Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship

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WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship was started on August 20, 2005 to coordinate efforts to oppose censorship on Wikipedia. It was started as a response to WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency which aimed to remove images and text on Wikipedia which its members considered "indecent". This WikiProject addresses censorship of materials which some may deem indecent or offensive, but which are nonetheless encyclopedic and appropriate in the context of Wikipedia. It also addresses political and religious censorship.

Anyone who is interested in contributing, please sign up on the members page and post any ideas or suggestions on the Talk page. Also, feel free to edit this page and add any articles that need attention to the sections below.

Important note about scope: This project is primarily focused on applying our policy of no censorship in the realm of article space, and occasionally in the project space. Any content, such as userboxes, in user space is considered outside the scope of this project and should not be included on the notice board.

Contents

[edit] Members

The membership list has been moved to its own page. Please sign up there if you are interested in contributing to this project. Feel free to add the freespeech template, {{User:Feureau/UserBox/freespeech}}, to your user page once you have become a member:

This user is a member of Wikipedians against censorship.


[edit] Notice board

This notice board is intended to inform project members of current Wikipedia events related to censorship. Please list articles in need of attention, votes for deletion, votes for policy change, or other current and ongoing events which warrant the attention of the member base of this WikiProject. Once votes are closed or the event is no longer current, please move notices to the notice board archive.

Note: Personal attacks are not allowed on this notice board. Any notices not conforming to Wikipedia policies may be edited or removed. Discussions should be held on the relevant talk pages, not on the notice board.

[edit] 10 June 2008

found this on the talkpage, though i'd copy it here. Ryan shell (talk) 17:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

An issue which has occupied me for a while might be worth raising here. Last year I saw there was a fair amount of material on Wikipedia along these lines (current article names) Catholic sex abuse cases (which inter alia features a long list of individual abuse cases), Roman Catholic sex abuse cases by country (ditto), Ferns Report, and so on.

Having no axe to grind - check my edit history - but for reasons of simple curiosity I looked for where Wikipedia mentions abuse in the Scouts (as detailed in, e.g., Patrick Boyle's book Scout's Honor: Sexual Abuse in America's Most Trusted Institution). I couldn't find any reference to abuse anywhere in what seems to be an extraordinarily large number of pages about scouting. So I tried simply adding a reference to the Boyle book to the main Scouting article: this lasted less than an hour. Not long later I was insulted (labelled a Troll by an editor with many scouting edits in his history) which was a surprise.

I ended up doing quite a lot of research and then creating an admittedly not particularly strong page, which copies the name of the Catholic equivalent - Scouting sex abuse cases. After doing this – and arguing some truly strange points with what seems to be well-organised pro-scouting editing - I took a nice long break. Coming back, I see the page is now almost a joke page, and most of the research is ignored. There is nothing like parity across the sex abuse pages so last month I posted this on Talk: Catholic sex abuse cases:

Perhaps there are good/experienced editors who look at this page, who might be interested in taking a look at a (very) different article: Scouting sex abuse cases. There are well-organised vested interests determined to cover-up what goes in the Scouts so some fresh contributions might be useful.

In relation to that final comment:

(a) I have no animus against scouts, scouting or scoutmasters (or at least I didn’t until this article brought me into conflict with scouting-keen Wikipedia editors, some of whom have been elected to higher positions)
(b) This quote from a 2006 article in the Seattle Times [1] is maybe of most relevance to this project:
They have thrown just an unbelievable amount of money and effort at preventing us from getting these records and telling the world about them

Testbed (talk) 16:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

  • i've skimmed some of the talk pages on articles you've mentioned, and i agree, this is obviously censorship, but it is there are several key points that need to be worked on. to list a few, prove (to the good-scouting PR editors) by that sex abuse in scouting is note-able and should be mentioned on the scouting page. next, Scouting sex abuse cases need to be looked at kept from moving (if such a thing is ever suggested again), also a neurtral editor need to look at it for neutrality issues. i'm going to put this on the notice board to show the rest of the project. peace! Ryan shell (talk) 17:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 10 May 2008

Resolved.

Attempts to delete Image:Virgin Killer.jpg. Appears to be an attempt to censore a nude pic of underage girl despite that fact that it doesn't appear to be illegal on any country, that it's an album cover like hundreds that are already used, and that the image is actually discussed on the article. See the closed IdF at Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion/2008_May_8#Image:Virgin_Killer.jpg, which got closed under WP:NFCC Non-free usage problems and the ongoing deletion review at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2008_May_9. There was an ANI thread that got archived[2] --Enric Naval (talk) 04:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 26 April 2008

Attempts are being made to censor the very mention of creationism and a young earth theory as alternative views to the theory of evolution and old-earth theory on articles such as Earth, and History of the earth.

Archived discussion can be found here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Wikipedians_against_censorship#History_of_earth_discussion Copysan (talk) 20:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1 April 2008

Resolved.

A userbox about religious belief is going to be deleted because of POV: Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Ashley_Y/Userbox/Believes_in_Allah. Note: I am personally *for* the deletion, but this comment [3] made me realize this is also about censoring POV on userspace, so I am posting it here.

[edit] 20 March 2008

There is a section that has swearing in it.

[edit] 27 February 2008

There's a debate (now, a straw poll) to whether or not an image of an inkblot should be shown on the Rorschach inkblot test article or hidden with a disclaimer (see Talk:Rorschach inkblot test). нмŵוτнτ 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 12 February 2008

Numerous editors have renewed calls to censor images of Muhammad from Wikipedia in light of a widely publicized online petition. Debate is ongoing at Talk:Muhammad/images and a counter petition has been created. Kaldari (talk) 15:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] January 2008

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests There is a discussion about whether to put Cannibal Holocaust on the main page, which has turned into a censorship discussion. Some editors feel it is inappropriate for the main page while others feel that the main page shouldn't be censored. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Awadewit (talk • contribs) 19:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Monetary policy of the United States It looks like factual information is being deleted particularly where anything about the workings of the Federal Reserve may surprise the public in a bad way. I hope conspiracy theorists don't decide to "help out", but students of serious economics would probably be highly welcomed to help make sure that pertinent facts remain in the article. Go get 'em! lol  :-D

[edit] Open tasks

[edit] Defend policies against modifications that encourage censorship

Current policies:

[edit] Educate those who want to censor Wikipedia

Many new Wikipedia users are unaware of the policies and guidelines concerning what types of content are appropriate for Wikipedia. Before engaging in lengthy debate with users who are attempting to censor content, it is always a good idea to first point them in the direction of the appropriate policies. Some users, however, may object to these policies. Here are some common objections, and appropriate responses:

Statement: Wikipedia must be censored to conform to laws against obscenity; in particular, laws of the United States, or of the state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers reside.

Responses:

  • In the United States, obscenity is defined under the Miller test, which states that a work cannot be considered obscene if, taken as a whole, it has serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Since Wikipedia has literary, artistic, political, and scientific value it would be very difficult to charge it with obscenity, no matter how graphic a particular piece of it was. According to Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia could display full-blown pornography on the main page 24/7 and still not be in violation of U.S. obscenity laws. As far as state and local laws in the U.S. are concerned, if they do not conform to the Miller test, they are unconstitutional. The oft-quoted Florida Obscenity Law has the Miller test explicitly written into it in order to avoid being overturned as unconstitutional.

Statement: If Wikipedia is not censored, then schoolchildren will be forbidden from using it in research, for instance by school policies, or by content-control software programs blocking the site because of "pornographic" or "adult" (e.g., sexual) content.

Responses:

  • There have been no documented cases of school policies forbidding the use of Wikipedia because of sexual content.
  • There have been no documented cases of censorware programs used by schools blocking the entire site, as opposed to merely blocking specific articles or images.
  • Censorware programs do not target only sexual content, but also (e.g.) "cult", "extremist", and "violence" content. They also target not only images, but also words and textual content. A desire to avoid being blocked by censorware would exclude Wikipedia from covering new religious movements; terrorist organizations and extremist political movements; wars, weapons, and incidents of violent crime such as mass murders; and other topics of encyclopedic importance.
  • Schools are free to configure Wikipedia to hide the most controversial images.

Statement: Your article about X is sick and disgusting. Wikipedia should not promote X.

Responses:

  • Wikipedia does not promote X, it simply reports the existence of X.
  • Wikpedia's manual of style encourages a dispassionate treatment of any subject. We do not write in a moralising tone. Wikipedia should not state whether something is moral or immoral - this judgement is left to the reader. Wikipedia should only care whether something is verifiable.