Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles)/Partisan and extremist websites

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  • comment How about defining "enough" as 5 people how agree with the nomination and are still active editors who could be expected to participate in a discussion? --Striver 12:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
    • May be 7-10 will be really enough. If we ask some admins who have been here for some time now and understand WP:RS then they will support it. --- ALM 12:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
    • No, that doesn't make sense. You need "agree" and "disagree" options and come up with some rule about that. You also need to publicize this to all types of users so that they find this page (which isn't on the beaten path). gren グレン 19:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Lets understand that we are only talking about "enough" to take it to discussion, well there can people who do not agree present their arguments. I think that 5 is enough to bring it to "discussion". Do you till insist that we need 7-10 for that? Also, How about having a standard of leaving an article in the "Discussions" for at least 10 days before closing it, and having an extended period of 20 days now while the project sub-page is new? --Striver 19:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
      • No, that doesn't make sense. You need "agree" and "disagree" options and come up with some rule about that. You also need to publicize this to all types of users so that they find this page (which isn't on the beaten path). 128.175.80.58 19:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It's clear that the three listed below are "political". Their stated goals are to change people's perceptions about Islam. If they are extremist I suppose is an issue for discussion... since extremist sites can only be used as primary sources and political ones can still be used with caution? Does that sound right? gren グレン 19:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... pages that are indentified as "extremist websites" are only to be used in the article about that website or its creator, it may not be used for any other thing, for example as a source of criticism. For example, you can't use a identified nazi site to criticize Judaism. --Striver 19:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed not, look at the rule again; it contains the word "activities." And Nazis don't criticize Judaism per se. Arrow740 21:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

ALM scientist, the nomination is only there to determine if it is even worth talking about it. Lets keep arguments to this section, when the sites get here.--Striver 09:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

okay. --- ALM 09:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment You guys will have to argue that these websites (such as Robert Spencer) advocate extreme measures or views. Arrow740 21:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Of course, that is what the discussion section is about. We are still waiting for people to notice this, i have advertised in the Islam project twice now. --Striver 23:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Rofl, 6 muslims, all against websites that simply tell the truth about their wicked religion. WHAT A SHOCKER! 88.113.137.249 16:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


  • Comment/Proposal. I don't think this exercise is proving as useful as it could be, because we aren't making the distinctions made in the "Partisan and extremist websites" section of WP:RS. The distinction is between partisan sources (political/religious) and extremist sources.
  • I think everyone will agree that in articles about X, both partisan and extremist sources should be avoided, but in articles about criticism of X, one has to use partisan sources, but still shouldn't use extremist sources. Furthermore, I don't see a use in listing partisan sources, I think it is clearly obvious when a source is partisan, and the category is way too broad anyway.
  • So my proposal is to narrow the scope of this page to extremist sources. Although this is of course not trivial to define (and an indicator of why WP:RS is guideline, not policy), I don't think Robert Spencer's sites would classify as extremist - he is an opponent of Islam, but he is not an extremist like Ali Sina is - for example, Ali Sina advocates banning Islam altogether, and uses ultra-extreme language like comparing Islam to Nazism. He is clearly extremist. Spencer isn't. - Merzbow 06:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
that sounds resonable... i was not under the impression that this was about identifying Partisan or extremist websites, rather Partisan and extremist websites. What is the url to Robert Spencer's sites? --Striver 12:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
jihadwatch.org. The question then becomes, which of the sites listed are extremist? faithfreedom.org, for one. answering-christianity also, because it has a big section that claims to debunk the 9/11 attacks. caliphate.co possibly. submission.org doesn't appear to be extremist.
This is not to say that the non-extremist sites are OK to use - certainly blogs and personal websites like most of these should be used rarely, if at all. Honestly, I think our time is better spent arguing whether a specific use of a source is appropriate (i.e. the current discussion about using answering-whatever websites in Criticism of the Quran) rather than trying to pre-categorize things.
Another thing is that while this site and some of the others like answering-islam or answering-christianity may not be extremist, they aren't really appropriate in Wikipedia for other reasons. Spencer's books and published articles can be sourced, but his website, not. - Merzbow 18:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
You're going to have to explain that last sentence. As you admitted on the talk page for Criticism of the Quran, AI and FFI are notable in the arena of anti-Islam polemics, so we can use them as sources in the article. Arrow740 03:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
My Question to Arrow740 is that: "Can a liar website be used as a source?". May be some of you do not agree with me, but a half-truth is more dangerous then a lie. So are you interested in exposing the lies told by FFI to you innocent people? I have a long list!--Builder_w
I strike my last paragraph above... it was a piece of a draft of an earlier comment that slipped in accidently. What I MEANT to say is what I said in the second paragraph, that personal websites/blogs should be used very sparingly. I am certainly against blanket 'bans' on sources (except for very extremist sources). - Merzbow 03:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I still don't know what site he has, and i rather comment on individual sites when and if they get enough noms. and not not here. If feel that it is fruitful to have a proper identification of extremist sites so we wont need to invent the wheel again every time somebody wants to refer to those sites. Why don't you leave a comment regarding answering-Islam, since its up for discussion?--Striver 23:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
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