Mirwin asked:
>When some sects of Muslims show up to provide
>information shall we tell them they are obviously
>offensive and not welcome?
I would welcome any Muslim who wants to provide information on Islam or any other subject. We should not exclude people on the basis of their having a religious belief, any more than we should exclude people who deny all religious beliefs.
However, someone who writes _from the Islamic point of view_ will find their contributions mercilessly copy-edited into neutrality, exactly as someone who writes from an atheistic or Democratic or Marxist Republican or Unificationist POV.
"People invented God" => "The concept of God predates recorded history."
"The entire hill is a mosque" => "Muslims regard the entire hill as a mosque."
"Clinton was impeached for sex" => "Democrats believe that the impeachment was more about sex than about perjury or obstruction of justice."
"Capitalists steal profit from the workers" => "Marxists regard capitalists as thieves, contributing nothing while stealing the fruits of labor from honest working-class people."
"Rev. Moon is the Messiah" => "Members of the Unification Church consider Rev. Moon to be the Messiah."
(I do not assert that any of the translations above is _perfectly_ neutral and accurate; rather, that any information provided _can_ be presented from the NPOV.)
If there is some group claiming that Jews "started" WWII; or "invented" the Holocaust or "are a bunch of greedy hypocrites who should be driven into the Sea" or (insert favorite anti-Semitic idea here) -- then we simply write that Group A _believes_ this.
Okay, some novelist did some superficial research, and now he claims that Eisenhower killed 6 million Germans. So what? Just say "Novelist XYZ claims in Book B that blah, blah, blah."
On the other hand, if an article has too much information from one side, contributors may want to balance it with other information.
* "Most scholars regard the article as having no significant effect on Hitler's plans."
* "All but a handful of historians dismiss Holocaust Denial as utterly absurd."
* "Jewish groups generally oppose Group A's plan to drive them into the Sea." (hm, this last one may be too mild)
* "Reviewer C charges that XYZ's scholarship as shoddy."
Sorry if this is too long, but what I'm leading up to is this: any information is welcome, every person is welcome. We need only _phrase_ contributions neutrally and (if needed) _balance_ articles.
Ed Poor