Talk:Saba Mahmood

Career
User:Ysgp has now re-entered a deleted paragraph three times. This paragraph insinuates a connection to Turkish President Erdogan. It does not contribute to typical content for a biography (accomplishments, studies or life background); it sites a primary source (not acceptable by Wikipedia guidelines); and it appears to be in violation of federal law (publication of a student's private email correspondance). Politikundtheorie (talk) 17:43, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, I have re-entered the aforementioned paragraph. (It should be five times now, in different formats.) The paragraph does not "[insinuate] a connection to Turkish President Erdogan." It explains the content of a publicly available and known source, without making any claim for its validity. Nor does the paragraph make any claims about Mahmood's person, politics or work--on the basis of that source or otherwise. The paragraph simply cites an e-mail allegedly written by Mahmood (and never denied by her) that suggests her sympathy for the governing Erdogan-Albayrak family and provides the historical context for this e-mail. Because the issue is quite well-known in Middle Eastern studies circles as well as scholars and activists in the region, who will be among the main readers of this article, it is relevant.

As far as the "typical" content of Wikipedia biographies are concerned, they differ vastly. For an example, please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayne_Mansfield

Thankfully, I am not based in the U.S. and my familiarity with FERPA is limited. If FERPA protects all correspondence written by professors and making a reference to these documents is illegal (even if they are publicly available and the cited sections make no reference to the educational records of the students), I would be more than happy to delete that section.

In terms of FERPA, please note that the e-mails were not obtained from the student's or the professor's inbox. The student chose to forward them to her spouse, a Turkish minister who was not even affiliated with the university. In other words, she broke the confidentiality of the correspondence and shared the e-mails with a third party. In this case, I do not see how exactly FERPA would apply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ysgp (talk • contribs) 01:11, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ysgp (talk • contribs) 23:12, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I think the information about Saba Mahmood's connections to the Erdogan regime is pretty well known by now, so I don't see the point in censoring this controversy. Controversies and criticisms of people, including academics, are always included in a wikipedia entry. As for the legal issue-- so is it a Wikipedia policy never to cite anything obtained from leaks? What about the Afghan war diaries or the Iraq war leaks? Should we censor those too? They were also considered "illegal" and as I recall the US government was even threatening to prosecute media outlets that reported on their contents. Smahmoodealbayrak (talk) 04:22, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Also, I just gotta note the irony of people whose handles reference critical and postcolonial theory, using the same legalistic raionale as the US military-industrial complex to argue for censoring the backroom connections between a noted public intellectual and an authoritarian regime! What level of late capitalism are we on?Smahmoodealbayrak (talk) 04:53, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

There was an edit war on this page because of an abusive user managing four accounts (Nowhereian, Politikundtheorie, Anthrotheory, Femtheory) who censored the section on the Wikileaks information on Saba Mahmood. They misrepresented the content of the section, falsely claimed that the material is protected by FERPA, and that Wikileaks material cannot be used on Wikipedia (although there are numerous other pages that refer to the said material). The user also used their multiple accounts to pretend that there is a consensus on the issue, and they refused to engage in discussion. Since the information is highly relevant, I am planning to submit the section again as soon as the page is available for editing. I am happy to answer any questions regarding this issue. Ealbayrak (talk) 22:31, 4 April 2018 (UTC)Ealbayrak

Wiki Education assignment: Global Gender Inequalities
— Assignment last updated by Fruit$alad (talk) 18:08, 15 November 2022 (UTC)