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 not for your userboxes, categories and whatever other social-networkingcruft that people want kept. Posting notices about how your social-networkingcruft is being censored by evil old-timers at the project is more likely to get said evil oldtimers to notice and assist in your deletion. If you want to vote-stack for your userboxes, categories or whatever else you are here for, go find a new project.

[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 Once votes are closed or the event is no longer current, please move notices to the notice board archive.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] 28 March 2007

Photos requested for Anal sex to replace the uninformative current images. --CA387 06:27, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 8 March 2007

Template:Linkimage has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 22:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3 March 2007

Y'all might be interested in commenting on this proposed guideline: Wikipedia:BLP courtesy deletion. -- Kendrick7^talk 06:23, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 16 February 2007

"Debate" over whether or not to include images on the Muhammad article. The discussion took place on the article's talk page, while mediation has also been ongoing. I find it rather sad that there is even a debate over this, and quite interesting that the points brought up by pro-censorship users could apply to a vast array of other articles. Mainly, they state that all images of Muhammad are "fake". --Hojimachong^talk_con 02:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 9 February 2007

[edit] Linkimage on Pearl necklace (sexuality)

A user editing from several dynamic IP's that originate from Houston, Texas keeps reverting the inline image on Pearl necklace (sexuality) to a {{Linkimage}}, despite the fact that this has been contested by several editors and lacks consensus. Needless to say that one of the main reasons to avoid the linkimage template is that Wikipedia is not censored. As this user ignores discussion and refuses to communicate, I'm attempting to engage other editors in discussion through this noticeboard. The discussion is at Talk:Pearl necklace (sexuality)#Linkimage discussion for the new image. Prolog 16:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 8 February 2007

[edit] David Barton

Some zealous editor is attempting to do a white-wash job on David. David has been the subject of a number of articles stating essentially that he makes up quotes to stick in the mouths of the founding fathers. When challenged on his quotes he can't cite his sources. He has been basically side-lined out of the conservative camp, because of this controversy, and that should be clearly presented on his page imho. Wjhonson 18:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 17 January 2007

[edit] Use of Swastika on templates/pages related to Dharmic religions

There is a long-running debate on whether non-related, but somewhat similar symbols, which pre-date the version used by the Nazis can be used on WP -or if they are "too offensive". See here. It is now spilling over into the Jainism templates. <<-armon->> 02:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 7 December 2006

[edit] POV/bias/non neutrality/crazy

Well, I've been engaged in a kind of minor edit war centering around the article on adolecence, which a group of people constantly revert. Namely. the shabby section on teen sexuality...

As if it weren't bad enough... see for yourself! adolescence I've tried to add in text to make it more nuetral and provide purely scientific facts etc. until the dispute can be resolved as the wikipedia article is #1 on a google search for adolescence and thus i'm worried that if a teenager or parent looking for advice would be frightened to hell after reading just a few LINES of it. Stating such things as 'teenage sexual relations are merely hook-ups' most of which are by a leonard sax whose book i've been told to be WP:BE BOLD and read (It's an old tome and i don't want to seek it out just to prove that the article shouldn't have 97% of teen sexuality links and info being from abistinence groups and leonard sax....)

I've also placed neutrality tags like many people before me who've noticed the problem and yet, someone removed them and the person was somehow not listed in the log oddly enough... --___-- I'm trying to keep my cool but it's not that easy, i'm a new user and I jonied mainly because of the bias etc. that surrounds wikipedia articles on sexuality.

Another concern is sexual addiction and pornography addiction Help would be GRATEFULLY APPRECIATED!!! I can't fight these censors on my own and your help is needed! Nateland 11:13, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 6 December 2006

[edit] Fair Use images pollcy

The Wikipedia:Fair use criteria item #9 which states "Fair use images may be used only in the article namespace. Used outside article space, they are not covered under the fair use doctrine. They should never be used on templates (including stub templates and navigation boxes) or on user pages. They should be linked, not inlined, from talk pages when they are the topic of discussion. This is because it is the policy of the Wikimedia Foundation to allow an unfree image only if no free alternative exists and only if it significantly improves the article it is included on. All other uses, even if legal under the fair use clauses of copyright law, should be avoided to keep the use of unfree images to a minimum. Exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis if there is a broad consensus that doing so is necessary to the goal of creating a free encyclopedia (like the templates used as part of the Main Page)." This is un-fair and should be changed we need to take this to the attention of wikipedia staff to change the pollcy. I shall also bring this to the attention of WP:AMA Thank You, Cocoaguy (Talk) 00:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

What the heck? It's against the law to use fair use images in a non-fair use way, which use on user pages most certainly is not. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 00:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair use law being "unfair" has nothing to do with censorship I'm afraid. This whole section should probably be deleted unless someone has a complelling example of actual censorship happening. Kaldari 02:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 5 December 2006

I'm not sure if this applies here, because it's not about an article, so tell me if I'm in the wrong place.
At the reference desk there is a very heated discussion going on regarding the growing problem of people deleting other people's posts. The central problem here (imo) is that the huge number of edits on the ref desks (close to 1000 per day - yes, that's one thousand) makes it impossible to keep track of deletions, so deletionism should be kept on a very short leash (unless there were a better way to keep track of alterations to existing posts). A major issue is if the ref desk should be treated as an article or a talk page, but there seems to be some concensus that it is Wikipedia's general talk page. Be warned, the discussions are extremely lengthy. A first one at the present unarchived talk page is Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Unilateral censorship, after which several others followed (see also Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Funny answers), but after Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#The tone of the Reference Desk the discussions really took off. DirkvdM 08:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 14 November 2006

There is a vote at Talk:Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid#The_table_of_contents regarding recent rearrangements to the article, which have pushed all non-critical views to a misnomered final section, while attempting to make it appear as if the first two sections are actually balanced. I only found your Wikiproject yesterday, but I am terribly outnumbered by pro-Israel editors, even an admin, who are eager to change and remove facts to begin with. Once the balance is tipped should they win this vote, they will only grow more emboldened. Please help. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

As expected, the usual suspects have arrived and are voting for the other side. I know the old saying there is no cabal, but this group seems to be the exception. Another user, User:Hossein.ir, has recently complained to me of similar flocking behavior on Military and economic aid in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, where a section was repeated deleted until this group got their way. He came to me as if I could do anything, and I'm not sure what to do anymore. If I'm not just shouting into the void, I am open to suggestions from more experienced wikipedians. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

You could stop using this as a place to get more people on your side in a content dispute? Because no matter how you cast it, I have seen that page, and it is a pure content dispute. Isn't there a warning somewhere that frivolous complaints that evil old-timers are censoring you will lead to more evil old-timers coming against you? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 04:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I beg your pardon, but I have accomplished no such thing, as far as I know. I guess I am just not as clever as everyone else here, and all the devious souls who have come before me daring to ask for help at this forum. I've grown tired of daily defending that article, on a subject I could at this point care less about, against repeated deletions of information. By all means, sit back in your rocking chairs and watch as the article is slowly destroyed. I seem to have confused you all with someones else. -- Kendrick7^talk 05:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

You did. Sorry, but this isn't the article dispute noticeboard. The title is "Wikipedians against censorship", not "Wikipedians against what you view as bad reasoning in a content dispute". -Amarkov ^blah_edits 05:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 4 November 2006

Categories for users born in years that would imply they are under 13 are being discussed at Wikipedia:User categories for discussion, following deletion because of incompatibility with Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_September_6#Template:User_Child. Amarkov ^babble 22:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Category:Child Wikipedians for more history on the issue highlighted above. -- Jeff G. 02:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 30 October 2006

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Family members appearing in adult movies where the reason proposed for discussion was a value judgement (essentially a request for censorship) rather than a matter of Wikipedia policy. I've cited the relevant part of WP:NOT. Barno 17:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 14 October 2006

Following the deletion of User:Kingstonjr/Work_Gallery in this AFD, several other userspace galleries containing pictures with nudity etc. have been nominated for deletion. It has been suggested that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship/Gallery should be included in this deletion also.

[edit] 10 October 2006

A consoring proposal to move blue balls to vasocongestion which is less offensive and less accurate. Davodd 07:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

A proposal has been made that all children should be prohibited from editing because Wikipedia is not censored.

[edit] 24 September 2006

The articles Iskcon, A._C._Bhaktivedanta_Swami_Prabhupada (founder of said group), as well as related articles are being censored on a regular basis by Hare Krishna devotees. This includes removing links and information they deem unacceptable. Sfacets 19:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 22 September 2006

The proposed policies at Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy have impications for censorship, with one proposal advocating blocking children who do not agree to be censored.

[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.