[Foundation-l] Boycott in ace at wiki

[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?

Yes, there are photographs of Joseph Smith, Jr. and of Bahá'u'lláh a
prophet of the Bahá'í Faith.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27u%27ll%C3%A1h#Photograph

Of gods, no, unless you count Hindu deities.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haidakhandefwary.JPG

> *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.

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.

>
> *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>,
> Loki <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki>or
> Wodan<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wodan>.
> 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.

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.

>
> *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.

Wikipeia:Reliable sources IS policy. There are no authentic images of
Muhammad. Including one outside the realm of art is a violation of the
policy.

>
> *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.

Bottom line: Made up stuff is being included.

>
> 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

Wikipedia operates by consensus, not "We are the imperial powers which
control world culture"

Fred Bauder

>
> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 2:39 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> >
>> > 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 at gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>> Fred Bauder
>>
>>
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>