On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 11:02 PM, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The prohibition against illustrating Mohammed in (some?) muslim >> culture is no more a "personal opinion" than a decision we would make >> not to show, for example, certain sexual imagery or images of >> violence; there's certainly imagery in those realms that wouldn't be >> illegal to show but the community would agree that we shouldn't. > > > It turns out this is actually quite historically inaccurate. You're asserting that the prohibition against showing an image of Mohammed can be adequately described as a "personal opinion"? > understand there is a popular online encyclopedia It's very well to get cute. I'll put it down to Friday night festivities. But I'd accept it with more grace if you're able, since you're here, to answer my question earlier. If we are taking this argument on as an NPOV issue; which of these is neutral and which is not: 1. This is forbidden. 2. This is not forbidden. As I say, I think if one is regarded as neutral then so must the other. And if one is regarded as a POV then so must the other. I don't say this to brow beat you. I think it's an interesting and relevant question and I'd be interested to know what people think. . We're all aware that Wikimedia is now a global organisation and we all hope that it continues to expand. I would assume that issues like this one are going to crop up more often in various forms. So, since we are confronted with the Mohammed issue today I think it's well worth thinking how we are to approach these things. My personal view is that a language community should decide on its content provided, of course, that the law is not broken. Others will say that the 5 Pillars must be adhered to in all languages. And I might agree with that, but haven't yet given it much thought. If we, primarily as en:wp people as we are on this list, tell other language cultures what they can and can't do could we not be charged with cultural imperialism? And, if we go that route, are we not going to be expending way too much energy on that? Note; I'm not suggesting that anyone would act in Bad Faith... I'm suggesting that it is the logical result of dictating to language wikis what they should do. It is not a WMF goal, as far as I'm aware, to spread Western - often secular - cultural values. I think we will by accident, and that's great, because I like Western values and have a distaste for much of what happens within the Islamic world. But I don't think it should be an explicit goal. Yet. So, I repeat; treating this as a neutrality issue is fundamentally flawed and anyone who approaches that language wiki with that as their weapon should get pwned. I suggest we figure out a better approach. en.User:Bodnotbod _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
