<img alt="" height="1" width="1">Online petition asks Wikipedia to remove pictures of Muhammad
International Herald Tribune, France -14 minutes ago
By Noam Cohen An article about the Prophet Muhammad in the English-language Wikipedia has become the subject of an online protest in the last few weeks ...

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Wikipedia should not make deals with terrorists. Also they should not give into terrorism or the terrorists win.

This is the heart of the matter.

These silly people don't realize that having respect for religious beliefs is not giving in to terrorists.

Lamont Stormstar: You know that the Supreme Court of the United States had a similar situation with the frieze of Mohammed on their building, and they handled it "respectfully and with dignity". That is not "giving in to terrorists". And for the record, not all muslims are terrorists.

Stop dragging terrorism into this. It makes you look like a moron. They are asking a corporation that publishes an encyclopedia to exercise editorial restraint in a manner that would respond to their values. Nothing more. You sound like a Wikipedian.

I agree this isn't at all about terrorism at the root (that there may be extremists threatening things has no relevance to peaceful petitioners), it's about honoring the wishes of (some/most/nearly all?) adherents of a particular organised religion.

The question I have is what is the right thing to do and what precedent does doing the right thing set? How big does a religion need to be before not displaying things that religion's adherents don't like is the right thing? I agree about the bad PR aspects of this but wonder what course would have avoided them.

The precedent that I would hope to be established, and it would not apply to only religious questions, would be that constituencies that have well established interest that are impacted by Wikipedia's editorial policies would be welcomed to dialog, at arms length and as equals, with the people responsible for the policies (WMF). This would mean that the dialog would not be constrained only by WP's values and concerns, but out stakeholder's interest would also be fully considered as well.

Well, the issue to me is that in this particular instance it was not a battle worth fighting - the picture did not add any historical accuracy or other academic quality. It does not need to be there. However, this has now turned into a debate on principle and precedent, so all bets are off for a rational outcome.

To me, this is a typical Wikipedian drama (argh! I'm turning into Moulton). By failing to grasp that there is a possibility of doing something because it can be done, rather than for some notion of ithe Greater Good of NPOV or We Are Not Censored, essentially pride and loss of face, they will always fall into these minefields. What makes this look rally bad to me, is on the one hand Wikipedia is deliberately setting itself against a well known issue of a religion (whether you agree with it or not) yet in its own backyard, it cannot apply the same rigour. Wikia and Wikipedia are clearly intertwined and there is documentary evidence to back up the assertion, yet there, to protect against the embarrassment caused by Jimbo and his dubious business arrangements, the rigour fades away.

I say, have your picture of Muhammed but then allow the Wikia article to admit that there is an inappropriate relationship between Wikia and Wikipedia. Then we will see how principled the project really is.

Yup.

Of course.

Threats aren't part of the doing the right thing equation. They are however to be taken into consideration in doing the 'other' thing. I'm not making the threat myself - I'm simply saying that the 'other' thing raises the risk quotient.
Uh. I would have thought that doing the right thing set a good precedent. But color me naiive. Or too smart. OR something...
????????????? This isn't a rocket science issue, Lar. Check what the Supreme Court did. (hello?)

I think that Lamont was being sarcastic here. Or at least I hope he was.

Well, if that's right I owe him an apology.

The illustration of Muhammed issue first came to notice when some people in Europe (Dutch?) make some cartoons of Muhammed. Then South Park tried to do an image of Muhammed on their show and Comedy Central prevented them. In the south park episode, it was where the family guy was going to have an image of muhammed and everyone in America thought people in the middle east were going to launch nukes at them for it.

As for respecting religion, look what's happening to scientology.

I suppose that's the issue from a "Euro-Centric/Geek" view.

Should we merge this thread with the one on the petition in the "General" forum?

WWJD? Forgive.

WWBD? Laugh.

WWMD? Beats me.

What I was driving at is what others have alluded to as well... that under "WP is not censored" the mere fact that someone takes offense at something is not sufficient reason to remove it, if there are good reasons for keeping it... and it doesn't matter if it's a few someones, or a lot of someones, theoretically. If we remove things because a large number of adherents of a very large organized religion petition to do so, should we also do so for a smaller number? how small? What if I get my DD from a degree mill, get recognised by the IRS as a minister and then claim that my flock (of 3) is offended by all images of cats? How is that different than 80,000 signatures on a petition? Only in degree, not kind.

That's an analysis in a vacuum of course, but IF the images are being used in a respectful and useful way to advance the mission of the project I'm not seeing "but I take offense" as a reason to remove them... balance that against the BLP (in some cases), against the desire to do the right thing (always a good idea), against the reasonable suggestion others made that if it's about equally easy either way, do the less offensive thing, and a host of other considerations.... this IS a rocket science issue in some ways.

I like what the boilerplate answer on OTRSwiki says (visible at this link if you have an ID: http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Response:En-Muhammad but apparently copyrighted by the WMF (??) so I don't think it's postable... it has been sent to a lot of people though)





Seems reasonable at first read. Is every single person on earth a stakeholder, do you think? You could construct such an argument, I suspect.

Let me see if I have this straight...

If tens of thousands desire that something offensive be removed from Wikipedia, that's not a sufficient cause of action to remove the offensive component.

But if one WP admin desires that some editor be removed from Wikipedia, that's a sufficient cause, full stop.

That's it.

Wikipedians are protecting a political enterprise and are forwarding a particular belief system. That is the priority. Creating an "encyclopedia" is secondary (no credible encyclopedia would get into this mess, nor would they start changing Burma back to Myanmar and other such nonsense)

The goals of the enterprise include being “a carrier of traditional American values”, according to Jimbo Wales. But they also stress the need to run roughshod over religious cultural norms or independent national sovereignties.

Whether you have a "consensus" or not, if your beliefs differ from the stated aims, whether you have gained them from your religion or your cultural background, you can WP:FUCKOFF.

Although I am in danger of spreading into basic philosophy of which I have no academic background, aren't we getting into some pretty basic issue on ethics?

Skimming through my Independent handy guide to philosophers Part 5 (I kid you not!), my eye fell upon the work of someone who noted that if a murder had no choice in his actions, that it was ordained, then he should not be punished, and recognised that this was not a reasonable standpoint.

It strikes me that Wikipedia has ended up in this moral dead end. "We are not censored" is not to say that "Wikipedia must be amoral" in the same way that what we would consider a free society can still have a criminal system.

The UK press would rail against the idea that they were censored, but they would recognise that, in some circumstances, they must take a moral standpoint and consider the implications of their actions. They should not, for example, publish information that could disrupt a trial, and although there are legal ramifications of being in contempt, typically the press would not put their pride above such interference in process. Similarly, the UK press kept a low profile over the Danish cartoon incident. They could have published and be damned (literally in Muslim eyes) but they recognised that they could report on the issues without becoming the news itself.

Whenever Wikipedia becomes newsworthy over content, that should be a warning shot.

It is not easy, but it should be possible to find a path where certain sensitive issues, whether it is BLP concerns, religion, sexuality, are treated in such a way that even if offence cannot be avoided to those who are determined to be offended, that the reasonable person would accept that there was a decision process that was grounded in morality (F*** off ragheads, this is our encyclopedia does not really cut it for me). After all, Wikipedia does claim a moral high ground, it suggests it is a great educational project. Unfortunately, as an educator, it will fail because nobody will want to learn from a rude and boorish teacher.

This is important, because it is not just about Wikipedia doing the right thing, it is about giving Wikipedia the tools to defend itself from subversion. It is this same issue that allows articles on Boys to be subverted: sure it is not censored, so if someone has some referenced material on the use of boys as an adult sexual plaything, who are we to say it is inappropriate to place in such an article?

That is what the clause "well established interest" was meant to address. A 100,000 signature petition ought to more than establish that. Also the petitioners have a significant basis in a major world religion. On the other hand a semi-notable person with a bio article would also have a "well established interest." Maybe also a principal in a business that has an article. Although, probably not an individual who is a stranger to the topic with a strong opinion.

The important thing is that the dialog would not be completely concerned with internal WP concepts such as "WP is not censored" but that all parties could express their interests.



Well said DB.

The idea that a lack of censorship = "we can write anything we want" has got to die on Wikipedia.

No newspaper (or anything) has that attitude.

But most newspapers (or anything) are not run by mostly kids and net-nannies.