Talk:Flying while Muslim

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[edit] External Links

I've removed the biased links twice now, and they've twice been put back into place. These biased columns that express opinion have no place being mixed in with objective articles that are journalistic accounts. I hope to not have to remove them a fourth time. Fifty7 19:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I must say, it's nice of you to finally explain yourself. But your theory makes no sense. A news article where all the quotes come from one side of a controversial issue, as is the case in the Associated Press article that is linked to, is just as biased as a column. The AP article is constructed to argue that the Flying Imams were victims and that the people who were suspicious of them were bigots. The article/column distinction reflects a (sometimes arbitrary) decision made by the editor of a publication. It is not equivalent to objective/biased. External links can balenced by linking to articles with differing biases. Objective articles are few and far between. If you look at WP:External Links, the relevent guideline is "Avoid undue weight on particular points of view." This implies that a particular link can have a point of view. Kauffner 05:20, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I've checked the articles in question as per the neutrality tag on the article. It's true that the links in question are to columns, but that isn't necessarily a problem. To get around it, I have added a couple of lines to the article detailing the debate over "flying while Muslim", which references the same articles as before but puts them in context and notes that they are opinion pieces. I hope this will satisfy everyone & have removed the tag. -- TinaSparkle 14:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flying while fill-in-the-blank

Considering that a Jewish man was thrown off an airplane for being "too Jewish", rocking back and forth in his seat while praying, it should be obvious it doesn't matter who you are anymore. Anything 'weird' is going to freak out American flyers, or at least individual ones.

If this article wants to say that it is a special problem for Muslims, if might be better as a redirect to an article that deals with that more general topic. However, as demonstrated by the references, it is a wider problem, and perhaps this article should be expanded to include the general problem on paranoia in flying aluminum tubes. Shenme 20:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[1] (background story that's cute)

I would say that these arguments go in support of merging this article in with Racial profiling. -- TinaSparkle 14:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I've added a see also link to Flying Imams controversy, which looks to be the larger/'better' article. But as above it definitely is part of a larger topic. I think I'm going to add another merge proposal to both these articles. Shenme 19:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for this, Shenme. I would support both merges - in the sense that the term "flying while Muslim", and the controversy in question, seems to me to be relevant to both articles, and would merit a mention in each. I feel that "flying while Muslim" should probably redirect to "Ethnic/racial profiling" rather than the specific "Flying imams controversy" article, as it's a term used in a wide variety of situations rather than solely in the case of the 6 imams. But I don't feel very strongly on this and if anyone feel otherwise, please do put your case. -- TinaSparkle 21:42, 7 April 2007 (UTC)