[Wikipedia-l] Who is welcome?

Thu Sep 12 15:44:35 UTC 2002

Mirwin asked:

>When some sects of Muslims show up to provide 
>information shall we tell them they are obviously 
>offensive and not welcome?

I would welcome any Muslim who wants to provide information on Islam or any other subject. We should not exclude people on the basis of their having a religious belief, any more than we should exclude people who deny all religious beliefs. 

However, someone who writes _from the Islamic point of view_ will find their contributions mercilessly copy-edited into neutrality, exactly as someone who writes from an atheistic or Democratic or Marxist Republican or Unificationist POV.

"People invented God" => "The concept of God predates recorded history."

"The entire hill is a mosque" => "Muslims regard the entire hill as a mosque."

"Clinton was impeached for sex" => "Democrats believe that the impeachment was more about sex than about perjury or obstruction of justice."

"Capitalists steal profit from the workers" => "Marxists regard capitalists as thieves, contributing nothing while stealing the fruits of labor from honest working-class people."

"Rev. Moon is the Messiah" => "Members of the Unification Church consider Rev. Moon to be the Messiah."

(I do not assert that any of the translations above is _perfectly_ neutral and accurate; rather, that any information provided _can_ be presented from the NPOV.)

If there is some group claiming that Jews "started" WWII; or "invented" the Holocaust or "are a bunch of greedy hypocrites who should be driven into the Sea" or (insert favorite anti-Semitic idea here) -- then we simply write that Group A _believes_ this.

Okay, some novelist did some superficial research, and now he claims that Eisenhower killed 6 million Germans. So what? Just say "Novelist XYZ claims in Book B that blah, blah, blah."

On the other hand, if an article has too much information from one side, contributors may want to balance it with other information.

* "Most scholars regard the article as having no significant effect on Hitler's plans."
* "All but a handful of historians dismiss Holocaust Denial as utterly absurd."
* "Jewish groups generally oppose Group A's plan to drive them into the Sea." (hm, this last one may be too mild)
* "Reviewer C charges that XYZ's scholarship as shoddy."

Sorry if this is too long, but what I'm leading up to is this: any information is welcome, every person is welcome. We need only _phrase_ contributions neutrally and (if needed) _balance_ articles.

Ed Poor