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28 February 2008

Arabic Network for Human Rights Information

Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|cache|AfD)

This organization is referenced by 4 articles and needs a stub See Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration#Arabic Network for Human Rights Information for further details. Erxnmedia (talk) 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians who support Hezbollah

Category:Wikipedians who support Hezbollah (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (restore|cache|AfD)

This category was deleted 5 times for different reasons, once because of Misplaced Pages:CSD#C3, once because there were no users of the user box, and three times because it was a recreation of deleted material. Accompanying user boxes were also deleted. There was a debate that took place here when a user, User:Noor Aalam started creating the userboxes on his own userpage and an administrator, User:Sandstein, started deleting them. It seems that there was no conclusive result of the debate but users repeatedly deleted these user boxes until the debate was ended inconclusively, despite a good faith effort by User:Noor Aalam to revise the boxes. A user box was even created later protesting the deletions. I believe deleting these user boxes without comprehensive debate was a violation of ideals of free speech not to mention wikipedia's policies. There are comparable user boxes that have survived deletion review here and to delete this one and not those is inconsistent. Cdogsimmons (talk) 01:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: I don't understand the connection between the debate on "userboxes" at ANI. And this category. Note that the debate on userboxes wasn't even about userboxes but about wiki code that looks like userboxes. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 02:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The code was acting as a user box (I think that's the definition of a user box). I'm not sure what the contents of the category was because it was deleted, but it's on the same general topic as the userboxes so I thought we could debate them here and sort it out.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 02:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as the wiki mark up issue, I believe it is a complete novelty to take a WP:Edit to WP:DRV. This is a content dispute. If you don't like an edit, revert it, discuss it on the talk page, etc. If there's an ongoing dispute among various parties, it belongs in Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution, not here. -- Kendrick7

• Full disclosure: Cdog asked me to come here.
• This is simply a case of systemic bias being allowed to run roughshod over WP:POLICY. Frankly, I've said what I needed to say at the incredibly frustrating ANI discussion. There is no objective evidence that voicing support for Hezbollah (or at least for Hezbollah's resistance to aggression from outside) is any more controversial or "likely to give widespread offense" than voicing support for George W. Bush, Avigdor Lieberman or any of a host of other. Or take User:UBX/Iraq Camp, which proudly proclaims the Wikipedian's participation in a brutal and disastrous war of aggression which has been, conservatively speaking, 10 times more devastating than the Bosnian War. That Hezbollah has been assigned the moniker of "terrorist organization" by a few Western governments is entirely irrelevant; international condemnation of the Iraq War, the attack on Lebanon, or the occupation of Palestine has been far more strident, and come from a much larger segment of opinion.
• Does DRV have a place here? Well, I don't know. No actual "deletion" took place; a clique of admins (most of whom are identifiably aligned with the Israeli right) took it upon themselves to simply blank anything that looked like a "pro-Hezbollah" userbox and threaten anyone who put it back with blocks. Honestly, I don't expect to win this fight. Just close the DRV and move on. Hezbollah is doing just fine without us. <eleland/talkedits> 02:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Isn't the deletion of this category in line with changing userboxes to code? In otherwords, if users want to post personal stuff on there user space they should go ahead but shouldn't expect to use "main space resources" to do it. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• I don't thing the userbox should be deleted. It wouldn't change the world after all. Let have freedom of speech, as long as it doesn't affect Misplaced Pages in upper layers.RFG17 (talk) 02:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: My issue is basically this.

The following user boxes were proposed:

It's debatable whether these user boxes give widespread offense. Although Hezbollah (or a part of it) has been designated as a terrorist organization by six countries, there are many notable exceptions, and many countries openly support Hezbollah. In any respect, it's clearly debatable and the last debate was inconclusive. There also seem to be several comparable user boxes that survived deletion review, notably:

This user recognizes the right of Iraqis to resist occupation.

which survived deletion review here. And

This user recognizes the Palestinian Right of Return.

the deletion of which was overturned here. The Hezbollah user boxes do not appear to be libelous or explicitly inciting (from what I can see), and although they may contribute to wikipedia being used as a soapbox, we should at least be consistent with our application.

I note for example:

This user is a Zionist.

which apparently has never been targeted for deletion, but it is probably susceptible of raising the same tempers. It is irrelevant whether you agree with Hezbollah's views. The issue is whether members of the wikipedia community should have the right to express their agreement.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• General comment on all of the userboxes shown above and their associated categories. This is all crap. I am offended by all of it. There is no collaborative purpose for these, and they do offend. They should all be eliminated with fiery salt and salty fire. Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 03:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• General comment I am responding to notification by Cdog. I personally disapprove of almost all userboxes, the exceptions being language proficiency (for finding non-English speakers to assist in translation) and maybe "I'm a boy"/"I'm a girl" (to save people writing the (s)he thing when in doubt). The rest of them should all go in the trash, and I don't buy the argument that it's good to know someone's biases up-front, if you have a bias, try that "log out" button or stay away from "edit this page". That said, userboxes seem to be with us, and I would support the existence of the Hezbollah userbox only in the form where it supports the peaceful aims of Hezbollah, namely social works such as health and education, and political advocacy which disavows violence to achieve political ends. Franamax (talk) 03:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • That's an interesting position. The original userbox ("supports Hezbollah") could have been interpreted in that way. The later userboxes ("supports resistance against Israeli aggression", etc) could not have; but they were written explicitly to support defensive warfare. The last one I had before I was forced to remove it even had a caveat "legitimate means," but that was apparently not relevant. <eleland/talkedits> 03:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I remember some of the AN(/I) thread, do you have a link? The original box could have been interpreted many ways, thus not acceptable in my view. The futher versions just wander into the swamp - what is defensive warfare, what are legitimate means? Some groups think suicide bombing is legitimate, some think cluster-bombing villages is legitimate. I happen to live in a country where landmines are considered illegitimate in any circumstance, other countries disagree. Some countries declare themselves in legitimate defensive wars with no declared endpoint and no specifically identified agressors. Some countries declare the Geneva conventions "quaint" and some just ignore them. But the central fact is that Misplaced Pages is not the place for expressing any of these viewpoints, it is the place to neutrally observe these viewpoints. And my personal viewpoint is that the only allowable expression on Misplaced Pages is that which advocates peaceful means. Included in which is avoiding the labelling of acts of others as agression - right or not, that's a POV, and POV is what we all have to leave behind when we log in. Franamax (talk) 04:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• no political categories, period. I haven't decided yet what my position is on the userboxes. I was asked by Cdog to come here, but I don't think he targeted one particular side of the debate? —Random832 03:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Full disclosure. I tried to ask everyone from the last debate to give their opinions. I also asked a number of members from Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship of which I am a member to weigh in. I also asked an administrator from Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Law, User:BD2412 for some advice about how to appeal the deletion but he has not yet gotten back to me, which reminds me I have to tell him this debate is going on.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

And just to respond, no political categories? Do you think I should have to disavow myself as an American on my user page? It's a political affiliation. I don't think enforcing such a rule would be wise. It would merely result in a mass exodus of indignant wikipedians. It would be far better, in my opinion, to acknowledge our different affiliations and political beliefs in an atmosphere of mutual respect where we can discuss them in a marketplace of ideas. At least that was something similar to the reasoning behind my country's First Amendment which, although it does not govern this debate (see Misplaced Pages:Free speech), at least allows it to take place (wikipedia is based in Florida). --Cdogsimmons (talk) 04:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The fundamental inquiry is whether this benefits the construction of the encyclopedia. bd2412 T 04:20, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

For one thing, "American" is a nationality, not a political party. Also, I didn't say there shouldn't be userboxes, I was using "Category" in the wikipedia sense of something that puts something at the bottom of the page and makes a list of all pages that have it on it. —Random832 15:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• There are two separate issues here, the userbox and the category. I most strongly oppose any attempt to construct such a category, as it is any clearly divisive as any of the other political categories, which were all purged in the last six months. (There is no Zionist, Democrat, Communist, Fascist, etc. categories; only the userboxes remain, for the most part appropriately ensconced in userspace.) The userbox is a different story, but Hezbollah is a terrorist group (since they insist on using the same name for both the political and the armed factions), I oppose recreating the userbox (and the last version is a rather extreme violation of WP:POINT). I see no difference between the Hezbollah userbox and a box supporting those who bomb abortion clinics, or Timothy McVeigh, or Al Qaeda, or PKK, or any other terrorist organization. Terrorism is terrorism, period. Horologium (talk) 04:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• I find all of this arguing rather silly... I mean, why do we waste so much time with a. arguing over userboxes? Let me present several points. First, the Hezbollah userbox is toned down. It’s not stating, “I support the Hezbollah and I want it to kill all Israeli.” It’s just saying, “This user supports Hezbollah.” Second, if you want to, have it so it’s not obvious the first time you look at a page. Third, the people who will really find out are the people who enjoy spending their time reading people’s userpages and stealing userboxes. As far as I’m concerned, productive users don’t spend half of their time reading people’s userpages or personalizing their own; they are busy editing. Even if they do read an occasional userpage to find out information (like, “Where does this guy get his opinions?”) and take offense, a good Misplaced Pages user should have the mindset “That’s what I’m here for. To get rid of the crazies and keep information clean.” --Heero Kirashami (talk) 04:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

i was solicited to participate in this debate on my user page. i'm offended by hezbollah. it would be a bit strong to say i'm "offended" by the user boxes, but i'm just not sure what to do about them. if these user boxes are acceptable then what is NOT acceptable? "i support the suicide bombing of israeli civilians"? how about "i support using nuclear weapons against Iran"? but if this user box is NOT acceptable we have the reverse problem of what IS acceptable? i think you've either got to have a policy to ban ALL user boxes that can be potentially offensive (which will i'm sure lead to personal vendettas being run through userbox deletions) or to ban none at all. there are no clear answers here (though i would certainly side with any proposal to delete all userboxes because they are unproductive and can only serve to cause problems like this one.) SJMNY (talk) 04:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion of the category and the userbox it was populated with. We should not have any political categories; they are offensive and divisive to the community. Comparable templates and categories should be nominated for deletion. --Coredesat 05:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse deletions - There is extensive precedent to delete all support/oppose categories, of which none exist currently. If allowed, this would be the only support/oppose category allowed on Misplaced Pages, which I would be strongly opposed to. As for the userboxes (is this DRV just for the category or for the userboxes as well?) I also endorse those deletions. As said above, Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and such userboxes are divisive and have no place on Misplaced Pages. VegaDark (talk) 05:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• General Comment. Technically userboxes airing political views should not be appropriate for Misplaced Pages, as they don't really contribute much useful to encyclopedia. However, if some users are warned about one group of userboxes based on some POV, while others are not, it's not quite fair. All political userboxes such like "I hate Hezbollah" or "I support recognition of XYZ genocide" or "I support separatism" or "I support territorial integrity" etc. of similar content, should either be all banned or all kept, but not selectively so. Atabek (talk) 05:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse deletions. With reference to supporting the political arm of Hezbollah... It's rather disingenuous to say you support an arm but disassociate yourself from the body it's attached to. If an organization condones, supports, or commits violence in support of its aims (political in nature), then that organization's "political arm" is as responsible for and integral to that violence as any other part. And "who started it" is irrelevant.
    If one wishes to state they support a (political) solution based on dialog and diplomacy, there are far better ways to phrase support for self-determination, for pride in cultural heritage than to state one supports a path accentuating polarization and accepting violence to attain noble ends. A noble purpose is not only an outcome or destination, it is the choices we make to get there.
    Whether the userbox/category is personally offensive to me or someone else is immaterial. Whether violence is "justified" or not is also immaterial. I think it's quite simple. Assuming the mission of WP is to promote knowledge and understanding, then user boxes which directly or indirectly support armed conflict or which support organizations condoning/supporting/committing armed conflict--whether or not justifiable--are not acceptable. Informed of this discussion by Cdogsimmons. —PētersV (talk) 05:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Would you agree that by extension of this argument that a userbox should not mention USA, Canada, Britain, France, Denmark, Spain, Russia, Serbia, Netherlands, etc., etc., since these entities all have been or are engaged in the promulgation of armed conflict? This is a genuine question, I'm not trying to be point-y ;) Franamax (talk) 06:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I gave that very question some thought as well, I knew it would surface--what does it really mean if my suggestion is applied across the board, that is, what does it imply if Misplaced Pages considers itself a true pacifist? Is "I support (the political arm of) Hezbollah" any different from "I'm proud to be an American (and a Republican)"?

• If Misplaced Pages is a true pacifist, then express support for any entity with any police, military, or paramilitary force is off limits. That's unlikely to be achieved. Being a total and complete pacifist is far more complicated than being, say, a complete vegetarian.
• If Misplaced Pages is a humanistic meeting place and melting pot (and it is), then we as editors are obligated to strive to reflect and share the positive cultural, religious, and moral values of our backgrounds. Sadly, we do not live in a world free of armed conflict. But even in war there are rules that potential combatants have agreed to. Hezbollah has agreed to no such rules. They have paid off the families of suicide bombers, sanctioned the deaths of innocent women and children, and supported indiscriminate violence in pursuit of their political agenda.
  • We are born to our circumstance of ethnic and cultural heritage (nation as people) and to our homeland (nation as state). Expressions of allegiance to that circumstance are not implicit endorsements of, say, yesterday's military incursion by our nation-state of residence or of crimes against humanity by members of our nation-people against members of another nation-people. Should we disagree with the policies of our nation-state, we can choose to move or we can choose to work to change its policies, hopefully through non-violent means. Should we find repugnant crimes against humanity by those of our ethnic and cultural heritage which others have taken to reflect upon us, then we can choose to denounce those crimes for what they are and dedicate ourselves to insuring they do not happen again.
  • We are not born into political or paramilitary organizations. We choose to support or not, to be members or not. We choose whether or not to endorse the aims and methods of such an organization. If we do endorse such an organization, we cannot divorce our endorsement of its aims from endorsement of its methods. Any endorsement is an endorsement in full. If there is an aim such an organization purports to endorse with which we agree, but we do not agree with the organization's methods, then our expression of support for that aim must be through expressing our support of that aim directly stated as such and/or for groups that seek to achieve that aim through non-violent means.
    "I support self-determination and statehood for XYZ" is not the same as "I support organization ABC whose political arm strives for self-determination and statehood for XYZ but I disassociate myself from ABC's use of violence to achieve that goal."

Does this help? —PētersV (talk) 17:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. To the "There is no objective evidence that voicing support for Hezbollah (or at least for Hezbollah's resistance to aggression from outside) is any more controversial or "likely to give widespread offense" than voicing support for George W. Bush, Avigdor Lieberman or any of a host of other" near the outset of this whole thread: Who finds what offensive or controversial is completely immaterial. The sturm und drang of personal reactions has nothing to do with what content WP should condone if not endorse. Everyone can chose to find offense in something--therefore offense and attendant controversy are a useless barometer for anything.

• Keep these and a all associated userboxes and categories deleted Clearly unacceptable for wikipedia, clearly always have been as they advocate a very controversial political viewpoint. The existence of other controversial userboxes or categories or whatever the hell it is we are arguing about this time does not provide argument in favour of keeping these userboxes/cats but instead deleting the rest - feel free to go and tfd/mfd them. These cats/userboxes do not serve any constructive purpose for wikipedia and may be inflamatory depending on your background. Viridae 05:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Userbox issue is Moot due to WP:GUS. Anyone can have these on their User pages or in User space as there's nothing in policy addressing this. This was discussed recently as Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Policies/Userbox content where no consenus was reached. -- Kendrick7 05:57, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

  Nope, WP:GUS doesn't trump everything else on wikipedia such as WP:NOT#USER etc. The community can also reach consensus through deletion debates that individual things are inappropriate, just because a broader consensus hasn't yet been met is in no way a binding precedent on everyone, that's not the way things work around here. --81.104.39.63 (talk) 07:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages is also not a democracy. As far as I am concerned, as there is never going to be true consensus on this matter, this is permissible. -- Kendrick7 07:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse delete — I'm not exactly sure how the category helps to further civil and harmonious interactions between editors. If one were to create a category to locate editors who are interested in improving Hezbollah's article, then it's totally fine to make Category:Wikipedians who are interested in Hezbollah; however, this category makes a statement that encourages segmentation and non-neutral point of view. The templates are standoffish and point-y, but if someone wants to put them on their user page, that's totally fine; however, they should be prepared for someone, someday to use that against them as evidence demonstrating that the editor is unable or unwilling to accept the consensus of the community. --slakr 06:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: Cdogsimmons has engaged in extensive canvassing on this issue (by extensive, I mean over 150 talk page notices. Some of these notices were predicated on membership here (where membership is likely to indicate the way most might comment), while others were based on discussion here (I don't know whether those notices were neutral or geared toward one point of view). Closing administrator should take this into account. Ral315 (talk) 06:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Per this comment, AGF means we must take Cdog at his word that the canvassing was intended to be neutral and widespread. Franamax (talk) 06:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:AGF isn't and never was a suicide pact. --81.104.39.63 (talk) 07:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I can vouch unequivocally that my being solicited was based only on fostering participation, not with any expectation of result. —PētersV (talk) 18:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion. Ral315 (talk) 06:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion. Inflammatory and divisive. Guy (Help!) 06:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion of the category, the category has less merit then Category:Queer Wikipedians, which was deleted and brought to Deletion review here, here and here and the deletion was endorsed all 3 times. In this case, we're talking about support of a terrorist orginization; in that case, the context was personal preferences. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion of the category and also endorse my deletion of the userbox, obviously. Both are divisive and inflammatory, irrespective of one's views about Hezbollah. Misplaced Pages is not a place to exercise free speech - there are blogs and forums galore for that - but a place to build a neutral encyclopedia. For the same reasons, I would support the deletion of all political userboxes (including "I support Bush", "I am a Zionist", etc.) as a matter of general policy. Not as a matter of deletion policy, though: most (unlike the Hezbollah one) are not so divisive and inflammatory that they may be speedily deleted. Sandstein (talk) 07:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• All political user categories are pretty clear and extreme examples of abuse of Misplaced Pages for advocacy. All of them should be deleted. Every single one. without exception. THis is a pretty basic matter. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, and abuse of the facilities by any of its editors for advocacy in favor of (or against) any political cause brings the encyclopedia into disrepute and should stop or be stopped. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 07:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Delete any political category or userbox (no matter what the content is) once more than three or four editors find it objectionable.--Be happy!! (talk) 07:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep all such political crap - I find it handy to be able to identify the POV someone's pushing at a glance. Relata refero (talk) 09:11, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I would agree with "keep all (purely) ideological crap" but I would be more circumspect where "acceptable" methods for achieving said ideology are being implicitly included. —PētersV (talk) 18:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep - I have no use for userboxes myself, but if people want them that's fine by me. -- Danny Yee (talk) 10:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Everyone has the right to express his own pov on his userpage. This is also usefull to see if his edits in some topics are neutral or not. --helohe (talk) 12:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep (i.e. overturn deletion) per Relata refero above. --BozMo talk 12:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep/Overturn/Whatever as per Cdogsimmons, who asked me to come here. We have plenty of other userboxes (for political causes) that have survived deletion; NB that mine is not an OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, we're not talking about the main namespace. I doubt that these are any more or less offensive than such others. --Merovingian (T, C) 15:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• overturn I'd not object to (and would be mildly in favor) of deleting all userboxes related to political or ideological causes. But if we are going to have some we should allow all of them. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep if we are going to allow political userboxes All or nother seems to be the appropriate course of action. The NPOV that we aspire for in articles should be extended to this discussion. If we allow political userboxes, content neutrality should apply. Being offended by someone's political beliefs, whatever they are, is no excuse for censoring them. - Masonpatriot (talk) 15:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse Deletion of anything in mainspace that's used in user space and is not related to improving the encyclopedia (ie wikiproject stuff exempted). This includes the category above and any userboxes in main space. (Is it even called main space if it's a category?). Overturn the enforced removal of code from userspace. If a user has code in their user space that says that they support the political wing of Hezobollah then they should be allowed to keep that code with the caveat that WP:DICK and WP:SOAP applies to some other types of code that users might want to put in their user space. If we are going to remove code related to political opinions from users space we need to be consistent and remove it all and not remove things we disagree with. Disclosure: User:Cdogsimmons asked me if I was interested in this DRV. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 16:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Endorse deletion - Relata Refero's argument is actually quite convincing, but I am against all political and polemical material with regards to users' biases anywhere in Misplaced Pages. No political advocacy or divisive, inflammatory or offensive material please. EJF (talk) 16:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep all such political crap per Relata Refero. It's useful to enforce a standard that such boxes should be written neutrally without attacking parts of the community qua the community (and Cdogsimmons's fourth example, with the question mark, is questionable under that standard), but it's more useful to allow these userboxes than to disallow them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gavia immer (talk • contribs) 17:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

  However "useful" someone may find the abuse of Misplaced Pages for the purposes of political advocacy, does not the question of whether such abuse is tolerable take precedence? --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 17:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Weak Keep if we are going to allow political userboxes. Seems fair enough. Kaldari (talk) 17:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Weak endorse the deletion of the category. While the category is clearly unnecessary and divisive per prior precedent, DRV is a poor place for the first full fledged deletion discussion. No opinion on the userbox. Eluchil404 (talk) 17:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• As somebody who deleted the userbox from somebody's userpage, I also endorse deletion. Today a userbox supporting Hezbollah, tomorrow a userbox supporting Al Qaeda. Jeffpw (talk) 18:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)