Talk:Journal of Indo-European Studies
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October 13, 2006. This article contains some rather obvious weasel words and certainly does not entertain an opposing point of view. While Roger Pearson's past does have its controversy, the original author(s) of this article do not mention all the highly qualified, scholarly editors who currently work for the journal (i.e. David Anthony (Oneonta, Vyacheslav Ivanov (UCLA), Douglas Adams (Idaho), Peter Schrijver (Munich), Scott Littleton (Occidental), Nicolas Allen, Andrew Sherratt (Oxford)). These individuals do not have (at least that I know of) a checkered past/involvement w/ rascist ideology. These editors all share different views/interpretations on the linguistic, cultural and archaeological aspects of the Eurasian continent during antiquity. The article also plays down just who JP Mallory is and how he has been a major voice of reason w/in the Indo-European debate. As a matter of fact in his In Search of the Indo-Europeans book he expresses his dismay of how racism entered the Indo-European debate and how such ideas should not be taken seriously.
Furthermore, the Journal of Indo-European studies has been a valuable source of reference for many scholars in multiple fields (i.e. language, history, archaeology, human geography etc.) and has served as a forum showcasing fair scientific studies concerning all sides of the debate. Finally there is no direct citation/quote for how the "...journal has been criticized for alleged connections with right-wing circles" but rather only quotes/citations that discuss Pearson's past. This looks more like a verbal maneuver to make the journal appear blantantly racist. Clearly this article as it stands does not present a very neutral point of view or comes anywhere close. I feel that the middle paragraph should be removed as the original author(s) appear to have a major bias against the journal. For whatever reason is unclear though it may be due to a lack of investigating the actual content featured in the journal and instead relying on only a few secondary sources for his/her/their info.
October 17, 2006. Ok the page looks much better than before though I feel that the article now somewhat resembles a public forum debate than an actual encyclopedic entry. Really all things concerned with Roger Pearson (this would include all right-wing oriented banter) should be under his article and not here at all. Only actual content of the journal itself and not its alleged history should be discussed. Again I feel that peoples' misconceptions regarding the journal are due more towards a lack of actually going out and reading any of the articles that were written for it. Instead, it seems that some of the views expressed towards the journal stem from a severe case of tunnel vision as a result of only focusing on Pearson's past. The whole case of the journal being allegedly racist thus only stems from a few secondary sources which should render such arguments as weak and thus not even worth mentioning. I've read nearly 40 of the articles of the journal from its early years all the way up to very recent times and can honestly say there is virtually no rascist/right-wing/whatever ideology being expressed. I'd like to see Wikipedia be a more formidable source of information than it is now and feel that knowledge of something from just a few secondary sources just shouldn't cut it yet lo and behold here it does.
