amazing amount of editing on this article! But please don't put anything about Ms Cramer in unless you have a newspaper link or similar. A link to Ms Cramer's blog is not enough. Remember: Wikipedia doesn't try to tell the truth: it reports verifiable information, and Ms Cramer's blog does not qualify as a "Reliable Source" for her claim. Cheers, CWC(talk) 22:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Chris, OK, I understand. Since the Hooper incident is the only one that actually has a verifiable source (the WaPo) I will delete the other two. 01:53, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

FOLLOWUP: It turns out one verifiable source did discuss the Reuters death threat - the Israeli website YNet news, headline here, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3256534,00.html.

I will leave someone else to puzzle out the best way to cite this piece without causing offense.

Dragula 19:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

In regards to a recent post

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22658_Honor_Killing_in_Birmingham&only The article title suggests that a 6 year old girl was murdered. It is not stated until the end that the intended targets was her older brother who had a relationship with the sister of one of the assailants. Yet the posters comments are: "Six Year Old Girl Burned To Death For Muslim ‘Honor’". Which is not an accurate summary of this incident, to say the least. In the past their have been honor killings, this story is not the same, but has been spun that way. This is, in my opinion, consistent with LGF smears against the religion. Should a note be made of this in this article, with my example being cited to back up the claim? Or if it's not enough I'm sure I can find a lot of other examples if I look through the site, nearly every post seems to have similar intentions. -User:pallfy 21 Sep 2006 (UTC)

That LGF post is basically quoting a post from "Western Resistance", another blog. "UK: Six Year Old Girl Burned To Death For Muslim ‘Honor’". The Daily Telegraph reports[19] that a six-year-old girl, Alisha Begum, died of burns caused by an arson attack, and that the prosecutor said the arson was an "honor attack". So the title accurately reflects the prosecution case. ("Six year old girl target of honor killing" would be wrong, but neither Western Resistance nor LGF said that.) So, no, this does not merit mention in the article, IMO. CWC(talk) 14:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
They're very deviouse with their slander. What has happend to this article, it reads like a pamphlet for the website, and the criticism is so tamed. They can talk as much bullshit on their website as they want, but it can't spill over to wikipedia. I have to learn how to use wikipedia so I can start moderating effectively, this is ridiculous. -User:pallfy 21 Sep 2006 (UTC)
"They're very deviouse with their slander."[sic] Indeed, Charles is so devious that he uses almost exactly the same words as as the prosecutor. Look at the headline in the Telegraph: "Men 'murdered six-year-old girl in honour killing arson attack'."[20] In British law, anyone who is killed as a consequence of a felony crime -- of which arson is an example -- is considered to have been murdered, even if their death was not intended. They could be found not guilty, too. And if they did not start the fire, they probably should be. --htom 22:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes technically you are correct on this example, but be real for just a second, they dont give a damn about that muslim girl. Every article posted on that site serves the purpose of the website, to smear the image of the enemy to justify their governments mistakes in the middle east. I don't give them the benefit of the doubt on anything, I know them too well. -User:pallfy 22 Sep 2006 (UTC)
I know of no requirement that LGF (or any other controversial site) maintain a NPOV. Being real, that you think they don't "give a damn about that muslim girl" says more about you than it does about them. --htom 14:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Says more about me? why don't you come out and say what you mean. Disagreeing with me is one thing but dont be vague, say what you mean so I can respond to it. Your post tells me that your full of shit. -User:pallfy 24 Sep 2006 (UTC)
Your claims of mindreading (knowing other's meanings and motives) strike me as psychological projection. --htom 13:56, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the nice read, but I don't see how it applies to me. Are you insisting that I hate muslims and am claiming LGF'ers do because I dislike them for other issues? I still beleive you are full of shit and now I am convinced you are complicit with LGF's hatefilled intentions in your defence of their blog, but please if I've got you all wrong, lets continue this on my talk page, I've already left a message there for you. -User:pallfy 26 Sep 2006 (UTC)

NPOV tag removed

User 68.43.135.155 (talk · contribs) recently removed the Template:npov tag from this article. Is "the neutrality of this article" now beyond dispute? If a sufficient number of contributors dispute the article's neutrality, we probably should put the tag back. Comments, please? Thanks, CWC(talk) 06:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

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