[Foundation-l] Boycott in ace at wiki

[Excirial]

*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 <rkaldari at wikimedia.org>wrote:

> 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?
>
> Ryan Kaldari
>
> On 7/16/10 8:41 AM, Austin Hair wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> > <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >
> >> The Acehnese Wikipedia is a young project. They are entitled to their
> >> mistakes. It is for this reason important that we first talk with them
> about
> >> what it is that they do. We should not start talking TO them about what
> they
> >> are to do.
> >>
> >> The current talking TO them is not polite and will not lead to positive
> >> results. 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.
> >>
> > 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
> >
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