User talk:Chocolateboy/Current events:Anthere

Current Events

Wait a second here

please read the items before adding a duplicate;

I forgot to remove links around a duplicate link that somehow *you* added yourself.

please read this before adding an inaccurate context: Wikipedia:How_the_Current_events_page_works#Setting_the_context

Besides, if you try to claim that Islam in France is not ***precisely*** aobut the context of the current event, you will have to explain something to me. I tend to consider you removing that link the first time, then of hiding it the second time on verging on censorship. Reading now that this article is *out of context* is not something I will accept easily. Any further removal will be replaced boldly. Anthere

1. Hi.
2. "I forgot to remove links around a duplicate link that somehow *you* added yourself". It wasn't a duplicate link. It was a link to the Islam in France page you seemed so keen to advertise. You duplicated a news item that already existed. My comment was in response to that. You were the one who chose to use the edit comment as a forum for "talk". The edit was merely a minor correction.
3. "... you will have to explain something to me". Read the item again. Chirac claims it's about the separation of church and state. All churches, not just the church of Islam. As far as I can see it's about religious intolerance. All religions, not just Islam. Either way, excellent though I'm sure your Islam in France article is, the Current events page is not a forum for people to advertise their pet pages by hijacking the topic. I find it ironic that you accuse me of "censorship", when you have the temerity to call an item that refers to Jewish yarmulkes and Christian crosses "Islam in France".
4. I think the "See also" is an excellent solution, so I have no idea why we're even having this discussion.
5. "Any further removal will be replaced boldly". Removal of what? I merged everything you added.
6. Please revert your latest edit:
   1. "Headscarf at school and laïcité" is almost as clumsy as my French ;) - which is not a problem, but you seem to object to me fixing that.
   2. "laïcité" is not an English word.
   3. The item is not about (just) headscarves at school and laïcité. To suggest that it is is at best inaccurate, and at worst insensitive.
   4. You've reintroduced a formating error that I've already fixed.
   5. I thought "hiding" links was evil? You seem to have done exactly that with your topic...
7. Please stop copying 'n' pasting uncredited paragraphs from articles verbatim. It borders on copyright violation. [1] v [2]
8. Please sign your comments!

chocolateboy 02:35, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

About 1 : hi as well

About 2 : sorry. Your comment was made while you removed the muslim link, not while you merge the two current events. So I attributed your comment to the muslim link I forgot to remove, not to me wrongly adding the current event a second time. This was a misunderstanding then. I apology for not checking the event was already mentionned. Fact is it is so unfrequent french news are reported here, that I did not even think of checking :-). This said, though your merging was natural, I consider that removing the provided background of an event is hardly a "minor" correction, since I personnaly perceived it as somehow censoring information. As soon as you do something that is controversial, it is not "minor" any more, don't you think ?

About 3 : Ah ! Perhaps you do not know the background of the topic really then. I explain. I am french, I live in France. I participate to the social and political life of my country. I went to school, though at that time, islamic veil and women discrimination has not yet started. It was a time when muslim women were living their faith in peace. Now, some do not. My kids go to school now, and as a parent representant, I am first hand confronted to young girls on one hand that "suddenly" have an illumination, after their brother joined islamic fight, and start wear first the veil, second the full robe, and even now third the full black burka with one eye left, and on the other hand, the professors and director, who are divided between the fact every french has to be admitted in school till s/he 16 and with the law that support laicite. Second, my husband is a professor himself, also confronted to girls coming the university with veil. And third, we both have special links with Algeria, and modern women. The issue of veil wearing started 15 years ago now, when extrem islamists started to push their views in France, and to fight on our soil. Several official recommandations have hinted several times to the point school directors could ban from schools these girls, but half of the time, when they do so, a tribunal reject the director decision, and the girls go back to school with veil again. And it gets worse each year. Most french people have been waiting for a strong statement from the president AND a law, so they could know what to say, what to do, on which texts to rely to take that decision. The fact Chirac did so, is as such very important, and will relieve great pressure. It will not change the issue of islamism in France in itself (hopefully, other acts will help), it will certainly promote the opening of coranic schools to welcome at least wealthy veil covered girls. Coranic schools that will probably be financed from some arabic countries. This is the background of that event. Hardly anything else. If you support repporting the truth and the facts, these are the facts : dozens of girls have been excluded, some reinstated in schools in the past 15 years or so, for wearing the veil. As far as I know, there were no exclusion whatsoever for wearing big crosses, or kippas for jewish boys. I may be wrong, so perhaps one exclusion took place, but if it was so, one exclusion for a kippa, in front of dozens for veil or burka wearing is the background. You may choose to interpret Chirac speech the way you want, you may wish to stick to the idea this law will be about all religions, you may also wish to really understand the reason of that law. You may also consider to believe what I just wrote is just lies, and that perhaps this law is meant to be an attack on jewish people. In such case, I invite you to talk to *any* french wikipedian around and ask them "did you hear about that Chirac speech ?" and "what do you think the goal of Chirac was in taking such a decision". I also invite you to look for information on the topic in french, and to try to find out what has been agitating the french society recently (well, for 15 years), or to try to find numbers of how many jewish people have been excluded for wearing a kippa, versus how many girls for wearing a veil. This *is* fact. And this *is* the reason of Chirac speech. Of course, the law has to be about all religious signs, because it would be highly insulting to ban wearing veils, while authorizing crosses and kippa. This would create an uproar truely. But the issue it is meant to solve is purely the veil issue.

You can choose to report it differently, but that would be misrepresenting the issue, and distorting the reason of that law decision. That would verge on disinformation. I think refusing to mention why this law is meant is just open door to further misconceptions about french society and politics as well.

About 4 : I will also add that your accusation of pushing an article is extremely unnice. This article is exactly about the issue. I hence mention it as a background for readers to understand the issue at hand. This is classical practice. I looked carefully at how background articles were mentionned in the current event page. They are at the beginning of the article. Not at the end as a see also. If this background article is placed only as a see also, then all background articles must be placed as see also as well.

About 5 : You removed the background topic, that may help readers to understand what this speech was really about. So, you did not merge everything.

About 6 : I put the new title to suit you. You seem to consider Islam in France was an unrelated topic. I thought that if I put the link with an anchor, and a more detailed title, you would at least go directly to the proper paragraph, and realise that this article is *the* one on Wikipedia (and actually, the only one I am aware of) that is talking about that issue. It was meant to be clearer. If it is not, I will put back Islam in France and let people find the information by themselves

About 7 : Laïcité is not an english word, but I am not aware of the existence of the english word for that concept. An english user himself put the link to the french article to explain the concept. If you have knowledge about which word is used, please, do tell me.

About 8 : You have clearly no idea of french politics I fear, to even dare to mention that Chirac talk was not essentially about the scarf and laicité at school. It was the heart of the problem, and has been for 15 years now. We may talk about that in length if you wish. I fear to see however, where you are going : tell me if I am wrong, but I think your intent is to land on antisemitism again. If so, you would be mistaken. The whole intent of that official statement was to settle once (and hopefully forever), the issue of girls wearing scarves at schools, and there, the issue of islamis raise in France, and there the issue of how muslim women are increasingly treated by their brothers and husband in France. That was precisely the point of the Chiract speech. We are here to report information accurately. You may wish to limit the information provided here to the barest minimum that is provided in that english newspaper, or you may wish to really understand the issue. But as far as I am concerned, I will report first hand what is really boiling up in my country, what is a concern for all of us, and in particular to muslim and teachers.

About 9 : sorry, I had not seen that. I will correct it of course

About 10 : I have not hidden a link. You choose to hide the *background* of the event under a muslim link where noone could guess it was not leading to a general article about muslim faith. I put a more detailed (but apparently wrongly expressed) comment to explain precisely what was in the article. That sure is different

About 11 : As far as I know, public personalities official statements are not copyrighted. They are most probably public domain. In any cases, I started the sentence with Chirac said, so it is attributed. Now, you might say that the translation is copyrighted. That is possible, though, in nearly two years on Wikipedia, I have not seen translations themselves being declared copyrighted, and having to be attributed. I would be glad to see a recommandation about that, because till now, either I made myself a poor translation of french personalities speech, or I used a translation of their statement when I could find it in english. If this appears wrong to you, I will later today find the french version, and add only the french version to the article. I think though, that this will result ultimately in a loss of information for the reader. As regards the other paragraph, it seemed to me so bland that it could hardly be considered "not respecting the english author rights". But if you say so, I will remove it :-)

About 12 : ant

note : I did not find the typo in my change here http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=1995574&oldid=1995470 so I have not corrected it.

User:Anthere

• Thanks for your comments. You make many interesting (and lengthy ;) points!

Sorry, I always tend to be lengthy

• "You may also consider ... that perhaps this law is meant to be an attack on [Jewish] people". What it is meant to be is a matter for discussion, and you address it well here and in your article. What it is in effect, however, is a different matter. Jewish and Christian clerics have also denounced the proposed legislation as an attack on their faith. That point is made clearly in the 2nd paragraph you copied from the SBS news article. When you say: "The whole intent of that official statement was to settle once (and hopefully forever), the issue of girls wearing scarves at schools", you are referring to a "why". Please allow me to quote a section from the guidelines for contributing to the Current events page:

Each listed news item should be no more than one small paragraph long. Write concisely, omitting superfluous words, but grammatically, in properly formed sentences. Aim for brevity: concentrate on what happened, where, and to whom. This isn't really the best place to explain why.

At the end of the listing, quote one or more URLs, from reputable news sources, as references. These references – or judiciously linked Wikipedia articles – should offer the detailed explanations, background information, and the like that were omitted from the listing. [emphasis mine]

This is written *aim* and you will notice that no one is barely putting relevant articles at the end of these comments. They put them at the beginning, or in the middle.

• I hope I can persuade you to remove this sentence: "This decision resulted from the civil troubles due to the increasing number of girls wearing a veil at school in the past 15 years". It does not read very well in English, although, to be fair, the same could be said for many edits made by Anglophones ;) In addition, it adds POV (i.e. intent rather than effects) to a paragraph that was previously neutral. It also breaks the rule that the item should be brief. By adding that sentence, you've moved the background to the foreground. The background is already well covered in your article. If you want to highlight this context, why not link directly to the relevant section of your article in the topic? i.e. as you did before, but without renaming the link: Islam_in_France#The_hidjab_issue.

that suits me

• Alternatively, you could tweak and anglicize it for linking purposes while leaving the correct word in place in the article: Islam in France: the headscarf issue.

this suits me as well

• "Of course, the law has to be about all religious signs, because it would be highly insulting to ban wearing veils, while authorizing crosses and kippa. This would create an uproar truely. But the issue it is meant to solve is purely the veil issue". I thoroughly agree, but the fact that I agree doesn't change the fact that it is still POV, no matter how "obvious" this ploy seems to be. It is the responsibility of a respectable news source to avoid partisanship in its reporting. A more in-depth piece, like your article, can tease out some of the competing partisan interpretations.

which is precisely *why* I initially put that article in background. Article that you removed as not relevant

• It is not customary in English to put a space before a colon: please correct that formating error.

Will try to remember that

• Please sign (and date) your comments with 4 tildes like this: ~~~~

chocolateboy 11:21, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If you look very carefully just above, you will notice that I signed. Did you see ? User:Anthere

Yes, but that doesn't include the date. The easiest (and customary) way to do that is with 4 tildes.

Thanks again for your comments and for the edit. chocolateboy 12:20, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

eh, unusual that people change color comment. Most do not like much. I will try to remember you do. I usually tend to write below to avoid mixing, but did not this time.

Four thild is customary, but not mandatory. I prefer timeless :-) or if people do not object nameless. I hope the edit is ok this time. PomPom

• No need to remember. I don't mind doing it myself. It's my page after all! I don't usually do it, but then I don't usually have long discussion threads ;) I hope my hidjab tweak is OK. Timeless, eh? ;) chocolateboy 12:58, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)