Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam:The Muslim Guild/User comments/OceanSplash

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His userpage as of 22:32, 13 December 2005

Hello everyone. I am relatively new. I joined a couple of months ago and contributed to a few articles but faced hostile and fierce resistance by some Muslims. I was fed up and left. I am back and hostilities have begun already. There is basically nothing that I write that they do not revert. Their justifications are inane and invalid. Why is it that any time I am censored, it turns out to be a Muslim doing it? Are other users dumb and only Muslims are the only smart and fair people here knowing how to keep Wikipedia in order and by the book? Curiously the common denominator of all those who abused and censored me is that they were Muslims. Is that a coincidence? I have noticed that it is not just me but many other editors have difficulty dealing with some Muslim editors who mix their religious conviction with their scholarly commitment to Wikipedia and basically use this venue for character assassination of the critics of Islam and to censor any opinion critical of Islam. Censorship is very much rampant and the rules of Wikipedia are often broken and twisted to justify their bulish behaviour. They gang up together and engage in revert wars until their opponents gets tired and give up. If you complain they accuse YOU of not abiding by the rules and no matter how many times you ask which rules, you get no cleare response. They set the rules. The rule is that "thou shalt not offend my fragile and indefensible conviction". If you protest, they immediately play the victim card and accuse you of religious bigotry and prejudice.

This is basically my experience in Wikipedia so far. Nice start!

--Striver 22:25, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

From [1] User talk:Michael Voytinsky:

SIIEG

Hi Michael: I want to invite you to join us at SIIEG and take active part in making sure Wikipedia remains neutral. I am specifically referring to Muslims who unfortunately seem to be more committed to their religion than to facts and this encyclopedia. They often use unethical conduct to have their opinion prevail and opposing views on Islam censored. Since I joined I became the target of their endless abuses. I finally found SIEEG. That is a great idea and I want to promote it. Muslims work in group and are very militant, to the extent that some of them are so unethical that present themselves as “mediators” when other Muslims get in tug of war with you, when obviously in matters of their faith they have vested interest. This is conflict of interest and should not be allowed no matter how the person claims to be impartial and unreligious. I converted to Islam because all I read were lies. Now that I saw the truth, I want to make the truth prevail. People should not fall into this trap because they are lied to. The problem is that once they convert to Islam, they are immediately fed with hate. I started hating everyone without knowing why. The change was so subtle and so incremental that you do not notice. We must stop this lie and save innocent people like me and thousands others from becoming victims. Some people have become suicide bombers after conversion. like this poor woman You must make it your business to take stance. So please join and become part of our project. OceanSplash 14 Dec. 2005 03:54

Now You Have Seen the Truth

With respect, I will not join SIIEG, because, and please do not take this the wrong way, you are obviously a bunch of loons.

Your problem is that having found out that one "Truth" was not a truth at all, you continue to search for "Truth". However, there is no "Truth". (That is not a "Truth", btw.)

Certainly it is not the function of an encyclopaedia to present the "Truth". You and your Muslim opponents are equally under the misapprehension that that is in fact its function, and so you confuse "facts" and "NPOV". You think, incorrectly, that facts ARE NPOV. That is not true.

Facts are, as a matter of fact, very tricky. Is it a "fact" that the "sharia" prescribes 100 lashes for "fornication"? Well, there is no book called "The Sharia", for one. A statement that something is "according to the Sharia", if unqualified, is meaningless.

Do Muslims support suicide bombings? Clearly some do. If you want to be really NPOV, you can say that they "describe themselves as Muslims", which reduces scope for dispute. Others do not. Unless you have access to reliable, reputable polls dealing with the subject, no NPOV generalization is possible.

Some people who describe themselves as Muslims will use weaselly language when explaining their views on suicide bombings. The previous statement is clearly not NPOV. But it is NPOV to quote them, and quote a public figure expressing the view that the statement is weaselly. Done right, neither you, nor the deranged loons running islam-qa.com will disagree with an NPOV statement - that should be your idea. Not "Truth".

By the way, look up E-Prime. You may find it useful - I would not advocate switching entirely to E-Prime, but you may want to put some thought into full implications of the casual use of the verb "to be" and its equivalents. Sometimes, phenomenological descriptions of events are much better for neutrality. For example, try to rephrase the statement "President of Iran is a lunatic" without using the verb to be.

Michael Voytinsky 22:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I did not say that there is a truth that we can find and philosophically there is nothing in what you wrote that I disagree with. However, my point is not whether some Muslims approve of suicide bombing or not. My concern is that Islam approves of it. The Quran calls for killing and hating the non-Muslims such as you. Did you see this? Anyway, I just found SIIEG and don’t know whether people there are loons or not. I reserve that judgement after I know them better. Do you know them? From what I read, I think they are dedicated to a cause and I share that cause. What is NPOV? Isn’t it stating the views of both sides without taking side? So why opposing views to Islam are censored? see this if you have time. User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Gross_and_flagrant_abuses_of_powerWish you the best and cheers. OceanSplash 15 Dec. 2005 9:20

Just a note

Just a note because I saw you asking about Sharia's punishment, and didn't want to let the banned troll User:Absent (look at his userpage!) have the sole influence on you - it's important to note that Sharia does not punish rape victims, and traditionally takes a very harsh stance against the rapists (although, because Sharia has a much greater burden of proof to prove guilt, the "presumption of innocence" is stronger than in most Western countries for all crimes (It has nothing to do with sex, all accusations of crime give the benefit of doubt to the accused). Also, a commonly misunderstood concept of Sharia is that "It kills women for premarital sex" which is patently untrue, the sin of adultery is that you are betraying your spouse (male or female), so premarital sex (in which an unmarried person has sex) is viewed much more 'liberally' or 'lightly', than if you were married. For reference's sake, I'm a Canadian Christian, so I like to think I'm at least somewhat unbiased in that I have no real agenda, except dispelling ignorance and fostering knowledge :) If you have any other direct questions, you can ask me, although there are of course more authoritative sources as well Sherurcij ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:50, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

See this for a respons to him: [2] --Striver 22:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)