Talk:Harry's Place

academics critical of Israel such as Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, and Shlomo Sand

LMAO. They are not 'academics'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.253.184 (talk) 14:47, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Recent edits

Could someone with more knowledge take a look at the recent edits by an IP editor diff. They look grossly POV, but I don't know enough about the subject to know what to do. Thanks, Matty (talk) 13:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The site regularly supports the position that the LGBT community in the UK has been let down by the left, including the Labour party, in that the left promotes communalist identity politics among groups who express hatred towards LGBT people, at the expense of the civil and human liberties of LGBT people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.94.86 (talk) 13:51, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Lack of objectivity on the page

Harrys Place is a race-hate website which targets a) Muslims and b) Jews opposed to Israel. If it is to remain on wikipedia the authors should accept that many find it deeply offensive. If they cannot accept points of view that differ from their own, the wiki page should be deleted.

I am not the first to make this point and I shan't be the last. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HugoZHackenbusch (talk • contribs) 21:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Mr Hackenbush, My suggestion to you on your talk page, was to DISCUSS your edits here, not to simply post a declaration of your position, and resume editing. A discussion consists of multiple people, each making thier own point of view clear, not a single statement by one person pushing his own agenda. Wuhwuzdat (talk) 21:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Mr Wuhwurzdat: I added to the article. What is the point in discussing my changes if they are just going to be deleted? I left 90% of the original content. I must insist: you are allowing the authors to promote a race-hate website that is deeply offensive towards muslims and is vindictive towards Jews who do not support Israel.

If you wish I can supply examples of the race-hate commentary from Harrys Place, but maybe you should check it out for yourself.

There may be a case here to send a complaint to the Race Relations Board. I believe in free speech, but not in shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. These people are deliberately trying to damage community relations in the United Kingdom. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HugoZHackenbusch (talk • contribs) 21:31, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly recommend reading WP:NPOV, Wikipedia's policy towards maintaining a NEUTRAL Point Of View. Wuhwuzdat (talk) 21:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The changes you made are deliberately trying to pass a negative light on the articles subject, and you may have a certain conflict of interest with the articles subject. Here at Wikipedia, one of our core policies is to have a neutral point of view. We deliver the information that is relevant and let the reader make up their own mind instead of telling them what to think. Your changes are being reverted because they are controversial and yet you haven't explained or substantiated them here. If you are willing to put up why you believe your changes should be made, and are willing to substantiate them, then we may be able to rework them as a community, come to a consensus, and make them. Engaging in an edit war with the people who are reverting you will just end up in you being banned for a short time or the article being locked from editing until a consensus can be made. Please keep this in mind as I do not want to see anyone blocked. Matty (talk) 04:20, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me, but taking up this article with a Race Relations Board??? I don't know what kind of authority you consider British censors to have over Wikipedia content, but I assure you the policy here is "Wikipedia is not censored". Peter G Werner (talk) 21:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

More to the point, the Race Relations Board ceased to exist in 1976. I wish Mr Hackenbush luck in reporting his baseless complaints to a non-existent entity.

Mr Wuhwurzdat, OK I am going to try to post changes one at a time. If you object to them, you will need to explain why.

We'll start with "pro-liberation left". This is meaningless. It is a category that does not exist, and the article it links to has a different title, namely "Pro-War Left". So how can you possibly object to this change? —Preceding unsigned comment added by HugoZHackenbusch (talk • contribs) 17:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Mr Wuhwurzdat, I will now add the following refernce to the articles attacking antizionist Jews. I am perfectly prepared to back this up with citations from individual articles on the weblog:

The blog frequently attacks anti-Zionist Jews (or rather, people of Jewish descent) such as Gilad Atzmon, Keith Burstein and Alexei Sayle and in particular Jewish academics who criticize Israel such as Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky and Schlomo Sand. In May 2009 it celebrated the financial ruin of the British composer, Keith Burstein. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HugoZHackenbusch (talk • contribs) 17:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Mr Wuhwurzdat. OK have added the above, with a whole bunch of citations. Thanks in advance for treating this update and my patience with respect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HugoZHackenbusch (talk • contribs) 17:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the problem is more that if you point out on HP too insistently that 'Islamophobia' is a nonsense concept, and in particular that the so-called 'persecution' of Moslems in the UK is not really on a par with that of Jews in 1930s Germany, you fall out of favour big-time with the owners. And if you criticise Obama, you can end up expelled. Oddly enough, there are some antisemitic posters who don't seem to get expelled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.94.86 (talk) 13:45, 6 September 2011 (UTC) HP staff are regularly abusive to posters they disagree with, especially Alan A. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.94.86 (talk) 11:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Latest bunch of edits...

Right, just a quick explanation on my latest reverts as I have no doubt this "new" poster will kick up a fuss again:

• the 2-million figure is 1) off-topic and 2) the figure given by the organisers, the StWC. As everyone knows, protest figures given by organisers or the police are to be taken with a massive pinch of salt. There is no reliable figure.
• on Israel/Palestine, the bit about opposing return of refugees was unsourced and used highly emotional language ("ancestral lands" etc...). Please source any such opinion and use neutral language. While I was at it I removed an equally faulty bit which I'm guessing is a remain from an earlier edit war.
• Copy-pasting criticism from grudge blogs such as Islamophobia Watch is not acceptable. Especially when their criticism is actually based on comments left on a post rather than the content of posts themselves, as was the case in the bit I removed. Frankly the whole section could go but I'm leaving some of it in given that the subject of the page is a blog in the first place.
• the Keith Burstein bit is minor trivia which has been added in purely in order to spin it. HP did not "celebrate" his ruin, it merely argued that he brought it on himself.
• Clearly Harry's Place defends Israel vehemently. Saying that it attacks "anti-Zionist Jews" specifically is pure spin. You could equally select other examples to say that it attacks anti-Zionist Americans, anti-Zionist Brits, anti-Zionist Iranians, anti-Zionist Venezuelans etc.... Mezigue (talk) 19:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this is in keeping with attacks on this page, which generally seem to come from people with very strong anti-"Islamophobia" sentiments, and unfortunately, very little in the way of regard for Wikipedia policy. SQuentinQuale seems to be no exception, injecting the article with blatantly biased language and engaging in edit warring when such edits aren't accepted. And adding inflammatory language like "Maybe he should go back to bulldozing Palestinian villages" to edit summaries. I've been away from this article for a awhile, but will try and keep an eye on it from here on out. If SQuentinQuale violates 3RR, I will definitely report this to the admins. Peter G Werner (talk) 21:12, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Disputed edit

and is a defender of Israel's right to exist within safe and secure boundaries at the expense of the Palestinians, and denies the Palestinians' right of return to their ancestral land.

This was the edit SQuentinQuale was insisting on. The statement is balanced, but nevertheless contains biased language about "denies the Palestinians' right of return to their ancestral land". The Palestinan Right of Return being an inherently controversial topic which needs to be carefully phrased in order not to take sides. In any event, this statement needs to be properly referenced. I'm pretty sure that Harry's Place supports the right of Israel to exist within safe and secure boundaries, but where's the reference to a blog post or secondary reference. And as for the second part, has Harry's Place ever taken a stance on Palestinian Right of Return? They may have, but its not self-evident and hence definitely needs to be cited from a verifiable source. Peter G Werner (talk) 21:56, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Dropped content during the last round of edit wars

OK, I'm looking at all the non-trivial changes that have been made to the article since the last pre-edit warring version, that of 13:10, 7 May 2009 by Mlevitt1. Here are few sections I see have been dropped and I'd like to discuss whether any of this content should go back in. (I have updated all links found in the citations – links are all now active and viewable.):

I

It is a prominent voice of what it calls "the pro-liberation left" (a group more disparagingly referred to as "liberal hawks").

II

Harry's Place has a love-hate relationship with The Guardian newspaper. Harry has noted that he is still a Guardian reader [...] Harry's Place was a frequent subject of satire in The Guardian's satirical "Norman Johnson" column. In April 2006, Harry's Place mirrored its site under the domain name Grauniad.org, an old nickname for The Guardian due to its reputation for frequent typos and misspellings.

III

Harry was active in British anti-fascist and Marxist politics in the mid-to-late 1980s, and in this period was also a member of the Straight Left faction of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The pseudonym "Harry Steel" had earlier been used by a different writer, Fergus Nicholson, and Harry changed this to "Harry Steele". It is claimed that he took the pseudonym "Harry Steele" as a tribute to Harry Pollitt, former General Secretary of the CPGB, and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (though Harry claims it was a "piss-take" and "not a homage to anyone"). Under this name he contributed to a number of far-left message boards and mailing lists, including "UK Left Network" and "The Politburo", a discussion board for British Communists, the latter of which he set up. In this period he became well-known among fellow contributors for his support for "orthodox" Soviet Communism and his attacks on Trotskyists, in particular the Socialist Workers Party.

References

I'll take these on one at a time.

I is unreferenced and hence needs some kind of citation to be valid content. However, some kind of overall summary of the site's political leanings really needs to be included in the introductory paragraph. When I wrote this, I included the terms "pro-liberation left" and "liberal hawks" for balance, and also because they link to two different articles (which probably should be merged). If this isn't a good descriptor, then another one that is should be put in.

II: I'm not sure why the stuff about the attitude about HP toward The Guardian was dropped, but it's referenced and I'm inclined to put it back in.

III: Background material on Harry. I think this is really useful interesting information, but I also realize that the source for this information is an open discussion forum, hence, probably not meeting the criteria of WP:VERIFY. Still, I'm inclined to include this material insofar as any of it can be properly verified.

Thoughts? Peter G Werner (talk) 05:04, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

• I am responsible for dropping some of this and some of it was removed by the recent problem poster in a sort of tit-for-tat logic. It is difficult to decide exactly what to put in an article about a blog as there can never be a single source and you have to make a synthetic judgement. My approach (but I am not gung-ho about this) is that the shorter the article is, the better. There are two reasons for this: one, Harry's Place is after all only a blog rather than a newspaper etc... and not that important in the big scheme of things, and two, it shortens the scope for edit wars. Articles about journalists generally avoid tagging them with a political leaning in the introductory sentence, and I think that's a sensible approach. Specifically, this pro-liberation, liberal hawk etc... classification is never going to be anything other than PoV (plus I notice editors have sneakily been changing the destination of links while keeping the words!) I think it is better to explain the main positions in a few nuanced sentences rather than condense it in a few words in the opening sentence. On the other hand, HP does seem to have a particularly high number of entries about the Israel/Palestine situation for a British blog and this could be mentioned.
• Regarding the relationship with the Guardian, this was not removed by me but I tend to agree with them that is seems pretty trivial, especially given that the blog has had a number of much more serious feuds with various parties. The Norman Johnson spoof column might be worth a mention, though, perhaps as a link or in a "see also" section.
• Regarding the identity of Harry, I don't have a clue! No idea who he is but forum discussions are definitely not a serious source. The problem is I can't think of an alternative one. (For the record and contrary to allegations hurled in the "changes" page at all and sundry, I am not associated with Harry's Place in any way and my main concern on this page is to stop the PoV pushing.)
• Regarding HP's position on Israel and Palestine, I have referenced the support for a two-state solution. I think the previous sentence on safe and secure borders etc... while probably accurate is a Wikipedia editor's words rather than the blog's and in any case this is pretty much encapsulated in the "two state" expression. Regarding right of return of Palestinians, I am actually not sure what their position is if they have one.
• One thing probably worth a longer mention on the article is the moderation policy of Harry's Place (very little of it) as it probably accounts for the blog's controversial image. A lot of the perception of the blog as anti-Muslim comes from the comment pages. I'll try and expand this. Mezigue (talk) 09:03, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm ... the moderation policy under Gene is quite vicious. Posters get expelled if they disagree with Gene. Posters end up in a permanent moderation gulag if they disagree with Gene or Brownie. Posters get their posts deleted if they make factual statements about the EDL or criticise the more lunatic statements about the EDL being 'Nazis' or 'worse than PCS' or 'essentially the BNP' or 'anti-Muslim racists' [sic]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.14.17.50 (talk) 19:15, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Support Harry's Place Blogburst

The two external links to "Support Harry's Place Blogburst" and "Support Harry's Place Blogburst II" at the bottom of the article go to advertising holding pages. Shouldn't they be removed? Mikey —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.58.233.129 (talk) 11:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, done. Neo Guard (talk) 21:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikilinks

AFolkSingersBeard keps adding a section stating that Harry's Place is on the Wikipedia spam blacklist, preventing any article fro linking to it. He validates this with a link to the spam blacklist. However, not only is Wikipedia itself not a reliable source, but this comnment is patently nonsense. This article alone links to dozens of Harry's Place articles. It is absurd to add a sentence blatantly contradicting the evidence abundantly provided by this article. RolandR (talk) 11:31, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the blacklist not being a reliable source (and the blacklisting itself is not encyclopedic information) but I note that there is an entry in it that seems to reference the website:

\bhurryupharry\.org\b

Prioryman (talk) 14:20, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand how the spam blacklist works, but the Linksearch tool shows 44 links to Harry's Place, from at least thirty articles and talk pages.[1]. So the edit is quite simply wrong. RolandR (talk) 09:50, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

There is an explanation on MediaWiki about why Harry's Place appears on the list.[2] Bottom line, it's nothing to do with the website itself but with the misuse of links to it by a "long term serial vandal". I would guess that someone opposed to Harry's Place has been trying to rig the blacklisting process to prevent Wikipedia from linking to it. Prioryman (talk) 19:31, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I would guess that someone opposed to Harry's Place has been trying to rig the blacklisting process to prevent Wikipedia from linking to it. Exactly. That's kind of a big deal. AFolkSingersBeard (talk) 09:30, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes it has been on the blacklist for some time and my efforts to understand why were ignored by admins, as per the page linked to above. An admin has made an exception for the URL with /index, which actually links to an entry rather than the main page. The blacklisting prevents one from adding links but does not remove the existing ones. However, afolksingersbeard, you shouldn't add this sort of internal Wikipedia matter to the article itself. The talk page is there for this sort of business. Mezigue (talk) 09:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Huh? It sounds like you're saying Wikipedia shouldn't be airing its dirty laundry in public.

When the subject of an article is blacklisted by one of the world's top internet sites, I'd say it's very notable.

The point about Wikipedia itself not being a reliable source refers to articles about subjects other than Wikipedia. As seen in the article on Wikipedia, it allows plenty of references when talking about itself.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 16:03, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Gilad Atzmon's blog

The citation is obviously to a self-published source, but attempting to remove it keeps triggering the spam filter which accuses me of adding a reference to Harry's Place itself, which is on Wikipedia's spam blacklist (see above), but Atzmon's website appears not to be! Philip Cross (talk) 20:08, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I noticed that ages ago when trying to sort out the broken link, and I kept meaning to raise a request but I've procrastinated because I really don't understand all this blacklist business. Having said that I would have thought Atzmon's blog would be a legitimate source for his own reaction to discussion of him on Harry's Place? Mezigue (talk) 13:48, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Intro Paragraph

Not too sure about the part about being nominated for, but not winning particular awards; doesn't seem too significant given the number of blogs involved, but happy to leave in. What I have removed though is an odd comment saying that some posters didn't care that they were nominated for a negative award. Seems a bit churlish, and would be true of every negative award. Marty jar (talk) 18:59, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Why is Harry's Place blocked on here?

I tried to post an edit to the article detailing the recent attack on Harry's Place, followed by a link to the blog itself. However, it told me that Harry's Place is blocked on Wikipedia. Why is this?Evildoer187 (talk) 06:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The state of the art in explaining the complex tale is here [3]. I lack the Wiki-skills to progress this, but it seems like HP should not really be blocked. Alexbrn (talk) 06:59, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Blacklisted Links Found on the Main Page

Cyberbot II has detected that page contains external links that have either been globally or locally blacklisted. Links tend to be blacklisted because they have a history of being spammed, or are highly innappropriate for Wikipedia. This, however, doesn't necessarily mean it's spam, or not a good link. If the link is a good link, you may wish to request whitelisting by going to the request page for whitelisting. If you feel the link being caught by the blacklist is a false positive, or no longer needed on the blacklist, you may request the regex be removed or altered at the blacklist request page. If the link is blacklisted globally and you feel the above applies you may request to whitelist it using the before mentioned request page, or request it's removal, or alteration, at the request page on meta. When requesting whitelisting, be sure to supply the link to be whitelisted and wrap the link in nowiki tags. The whitelisting process can take its time so once a request has been filled out, you may set the invisible parameter on the tag to true. Please be aware that the bot will replace removed tags, and will remove misplaced tags regularly.

Below is a list of links that were found on the main page:

• http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/08/27/going-nowhere

  Triggered by \bhurryupharry\.org\b on the local blacklist

If you would like me to provide more information on the talk page, contact User:Cyberpower678 and ask him to program me with more info.

From your friendly hard working bot.—cyberbot II ^Notify_Online 18:02, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

 Resolved This issue has been resolved, and I have therefore removed the tag, if not already done. No further action is necessary.—^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 00:07, 4 July 2015 (UTC)== Why is Nick Cohen's opinion so important. ==

This sentence appears: "Nick Cohen has argued that Harry's Place was one of only few places where it was being noted that "a section of the left is allied with religious fanaticism and, for the first time since the Hitler-Stalin pact, […] has gone soft on fascism".[6]"

Maybe Alexander Turpodin has a completely contrary opinion, but his opinion doesn't appear here. I don't know who Nick Cohen is, or care very much. Quoting him, without a contrary viewpoint, gives a specious objectivism to this section, whereas it is really a not-so-cunning attempt to smuggle in POV under the radar. The statement incidentally is demonstrably false, which makes the use of this quote particularly egregious.

I'd never heard of Harry's Place and came here to get some objective information. Instead, I find what comes across as zealously one-sided marketing collateral. The article is so bad that I think it should remain in its current, obviously biassed state, until someone can produce a proper article, to ensure that neutral readers are able to quickly smell what is going on. I'd be ashamed to have written this sort of junk. Mrwhoohoo (talk) 18:14, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing encyclopaedic about this entry at all

This entry reads like a childish and hurried 'notes' blog rather than anything to do with objective knowledge. The trite references to low-level weblog awards at the beginning are, for example, just embarrassing.The 'Politics' entry offers random claims which are not even sourced...etc, etc.... The raison d'être of Harry's Place appears to be for a small group of anonymous contributors to attack identified victims, while not giving those victims a right of reply. Sad that these people should be allowed to use Wikipedia to promote what they do in such a low-grade manner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.101.241.139 (talk) 17:09, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

This entry is being manipulated by Harry's Place apologists

Harry's Place apologists refuse to publicise the absolute fact that the blog is written by anonymous contributors, who do everything possible not to identify themselves. The blog's address is a PO Box in Washington DC, not Britain. All of this is designed to keep the blog under the radar when its victims consider legal action, including defending themselves against defamation. This is what Harry's Place does - anyone can tell this by reading it. If the apologists continue to remove the truth from this entry, then all of their unsourced material should be removed.

It is very noticeable that none of the apologists both with Talk pages - they just vandalise and manipulate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.101.241.139 (talk) 10:07, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Accusing people of vandalism is a personal attack unless you can back it up with facts (i.e. diffs showing actual vandalism). Moreover,since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, you are required to backup your statements with sources. Your personal opinion is irrelevant. Kleuske (talk) 12:19, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Sourced material

The person who keeps reverting to unsourced claims does so with no explanation at all. This entry needs to be SOURCED according to Wikipedia guidelines. If you can't source your claims, take them out. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for anonymous Harry's Place contributors to make unsubstantiated promotional claims for their blog. This is not the purpose of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.71.193.228 (talk) 12:59, 5 September 2016 (UTC)