Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BrandonYusufToropov (talk | contribs) at 11:39, 28 November 2005 (→Links). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Older comments from the Jihad discussion page may be found at Archive1, Archive2, Archive3, Archive4, Archive5, Archive6, Archive7, and Archive8

Moving forward

From the period October 19, 2001 till today, there have been 1455 edits made to this article. The edits to this article generally appear to be oscillatory, and inspecting the article history, the content that is present today is not significantly different than versions which were present, say, 3 weeks ago. This suggests to me that the talk page to date has not been as effective as it should be. The discussions to date do not seem to portray an adequate sentiment of convergence. If I understand correctly, the edit dispute seems to revolve around determining whether a particular set of ideas should be included or excluded in the article, how these ideas should be expressed, or even if these ideas should be expressed.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are a significant number of intelligent editors who have contributed to this page - all from a variety of perspectives. Given the right editing environment, there is no reason why this article cannot be an exemplary example of collaborative editing on Misplaced Pages - and in fact, I believe we can still achieve this goal if we all earnestly make an effort to synthesize ideas together from all perspectives and write an article with synergy.

For a number of reasons, I have taken a few bold steps here with the expectation that contributors to this article will make a sincere effort to improve the article from its current state. This article needs a significant fresh start, so let us proceed with the following mentality going forward:

The contributors to this article are all in a classroom. They signed up for a certain project called Misplaced Pages. There is an calm murmur in the room - the sunlight filters in perfectly from the side windows. Looking to the left, you smell the spring flowers. Everyone is wondering what the overhead projector at the front of the class is for...

Suddenly, a voice from a speaker announces that within 24 hours time, a certain article will be posted for editing. You are told that it needs to be improved to be best of your abilities, and collaboratively with everyone else in the classroom so that all the ideas expressed are NPOV.

And you think: "I know a thing or two about this topic. I think I can do that, and I think it would be enjoyable!"

One of them happened to preemptively obtain a copy of this article, and apparently, it was posted somewhere on the internet...you all go to this site, take a look, and think: Hmm...this is missing X, Y, Z. It needs to mention A, B, C. I think D, E, F should be rephrased as ...

In that moment, everything in the past was forgotten and forgiven.

I noticed in the edit history that people were unusually careful regarding 3RR. There were a few violations, but I think it is unnecessary to block for them - this would simply be a deferral of responsibility, and would not help the article. We can do better than that - moving forward, let's encourage a sentiment of editing where we do not need to keep track of reverts - one where thoughts are focussed on combining and synthesizing ideas, rather than removing them. This is desirable for everyone, hmm?

Granted, I will be monitoring the edits to this page, and should it degenerate back into a situation where collaboration is not particularly productive, I may opt to block accounts uniformly for short periods, and protect the page once again. However, let me express the feeling that I think the editors here are capable, mature, and responsible - and moving on, I thoroughly expect to use the administrative features associated with my account to a minimum. Please do not test the boundaries of this trust I am reciprocating here.

Now, I am taking a few hours Wikibreak, and when I come back, I would hope that some productive dialogue will have taken place here. The idea that I am suggesting, is that we move on from what has been discussed already, and try something entirely new. As far as I am aware of, this has not been done anywhere on Misplaced Pages - but it is something worth trying to do, if it would help improve this article. Of course, should this degenerate any further, we will have to proceed with other measures - but I sincerely trust that this would be unnecessary.

The page that is currently protected is not an endorsement of its correctness. Although I am aware that certain editors may prefer the current version, I also expect that they will stay around and help with the article.

One final request - if there is a need to express certain disputed ideas related to this article, may I respectfully suggest that we all actively modulate our use of intensifiers, and keep them to a minimum if possible? There are effective alternatives which can be used to avoid escalating contention on this page; the idea is that we should be able to make this a good editing experience for everyone.

So, with this post, I leave you all look outside those sunny windows and observer the green pastoral setting that is outside. Yes, even this article can be as peaceful as that - but only if we all try to work towards that. And we are doing that right now...

For a head start, I think it might be judicious to summarize the content that is in dispute - paragraph by paragraph if necessary, and whether there are certain approaches that can be adapted to help with the article. Are there ways to combine the disputed content togther, so that it is amicable to all? Certainly, the answer is an unequivocal "yes" - and I want to see that when I come back later.

--HC 17:36, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Reinstating discussions

I've archived the previous discussion in Archive 8 above. If discussions need to be reinstated, please choose judiciously the ones that you feel will be most beneficial for the article at this point in time. --HC 17:39, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Jihad as holy war

I would say that "holy war" is the main meaning people use whenever they use the term "Jihad", this sometimes even applies to a non-Islamic context.

In the terms of Islam, I think it's a false believe and a bit of POV that Jihad "misunderstood" and has "nothing to do with war" when fundamentalist Islamists use it an excuse to murder innocent people.

For example, those of us in London where religio-fascist Islamic extremists recently murdered than 30 people and seriously injured, maimed or crippled about 700 others (fact) of all cultures and beliefs have now got a pretty damn good idea of what Jihad is all about:

An excuse for violence on "unbelievers" and the use of religious texts such as the Koran and Hadith to justify mass murder and genocide...

Recently the president of Iran said publically that he would like to "wipe Israel from the face of the Earth". This is at the same time as Iran pours billions into it's nuclear weapons program and fund schools dedicated to training children to become "martyrs" ("martyr training schools") by killing themselves as living bombs.

Iran is the most well-known country with an entirely Muslim, non-secular government and no freedom of religion, and is brutal in putting down those who dissent against their tyranny, their own citizens. Its Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and National Security continue to be involved in the planning and the execution of terrorist acts and fund many terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda (who claimed direct responsiblity for the murders in London in a videotape aired on al Jazeera on the 1st September 2005).

That's the kind of future Islamofascists want, one where no one has the freedom of belief and "unbelievers" are "punished" or "destroyed" through torture or genocide...

As for Misplaced Pages, the reason the article changes so little is people like User:BrandonYusufToroPOV, User:Anonymous editor and the other members of the Islamic thought police (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Islam:The_Muslim_Guild#User_comments) incessantly patrol Wikpedia pages to try to bully their Mutaween versions of articles and target individuals who make any dissenting view...
--Chaosfeary 13:32, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't talk to it, Damien!

Chaosfeary is the banned user Enviroknot. BrandonYusufToropov 11:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Dishonesty and revert warring

The "Islamic thought police" are a permanent fixture on Misplaced Pages and they are rabidly supported by a small minority of editors who style themselves as "politically correct," "spiritual," "non-Muslim," "defenders of the Islamic faith" against "anti-Islamic bigots." It is NEVER the case that rationality, truth and neutrality prevail here. The only thing that prevails is the Islamofacism of the Misplaced Pages dawa party. I have met Muslims who were very honest about Islamic beliefs and did not try to lie to me in order to make Islam compatable with secular humanist ideals. I had a friend who was an American who converted to Islam and then went to Syria to study Islamic law and he was very knowledgable in Islam; despite our vast differences he was always truthful about Muslim beliefs, not like the hypocrtical Muslim PR campaign that is being run here on Misplaced Pages. It is a pity that Misplaced Pages only seems to attract "liberal Muslims" who are willing to lie and distort the truth in order to make Islam "look good" in the view of Misplaced Pages's very secular and discerning readership. Right now this lunatic Islamic PR campaign is trying to delete the US Department of Justice's definition of "Jihad" from the article (as well as the stylistic improvements that I made to the article) and (as usual) they have launched a relentless revert war to achieve those ends This is nothing but censorship, there is no honest reason for why such information should be deleted from wikipedia. The Muslim editors here, and the minority of supporters that I mentioned (notably Zora, who is seems to be the only non-Muslim who is trying to delete the DOJ definition), have not yet understood that Misplaced Pages is about freedom of thought and information, it is not about delusionally protecting the image of Islam from anything that would reflect negatively on the religion in the mind of a non-Muslim. Not a single pro-Islam/anti-DOJ Misplaced Pages editor has explained WHY the DOJ defintition must be deleted or WHY my reorganization of the article into two coherent section should be deleted. What kind of subsection title is "General theological issues?" or "The Muslim View"? This is just nonsense. And it should be noted that I authored almost all of this article, and it was ME who came up with the title "General theological issues" in the first place. I am only trying to improve things that I myself wrote, and here we have certain individuals trying to revert absolutely any change I make to Misplaced Pages. I am firmly convinced that all of the problems on Misplaced Pages that I describe would instantly end if only 4 or 5 certain sockpuppeteering editors were banned. --- Zeno of Elea 19:40, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Typo

Hey, yeah, I found a typo in the article. I'd love to fix it myself like I generally do with other articles, but the article seems to be protected. I guess I'll just post it here and let a sysop take care of it seeing as I can't.

In the second paragraph is this clause:

for example a Muslim struggling to memorize the Qur'an is a called a mujahid.

It should be

for example a Muslim struggling to memorize the Qur'an is called a mujahid.

Oni Lukos _ct 00:48, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

It's been corrected now - see . --HC 06:59, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Just a bit longer...

I'm still waiting to see what the thoughts of BrandonYusufToropov and Anonymous editor are regarding the article - so, for now we'll protect the page a just tad bit longer. --HC 06:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see a point for unprotection yet. You have seen the type of arguments made by the people who want to insert the controversial POV material. There would have been no revert war if the major edits were discussed before by these users, namely user:Zeno of Elea. I think that the article should be protected longer until these additions have been sorted out. --a.n.o.n.y.m 14:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I want to say too, though, that it's bizarre that this article so frequently gets frozen in place in a version that includes the absurd passages relating to the US Department of Justice's insights on Islamic theology.

That having been said, I think we should all be able to discuss what the consensus is for major edits to a page of this visibility, and keeping the article protected seems the best way to do that. BrandonYusufToropov 21:14, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

BrandonYusufToropov, you are involved in deleting information, specifically the DOJ defintion, through this revert war. You are asking that the page be protected for a longer time so that we can discuss the content dispute, but you clearly refuse to discuss the content itself. All you have done so far is whined about the "wrong version" being protected in the past, and you have baselessly asserted that the mention of the US DOJ's description of Jihad is "absurd." Why is it absurd? Why are you deleting it? Do you have anything to say for yourself in the interest of intellectual honesty? -- Zeno of Elea 01:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous editor and BrandonYusufToropov have already been given a suffucient amount of time to try to justify their revert warring and respond to the criticisms of their reverts that have been made. -- Zeno of Elea 17:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

And Zeno has been given enough time to discuss why she would make such large amounts of POV edits without a word of discussion when she knew the edits would be controversial. Also she has had enough time to realize that her major POV edits and the reverts to her edits are the ones in question. But remembering Zeno, she hasn't learned the meaning of discussion and would support any revert war as long as anti-Islamic material was presented. --a.n.o.n.y.m 18:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous editor, first of all you are well aware that I am a "he" not a "she" (as I have told you in the past); you may want to see the article Zeno of Elea as this the name of a famous peson who was a "he" and who any educated person ought to have read about through study of "Zeno's paradoxes." Furthermore, all you have provided here are personal attacks and baseless assertions that my edits are "POV" (without any explanation of why), and now you expect your censorship practices to be accepted without question. I would recommend that you worry less about making personal attacks against me and worry more about addressing the points I have made above regarding the current content dispute (which you are a part of through your revert warring). Furthermore, you keep asserting that I have made "major edits" to the article, but this clearly not true. In fact, YOU are the one who is making major edits by deleting a good 30% of the article without any intellectually respectable explanation. -- Zeno of Elea 01:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

So far, Anonymous editor and BrandonYusufToropov (the prime instigators of this revert war), have gone to great lengths to (a) make personal attacks against me, (b) openly admit that the currently protected version of the article is their preferred version, and (c) insist that the article remain protected in its present state so that a "discussion" can take place. But it is THESE very users who are engaging doing the reverts, and it is THEIR justifications that we have all patiently been waiting to hear. Instead of hearing any specific discussion about the specific content dispute (and my comments regarding it above), all we have heard is that they would prefer that the page remain protected in its current state so that we can "discuss what the consensus is." It seems to me that these people are only interested in keeping the page protected so that they can keep their unjustifiable apologetic censorhip going, and they are interested in neither discussion nor consesus. But to give Yusuf and Anonymous the benifet of the doubt I am again inviting them to respond to my explanation of my stylstic edits (see above) and I am again inviting them to explain why they have suddenly started deleting the DOJ defintion of Jihad from the article. -- Zeno of Elea 01:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Links

Let's start from the bottom of the article, and focus on one thing only: the external links and references. Take a look at this edit: . What is the dispute surrounding these links? It seems that the only difference is whether they should be characterized as "Sites critical of Jihad", or whether they are "Secular sites discussing Jihad", and whether they should be placed closer to the top or bottom. Is this correct? Does this mean that all the editors agree that they are worthy for inclusion on this page? HC 02:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Jihad's use as a propaganda term by reputable mainstream commentators is probably an important dimension of its meaning, and an underdiscussed one in this article. Sites from such commentators -- as opposed to hate-speech free-for-alls like faithfreedom.org -- should probably appear. As far as I can tell, everything on this links list should be in, though I think the title of that section still needs work. BrandonYusufToropov 11:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

What this particular section is called and where it is placed is a minor issue. The question of where it is placed is easily solved by adopting an alphabetical listing policy. I would say that "Criticism of Jihad" under "External Links" is more appropriate, and a link to Criticism of Islam would be relevant. The links section is really not the issue here and it has nothing to do with the revert war that led you to protect the page, as the diff you provide indicates. -- Zeno of Elea

Really? I must have misunderstood them then. In some reversions, the location and the title of the links seems to change along with a specific paragraph of text. I must ask, does "DOJ" mean "US Department of Justice" on this page? Also, is there a reason why other national/international operating definitions of jihad are not mentioned in the article, in additional to the DOJ one? --HC 05:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes DOJ means US Department of Justice. The probable reason for why other national/international operating definitions of jihad are not mentioned in the article is because no editor has ever heard of such a thing. At any rate, no one has stopped anyone from adding national/international operating definitions of jihad besides the DOJ since no one has proposed anything of the sort. This does not justify deleting the information about the DOJ operating definition. -- Zeno of Elea 06:10, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry. You're saying that no editor has ever heard of any other government body referring to "jihad" or defining it? BrandonYusufToropov 11:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)