Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Shi'a view of the meeting at Saqifah

Shi'a view of the meeting at Saqifah
Since this is argumentation rather than a vote, I thought I'd start the talk page.

The problem with giving the Shi'a POV in history articles is that Zereshk and Striver will not let anyone else edit their prose. Or limit what they have to say. Muslims are 85-90% Muslim; by Wikipedia notability rules, Shi'a POV should get a minor place in articles. Instead, we've tried to keep the relevant articles at 50-50 Sunni-Shi'a, to make sure that both sides are treated fairly. (Also, adding the Western academic POV when there is one; I don't think that view has been given at any greater length.) However, Zereshk and Striver have both insisted not only speaking at length and resisting editing, but also insisted on including every tradition that they regard as evidence. It's not right for the articles to be 30-70 Sunni-Shi'a. However, when other editors attempt to restore some balance, we're accused of persecuting Shi'a. Zereshk and Striver then go out and start POV forks. IMHO, this may be due to chance (that the Shi'a editors we have do not represent all Shi'a) or possibly due to the long bitter history of strife and persecution between Sunni and Shi'a, so that anyone who balks a Shi'a editor is immediately cast as a persecutor. My talk page (and archives thereof) are full of accusations that I'm anti-Shi'a or that I'm a Wahhabi spy. Funny, since I'm a Zen Buddhist. My only horse in this race is making sure that all viewpoints, including the Western academic viewpoint, are represented fairly, and that the articles are READABLE. That often means cutting out some detail and editing the prose, which is taken as an attack.

If I were anti-Shi'a, I never could have written the Shi'a-POV section of the Battle of Karbala without outraging any Shi'a. Nor is it just me. Many other editors, Muslim and non-Muslim, have complained about problems with Shi'a editors trying to dominate articles, and, failing, retreating into POV forks.

Oh well. At least we're arguing, instead of trying to kill each other :) Zora 07:41, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Zora, you said it yourself: Wikiepdia Undue weight: It should not be 50-50 Sunni-Shi'a, it should be 70-30 Sunni Shi'a. However, we happen to have editors that wants to add a lot more than the 70-30 or even 50-50 gives room for. We want to detail the Shi'a view. And you are right, it would result in 30-70 Sunni Shi'a if it was put all in one place. And there is one and only one solutino to that: Creating a brek out article in order to detail the information. The proper solution is NOT to delete the detailed Shi'a view in order to keep a forced assigned amount of space to the Shi'a. I have absolutly nothing against you editing the Shi'a article, but i strongly object to you deleteing the Shi'a view only since they have more to say than the Sunni counterpart has to say in the present form of the article. That is not editing, that is deleting for non-sense reasons. When a section gets to big, you break it out, you dont delete it! --Striver 10:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It has to do with wanting to quote extensively, giving multiple citations to works that exist only in Arabic or Persian and aren't translated, repeating information that is found in other articles, and above all with bad prose. While there's a place in the world for digressive prose (Proust anyone?) an encyclopedia is not that place. If I take what you or Zereshk say and edit it down to a succinct and readable para, then you scream persecution of Shi'a. It's persecution of sloppy prose. You MUST let other people edit you. Do I let other people do that to me? Sure. When I think they've improved my prose, I keep my mouth shut and try to learn from what they did. Some of my best editors are on wikibreak, darn it, but folks like Gurubrahma can take something I wrote and whup it into shape. Need to clone him!


 * If there are DETAILS, that you feel must be included, then perhaps we need a breakout article that has both Sunni and Shi'a views. Zora 21:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * You seem to be on the impresion that i do like to have non-native prose. That is not the case. Many times have my prose been edited without imitting info, and that is most welcome. But removing most details is not in accordance to the wiki aim of including all details. It seems like you are under the impresion that wikipedia does not aim to include all details. Further, Christian views of Jesus clearly refutes your claim regarding the invalidity of of articles dedicated to reporting the views of one pov. And why don't you read this, from WP:NPOV:
 * None of this is to say that tiny-minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can give them on pages specifically devoted to them. Wikipedia is not paper.
 * Why dont you refute that? --Striver 23:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Delete As has been stated before, this is what happens alot with these articles as a case of users owning articles. These articles are essentially forks because they didn't come out naturally in that they got to big on the main page but rather they were created because users like Zora and others (whom in my opinion simply did what any other responsible wikipedian would do) would not allow it to happen. When I try and point this out on these afds, I get accused by certain users of making attacks or being on a "crusade" on Striver whilst clearly as Zora has pointed out it is very relevant to why these articles are fork articles.--Jersey Devil 03:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It appears that the article has already been deleted.--Jersey Devil 03:08, 18 May 2006 (UTC)