Talk:Islamic State

Corporate media

Someone inserted a lot of words in the header relaying government blabla preceded by his/her interpretation of the following quote. If no serious arguments are brought foreward, I'll send this to a subpage or to nirwana. It is easy to disrupt the inner workings of WS and I we should be very clear what we consider helpful. Copy and paste actions from {ccm} sources or WP is not helpful. Especially if personal interpretations are mixed in or so many words nebulize the focus.

There is a general lack of awareness that practically no relyable sources are available regarding IS and probably it will take a long time until such sources surface - if at all. With its civilian targets and focus on media outlets it looks very much like an Al Quaeda/Gladio B operation to me, a very useful enemy with limited/controlled power and with a [strategy of tension] in mind. The pattern of a strategy of tension is ongoing and observable since 1950.

To focus on rage, guilt, shame, anxiety and other games politicians and {ccm} like to play doesn't help clarity. I suggest we take action when we read the first word we consider too vague or nebulous without hesitation or waiting any futher. This means communicating with the editor - not consorship. --Urban (talk)

I agree with that 100%. Extended c&p from Wikipedia or any other commercially-controlled media source is NOT helpful to the WS project. Nuggets of important suppressed info and legitimate suspicions are what's needed which, if present at all, become submerged in a sea of hot air that nobody will read. Quality not quantity is what is required. That will usually mean pointing out the obfuscations, ommissions biases and downright falsehoods of the dominant narratives adopted by the commercially-controlled media. The ISIS page is a case in point and there are others which I have personally slated for wholesale pruning of irrelevant fluff and the addition of brief hitherto ommitted information - eg Kogalymavia Flight 9268 - finding the time to do it is my problem. Policy and guidline could perhaps be improved - especially as regards wholesale C&P + Wikipedia import - but fixing pages where they are effectively ignored is a time consuming and awkward task. Likewise, getting editors to both read and abide by them is not easy without alienating otherwise good people. Obtaining guidline compliance can be a delicate matter where otherwise knowledgeable contributors are concerned. On the basis of your past contributions, which are first class in all repects, please feel free to have a go on any pages you think warrant it. --Peter P (talk) 07:53, 30 November 2015 (GMT)

Urban has complained that "someone" did something unhelpful to WS by inserting "a lot of words in the header". On 22 November 2015, I made this revision to the lede: Security Council ‘Unequivocally’ Condemns ISIL Terrorist Attacks, Unanimously Adopting Text that Determines Extremist Group Poses ‘Unprecedented’ Threat, quoting three sentences from a referenced United Nations press release. Is the UN a commercially-controlled media source?--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 11:53, 30 November 2015 (GMT)

ANY institution is a potential commercially-controlled media source. The UN has enormous global power. As such its reports and the statements of its officials warrant careful attention; but they should be treated with the same skeptical scrutiny as any other powerful institution. The UN is - de-facto - at the pinnacle of emerging global governance. From a WS perspective, that means that its pronouncements should NOT be treated as akin to Holy Writ, very far from it in fact. For example and IMHO, its IPCC-inspired pronouncements on Climate are so self-evidently absurd, and the real agenda so in-your-face obvious to anyone capable of critical-thinking outside the herd-matix, as to demonstrate the point forcefully. All that said, Urban's criticism is valid and I would simply ask you to consider the matter dispassionately, that's all. --Peter P (talk) 13:39, 30 November 2015 (GMT)

Fair enough, I've now cut out the middleman (UN Press Office), gone straight for the text of UNSCR 2249 and joined the argument over whether the UN has in fact authorised military action against ISIL in Syria.--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2015 (GMT)

What is the relation of bodies like the UN or Sweden's Foreign Minister to deep politics in your opinion, Patrick? --Urban (talk)

The issues raised in relation to the UNSC resolution and by Sweden's FM - legality of British airstrikes in Syria and radicalisation of Islamic youth - are addressed insufficiently, in my view, in the Official Narrative.--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 18:24, 30 November 2015 (GMT)

Thanks for going into this with me, Patrick. Let's stick to radicalisation first. Do you see that furthering conflict by radicalisation might be part of the underlying strategy? And by relaying these statements you focus on the artificially created conflict rather than the underlying causes? I see that this is important to you and recognize the amount of time and energy you invest here. --Urban (talk)

Taking account of your comments Urban and those of Peter P, I've now revised the lede, formatted the article and relegated Margot Wallström's remarks about radicalisation. Should I remove the {cleanup} notice?--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 17:28, 1 December 2015 (GMT)

{cleanup} notice removed.--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 20:12, 1 December 2015 (GMT)

The role of the "Official narrative" on Wikispooks pages

I am much more concerned about the broader context, than a particular edit. I see I did not make myself clear: I did not ask you to undo any of your work. I did ask you if you see that furthering conflict might be part of an underlying strategy? Also, I do not share your view that the ON should be complemented here at WS. I am refering to the verbatim quote, that certain aspects "are addressed insufficiently, in my view, in the Official Narrative." I mean: insufficiently addressed, of course, is the underlying spin. But that's by definition not an aspect of the ON. I am much more interested in a completely new, original, alternative view, a counter-narrative if you like. I encourage you to tell what you acquire personally in this respect.

Folks, please leave my answers as they are including typos and number of preceding colons. Ask me instead to correct my posts if they are hard to understand (I am a non-native speaker). --Urban (talk) 04:24, 2 December 2015 (GMT)

I very commonly add an "{ON}" section - especially to event pages - since it is so common that the establishment says one thing, and if someone who doesn't know this, the rest of the article is fairly superfluous. For this reason, it is often the very first section. ON sections should not be very long, since people have ample opportunity to learn that information elsewhere. They should not be allowed to set the agenda or tone of the article, and that is another reason to have them short. Today I did something very unusual in that the ON section of CONTEST/Prevent‎ was so long, but potentially valuable, that I shifted it to a standalone article CONTEST/Prevent/Official narrative‎. This is always an option (and an exception to the principle I just suggested above - that articles should not be centred on ONs). One distinction which might be worth making is that ONs extend from basic facts which may or may not be contentious through to meanings and interpretations which are usually highly contentious (or we wouldn't be here writing about them). Currently, most WS articles address these two different beasts in the same short section "ON" without so much as a subsection or even a paragraph to separate them. For some official narratives, this is a weakness, albeit not a high priority one to fix - because WS is about deep politics, not ONs. -- Robin (talk) 09:50, 2 December 2015 (GMT)

Section headings

I take Urban's point about the importance of preserving a verbatim record for talk pages, but I've just taken the liberty of adding a section heading, the better to illustrate that (I hope) they can successfully help clarify talk pages as well as ordinary pages. -- Robin (talk) 09:50, 2 December 2015 (GMT)