Misplaced Pages

I believe we have come to the end of the discussion. If all you are going to do is blindly accuse me of being a "thought police", "hooligan", and "bully", and completely misinterpret what I was saying before, then I don't think anyone should waste anymore time talking to you. I told you which sections I objected to and why they shouldn't belong in an encyclopedia article. Maybe you should actually look at the present article and see why your version was not neutral. You have completely disregarded any specifications I made to you and think that the article is YOUR article, which is very arrogant considering that so many people have worked on it and started it for that matter. Also, You seem to think by making attacks against Muslims and Islamic beliefs you can somehow gain a licence to implement bigoted views, evade neutrality, and render it into sina-supporting article. I am sorry, but this is Misplaced Pages and you will find that most of the editors here support a neutral point of view, and accusing them of "fearing" a guy with his own pathetic webpage or making personal attacks against them is not going to deter them from implementing Misplaced Pages policy. I think we should move on and see what becomes of the article, rather then having you trying to debate me over material that has already been removed with good reason. Thanks. --Anonymous editor 22:42, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Yes this is wikipediea and neutrality is essential. But you are not neutral and you can’t be. You are a believer. How can we expect neutrality from a believer? A neutral believer is oxymoron by definition. As a believer you are not even qualified to give your opinion. It is like asking a son to be part of the jury in the trial of his father. Your presence in pages that Islam is discussed is conflict of interest. You are disqualified because you simply can’t be neutral. It is not in the nature of any believer to be impartial about his faith. Of course the article is not entirely mine. That is quite obvious, but you removed my version, the part that I wrote, not those of others.

Them? Who are them? I am talking about YOU. YOU are the one who is afraid of any link leading to Sina’s site. You are sitting in front of your computer 24/7 policing to see who posts anything against your religion and since you are unable to refute what others say all you can do is censor. You are the one who is removing all the links so it becomes difficult for the readers to get to the pages. Why? What are you afraid of? How an article can become more neutral by removing the links, Mr. America Taliban?

I have no desire debating with you but at the same time I will not let you convert Misplaced Pages in an Islamic site. One thing we can’t tolerate is thought police. As I said now that I have the pleasure of knowing you, I will follow you like shadow in Misplaced Pages and will stop you from causing cyber terrorism, hooliganism and bullying people. No wonder people everywhere are tired of you. I think your records should be checked by FBI. My experience tells me those Muslims who are involved cyber bullying often are also involved in actual terrorism.

There you go, your attacks are pretty self explanatory and they support what I said before. You are indeed a hypocrit, and your recent attacks further indicate that you have no credibility as an editor, let alone giving any chance of you being neutral. The pathetic attacks with which you say I am a "terrorist" simply because I converted to Islam, and that I am "Mr. America taliban", clearly proves that you have no intentions of working productively with other editors. Thanks for proving my previous points and please take your sina-support to Sina's site. --Anonymous editor 00:49, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

72.21.32.122, I would like to point out Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks to you. As it states many wikipedians remove such attacks. I, on the other hand, like to leave them because I think it speaks a deal about the editor's opinions and can often help show a bias that they could otherwise attempt to hide. If a believer's neutrality is an oxymoron (which, it is not an oxymoron by definition by any sense -- although it could foreseeably be true) then a non-believer's neutrality will also be an "oxymoron". The thing is that believers have defined what Islam is throughout the centuries, not non-believers. What Ali Sina does is interpret Islam coming up with viewpoints from his own attempted tafsirs -- then he tries to place those viewpoints on all Muslims claiming that they should accept them if they are Muslim. I'm not sure that the outside view really gives him any more objectivity, nor does yours. Islam is first defined by what works you accept, typically the Qur'an or maybe a Khalifa small variation of it, and then likely some set of hadith. Sina acts just like a priest of some sect telling Muslims what they should believe if they want to be Muslim. This does not mean Muslims are what he says, or that Muslims prescribe to his identification of what a Muslim is. Therefore putting the Sina bias into articles is denying that Muslim/Islam can be a term of self-definition but then is defining it necessarily through Sina's terms. This isn't how encyclopedia's work, they are not in the business of defining what religions are, but they report. I digressed. gren 13:32, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Everyone has an opinion and naturally to certain extent we are all biased. But generally we also are open to opposing views and if find enough evidence we are willing to change our views. This is not the case with believers. It is the nature of religious beliefs to exclude any opposing view. In Islam especially this censorship of opposing views is more noticeable than in any other religion. In no other religion the law of apostasy is death. It is a fact that Muslims cannot tolerate opposing views. Whether the apostates and critics of Islam’s definition is right or wrong is beside the point. Jews do not agree with Espinosa and Christians do not agree with Bertrand Russell, but the views of these thinkers are not censored. Jews and Christians refute their critics but do not censor them. Why is it that Muslims don’t try to refute their critics and instead engage in censorship? This is not about Sina; this is about freedom of speech. This is about my right to exercise my human right to express my opinion. The version given about Islam in the entry of Islam is not shared by everyone. That version expresses the Islamic point of view which is not shared by its critics. That version should stay but the views of the critics of Islam must also be heard. That is what neutrality is all about. Neutrality is not the imposition of the views of the believers about their religion. Muslims are patrolling Misplaced Pages and removing any article critical of Islam. This is not freedom of speech. This is hooliganism, cyber terrorism, Islamic Gestapo. That can’t be tolerated. You have to let people say things that you do not agree with. You are most welcome to refute them but you are not allowed to act as thought police and decide what people should read. There are many people who disagree with Islam. Is it right for them to just delete the entry of Islam because they do not agree with it? If you don’t think that would be right then it is not right for Muslims to remove articles which they do not find agreeable either. Just write your criticism of what you do not agree with and let the readers read both versions. You have no right to decide unilaterally that people who disagree with your faith are not neutral and hence should be thrown out of Misplaced Pages and only your version should be heard. I am willing to take this discussion to a wider audience. Maybe we should start this debate in the Freedom of Speech entry.

It does actually seem that this Ali Sina is a nobody, really. Okey. This guy has a website. So?

Criticism of Sina

Dear Grenavitar. Calling someone “a rabid anti-Islamic zealot” or “mischievous liar” are just ad-hominem an insult. There is little scholarly value to these comments and do not reflect too good on the critics. It is important to be more specific and show exactly the areas of discrepancies between Sina and his opponents. I am going through the criticisms made against Sina and I find many interesting comments made by his opponents.

I think it first needs to be pointed out that ad-hominem is not necessarily bad and it's tiresome to always see it thrown about as an insult. As for that specific instance I'm not sure what exactly is wrong with it. Sina describes himself as someone vehemently anti-Islamic. So, if we just change vehement to zealot, both of which get across the same basic idea then we have Yamin Zakaria's statement. As for does it reflect well on him or not... I wouldn't be so worried. From what I have seen, many of those willing to debate with Sina are not the best (or even most mediocre) Muslim scholars. When you are dealing with someone like Sina with the stated cause to convert people away from Islam most people are not going to take him seriously. Sina's page and his arguments are all ad-hominem, well, actually ad-Islam (or whatever Islam is in Latin). It is very difficult to figure out how to deal with this article because the notion of "who is notable that talks about Ali Sina" is hard to figure as Ali Sina himself is at the bottom level of notability for what wikipedia accepts. I'd like you to propose what you think should be done (and hopefully it will not be constantly quoting Sina in his intro) and then we can see how other users view that. gren 28 June 2005 12:29 (UTC)

This is in response to what has been discussed here http://en.wikiquote.org/Ali_Sina

Notability does not mean likeability. Osama Bin Laden, Zaqawi, Pol Pot, or criminals like Jack the Ripper are not likeable but they are mentioned in books and encyclopedias and are notable. I am fully aware that anyone who criticizes Islam is worthless for Muslims, Salman Rushie was given a death decree and his book was burned. Many bookstores carrying his book were bombed and a couple of translators of his book were assassinated. For Muslims, Rushdie is scum and his books are worthless. Whether Muslims are right about Rushdie or not is not the point. The point is that one does not have to be right or likable to be noteworthy. Many noteworthy people are just notorious. Anyone who has an opinion that is controversial and is read and discussed by a lot of people is noteworthy irrespective of the correctness or incorrectness of his views. Ali Sina is enough important at least for a group of Muslims to create an entire site, calling it after his site just to refute what he and other writers in faithfreedom.org say. Another Islamic site dedicated to Sina’s site and refuting what he says is Bismikaallahuma.com. There are at least two Islamic sites and tens of articles in other sites written by Muslims that are just to refute him and other writers in faithfreedom.org. So obviously he is not as insignificant as you claim. I have quoted the opinions of Sina’s critics and provided links to them, including those that are disparaging. Is Mr. Sina worth mentioning? A google search with “Faith freedom international” results in nearly 60,000 entries. Tens of thousands more entries can be found when search is done with faithfreedom and “Ali Sina” . Several important sites such as AsiaTimes.com WorldNetDaily.com and Frontpagemag.com have written about him and several other important sites have published his articles. The point is that he is noteworthy. This does not mean he is right. I did not say that he is. I did not say Rushdie is right either. However, those who criticize Islam do not become automatically insignificant just because Muslims don’t like what they say. An encyclopedia is to provide a balanced expose of people who are noteworthy. The very fact that Mr. Zakaria, Mr. Edip Yuksel, and other prominent Muslims debated with Mr. Sina and have published their debates in their sites shows that at least they think he is important enough to be refuted. Please do not confuse noteworthiness with likeability or correctness. Sina is noteworthy because he is read by millions. He is liked by some and disliked by others. He is a controversial personage. The job of Wikipeia is not to take side and list only people who are liked or precisely people who are liked by Muslims. In Islamic countries criticism of Islam is banned and critics are jailed or killed. In free societies we can’t tolerate his intolerance. The critics of Christianity, Judaism and all other religions have the same rights to express their views as the supporters of these religions have. I urge Muslims to exercise restraint and Misplaced Pages which is a free and unbiased encyclopedia to remain free and unbiased. Maybe you can start another Islamic encyclopedia where you control what goes in and censor all opposing views. But please let Wikepedia remain neutral. Thanks for your consideration. I don’t think the pretext that one is not known in the “real world” is a valid criterion. Ibn Warraq is world famous critic of Islam. Ibn Warraq is a pseudonym. I have not personally seen Sina saying Ali Sina is not his real name. If it is not, it is understandable for safety reason.

Please do make such broad generalizations. I know Muslims who have read the book and don't mind him. The only person I've seen criticize him for the book was my Catholic teacher who thought it was highly insulting. worldnetdaily is just cheap Christian propaganda. Edip Yuksel is not notable and neither is Zakaria. They do not nearly pass notability standards for any other encyclopedia. The only reason they are even considered is because wikipedia has lower standards. As I have said before I don't mind him have a page, but all that you have said does not make him notable. Maybe if he is published in a printed book or written about by some scholar then you'd have a point. But you show us the unnotable world of internet religious squabbling which no scholars take seriously. gren 28 June 2005 21:59 (UTC)

AMAZING

When it comes to Yusuf Estes he is a sleazy business man and this dude gets a free pass!!! AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!

HE is sleavy

HE is an abuser

HE preaches hate

He advocates violence

And yet all I see is a tap on the wrist

And a GOOD MAN who opposes Sufism he is sleazy

ghee, and u call this neutrality?

Recent tug of war

I tried to NPOV the article and Whiteknight has tugged it back towards a glorification of Ali Sina. Whiteknight, if you try to turn the page into a puff piece for Ali Sina, someone is sure to put it up for deletion. It seems that we may have to work through this sentence by sentence. You may not realize how POV some of your edits sound to people who don't share your views. Zora 6 July 2005 04:04 (UTC)

Hi Zora. Who do you think quoted those vitriolic criticisms of Ali Sina? I did! So you can’t accuse me of glorifying Ali Sina. I quoted the vicious attacks on him by his critics without quoting any of his supporters. Don’t you think it is fair to give the full picture? Zakaria is an unabashed terrorist supporter. When he says Sina calls for the massacre of Muslims, he lies. I read their entire debate. I have never read anything like that from Sina. This is out of character of Sina and against anything he writes. We can't just quote a slander as if it were true without any comment. Did you read the debate between Zakaria and Sina? I urge you to read it so you can know Mr. Zakaria better. He has called for the genocide of the Jews. You want to leave his false accusations of Sina without even mentioning that such a claim is not backed by any evidence? Here we have some false statement about Sina by his mortal enemies; we have no quote from his fans, and you suggest we should not even say the accusation is not cannot be verified? I quoted Mr. Zakaria, fully knowing he is lying. So I made it clear that Zakaria’s claim is not evidenced by Sina’s writings. You want to leave Zakaria’s slander and remove my clarification? In this article we have the views of Sina’s enemies about him, but no word of his fans. Even clarifying the libels are not allowed. Do you call this neutral POV? It is actually character assassination. -White Knight

I would have to read the interview, but it strikes me that your summary of Mr. Zakaria's comments isn't fair. Zakaria is against the Golden Rule? Zakaria is against Gandhi and Krishnamurti? I also find it hard to believe that Ali Sina, who speaks with so much anger, considers himself a disciple of Gandhi and Krishnamurti. Neither of those esteemed gentlemen EVER talked like that. In fact, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu radical because Gandhi insisted on fairness to Muslims, re payments to the new state of Pakistan.

You're taking the liberty of picking the most inflammatory quotes from his critics that you can find, then refuting them with much scorn ... but you don't seem to be allowing any REAL criticism of Ali Sina. I guess I'll have to go digging and become a critic who can talk back.Zora 6 July 2005 10:08 (UTC)

"I would have to read the interview"

Dear Zora, I asure you once you do that, we won't be disagreeing anymore. In fact you will find the views of Mr. Zakaria are very shocking (that is an understatement). Many Muslims also find his views objectionable. Also you may also change your views about Sina being angry. This is a contentious subject and he has strong views. But it is unfair to say he is angry. Once you read a few of his articles you'll see what I mean. I can see now what is the problem with Misplaced Pages. The problem is that people generally write with no or little knowledge of the subject they write about. This can't happen in other encyclopedias. Here is what Sina says about Gandhiand Krishnamurti (easy to find with google) :) -White Knight

Vanity para about Sina's beliefs views removed -Idmkhizar

Dear Idmkhizar,

How can the views of someone about something other than himself be vanity views? Are we not really letting our dislike of Sina's views control our sense of fairness? So you are of the opinion that once we publish the slanders made against one person and say what his enemeis say about him we have given a good description of him and not even his view need to be discussed?

Khizar- ok then what about the article Edip Yuksel where the following para was considered vanity: "Together with other progressive brothers and sisters, Edip promotes monotheism and freedom, participates in charity work, and promotes protection of the environment, peace, critical thinking, scientific method, and philosophical inquiry. As an individual and as a member of Islamic reform movement, he stands against evil, such as hero-worship, injustice, racism, violence, imperialism, unreasonable discrimination, oppression, torture, apathy, arrogance, greed, corruption, waste, misogyny, xenophobia, jingoism, sexual promiscuity, alcohol, drugs, gambling, economic exploitation, fraud, usury, condensation of wealth in the hands of few, and manipulation of masses via nationalistic and religious hormones." That was also an expression of beliefs and it was termed vanity but when Ali Sinas article contains something similar then its not vanity. Cld u explain tht to me plz? -- user:idmkhizar

Dear Idmkhizar. There is a world of difference between what you wrote about Edip Yuksel and the article posted here about Ali Sina. In this article we are not singing the praise of Ali Sina. We are stating his views about Islam without agreeing or disagreeing with him. There is no word of praise about Sina in this article. This article says what Sina says and what his critics say about him. To be fair, since the diatribes of his opponents are quoted we should have quoted his fans too. Yet we did not do that. So if anything the article is prejudicial against Sina. While what you wrote about Mr. Yuksel is nothing but glorification of him, how wonderful he is, how saintly he is, etc. All that could be true but certainly the opponents of Mr. Yuksel don’t agree with that assessment and therefore those statements are not neutral points of views.

• "Together with other progressive brothers and sisters,”

“Progressive” is a personal view. Mr. Yuksel’s opponents do not see him as progressive.

• “Edip promotes monotheism and freedom, participates in charity work, …” all these are personal opinions. Please do not confuse biography with adulation. -White Knight

My revert

Just to make things clear - all I was reverting was the wholesale addition of "bigate.com" redirect links in the article. I suspect the Anon is running a proxy or program or some sort that automatically converts all links into that format. All I did was remove those; I have no comment on the conent. Now that those are gone, reversions and editing on the actual content can commence. --Golbez 18:51, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

article title

since "Ali Sina" is just a pseudonym, not used outside the context of his website, this article is actually an article about a website. So I propose it be moved to faithfreedom.org to reflect that. I have my doubts about the notability of the website, and maybe there should be a vfd about it, but since we have GNAA and Time Cube, I suppose it should stay. dab (ᛏ) 12:02, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

That is a good point. The only information we have about Ali Sina is that given from his website, which makes the topic inherently POV... but, if we can have similar cases like Ibn Warraq... I'm not sure. I can't give what I think is right but I hope more people reply to this. gren 19:12, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Bias detected in the "Opposing views" section of the article

The link to Edip Yuksel's refutation article is leads to faithfreedom.org(Ali's site) ionstead of 19.org(Edip's site) and this is biased because it is supposed to be an OPPOSING VIEW and that can not possibly come from a site which favorsthe article. I had changed the link but somebody is insiting on bias. Please refrain from such. -- user:idmkhizar

• Edip Yuksel has not published his debate with Ali Sina in his site. The link you gave was a link to Mr. Yuksel’s site, not his debate with Ali Sina. If Mr. Yuksel decides to publish his debate with Ali Sina, we can point to that debate in his site. -White Knight

THIS IS SICK!!!

THIS IS SOOO BIASED!!!

YOU PEOPLE ARE EVIL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.167.241.112 (talk • contribs) 20:36, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

This article seems a lot more like an advertisement for Mr. Sina's website than an encyclopedia article DigiBullet 17:25, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

y do u show ip addresses?

so someone can track a person down and hurt em? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.27.68 (talk • contribs) 13:57, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I showed his IP (as I just did yours) because it is proper to use Template:Unsigned if an anoymous user does not sign his comment with the date and time. If you would or the previous editor would not like your IP shown (it's already in history) then I recommend making a username. Also, I don't believe anyone will will track down and hurt someone for saying this article is sick -- at least I should hope not. gren グレン 18:14, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

THIS IS A VERY BIASED PIECE

THE OLD ONE WAS BETTER

YOU CANT PROMOTE HIS LIKE THIS

I CALL FOR REWRITING

CALL FOR REASON

OK, DONT CHANGE THE ARTICLE BUT CAN U PLZ SHOW THE QUOTES WHERE HE INSULTS MUSLIMS AND THREATENS THEM WITH DEATH??

THAT WOULD BE FAIR AND BALANCED

What defines 'Criticism'

I'm sorry but the charges that have been brought against Ali Sina are part of his web personality and thus MUST be reported for an objective view of his projection. To call these "character assasinations" is paranoid and irrational, as is the selective removal of reference material (predominantly from non-muslim sources) and quotes (which are fairly referenced).

We hope that all free thinkers can make their own decisions for themselves.

NB. Also please try and keep an eye spelling and grammar.

Difficulty of Being Impartial

Dear Anonymous editor, It is very clear that writing about Ali Sina is very controversial. That is because he is controversial. This is a very contentious subject and it is difficult to be impartial. Let us see my points and see which once you don't like so we can remove them together.

Some of the things that were written in his entry were useless. For example:

“When questioned, Ali Sina has claimed having a doctorate but to avoid giving the impression that he is some sort of authority he claims that he prefers not to use his title and also because his field of studies have nothing to do with his writings about Islam.”

What is the relevance of this? First of all it is not a big deal to have a doctorate. The guy can write and he writes fairly good. He could be a doctor. So what? Why this should be of any importance to anyone. What are we trying to say? That he is not a doctor but claims to be one? Or that he is is a doctor but too modest to say it? In either case the information is irrelevant.

No one know much about him becoouse he has not been forthcomming with information about himself. That is all we shoud say and leave specualtions aside. Whether he is a doctor or not, we could not care less.

He claims to hide his identity because he says he fears for his life. Well there has been some death threats agaisnt him, so this could be true. Nonetheless the fear could be subjective. We can’t justify the death threats but it is important to say why Muslims are angry at him. It is all because of his retorics against Islam. This information is relevant and not a POV. Then I wrote: “FFI has become a meeting ground for all anti Islamists, who use the Net to expound their criticism of Islam and accuse this religion of a billion people of virtually everything that has gone wrong in the Muslim world. They comprise not just ex-Muslims but anyone with an axe to grind against Islam.” Is this a personal POV? Do you have a different POV? . I wrote about the site becoming popular not because it is factual but becaue it is controversial. We can’t say the site is not factual because that would be a POV but it is a fact that the site is very controversial. This in my view explains the Google result. “Sina’s opponents accuse him of inciting hate, a charge that he denies claming his attack is against Islam, which is an ideology and not Muslims, whom he often refer to as “victims”. Here I have tried to be as unbiased as possible. The site is accused of inciting hate and he does deny the charges. These are facts. Who is right? That is up to the readers to decide.

I slso removed Zakaria’s disagreement with the Golden Rule. That is something that should be discussed in a page dedicated to Zakaria. Apart from these, I did some minor editting. I also softened the ostensibly hostile language. This will make the facts look as if written from a biased point of view and result in the reader taking side with the person who is vilified. It is not a good idea to make someone look like a victim. This arouses sympathy and more support for him. Just write what he wrote and let the readers judge. I also invite you to be specific when you say what I wrote is POV. Which part is POV? I would be glad to rewise. Cheers OceanSplash

Dear OceanSplash, the reason I reverted your edit is because you made several major changes to the article, which took many months for the contributors of the article to reach consensus. I am sure that all sides of the dispute would not be happy with the changes and many would consider it POV. Rather than wasting my time and yours on addressing each of the issues you raised step by step, I will integrate your edits into the original article wherever possible. This way we can address any minor disputes that arise later. Please check the article soon to see the changes. By the way, if you have a message that is directed at me specifically, please post it on my talk page. Hope that helps, a-n-o-n-y-m 01:11, 17 September 2005 (UTC)