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Map of tribes dispute

I see a mild edit war going on regarding the map of Arabian tribes around 600 CE. It was originally removed with the reasoning "this isn't an article about Islam" — but neither is that map. In the year 600, that was during Muhammad's life, and Islam hadn't spread too much then. I think showing the tribes he interacted with adds encyclopedic value to this biography (and such a map for any biography would add value regardless of who the subject is). I don't see that it makes the article "Islamic" in the least. ~Amatulić (talk) 16:45, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I think there is a case for a map like this to set the historical scene for Arabia at the time. However, I don't think this particular map is very good (or readable). I'd prefer this one, which shows geographical relief as well as tribes. DeCausa (talk) 16:51, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Either of these maps is rather more relevant to this biography than the two maps currently there. Shouldn't this be on the main talk page though? Johnbod (talk) 16:57, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
I originally removed it because it made the section look very cluttered, it didn't convey the information clearly, and as my edit summary tried to convey, it seemed more directly relevant to the history of Islam rather than Muhammad's biography. The map DeCausa linked to at least has the advantage of being more clear in presentation and I'd be happy to see it substituted for the original. It would still seem a good idea to reduce the "cluttered" look of that section somehow, either by re-sizing or rearranging images. Thanks to Amatulic for bringing this to the talkpage; sensible chap  :) Doc Tropics 17:34, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Clutter is a good point. In fact the whole article is horribly cluttered and is really spoilt by it. The timelines and other infoboxes, which I think were fairly recently added, don't add anything, IMHO, and are responsible for much of the clutter. The worst one is the Infobox on military campaigns. It's huge and really not very useful. Also, there are far too many images. In some parts of the article they are down both sides in parallel, which I thought was supposed to be a no-no. DeCausa (talk) 17:50, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Johnbod: I started this discussion here because it's about images. As for clutter, the particular section in question didn't have any images at all. I saw no clutter in adding one. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:59, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Ishan7018, 3 August 2011

Hi, would request you to remove the painting of Mohammad (saw) where it shows the reveleation of Quran from Gibrael.

Ishan7018 (talk) 00:02, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Question: Is there a reason or consensus to do this? Jnorton7558 (talk) 01:13, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Obviously not. 64.58.13.86 (talk) 22:13, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that the ideology and beliefs of every religion should be respected. Pictures of Muhammad(PBUH) offend and insult Islamic beliefs. They are also misleading and since they are not reported to have any likeness or familiarity with the individual they are representing , I don't think they have any "Encyclopedic Value". I don't know what is trying to be proved by repeatedly refusing to remove them, but I think just accepting the request for once would end a lot of problems. . Intermediate-Hacker (talk) 15:40, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

The request was responded to and rejected. We do not cater to religious sensibilities, as that would lead to censorship. If you do not like the images in this article, you are free to not make use of this website. Tarc (talk) 06:08, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Ok. Point understood. But I've heard there is another solution instead of "not making use of this website", according to some discussion here , you can customize your browsers. How can this be accomplished? Thanks. Intermediate-Hacker (talk) 13:44, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

You're wrong; accepting the requests would result in uproar from the people who believe that the very extensive prior discussions have resulted in a consensus to not remove them.
I cannot complete this semi-prot edit request, because consensus should be obtained before the template is added - and clearly, there is no consensus for this edit.  Chzz  ►  06:12, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

 Not done

Apologies, Intermediate-Hacker. I believe others missed part of your question. Please review Talk:Muhammad/FAQ to see how to configure things so you do not see the images. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Kbahmed, 8 August 2011

Please remove all the images of the prophet (PBUH) from this article. It is prohibited to make an image or painting of prophet Mohammed (PBUH). The editor must know that the paintings/images of prophet Mohammed (SAW) in Denmark and the facebook contest has offended the muslims around the world and there was a strong reaction to it from the muslim world.

Kbahmed (talk) 17:36, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

see Talk:Muhammad/images. Regards.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫Heyit's meI am dynamite 17:39, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
As noted, this will not be done. While it is true that some branches of Islam forbid the creation of images of Muhammad, Wikipedia is not governed by Islamic law. your being offended is not a valid reason for the removal of content. Resolute 17:44, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


Why not make a poll and let people vote and based on the result we'll determine whether the photos should be removed or not? What do you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalkhiary (talk • contribs) 21:04, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy.WP:NOT#DEM The strength of the argument and the corresponding consensus among editors has a higher value than numbers. --Sam 02:19, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Why is WP:FORUM not being applied here?

This is an unusual page. Very few of the comments here have anything to do with actual concrete improvement of the article Muhammad. Yet I don't see the any of the usual "Wikipedia is not a forum" notices (WP:FORUM) that you see on any other talk page to a controversial subject, or even the standard template at the top of the page. I see continual discussion regarding people's beliefs on the idea of censorship in total violation of the anti-forum policy on both sides of the debate. Can someone explain to me why this particular talkpage is a discussion forum unlike any other on Wikipedia? Bialy Goethe (talk) 20:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

This page, IIRC, was specifically set up for such things - which is why it is separate from the standard Muhammad talk page. So, I believe such discussions are expected here, since that's the purpose of this sub-page. ;-) ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 20:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
That's about right - the issues that readers bring up about the images are raised so regularly that a consensus developed to "split off" such comments to a separate page, in order to keep the main talkpage from being overwhelmed by the exact same arguments day after day. Doc Tropics 20:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
I raised this issue a few months ago, but it went nowhere. All this page serves as is a gutter to collect the waste that people don't want to see clutter up the main talk page. 99% of it is "OMG REMOVE PICTURZ NAO!!!!!" from one-off IPs that never come back to engage in any meaningful dialog. Honestly, this sub-pages should be deleted and any image removal requests on the main page should be removed without response. Tarc (talk) 21:08, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

But other pages like Talk:Ejaculation or Talk:Vagina don't have gutter image pages, and from perusing the archives I see they both get a lot of complaints. Why is this one different? On other talkpages, off topic conversation is archived or removed. Why is this method not used here? If you are going to make an exception against policy, why not just make an exception of WP:CENSOR for the Muhammad page and remove the images that create this page in the first place? Bialy Goethe (talk) 21:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Because (1) the conversations aren't truly off-topic - they simply are based on the wrong premise (that we'll censor Wikipedia in observance of someone's individual religious beliefs), and (2) there have been some who do come back to discuss the image "issue" - though yes (as Tarc alluded to) they are few and far between. There's no reason to be "rude" (which is what it would look like - even though I know that's not your intent) by simply deleting such things with no response. If every person who posts that request could be labeled undeniably as a troll or such, I'd consider it - but not everyone who has (or will) fit that category. I'm not willing to be (or appear to be) rude to a few simply because they fit the minority in actually coming here to discuss this, regardless of their reasons or perspectives. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 21:50, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Realistically, it seems that this page exists because a large enough number of people went more insane than usual over this issue, and people seemed to decide that giving them a place to vent would prevent serious problems in the future and, perhaps, the sheer weight of the archives would help dissuade some of them from even trying to force us to do things we're clearly not going to do.—chbarts (talk) 02:56, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
The old page was getting so cluttered with edit requests and discussions about the images that discussion about the article itself took a back seat.This was detrimental to its health and hence was split off --Sam 02:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Prophets images

I challenge you to find the differences between the current article and the following articles:

et cetera.

My point: even the those prophets who do not have a painting or an exact picture of them have an image in the upper right corner of the article, even if their likeness is imagined (i.e. Jesus); this article is the exception... why? are we trying to appease someone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pista235 (talk • contribs) 18:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the difference is that the most common image used for those people is a painting of them, whereas paintings of Muhammad are rarely used and the stylized calligraphy is the most common image. Nevertheless, I like standardization and would choose a painting as the lead image if I were an administrator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.119.234.2 (talk) 19:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Luckily, administrators don't make decisions like that: all decisions are made by consensus. 199... is correct: the infobox should contain a common representation of the person, one that captures how they are usually represented. So, for example, a modern sports star is usually represented with a picture of them actually playing their sport (or, at least, dressed for playing). Muhammad is almost always (like, 99+% of the time) represented via calligraphy. Our article should match that. This significantly outweighs the idea of inter-article consistency. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:23, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Agree - with Qwyrxian for reasons cited. If we say our standard is "most common representation" - then it would be consistent with our article standards to represent Muhammad with calligraphy. If the Muhammad article then appears different from other biographical articles, that's OK since the biographical subject is also rather exceptional. Rklawton (talk) 01:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Think about what you're suggesting. These talk pages have, time and again, for literally years now, rebuffed any effort to remove images from the Muhammad article. If using the calligraphic image was an attempt to appease someone, it would be a pretty lousy attempt. The demand is for the images existence, not their location. —Digital Jedi Master (talk) 03:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The pictures being in a different location is not going to make anyone feel better.The attempt to appease also makes the community a bit weak.When all the other religious figures have pictures at the header,why shouldn't Muhammad.this is setting a dangerous precedent.Muhammad is represented in the Muslim world by a calligraphy,no arguments there.But a historic figure is best represented by a picture.The calligraphic form was popularized as depictions of Muhammad were prohibited.A picture has more encyclopedic value as it better represents the person. --Sam 02:15, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Agree - I thought we'd just concluded this conversation elsewhere... No matter. Agree based on above, and as also discussed elsewhere, most other such figures have a consistent visual representation (such as Jesus; European, long hair, beard, etc), whereas, Muhammad does not. Sam: you mean oppose - you may wish to re-read what Qwyrxian said. The precedent has already been set to use the most common visual representation of the figure. In Muhammed's case, that's the calligraphy in the infobox and not an image. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 02:29, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Infobox image, revisited

thumb|right|The original infobox image I refer to this past short discussion: Talk:Muhammad/images/Archive 25#In fond memory of the infobox image

As folks here may recall, on 13 May 2011, the original lead image that graced this article for a long time, File:Aziz efendi-muhammad alayhi s-salam.jpg, was deleted from Commons as well as Wikipedia due to an uncertain copyright status, discussed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2011 April 20#File:Aziz efendi-muhammad alayhi s-salam.jpg.

We all agreed it was a superior calligraphic representation compared to what we have now, which in my opinion is a poor substitute.

I note that the image still exists on Wikipedia as shown on the right. The copyright rationale seems OK, and nobody has complained. It seems to have been around for a long time. What say we restore it to the article? Or is this one at risk for deletion too? ~Amatulić (talk) 22:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I haven't paid as much attention to the image rules for Wikipedia as I should have, but, presuming the use of this image is allowed, I say add it in. It is superior to what we've got. —Digital Jedi Master (talk) 03:15, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I also like that image, but the copyright claim makes no sense to me. It says it was published in a book in 1934, but claims public domain status under the "author + 100 years" rule. I mean, I assume the image itself is much older, but are we sure it didn't re-acquire copyright through novel use in the book? I'm thinking that especially because of the checkered background, which does not seem to be a part of the original image.
Having said all that, not only am I not a lawyer, I barely have a basic grasp on obvious copyright issues...when we start dealing with reprints, old documents, and non-US documents, I could just as easily be right as wrong. But if others are comfortable with the copyright claims, I also agree with switching the images. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I looked at the deleted version, and it contained the same copyright claim, so perhaps the issue remains.
Personally I find the rationale for deletion questionable, perhaps a too-cautious response by some who think they know enough about copyright law. Had I seen it the discussion, I would have participated. The entire rationale hinged on two things: (a) that it was deleted from Commons, and (b) the "publication date" of this image came from something recent.
If a book displays a picture of an ancient painting, how is that any different from me going to the museum and taking a picture of that painting? Neither the book publisher nor me can claim to have created the work. That would be like me creating an image of an album cover and claiming that I own it because I performed the scan. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, in my entirely non-legal understanding, that makes sense to me. Does anyone know of an image copyright expert editor who could provide us with some sort of input? Qwyrxian (talk) 04:05, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
The most obvious name is Moonriddengirl, and if she doesn't know she'll probably know someone who does. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:29, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Another option is to ask someone at OTRS to ask the publisher of the book if they would be willing to state that this particular image from their book is public domain. It may not be fruitful though, because it's already established that it's public domain in Turkey. That's the problem: If it's PD in the country of origin, why wouldn't the US respect that? ~Amatulić (talk) 18:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi. Images are not my primary focus; Calliopejen1 is one of the people who would come to mind, and she has found you on her own. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:23, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Some clarifications: this image was not published in 1934. Rather, we have a book from 1988 that prints this image. It is a book collecting the works of Khattat Aziz Efendi, a calligrapher who lived 1871-1934. (The book also notes that a different artist did the gilding on this particular illustration, but set that aside for the moment.) The book gives no clues as to the original date of publication, but we can't really assume that 1988 was the first publication, because the book is a retrospective about a notable artist. Who knows when it was first published. (It definitely isn't an "ancient painting" though--it's the work of an artist who lived not that long ago.) The two routes to PD would be: 1) first publication before 1923; and 2) first publication after 1978 (because only then does the 70-year rule kick in [1]). The problem is that we can't prove this image wasn't first published between 1923 and 1978, which would make it still copyrighted in the US. (The US doesn't follow the rule of the shorter term, for better or for worse, so the copyright status in Turkey is irrelevant.) If we wanted to ask the publisher/author anything, it would be very useful to know when this image was first published. (And I agree that a Turkish publisher commenting on US copyright law would be pretty pointless.) Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:24, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that Cornell link. Actually it seems pretty clear from the sections about publications abroad:
  • As you said, if it was published before 1923 it's PD anyway.
  • If it was published between 1923 and 1977 without compliance with US formalities (which seems to be the case), and in the public domain in its source country as of 1 January 1996 (which it is), then it is also PD in the U.S. The special case about adhering to the Berne treaty after 1996 doesn't apply to Turkey.
  • If it was published on or after 1978 and it's been 70 years since the death of the author, it's PD.
I don't see the problem. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:44, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Wait, how was it public domain in Turkey as of 1996? List of countries' copyright length says it's 70 years after the death of the author, which would have made it PD in Turkey as of 2004, as far as I can tell. Calliopejen1 (talk) 02:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
You're right, but that wouldn't matter due to the third point, assuming the book the image was found in is the only one to be found: After 1 January 1978, if published either with or without copyright notice, and not in the public domain in its home country as of 1 January 1996, then it's public domain 70 years after death of author.
So I guess this all hinges on an uncertainty about when the first publication took place? ~Amatulić (talk) 14:40, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. I would guess, considering that he's decently famous, that the work was first published in his own lifetime. It would be like having an undated image in a Picasso book released in 1988. Maybe public domain, maybe not, but we certainly wouldn't assume that 1988 was the first publication. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:54, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
If an image of a Picasso painting was first published in 1988 (say it was held in a private family collection and not shown to the public until donated to a museum — I've actually seen this in the case of Monet), isn't it kind of ridiculous that such an image would not be public domain? There's a certain amount of common sense to be applied to these copyright laws, no?
I notice you re-tagged that image with a fair use rationale. Would that be a path to using it in this article? While there may be equivalent calligraphic representations of the word "Muhammad" (a poor substitute is being used now), there's nothing we have that matches the beauty of this one. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:18, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
No, I just wanted to slap some tag on it indicating that it's non-free, so that I could start the orphan clock running without deleting it right this instant. (There's no rationale there, and it would be impossible to write one--the only almost-but-not-quite-valid way to use it would be on Khattat Aziz Efendi as an example of the artist's work, but we should be other confirmed free images by the artist given his birth/death dates.) Just because it's prettier than other images we've found so far doesn't justify using a non-free image. I'd try doing some research to find another attractive image of Muhammad in calligraphy, which might require doing some digging at a decent library. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:10, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
That has been done; see the archive linked at the top of this section. The dissatisfactory result is the reason for re-opening the issue here. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:22, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
I mean go to a physical library (probably a top-tier university library would be best) and page through old books on calligraphy... I don't see that that's been done. A Wikipedian could also take a photo of public art (at a mosque, perhaps?) in Egypt, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tunisia, or Turkey, where there are liberal freedom of panorama laws. Of course "prettier than existing images" fails WP:NFCC8, so the effort expended is irrelevant. But I can't bring myself to feel too bad about the relatively unattractive image here unless there has been a significant effort to find something better, which doesn't seem to have been done. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:06, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Just realized I missed your response about Picasso above. My point was not about the copyright status of smoething published for the first time in 1988 (based on Picasso, this would still be copyrighted btw). My point was that if you saw a 1988 retrospective book about Picasso, it would be contrary to common sense to assume that something undated in the book was being published for the first time. It's reasonable to assume that most works by famous artists were published during their lifetime. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Examples from other wikis, hopefully free: [2] [3] Wiqi(55) 20:51, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I like the first one, but the second one is worse than the stark representation we have now.
Hey, that first one is on commons! File:Prophet-Mohammed-Name.gif. It's apparently an original work by the uploader, but I like it. I'll put it in the article to see how everyone likes it. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:19, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
That one is definitely a copyvio (found clip art source), and I seriously doubt the second one (also on commons here) is self-made. Low-resolution professional-quality arabic calligraphy by a user from Ireland? I'm skeptical. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:54, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
There are plenty of Muslims all over the world, including Ireland, so I am not skeptical. It may not be original, but it's definitely derivative. If derivative, it seems no different from a photograph, which would be acceptable. Also, that image you linked (not the second one Wiqi55 linked) has been in use in the {{Muhammad}} template for ages. ~Amatulić (talk) 16:02, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I know there are Muslims in Ireland, but very low-res artworks raise red flags. I assume that relatively few people (even among Muslims) can create professional-quality original calligraphy like this. And typically someone creating an original artwork will have some sort of history of uploading that gives a clue into his background and/or will upload a higher-resolution file than this. (The low resolution is a good indication it was probably taken from the internet somewhere. If he had uploaded a ginormous png or vector version, I wouldn't be saying this.) And--assuming it is derivative of calligraphy elsewhere--unless we know what it's derivative of, we can't determine its copyright status. If it is derivative of a modern roundel, then it would be a copyright violation. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:15, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


Can someone translate both of the above images for me? Section by section? And perhaps point me to someplace where I can read up on what changes in stroke width and length may do to the meaning? I can whip up something I'd be willing to put in the public domain. No, I am not good at calligraphy (in the standard sense). I am good at creating new visual representations of line art, vector art and calligraphic art. Various of you have probably seen some samples of my work 10-20 years ago or so at Barnes & Noble, from the round calligraphic-like seal to the line-drawn "photos" of various authors. Various of those were small high res drawings to film and drawings to plate that I vectorized or modified and vectorized or used to create works matching other works. I'm willing to try, if the image everyone's currently selected does not meet fair use or PD. (So, I guess this question doesn't need answering yet). Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 20:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Resolution on controversial images

The foundation recently passed a resolution on the use of controversial images which likely applies here. To quote:

We urge the community to pay particular attention to curating all kinds of potentially controversial content, including determining whether it has a realistic educational use and applying the principle of least astonishment in categorization and placement.

where the 'principle of least astonishment' means that media should conform to the readership's expectations of the topic. Since it is a general practice in the Muslim community not to depict the prophet, and since none of the images of the prophet presented on the page are factual or necessary to article content, they likely should be removed as contrary to this resolution. --Ludwigs2 14:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

This may come as a surprise to you, but Wikipedia does not cater exclusively to Muslims. Resolute 14:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Common practice in the Muslim community shouldn't create any expectations on the contents of an encyclopedia.—Kww(talk) 14:37, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
(ECx2)What you (Ludwigs2) describes may be the "general practice in the Muslim community", but Wikipedia is not a Muslim community. We follow standards and practices that are common in academic communities and educational institutions throughout the Western world. There is no English speaking country (and this is en.Wiki) where it is standard to censor biographical images for religious reasons. Furthermore, your argument contains false assumptions: that all readers of this article are Muslim, and that all Muslims are offended by images. Neither of those assumptions is true so your reasoning is false. Doc Tropics 14:40, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I certainly found them quite informative, and I was impressed that Wikipedia refused to cave in to the demands of a minority in the interest of being informative. That was something which convinced me to stay here. No one has the right to walk through life unoffended and demand everyone feel the same about what's "offensive"; I certainly don't have any problem with the images. But further discussion really should go here. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I am not comfortable with the prejudicial tone of the above responses. We may not cater to Muslims, but we do not go out of our way to offend them, either. Please try to adopt a more sensitive approach in future posts.
That aside, there is a flaw in the logic you've presented. It is common knowledge even among non-Muslims that Islam does not approve of images of the prophet; it is an established fact that there are no known-to-be-accurate depictions of the prophet from any source whatsoever. The images being used (if I remember correctly) are all from a long-defunct period in Muslim history and were never intended to be informative or accurate depictions of anything (they were artwork). in other words:
  • There is no overriding encyclopedic reason to use images of the prophet here, since they are not critical to the content for any reason.
  • People of every race, nation, and culture would find it astonishing that Wikipedia deliberately offends the sensibilities of any minority group - much less those of a major religion - for no readily apparent reason pertinent to the development of the encyclopedia.
In fact, this astonishment has been registered by numerous editors over the history of this article; it cannot be denied. Unless we can come up with a valid reason why these images are sufficiently necessary to the page to justify that astonishment, the pictures should be removed. --Ludwigs2 19:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
What you need to demonstrate is that there is a general expectation that an encyclopedia would conform to Muslim views. I certainly have no such expectation. Quite the contrary, in fact: I expect encyclopedias to give no credence to religious perspectives and sensibilities. I'm of the impression that the overwhelming majority, if not all, of the "astonishment" registered on this page is from Muslim editors.—Kww(talk) 20:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I have found them to be informative on how Muhammad has been depicted historically, and how artists have tried to convey what they believe he looked like. That to me should answer your question of the encyclopedic value of the pictures. Singularity42 (talk) 20:27, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
@ Kww: please read the resolution again. This is not a question about 'conforming to Muslim views' (and in fact, raising the issue in that way seems to violate AGF and CIV; are you asserting that Muslim views are intrinsically bad?). The question to be answered is whether readers - assumedly readers naive to the editorial context on wikipedia - would generally be surprised or shocked to discover that the encyclopedia included the material. As I have said, most people (including Christians, Jews, Atheists, and etc) are aware that the Islam has a proscription against images of the prophet, so they would undoubtably be surprised to find that wikipedia is displaying them so prominently. Further, most people (including Christians, Jews, Atheists, and etc) would not find the images particularly informative, since they do not accurately or realistically depict any event in the prophet's life (or the prophet himself).
I am talking about the general readership; your repeated attempts to argue that "It's just those Muslims and they don't count" doesn't impress me as reasonable or supportable under policy.
@Singularity42: You are welcome to start the article Historical Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, and include all of these images (and more) over there. I will not object to any of these images in that context (and in fact would have no grounds to do so even if I wanted). This article, however, is not an art history article, and art history rationales are not sufficient to overcome the resolution or related policy. --Ludwigs2 21:17, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
In any other article about a historical figure, we would include at least one or two pictures of how that figure was depicted historically. The only reason not to include such pictures in this article is because it would offend members of certain Muslim communities who believe any depiction is blasphemy. However, moving them to a different article (whether or not that was appropriate, and I think removing all pictures is inappropriate) would not solve the issue. The same religious objections would apply to the "historical depictions" article. So ultimately, nothing really gained, and the encyclopedia is ultimately less off by not including in the this article at least some image of how he was historically depicted. So I would not agree with such a proposal, and would instead support the current status quo. Singularity42 (talk) 21:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I haven't argued that it's "just Muslims and they don't count", I've argued that religious beliefs don't count in terms of determining encyclopedia content. Anyone's. No one should expect an encyclopedia to conform to any religious perspective, and I don't think that many people do expect an encyclopedia to conform to any religious perspectives. You assert that people would be astonished to find these images, and I assert that it would be more astonishing for people to find a secular encyclopedia whose editorial control included religious perspectives.—Kww(talk) 21:41, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
We have a Depictions of Muhammad article if anyone is really that interested. Ludwigs2, while I agree with your assertion that non-Muslims might very well know that Islams don't allow pictures of Muhammed, I disagree that they would conclude wikipedia wouldn't show these images. They may conclude that none really exist, and thus be surprised to find them, but I don't think that this sort of surprise was in the spirit of the foundation resolution. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 22:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
As much as I have opposed a number of the images, and I still think the number here may be excessive, and I still think the first image needs to remain the calligraphic one, I have to agree with the majority above who say that the "least astonishment" principle actually seems to imply that we should keep, not remove, some of the images. That being said, I believe that the problem will be solved anyway, since the resolution also directed the creation of image filtering tools. Thus, at some point in the future (hopefully not too long), there will be a way for viewers who are "astonished" (i.e., offended), by the Prophet's images may simply choose to not see them. I am very glad that such tools will exist, as it does exactly what we should do: censor little (beyond that required by law), but make it easy for people to control what they (or their families, or their customers, or whatever) do or don't want to see. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
(e/c)
@Singularity42: on an article dedicated to historical depiction, NOTCENSORED would apply properly - images of the prophet would be protected there because they would be central to the topic of the article. They are not central (or even needed) on this article.
@Kww: You have, in fact 'explicitly argued that. You said: "...the overwhelming majority, if not all, of the "astonishment" registered on this page is from Muslim editors" and used that as the reason why the 'astonishment' should be ignored. Other editors have been even clearer on the matter, such as resolute's assertion that "Wikipedia does not cater exclusively to Muslims". I am willing to believe that you are in fact working from a general principle (as you say, that: "religious beliefs don't count in terms of determining encyclopedia content"). Unfortunately, you regularly focus on the repressive argument that we should not let Muslim views dictate page content, and never address the positive logic which would explain why these images are needed in the first place. As the resolution suggests, if there is something central to article content that requires these images, we should of course use them, but if they aren't required, and we decide to offend Muslims regardless - well that's astonishing, isn't it? If in fact you truly believe that religious views don't count, then they should not count either way: anti-Muslim sentiment should not dictate content any more than pro-Muslim sentiment. As of now, however, anti-Muslim sentiments are being indulged.
Again, let me be clear: the astonishing thing in this is that Wikipedia dismisses and snubs the beliefs of a major world religion with negligible benefit to the encyclopedia. Insisting on images of the prophet on this page - where they have no particular meaning and no particular value - is effectively one giant middle finger to anyone who holds those beliefs.
@Chipmunkdavis: If I understand your argument, you're saying that most people (non-Muslims, anyway) probably wouldn't care all that much that the images are being used. I'd probably agree with that. However, I'm not sure that's relevant. The point-of-astonishment here (again) is that Wikipedia would take a stand on the issue for no particularly good reason. By choosing to show images of the prophet the project as a whole is explicitly telling Muslims their perspective has no place on this article. That would be explicable (and thus far less surprising to everyone) if there were valid reasons why such images were needed on the article. However, there are no such compelling reasons, and the project's choice to display such images regardless is mystifying. Why would we do such a thing? It's the one question here that no one has ever answered satisfactorily. --Ludwigs2 00:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Note the quotes around "astonishment", Ludwigs2. They aren't "astonished", they are upset. They normally quite explicitly identify their objection as being based on religious beliefs, and religious beliefs are irrelevant to making decisions about content in an encyclopedia. I've argued that LDS religious beliefs are irrelevant in the presentation of images of temple garments; that Christian beliefs are irrelevant in discussing the historicity of Jesus; that Moses, Abraham, and Joseph Smith cannot be presented as being prophets in fact; etc. Religious beliefs are irrelevant to the construction of an encyclopedia, regardless of the faith in which they are grounded. In this particular article, the objections center around the religious beliefs of one Islamic sect, and those beliefs are irrelevant. That doesn't make them better or worse than any other sects beliefs, simply irrelevant, and nothing I have said can reasonably be construed as meaning otherwise.—Kww(talk) 00:58, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Kww, you're misrepresenting my point (for the third time now). why are you doing that? You force me to shout:
AVERAGE EVERYDAY PEOPLE WOULD FIND WIKIPEDIA'S PUGNACIOUSNESS ABOUT VIOLATING MUSLIM CUSTOMS FOR NO REASON ASTONISHING
I hope that's clearer, thanks. --Ludwigs2 14:12, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
You seem to be alone in impugning the motivation of Wikipedia editors, Ludwigs2, and alone in you interpretation of what would most astonish our readers. I hear you quite clearly, and I believe you to be incorrect. Those are different things.—Kww(talk) 15:16, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
You can read it however you like: I was merely pointing out that I was saying "A" and you were responding as though I said "B". You can worry about your own motivations; I'm just concerned about your hearing. --Ludwigs2 16:57, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Ludwigs, you have been around Wikipedia long enough to know that this site is not censored. Especially for reasons of "I don't like it". You have not presented a single new argument that has not already been rejected a hundred times in the archives. The only argument you have is "everyone would be surprised to find images of Muhammad on this article", which is absolute nonsense. Nobody would be surprised to find images of Muhammad. That is, after all, how every article on historical figures is treated. The surprise would be if we censored this article to suit religious views. For Muslims who choose to be offended by such imagery, we already offer suggestions in the FAQ on how they can hide the images for their own use without degrading the quality of the article for everybody else. Resolute 00:24, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Resolute: I'm sorry, but I cannot accept an interpretation of NOTCENSORED that effectively reads "neener-neener-neener!" NOTCENSORED does not mean that we get to put any darned thing in the encyclopedia that we feel like and tell everyone who objects that they can go stuff themselves. NOTCENSORED is designed to protect valuable material from being removed from the encyclopedia when and where it would make articles less informative; it is not intended to support editors indulging in petty interfaith bickering. These images serve no particular purpose, the article would be no better or no worse with or without them, their absence would relieve the page of mounds upon mounds of endless conflict: any common sense approach would have removed them ages ago just because they are a senseless bother. and yet here you are arguing that we should stick by them and all the problems they cause because… wait, why was that again?
Ah, yeah: "neener-neener-neener!" wunnerful. --Ludwigs2 00:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Wow. So many false assumptions crammed into one paragraph. I counted six. If you can't see them for yourself, perhaps you should pause a bit to try. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Other articles about historic figures have images,don't they? Its purpose isn't just clutter.Images are quite useful in an encyclopedic article. This isn't some random collection of kittens and bunnies.(Although that would be epic!)The pictures here are historic depictions of the Muslim prophet,Many of them by Islamic artists.It's removal would make the article less informative.Ps,I think this particular argument was brought up before.Might wanna check the archives. --Sam 02:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Amatulić, please list out any false assumptions you see so that I can clarify them for you - I don't see a single one (well, with the exception that I doubt resolute is actually thinking neener-neener-neener… - that was more in the vein of sarcasm). I'll put money on the fact that you can't find anything justifiable. --Ludwigs2 14:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
You aren't even trying. My purpose in suggesting you try to see them for yourself was to gauge whether it's even worth my effort to continue this debate. If you honestly don't see a single one (and I wasn't counting the snarky neeners), that's an indication that I shouldn't bother to engage further. I'll be happy to answer your request if you honestly can't answer it yourself. ~Amatulić (talk) 16:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
You made the claim, I told you I don't see it. If you have a point to make, make it; if you don't, please retract the comment. Seriously, I'm always open to personal critiques and willing to admit I don't see something, but I don't have much use for the "maybe you should go think about that, young man" game. I mean, if you want to reduce this discussion entirely to the realm of emotional rhetoric I can go there, but that would be fairly pointless, don't you think? --Ludwigs2 16:55, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
"Willing to admit I don't see something"? You didn't seem willing some months ago when you involved yourself before. And here you are again, trotting out the same arguments, so forgive me if I'm skeptical that you truly are willing to admit it.
  1. NOTCENSORED does not mean that we get to put any darned thing in the encyclopedia that we feel like. Straw man. Nobody has made this claim.
  2. NOTCENSORED...is not intended to support editors indulging in petty interfaith bickering. That is hardly what's going on here. The only person doing the interfaith bickering is you, using a foundation of "oh, but we can't do anything to upset the faithful!" You even proposed a policy change to that effect, which was unanimously rejected by a large community of respondents.
  3. These images serve no particular purpose. The falsity of that statement has been pointed out to you so many times it hardly bears repeating.
  4. The article would no better or no worse with or without them. The consensus is that the article would be worse, particularly if the monotony of large swaths of text is not broken up in some way with an illustration.
  5. Their absence would relieve the page of mounds upon mounds of endless conflict. Have you actually read the recent complaints from people who say this article is actually biased toward Islam because it doesn't show a picture of Muhammad in the infobox? There's such a complaint on the main talk page right now. On the contrary, removing the images will not relieve the page of conflict. It would simply replace one conflict with another.
  6. They are a senseless bother. To whom? If they bother you, then find another place on Wikipedia to spend your time. If they bother someone on religious grounds, there are mechanisms available to avoid seeing the images, and the resolution that started this thread also included a provision to improve such mechanism. They certainly don't bother me or most non-Muslims, they don't bother Shia Muslims, they don't bother Persians (see their Wikipedia article on Muhammad), and this page has had its share of Muslim contributors who understand that the images have their place and aren't bothered by them either.
Let's see. Yup, that's six, like I said. I should not have had to point out these things. You have made these arguments before, they have been rejected before, and yet you keep at it. WP:DEADHORSE and WP:TENDENTIOUS come to mind. Introducing an excerpt of that foundation resolution was a new and original twist, I'll grant you that. But the basis of your arguments remains unchanged. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Amatulic, point by point back at you (I've changed bullets to numbers for convenience)
  1. I did not say anyone had made the claim, I said that was the way the policy was being used. Here we have images of questionable concrete value and well-defined offense to a particular group of people. They were put in because someone felt like it; NOTCENSORED is used to keep anyone from taking them out - where's this straw man you're talking about.
  2. I have repeatedly shown people that the images serve no particular purpose. I'm not really interested in listening to you declare my statements false, all I want you to do is provide a positive purpose for these images that has fewer holes than a block of swiss cheese. Do that, I go away satisfied, we all win. No one has done it yet.
  3. This relates back to point 2. show me why the article would be worse. If it's just a matter of breaking up the text we do not need images of mohammed to do that; any pertinent image will do. Are you telling me we need to insult the Muslim faith in order to break up the text?
  4. Are you saying the volumes of those requests are equivalent? Seems to me the people who want an image of the prophet in the infobox will not have an insult to their faith driving them, and will be much less vocal or impassioned. They will either have made an honest mistake and give it up with a reasonable explanation, or they will be trolling the page and can be dealt with under policy.
  5. They are a senseless bother in that they add very little (if anything) to the actual content of the article and create a tremendous hassle on the talk page. But with that you're just being argumentative - you knew what I meant precisely.
with that last point in mind, maybe it's just time to go to DR. do you think we should head for mediation of try a community-wide RfC? Mediation would be fine if there's a snowball's chance you'll all change your minds, otherwise it's a waste of time and we should RfC it. --Ludwigs2 03:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
You reveal your own inability to maintain NPOV, Ludwigs, and the fact that you view this as some kind of religious war ("petty interfaith bickering") is amusing. I care about no religion save for the historical existence of them. Unfortunately, because of your own bias, you are unable to accept that this isn't an article about religion. It is an article about a 7th century individual who had a significant impact on world history, in part by founding a religion. And when I look at historical figures, especially ones of such importance, I very much expect to see examples of how said individual was depicted. As I said, for people who choose to see offence in their existence, Wikipedia has provided a means for you to remove them for your session. These images are valuable to those of us who prefer to preserve rather than destroy, alter or censor history. Resolute 14:56, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
What bias are you referring to, Resolute. Do you think I'm Muslim? You probably do, at that…
I ask a very simple question - why are we offending the principles of someone else's faith for no particularly good reason - and you respond by asserting that no one's faith matters. Well, your personal atheism aside, faith obviously matters to a lot of people, we have an obligation to our readers to be respectful, and randomly disrespecting their faith for no gain is not sensible behavior. I assume you do not walk around at work randomly dissing Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, or whatever (or if you do, I assume you are called to account for it regularly); Why do you advocate for behavior here that you would shun in your own workplace? --Ludwigs2 15:10, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't go around calling black people Niggers either. What is worthwhile to an encyclopedia is not the same as what is appropriate for the workplace. And on that same vein, your simple question is irrelevant. In a free society, we don't mask history on the basis of giving offence. We don't remove our articles on Nazi Germany because modern Germans find the subject touchy (and I apologize for Godwinning the thread). We don't delete the article on the Nanking Massacre because a sizable portion of Japan wants to pretend it never happened. We don't hide the existence of the Tiananmen Square protests because China isn't too keen on it being remembered. I'm sorry my friend, but a large part of history is offensive to any number of people or cultures. That is no valid reason to remove material. Resolute 16:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Lovely straw man you've got going there. Unfortunately, it is nothing more than a straw man. Consider the following two actions:
  • Doing something that offends people because it is necessary to do it to give a complete and accurate description of a topic
  • Doing something that offends people because it is pretty/fun/cute
If you do not see the difference between these two actions, then (Personal attack removed). These images are decorative, not informative (N.B. that might be a debatable point with a couple). This is not akin to trying to excise Tiananmen Square, Nazism, or racial prejudice from the encyclopedia; It's about avoiding the use of images that have no particular value in the spirit of peace and goodwill. --Ludwigs2 17:16, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Speaking of logical fallacies, your entire argument is based on the assumption that the images hold no value. Given that is obviously false, your argument has always lacked merit. Which, of course, is why you assume bad faith on the part of those with whom you disagree. It really should not have to be said, but I do not advocate keeping the images because it pisses anyone off. I advocate keeping them because they are historically relevant, support the article's content and are necessary to maintain the NPOV of the article. And once again, those that wish to honour their own faith have been given means to do so. Resolute 17:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
If they have value, please specify what that value is. simple enough, yah? I'll be waiting for a response. --Ludwigs2 18:12, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
The same way any other image has value. Graphically illustrates the subject, illustrates important moments of the subject's history. Visual aid for people, who are a visual animal. The very nature of how a person is depicted shows the reader how the individual was viewed at the time of the creation. In this case, there is also a significance in the fact that their very existences proves that Muhammad has been drawn and depicted over the years, including by Muslim artists. Thus their very existences serves to educate the reader on the fact that such religious intolerances have not always existed. But then, this argument has been made many times before and if you want other reasons, go through the archives. Additionally, if you are considering wasting my time with further "But they don't like them" or "But they aren't real" rebuttals, don't bother. Both have already been argued many times, and are in the archives. This discussion has already long since become yet another rehash of the same tired arguments. As it is, consensus holds that the images have value. It is incumbent on you to change consensus by showing that this belief is mistaken. Until you can, your entire argument is a non-starter. Resolute 19:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Resolute: point by point:
  • Graphically illustrates the subject - graphically illustrates what subject? The images are not accurate depictions of anything in Muhammed's life (not of Muhammed himself, not of the events). they are centuries-old artwork. or are you using 'graphically illustrates' in the loose sense of 'beautifies'? I don't think we want to offend Muslims simply to make the article look pretty.
  • visual aids for people - are you telling me we cannot find visual aids which do not feature the prophet? what is so necessary about these particular images as visual aids?
  • the fact that their very existences proves that Muhammad has been drawn and depicted over the years. That's only informative as a discussion in text, one where readers are informed that Muslims do not typically draw Mohammed, but on occasion have. Visual aids are not really necessary to get that point across, and since the point doesn't seem to be discussed in text anyway, the images are useless for education (people who don't know that they are taboo won't learn it, and people who do know they are taboo will simply be offended).
I don't know what to say to the rest of your post. You seem to be saying that it's my job job to change consensus in the same breath as you tell me that nothing I say will ever change consensus. where do I go with that? --Ludwigs2 03:29, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
  • This entire proposal simply reeks of bad-faith. Ludwigs, who do you think you're trying to kid here, twisting a foundation resolution to serve your own bias? We are here to present an encyclopedic treatment of Muhammad, a biography that, yes, includes historical images. That some are unreasonably hateful of such imagery is just too flippin bad. For the rest of the civilized world, it is not astonishing or surprising in the slightest that an image of the subject appear in a wiki article on the subject. There is no part of that resolution that is applicable here. Tarc (talk) 17:08, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
    again, Tarc, what bias is that. If you are accusing me of a particular bias, you had best identify what it is, otherwise that is simply a personal attack which I will ask you to remove. --Ludwigs2 17:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
    There is no good-faith explanation for why someone would take something the foundation directed primarily at sexual images and try to use it to prop up their failed position of image removal here. You have made such cases in the past that WP:NOTCENSORED should not protect the images in this article, you saw this foundation proposal and thought it would prop up said arguments. Clear enough for you? Tarc (talk) 17:56, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
    I have explained my reasons multiple times in multiple places. here it is again, for your personal benefit: I do not believe that the project should insult or offend anyone or anything except where we need to for the purposes of articles. You still have not explained what bias I purportedly have, or why that multiply-expressed reasoning constitutes a bias. please do so, or retract your accusation. thanks. --Ludwigs2 18:12, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
    You just explained your bias quite clearly; unbridled political correctness. Let me make this quite clear; the images will not be removed from this article. Period. Full stop. Tarc (talk) 18:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
    Just checking this page quickly while doing other things. Can an administrator please caution Tarc about personal attacks and wp:page ownership issues? If not, I will request help from ANI in the evening, but a simple reminder should be sufficient. Will respond to substantive points later. thanks. --Ludwigs2 19:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
    It was not a personal attack ,I'm afraid, you don't get to hide behind that oft-abused shield. Someone who says "I do not believe that the project should insult or offend anyone or anything except where we need to for the purposes of articles" is expressing political correctness; pointing out the truth about what someone said is not a derogatory statement. Secondly, there is no issue of ownership here. What you have done here, and continue to do, is bring up an old, dead tired, suggestion that has been rejected again and again and again and again by an overwhelming consensus of editors. Much the same as some wish the CRU hacking case to be called "Climategate" or for Barack Obama's bio to note the skepticism of birthers over his birth certificate...tired, repetitive, dead-horse arguments eventually get flagged as tendentious and the pusher of such winds up with a good ol bommerang to the face. I note over on the pregnancy article you are engaging in the exact same behavior as you are here, so I kindly suggest the the problem lies in your own behavior, and not with any of your perceived opponents. At the end of the day, consensus has determined that the encyclopedic value of images of Muhammad override any vanishingly small minority of religious conservatives that do not like to see such images. Tarc (talk) 20:04, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
    Well said. Rklawton (talk) 20:12, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Let me be clear: I like to play intellectually rough. I just keep getting in trouble for it, so I thought I would try the utterly civil approach for a while. But if you prefer the rough-talk-tough-walk paradigm, I am more than happy to oblige. at least for this one post. With that in mind, a response…
    1. You can accuse me of political correctness all you like, but from my side all I can say is this: the extravagant effort I see dumped into defending these trivial images is only explainable by deep-seated anti-Islamic prejudice. Say what you will, but it's obvious these images are being used to POV-push against the Muslim religion, and that that wholly-unacceptable-under-policy practice is being shielded by using NOTCENSORED to shut down any reasoned discussion. Don't think I have an iron in this fire - I'm an ex-Catholic and philosophical agnostic, so I don't really give a hoot - I just note the utter refusal on this page to pay even a trivial token of respect to Muslim practices and let that oddness speak for itself, as it does loudly and clearly. There is no identifiable purpose to these images on this article (or to the endless battleground that's been created in this talk) except to demean Muslim beliefs. It is shameful.
    2. When you say "the images will not be removed from this article. Period. Full stop.", you are refusing to discuss the issue and insisting that the page will not change from your preferred version. that is the very definition of wp:page ownership. Sorry. Would you like me to invite a non-involved admin in here for his opinion? I specifically asked for help from this page because I didn't want you to get sanctioned (i figured people here would go easy on you, and I was right), but if you're willing to take that risk I'll go looking.
    I will continue to bring up these issues (as is my right under wp:CON) until I believe they have had a fair, reasonable, and appropriate hearing. I don't care how long it takes, or how many previous editors have been frightened away, or which DR or administrative processes will need to be invoked to achieve that end; this issue WILL be resolved in the end by reasonable discussion, not by policy declamations, bad faith accusations, or strong language. The sooner you come to terms with that, the easier it will be for all of us.
    Your serve. (this should be interesting…) --Ludwigs2 03:13, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
    Just because you didn't get your way, doesn't mean that your opinion was not treated fairly, nor given a fair hearing.--JOJ Hutton 03:30, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
    JOJ, do you consider that an intelligent thing to say? --Ludwigs2 03:58, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
    Yep, that kind of response is exactly why you are in the position you are in.--JOJ Hutton 04:30, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)To Ludwigs: I consider it an intelligent response. It seems you simply don't like Joj's response, or the answers above. That in no way changes the fact that the community has already decided on this and re-reviewed this issue numerous times. Anyway, here are the key points as I see them. You don't have to believe this, but that too is irrelevant, since (a) it's my opinion, and (b) a decent portion of it has been agreed upon and hashed out numerous times by the community already.

  • There's nothing controversial about the images.
  • You confuse "controversial" with "it's against my religious beliefs" - there is a difference.
  • There's no controversy about this issue either. Wikipedia doesn't cater towards religious beliefs. Some people who's beliefs forbid them from viewing the images don't want anyone else to see them. Neither is in dispute. And there is no opposing views - instead, there is a misplacement of one groups own beliefs. We often discount opinions on this site when not based on substantive reasons. As a for instance, if you were 20 and a US resident, you couldn't legally drink. You could say "I dont think anyone should drink because it's not legal" and keep arguing it. Truth is, there's no controversy there - your statements can simply be disregarded as an inapplicable application of reason and in this case law. The law states you cannot. It does not state that since you cannot, then no one else should. Thus, there's no controversy or issue - just simply dismissing your statement as irrelevant. The same applies here. The religious beliefs in question say those of that particular sect of that particular faith are not permitted to view such images. It does not say that we are not allowed to either. Thus, it too is simply a "sorry, just because you aren't permitted doesn't mean we need to suffer the same restrictions as well" - hopefully the analogy makes sense.

Anyway, improperly applying that ruling, especially when there are other ones that cover this specific issue (and general ones that cover such issues as related to various things on Wikipedia), seems kinda biased and seems like pushing said bias. I'm sure that's not your intent, so, perhaps you'll give this some more thought and let this drop upon realizing it's an improper use of that ruling, as well as how "controversy" is a term that this "issue" needs to be shoehorned in to fit. Of course, this is just my opinion... yours obviously varies... but more importantly, neither your nor my opinion matter. The community has already "spoken" on this issue numerous times (and neither you nor I are the community). Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN

  • Ludwigs, if you intend to make a declaration that you will war and battle and emo-rage until you get your way, I will point you to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Obama articles, where a slew of similarly stubborn-headed individuals decided to make a (in their estimation) noble last stand against the Hordes only to find themselves in a Tenneyson poem. As far as I am concerned...and for many others around here as well...the matter is already resolved. The images are in this article because at various points in history, people have painted pictures of the subject matter, and it would be rather silly to have a biography of a person without them. Your suggestion that the images are places in the article with the express purposes of causing offense to a particular subset of potential readers is, quite frankly, an extremity retarded assertion to make. You have no basis for such a claim, no way to prove it, no way to really do anything other than finger-point/ It comes across as someone who has so thoroughly lost an argument that he resorts to the rhetorical equivalent of "well, yo' momma!" as he runs for the door. Tarc (talk) 04:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
@ Robert. Joj's question was meaningless: I haven't gotten my way because I'm not trying to get my way and in fact I don't have a way to get. I'm looking for an intelligent discussion so that this issue can be settled satisfactorily, and the only real point of contention (from my perspective) is that I have high standards for 'intelligent discussion'. Rhetoric doesn't do it for me. JOJ's statement was not intelligent; it was an ad hominem argument with no redeeming features.
with respect to your comments: we're speaking on a page which had to be created because the volume of complaints about these images was so large that it was swamping the main talk page, and which requires a mega-sized template at the top warning people about the fruitlessness of further complaints, and you honestly take "There's nothing controversial about the images' as your first premise? That's… there is no word strong enough to register how delightfully absurd that is. I disagree with that premise, I disagree with your assertion that we should casually disregard people's beliefs 'just because' and for no reason, and I think you have forgotten that consensus is (a) based in reason, not numbers, and (b) always open to revision. It does not matter whether you agree with me or I agree with you, what matters is who has the better argument. I am reasonably certain that I have the only credible argument on this page; at very least, I'm the only one who is not relying on ad hominems to prove his point.
@Tarc: there's nothing to say to your post. I'm going to open a wikiquette on your behavior tomorrow morning (it's too late tonight; I'm tired), because you seem to be aiming to be deliberately insulting. I'll leave it to the greater community to deal with you. --Ludwigs2 06:27, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Ludwigs2, above you say, "I will continue to bring up these issues (as is my right under wp:CON) until I believe they have had a fair, reasonable, and appropriate hearing." You are correct that you have the right to continue pursuing the matter. However, at this point, you are the one who must take the "next step" in dispute resolution. The consensus of regular editors is clearly against you. Of course, that does not mean that the matter is ended, only that there is nothing more you can do here on the talk page, and just continuing to raise the same issue over and over again is a form of disruption called tendentious editing. If you do wish to pursue this further, you need to find a way to get more "outside opinions". The next obvious step is either to open an request for comment, or to start a request at the dispute resolution noticeboard. Either one will let outside editors get involved, and provide a clearer sense of the community's stance. If that should also not produce an acceptable result, you can continue on to mediation. But you can't just keep raising the same points over and over again here.
To everyone else, I humbly recommend that you simply refuse to engage with Ludwigs2 until some new process takes place or new information is provided. To be honest, I think that Ludwigs2's initial post was very reasonable, because xe raised a new point (the WMF's recent resolution), which has, as far as I know, never been discussed here. Thus, it was fair for xyr to ask if that resolution changed anyone's mind. It obviously hasn't. But now, it's time for Ludwigs to take the next step or drop the issue, and there's no need to just keep bashing the issue over and over again. We (all the people supporting keeping the images) have said our piece, and consensus is (currently) clear. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:08, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
It has never been discussed here because it is not applicable. In reading through the archives here, Ludwigs has been pitching this think of the children-style argument for quite awhile now, and simply latched onto something new to try arguing it for the 1001st time. As for "just ignoring", what usually happens when that is attempted when dealing with a tendentious editor, is that the editor will declare "well, since no one opposes it, I will just go ahead and do it". The only way to put an end to something like this is a topic ban, so if this is going to go anywhere it should be to WP:ANI to consider such a measure. Enough is enough. And Ludwigs, please don't bother with WQA, we all know how that is going to go. Tarc (talk) 12:15, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

convenience break

A reminder to the regular editors here: The way this wiki operates, if a local consensus is in massive breach of our general principles, then ultimately the problem will be taken to the wider community where it will be resolved. This particular problem (purely ornamental images of Muhammad as a tool for showing Muslims that they are not welcome here) has been going on for way too long, and it appears we have reached the point where escalation to a community-wide discussion advertised at WP:CENTRALIZED has become inevitable.

In this situation, if you try too hard to protect your vested right to humiliate Muslims by offending them for no encyclopedic reason at all, you may well find that you will lose more than just this argument. Hans Adler 12:22, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

"[Y]ou will lose more than just this argument"? Are you resorting to threats of violence now? Aren't there rules against that?—207.196.186.216 (talk) 17:56, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I wish people would stop viewing this as an effort to humiliate Muslims. I have no desire to humiliate anyone.—Kww(talk) 13:42, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
When people have nothing to back up their opinion, attempting to discredit their opponent with ad hominem attacks is the only path open to them. Speaks far more to their character than anyone else's. Resolute 14:58, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Heh, sorry Kww, I was responding to your comment, and it was intended to convey my agreement with you. I was describing Hans's argument. Resolute 15:54, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Yay, once again another uninformed voice weighs in with a "YOU'RE KEEPING IMAGES HERE ON PURPOSE TO OFFEND" broadside, with no basis in reality. They are not "purely ornamental", they are illustrative of the subject. Tarc (talk) 13:43, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
@Kww: I don't believe anyone has suggested that you personally (or anyone personally for that matter), is trying to humiliate Muslims. But I'm sure you realize that it is possible to repress and humiliate without intending to. Please consider the bad old days of the 1950s, when it was socially acceptable for a boss to call his secretary 'Sweetie' and giver her a little pat on the rump to show her what a good job she's doing. Whether it is done in bad faith or not, this is oppressive to Muslims.
@Tarc: please read IDHT. Every time someone says the images are "illustrative of the subject", I ask them to explain how they are illustrative of anything. No one ever bothers to answer. You can continue to spout out "illustrative of the subject", "illustrative of the subject", "illustrative of the subject" like badly-trained parrots, but I don't believe that parrots are generally given a say on project. --Ludwigs2 14:55, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Do you feel the images should be removed from this article? Resolute 15:00, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
If you feel that article needs editing, please begin a discussion over there and I will join in if I think it's warranted. --Ludwigs2 15:12, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
The question is directly related to this discussion. Please answer. Resolute 15:24, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I did answer. or are you asking whether we can include images of Edward I on the Muhammed article? I do not know of any reason not to include images of Edward I anywhere it is appropriate to do so; If you know of some reason, spell it out and we can discuss it. --Ludwigs2 16:08, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Now you are just pretending to be obtuse. I won't pester you to answer, because I know you won't. And you can't, because you are trapped either way. The point is, your entire "how are they illustrative of anything?" question applies directly to those images of Edward I on that article. Yet, I don't see you calling for their removal. The images exist. They depict a historical individual. We use them in our articles. That is a fact of Wikipedia. And if your "illustrative of what?" argument wasn't completely two-faced, you would be consistently calling for the removal of any such non-photographic images (or, if you were an extremist, any images at all). To support their removal from Edward I, as you champion here, would have left your argument open to the obvious mockery it would receive. To oppose their removal from Edward I would have required that you admit to holding a hypocritical stance here. We all know that you want these images removed because you are offended by their existence. Everything else is just static generated in the hopes of confusing the issue. And as we've said numerous times, at which you pretend not to hear, Wikipedia does not remove material on that basis. You have no right not to be offended. But you do have the right to hide the images for yourself - functionality that is provided specifically out of respect for Muslim beliefs - you have the right to fork the project, or you have the right not to support it. And no amount of bad faith accusations or baseless accusations of bigotry will change Wikipedia policy. Resolute 16:19, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
lol - you know, I have say, I enjoy it when people think they've trapped me in reasoning. Sometimes they manage it (which is fun because I learn stuff); most of the time they merely give me an opportunity to lecture (which is fun for other reasons).
So, The lecture: There are two glaring issues in your reasoning that you need to address in order to make this into a credible argument.
  1. There are scholarly debates over whether these images of Edward I are actually images of Edward I, and those images are presented in that article in that context. There is no scholarly question about the images of Muhammed displayed - no one anywhere (to my knowledge) thinks they are actual portraits of the prophet. I understand that people get confused on this issue, the same way that some people believe that Jesus (an ethnic Jew who spent the bulk of his life doing manual labor) was blond-haired, blue-eyed, and scrawny (thanks to European traditions in art). But these images have absolutely no relation to the actual person of the prophet. They depict nothing.
  2. No one anywhere (again, to my knowledge) has any deeply held belief that Edward I should not be portrayed. It's a non-issue. As I said, if someone wants to register a complaint on the Edward I talk page we should consider it, but no one ever has. With respect to Muhammed, literally millions of people hold that belief (make that hundreds of millions if you count the 'soft' religiosity of most Muslims), and complaints are registered here frequently and vocally.
If you'll excuse the advice, allow me to point out that if you re-prioritized - putting less effort into crafting your ad hominem attacks and more into double-checking your reasoning - you would most certainly make better arguments. --Ludwigs2 17:34, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
The same old tired arguments that have been rejected a hundred times. Bring something new, or don't bother Ludwigs. You are simply a waste of time at this point. Resolute 01:03, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
another ad hominem argument. this is as tiresome as anything you accuse me of, and far less rational. --Ludwigs2 02:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
IDHT isn't really applicable here Ludwigs, perhaps no one has responded to your query because they find said query a little...ridiculous? "Illustrative of the subject" means just that; we have a picture, we tend to like pictures in Wikipedia articles when licensing allows them to be used. Of course there's a little extra baggage in this particular case, as there's a vocal minority out there who does not like that such images exist. But the images that are used here are actual historic paintings, illustrations, and whatnot. You act like we're including submissions to Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. Tarc (talk) 17:06, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
So in other words you're saying that the images are just decorative. is that correct? --Ludwigs2 17:36, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
That's not what I think he said, and I will summarize my point of view: the issue of images in this article should be held to no lower standard out of prejudice against some Muslims nor to a higher standard in deference to them. Any reasoning about the images based on religious preferences is invalid, as religious preferences are irrelevant to the editorial considerations of an encyclopedia. These images do not strike me as being particularly better or worse than images in other articles, and the only reasons people seem to come here to object are based on religious considerations: either those they hold, or a desire to make the encyclopedia more acceptable to those that do hold them. Neither motivation is worthy of consideration.—Kww(talk) 18:05, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Or repetition, for that matter. That's why people keep using that "tendentious" word with respect to your arguments.—Kww(talk) 18:07, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
And now you've devolved to a "images are just decorative" position? Facepalm Facepalm Let me ask this; do you have a non-religious-based argument against the images in this article? Tarc (talk) 18:56, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Why doesn't someone hat this whole discussion? This is an encyclopedia, not a support group. I am a believing Christian, but I do not object to the encyclopedic examination of the historicity of Jesus or the Bible. Jews and Christians alike could conceivably take umbrage at the doubt cast on King David's character and history, but Wikipedia is not a sectarian seminary. Yopienso (talk) 19:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
We already have a Historicity of Muhammad and no one is complaining. A better analogy would be finding images of Jesus that most Christians would find offensive and plastering them all over the Jesus article. Wiqi(55) 19:50, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
The flaw in that argument is that, as far as I recall, the only sorts of Jesus imagery that Christians find offensive are ones that were created with the express purpose to provoke or to offend, i.e. Serrano's Piss Christ. That would have no place in, say, Jesus Christ. Here, however, there are several classical images of Muhammad, none were created with the intent to offense or to denigrate the subject or the religion...again, we aren't using submissions from Everybody Draw Mohammed Day here. Tarc (talk) 20:01, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
"Piss Christ" is not the only image that Christians would find offensive. How about screen captions from the movie "The last temptation of Christ" showing the "Wedding of Jesus" or "Jesus as a maker of crosses", etc. Plastering such images all over the Jesus article and giving them center stage would certainly be objectionable. Similarly, for example, there was never in Muslim theology an angel inside a cave, etc. Wiqi(55) 20:13, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
You are straying further into absurdist "what if?" arguments that really have no bearing on what we're discussing here. Screencaps from a modern film wouldn't belong in any article other than an article on the film itself. Here, we are talking about historical illustrations dating from the 14th-17th centuries. Tarc (talk) 20:25, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
That doesn't change the fact that these obscure illustrations contain fringe theories about Islamic history and theology that are not found in the more reliable written tradition. So if you're trying to convey correct information about Muhammad and his teachings/experiences, you should probably have a warning asking kids/people not to learn anything about Muhammad from these images (which beats the purpose of having most of them in the article). Wiqi(55) 20:39, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

No, no they do not. And you've tried this argument multiple times already - after your initial objections to simply having any images due to the offensiveness (which you amended with various such reasons when advised that religious objections were not valid rationale). And, your real rationale is still not valid - neither is this one. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 20:50, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, try to read what I wrote more carefully: some of them do, some of them don't. Also, your other accusations seem to be caused by your confirmation bias. In reality, I merely suggested that images that are seldom referred to in any reliable source or modern biography of Muhammad should be moved to a separate "depictions of" article. I have also expressed the same view concerning the "six prominent prophets" diagram, which I find unencyclopedic for the same reason. That said, I'm not personally offended by these images and I have even maintained and expanded the Depictions of Muhammad article. Wiqi(55) 21:25, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Wiqi55, don't mischaracterize my statements. I'd rather not have to dig up numerous diffs to support it. You have travelled this (and other) roads to try to remove the images and failed to gain anything close to consensus. Each time you've revised your argument and tried again. That isn't confirmation bias. That's bias on your part. You do not want the images in the article. Your first postings on the reasons are still in the archives. And I'm simply stating Wikipedia is not censored, no matter how many times you change or expand your rationale. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 21:37, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Support for the OP's (Ludwigs2 (talk · contribs)) proposal (diff) that theWikimedia Foundation resolution passed on the 29 May 2011 be community tested for the first time on this article; perhaps using an RfC. The nearly 120,000 words in the archives of this talk page—6K, 5,12K, 8.5K,4.5K, 6.6K,18K, 1.4K,5.8K, 5K,6K, 6.6K,10K, 7K,3K, 1K,7.7K, 4.2K,3.6K, [4]—between 26 February 2007 and today clearly shows an immense depth of feeling. Many of the discussions seem to have been coherently argued if not from an extremely polarised position. For what it is worth, my view is that all these archived words could have been used more productively to create numerous quality articles.

I suspect that prose size has considerably underestimated the number of words in these talk page archives

--Senra (Talk) 20:59, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Support NOT improperly applying such a resolution as a way of gaming the system by trying to misuse policies, guidelines and resolutions to support one's religious beliefs or one's opinions. That resolution is ALREADY being used properly on this page. It does NOT say censor nor does it say cannibalize. You may wish to re-read it. And if you still disagree - bring it up to the foundation. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 21:08, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree that the time wasted arguing over this article would have been better spent doing something productive. Unfortunately, since people continue to preach censorship because their personal religious choices feel that those same choices should be forced down the throat of everyone else, we have to continue to revisit the issue. And I assure you, the WMF would never pass a resolution in support of such a thing, particularly as it runs completely counter to the project's stated goals. We exist to share knowledge, not hide or destroy it. Resolute 01:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
What you are doing here is basically an ad hominem argument. You want the images to remain because of the presumed despicable motivations of those who want to remove them. That's a clear abuse of WP:CENSOR, and it clearly contradicts the resolution, whose first half has project-wide scope: "The Wikimedia Foundation Board affirms that: Wikimedia projects are not censored. Some kinds of content, particularly that of a [...] or religious nature, may be offensive to some viewers; and some viewers may feel such content is disrespectful or inappropriate [...] while others may find it acceptable. 'Controversial content' includes all of these categories. We recognize that we serve a global and diverse [...] audience [...]. [...] content on Wikimedia projects should be presented to readers in such a way as to respect their expectations of what any page or feature might contain."
Depictions of Muhammad are entirely on-topic and unsurprising at Depictions of Muhammad, but at Muhammad they are basically off-topic. Good illustrations of a cultural topic accurately demonstrate its traditional iconography. A Muhammad article filled with art that shows Muhammad, outside the specific discussion of Western reception and the phases in Islam in which this was acceptable, misleads about the traditional iconography of Muhammad.
In the resolution's frame of reference, such depictions are an example of religious content that is considered disrespectful and inappropriate by a significant minority of Wikipedia's readers and editors, and even those who are most interested in the article. This (silly) sensibility being a well known feature of modern Islam, most educated readers will not expect them in the article.
By displaying so many of them, for no sufficient reason, we are saying:
  • Modern Islam is wrong about the prohibition to depict Muhammad. Depicting Muhammad is a normal thing to do, historically also in Islam.
  • This is a Western project. Rather than make any concessions to Muslim sensibilities, we will much rather trample on them to the maximal extent that we can get away with. (Historically, on this article this even includes a painting of Muhammad in hell, more depictions of Muhammad here than there were depictions of Jesus in the Jesus article.)
The first is in blatant breach of WP:NPOV, and the second, as a deliberate attempt to alienate a significant part of the world's population from this project, is a blatant breach of Wikimedia's openness as expressed in the first sentence of its mission statement. Hans Adler 03:55, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I'll only touch on your two bullet points. On #1, wrong, NPOV doesnt have anything to do with it. #1 is not being used as the justification. It is being used to simply point out how irrelevant it is when people who try to force such beliefs make the claim that such beliefs should be universal.
And #2 makes little sense to me. How in the world are you comparing "Here's Jesus, who's portrayed the same in virtually every image - and here's Muhammad, who's portrayed different in virtually every image". What you suggest there makes as much sense as say... if Chevy made a car that only came in one color and one body style and one trim package and they had 10 pictures of it to show the different... err... same... car line. As opposed to a particular car with NUMEROUS paint colors, multiple body designs (3 door hatch, 5 door hatch, 4 door sedan, 2 door coupe), etc, for which they would VALIDLY show multiple images to show each depiction.
So, how in this reality does your example make sense? I've obviously missed something. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 08:52, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

RfC question

I'd like to propose

Should the article Mohammed contain pictures images of Mohammed?

Is that a neutral enough formulation of the issue? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:42, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest "images" rather than "pictures", if only because, for me at least, "pictures" tends to imply "photographs". Qwyrxian (talk) 12:50, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I think the issue isn't so much whether the article contains such images, but how many, for what purpose, and how prominently they are displayed. (I believe the last point was once a problem with this article, but it is not at the moment.) A historical depiction of Muhammad taken from a Muslim context, chosen judiciously to illustrate a specific point made in the text, is one thing. Five Islamic paintings showing Muhammad (among others) plus one by a Christian painter gives a completely different message.
To still keep the question relatively simple, we could ask: "Under what conditions can a painting that depicts Muhammad be used in this article?" Hans Adler 12:54, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Qwyrxian's "image" and will wait to hear from others on the scope of the question. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:19, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
"Images" seems more useful as it can commonly refer to both paintings and photographs, and also more accurate as WP presents digital images of original works in a variety of media. Doc Tropics 14:00, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree that 'images' is better. That being said, I am wondering whether it would better to focus this by referring to 'purely decorative' images, per Hans wording in the previous section. I'm of mixed minds about that. using 'purely decorative images' is more likely to get considered responses (rather than rubber-stamped NOTCENSORED comments), and is closer to the actual issue at hand, but it's going to produce (as it already has) wikilawyering over definitions. --Ludwigs2 15:10, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
The problem with 'purely decorative' is it's not strictly true. The images do something other than decorate. As someone above said, they're not butterflies and rainbows. The images are so empty of didactic value for this article that they are almost gratuitous, but not quite. The question is, does the vanishingly little relevant information conveyed by these images justify their inclusion, given they will offend many readers? I agree with others that to exclude important information simply to avoid causing offense would be a mistake. But there may be a case for excluding offensive images when the information they convey is of trivial didactic value to the article in question. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 23:49, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

If everyone thinks that such is necessary yet again, sure, let's waste some time. I too support using the word "images" over "pictures" for the reasons stated. I will now post the results. (a) the vast vast majority of editors who involve themselves will support inclusion of the images, (b) a tiny minority will be neutral (c) a tiny minority of established editors will oppose so as not to offend, and thus be !voting to ignore policies, (d) depending on the news coverage, some amount of not-yet-editors (from small to thousands) will jump in to vote "You're disrespecting me because you, who aren't obligated to, aren't following my beliefs, which clearly are not your beliefs... additionally, I'd never have seen these images if I didnt come here fully knowing they were here and look at them - thus violating my own beliefs in an effort to enforce them on the rest of you". That of course is also not valid rationale and can thus be invalidated.

So, there you have it. The RfC results. Shall we get on with the RfC? Or look at past efforts in this respect. Doesn't matter to me in either respect. My vote is thus:

  • Support (including images) not censoring Wikipedia based on the religious beliefs of others who wish to impose and enforce their religious beliefs on myself and the community - otherwise, we open the door for all religious groups to impose their beliefs upon Wikipedia and the rest of us.

And there you have it. ;-) We can keep having RfCs... it's an interesting read... but I suspect the results will always be the same.

Sorry if anyone is offended by the tone above. There really isn't any tone to it, even if you perceive one. Simply put, Wikipedia becomes Islamopedia - or we then apply such to ALL religious articles/sects/groups and it becomes Religopedia. Or we continue as we have, remembering Wikipedia is not censored and does not cater to ANY group's religious beliefs. So, let's start the RfC and !vote - mine's above. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 17:59, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Heh heh, I suspect your prediction will be proven accurate; good summary. Doc Tropics 18:49, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
LoL, thanks. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:59, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Just one last comment. I truly think (and I say this with no sarcasm whatsoever) the idea is commendable and understand the reasons behind it, but no matter how politely or uncontroversially the RfC is worded, what the RfC really asks is this:
  • (a) Should we leave the images of Muhammad in the article, or (b) should we !vote to ignore the most important and all encompassing policy on Wikipedia?
That sadly is what it really asks. Even if (b) is the consensus, we can still do nothing at that point except propose one of the two of these:
  • (1) Should WP:CENSOR be amended to read (a) "Except in the case of images of Muhammed, Wikipedia is not censored..." or (2) "Except in the instances where religious objections are raised, Wikipedia is not censored..."
That is what any such RfC asks. Now, having an RfC directed at the particular relevance of a particular image in a particular section (or one that covers each image, section by section) is something else entirely - as long as censorship based reasons/!votes are discarded until or unless WP:CENSOR is modified to match (1) or (2) above.
And one final note. Depictions of Muhammad are probably more important than depictions of say Jesus (which are largely the same sans minor artistic influences). Our two most commonly used senses are our eyes and ears. On a visual medium, such as Wikipedia, our eyes are the primary sensory method we use. How people perceived a historical figure over the years, including visually, is one of the most important parts of representing that figure, and should not be subject to censorship (nor can it be, until that policy is changed). Which brings us to the statement Ludwigs quoted above - simply put, paraphrased, my opinion is it says "Don't simply include content in an article to offend - instead, include it when it's relevant to the article at hand" - such as depictions that show how perceptions of Muhammad were different over time or amongst different sects of Islam or amongst those who do not adhere to those beliefs. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:59, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
WP:CENSOR is not "the most important and all encompassing policy on Wikipedia", and even those editors who choose to stretch it so far as to make it contradict WP:UNDUE have a hard time arguing that WP:CENSOR is the superior of the two -- which is why they generally practise WP:IDHT and completely ignore the question why we need no less than five images to illustrate such an extremely minor point as the existence of Islamic depictions of Muhammad. Hans Adler 23:08, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
You are indeed correct that you seem to be practicing IDHT. Additionally, you seem to be implying I do not understand UNDUE, which I do. UNDUE and CENSOR do not need to be at odds. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 23:22, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Given that your formulation of the RfC question is unlikely to win bipartisan support, can you live with

Should the article Mohammed contain pictures images of Mohammed?

if this goes to a community wide RfC? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
That question is poor to the point of being worthless. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and RFC is not a simple referendum/vote. Consequently, your proposed question becomes unactionable as it is without merit in policy. If we must go through with this, the question needs to reflect the actual issue and how it relates to existing policy: Are the images valuable to the article? or something similar. As it is, it is very unlikely that those who oppose the inclusion of images do so for any reason other than "no, because they offend my/Muslim sensibilities", which has no basis in policy and is likely to be discounted. Resolute 03:06, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Minimally informative artist's impressions abound on the project, and the motivation for removal of them here, as opposed those at Jesus Christ, is the offense element. You are saying there are two questions: Does inclusion conform to policy (WP:DUE, WP:IUP, etc.) and Should the fact that they will offend many readers influence decisions about inclusion? You're saying the RfC might profitably discuss the former but the latter would muddy the argument, and an RfC is the wrong forum for such a meta discussion Have I understood you? If I have, would this be appropriate?

Does inclusion of the images presently illustrating Muhammad conform to Wikipedia policy?

--Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:57, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
(ec) A priori there is nothing wrong with an RfC that asks how policy should be applied in a specific situation. That's not the problem with the proposed question. The problem, which could be mitigated by offering more nuanced responses than just 'yes' or 'no', is that the question creates a false dichotomy between the overdose of culturally atypical pictures that we have now and no pictures at all. I believe that most realistically, what the wider community wants is a reasonable number of such pictures (probably something between 0 and 2) directly illustrating a discussion of this issue and of the West's Muhammad reception. An RfC that does not offer the most likely outcome as an option would be a poor one.
After edit conflict: Anthonyhcole's above proposed RfC question demonstrates the problem with the question by having the opposite problem. The most likely outcome of both questions would be: "Yes, the article should contain images of Muhammad. No, the images presently there do not conform to Wikipedia policy." Hans Adler 04:09, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I was rethinking my response yet again as you were responding, Hans. The questions Ludwigs is raising, and ones I don't know the answer to, are Should the Foundation's resolution on controversial images be applied to Wikipedia?, and, if so, Does application of the resolution's principles to this article rule out most or all of the existing images of Muhammad?. The first question, particularly, needs to be addressed and answered by the community. And this seems like a pretty good test case. Ludwigs is itching to take this to ArbCom but maybe prior community-wide discussion of the question is appropriate. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:18, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Actually Hans, I suspect the answer to your questions will come to be "Yes, the article should contain images of Muhammad. Yes, the images presently there conform to policy." The images are, of course, properly licensed and relevant, i.e.: they depict the subject, usually as he is doing something described in prose. I fully expect any such RfC to come to this conclusion, and by a wide margin of support. Now, taking issue with an individual image has greater potential for what you would view a positive result. One image was removed from this article some time ago because its use and placement were viewed as being improper in the context of the article. Theoretically you could build a case around the removal of another image, if you can find solid ground to do so.
Anthonyhcole, In response to your above question, the "offense element" is irrelevant to the discussion. There are many things in this encyclopedia that are offensive to some nation, culture or religion. And our content disclaimer warns the reader of that. I am not saying that a discussion on that basis would muddy the debate. I am saying that it would undermine it completely. The community has consistently reacted in a very strong fashion when it perceives an attempt at censorship. If you go down the path of "we should not show images because it offends someone", I have little doubt that you will see that consensus has not changed since the petition fracas. Resolute 05:28, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Could everyone please stop badgering the people that want an RfC to run? You can't say "This is so obviously within policy that no more community discussion is needed." Unless this has already been through mediation (as far as I know, it hasn't), then DR must be allowed to continue. No one is proposing a vote, or an appeal to the masses. Instead, this proposes to do exactly the same thing that we do everytime there is a disagreement about how policy applies in a given instance--take it to the community as a whole. That many of us can predict the results is moot; DR must run its course, unless some people here think they they now get to make rulings by fiat about how to interpret policies. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Qwyrxian, I don't read anyone as badgering here. I think contributors to this thread are trying to avoid an RfC with a problematic question (and I keep proposing such questions) and reasonably warning, from long experience, what the likely outcome will be. I've now come round to embracing Hans' earlier suggestion (with a change from "painting" to "image")

"Under what conditions can an image depicting Muhammad be used in this article?"

but will be very interested to hear adjustments and alternatives. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I just want to point out, though I already !voted above, and though I already predicted the outcome above, I've got no issue with yet another RfC. As I said above, I think the effort is commendable. Instead though, I still think my idea above puts the same question to the community - while addressing each and every image. That idea, for any who missed it in our combined ramblings was that an RfC is created listing each image to determine relevance to the sections they are in and so on. Of course, it's a much more difficult road, and each will probably stir up as much... commentary (cant think of the word I want to use)... as this. Anyway, just a thought. Either way, I'm behind the RfC, however it ends up being created. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 09:02, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
A possible advantage of Hans' formulation is, if that RfC arrives at consensus, it may provide a principle that can, to an extent, be applied to future images proposed for inclusion. Mostly, however the wording ends up, I'll be very interested to see what, if any, impact the Foundation resolution has on the arguments and outcome. I think Sendra is right, this issue seems an ideal test case. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:17, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
That's the only part I don't understand. The resolution wording is already part of WP:CENSOR, so, I am not sure how this changes anything. WP:CENSOR hasn't magically been crippled. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 09:27, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
The resolution urges us to pay particular attention to the educational value and appropriate placement of controversial content. A discussion subsequent to this resolution might give greater weight to these points than, and might arrive at a different conclusion from, discussions not informed by the resolution. A lot will depend on whether the community accepts this guidance from the Foundation. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:00, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I understand your intent in that respect too... but I can point out numerous talkpage archives where each image included has been debated on those same grounds. The community, as represented by the editors here, have already traveled that road long before the resolution. While "Remove all the images, it's ______" requests have been summarily ignored, actual discussion of what images, where and their relevance has taken place multiple times. And quite frankly, the only (ie: real) reason for this RfC is to coddle those who wish to try to take policies and apply them as means of removing all of the images. But that too has already been noted above by those who've started this or tried pushing it along. That is also why, in the end, this will solve nothing. I'm for some sort of an RfC, simply because, as history has shown, it will end the multi-page debates about removing all of the images for some short period of time - at least until the usual players come back with some new rationale and some new understanding of some Wikipedia policy or resolution that they think they can shoehorn their desires into. And, I've got diffs to prove it. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 17:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Robert: please note that my argument in this dispute all along has been that we should have a reasonable discussion about the value of these images and the offense they cause, and the response from people on your side of the debate has been to say that No discussion is possible, no compromise allowable. I agree with you that many articles have managed to 'travel that road' (as you put it); this article, however, has not. the first five responses I got when I started this discussion were all variations on "Wikipedia does not coddle Muslims"; that kind of adamant, prejudicial rejection makes it very clear that regulars on this talk page are not open minded on the issue and do not (IMO) have the best interests of the project or the readership at heart. The RfC is not going to change that - it will simply reflect a party-line split as has already been laid out in the discussion above, and the only question is whether your side can muster enough votes to make it 'no consensus' and then use NOTCENSORED to lock the images in for a short time longer. A sad abuse of the poor procedures on wikipedia.
Needless to say the RfC will go ahead anyway, but don't think that will establish some consensus (or that any consensus has ever been established on this page). All that's happened is that a group of editors have managed consistently to block changes that ought to have been made under NPOV. --Ludwigs2 17:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Qwyrxian, Anthonyhcole is asking for advice on his RfC questions. I'm sorry you don't like the answers I'm giving, but that hardly makes it "badgering". Rather, I am pointing out that if we expect any such RfC to produce anything more than reams and reams of text, the question needs to be pushed away from "to censor or not to censor?", because we all know how that will turn out. A poorly worded question will result only in dispute enhancement rather than resolution. Anthony is attempting a good faith action to resolve a long-standing debate, and my comments are similarly good faith. It would be appreciated if you would treat the discussion as same. Resolute 17:23, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Fully agree (with Resolute's evaluation). Which is why I proposed an image-by-image review. That may lead to more suitable images, images removed, other images added, etc - but in the end, each image can be analyzed to see if it fits within the resolution. Though the end result may not be what some are hoping for, the actions undertaken and said result will fit within the policies, instead of asking a question with (unless policies are changed) only one answer ("not censor"). Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 17:27, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
an image-by-image review would normally be fine, but that has been attempted in the past and merely made a larger mess of text (we get the same stolid refusal of any change, just multiplied by the number of images in question). The over-arching problem boils down to this:
  • Is side A engaged in censorship by wanting to remove the images
  • Is side B engaged in a violation of NPOV and Foundation principles by suppressing and demeaning Muslim views
That is the issue that needs to be resolved, and it clearly is not going to be resolved by discussion of individual images or discussion amongst editors. --Ludwigs2 17:49, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. Only point 1 above fits. Point 2 is a misapplication of NPOV. NPOV doesn't say "if people don't like it, take it down" - such rationale would mean that we'd have to take down everything that says the Earth is an oblong spheriod - the Flat Earthers have made quite a stink on their website (and occasionally here) on how such things make a mockery of their religion. Additionally, there is nothing demeaning about the images. And there is no prohibition I can find anywhere for those of non-Islamic faiths having, creating, looking at or posting such images. Again, what you ask for is misapplying policy so you can get your way and remove the images.
Related note I meant to post before. The idea to have a "Depictions of..." page is (to me) absurd. My rationale is this: it's not that there are images of Muhammad on this page - the problem is there are images of Muhammad on Wikipedia. It does not matter if or where they are moved to - if they exist on Wikipedia, this issue will go on and on in whatever location is applicable. I would hope you will stop applying your POV and bias to this discussion so we can hopefully move forward. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:07, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Robert OBVIOUSLY you are going to disagree that point 2 fits, just as I am OBVIOUSLY going to disagree that point 1 fits. That is what is meant by a dispute. I disagree with your interpretation of NPOV, I think your examples are ridiculous, and I find your argument style tendentious: just the same way you think about me and mine. Of course you will insist that your position is ontologically true, as you have insisted many times already - that is naturally to be expected in this kind of dispute - but at the end of the day your insistence is merely a matter of belief, and taking that insistence too far does nothing except get in the way of productive discussion.
The choice is yours here: either you credit me with making a reasonable point and try to demonstrate that your view is sounder (which would lead to a healthy conversation at the risk you might be proven wrong), or you continue to insist that you know the ultimate truth about policy and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong (which leads to what we've already seen way too much of on this page). I've already chosen the first, but that will make no difference whatsoever if you choose the second. --Ludwigs2 18:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Re tendentious: shoe... fits... wear. I cannot give you credit for making a reasonable point. You did not make one. You simply rehashed what you've posted numerous times above - where other editors as well agreed with my assessment (or rather, I am agreeing with theirs). Then you claim I'm being tendentious because I too agree with them that your rationale is severely flawed. It's not my fault you aren't gaining support for your interpretations of policy. You haven't even explained why you think such apply - though I have explained why I think they do not. You've already indicated numerous times you wish the images removed. And it's already been indicated that it's through an application of policies that virtually no one else agrees with. What more do you want? Here's one thing *I* would like... when you find people disagree with you, perhaps (a) you can realize that posting the same thing over and over again will not change the results (dig deeper next time, come up with better explanations - or let it drop), (b) attacking or labeling other editors, as you have done to myself, Tarc and various others does not win an argument. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:33, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Why am I the only person on project who ever looks at the big picture? You go on believing what you like; I can't force you to take a broader perspective than the one you're comfortable with. too bad though. --Ludwigs2 18:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Comfort has nothing to do with it. Blunt and direct as I may be (I refuse to coddle people) I'm not comfortable with offending anyone. Simply put though, I am less comfortable with censorship, misapplication of policies (as discussed ad-infinitum with the same conclusion) and... oh, yeah... coddling people who, in the vast majority, read (or saw on TV) about the images being here, and then fully knowing of their presence, came here to complain. Which then has other editors such as you trying to "defend" their sensibilities for them choosing actions of their own volition, fully knowing the consequences (ie: they'd see images of Muhammad). Nor, in my opinion, are you looking at the larger picture - but that goes right back to the two sentences before here. When people willingly choose a certain action fully knowing what the end result will be, I've got no sympathy. The vast majority of those "offended" (who make such known) fit that category. This too, I can provide diffs for - I think it was well over 99% last time I did a quick count. Hope that explains things. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:51, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
You seem to think I don't understand your perspective. I do, I just think you're wrong. You've bought into a viewpoint where you feel you have to defend the project against this crowd of people for whom you feel no respect and no sympathy, and you've reached the point where you no longer care if you damage articles yourself, just so long as you keep them from doing it. It's a pure battleground mentality, bordering on scorched earth; you've set yourself down squarely as an obstacle to NPOV, all the while thinking you're being heroic. but alas, you don't see it. --Ludwigs2 19:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Please dont equate your noted lack of respect for the larger community as a whole who's already addressed this every time you and others have brought this up with my respect or lack thereof for others. And as a side note, writing an encyclopedia is not about having sympathy for others. That's the most absurd thing I've heard this month. And please stop imposing all sorts of claims against myself and others simply because the vast majority of editors involved here believe you guilty of such (POV violations, tendentiousness, etc). And finally, please realize that repeating the same arguments over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over will earn the same responses (I can provide diffs for probably each one of those "and over"'s, btw). So, why are you wasting your time? By now, you must realize that the answer you receive will still be the same. It's getting tiring - and the only reason I continue to involve myself in this is because ignoring such seems to make certain editors think they can summarily remove all the images. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 19:44, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not wasting my time. someone must calmly, reasonably, and tenaciously continue to push on this issue until a sufficient consensus develops to make the change. There are enough editors on my side of the dispute that that is a reasonable possibility, and I'm not all that worried about the collateral damage to my reputation, so... You believe I'm arguing with you, but I'm not - that would be silly, it's highly unlikely you will change your mind no matter what I say. I am actually demonstrating to other editors (ones without preconceptions that you and others have) how intrinsically weak your arguments are, and how much of your success on this page rests on creating an atmosphere of hostility. that way when the RfC comes, people will be able to look over the arguments presented and see that you don't really have a credible argument. I mean, don't get me wrong: it would be nice if you suddenly saw the light and came over to my side of the debate. But I'm not counting on winning your support in the coming RfC. I just want to make sure everyone sees precisely how your reasoning works. --Ludwigs2 21:24, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
As I said at the beginning, images will not be removed from this article. before you go BAWWWing about WP:OWN again, no, it is not that, but rather a simple matter of acknowledging reality. This is no different than declaring that the CRU hacking case will never be renamed "Climategate", or that there will never bee a line in Barack Obama that says "presumably born in Hawaii". Consensus has been reached that the images will remain, and it is about time that you accept that you are the minority that is on the outside looking in. Declaring that you will repeatedly push in the face of consensus will invariably bring sanctions down on your head. Tarc (talk) 21:52, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
As much as I agree, Anthonyhcole is attempting a good faith effort here. Don't let Ludwigs pick yet another fight that distracts from his efforts. Resolute 21:59, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Wow, I have never seen such a clearcut violation of wp:OWN in all my time on the project. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think this requires the opinion of an uninvolved admin. I'll run it by someone and see what they think.
And resolute, whatever. I'm happy to get back to discussing the RfC. --Ludwigs2 22:28, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I am wondering at what point your tendentiousness and disruptiveness "tenacity" will allow others to simply remove your posts so we can get on to formulating an RfC? You already know that no one is going to buy into your hypothesis and rather original interpretation of policies. And you know repeating yourself is getting nowhere. Now, it definitely seems nothing more than an attempt to disrupt. At this point, I've decided to cease responding to you other than as necessary to enforce (if (or when?) it gets to that point) removing your repeated-ad-infinitum misinterpretation of policies so we can continue work. Thus... ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 22:57, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

  • I have already destroyed your WP:OWN argument, Ludwigs, several times now. Do I need to do it again? But beyond that, let's get down to brass tacks so we're all clear regarding where this issue is that; once this current brouhaha regarding images of Muhammad wraps up, I strongly feel that that should be the end of it quite awhile. If within the next 6 months of this RfC closure you broach the subject again, I will file a motion in the appropriate venue to topic-ban you from this and related articles. That is pretty much the last I have to say on the matter, but while we're here I will throw in a token...
  • Yes, the article should retain images of Muhammed. If this is an actual RfC, then we may as well get to the formalized "voting", as it were. Tarc (talk) 23:03, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
When you guys decide that you want to stop talking about me and start talking about the RfC, then we'll do that. I'm not stopping you. --Ludwigs2 23:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

RfC Redux

Anthonyhcole, if you'd be so kind as to summarize where we stand? Let's move on with the proposed RfC. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 22:57, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'll get started. The proposals so far deemed in consideration are (in no particular order):
  1. "Under what conditions can an image depicting Muhammad be used in this article?"
  2. "Does inclusion of the images presently illustrating Muhammad conform to Wikipedia policy?"
  3. "Should the article Mohammed contain pictures images of Mohammed?"
I believe I've gotten all proposals deemed realistic. Does anyone have any others they wish to propose? If not, we can work on choosing and refining one of the above. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 23:56, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
No one's substantially criticised

"Under what conditions can an image depicting Muhammad be used in this article?"

(effectively Hans' formulation). The others were proposed by me, I think, and sound objections have made to them. Robert has suggested addressing each image on its merits in one RfC. I have criticized this on the basis that asking Hans' question may result in a principle that may in some instances be applicable to future pictures brought to the page. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 00:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
I am not sure about the handling of #1. I'm fine with the concept, but how does one weigh what essentially will be free-form answers? Do we provide multiple choice solutions, including an "other" choice? Or hope to wade through free form answers covering all ends of the spectrum? That aside, we already know the answer... WP:LOTSATHINGS that we use to determine relevance, weight, etc on every article. So, perhaps we need a fourth choice that covers it in a different fashion? Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 00:11, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Hans, in his commentary above, seems to be arguing that this article can reasonably carry an image or two of Muhammad, provided it adds to the reader's understanding, but that seven images is unnecessary and may be reasonably interpreted as some kind of meta-statement. Ludwigs seems to argue that the depictions of Muhammad in this article add nothing to the reader's understanding of the article content and should be removed as redundant; and additionally argues that our editorial decisions should take into account any offense we may cause. If that captures the contrary position, then can we contrive an RfC that will focus discussion on these points? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
A clarification, Anthony: it is my belief that the images add little of value to the article that would justify the offense they cause. I'm open-minded on the issue, so if someone makes a good argument for the inclusion of one or more images I would have no problem with that, I just don't currently see whatever value Hans does, and am loathe to offend real-world groups without good reason. --Ludwigs2 03:19, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Cool. I'm going to suspend my involvement in this pre-RfC discussion until we see what happens at ArbCom. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:54, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't think that's necessary. regardless of what happens at AC, we'll still need to settle the issue at this page - arbcom won't decide content, so the best we can hope for from that corner is clarification of the principle. Might as well go ahead with the RfC and address what AC says if we need to. --Ludwigs2 05:01, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
I'd prefer to wait, but feel free to proceed without me. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:40, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Just to clarify my own position: I actually agree with Ludwigs2 that the pictures don't add anything to the article that would justify including them given the offence they cause. Most could legitimately be used to illustrate the fact that Muhammad was once depicted in Islam, and one could legitimately be used to illustrate the Western Muhammad reception. In my opinion the first point is so minor that the controversial illustration has undue weight, and in the second case the choice of image is basically arbitrary, making it a mere visual aid rather than encyclopedic content. Therefore in my opinion the images should not be included on balance, but other editors can reasonably differ and therefore I am predicting an RfC outcome between zero and two. Hans Adler 05:52, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Hans and Ludwigs2, can we discuss then your proposal for an RfC question? That may be more helpful that reiterating the same stances you both have, and have posted multiple times above. Come up with it worded as an RfC question so it too can be considered. Obviously, the questions above do not fit your opinion of what question(s) should be asked, so propose a question please - that way perhaps this will not devolve into another debate about our positions. That may be the more productive route. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 16:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

So far, we have:
Ludwigs2 and Hans Adler, please feel free to modify my #4 and #5 below with your suggestions.
  1. "Under what conditions can an image depicting Muhammad be used in this article?"
  2. "Does inclusion of the images presently illustrating Muhammad conform to Wikipedia policy?"
  3. "Should the article Mohammed contain pictures images of Mohammed?"
  4. Pending RfC question proposal from Ludwigs2
  5. Pending RfC question proposal from Hans Adler
ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 16:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Robert: I think part of the problem might be that you're trying to compress the question too much; we're not restricted to a single line. I say we use something like the following (this is probably too much from my perspective, but gives the idea):

The article on Muhammad currently uses several images of artwork that feature depictions of Muhammad. This causes significant conflict (currently 15 archives of debate solely on this issue) because depictions of the prophet are prohibited in all versions of Islam, and strongly opposed by more conservative sects. This RfC seeks to determine whether the images should be retained on the article. The following considerations have been raised in talk:

  • Is NOTCENSORED properly applied to non-representative illustrations?
  • Can the recent Foundation resolution on controversial content (particularly the principle of 'least astonishment') be used, specifically in the assertion that readers would be astonished that Wikipedia would deliberately offend a prominent faith for no particular reason?
  • Has NPOV been violated by the explicit and specific exclusion of Muslim viewpoints from the talk page?

Please give your opinion on whether the images should removed or retained, with comments on the individual points as applicable.

--Ludwigs2 17:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Awesome, we are at least getting someplace. Now perhaps you may wish to change your ArbCom statement to properly reflect that you wish all of the images removed? Or, I can just add some more diffs... either way, misstating your actual intent there is pretty crappy.
  • Now, on to your proposed question, I still read the intro combined with #2 exactly as you've clarified elsewhere, which is that we should cater to religious beliefs. Before you rehash that with long paragraphs, I've already indicated one such diff on the Arbcom Case. Your reasoning for that one thus is not just suspect, but made clear by you above. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 17:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
errr… hunh? as I have said several times, I currently believe all images should be removed, but I'm open minded. it's a question of of balance and value.
I'm not sure what your point is about ArbCom. I specifically shied away from making a request about these particular articles (though many people - including arbiters - seem to have missed that point), and the case is almost certain to be denied at this point. I'll look at what you wrote (at a casual glance, it's 'Sunni' muslims, not 'Snuni') but lets try to keep the conversations separate. --Ludwigs2 18:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
My apologies for not signing in I am having some account issues. I would like to point out that * Has NPOV been violated by the explicit and specific exclusion of Muslim viewpoints from the talk page? is in itself NPOV. To be NPOV you have to ignore EVERYONES viewpoint and be objective. - Tivanir (again sorry about the account problems) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.53.68 (talk) 19:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Tivanir: actually, NPOV states that we "represent fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." It does not say anywhere that we should ignore any (much less all) perspectives, and in fact it's impossible to ignore all perspectives. Claiming that we should ignore all perspectives is really suggesting that we should ignore all perspectives except the one the claimant believes is true. NPOV is achieved by balancing competing interests against each other in the article and the talk page, yet that is precisely what editors try to disallow on this page.
Trust me, I have seen this many places on the encyclopedia: editors who have managed to convince themselves that their perspective is in fact a 'truth' that trumps everyone else's 'opinions'. It always ends up badly, like this page has, and I've never seen it end without a protracted struggle. --Ludwigs2 20:25, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
I believe what Tivanir is trying to say is we are to ignore our own perspectives, and that your wording inserts your own perspective into the questions. I'd tend to agree. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 20:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
well, as I admitted when I made it, the proposal probably needs some revisions. that's what discussion is for. I'll add that I see very little evidence of anyone else ignoring their own opinions on this page. I suppose the statement could be phrased more mildly, but it is accurate as a matter of observation: the first comment I received on this thread was "We do not cater to Muslim views", which explicitly and specifically excludes muslim viewpoints. There is a valid question as to whether that's in line with NPOV. --Ludwigs2 22:09, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
actually he said "This may come as a surprise to you, but Wikipedia does not cater exclusively to Muslims" which essentially goes back to the point of is it considered unexpected shock to see someone's image depicted on a page about said person. As far as I can tell the individual was trying to get the point across that while one group may be against pictures (even religions where pictures are anathema) wikipedia will still have pictures because it does not cater to a specific group. This would also hold true that it doesn't matter what size the group is that is being offended (i.e. christians over piss christ.) And actually from other posts I have seen including in the archives they have been more than willing to work with muslim authors except on two dimensions 1. you must remove picture now! threads and 2. you need to give these pages to islamic scholars. Are the pictures controversial? Yes. Should they be removed if deemed unneccessary? Sure. Will they be removed due to a knee jerk "this isn't allowed in Islam?" I would say not. The pictures in my opinion are useful since they are drawn by devoted people that wished to share with their religion what they thought Muhammad might look like. --Tivanir — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.53.68 (talk) 22:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Actually, the religious identity of the artists/authors linked to some of these images is disputed. The article as it stands gives the wrong impression that they are Muslims, but reliable sources is not sure about it. This is one example how our failure to apply content policies on non-textual elements is misinforming readers. Wiqi(55) 23:01, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Actually, (1) I thought you and I went through these images and made sure they were properly attributed. Has something changed, or are you forgetting that? (2) It does not matter if the artists are Muslim or not - they have no monopoly on painting any image. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 23:12, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
The religious identity of the author/artists of Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh is disputed. This has been discussed in the past by me and others citing a number of sources. And in this case it does matter, as most readers are already making the assumption that they are Muslim (at least from what I'm seeing in talk page/archive). If the claim that they were Muslim turned out to be false, which seems to be the case concerning the author at least who some sources suggest that he was buried as a Jewish man, then I take it that we are currently misleading readers by giving them the wrong impression. Wiqi(55) 04:04, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
(e/c) well, two things (both of which I've said before, but…)
  • These are not pictures of Muhammad. I could draw a picture of a teddybear or a klingon and say it's muhammad, and that would be just about as authentic as these. No one knows what Muhammad looked like.
  • I've never given a kneejerk "this isn't allowed in Islam" argument (though you couldn't tell that by the way people talk to me). I've always said it's an issue of the relative necessity of the images against the offense they cause. But that takes us back to point 1 - these aren't images of muhammad. they are just depictions of what people (Ottoman Turks and Persians, mostly) think Muhammad should have looked like.
Just on a sheer, boring, pragmatic level, we have 15 pages of archives over people complaining about images that (technically speaking) have almost no relation to the subject. This is as inane as putting an image of a banana in the article and refusing to allow it to be removed. You could do it (wikipedia does not cater exclusively to banana-haters, you know), but why? My sense here is that a few editors have gotten so wrapped up in the conflict that they can no longer make the kind of common sense distinctions that are central to neutrality, and are perpetuating this conflict endlessly just because they refuse to give in on a trivial matter of common courtesy. I understand why people keep complaining - you insult people's faith, and people are going to complain. I don't understand why your side doesn't give in, because there's so little value wrapped up in these images. it's such a tremendously silly thing to spend years fighting over. --Ludwigs2 23:10, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Wow, we've rehashed this a billion times (or at least a few dozen). The pictures of Jesus are not pictures of him either. Nor are the pictures of Thor (which, like Muhammad's, are also different between depiction). These are supposed to be pictures of how people thought Muhammad looked or how they perceived them. They are as valid as the pictures of Euro-Jesus. This once again boils down to your belief (couple diffs in the ArbCom case, plenty of posts above) that we should adhere to Islamic beliefs, and nothing more. And once again, you beat a dead horse to take things off topic. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 01:01, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You know I hate it when I can't tell whether someone is intentionally making a specious argument because they're trying to score emotional points, or whether they honestly lack the cognitive skills to reason things out correctly. It is difficult to know how to respond to that civilly.
No one has ever asked you to adhere to Muslim beliefs. I have asked you to be respectful of Muslim beliefs where it is possible to do so without harm to the encyclopedia. If you cannot understand that distinction, or if you believe that the project should never show any respect to Muslim beliefs under any conditions, then I suggest that you are too deeply prejudiced against Islam to be an editor on this article. --Ludwigs2 02:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Really? Do you REALLY want me to dig out the talkpage diffs and your content removal history for the article? Really? You've already once again hijacked good faith efforts to formulate an RfC, which sadly fits in line with what you said above where you indicated you'll continue to be tendentious tenacious to do so until you get your way. I'm thoroughly amazed at everyone's patience with you - heck, if I could (easily) provide a few DOZEN diffs showing such behaviors and admissions and efforts on your part, I wonder what others who've been involved in this longer could find?
So, can we get back to the RfC, or do you want to continue this road and be tendentious? ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 17:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Have you noticed that some editors are here to edit the encyclopedia, and others are just here to stir things and cause trouble and generally just be drama queens? Seems like every time there's some big flareup like this, the person behind it will have something like 10% of their edits be in mainspace.—Chowbok ☠ 18:35, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
I believe I fit into that category as well (or close), though through talkpage discussions, I've contributed a lot more than that percentage would indicate, such as working on the wording changes for Atheism, Homosexuality, this article, various others and one I'm mediating content changes in. So, I don't put too much weight into that. Specifically spelled out intent[5][6](and plenty more), on the other hand, then veiled in policy and end run attempts around RfCs and RfC attempts[7] I do put weight into. ;-) ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:59, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
A few images offend some people, big deal. It's irrelevant as to which religion these complaining editors claim to be, totally irrelevant. GoodDay (talk) 02:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I have requested a clarification from ArbCom on some of the issues raised in this discussion. Due to the pervasive nature of these issues I have listed no parties, but merely seek clarification on the core problem. Please feel free to add your opinion at the request page:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Controversial_images.2C_NOTCENSORED.2C_and_Foundation_principles. --Ludwigs2 02:49, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Educational value of the images of Muhammad

I'm quite new to this discussion. Can someone please point me to an earlier discussion explaining the educational value of the images, or, if possible, give me a brief summary here? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 23:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't really see why an explanation is necessary, as "this is an article on Muhammad" and "these are images of Muhammad" are two very simple concepts. George Washington contains several of John Trumbull's famous portraits, of Washington himself and of historical settings in which he played a part. Could the article do without them? Possibly, but why even consider it a possibility? This is an encyclopedia, a medium consisting of both the written and the visual, sometimes even audio and video. Muhammad imagery does not need some sort of extra-special consideration for use in this article, above and beyond ol' George or anyone else. That some in the world do not wish us to use images because of their religious beliefs is not...the not can never have enough emphasis here..in the slightest way a determining factor when making editorial decisions in this project. Tarc (talk) 01:26, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Because WP:IUP says images should increase readers' understanding of the subject matter and the foundation urges us to pay particular attention to whether controversial content has a realistic educational use. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Personally, I would argue that showing images of Mohammed created by Muslims thoughout history is illustrative of the fact that the absolute prohibition on such depictions is observed only by some sects. That's enough to make it past WP:IUP. The second point is irrelevant: there is no controversy based on secular reasoning, so there is no controversy which needs to be considered.—Kww(talk) 02:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Discussed above (and a bajillion times on the archives), my opinion and the opinion of various other editors (there are more opinions, and some editors have additional reasons I missed, and some may not hold all of these reasons):
  • Like numerous other topics of such nature, visual depictions of such people/gods/goddesses/etc are deemed wanted and/or important by those of a visual nature (some people prefer movies over books for such reason - less left purely to imagination)
  • Like various other such historical figures (Jesus, as the oft used example), it shows how people of the time perceived the historical figure (in this case, Muhammad).
  • Unlike Jesus (where virtually all of his depictions are Euro-Jesus), the perception of Muhammad changed over time and/or was different depending on the region/artist/religious beliefs/sect(s) of Islam/historian/etc. This is very much like (as noted above) Thor where there are various depictions that fly in the face of his description in myths
  • To the two preceding points, having such depictions, with a number suitable for the variations in depictions (ie: for Jesus, you don't need 15 that will all look virtually the same - Muhammad & Thor, different story), it allows the readers an understanding or glimpse at how perceptions changed, how prohibitions of displaying his face changed, etc.
  • In many of the cases on the article, the images are far more than that too - they show Muhammad doing something historical - and like virtually every historic topic covered, when there's a big historical event, in order to show and "preserve" the visual aspect, as well as to be able to represent it for situations like my first point, we include an image.
There are other reasons... but I'm in the middle of working on a truck. To summarize from another vein, as Tarc said, if this were any other article, this point would be moot. You don't see Ludwigs2 trying to get every incorrect image (all of them on Wikipedia fit) of Jesus taken down, do you?
The true issue here is, as Wiqi55 first noted waaaaay back when (check his first posts here as anon and Wiqi55), and as Ludwigs2 lets slip out when pushed; is that they and a tiny handful of other regular editors wish pictures of Muhammad (and only Muhammad) taken down to not offend and/or to follow Islamic beliefs. When that fails because it flies in the face of policy, they try shoehorning NPOV, Fringe, BIAS and others onto the issue. And here we are now. You'll also note neither of them are using the "That's not how Jesus looked!" argument over there.
That brings us to the issue at hand. Because a tiny handful of editors wish to remove ALL the images here due to them thinking we should adhere to Islamic religious beliefs held by only certain sects of Islam, we're having another long and drawn out RfC/consensus. If past history is any indication, this will continue to drag on as well, with continued biased RfC proposals slanted towards removing the images.
Side note to Wiqi55 and Ludwigs2: I've got the diffs open. I've made no claim not supportable by quite a few diffs each - so, nothing personal. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 02:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you Robert and Kww. It'll take me a while to digest that. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Nofo, as Robert is fond of pointing that I am fond of pointing out, these images have very limited value - they are non-representational illustrations, just like images of Jesus or Moses (let's leave Thor out of it because I don't think anyone asserts there was a historical Thor, and that confuses the issue). They are not problematic in and of themselves, but the question is whether they are of sufficient value to the article to justify using them given that they do violate Muslim precepts.
The real issue here is one of protecting the encyclopedia. When the encyclopedia does something that violates anyone preconceptions or beliefs, it has to have proper justification. That's why we have policies like wp:V which allow us to justify things we say that offend people or groups by pointing to real-world sources that say them. Basically the encyclopedia gets to say "it's not Wikipedia insulting <whatever>, it's that published author Joe Shmoe who said it; we're just repeating it." Here we've added images that factually offend Muslim beliefs; what's our justification for doing that? outside source? no… necessary for content? no… accurate depiction of the prophet? no… So in other words, it appears as though wikipedia is deliberately offending Muslims without cause, and that's no good.
The purpose of this thread, IMO, is to try and determine if there's some educational or informational value to these images that is a satisfactory justification, so that we can turn to the Muslim community and say "we are presenting these offensive images because we need to, for this reason…" If the images add something of significant value, then they ought to be protected, but if they don't - what justification do we have for using them? --Ludwigs2 03:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Just to be clear, I'm not concerned that they violate Muslim precepts. My concern is that they are controversial. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Your concerns are not concerns that we take into account when editing this Wikipedia article. I'm not sure how much clearer this point can be made to you. Ludwigs' pontification is equally meritless, there is no "turning to the Muslim community" and there never will be. It is also highly insulting to the "Muslim community" to imply that the religion as a whole opposes imagery. It would be just as bad to take the particular strain of hate speech that the Westboro Baptist Church preaches and use it to tar all Baptists with the same brush. Tarc (talk) 04:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
The foundation urges us to pay particular attention to whether controversial content has a realistic educational use. I'm exploring the implications of this resolution for our use of these controversial images. I apologise if I didn't make that clear. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
But that brings us back to the kerfuffle that started this whole thing; Ludwigs taking that foundation proposal and unreasonably stretching it to cover the situation in this article. That point of view has not garnered much, if any, support. Tarc (talk) 12:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
We differ on whether that's an unreasonable stretch. I'm only on this page because I think the foundation resolution has implications for this page. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC).
Well goody for you, but it simply isn't going to happen. This project does not make editorial decisions based on fundamentalist interpretations of religious beliefs. There is no wiggle room here. Tarc (talk) 14:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


Forget all of the politics and arguments for a second and take a look at Richard I of England. Look at the images there and ask yourself the same questions about educational value. If you are looking at the images objectively, your answer should be the same for both Richard and Muhammad. Both are depictions of the article subject, made decades and centuries after their deaths. They are done in different styles depending on the artist and time period. Alternatively, what is the educational value of any Islamic script image spelling out Muhammad's name? What's so informative about a picture of a cave? Why question only one subset of the images on this article? Why aren't people questioning them all?
The problem in this thread is not the question that is being asked, but why the question is being asked. If you put aside all of the other bullshit, these images have the same value as any other in the article, or in any other article. That is a fact. So if the answer to the question posed is intellectually honest, then the answer is that one either sees value in the images at both Muhammad and Richard, or one does not. As soon as you start creating value differences between the two, you are letting politics get involved. This is not, and never was, about the images. This is about kowtowing to a sect within a religion. The most honest RFC question you can ask is: "Should Wikipedia follow modern Sunni Muslim belief and prohibit images of Muhammad?" The debate has always truly been about whether we a secular encyclopedia, or if we should bias ourselves to suit one part of one religion. Nothing more, nothing less. Resolute 13:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree that a great many images in Wikipedia fail the increase readers' understanding of the subject matter policy, and, in most instances I don't really care. However, unlike most such images, these are controversial. The foundation urges us to pay particular attention to whether controversial content has a realistic educational use. I started this thread to do that. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Well said, Resolute! I've been wanting to make that point myself, but you got it right. WP was created to be a free secular knowledge base; if we cater to religious prejudice and aggressive ignorance we will fail in that role and become something...less. Doc Tropics 13:47, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Controversy in and of itself is no reason to remove the images, however. I do find the images useful and educational, for most of the reasons already noted by others above. But the simplest answer is this: Man is a visual animal. By our nature, we find value in imagery and pictures. They teach us who we were and show us what we are. From the first cave paintings right up to modern 3D photography. Are these images controversial? Yes. Are they valuable? Yes. Should they be displayed? Unless we plan to make a mockery of WP:NPOV, Yes. For those who disagree because of personal religious belief, we have provided a means in the FAQ to block the images on their account. Likewise, the image filter the foundation seems intent on pushing through will also likely serve such individuals. For those that so desire, options exist. Resolute 14:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Resolute, you are already making a mockery of NPOV. You are using wikipedia policy to disguise an overt attack on the Muslim faith. Being secular does not mean attacking religion; being secular means that we do not allow religion to dominate the conversation. Your inability to make that distinction is distasteful.
What this comes down to, very simply, is that the group of you want to include controversial material for no reason other than that it is controversial. You're apparently trying to defeat the Muslim faith by dissing it in a wikipedia article, which would be troubling if it weren't such a thoroughly futile and ridiculous gesture. Do you think you're accomplishing anything with this? all you're doing is causing endless amounts of talk page conflict over trivialities, because you refuse to recognize what common sense dictates - that this battle just isn't worth the effort you're putting into it.
Silliness… but that's ok with me. I like this kind of debate. --Ludwigs2 14:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
It would be appreciated if you would stop interrupting discussions with your bad faith, ad hominem arguments. Unless you have evidence that anyone is "attacking religion" or "trying to defeat the Muslim faith", then I suggest you cease with your personal attacks. Not that I expect that to happen, as based on your talk page it seems you are intent on martyring yourself for your cause. Resolute 14:34, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • "ad hominem attacks on other editors' motives and related arguments" (fixed that for you, Resolute).
Sorry Ludwigs2, as I said earlier, I don't coddle and I'm rather blunt. Echo'ing Res, stop calling into question (in derogatory fashions no less) everyone's motives who disagree with you. None have said any such things, unlike you who have clearly indicated your bias. Until you can provide diffs to prove it, please stop. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 16:49, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
There is nothing bad faith or ad hominem about it - this is what you are doing (whether you realize you are doing it is a separate issue that I cannot judge). points of fact:
  • the images are controversial, because they go against Muslim beliefs (undisputed)
  • the images add - at best - marginal value to the article (barely disputed - we disagree about how much they add, but no one suggests that removing them would damage the article content-wise in any significant fashion)
  • an extraordinary effort has been invested to keep these images on the article (impossible to dispute, given 15 archives)
What this shows is that you collectively have a deep investment in these images, which is not attributable to their value. Therefore it must be attributed to the controversy. No other way to explain that except that you have taken sides in the controversy and are using your position as editors to promote your cause.
I'll add that it's even more hilarious that you to accuse me of ad hominems and then spend the rest of the post making ad hominem attacks against me. that shows an appreciable lack of self-reflection. --Ludwigs2 14:48, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
What people have a deep investment in is Wikipedian values of neutrality etc. There is also the issue that most of the complainers show a deep ignorance of the broad Muslim heritage - you will often find assertions that such images cannot possibly have been produced by Muslims etc - and the encyclopedic value of the images lies partly in opening readers up to a better understanding of this. Almost as many readers find the lack of "PBUH" offensive - where do you stand on this? Johnbod (talk) 14:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Look, John, again: you guys are dancing around the core issue. there are two cases here:
  • NOTCENSORED used to protect controversial content for a well-defined encyclopedic purpose
  • NOTCENSORED used to protect controversial content for no encyclopedic reason whatsoever
The first is useful and appropriate; the second is tendentious and prejudiced. The fact that everyone here refuses to make this distinction is just a symptom of that tendentiousness and prejudice. You have not seen me advocating for PBUH, and I wouldn't - that is not encyclopedic in the least. but neither is it encyclopedic to rub people's noses in images they don't like without some reasonable benefit to the article that justifies it.
Collaborative editing relies on a spirit of compromise, but the entire tone on this page (for a good four years now) is that it will brook no compromise under any conditions. Why is that, do you think? --Ludwigs2 15:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
No, you are dancing round the central issue, which is neutrality. There are several compromises - in particular the images only start low down the page - but the issue has been exhaustively discussed and a stable compromise reached, which however needs to be defended. By all means re-open the issue if you like, but be aware that there is a lot of consensus behind the present situation from the wider community. Of course if image preferences comes in, that will provide one improvement. Johnbod (talk) 15:47, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Also on the note of would it actually harm the article there is no true picture that would harm an article. Take for example a picture of anyone and it is not strictly necessary to add information about whatever the subject is. There is no picture that does anything except to illustrate about the subject at hand. By your arguement every picture should be removed from wikipedia and it should be text only. -- Tivanir — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.53.68 (talk) 16:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Has anyone done any research as to the general approach of reliable sources and other encyclopedias in presenting this topic (i.e. the biography of Muhammad)? Do they typically show illustrations of the type we do, or not? --JN466 15:13, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
I actually don't know if they do or not. I do know it is common practice to show pictures of famous people if they are noted within an established encyclopedia though if memory serves me it is usually a single picture next to the entry. -- Tivanir — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.53.68 (talk) 16:08, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Jayen466: to some extent, yes. But it's largely irrelevant for many. Some of the sources are by those who follow the Islamic beliefs - following their methods would be accepting their religious dictates. Various others (historic and artistic) do include pictures (hence our sources for them, which Wiqi55 and I went to great efforts to ensure proper source attribution). And some others so as not to offend, end up honoring such religious beliefs. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 17:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
To Ludwigs2, to reiterate what virtually everyone has told you so far (using your bullet points):
  • the images are controversial, because they go against Muslim beliefs (undisputed)
  • (My opinion) irrelevant once we discount #2 below
  • the images add - at best - marginal value to the article (barely disputed - we disagree about how much they add, but no one suggests that removing them would damage the article content-wise in any significant fashion)
  • (my opinion) YOU, who've stated in various fashions, that we should adhere to their beliefs, and thus have that as your true motive, don't want the pictures there, and "value" is only one of a half dozen reasons and policies you are trying to hide your motivations behind. On the other hand, dozens of editors (if not hundreds) over the past year have disagreed strongly with this. One or two against the world isn't going to work. If 98% of those who've involved themselves in this issue over the last year find the images of value... see where I'm going?
  • an extraordinary effort has been invested to keep these images on the article (impossible to dispute, given 15 archives)
  • (Fact) Conversely, a ridiculously extraordinary effort has been invested by a tiny handful of possibly (in some cases) disruptive editors to remove the images even though the vast vast majority of editors who've discussed this issue find no basis for their removal. Including a few removal attempts (and censorship attempts) by you[8][9][10][11](small sampling).
As I said, I've always got the diffs ready for any such claim I make.
You should really work on being less biased when you word such things, so you are properly portraying the reality of the situation. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 17:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
I am sure there are reliable sources for these images. I just wonder whether biographies of Muhammad (as opposed to more specialist works on Islamic art) typically use them. I'd be inclined to follow prevailing custom in sources. Looking at biographies of Jesus vs. biographies of Muhammad in Google Books, pictures of Jesus are almost ubiquitous on the title page; not so with Muhammad. --JN466 18:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • @Jayen466:
  • You know we do not follow prevailing customs. That's irrelevant.
  • Jesus is misrepresented the same in virtually all images. Muhammad is in many different appearances. There is no historic merit or relevance to having an equal number of pictures of Jesus, as the portrayals will be virtually the same. The opposite is true here, where the portrayals are, for the most part, decidedly different. See my car analogy above. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 19:04, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I will outdent for a moment to address 3 of Ludwigs comments;
    • 1. "the images are controversial, because they go against Muslim beliefs (undisputed)"
    • 2. "the images add - at best - marginal value to the article (barely disputed - we disagree about how much they add, but no one suggests that removing them would damage the article content-wise in any significant fashion)"
    • 3. "an extraordinary effort has been invested to keep these images on the article (impossible to dispute, given 15 archives)"
Response #1: Quite disputed actually, as this not a universally-held belief among Muslims.
Response #2: This has always been a red herring of an argument, as we are not required to go to extra lengths to justify image inclusion in this article. Applying the same criteria used for image usage on any other article, the justification is clear; this is an article about a subject, we have images of the subject, ergo images go into the article. Ludwigs would like to add an extra hoop to this equation because of some anti-image sympathies, but that is not going to happen.
Response #3: Again, quite disputed. I'd wager a good 90-95% of those 15 archives have been largely devoted to fighting back the one-off requests from IPs and single-purpose trolls and vandals. The effort has been made to hold this article to established Wikipedia norms, and not let fundamentalist external meddling from interfering. No different from outside liberals who want George Bush's article to label him a war criminal, birthers who want Barack Obama's page to note the Kenyan/Muslim controversy, or truthers who want to infest the 9/11 articles with inside job conspiracies. Outside interests will not be allowed to corrupt this project for their own self-interests. Tarc (talk) 17:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I've checked Britannica, both the online version of their biography of Muhammad, and the Micropaedia and Macropaedia entries in the print version (15th edition). There are a number of images in these, but none of Muhammad. The two German encyclopedias I have (dtv-Brockhaus and Meyers) don't include an image either, but their articles are quite short. --JN466 18:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • As you'll oft find the case (as I noted - though vaguely) in regions/countries (the UK) where the second largest religious population of said country will be offended. Besides, you of all people know we don't follow "what would other encyclopedias do?" - in multiple instances, what other encyclopedias would do is in direct conflict with what is expected here. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:35, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
We are in the same boat as Britannica (which is actually published in the States). Britannica is just one source though, albeit a very weighty one (literally!). --JN466 19:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • To Jayen466: Nope, no we aren't. They choose to follow certain aspects of certain religious beliefs. We choose to be as secular as possible and not allow any religious beliefs to limit what relevant historical information is included on Wikipedia. Big difference. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 19:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
We generally do what our sources do, don't we? We don't argue that our sources are "wrong". Now I am by no means certain how reliable sources generally handle images of Muhammad, and whether Britannica's approach is exceptional or the norm, but there should be little debate that what we are attempting to do is to accurately reflect reliable sources in any article we offer the public. --JN466 20:38, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • To Jayen466: (Re: "We generally do what our sources do..." No we don't. We don't misuse a source. But we don't do what the sources do. There's a big difference. Additionally, all the images have sources, so even if your interpretation were correct, there's still no problem there. Nor does it matter if Britannica's approach is exceptional or the norm. The reasons for their approach invalidate such. Your interpretation and attempted use means by choosing such a source and adhering to their standards, we are limited in everything else we can do in an article. That's not NPOV. That's presenting a single POV. So, there's policy violation #1. Your approach to honoring religious beliefs (as noted above in another response) flies in the face of multiple policies as noted above - that would be policy violation #2. How content is created on Wikipedia is governed by various policies, guidelines and resolutions, such as WP:MOS - not by how others choose to write an encyclopedia. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 21:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I think each image has to be examined on its own. I dont think a blanket prohibition is either feasible or wise, but neither is the "NO NO NOT CENSORED!!!" response that accurately characterizes many of the replies. There are some images that just do not serve any purpose. For example, this is the first image of Muhammad in the article. It is used in the section Beginnings of the Quran. I do not see how this is not an image inserted purely for decoration ; it does nothing, nothing, to advance the understanding of the text. The next one is this. I personally think this one is fine, if it were actually illustrating material in the text. It isn't, in fact the story of Muhammad moving the Black Stone is not even mentioned anywhere except for the cryptic reference in the image caption. The next image with his face shown is this. It is used in the section on the farewell sermon, and, in my opinion, is appropriate for the section and for the page. The next image is this one. I cant see the point of an 18th century painting. This may come as a bit of a surprise, but the image that I think should be used in the Western views is the one from Dante's The Divine Comedy as that image more accurately reflects Western views of Muhammad (for a time at least). The resolution by the foundation is sensible, so much so that it shouldn't be necessary. The placement of images, like the inclusion of text, should be dependent on whether or not there is some educational value in it. Some of the images used do not have any such value, and it strikes me as both inflexible and silly to try to argue that they all do and that they all must remain. nableezy - 19:00, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Nableezy, that's one of the suggestions on the table (suggested by myself, and I believe another - so, now that's three of us). Side note though, as the archives will show, some efforts to do so have already happened, including with myself and another editor fixing cites and ascertaining historical relevance of the images. Though he and I are at odds over various issues over these images, we worked together (hopefully providing a balanced result) in doing so. It did seem to minimize some of the arguments for a while. Anyway, though it will probably be somewhat of a headache wading through the RfC, I still do think it's the most meaningful route.
I'd suggest, if we take that route, we find a bunch of uninvolved editors and admins to mediate or moderate the RfC. That may be somewhat helpful and allow it to be a fruitful RfC. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 19:08, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Nableezy: That first image of Gabriel and Muhammad serves to illustrate the accompanying text. That is a perfectly valid purpose to an image. It need not enhance understanding of the text, but instead it supplements the text with related information — in this case by showing how the event is depicted with an historical style of art. It isn't purely decorative like, say, a picture of a pretty flower would be. It's relevant. It would be nice if the caption had some commentary on the style.
The one about showing the Black Stone episode may be a remnant of a time when the article had a description of that. It was removed as being unimportant, and we already have an article on that event. I recall I may have been the one to move that image from the end of the article to its current position in a section about Muhammad's life, probably with intent to mention it in the text but never got around to doing so.
Which image from Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno do you really mean? The one showing Muhammad opening his chest or the one Muhammad being tortured in hell? The latter had been previously inserted in this article by an indef-blocked editor trying to push a POV, and that image was removed as being needlessly provocative. ~Amatulić (talk) 13:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
See, this last point is 'illustrative' of the problem here (note that I am using the word 'illustrative' in its proper sense, unlike the above). No one doubts that this is a valid move for an encyclopedia; the question is whether it's an ethical move. Real encyclopedias have a sense of ethics; wikipedia (or at least certain articles therein) seem to hold that ethics is a form of POV pushing. As I keep saying (and apparently will continue to say for a while yet) If we are going to insult a large group of people in Wikipedia's voice, then we ought to have a credible reason for doing so; if we don't have a credible reason, we ought not do it. That is ethical behavior. The image of Gabriel and Muhammed is unrelated to the text, is not in any way informative to the article, illustrates nothing (at least, I defy you to give a clear explanation of what it does illustrate; so why are we using it? --Ludwigs2 14:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Please don't encourage people to think they have been insulted (a word requiring intent) when they have only been, at most, offended (not requiring intent). We've all made our views plain here, are we going anywhere with this? Johnbod (talk) 15:55, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
When reading it it appears to illustrate the words that aren't more than about an inch from the picture. To me this is the same as showing a diagram next to words so someone can grasp it both by sight and by reading simultaneously. Tivanir2 (talk) 16:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Though to play devils advocate just a bit I was just wondering if there was any reason to keep the black stone image? I don't even see it referenced anywhere in text except below the picture itself. The article on the black stone already has the image. Anyways just wondering. Tivanir2 (talk) 16:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Ludwigs2, have you even read this article, or are you just looking at the images? The one about Gabriel plainly illustrates the accompanying text.
Tivanir2, as I stated earlier, this image is a remnant from when the article had a description of the Black Stone event. If the event is a legend or believed by tradition, then I agree it isn't relevant. If it's considered a bona-fide event in Muhammad's life (and it is significant), then perhaps some text should be added to the article in an appropriate spot. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
@Amultic, Tivanir2: what sense of the word 'illustrate' are you using here? Are you saying that is an actual depiction of the historic Muhammad? or is that the 'real' angel Gabriel, perhaps? Or maybe neither is real, but the image is a faithful 'diagram' of the 'actual' meeting between the two?
This image tells us nothing that is not already written in the text. it's entirely superfluous and redundant. I respect the idea that superfluous images are useful to solidify a concept visually - we're visual creatures after all - but I reject the idea that we should include superfluous images when they are controversial. Why would we tweak people's noses for such a trivial reason?
@Johnbod: it doesn't really matter which word you use. 'being unintentional' doesn't make the mistake better, it just makes it excusable. And frankly, the minute someone stands up and argues to retain the offensive image, the offense becomes' an insult, because at that point it is intentional. We can excuse Rick Perry for inheriting a farm with a racist name; that's not his fault. but if he defends the name then he becomes a racist. See how that works? Same principle here. --Ludwigs2 17:46, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

So, we're back to "nah, they aren't real images of him!" argument? Haven't we rehashed this numerous times? Neither are a LOT of the images of historic figures out there. Ludwigs2, again, I ask you just be honest. You (some cites already above) don't want images of Muhammad here so as not to violate others (not mine, surely not Wikipedia's) religious beliefs. Please stop sidetracking every conversation here. I personally believe you've went well beyond tenacious, as I've noted above. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:06, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Robert, the reason the issue keeps coming up is because several long-term editors here refuse to allow it to be settled. That's not my problem. it's a reasonable point I'm raising, and one that should be considered, but it's not being listened to. I've heard you make this same comparison a half dozen times at least; each time I hear you say it, I comment that on none of those other pages is there a religious proscription or the potential of offending millions of people to be considered; each time I make that comment, you either ignore it, or suggest that we never consider offense to people - the first is bad argumentation, the second ridiculous on the face of it.
This problem is not going away. Even if I were to leave the page, this problem would not go away, because there are always going to be editors who have common sense and ethics, and they will always want these images removed. and it is simply common sense and common ethics - one doesn't offend people without cause - and the fact that you refuse to accept that premise is (again) not my problem. No one much likes having a conscience, and since I seem to be forced into that role on this article no one's going to much like me; but that can't be helped.
P.s. This is maybe the 23rd time you've accused me of tendentiousness. It's boring. as I used to say in my cruder youth, take the dump or get off the throne. you know what to do if you want to make a case against me (or if you don't I'll instruct you), but repeating it over and over is pointless. I'm not going to change what I think is right just because you keep calling me names. --Ludwigs2 18:41, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
I apologize, but what I read above was "virtually every editor who's contributed here refuses to agree with my opinion" and "though I called it tenacious and insisted I'd keep doing it, thus making it tendentious, I dont know why you are agreeing.". Did I get that right? And yes, it is your problem when you fit into the 1-2% of contributing editors over the years who've demanded removal of all of the images on no grounds but religious. Why is it you cannot understand that? Side note, if you really do want an RfC/U or AN/I, start one yourself. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:49, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not really interested in whomped up statistics, nor in your somewhat peculiar take on my viewpoint. I keep wanting to talk about the value of the images, and you keep wanting to talk about the behavior of other editors, and that puts me squarely in the right. I'd appreciate it if I could go ten posts on this page just discussing the issue, without someone making assertions about me or my behavior. Is that possible?
Your last statement makes no sense. Are you expecting me to start an RFC/U on myself? I don't have a problem with my behavior: you seem to have some kind of problem with it (because you go on and on and on about it). So take the dump or get off the throne; unless, of course, your goal is Poisoning the well. --Ludwigs2 19:34, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
DEADHORSE is not equal to DISCUSS. In the ensuing conversation, if you turn it into DEADHORSE beating, yes, I will start an RfC/U, followed by AN/I suggesting a topic ban after the inevitable RfC/U outcome. Over 40 diffs and counting. And that is my final response to you until that time. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 21:16, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
You do as you think best Robert - I would ask nothing less. However, you should keep in mind that there is a world of difference between insisting that you are right on a page you consider home turf and being able to argue for it convincingly in front of an uncommitted audience. That's a gap I can bridge easily on this topic; please be sure you can too. --Ludwigs2 21:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


Getting back on track?

So... back to the topic at hand, have sufficient reasons been given for everyone without religious objections (or other reasons for adhering to others religious beliefs) as to the historical value of the images? My answer is of course yes, for the reasons I noted above. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 21:41, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

And my answer is that is two-fold:
  • my objections have not been based on religion, but rather on the ethics inherent to editing an encyclopedia
  • you have no grounds under policy to make such a biased distinction in the first place (that is a fairly clear violation of both wp:NPOV and wp:TPG).
Care to try again? --Ludwigs2 21:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


So... back to the topic at hand, have sufficient reasons been given for everyone without religious objections (or other reasons for adhering to others religious beliefs - including those who pretend otherwise, even though diffs have been already provided showing contrary) as to the historical value of the images? My answer is of course yes, for the reasons I noted above. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 22:01, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
And, again, my answer is that is two-fold:
  • my objections have not been based on religion, but rather on the ethics inherent to editing an encyclopedia
  • you have no grounds under policy to make such a biased distinction in the first place (that is a fairly clear violation of both wp:NPOV and wp:TPG).
Care to try a third time? --Ludwigs2 21:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry you believe this is the place to discuss changing policies (which honoring any religious belief would be). I'm also sorry you forgot that you'd written this[12] (among other things) indicating that your true reasoning was "AVERAGE EVERYDAY PEOPLE WOULD FIND WIKIPEDIA'S PUGNACIOUSNESS ABOUT VIOLATING MUSLIM CUSTOMS...". Backpedalling on what's available in the diffs doesn't work. Instead, you may wish to visit the Village Pump or other such mechanisms to discuss the policy changes required to allow Wikipedia to follow your beliefs - but this is not the place. That's not POV. There is no provision in Wikipedia requiring following or honoring any religious beliefs - quite the contrary. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 22:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
What your objections are based on is a remix of the logically fallacious won't somebody please think of the children? argument, but with Muslims subbed in for children. Secondly, yes, we do have grounds to make a distinction. You don't get to subject the images of this article to a litmus test that most other articles' images don't have to deal with. You don't get to hold them up because of your personally-held beliefs. So it is quite a valid question to ask if anyone has any non-religion (i.e. legitimate) based rationale for opposition. Tarc (talk) 22:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm smelling an RfC/U or AN/I in the very near future, if anyone else is willing to certify. EVERY valid and good faith attempt to discuss these topics is being sidetracked. It's ironic though, that such efforts are only creating a situation that will prevent the images from being removed. Very ironic. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 22:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Tarc: First, thanks for addressing the point directly; that's a positive step.
Unfortunately, your argument doesn't quite work the way you think it does. Point-by-point:
  • I actually have NPOV, TPG, a Foundation resolution, and even (at a pinch) IAR on my side. I argue that you and Robert and several others are working very hard to single out and exclude a particular viewpoint on this article (violate NPOV) by preventing that viewpoint from entering the discussion on the talk page (violates TPG) so that you can maintain controversial images of no particular value (violates the foundation resolution) in a way that damages the reputation of the encyclopedia.
  • I stand by my words: "pugnaciousness about violating Muslim customs" is not a religious issue, it's a matter of editorial ethics - note that the focus in on the 'pugnaciousness about violating' not on the thing violated.
  • As I have said before (and will obviously say again), no one is asking that we 'follow' or 'honor' any religious belief; all I've asked is that we don't go out of our way to violate such beliefs except where there is a concrete need to do so.
  • I am using a litmus test that is generally used on other articles - in most places on wikipedia editors will use common sense and swap out controversial images instead of fighting endlessly to keep them. It's only on a few articles like this one where editors get so invested in the battle that all perspective is lost. The behavior on this article is an aberration, not a norm.
So look: Robert is quite obviously trying to create a question which denies every point of view except his own. It's not a bad tactic as tactics go (FOX News has made marvelous use of it over the years) but it's really not consistent with the spirit of wp:CON. You're trying to do the same in your own way. The reason you're not making headway, whether you know it or not, is that you're not even close to having the moral high-ground here. When push comes to shove, what you collectively are trying to do is to defend images that you know add little to the article and that you know offend people. It's not a tenable position for you to hold endlessly, and I am happy enough to go over it patiently with you until you realize the mistake you've made. If you prefer, we can take it to mediation, where we can go over it in a more focused atmosphere, but either way…
it's not a well-formed question. It's not a huge issue, either - I probably should have just ignored it and let the thread die away on its own - but it's not a well-formed question. --Ludwigs2 23:43, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the misinterpretation, but as we both said, religious objections, which is what I objected to, is not grounds for consideration on Wikipedia. Any other interpretation of my statements is fallacious and a waste of our time. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 00:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Robert, I recognize that as a particular interpretation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, but I do not believe it is actually supportable by reference to any actual text in those polices and guidelines. I am also quite certain that it goes against the spirit of the core principles of the project (which i am happy to explain in detail if you like). I see no reason to accept that statement as a bald assertion of fact. would you care to justify it in terms of something written in policy, so that we might have something to discuss? --Ludwigs2 00:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I'd start with this line, which is policy (and not guideline): "Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations." (emphasis mine). But you (a) know all of that - or (b) ignored it - or (c) missed it. I don't know (or care) which - let's move to the present instead. I thus hope that this time you will take it to heart.
So, with your newfound understanding, can we get back to topic? Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 01:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry, you didn't provide a link to where that is in policy. I'm reasonably familiar with policy on project, and I don't remember seeing that anywhere. it's certainly not in NPOV (where I would expect it). can you provide a link? --Ludwigs2 03:48, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but you are very familiar with that particular policy, as you have selectively quoted from it when needed. Thus, I did not (nor will I) provide you a link to a page you've quoted from multiple times already. Besides, it's already linked to over a half dozen times above by us. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 03:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
It's in WP:NOT, specifically WP:CENSOR, last line. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
As pointed out to you (Ludwigs2) over a dozen times (I stopped counting) during this discussion (as WP:CENSOR/WP:NOTCENSORED and so on), and as cited or mentioned by you an equal or greater number of times, and mentioned by others (while not being directed at you) an equal number of times. Hence, my reason for not taking your request for a link seriously. Nothing personal. I truly didn't believe you needed a link to a policy so often cited (including by you) in these short few days. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 04:30, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Qwyrxian. Sorry, wp:NOT is policy which changes at staggering rate. the last time I checked NOTCENSORED it was a third that size, and contained nothing as argumentative as that line. I'll have to look into that. Seems like it was added by arctic.gnome in april of 2010, while I was not paying attention.
That being said, I don't see why this matters. The spirit of NOTCENSORED is to prevent needed material from being removed from the encyclopedia because of prejudicial viewpoints. it was not intended to promote prejudicial viewpoints by protecting unnecessary material. We're right back at the point I keep making: there is no sense offending people without due cause. NOTCENSORED doesn't overturn NPOV, and so it simply doesn't apply in this case because the content in question is not by any stretch of the imagination essential to the topic.
I'll deal with the NOTCENSORED fubar later (no sense addressing it until this kerfluffle is over), but for the moment I am IARing this interpretation of NOTCENSORED on the grounds it damages the reputation of the encyclopedia. There is nothing to do at this point except ask for informal mediation or formal arbitration; I will leave it up to you which you prefer. --Ludwigs2 05:23, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Or we can go on with our RfC attempt and ignore you as you continue to ignore countless consensus. Though of course, you are free to file what you like. BTW, NOTCENSORED has not changed since you've cited it over a dozen times during these discussions. In the meantime, you are free to try to circumvent our RfC attempts as you've done just recently at ArbCom. Best of luck to you, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 05:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The claim that "NPOV, TPG, a Foundation resolution, and even (at a pinch) IAR on my side" is not remotely within the realm of reality. No one but you really buys the stretching of the Foundation resolution to cover this topic, there are no violations of talk-page guidelines when discussing something that is relevant to the article, it would actually be a violation of NPOV to remove the images, as we would be showing an imbalanced favoritism of a religious minority point of view. And finally, 9 times out of 10 when IAR is cited, it is cited incorrectly and out of desperation . You keep claiming that we are "going out of our way" to insult the image-protesters, and you keep being told that making this claim is quite a breach of WP:AGF. You can either stop yourself from attacking other editors in this fashion, or we can go somewhere where a stoppage will be forced upon you. Your choice. Tarc (talk) 13:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I need to point out a patern here (and I am sure this will garner a comment of personal attack which it isn't but oh well.) Every time I come to this area to see the newest comments everyone posts why the rules apply. Now the rules are shown to support the current format and we go to ignore all rules? The arguement in my opinion it getting to unreasonable since it now seems to be consciously about not offending one group which will instead offend another. If we have to remove images for controversy we will need to do it everywhere since I am certain I can locate an individual capable of being offended at ANYTHING. Tivanir2 (talk) 14:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Tivanir2: IAR is entering into this because of the way rules are being applied. What's happening here is this: NOTCENSORED - a rule designed to prevent necessary information from being removed from articles (so that, for instance, people cannot take images of penises off of the penis article) - is being used to preserve images that serve no purpose except to offend a major religion. It's similar to the British practice in Colonial India of force-feeding pork to Muslim insurgents; a way of using the faith's proscriptions as a way of attacking the faith and preserving hegemony. It's a clear violation of NPOV. it's unfortunate that that line crept into the policy (from the wording I suspect arctic.gnome was worried about cult groups, but it was a short-sighted addition)
And yes, I am used to this kind of hyperbole (that "we can't budge on anything or else everything will be destroyed!" thing). That's not the right approach to take on a collaborative encyclopedia.
Robert, feel free to ignore me if that is what you would prefer.
Tarc: I don't know what you're thinking, but I do know that there is a difference between causing offense over necessary material and causing offense over trivia. You know as well as I do that these images are not needed on the article; you know as well as I do that these images cause offense. Yet you still defend them vociferously. I can think of a number of reasons why you might do that, but none of them are good reasons. perhaps you can explain to me what is so important about these images that that we need to offend millions with them? And yes, I know, your first instinct is going to be to use the boilerplate "wikipedia does not consider offense…" - why don't you skip that and try to engage the argument? Remember, wp:IAR was designed to cut through precisely that kind of bureaucratic rigamarole, so the more you hammer on pure policy-literalism, the stronger you make my IAR case. --Ludwigs2 15:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
My dear Ludwigs, do not instruct me on what I know or feel. I defend the images because they are not trivial and are necessary to the article. You have no valid case to make in the area, never have and never will. "We do not consider offense" is the crux of the matter here. Religious extremism does not dictate WIkipedia editorial decisions. Tarc (talk) 16:10, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Call my point anything you like but it seems an aweful amount of switching tactics because traction can't be gained through other methods. As for the pictures themselves there has been many arguements for inclusion (granted pointing out some of the pictures no longer have relevence.) You are suggesting removal since they are offensive but there are work arounds for that as pointed out on multiple occasions. Instead of relying on a self filter you instead want to sanitize useful illustrative works that (after review if certain ones need to come out i.e. i am looking at the black stone image) to appease a base of people. So this is boiling down to please don't offend this one group, which from notcensored says wikipedia doesn't care about offending people. I have to fully agree with Tarc on the think of the children arguement at this point. The IAR makes no sense for the following reasons: 1) No picture is needed and technically you can get away with removing any picture without impacting an article, as anything is capable of being to be illustrated with words. 2) you are placing undue weight on the matter of how many people you are offending (that should have no bearing whatsoever) 3) The reasons to keep these have been filed and blantently ignored i.e. historical references, illustration of text for visual learners, depictions throughout his life. Tivanir2 (talk) 17:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Tivanir: don't be confused by Tarc and Robert. I've been making the same claim all through this discussion, but finding what I say get see-sawed by them as they try different tactics of avoiding it. And I've said all along that I'm open to any discussion about the relevance of the pictures, but keep running into bald statements like Tarc's above ("they are not trivial and are necessary to the article") that are never explained or justified. While I happen to think that there is no sufficient justification for these images, I'm open to discussion, but I can't get anyone to talk about it. so we're stuck. There's not much to do when people only speak in didactic absolutes.
with respect to your three points:
  1. in fact, this is not true - there are many things that are far better depicted by images than by word-descriptions. again, penises are the perfect example: few people like looking at them, but there really is no other way to effectively describe one than to provide an image. That doesn't apply here. The image of Mohammad meeting with the angel Gabriel is perfectly summed up by the phrase 'Mohammad met with the angel Gabriel'. there's not much more to the image than that.
  2. I'm not sure whether you are using 'undue weight' in the wikipedia sense of the term; if you are, you're misapplying it somewhat. wp:WEIGHT is a balancing consideration, and only merits exclusion when dealing with the viewpoint of a tiny minority, which is most assuredly not what we have here.
  3. I am aware of all the reasons that have been listed out for keeping the images - in my terms: aesthetics, mnemonics, art history, explication of text. only the last two would be of sufficient importance to content to justify inclusion of controversial images, and as far as I can see the images do not do much to help explicate the text. That leaves art history, and I could see using one or two of these images in a section dedicated to discussing the artistic representations of Muhammad that have been made over the centuries (comparing these with veiled images or images of flames, etc). But no one has actually offered that compromise (maybe because it hasn't occurred to them). I'll toss that out as a suggestion (which would would do two things: solve this dispute, and give a valid rationale that will solve future disputes). Would that work for you? --Ludwigs2 18:12, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Ludwigs2, as you've worded it as a proposal, I cannot simply not reply. That said, my first response to "well, I'll justify removing the images for this reason as "compromise"" most definitely gets a "no" !vote from me as an RfC proposal. I wish you'd read my proposal, since it actually covers every policy issue you bring up. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
You have read, saw your note below after posting, thus redacting. With thanks. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 18:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Redact remainder with apologies to Ludwigs2, as more detailed explanation below[13] does not support my earlier interpretations. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 19:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Why no mention in this article about depictions of Muhammad?

I'm looking for a discussion about images of Muhammad in the article and can't find one. Was that a deliberate editorial choice, or hasn't it been addressed yet? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:22, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the history, there used to be a section about this, see [14]. Not sure why it was removed though. Wiqi(55) 04:13, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, Wiqi55. Anyone know why it was deleted? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:34, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Check this[15] AAA765 removed a bunch of references, content, and that section. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 05:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
The exact diff[16]. TONS of references as well over various edits. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 05:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I've just been looking at the history too. All removed in three edits with edit summaries along the lines of "shortening", [17] and no one discussed it on the talk page. [18] Should there be a mention of images in this article? I understand there's a whole article devoted to the topic. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:44, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems a lot of subsections were entirely removed or cannabalized - not just shortened. Anyway, usually there is a summary that goes along with each "See also". I think some repair can probably be accomplished. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 05:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm… I wonder why that was done? that should be fixed - I'll look through the history and see if anything else obvious has gone missing. --Ludwigs2 13:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
It was part of a good faith major cleanup done around the same time the article was under attack by serial iconoclasts. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
sigh… all this marvelous technology, and people still get stuck in the 12th century mindset. --Ludwigs2 14:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Irony. Tarc (talk) 14:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
I try to take a deep historical view. . --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:23, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I put this forward for discussion. It derives from the content that was deleted from this article a couple of years ago, and from Depictions of Muhammad, as well as the above discussion #Educational value of the images of Muhammad.

No depictions of the Prophet dating from his lifetime survive, and images that have come down to us often reflect the cultural, historical and religious context out of which they arose. Muslims generally avoid depictions of Muhammad. The taboo is stronger in Sunni Islam (representing 85–90% of the world’s Muslim population) than Shia (10–15%).[Citation needed] Islamic depictions of Muhammad have generally been limited to secular contexts and to the elite classes who could afford fine art[1] and most show Muhammad with his face veiled, or symbolically represent him as a flame; but some, notably from before about 1500, show him fully.[2] Depictions of Muhammad were rare, never numerous in any community or era throughout Islamic history.[3]

--Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm still supportive of restoring such a section, and it seems you're off to a good start. I'll comment on it later today, if you don't mind. It may also address some other issues we've tried to resolve in the image captioning efforts. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 07:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Does the French image belong?

I'm very much in favor of the choice to include images, but I'm not sure if the French image, captioned "The destruction of idols at the Kaaba by Muhammad, in L'Histoire Merveilleuse en Vers de Mahomet, anonymous 16th or 17th-century illustration.", really belongs in the article. After all, it's some European book written long after his life by people who might not have been experts (I don't know) - even the bomb-hat from the Jyllands-Posten cartoons may be more significant to his perception in Europe, and it seems only relevant to that subsection in any case. I doubt it helps the reader understand what actually happened with the destruction of the idols. But the thing is, I don't know what this French book is, or how famous it was; maybe it really was important in shaping European perceptions, in which case, with a little explanation, the picture might belong in that section. In any case, if it's just a little historical fluff, it might be best to leave it to the depictions of Muhammad article only. Wnt (talk) 17:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

History is always written after the fact, and as the name states, the source is a history ("L'Histoire Merveilleuse en Vers de Mahomet"). It shows the beliefs and thoughts on that particular subject at the time of authorship (and possibly before) by that group of people who found Muhammad (Mahomet in French) worthy of an entire book. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 17:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
I have yet to look at this particular image in any detail, but the style strikes me as Persian (Safavid or Timurid). Also note that the Prophet, and other presumably Shia figures, are shown covered with a flame (quite unusual for a French work, no?). My guess is that the French work was probably reproducing the original which was made in Persia. Wiqi(55) 17:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
That too was my take on it. I'm wondering if you and I could manage to find the artist or some more detail about the image they used in their history... or it may have been information we already looked for way back when... can't remember for sure. ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 17:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
It's certainly not a European image, & the book title is just the BnF's rendering of the original in Persian, Arabic or Turkish. Aha, it's Kashmir, 1808) : "Bâzil, Hamla-i haydarî (un récit de la vie de Muhammad), Entrée de Mahomet à La Mecque et destruction des idoles, Cachemire, 1808

BNF, Manuscrits, suppl. persan 1030 f. 305v-306 BnF page Muhammad remporte plusieurs victoires militaires, dont celle de Badr sur les Mecquois, puis doit se battre à l'intérieur même de Médine, d'abord avec les "hypocrites" nouveaux convertis dont la tiédeur est une faiblesse pour la communauté, ensuite avec les tribus juives. Ces victoires assurées, Muhammad organise les règles de la nouvelle communauté, inspiré par les révélations qu'il reçoit. Dans ce manuscrit, le Prophète n'est jamais représenté de manière figurative, il est seulement symbolisé par une flamme." I'll add to the file. Johnbod (talk) 18:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Wow, awesome and nicely done Johnbod! Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 19:01, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, between Johnbod's and Wiki55's efforts, I think it well captioned. And seems more suited in it's current context. I'm for leaving it with the new understanding brought about by the caption that was fixed. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | TK/CN 19:35, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm, in the file description it was "11th century" at one point, then "16th or 17th", now 1808? Well, I'll say thanks for the detective work... provided you're right. ;) Wnt (talk) 03:23, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
The "11th century", which was totally implausible, was I think a misreading of the catalogue number of 1030 (above). It's all over the web now of course. Johnbod (talk) 05:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
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