Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Islamophobia/Archive 1

message: I noticed that at least two personss withdrew themselves from the initially suggested list of persons involved. Am I right to assume that by doing so they implicitely agreed not to interfere with the results of the mediation? Mukadderat 17:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: SlimVirgin and Mikkalai have both indicated that they are no longer involved in the dispute, and have withdrawn. Although they haven't 'agreed' to anything (and mediation and the results are entirely voluntary), I would hope they'd respect any consensus that develops as a comprimise out of this nediation, given they have self-'withdrawn' from the dispute. I extend an invitation to them to add comments on the talk page during the mediation, if they please. Cheers, Daniel 05:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Procedural comments

message: Should we have private mediation, or would it be okay to occur on this talk page? MessedRocker (talk) 19:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Would prefer mediation to be on this talk page instead off-wiki. Addhoc 19:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

text: On wikipedia--SefringleTalk 03:29, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: here sounds good. ITAQALLAH 15:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Not much to say, beyond there is lack of agreement over the items listed under "Issues to be mediated".--Addhoc 09:25, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Where to have mediation

message: List everything that is wrong with the level of criticism in this article, as well as the criticism section itself. MessedRocker (talk) 20:14, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, that there are too many quotes in that section. Don't we have Wikiquote for that? I remember, when I add a small part of this quote to Islamophobia and was asked to move that to Wikiquote. Later someone later removed even the reference to Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn in the "Views labeled Islamophobic" section.  --Raphael1 10:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont anything wrong with this section. If there's quotefarming in the Criticism section, its also there in the Perceptions section, which is almost a copy paste of the Runnymede PDF file. To me this section is fine. Everyone is giving different and unique comments in the criticism section. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 22:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Quotefarming is never good -- it seems here that the criticism and perception sections just need to be copyedited. MessedRocker (talk) 23:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm fine with that as long as the essense and uniqueness of the quotes is left in. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 01:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: i agree, though repetition of the same arguments needs to be resolved. ITAQALLAH 01:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I second that. As it is, the section is not good encyclopedic material. I propose keeping the original quotes from the most prominent people and then just saying that X and Y echoed the same concerns. I'm afraid the section currently goes against WP:UNDUE. Lixy 10:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weight of the criticism section 

message: List everything wrong with this. MessedRocker (talk) 20:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: the citation used in the article is: . the article is discussing the religious hatred bill (linked above), and focuses on what Rowan Atkinson has to say about it. he criticises the bill because he feels it endorses self-censorship and serves as a hinderance for comedians. the problem with using Atkinson is that not once does he mention Islamophobia, nor criticise the concept. a Ctrl-F reveals that the word "Islamophobia" appears only once in the article, mentioned in passing, by Shami Chakrabarti, who suggests that the passing of the bill might accentuate Islamophobia instead of clamping down on it. as Raphael correctly noted, the quotes attributed to Atkinson do not appear in the cited article, but they do appear in other sources such as this, where, again, there is no evidence that he is speaking within the context of Islamophobia as opposed to the bill in general. to link his comments to criticism of Islamophobia would constitute original research. ITAQALLAH 00:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  ...is part of the original newspaper article in the independent. But even if it's quoted correctly, it's not related to Islamophobia and should go to Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. --Raphael1 01:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using Rowan Atkinson as a critic of Islamophobia 

message: I propose merging thesection entitled "criticism" into the section entitled "Perceptions". These are similar topics, and criticism sections do seem a little problematic.--SefringleTalk 20:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: the perceptions section is about academic sociological study concerning what stereotypes/prejudices are thought to constitute or contribute to Islamophobia, which i think is a seperate topic from opinions on the validity (or otherwise) of concept itself. i think the criticism section could possibly be turned into a general section on views detailing what people think about Islamophobia. ITAQALLAH 21:23, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  So in other words, "perceptions" is what Islamophobia is, and "criticism" is what people think about Islamophobia. MessedRocker (talk) 13:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer the "criticism" section title, so nobody here can claim, that the critics won't get heard in this article. --Raphael1 09:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Views would be better, so as to give them due value within the article, or outright merging.--SefringleTalk 03:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't thinks so. IMHO it will unnecessarily heat up the debate. --Raphael1 00:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: explain.--SefringleTalk 00:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: When we have a "views" section, editors with different views on Islamophobia are forced to work together (IRL unfortunately rather "edit-war") on that section to "balance" the pro and con views. OTOH a "criticism" section is supposed to contain criticism only, which needs good references, but no "neutral" position. The thing is: If we don't have a criticism section, the "critique" will spread on the whole article, and we end up with Islamophobia in quotes resp. alleged Islamophobia everywhere. --Raphael1 01:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

text: i don't think merging two distinct sections (i.e. 'perceptions', which deals with what stereotypes/prejudices academics believe constitute Islamophobia; and 'criticism', which discusses critical opinions related to Islamophobia) is necessary. the rename of "criticism" to "views" needs more discussion on the talk page, i'm not sure how this proposal is actually relevant to the topics listed for mediation. ITAQALLAH 01:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New proposal

message: Here is what I propose for the things which appear to be resolved. If you agree to them, you can sign your username, and if you disagree with a proposal, write below why.
1. The opening sentence of the Islamophobia article should be Islamophobia is prejudice or discrimination against Muslims or Islam. You may propose variants below. The idea is to restrict the opening sentence to defining the word and not explaining the concept or how controversial it is.
* Agree --Raphael1 15:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are sources establishing that the term is controversial. As further evidence, there are over three different definitions of the concept, its usage, etc. as well as issues related to whether or not certian things are or are not islamophobic, whether or not it is racism, whether the concept exists, etc. It is controversial, and that belongs in the lead sentence.--SefringleTalk 03:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: well, this is what we have been debating for over a month now (see above), and i believe your concerns have been addressed there. if you'd like to discuss further, please contribute here. ITAQALLAH 03:46, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Since there's no disagreement, I changed that.--Raphael1 19:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed resolutions (part 1)