And by the same strong argument there is no reason to keep them there. Sure, we're not censored, but that doesn't mean we need to be stubborn when a (sort of) uncensored solution exists. On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 8:14 PM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 22/02/2008, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler(a)gmail.com> wrote: Forget them. I checked, there's no references with those kinds of images in the Muhammad article, except those *directly* associated with those images. That they should be in the article is an extreme minority position in the references. Yes, I'm actually arguing that we should do that, even if we weren't being petitioned. The NPOV seems to be NOT to include them. It's an *indirect* effect of the prohibition within Islam, acting via the references, but we're not directly doing it because of that, we're doing it because of NPOV. -- -Ian Woollard We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.

A small band of Spartans is not a problem if we have a consensus to avoid needless offense. The images have some utility in articles on art or in an article on depictions of Muhammed, but add nothing useful to the article Muhammed. They only give needless offense, and not just to religious kooks, but to mainstream Muslims. Fred

On 23/02/2008, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Neutrality is very hard here... our normal "talk around the issue" approach doesn't quite work for a binary "include or don't include" question. A lot of the problems with invoking NPOV here are that we're treating "our" viewpoint (the status quo ante bellum) as by definition neutral, and I'm not sold on that. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 23/02/2008, Steve Summit <scs(a)eskimo.com> wrote: Actually, it's a Pillar.

On 23/02/2008, The Mangoe <the.mangoe(a)gmail.com> wrote: Definitely. It's a hazard for any of us. (Personally, in [[Muhammad]] I'd put a current representative calligraphic depiction at the top and maybe one veiled picture in the subsection on representations. Then put a full representative selection of depictions in [[Depictions of Muhammad]]. I expect this is one of the options hashed out over the past year as well.) The hard part is for everyone to realise even the apparent idiots have to be worked with. "Assume good faith" is written over the gates of WikiHell. Ignore the censorship and anti-censorship arguments. Ignore the upset petitioners. Think only of the articles. - d.

Fred Bauder wrote: Sounds like an ad for political correctness. Ec

On 22/02/2008, Alex G <g1ggyman(a)gmail.com> wrote: They are educational. "(Sort of) uncensored" is impossible. -- geni

On 22/02/2008, Rich Holton <richholton(a)gmail.com> wrote: By this point you should be familiar with the Charlemagne counter argument. Dito Macbeth of Scotland. Only if it could be editorially justified. -- geni

On 22/02/2008, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: Muhammad is sacred? Doesn't that rather run into the do not worship prohibition? You also appear to be rejecting the divine right of kings thing. Still if you want a more exact equiv http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster#Place We don't pretend the image is historically accurate. -- geni

On 22/02/2008, Rich Holton <richholton(a)gmail.com> wrote: To show this particular general/religious leader has been historically depicted. We don't even mention that say the image in Pope Linus is somewhat unlikely to be historically accurate (the history of the early popes is somewhat historically problematicalical). Saul of Tarsus would be another one who throws up this issue. -- geni

But historically images of Muhammed have been strongly discouraged, generally, he has not been depicted. Examples from Christianity and Europe are not to the point. Christian culture has not focused on this issue while Muslim culture has (at most times and places). Images of Mary and Jesus are common. That they bear little or no relationship to the historical figures is generally not an issue. A phony image of the Prophet of Islam is. Fred

On 23/02/2008, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Come to that, our "Douglas DC-8" article has a photo. I don't want anybody to look at that picture. Wouldn't want to kill anybody by pneumonia.

On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 3:40 AM, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: An interesting data point is our article on [[Bigfoot]]. Despite the dearth of usable images of the creature, there has been quite a concerted effort to keep all "artistic renderings" out from the article. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

Andrew Gray wrote: I agree with Andrew that we should try to think beyond the simple binary debate and look for interestingly creative solutions. I suspect actually that in time, with sufficient creative genius, we can come up with a quasi-Pareto-improving solution. Let me explain what I mean. In any situation where it is impossible to make every person completely happy, we are not at a complete and total loss about how to make things better. Instead, we can look for solutions that make everyone better off than they would be under some alternative. If we restrict ourselves to binary choice here (INCLUDE or DON'T INCLUDE) then we will have one side or the other fairly miserable. If we better understand the objections (and I think we are having a problem with this, due to insufficient participation by the objectors in our processes) then we can look for solution that at least help them a bit, while hopefully *also* helping the other side a little bit as well. --Jimbo

Nice idea. I'm thinking we should try and go ahead with this...if images are showing by default, there really isn't much "bad" about this solution. AFAIK this would go in sitewide monobook.js, correct? We could also add a Special:Prefs option to have the images default showing/default hiding. On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 12:07 AM, Raphael Wegmann <raphael(a)psi.co.at> wrote:

Include a link on the "show/hide" button the WP:NOT#CENSORED (or wherever our policy on that is nowadays) should satisfy those who are offended by publishing the images. And if it doesn't...tough. On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 11:11 AM, Thinboy00 (Wikipedia mailing list) < thinboy00+wikipedialist(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 4:35 PM, Jimmy Wales &lt;jwales(a)wikia.com&gt; wrote: While I do agree with the spirit of your message, the content disclaimer makes it pretty clear that Wikipedia can make you "miserable." I would argue that preventing people from being miserable, while nice, is not our most important goal. This does not preclude any action to make Wikipedia "less miserable" for the protesters, but if not offending people and building a free content encyclopedia are actually at direct odds with one another then I think we all know which one should win. -- Chris Howie http://www.chrishowie.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 7:50 PM, Ian Woollard &lt;ian.woollard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: First, I really, really hope you are not being serious here. Second (if you are being serious) I am not a member of that group. Do your research before attempting to harass me out of a discussion. -- Chris Howie http://www.chrishowie.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers

I personally think that this should be done. Even if it doesn't solve the problem entirely, it will help, it's proportionate and consistent with the sources for that article, as well as the goals and policies of the wikipedia. On 22/02/2008, Wily D &lt;wilydoppelganger(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- -Ian Woollard We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.

On 22/02/2008, geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: "The truth? You can't handle the truth!" [[WP:UNDUE]] Feel free to check the references from the [[Muhammad]] article itself, I did and was unable to find any images at all (except for the references from the images, but I firmly believe that those were found by begging the question and searching *for* images). Here's what you get from a google on "Muhammad" (and ignoring articles on Muhammad Alli and other off-topic links) *[http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMuhammad&ei=s163R6awDoqqwwG6yuTmCg&usg=AFQjCNFj9QY8eHYruomxP6HrtSNuahw97g&sig2=muvryZtIHcpJjGDWibe3rQ Wikipedia] - ignored, since not a source *[http://muhammad.net/j/index.php Prophet Muhammad] - no image *[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Muhammad.html Jewish Virtual library - Muhammad] - no image *[http://i-cias.com/e.o/muhammad.htm Looxlexia Encyclopedia Muhammad] - one veiled image (encyclopedia, not a valid source...) *[http://www.jamaat.org/islam/Muhammad.html Islam - Meaning and Message - Muhammad] - no image *[http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ISLAM/MUHAM.HTM Islam - Muhammad messenger of God] - no image *[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/rodinson.html Maxime Rodinson. Muhammad.] - no image *[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9105853/Muhammad Encyclopedia Brittanica - Muhammad] - one veiled image (encyclopedia) *[http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/ PBS - Muhammad legacy of a prophet] - no image *[http://debate.org.uk/topics/theo/muhammad.htm Muhammad Apologetic Paper (Joseph Smith) - May 1995] - no image *[http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/prophet/ About the Prophet Muhammad] - no image *[http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/islam/blfaq_islam_muhammad.htm Agnosticism / Atheism Islam FAQ Who Was Muhammad?] - no image *[http://www.theprophetmuhammad.org/ The prophet Mohammad.org] - no image *[http://www.fatwa-online.com/aboutislaam/0020224_04.htm Who is Muhammad?] - no image *[http://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Life-Based-Earliest-Sources/dp/0892811706 Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (Paperback)]- no image (although one of the books icons had an image that might be gold silhouette) *[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7242258.stm Danish Muhammad cartoon reprinted] - no image *[http://www.prophetofislam.com/ Muhammad a-z] no image *[http://www.muhammadspeaks.com/] - no image ... (I checked a few dozen more at random, found nothing, got bored) -- -Ian Woollard We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.

Hinduism is the last remnant of the old Indo-European faith that relished images of the deities. If we applied the principles of Islam to the article on Hinduism to to articles on Hindu deities, it would be grossly inappropriate. What is being asked for is application of Islamic principles to the key articles about Islam. I think it is a matter of respect, of avoiding offense, of authenticity. Fred

On 23/02/2008, geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: But that's the thing. I'M not defining a minority opinion. By searching google I get IT to give me what google thinks are representative. By looking at the existing references in the article I get the ARTICLE to say what the wikipedia's editors think are representative. However, I cut it, I get the same answer; these kinds of images are not very notable at all, in fact, I was unable to find exactly how not notable, because no usable sources for the Muhammad topic I ever found had these kinds of images. Sure, it's POV. But as you well know, NPOV is when you have all POVs in the article, in representative amounts. The point is, that the representative amount of these images is one or less. I was unable to find the images via any straightforward means, short of actually explicitly searching for them. <bunch of irrelevant comparisons to entirely different subjects deleted> The term 'popularity' usually refers to popularity among *people*; but I'm referring to a form of popularity among *references*; otherwise known as 'NPOV'. Are you really referring to NPOV as a logical fallacy? -- -Ian Woollard We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.

On 2/23/08, Itaqallah &lt;itq.wiki(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: Unfortunately everyone here seems more interested in arguing past you here, Itaqallah. Part of the problem is: On 23/02/2008, geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Geni, you could start by appreciating that there is no single "Islam" POV just as there is no single "Christianity" POV or "Republican" POV or any other tradition that you care to mention. Take a look at the gallery for Muhammad on Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Muhammad One example of calligraphy and the rest of the images are medieval Persian and Ottoman depictions of Muhammad. This doesn't strike me as a representative selection. Indeed, it seems as if people have simply uploaded as many of these sorts of images as they could find. We're representing that this artistic tradition is the primary tradition, when it is in reality a minority tradition. For some reason people seem to be forgetting our core content policies, such as NPOV, the minute images come into play rather than text. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain(a)gmail.com