[Foundation-l] Boycott in ace at wiki

[Excirial]

*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?

*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.

*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.

*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.

*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.

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

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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