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
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
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.
Persons writing from the Christian or Jewish POV should receive the same "merciless" treatment
On the other hand, if an article has too much information from one side, contributors may want to balance it with other information.
Adding material to support your POV is far superior to removing material that supports the opposing POV.
Eclecticology
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Persons writing from the Christian or Jewish POV should receive the same "merciless" treatment
Or anti-religious POV, too.
Remember, Ed is a member of the Unification Church (popularly known as "Moonies"), so he's well aware of the challenges of working in wikipedia while coming from a point of view that is not only a minority, but widely regarded as "cultist".
Adding material to support your POV is far superior to removing material that supports the opposing POV.
I think that's right, although even in the infinity of cyberspace, individual articles do have some space constraints for the sake of readability. Sometimes, some of the inquiry into and presentation of minority POVs will be best handled in sidebar articles.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Persons writing from the Christian or Jewish POV should receive the same "merciless" treatment
Or anti-religious POV, too.
Remember, Ed is a member of the Unification Church (popularly known as "Moonies"), so he's well aware of the challenges of working in wikipedia while coming from a point of view that is not only a minority, but widely regarded as "cultist".
Ed, to his credit did mention atheists and the Unification Church. The point was more that holding a popular or majoritarian view would never imply immunity from criticism.
Adding material to support your POV is far superior to removing material that supports the opposing POV.
I think that's right, although even in the infinity of cyberspace, individual articles do have some space constraints for the sake of readability. Sometimes, some of the inquiry into and presentation of minority POVs will be best handled in sidebar articles.
We can't go on agreeing like this all the time!
Your point may be more a function of language and style than of specific content. The problem can as easily arise in non-controversial article where people have simply never learned to get to the point.
One other frequent contributor to this list, Mirwin, often makes some valuable points (judged by the fact that I often agree with him :-) ). This doesn't stop me from criticizing his contributions as prolix and a challenge to the attention span.. An interesting exercise can be to take an opposing POV and reduce it in size without diminishing the impact of the author's arguments.
Eclecticology
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.
I don't think so.
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."
Why? What is the point of including outrageous, obvious false material?
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."
A false statement in itself, I know of no historian who accepts holocaust denial.
any information is welcome, every person is welcome. We need only _phrase_
contributions neutrally and (if needed) _balance_ articles.
I don't think false information is welcome or people who persist in either putting false information into articles or creating a false impression by selective presentation of facts. How it is to be decided when this is happening may be difficult but I think it's good policy.
Fred replying to:
Ed Poor
Fred Bauder wrote:
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."
Why? What is the point of including outrageous, obvious false material?
Well, if the novelist is famous, or if his ideas are having impact, then the fact that he says these things raises them to the level of encyclopedic interest.
For example, a Frenchman wrote a book, very popular in France, I hear, claiming that the Sept. 11 attacks were faked, that no plane crashed into the Pentagon, and so on. This is outrageous nonsense, of course, but since the author is famous and the book was popular, it's of interest.
Difficulty arises when we have to determine whether some person or group is noteworthy enough, even as a fringe person or group, for us to take notice. There are plenty of cranks in the world, some with voluminous websites, and we needn't treat them all as equivalent to each other.
- "All but a handful of historians dismiss Holocaust Denial as utterly
absurd."
A false statement in itself, I know of no historian who accepts holocaust denial.
Right, well, Ed acknowledged that his statements could stand some editing. His point, though, was that statements can be rendered NPOV.
Some people are holocaust deniers. They have, in some subcultures, had some influence. All of this is worthy of reporting in the encyclopedia, but none of this justifies treating their ideas as equally respectable to the broad (unanimous) consensus of real historians.
I don't think false information is welcome or people who persist in either putting false information into articles or creating a false impression by selective presentation of facts. How it is to be decided when this is happening may be difficult but I think it's good policy.
Now here, we agree, and I think Ed agrees too.
--Jimbo
On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 10:24:30AM -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
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.
I don't think so.
Why not? The fact that those beliefs are held is useful information; this is a project to collect useful information. There need be no implication that the belief is true or valid - otherwise there should be no article on any Religion, for instance, since there is no evidence to support *those* claims either.
I agree with Jason but I would add it depends on the scope of the article. For example in an article about the Holocaust you would not get into the details of the denial, but you might mention that some deny it and then link to articles about those groups. This would hold true for any false (or generally accepted false) belief or statement believed or made by a group.
But I think the reverse should be held true for religion. I have seen a number of articles in regards to religion and other "unpopular" topics that have the opposition within the article. I believe that the article should solely talk about the subject and only mention the opposition (counter arguement) and then link to an article that focuses on it.
For example when talking about the Pascal programming language one third of the article is devoted to criticism by Brian Kernighan, co-creator of the C programming language. This may be better suited in the article about Brian Kernighan and in the Pascal article just mention that Pascal is not Brian Kernighan favorite programming language with a link to his article.
If we censor or argue against what we believe to be false or just a belief (and not real) then we are not writing / editing with NPOV.
That is just my $0.02 worth. BTW, I am new here, my name is Jim and I look forward to eventually making meaningful contributions to WikiPedia as time permits while retaining my day job and my family. ;-)
-Jim McKeeth
At 05:37 PM 09/12/2002 +0100, Jason Williams wrote:
then we simply write that Group A _believes_ this.
I don't think so.
Why not? The fact that those beliefs are held is useful information; this is a project to collect useful information. There need be no implication that the belief is true or valid - otherwise there should be no article on any Religion, for instance, since there is no evidence to support *those* claims either.
Welcome, Jim!
--- Jim McKeeth jim@mckeeth.org wrote:
I agree with Jason but I would add it depends on the scope of the article. For example in an article about the Holocaust you would not get into the details of the denial, but you might mention that some deny it and then link to articles about those groups. This would hold true for any false (or generally accepted false) belief or statement believed or made by a group.
Exactly. It is a fact that there are Holocaust deniers. We should not exclude this information from the encyclopedia; on the contrary, by including it along with the overwhelming weight of history, we do a service to our readers by allowing them to see the nonsense for what it really is.
Your idea about briefly mentioning it and then linking to the [[Holocaust denial]] article is exactly what we should be doing.
But I think the reverse should be held true for religion. I have seen a number of articles in regards to religion and other "unpopular" topics that have the opposition within the article. I believe that the article should solely talk about the subject and only mention the opposition (counter arguement) and then link to an article that focuses on it.
Yes. For example, when talking about Christianity, there's no need to go into great deal about the historical Jesus. Instead, mention and link to an article that deals with the question.
<snipped another good example about Pascal>
That is just my $0.02 worth. BTW, I am new here, my name is Jim and I look forward to eventually making meaningful contributions to WikiPedia as time permits while retaining my day job and my family. ;-)
I have a job, a wife and a young child, and I;ve managed to hold things together. Good luck. :)
Stephen Gilbert
__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! News - Today's headlines http://news.yahoo.com
At 06:15 PM 09/12/2002 -0700, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
I have a job, a wife and a young child, and I;ve managed to hold things together. Good luck. :)
You'll have to let me in on your secret. I have two small children and one on the way. I think if I can come up with a way to use my laptop while driving my commute I will gain some valuable ground!
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