Mailing List Archive

Hello all,
I've been reading this mailing list for some time now but this's my first
message actually.
About the issue we have here, I've reviewed the article now and it does has
some biased statements.
the "cure of Homosexuality" section is added directly from an Arabic site
where someone saying he is a homosexual and asking for help to stop
homosexuality, then a doctor replies with what's written in the Wikipedia
page section about a research done (no references to that research) showing
some statistics about this topic, a template has been added now to put more
references to this particular part.

The "homosexuality in Islam" section was saying that "homosexuality causes
AIDS as all other kinds of sexual activities do", I removed this part as
it's not appropriate here, needs a seperate section about medical and
biological effects of homosexuality the whole section now is rephrased and
included in "homosexuality in religions" section, and it should be fine by
now. I wish that the complainer to the foundation begin editing to improve
the article.

I see the problem is the same as in larger wikipedias, but in larger ones
there're alot of people who edit the article
and there're much more possibity of NPOV than in smaller ones like Arabic.
active people are really few and you don't expect that all the articles are
good ones in current time, on the other hand we do have excellent neutral
articles written about "hot topics" in Muslim and Arabic communities like
"Atheism[1], Holocaust[2], War on terrorism[3], Freemasonry[4], Freedom of
speech[5]" and many more.

what I'm trying to say that taking into consideration the number of people
working on the project, I think we've done a good job since we've started
back in 2003.
You can't judge the whole thing through some biased articles, the wiki
culture is not yet well-known through the Arab world and when someone comes
to write in Wikipedia, they think it's some kind of a forum and writes his
own opinion, but I'm optimistic about the future, we're growing in the
number of "active" wikipedians. Also here in Egypt specifically we're trying
to build-up Egyptian Wiki community which began actions since the bid for
Wikimania Alexandria 2007, and then now preparing other events to organize.

Best Regards,
Mido, sysop on Arabic Wikipedia

1. http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A5%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AF
2.
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%87%D9%88%D9%84%D9%88%D9%83%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%AA
3.
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B1%D8%A8_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8
4. http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%88%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9
5.
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A3%D9%8A_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B9%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B1

On 11/21/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux@free.fr> wrote:
>
> The Foundation has received a complaint about the page on homosexuality
> on the Wikipedia in Arabic. According to the person who complained, as
> well as to people who ran the article through translators, the article
> contains heavily jugmental assertions.
>
> This is not the first time that we received complaints about such kind
> of judgmental content based on cultural or religious norms ; I think we
> also got similar complaints about the Yiddish Wikipedia.
>
> In these cases, there are common traits :
> * The bias expressed arises from the dominant culture of the people who
> speak the language and thus get on the wiki. (Arabic tends to be spoken
> in Muslim countries ; Yiddish tends to be spoken in Orthodox Askhenazi
> Jew communities ; both of these religions condemn homosexuality.)
> * The wiki communities are small.
> * Very few people, or even none, at the Foundation or on OTRS (the email
> processing system) read the said languages.
>
> We also seem to have similar issues with e.g. regional languages or
> languages from small countries with strong nationalism issue.
>
> Your suggestions? It's hard to fix an article whose language we don't
> speak.
>
> -- DM
>
>
> The URL is:
> http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%AB%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9
>
> The article, or parts of the article clearly mentions that homosexuality
> causes AIDS, and causes many more medical problems.
> It also mentions that psychologists in the "Western World" found a cure
> homosexuality, which I take as hint to homosexuality being a disease.
>
> The article goes even further as to mention what Islam's view on
> homosexuality is and mentions that Homosexuals should be killed
> according to
> the Islam Prophet.
> The rest of the article is full of wrong definitions and incorrect
> information but on a more acceptable level.
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
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http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Mohamed Ibrahim wrote:
> Hello all,
> I've been reading this mailing list for some time now but this's my first
> message actually.
> About the issue we have here, I've reviewed the article now and it does has
> some biased statements.
> the "cure of Homosexuality" section is added directly from an Arabic site
> where someone saying he is a homosexual and asking for help to stop
> homosexuality, then a doctor replies with what's written in the Wikipedia
> page section about a research done (no references to that research) showing
> some statistics about this topic, a template has been added now to put more
> references to this particular part.
>
> The "homosexuality in Islam" section was saying that "homosexuality causes
> AIDS as all other kinds of sexual activities do", I removed this part as
> it's not appropriate here, needs a seperate section about medical and
> biological effects of homosexuality the whole section now is rephrased and
> included in "homosexuality in religions" section, and it should be fine by
> now. I wish that the complainer to the foundation begin editing to improve
> the article.
>
> I see the problem is the same as in larger wikipedias, but in larger ones
> there're alot of people who edit the article
> and there're much more possibity of NPOV than in smaller ones like Arabic.
> active people are really few and you don't expect that all the articles are
> good ones in current time, on the other hand we do have excellent neutral
> articles written about "hot topics" in Muslim and Arabic communities like
> "Atheism[1], Holocaust[2], War on terrorism[3], Freemasonry[4], Freedom of
> speech[5]" and many more.
>
> what I'm trying to say that taking into consideration the number of people
> working on the project, I think we've done a good job since we've started
> back in 2003.
> You can't judge the whole thing through some biased articles, the wiki
> culture is not yet well-known through the Arab world and when someone comes
> to write in Wikipedia, they think it's some kind of a forum and writes his
> own opinion, but I'm optimistic about the future, we're growing in the
> number of "active" wikipedians. Also here in Egypt specifically we're trying
> to build-up Egyptian Wiki community which began actions since the bid for
> Wikimania Alexandria 2007, and then now preparing other events to organize.
>
> Best Regards,
> Mido, sysop on Arabic Wikipedia


Hello,

I do not think he was implying that the content was overall not good.
All projects have started small and we all met this situation where an
article was biased but there were few editors and not enough
knowledgeable on the topic. This is just part of growing, that's fine.


I think the main issue is rather this one. People are writing to otrs
about issues on some projects with a language no one at otrs knows
enough to even look at the article or conflict or whatever.

David could forward the email to your mailing list (presumably wikiar-l
exists) or post it on your pump (though it is really really hard when
you really do not know the language). However, there is a policy at
otrs: messages received are considered private. We can not post them
publicly.

So, David, or others, just do not know what to do with these emails and
those requests.

Cheers

Anthere


> 1. http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A5%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AF
> 2.
> http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%87%D9%88%D9%84%D9%88%D9%83%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%AA
> 3.
> http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B1%D8%A8_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8
> 4. http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%88%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9
> 5.
> http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A3%D9%8A_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B9%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B1
>
> On 11/21/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux@free.fr> wrote:
>
>>The Foundation has received a complaint about the page on homosexuality
>>on the Wikipedia in Arabic. According to the person who complained, as
>>well as to people who ran the article through translators, the article
>>contains heavily jugmental assertions.
>>
>>This is not the first time that we received complaints about such kind
>>of judgmental content based on cultural or religious norms ; I think we
>>also got similar complaints about the Yiddish Wikipedia.
>>
>>In these cases, there are common traits :
>>* The bias expressed arises from the dominant culture of the people who
>>speak the language and thus get on the wiki. (Arabic tends to be spoken
>>in Muslim countries ; Yiddish tends to be spoken in Orthodox Askhenazi
>>Jew communities ; both of these religions condemn homosexuality.)
>>* The wiki communities are small.
>>* Very few people, or even none, at the Foundation or on OTRS (the email
>>processing system) read the said languages.
>>
>>We also seem to have similar issues with e.g. regional languages or
>>languages from small countries with strong nationalism issue.
>>
>>Your suggestions? It's hard to fix an article whose language we don't
>>speak.
>>
>>-- DM
>>
>>
>>The URL is:
>>http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%AB%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9
>>
>>The article, or parts of the article clearly mentions that homosexuality
>>causes AIDS, and causes many more medical problems.
>>It also mentions that psychologists in the "Western World" found a cure
>>homosexuality, which I take as hint to homosexuality being a disease.
>>
>>The article goes even further as to mention what Islam's view on
>>homosexuality is and mentions that Homosexuals should be killed
>>according to
>>the Islam Prophet.
>>The rest of the article is full of wrong definitions and incorrect
>>information but on a more acceptable level.
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l@wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Hello,

The Arabic Embassy is mentioned on meta as all other embassies and can be
easily contacted, any of the admins will reply to u, the current ambassador
is absent and likely will be replaced soon.
I've left a msg about this particular issue in homosexual_talk, you can
leave a message about what you want in the embassy page in English so u can
get a contact to talk to or in the pump in Arabic. also the wiki-ar is a
good place to leave your messages, despite being inactive currently but most
active wikipedians and admins are already subscribed.

Embassy:
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A7:%D8%B3%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A9
Pump:
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A7:%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86
Mailing list:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiar-l

Best regards,
Mido

On 11/21/06, Anthere <Anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I do not think he was implying that the content was overall not good.
> All projects have started small and we all met this situation where an
> article was biased but there were few editors and not enough
> knowledgeable on the topic. This is just part of growing, that's fine.
>
>
> I think the main issue is rather this one. People are writing to otrs
> about issues on some projects with a language no one at otrs knows
> enough to even look at the article or conflict or whatever.
>
> David could forward the email to your mailing list (presumably wikiar-l
> exists) or post it on your pump (though it is really really hard when
> you really do not know the language). However, there is a policy at
> otrs: messages received are considered private. We can not post them
> publicly.
>
> So, David, or others, just do not know what to do with these emails and
> those requests.
>
> Cheers
>
> Anthere
>

____________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Right, as Anthere says I was not implying that the Arabic Wikipedia was
overly bad. :-)

It's just my general feeling that the smaller the community is on a
Wiki, the larger the chances are that some articles will be written from
a specific point of view (often some point of view dominant in the
community). There's no critical mass to neutralize them.
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Anthere wrote:

>I think the main issue is rather this one. People are writing to otrs
>about issues on some projects with a language no one at otrs knows
>enough to even look at the article or conflict or whatever.
>
>David could forward the email to your mailing list (presumably wikiar-l
>exists) or post it on your pump (though it is really really hard when
>you really do not know the language). However, there is a policy at
>otrs: messages received are considered private. We can not post them
>publicly.
>
>So, David, or others, just do not know what to do with these emails and
>those requests.
>
>Cheers
>
>Anthere
>
>
>
So, what about having a couple of trusted people from ar.wikipedia
dealing with otrs?

Marco/Cruccone
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Marco Chiesa wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>
>>I think the main issue is rather this one. People are writing to otrs
>>about issues on some projects with a language no one at otrs knows
>>enough to even look at the article or conflict or whatever.
>>
>>David could forward the email to your mailing list (presumably wikiar-l
>>exists) or post it on your pump (though it is really really hard when
>>you really do not know the language). However, there is a policy at
>>otrs: messages received are considered private. We can not post them
>>publicly.
>>
>>So, David, or others, just do not know what to do with these emails and
>>those requests.
>>
>>Cheers
>>
>>Anthere
>>
>>
>>
>
> So, what about having a couple of trusted people from ar.wikipedia
> dealing with otrs?
>
> Marco/Cruccone

Yes :-)
Volunteers ?

Meanwhile, I take it that the wikiar-l is probably the best option by
far to contact ar editors.

ant

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I can help with this.
Any questions or comments about Arabic Wikipedia are welcomed, either to me
directly (mail, talk page) or like Anthere said to the mailing list.

--
Mido


On 11/21/06, Anthere <Anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Marco Chiesa wrote:
> > Anthere wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I think the main issue is rather this one. People are writing to otrs
> >>about issues on some projects with a language no one at otrs knows
> >>enough to even look at the article or conflict or whatever.
> >>
> >>David could forward the email to your mailing list (presumably wikiar-l
> >>exists) or post it on your pump (though it is really really hard when
> >>you really do not know the language). However, there is a policy at
> >>otrs: messages received are considered private. We can not post them
> >>publicly.
> >>
> >>So, David, or others, just do not know what to do with these emails and
> >>those requests.
> >>
> >>Cheers
> >>
> >>Anthere
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > So, what about having a couple of trusted people from ar.wikipedia
> > dealing with otrs?
> >
> > Marco/Cruccone
>
> Yes :-)
> Volunteers ?
>
> Meanwhile, I take it that the wikiar-l is probably the best option by
> far to contact ar editors.
>
> ant
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
_______________________________________________
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foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 21/11/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux@free.fr> wrote:

> It's just my general feeling that the smaller the community is on a
> Wiki, the larger the chances are that some articles will be written from
> a specific point of view (often some point of view dominant in the
> community). There's no critical mass to neutralize them.


Please tell me we're not going to have a Montenegrin Wikipedia to go
with the Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian ones.


- d.
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On 11/21/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> Please tell me we're not going to have a Montenegrin Wikipedia to go
> with the Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian ones.
>
>
> - d.

Currently no but it got messy:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Requests_for_new_languages/cg

--
geni
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