Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Merzbow (talk | contribs) at 08:57, 19 December 2006 (→Abuse of this group, as predicted). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This is a new Taskforce

I created this taskforce modelled on the other Islam related taskforces, such as Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Islam/Muslim scholars task force. Any suggestions? The taskforce page is basically empty as you can see. This taskforce has been created so editors critical and non-critical of Islam can join hands in improving articles critical of Islam. Also hopefully, edit wars can be prevented or atleast reduced using this approach. --Matt57 00:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

We've needed this for a long time. Arrow740 01:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

We have. I think this was the best way to create such a collaboration. I believe the WikiProject Islam is not enough NPOV. There are many places on WP where people non-critical of Islam have grouped together, but there was no place there people critical of Islam could group together for collaboration. Hopefully this should help in improving the Criticism of Islam related articles. Although the members of this group will be from both sides, the main aim will be to improve these articles and so hopefully we can work together. --Matt57 01:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Misplaced Pages should be hosting camps for pro-Islam and anti-Islam groups. The Wikiproject Islam page isn't meant for pro-islam views only. Your saying there isnt a place for people critical of Islam to get together, is this the place for that? If so, your not promoting NPOV but anti-Islam POV. At best this area is redundant because Wikiproject Islam already exists and doesnt exclude any opinion, at worst its meant to promote islam-bashing. Shams2006 01:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Your response was not surprising. Would you say that Criticism of Islam also exists for 'Islam bashing'? Criticism of Islam is a major article which has many sub-articles. I already stated above that everyone can get together and improve the articles in this area. There are many people who are interested in this area, hence this sub-project. Please check the main page of the project and see the full list of Taskforces there. When those task forces can exist, I dont see why there should be an issue about having this taskforce. This is one of many task forces which are all grouped according to a certain topic or area of interest in Islam.--Matt57 02:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

You should probably strike out the sentence in your comment above that this place is for people "critical of Islam" to gather. I've spent a lot of time on the CoI pages and I'm not here to be critical of Islam, I'm here to improve the quality of articles about that criticism, both the criticism itself and the responses. We all leave our various ideological allegiances at the door when we come to Misplaced Pages as editors. - Merzbow 06:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I personally have felt...unwanted in the other Islam-related groups. That's probably what he was referring to. Arrow740 11:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Striver got the point below; there's nothing else for us to join. Arrow740 02:29, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Merzow, I've struck it out now - yes my original motive is for us to get a handle on these articles and to somehow prevent them from being POV Edit war battlegrounds. Now the issue is: How should we use this taskforce to make these articles better? Thats the issue now. I asked Striver for his advice who's done this kind of work on Islam articles. --Matt57 19:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

You can strike out the comment but that doesnt change the purpose you created this grouping for. Arrow apparently feels the same way you do. The purpose this group serves is as a gathering place for anti-Islam people. If not that its redundant as Wikiproject Islam already exists. I dont think Misplaced Pages intended to allow for groups devoted to criticizing a single topic. There are groups (wikiprojects) which specialize on categories of topics, such as things related by nation or religion or culture or subject, "criticism of Islam" is a single subject with a single POV. This is wrong for the same reason POV-driven articles are always wrong. Shams2006 02:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

That was not my original or stronger motivation, as you can see in my first post. For detail, see my last post below. --Matt57 05:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

that is precisely the impression i was getting. in the consideration of instances like that (i guess we can call it a freudian slip) and Matt's participation on the faithfreedom forums where he routinely reports his wiki-travails to notify all of his e-friends, or Arrow's advocation of forming a group to forward a specific POV on the wiki, then it becomes rather difficult to ignore the possibility that there is an entirely different motivation at hand here. ITAQALLAH 02:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Arrow740, i do not like many of your comments and edits, and i suppose the same is true regarding your view of my edits and comments, but if i have contributed to you feeling unwanted in the main project, i sincerely apologies - in my eyes, you are welcomed there and if anything in particular is making you feel unwanted, then tell me and i will personally look into it. As for this project. Yes, i could agree that it is needed. But, and a BIG but... uh... not that kind... anyway... comments like "has been created so editors critical and non-critical of Islam can join hands in" is giving this project a very bad start. You do not want to START it with making such distinctions. As Merzbow stated, "We all leave our various ideological allegiances at the door when we come to Misplaced Pages as editors"... or at least try to. I know i need to struggle with myself on occasions, but at least i get a bad conscious if i blatantly fail to do so. For example, it was me that created Controversies related to Islam and Muslims and its template, and it was me that splited out Criticism of Muhammad and Criticism of the Qur'an in contrast to the bigots that merged together all of Alex Jones sites and deleted all of them, together with all his movies, and i am not going to write what i think about those peoples... I HATE that kind of behavior, and if you even catch me being a bigot, give me the url of this diff to my talk page, and ill get the message. We are not here to promote Islam or disprove it, we are here to represent notable views of it, as long as we remember that, I'm fine with adding "anti-Islam" text and everybody should be ok with adding "pro-Islam" text.--Striver 22:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

<reset>First, my motivation was clear and simple: To improve the articles on Criticism of Islam to the point where they are featured on the Main page. That is our goal. It doesnt matter if that means that people critical of Islam will get together on this. They wont obviously and they cant. Projects cant be excluded to a certain faith system or exlude people of a certain faith system. The purpose of this group is to improve the articles on this topic and thats what this task force is for. And really its not a big deal because if you look at the other taskforces like this one, there's almost no activity anywhere. If I donated $5000 to charity and someone says I did it to lighten my wallet, well thats one perception. The main thing is, I donated to charity. Here the main thing is, the improvement of the articles under these topics. As you can see in the Suggestions area, this taskforce is already being put to use. --Matt57 05:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The idea maybe is innocent, but I think this is the wrong way to go about it. I feel this project may need to be deleted, given its potential to be misused. Shams2006 05:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Ahaan? Whats the CORRECT way then? CAn you give any suggestions? And if thats the way you want to go, thats fine. If these project pages get deleted, I will create the related sections on the Wiki Project Islam's MAIN PAGE so you'll be happier in that case I hope. In either way, there is nothing wrong with a taskforce formed to improve articles critical of Islam. And you are wrong by the way in assuming that this taskforce is formed for a POV. You do see Muslims editing articles critical of Islam, right? So there, you are proved wrong. Lets see what happens now. Like I say, there are millions of attempts to silence the criticms of Islam and this is one of them, yet again - this goes on in Misplaced Pages all the time. --Matt57 06:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

you're conspiracy theorising. you don't seem to appreciate the principle of assuming good faith of other editors, especially with those who you think are Muslim. if you cannot stop treating fellow editors with suspicion for even a moment, then i don't know how well that bodes for your future participation on wikipedia. ITAQALLAH 06:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Your allegations of conspiracy are irrelevant. As I said, my aim is to pursue a higher quality of articles relating to Criticism of Islam, which has many related sub-articles and this is what I will aim for, whether it is through this task force or the project's main page or anything else. I dont understand why any one would have a problem with this. My aim for example is to make sure that Aisha's age at marriage appears on Misplaced Pages's main page. Do you agree with this mission and if not, why not? This is an article relating to Islam after all. --Matt57 12:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Use the Wikiproject Islam mainspace. It's that simple. Shams2006 18:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Why? There's no rule being broken here by creating a new taskforce to focus on one type of articles (Criticism of Islam). I can take all of this stuff to the main page and create a big sub-section on the Project's main page though - its up to anyone else who opposes it. My preference is to keep the pages confined here so the effort can be focused. I dont think other members of the project would like to see the Project's main page cluttered - the taskforce will help to keep the clutter out of there. Tahts why we have taskforces on everything else as you can see on the project main page. Plus not much is going to go on these taskforces so I think that should relieve you a little. --Matt57 19:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Just wondering, is there a userbox to go with the group?

The title says it all!--Boris Johnson VC 16:16, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking for now we can use the main project's userbox:

This user is a participant in WikiProject Islam.

This is what I'm using right now. If the project develops more into a successful positive activity, maybe later with the consensus of all the members, we can have a userbox saying something like "This user is a member of the Criticism of Islam taskforce".--Matt57 00:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The userbox does really look good, but i personally rather not use the crescent --Striver 01:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Abuse of this group, as predicted

Why is "Dhimmi" listed in Category:Criticism of Islam ? Islamist Terrorism? Why "persecution by Muslims"? These aren't "criticism" articles even if people edit them to take advantage of an opportunity to bash Muslims through ancient history. These articles SHOULD be about historic practices or occurances that are sober and objective, not biased by peoples own opinions and POV. Just because you see an opportunity to bash Islam doesnt mean all articles on Islam fall in this category. As I suspected, this group is going to be used to abuse Muslims through mockeries in articles relating closely or distantly to Islam. Shams2006 06:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree "Dhimmi" was an inappropriate listing, but next time leave out the unjustified accusations. - Merzbow 08:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC)