According to an administrator on his talkpage, the site bans anything that violates Islamic law. I suspect the Acehnese Wikipedia isn't the only project with this rule. It would be difficult to obey it without violating NPOV at some point. Nathan

Simples, then. If a project refuses to enforce NPOV and "bans" itself, we remove it. On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 2:28 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 9:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: +1 -Chad

On 16 July 2010 14:44, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: All of this is quite true. Discuss, don't tell. However: so far it hasn't even gotten to "talking to". It's just been noting that this is a blatant violation of NPOV and is highly problematic. And ultimately, NPOV is non-negotiable if the current contributors to ace:wp want it to stay a Wikimedia project. Do you have a problem with even noting this? Do you dispute this? - d.

No, you seem to be misunderstanding. Let me make a clear that me questioning you on your beliefs and opinions in a respectful and neutral manner is not in any sense a personal attack. Also note that I specifically said I agree, we need to have conversations. I am not using any NPOV violations for "knee jerk reactions [and] refusing to converse about such issues". What I was pointing out is that to undermine the "action should be undertaken" argument, you used the example of en-wiki violating board-set policies, implying that en-wiki would somehow be exempt from any attempt to force it on the issue. That is categorically and obviously wrong. On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 4:18 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: I agree completely with Gerard, and also want to ask that we extend the same standard to this discussion on the mailing list. We can look at this issue and say "stupid fundamentalists," but that's hardly productive, and very quickly devolves into a thread with posts that are, at best, pretty darn rude. I really don't want to have to moderate five people this weekend when it finally gets to the point of outright Muslim-bashing. Austin

(not responding to anyone in particular) I agree with most of what Gerard said: we should talk with them, and be polite. What does it bring you to be right, but to scare away a community in the process? Some people might find comfort in that, I don't. Now lets try to follow this from their point of view. The English Wikipedia adheres to US law, and probably some more. People editing any Wikipedia have to adhere to the law they are in. Now apparently these people feel that they should follow Islamitic law. So far, I guess everybody can agree that they are OK to do so. The problem comes when they try to force that onto other people. But... if the majority of a project is in a certain country - would we disallow that project to align the rules to that countries law? And if the majority feels it has to follow Islamitic law, would we say they can't add in their local rules "pictures of Mohammed are not allowed"? To be honest, if that would be what the community wants, and beliefs to be the best, who are we to tell them they can't? I can imagine that if these people have such big problems with it, also the intended audience might be insulted with those images. So, there is one other problem: the template. I have seen worse statements on user pages, so I would not worry too much about the template itself, as long as it is restricted to that. I dont see a problem with discussion. However, using it on the main page does pose a problem. We should not be bothering our readers with internal conflicts of whatever nature. So hopefully we can talk to them about that specifically. Is anyone in conversation with them now? Lodewijk 2010/7/16 Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>

On 16 July 2010 17:58, Excirial <wp.excirial(a)gmail.com> wrote: No, that's completely incorrect. Wikipedias are per language, not per country, and no country owns the wiki in its language. Neutral point of view is not local point of view. - d.

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 6:53 PM, Pavlo Shevelo <pavlo.shevelo(a)gmail.com> wrote: Er, en:wp, and other languages, are outstandingly "owned" by the Western democratic cultures of the US and Europe. It's what makes us able to show pictures that those of another culture might be willing to kill someone for. I think that's fine. More than fine, I would go on a march for those rights. Had I been born into a muslim family I would probably think completely differently. I don't see how the fact of my birth in one or the other can make me any more or less "neutral". en.User:Bodnotbod

On 16 July 2010 19:14, Bod Notbod <bodnotbod(a)gmail.com> wrote: They do, however, have extensive usage from people who use them only because English is the current international auxiliary language. This has already done *wonders* to alleviate possible NPOV problems on en:wp. - d.

What definition of "neutral" are people using when they say the boycott template violates NPOV? I'm struggling with this. Where the WP servers are located, clearly it is acceptable to show pictures of Mohammed both legally and culturally. Amongst (some of, most of?) the speakers of the language wiki it is not. I'm not sure questions of "neutrality" are the best way to frame this argument. The two viewpoints are in direct contradiction to each other, so can it not be argued that we are not neutral because we are pushing our Western POV which says "sure, go ahead and show images of Mohammed"? Don't misunderstand; I am hostile to pretty much all religions and would find it mildly amusing that anyone could consider murderous activity because someone published a picture if it were not that people do actually get killed over this nonsense. My argument would be that the language wiki is supported by the WMF and that it would be absurd of the WMF to support a boycott of itself; communicate that to them as a starting point for dialogue. I need convincing that an argument from a neutrality standpoint can work. en.User:Bodnotbod

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 7:25 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: So? Is every single rule on Wikipedia completely determined by NPOV? If not, then there apparently is some leeway, some possibility of having different rules. And if that is the case, then isn't the Wikipedia thing to do to have those be decided by the local community? -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 8:14 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: So? Apparently the fact that there exists some template that is not NPOV means that we should be forcing our morals on others and not give them any leniency? And because there is a problem with neutral point of view somewhere we should forbid everyone to make a choice for their own? -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 11:14 PM, Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote: And the reason for telling this to me is what? -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

As to the best of my understanding Each and every single rule on Wikipedia is completely determined by WP:5P (and NPOV is one of them) in sense that no rule may contradict to 5P. On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 9:08 PM, Andre Engels <andreengels(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 7:25 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> On 16 July 2010 17:58, Excirial <wp.excirial(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> If a culture sees these images as highly offensive, and if the main >>> complement of editors / readers agrees with this i wouldn't object to such a >>> rule, as long as it remained in their local Wiki, with no attempts to force >>> it on other wikipedia's. Every culture has its own inherent bias towards >>> certain topics, and i don't believe that we should try to enforce a certain >>> "Morale" on other people - in other words, country specific Wikipedia's >>> should be granted some lenience in setting their own rules. >> >> >> No, that's completely incorrect. Wikipedias are per language, not per >> country, and no country owns the wiki in its language. Neutral point >> of view is not local point of view. > > If not, then there apparently is some leeway, some possibility of > having different rules. And if that is the case, then isn't the > Wikipedia thing to do to have those be decided by the local community? > > > -- > André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l >

http://ace.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marit_Pola:Lhi_gamba_peukabeh_Na… Fred Bauder

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Bod Notbod <bodnotbod(a)gmail.com> wrote: We agree on the definition of "may", but we disagree on the definition of "determined". When I said "completely determined by NPOV", I meant that NPOV decides on exactly how the rule should look. That there would be only one decision in each case covered by the rule that conforms to NPOV. What you are talking about is not determination but compliance. Every rule has to be compliant with NPOV - but some rules could be different, or even completely opposite, without causing serious problems with it. So, to get back to the original question: Is it or is it not acceptable to you that the community of one Wikipedia decides that certain pictures will not be shown on their wiki? And is it or is it not acceptable that they use the morality of the nationality or other group that most of them belong to in doing so? -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

That's the issue. Displaying offensive religious images is a big problem, not a tiny little problem that can be brushed under the rug. You're doing something that outrages millions of people and saying, "Hey, tough". And you don't possess, and will never possess, an authentic image of Muhammad. You don't listen. Fred Bauder

+1. While I think there are many good arguments against inclusion of images of Muhammad in Wikipedia, the "false" or "unreliable" does not seem to be such an argument. We have plenty of images of Jesus and lots of other famous people of whom we have no photographic or _primary_ artistic sources... Also, what's with the venom in some of the posts here? -m. On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 10:18 PM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote:

No, they all had two eyes and a nose, but that's about all we know about any of them. Well, no, we don't know if Krishna even had those, let alone being colored blue. Fred Bauder

Yes, the notion that Sharia controls is troublesome, as is the request for a fatwa. A fatwa that explicitly addresses images of Muhammad in Wikipedia either way would be kind of ridiculous and would not meet with general acceptance. My point is that we don't need to needlessly offend by posting images we know are not authentic. Fred Bauder

*First: There are no authentic images of Mohammad extant.* As already mentioned in a previous response: are there any authentic images which display any god or prophet? *Second: You know millions of Muslims find images of Mohammad extremely offensive. * Christians (And then i am mostly talking about fundamental Christians) are offended by our page on evolution which they deem absolute nonsense and heresy. Hardline atheists are offended by any religions, arguing that people who follow them are deluded. And did i already mention that some people are extremely offended by our images placed on sexual topics? And so we can go on and on, as there are many groups of people who deem something offensive or gross. One course of action would be abiding to each groups whims, and removing all content that they deem offensive. We would end up with something entirely child friendly, which would also be entirely useless as it is severely lacking in multiple area's. We could also take an impartial stance and add as much content as we can, so long as it serves some educational value. If someone doesn't want to see or read a subject they can block the images, or they can evade it altogether. This way people who DO wish to know more about a subject can learn about it, without having to worry that another group has been censoring it. Of course we should apply the exact same rules to every group, and walk with care when deciding on these kind of issues to prevent needless insulting. *So we are talking about whether it is OK to exclude offensive nonsenses, not about excluding valid information. And yeh, God said not to display false images. In what way does that commandment differ from Wikipedia:Reliable sources? Is it wrong because God said it? You would be all over them if they had articles that said New York City was in Finland but you seem to have no problem with images of a man whose appearance is unknown, and unknowable.* Are you arguing that the images don't contain valid information? We have an entire article describing the "Depictions of Muhammed" trough the ages, and i think it is an entirely valid topic to include in an encyclopedia. The rest of the analogy you are making is simply besides the point. We can easily verify that New York is in the USA, so it would be a clear error that is easy to correct. The images of Muhammad are as they are described, mere depictions of a person / prophet made in later centuries. We don't know his appearance any better then we know the appearance of Zeus<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeus>us>, Loki <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki>or Wodan<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wodan>an>. Still, the depiction of Gods, Prophets and other religious figures is a valid enough topic to include in an encyclopedia. Would you argue that we should remove all images from religion related article's because there is no certainty what someone or something looked like? We might as well extend it to area's outside religion then, as many images are artist impressions made in later ages. *In what way does that commandment differ from Wikipedia:Reliable sources? Is it wrong because God said it*? The difference is that WP:RS is a Wikipedia policy that has to be followed by everyone editing the encyclopedia, while the commandment is a rule that applies to a limited group of people outside the encyclopedia. As i said, we shouldn't be following every groups whims simply because they don't like something. To put it like this: If the pastafarians (Worshipers of the flying spaghetti monster) suddenly decide that each page concerning their god should contain a plate of spaghetti, would be abide to them? In other words, our role is to be impartial and provide encyclopedic information in the broadest sense of the word, with no influence from politics, religion or personal bias. *They should have common sense and not put images up in a reference work which are both offensive and false.* If you care to check the article title it says "Depictions" which are, i cite out article on "depiction": *Pictures may be factual or fictional, literal or metaphorical, realistic or idealised and in various combination.* * *There is a many topics which rely on artist impressions drawn in later ages - the images aren't false, they are just impressions with historical significance. I can repeat myself over and over, but the path of common sense is allowing people to choose whether or not they wish to view certain content. But to get back to the ACE topic: I agree they may decide that they do not wish to include these depictions; Not including it isn't a NPOV problem in my eyes so they are free to decide what they wish on that regard. But that does not give them the right to demand the same for other Wiki's who had extensive talks on this subject. And equally placing "Boycot" notices on the mainpage with biased content is against everything Wikipedia stands for. ~Excirial On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 2:39 AM, Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net&gt; wrote:

*Yes, there are alternatives to religious beliefs. In this case the alternative is the view that offensive bogus images should be displayed. Saying that is fine; doing it another.* <SNIP> *Wikipedia:Reliable sources IS policy. There are no authentic images of Muhammad. Including one outside the realm of art is a violation of the policy.* *Yes, there are even depictions of God as an angry grey-haired old man. And we do illustrate our article about God with it.* * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God#Conceptions_of_God It's no different from an image of Paris that includes the Chrysler Building.* You are making one crucial mistake in your reasoning here. The core of "Depictions of Muhammed", as well as "God The Father in Western Art" is that they display depictions or artist impressions of a certain concept, in this case gods and prophets. We never claim that these are actual, accurate images of religious people - we claim that this is the way artists have portrayed them over the centuries. The images themselves are not bogus, as we can clearly verify their orgins. For example, the text accompanying ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maome.jpg) says this: "*The Prophet Muhammad <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Muhammad>, 17th century Ottoman copy of an early 14th century (Ilkhanate period) manuscript of Northwestern Iran or northern Iraq (the "Edinburgh codex"). Illustration of Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab%C5%AB_Rayh%C4%81n_al-B%C4%ABr%… **al-Âthâr al-bâqiyah<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/al-%C3%82th%C3%A2r_al-b%C3%A2qiy… الآثار الباقيةة ; "The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries") *" All we claim is that in the fourteenth century someone depicted Muhammed like this, while equally adding a warning that this depiction is a copy made at a later date (Which means that colors and so can vary, due to using different dyes and techniques). We do, in no way, claim that these are images of gods and prophets - we claim that this is the way humans depicted them throughout history. That is the crucial difference between bogus and fact; Has we claimed this is the way Muhammed looked we would be spreading a blatant lie as there is no way of knowing this; Instead we show what humans think he looked like. *Bottom line: Made up stuff is being included.* Exactly; We include data that has historic relevance, whether or not it is accurate. We actually have an entire list of hoaxes <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hoaxes>which are all topics made up by humans. However, have a look at WP:Hoax => Hoaxes v. Article's about hoaxes<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hoax#Hoaxes_v._articles_ab…es>. The difference between a hoax and an article about a hoax is the way it is worded. The same applies to the ages old depictions of muhammed debate, though this isn't exactly a hoax article. We show images that depict Muhammad, and we clearly indicate that these are historical artist impressions, rather then factual representations. ~Excirial On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 12:32 PM, Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net&gt;wrote;wrote:

Yes, indeed. What is wrong with using photographs of Baby Jesus Butt Plugs to illustrate the article on Jesus? Answer that question and you'll know why offensive images of Muhammad are not a good idea. The thing is, we're saying, "Hey, come off of it, no real harm is done is there are images of Muhammad" Why doesn't the same reasoning apply to the butt plugs? No real harm would be done. Or would there? Fred Bauder

John Vandenberg wrote: Those don't appear to be the ones that are being complained about. Its the Baby Jesus Butt Plug style ones that they have issue with.

The [[Piss Christ]] article seems to have no real purpose other than to display an image that is known to offend. I note that none of the references in that article actually display the image and are far more informative of the actual controversy surrounding the image. The wikipedia article also does not address the image in any way which would necessitate displaying it. There is no discussion on the lighting, or anything else about the photograph. One is left wondering why it is that the article [[Goatse.cx]] article does not actually show the goatse image. Mark Williamson wrote:

On 17 July 2010 14:13, Mark Williamson &lt;node.ue(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Indeed. The main reason it's not there (on the restricted list for the reason you describe) is its unknown copyright status. (It's widely used by people, but Wikimedia demands rather more.) We could arguably make it fair use, as the most famous shock image, but for some reason no-one can really be bothered to push it through ... - d.

There is no general Christian prohibition on depicting Christ. In fact it is a generally accepted practice. Generally Muslims don't, and consider it a mark of disrespect to do so. Why offend? Piss Christ was an artistic-political controversy. Fred Bauder

It's the very core of the whole this issue. That's why it's so ...mission critical to stay very firm with WP:5P with all due respect to all and every particular group. Sincerely, Pavlo On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 6:16 PM, Excirial &lt;wp.excirial(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > *There is no general Christian prohibition on depicting Christ. In fact it > is a generally accepted practice. Generally Muslims don't, and consider it a > mark of disrespect to do so. Why offend?* > > 1) It is a historically important subject which should be covered in an > encyclopedia. > 3) Anyone who does not wish to see the images can block them - its a > personal choice on whether you do or don't want to see. If there is a > problem with their mere existence there is nothing we can do - we can't > erase them from history. > 4) The images may offend millions, but that still leaves billions who aren't > offended by them. I would argue that the knowledge needs of the larger group > outweigh the issues of the smaller group - especially since we are not > forcing anything on the small group. As said in point 3: Images are on > specific pages, and even those are accessible since images can be blocked. > > As said before, we should be careful with content that could be deemed > offensive, to prevent needless friction - For example we shouldn't be > placing images of Muhammad on article's that have only a partial relation > with him, such as "Prophets of Islam". In other words, the are in which they > are posted should be contained, but not exterminated. > > ~Excirial >

Excirial wrote: By all means do so. But there is no reason to include the image. Others managed to convey the controversy without doing so. In addition being a web page you have the option to provide a link to the image rather than embedding it. Its not as if the wikipage actually needs the image at all. Do you have some special browser button that enables blocking of selected images before visiting a page? Or are you advocating the global blocking of all images? So why isn't goatse.cx embedded on the shock site page. Gerrard says that its because there might be copyright issues but that hasn't been a problem in cases of the Mohammed images that the ace group are complaining about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jyllands-Posten-pg3-article-in-Sept-30-20… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Everybody_Draw_Mohammed_Day.jpg using those images has been declared fair-use. Even The Piss Christ images is similarly 'fair-used' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Piss_Christ_by_Serrano_Andres_%281987%29.… So I think I'm going to call you on being totally hypocritical on the issue of "the knowledge needs of the larger group outweigh the issues of the smaller group", because it is quite simply untrue.

Is that really so? ... and please don't mix that with personal, by own choice made editorial decision(s) On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 9:19 PM, Prodego &lt;prodego(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Oh well, if any community is completely free to define what is neutral... :( On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 9:47 PM, Prodego &lt;prodego(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

The community of each wiki can decide which illustrations are best for a certain article, true. Using foundation resources (banner, cpu, bandwidth) to campaign against other foundation projects should be avoided. Protest against decisions of WMF is one thing, lobbying against a whole WMF project is something else. On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 8:19 PM, Prodego &lt;prodego(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Excirial wrote: That only works for people with accounts that have already been offended, that speak English, that have managed to find the FAQ, and that are computer literate. IOW out of the billion or so target audience for offense, about zero. What a complete load of twaddle. NFCC has not stopped the use of Piss Christ, nor has it stopped the use of any of the controversial Mohammed images. In all those cases a textural description of the image would suffice. The person in the goatse image is unidentifiable, and the image has been on the web for 10 years. Where are the privacy concerns? So I'm still calling bullshit, as it looks that thin justification was simply found to remove that image. And how do we assume good faith when images known to cause offense are being defended, especially when its not as if they can't be found on any one of a 1000 websites. Reposting them serves no value other than give the poster and its defenders a warm fuzzy "we're don't censored" feeling. Except that you do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2010_March_29#Fil… The goatse images was removed for stated reasons that could equally be applied to almost any of the controversial images. That those reasons aren't applied to the other images smacks of hypocrisy. And the defenders of these images aren't doing just that? Scrap the muslim connection just explain to this Atheist why it is imperative to display the "Piss Christ" image, when "photograph of plastic christ on cross in jar of urine" describes exactly why the work was found offensive. Just explain why the actual image is necessary and whilst you are about it explain why it is so much larger than the normal use of an image to illustrate an article?

Excirial wrote: Explain what historic value reposting offensive images has? Just because someone creates an image that causes a fuss, is no reason to reproduce that image in order to document the fuss. Especially when one can simply describe the image. Why no screencap images from the Nick Berg video? Is that of less importance than the "Draw mohammed day" image? Do you not see the irony in requesting that someone stops using words, taken to be a personal attack, whilst at the same time defending the continued publication of images taken to be personal attacks on others religious beliefs. No cartoon images of Olmert? http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/anti_s… It appears that about the only images on wikimedia are those by Latuff. Are such images not of equal importance as images of Mohammed?

Excirial wrote: Have you not worked out that you are being give a taste of your own dog food. That you find it slightly unpleasant is not really surprising.

Prodego wrote: Well done that will certainly show the natives who wears the boots.

On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 3:35 PM, &lt;wiki-list(a)phizz.demon.co.uk&gt; wrote: Prodego forgot to mention that that was after an edit war and the blocking of a few stewards and global sysops. *That's* why they were desysoped, not because they had a view conflicting with ours. -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023

Prodego wrote: Aye boss that'll learn them, a week in the hole it be.

If you think about it, one could interpret consensus as pushing one groups opinion on another. Doesn't make it wrong. -Dan On Jul 18, 2010, at 5:21 PM, James Alexander wrote:

On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 4:54 PM, James Alexander &lt;jamesofur(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: James, you just made my cerebellum fuse. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan

On 18 July 2010 10:10, &lt;wiki-list(a)phizz.demon.co.uk&gt; wrote: You are arguing in the wrong place. A very large debate has already taken place on this issue and consensus has been reached. Nothing you can say on this mailing list will impact that. If you really think you have something new to bring to the debate the correct place to raise the matter is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Muhammad/images -- geni

Don't censor except when "you" do? That's one of the problems with this thread, it seems everything's been made personal. I don't censor anything. I was not involved in the debate about deleting the goatse image, nor have I been much involved in the Muhammad debate, but I am a firm believer in non-censorship on WP. It's not as if I saw the goatse image and said "I need to find a reason for this to be deleted"; I'd rather it be there than not. -m On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 4:36 PM, &lt;wiki-list(a)phizz.demon.co.uk&gt; wrote:

"Wiki-list", the huge glaring difference is that the goatse.cx image is a pornographic image and we were unable to identify the subject of it, which raises potential privacy concerns. Please don't accuse me of hypocrisy as I am personally in favor of including that image in that article. On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 11:01 AM, &lt;wiki-list(a)phizz.demon.co.uk&gt; wrote:

"You" - again, this is not (or at least it should not) be about ME and YOU. I did not upload any of those images, I did not vote for (or against - I didn't know the vote was taking place) the deletion of the Goatse image, I'm merely stating the reason it was deleted. We have rules, some of our pages may break those rules, but all that means is they should be fixed so the rules are applied more consistently. -m On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 5:14 PM, &lt;wiki-list(a)phizz.demon.co.uk&gt; wrote:

On 07/17/2010 06:57 PM, Fred Bauder wrote: Oh, and Jyllands-Posten wasn't? --vvv

David Gerard wrote: When why aren't they linking to the Mohammed article rather than the specific articles that have piss taking images, or images of him trampling on the 10 commandments, or being tortured in hell? Unless there is evidence to the contrary I'm inclined to believe that *you* have taken a knee jerk islamaphobic stance climbed up a flag p[ole and are currently waving your knickers in the air. I'm interested to see just how you are going to get yourself back down with a modicum of dignity.

Actually, to clarify; it's a particular Islamic sect which has a problem. A lot of the smaller groups really don't care. On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 3:19 PM, Nathan &lt;nawrich(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Well, we should not bow before noise and violence. However, there is a substantial body of Muslim public opinion that holds this view today. Fred Bauder

On 07/17/2010 04:39 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: There are no authentic images of most characters from the Bible. Yet I believe at least 1 % of works of art on Commons contain them. --vvv

Except the problem is that at no point do they mention law; it's entirely personal opinions. If they said "oh btw, the law in our nation creates problems with images of Muhammad" then cool, fine, it's justified. Arguing that images should be deleted not because of the law but because they find it personally offensive, and stating that all Muslim wikipedians should follow the same rules, is inappropriate. On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 5:26 PM, Lodewijk &lt;lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org&gt;wrote;wrote:

On 16 July 2010 22:57, Bod Notbod &lt;bodnotbod(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: It turns out this is actually quite historically inaccurate. I understand there is a popular online encyclopedia with an extensive article on the topic, enumerating and describing the various points of view on the topic. - d.

Muslim Wikipedians who do not object to images of Muhammad are in the same position as Western users. They know there are no authentic images; they know it is extremely offensive to millions of people. They should have common sense and not put images up in a reference work which are both offensive and false. There might be an exception for Persian art, but such images certainly don't belong in an article on Muhammad or Islam in any language. Fred Bauder

*This template now also exists on the English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:No_Prophet_Muhammad_Images As an en.wiki admin, my first instinct would be to nominate it for deletion, as this template is outside of scope, a violation of NPOV, and potentially disruptive. Then the discussion concerning it could be had at the TfD page. Would nominating it for deletion be a good idea or a bad idea? Are there any alternatives that make sense in this situation?* I would argue that in its current form the template is a violation of the campaigning policy, as it is a clearly biased message being redirected at other users, along with a call to boycot Wikipedia. I think that such a template is not tolerable from any group regardless of faith, geographic area and so on. If the template stated "This user believes that there should be no images of Muhammad on Wikipedia" i would be fine with it, but in its current form this is little more then a serious NPOV violation. Besides, allowing this template would set a bad precedent. I don't think that allowing users to create "<Objectionable X> is placed <ThereandHere> All <Group> Wikipedians must boycot Wikipedia. This template will never be removed" is a positive way to start communication between editors in a diversified ethnological group such as Wikipedia. To be honest i can think of a lot of ethnic groups that would use such templates to taunt each other. As a final note i would point out that this template is only transcluded on two pages, and that the creator is the same admin that made it on ACE. Seeing this new template i am affraid that i now seriously question that user's fitness for adminship. An admin should be impartial and unbiased, with at least a basic acceptance of NPOV so that they can mediate between users that believe different things. In this case the words "PoV pushing and "Tedious editing" come to mind which is never a good thing, but if those words arise when i think of an admin, i find it outright worrisome. ~Excirial On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 5:52 PM, Ryan Kaldari &lt;rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org&gt;wrote;wrote:

Agreed. I don't particularly agree with Gerard's point that " It is similar as if I were to say to the English language community that they have to change their way because their community consensus is incompatible with WMF official board sanctioned policies." - in that situation, yes, I'd expect en-wiki to change. If en-wiki was to leave its collective brain home one day and get rid of the BLP policy, would we shrug our shoulders and go "well, yes, it's a board-sanctioned policy, but they can make their own decisions"? NPOV isn't just a board-sanctioned policy - it's one of the fundamental principles and pillars the wiki is built on. On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 3:19 PM, Excirial &lt;wp.excirial(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 4:43 PM, Muhammad Yahia &lt;shipmaster(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Wouldn't it be better to explain to them that they are part of Wikipedia, so they cannot boycott Wikipedia without boycotting themselves? Although of course if they stick to their point, they have the right to fork. -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

On 16 July 2010 18:51, Lars Åge Kamfjord &lt;lars.age(a)kamfjord.org&gt; wrote: I've nominated the copy on en:wp for deletion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_Ju… - d.

Hoi, Did the steward inform them that he did this and why ? The notion that what somebody does who holds a title like steward is not that firm in our community. The recent fracas about problematic images at Commons is a clear indication of that. Thanks, GerardM On 17 July 2010 11:56, Excirial &lt;wp.excirial(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Gerard Meijssen, 17/07/2010 12:01: Yes: http://ace.wikipedia.org/?diff=19301 http://ace.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marit_Ureu%C3%ABng_Nguy:Si_Gam_Ac%C3%A8h#Don.… Does somebody know if there's some discussion ongoing with ace.wiki users somewhere? Nemo

User:Mimihitam made an introduction on Wikimania about the Acenese Wikipedia ( http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schedule#Wikis_of_the_World ). I remember he said that he doesn't speak Acenese, but the Indonesian Wikipedia has an intensive contact with the Acenese Wikipedia, so I think it is a good ideal to contact him for starting the dialog. Greetings Ting Excirial wrote: -- Ting Ting's Blog: http://wingphilopp.blogspot.com/