Talk:Dove World Outreach Center Quran-burning controversy

Name

Proposal for a new article heading: International Burn a Qur'an Day Controversy. Peaceworld111 (talk) 10:40, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I have no issue with a name change or your proposal in particular. __meco (talk) 10:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed rename it to mention controversy and use the Qur'an spelling, although Koran is a better spelling in my opinion, wiki uses Qur'an so we should. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:44, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Another proposed name was just presented in the AfD discussion: 2010 Florida Qur'an-burning controversy. I like that one and I'm pretty sure it would assuage many of the people who are opposed to the article partly because the name it currently has would tend to give authority to the name which Pastor Jones and his group has chosen for the event. __meco (talk) 13:45, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I really do not think the name matters and do not think it will be a factor in the AfD, most of the content I see is to merge the content back into Dove World Outreach Center or keep it as it's own article. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The name change (2010 Florida Qur'an-burning controversy) seems like a good idea. Should this nasty business become an annual event then it could be considered as a 'day', rather than a controversy, but it's the controversy that's notable at the moment. Soupy sautoy (talk) 15:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

As I said on AfD, please consider that the spelling on Jones's now worldwide-known trailer is the one used for the article now. So, although the article on the book has a different spelling, it might stay the same. (Cf. also sometimes transliterated as Quran, Kuran, Koran, from: Qur'an, so no inadequate spelling.) Just a thought Flammingo^Hey 18:44, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree that 2010 Florida Qur'an-burning controversy is much better choice and might solve issues than many editors have with the current name. --Kmhkmh (talk) 18:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed i suggest making that change soon. It sounds as though the guy is going to make a statement cancelling it so this article will need to be named about the controversy. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I also agree with 2010 Florida Qur'an-burning controversy - the name shouldn't be whatever Jones came up with, but should be more descriptive.--A bit iffy (talk) 20:55, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah...I now see it's been called off. So...perhaps the article should be named 2010 Florida proposed Qur'an-burning controversy (though that is a bit long).--A bit iffy (talk) 20:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I moved the article to 2010 Florida Qur'an-burning controversy per this discussion and WP:Bold. Further changes can be still discussed. I would appreciate if somebody could go ahead now and change the lead section accordingly. IQinn (talk) 23:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

What's the point of any of this highly complicated name change? Is the original title based on what the church calls it in any way complicated or ambiguous? Is there supposed to be Florida-based Koran-burnings in 2011 or 2012 that we currently need to disambiguate from? Does anyone outside of Wikipedia actually use this name?

Peter ^Isotalo 23:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Good call IQinn. The previous name suggested an established international event. Nightw 05:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's try that again: why has name of the article been changed from something that is widely recognized (outside of Wikipedia) to an artificial title that is considerably longer and more complicated? What was wrong with the popularly-known title? And why, if any of this is necessary, is "2010" in there?

Peter ^Isotalo 11:23, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Why "Florida"? The great majority of Florida had nothing to do with this. Ditto for Gainesville. Why not Dove church Qur'an-burning controversy, or similar? -- Hoary (talk) 16:18, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Because most casual readers will not remember the name of the church, only that it was an outfit located in Florida. __meco (talk) 16:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

This could be solved by a redirect. We should not dumb down to the most uninformed reader.

The Quran has many spellings, many equally valid. Perhaps the Terry Jones' (burn organizer) spelling (Koran) should be used, after all, the advertising signs in front of the burn location uses that spelling. Note that Jones' spelling is an acceptable form. It it were a weird form of spelling, then I could see not using it Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 16:28, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Koran seems more familiar and is what he uses. I've been leaving it alone as per the precedent of British vs. American usage. However, that precedent calls for using a single style throughout the article. Unfortunately, I (and probably very many others here) have no idea whether other Arabic-sounding names use that style or not, so there's probably no consistency at all. Actually, I really really really wish that Wikipedians would get together and decide on one single standard Arabic transliteration to use project-wide, so that every Arabic word would have one spelling to look for here. The constant variation of spellings, Osama vs. Usama and so on, means that it is quite difficult to find relevant articles. Wnt (talk) 22:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

well... wikipedia uses Qur'an, how about we use that spelling for any mention not quoted from a physical source (like a sign)? Dayofswords (talk) 04:36, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

President Obamas comments

Even the president has given extensive comments on the matter in an interview for Goodmorning America. [1] BritishWatcher (talk) 11:46, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done I've used your link and added Obama's statements to the article. __meco (talk) 16:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

But not exactly. You wrote, "for burning books," but President Obama actually said, "for public burning." The full paragraph from the story is "The U.S. leader said the situation was frustrating but there was little that could be done according to the law to confront the minister, other than citing him under local measures against public burning. "My understanding is that he can be cited for public burning," Obama said. "But that's the extent of the laws that we have available to us."" http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE68820G20100909?sp=true The ordinance referred to by the Gainesville city fire chief makes fires within city limits illegal without a permit, and Jones stated that that statement was "just politics." The significance of the difference is that there is no specific city law against burning holy texts or even ordinary books. However, I will leave it to others to make an actual edit if you agree. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.164.25.164 (talk) 02:35, 11 September 2010 (UTC) President Obama also said, ""The idea that we would burn the sacred text of someone else's religion is contrary to what this nation stands for, contrary to what this nation was founded on," he said. "My hope is that this individual prays on it and refrains from doing it." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11265335 This echoed a statement on September 8 by evangelist Franklin Graham “It’s never right to deface or destroy sacred texts or writings of other religions even if you don’t agree with them,” Mr. Graham said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/us/09brfs-ANOTHERVOICE_BRF.html?ref=terry_jones_pastor as well as this statement "The leader of the world’s Anglicans, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, also added his voice to the condemnation. In a message to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan, he said “the threat to desecrate scriptures is deeply deplorable and to be strongly condemned by all people.”" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/world/10react.html?ref=terry_jones_pastor&pagewanted=all . In a BBC article, it is pointed out that the US First Amendment rights protect burning texts considered sacred, unless they are deliberate hate crimes directed against persons (even though the FBI visited Jones to advise against the burning) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11254419. However, in a news conference September 9 televised locally, Jones said (I can't find a transcript) that the US military had burned Bibles in Afghanistan to prevent them from being given to Afghans. (There has been no discussion I can find to this incident of burning sacred texts.) Links to the CNN report about this incident don't work now, but perhaps Jones read the report here: http://www.worthynews.com/5740-outrage-over-us-military-bible-burnings-in-afghanistan . According to that report, the Bibles were burned instead of being returned to the donating church (and so just sent back by other means) because the military did not wish the conflict to be seen as Christians against Islam in general, and that there were regulations against US soldiers proselytizing. In this case, it is not clear whether Jones intended revenge, or just to make a statement that others did not consider burning the Bible to be deplorable, but that he did. If this can be documented, it should be added to the article, as major news media apparently have ignored reporting it.

Furthermore, a section should then be added to detail motives and reasons Jones has given for his actions at various times, quoting him directly, instead of reporting on others' speculations, such as that he is "crazy," in need of money, a publicity hound, or that there is no religious motive behind them, but that Christianity and Islam are both non-violent and it is only extremists to blame for conflicts. For example, it should be made clear the chronology of Jones stating that the Koran was "wrong," that it was later refuted by the Bible, that it was "evil," and only later connected to the mosque in New York. At the same time, it might be well to note that the protests in Afghanistan against the burning may well have been also in response to Merkel's honoring of the freedom of speech enjoyed by the Danish cartoonist, linked to the Koran burning as intolerant, by Muslims who might not honor such tolerance themselves. As it is now, the article is confusing, one-sided, and makes it very difficult to understand the underlying issues and needs more editing and documentation than I can provide now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.164.25.164 (talk) 03:56, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Now I've made a minor correction with respect to the first point you raise about the mentioning of public burnings contra book burning. The rest of what you write is important and should be acted upon by editors of this article. For some reason I seam to be rather lonely in making substantive contributions to this article. Which is both strange and regrettable. I have limited opportunity to edit currently, so unless more people become willing to step up to the task of developing this article, these important issues may not be dealt with adequately in the short-term perspective. __meco (talk) 07:50, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

We need to make sure we don't American politician worship. Americans have a habit of worshipping politicians, like putting them on money and putting their comments on "reactions" section of the latest Wikipedia news story. It has its place but should not be overdone. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 16:30, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

__You can't possibly be serious? I suggest you look at a few American newspapers, political blogs, talk-radio, etc. Politicians are mostly loathed. The few presidents on our currency - as almost every country does in the world, btw - are those few that more or less rose above the usual self-serving politico style. Worshipping politicians, indeed! HammerFilmFan (talk) 02:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)HammerFilmFan

Mystified

Why is there this tidal wave of public denunciation from inside the U.S.? My sense is that forum posters don't care or even support the protest, and strong expressions of opposition to Christianity have long been accepted. Practically every Koran sold to non-Muslims in this country is going to get desecrated one way or another - usually the reader is some undergraduate who's going to keep it propped open to the current page under his bed and get grease stains on it from his pork sausage pizza, before tossing it in the recycle bin at the end of the term to be reincarnated as toilet paper. I don't understand this official disconnect from reality. Wnt (talk) 13:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Its through fear. One must not offend the religion of Islam. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, the news networks are the s--t disturbers. Anways, this 'discussion' belongs at blogs. GoodDay (talk) 14:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Alright... now it gets weirder. Someone just burned a Koran for this event and put it up on YouTube.[2] But the media don't mention it. How do they decide whose Koran-burning matters and whose doesn't? Wnt (talk) 17:16, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I do not see anything weird about this. Individual acts are selcomd newsworthy. People damage or disfigure copies of the Bible all the time. First, there is a distinction between an individual act, and a collective act. Second, there is a distinction between a privat act and a public act. Why would anyone expect individual private acts to ecome the objct of news attention? And why would anyone be surprised that a public collective act would atract a lof of atention?

And this act is especially newsworthy given that the US still has a large military presense in Iraq and is fighting a war in Afghanistan. The US's ability to conduct these wars depends on the support of Pakistan, the second most populous Muslim country, and Saudi Arabia, one of the most important Muslim countries. When George Bush origianlly condemned the 9/11 bombings, he made it clear that the terrorist attacks did not represent Islam but were the acvts of extremists, So for 9 years US foreign policy has depended on making it clear that the was is not against "Islam;" that Islam is not the enemy. This church was planing a collective, public act that is meant either to suggst that Islam has all along been the enemy, o to make Islam the enemy. Either way it contradicts an undermines US forein policy at a particularly disfficult time (US withdrawl of combat troops from Iraq). As Petreus has made clear, the book burning would endanger US troops. Surely he is not excusing anyone who fires on US troops. Acts can have multiple causes. He certainly is saying that the members of this church would bear some responsibility. And they know it. They know that making the efort to burn copies of the Koran will endanger the lives of US soldiers. So this is among other things an act of violence against US troops. That a bunch of Americans would do ANYTHING that endangers the lives of US soldiers is very much newsworthy. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

This Koran burning is unhelpful, and the wrong way to counter religious bullying, but your reasoning contains a strong element of blaming the victim. If you hit on a drunk man's girlfriend in a bar and he knocks your teeth out,

you may have acted unwisely, but you are hardly the cause of your injuries. This is a case of media manufactured outrage. There may be an interesting twist on this. If the Koran was an Arabic copy it is blasphemous for non-Muslims to touch it. So more than just the Florida preacher are taking a risk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.220.22 (talk) 02:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

We're in the age of YouTube & Reality TV, therefore nothing is surprising or weird. GoodDay (talk) 19:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

"Florida"

Why is this called the "Florida" Qur'an-burning controversy, as if the state of Florida has some part in it? --William S. Saturn (talk) 19:26, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Why can't 'Florida' or the now 'United States' simply be dropped from the title? Location has nothing to do with it as we can see it is an world wide event. 24.74.125.30 (talk) 20:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Id agree with dropping Florida. This is clearly the only notable Qur'an burning controversy in 2010 so far. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but where it occurs matters. If it occurs in Israel, France, or Florida, it matters. Florida National Guard units are currently in Afghanistan. Now, for all we know most states oppose the burning, and most states's oldiers oppose the burning. Maybe even most people in Florida ar opposed. But where this occurs matters. It is notable that the people who wish to burn the Joran are not New Yorkers, and the fact that it is being burned in Florida (as opposed to say Brazil or S. Africa) will likely have consequences for soldiers in Afghanistan. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

So you support the insert of Florida so that Muslims can correctly identify which soldiers to kill? --William S. Saturn (talk) 20:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

wow what a strange comment. The fact Florida National Guard units are currently in Afghanistan is all the more reason to remove Florida from the title which im glad to see has been done. This is a global controversy, the actual place the book burning is going to take place really is pretty irrelevant for the title. September 11 attacks for example makes no mention of the USA. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

few things. 1. how does removing "Florida" from the title protect anyone when Florida is the 20th-ish word, not that hard to find out.... 2. the sept 11 attacks page has United States as the 20th-ish word too. 3. William S. Saturn, thats a straw man agrument, so it's not valid... while i feel florida in the title doesnt add to and and shouldnt be there, the whole protection thing(or Security through obscurity as it seems to be) is not a logical concern. Dayofswords (talk) 02:45, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The question I asked above is exactly how I interpreted Slrubenstein's comments. There is no argument being made, just a request for clarification.--William S. Saturn (talk) 07:58, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The question you pose above is bizarre and practically a personal attack. That the burning was scheduled to occur in Florida is no secret, and proviing accurate information neither endagers anyone, nor violates any policy. What policy says we should leave information out of an encyclopedia article? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:36, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I make no argument on removing the information from the article. I proposed removing Florida from the title since it was unnecessary per WP:PRECISION and falsely inferred that the state of Florida was behind the burnings. As for your comments, "Maybe even most people in Florida ar [sic] opposed. But where this occurs matters. It is notable that the people who wish to burn the Joran [sic] are not New Yorkers, and the fact that it is being burned in Florida (as opposed to say Brazil or S. Africa) will likely have consequences for soldiers in Afghanistan." seems to state that you want the title to clearly state Florida in order for the soldiers from the Florida National Guard to face consequences in Afghanistan in lieu of soldiers from Brazil, South Africa or New York. Is this interpretation not correct or do you continue to believe this is a personal attack?--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:46, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

the title is already different so this discussion is no longer relevant and borders breaking WP:CIVIL, specifically WP:NPA. Please be civil when discussing changes and avoid personal attacks when discussing them Dayofswords (talk) 08:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Where is the personal attack? --William S. Saturn (talk) 16:27, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

NAME: 2010 United States Qur'an-burning controversy

I propose 2010 United States Qur'an-burning controversy. it's the most accurate and clear. These are only being burned or threatened by Americans in the United States. Truth And Relative Dissention In Space (talk) 21:32, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

That user did "21:31, 10 September 2010 (moved 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy to 2010 United States Qur'an-burning controversy over redirect: They are only being burned in the United States. This title is more accurate and encyclopediac.)"

Oppose- where, other than the United States were there any similar notable Qur'an burning controversies in 2010?--William S. Saturn (talk) 21:35, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - Most "controversy" page titles do not call out which country the controversy in question is occuring in. NickCT (talk) 21:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• oppose if there is a need to differentiate later we will do so as such Weaponbb7 (talk) 21:38, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - Is a global controversy, no need for the US to be in the title. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - as per above (mainly NickCT). LiteralKa (talk) 21:43, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment And what was the point of the move war? You both clearly decided not to discuss it with the community. LiteralKa (talk) 21:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - Apparently this article has been moved several times today to various titles, and has now been protected specifically to prevent more moves -- and it is protected at the version with "United States" in the title. (Although, the Talk Page redirects to one without "United States" in the title.) As a result, I think the discussion needs to be clear on what title people favor, not just what title people oppose. Based on past experience, unless there is a consensus on a new title, it will probably stay where it is. That is why in my "vote"/comment below, I am not just saying Support or Oppose. Neutron (talk) 21:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Move to 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy - Even assuming that this deserves its own article rather than being merged somewhere else, there is no justification for singling out the United States in the title. Neutron (talk) 21:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• Meh. That level of precision is unnecessary. I've moved it back. If further incidents of Qur'an burning occur we can worry about precision then. TFOWR 22:16, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
  • This user did "22:11, 10 September 2010 ... (moved 2010 United States Qur'an-burning controversy to 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy over redirect: No need for that level of precision)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerzy (talk • contribs)
    • Indeed, hence my comment "I moved it back". In addition to the linked reason given, I take the view that moving it while a discussion was ongoing was entirely inappropriate. (I also take the view that the current title is poor, but that's by-the-by). TFOWR 23:39, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Opposed. The controversial issue has gone global- [3]. As such, it need not be assigned an arbitrary national value.

Comment: As noted above, I've moved the article back to "2010 Qur'an-burning controversy". I've done this without prejudice to any future move (indeed, I take no strong view on the article's title) because:

• I regard it as inappropriate to move the article while a move discussion in ongoing;
• there's no immediate need to disambiguate, so no need to move until the discussion is resolved;
• and there is apparent strong consensus for this title.

I'm conscious that I am effectively wheel-warring with another admin, for which I apologise, and note that I have no objection to any admin action I take being over-turned should they feel it is appropriate. As regards the move, I'd suggest that if there is a feeling that the article should be moved, then that should be handled through Wikipedia:Requested moves. TFOWR 00:30, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

move to International Burn a Koran Day dont know why this was moved to "2010 burning controversy" instead of the proper name of "International Burn a Koran Day" Everybody Draw Mohammed Day was not removed or renames to "Mohammed drawing controversy day" and wikipedia is not here to create news. the event is called as such and should belisted as such.Lihaas (talk) 05:40, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:DWIP, I already stated in then article, that the title leads to misguide, and such as you're comparing titles, I 'm comparing the independence day with this title. The difference is, that the independence day is an official day, which is recognized by the state, constitution while on the other hand "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" is an artificially created day by small group of people in facebook. Userpd (talk) 09:12, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

whos disrupting wikipedia to illustrate a point. if "Everybody draw..." is an "articifially created day by a small group" then one can easily say the same as this. I dont understand what you said about independence day, but the putting "international" in the title is not misguidign anything because it is the proper noun term as established that created this controversy. In that case the drawing Muhammed days could be entitled" 2010 Muhammed controversy" or somethign of the sort.Lihaas (talk) 09:23, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFF: You are free to suggest a rename on that page... –xeno^talk 14:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

MERGE from Dove World Outreach Center

A "mergeto" tag was placed on Dove World Outreach Center, with a discussion link pointing here. So I put a "mergefrom" tag on this article and created this section for discussion. I am personally neutral, but I note that a significant number of responses to this article's AfD supported a merge of some sort. My feeling is that the controversy is notable but the DWOC isn't, gaining notoriety only by association with the controversy, so it would probably be best to merge that here, rather than merge anything there. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, merge that here. Incidentally, I'm dissatisfied with the current title of this article, but I certainly don't plan to rename it. (Indeed, I might just freeze it.) However, I assume that the title will settle down eventually as the something something Qur'an-burning whatever. Jones was able to use the stunt to go from obscurity to celebrity; without it, his little church would be unknown. Thus the rather murky history of his church could be summarized within this article. -- Hoary (talk) 23:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge, with the proviso that i'm pretty sure there is too much info in the church article, and endorse the cuts that i assume will be called for.
  --Jerzy•t 00:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
  
• No merge. The "Islam is devil" content do not belong here. SYSS Mouse (talk) 02:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• merge here here Weaponbb7 (talk) 04:04, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge TO Dove World Outreach Center Physchim62 (talk) 04:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose merge. That article is much too big for a full content merge. -- œ^™ 05:41, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

oppose the 2 are vastly different. This was one such publicity stunt for a 50 man church, and there have been others. God knows therell probably be more. at any rate, the church probably does other things to apart from this. (soup kitchens? prayer fests?)Lihaas (talk) 05:42, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

• Merge'. "Too big" to fit? Look around, there are a lot of encyclopedic articles that are big enough. Besides, Dove World Outreach Center has become famous purely with thanks to this exact controversy. So merge, and put redirection. Userpd (talk) 09:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose merge - The Dove world outreach center clearly has some other issues although not as notable as this incident. Best to keep the separate article there, and put the biography of the pastor on that page rather than here. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:51, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge to Dove World Outreach Center, and shorten. Lists of which people have protested the stunt, along with direct quotations of what they said, is newspaper material and can be condensed into a few paragraphs. The story about a small congregation making a row has already received far more attention than it deserves in the media. I do not buy the argument that Wikipedia is compelled to follow the hype just because the hype produces abundant source material; Wikipedia makes its own decisions on what it covers. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:14, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose merge - Per BritishWatcher - Both articles seem WP:NOTABLE enough to stand on their own. NickCT (talk) 12:05, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Nuke from orbit. At least until this material can be sourced to non-mainstream media material. As is the case with most MSM clusterfucks, the MSM has unclean hands here, so using their material is questionable at best. (Question: would these whack-jobs have found, made, or paid for a gigawatt powered microphone all on their own? Answer: no.) In the alternative, aggressively trim and merge into the DWOC article. See Heaven's Gate for an example of how this should be dealt with in the end. Heaven's Gate is a rather good model here, as it parallels the current matter in terms of wall-to-wall media coverage at the time, they were known for basically one (1) foolish stunt with some premonitions, and, best of all, over time the event was important enough to a few people "outside the bubble", which goes to establishing long-term notability. 76.10.173.8 (talk) 13:33, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge. This cult has no notability outside of the controversy. The motive for their action was probably to gain some notoriety however only the controversy is notable. The church building might be notable, I don't know, but the institution isn't at all. Mtaylor848 (talk) 16:56, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy to Dove World Outreach Center -- This is a single notable incident, the Dove World Outreach Center article is the truly notable topic as it is the parent subject. -- David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 17:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose merge. Each article consists mostly of information that is irrelevant to the other. Does this article want to hear about the property taxes, eBay, anti-gay activity? Does that article want to hear about Indonesia and Hillary Clinton and meetings with imams? If you try to force them together you'll be trying to wall off things with section headers that would better be separated as different articles. Wnt (talk) 18:36, 11 September 2010 (UTC) - I should add that as this story developed, it became apparent that there is an underlying social issue involved: a sharp distinction between Old Media employees who view themselves as essential gatekeepers to prevent the publicization of news that can do harm, and New Media sources who believe that news sources deserve the right to direct and uncensored communication with news readers (and that the two are essentially the same). This issue, as tested practically in this incident, cannot be well explored in a subsection of Islamophobia or Dove World Outreach Center, but it is of great significance. Wnt (talk) 19:26, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge to 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy. This is the only notable event to happen to this 50-person group. Heroeswithmetaphors (talk) 20:47, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose merge "from", support merge TO Dove World Outreach Center. This article is now about an event that did not take place; it should be merged into the organization's article, with a redirect remaining here. Neutron (talk) 21:21, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose merge. While the topics are related, 1st they are NOT the same thing (and that should be enough reason, as I profoundly disagree with Wikipedia's high "standards" for significance); and, 2nd, both have made themselves into history (yes, the church too, by their association & endorsement, whether we like what they did or not). So leave it be. MBParker (talk) 21:34, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge TO Dove World Outreach Center per Neutron, --Bduke (Discussion) 22:39, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Merge. The two articles both are important enough to stand alone.--Johncoracing48 (talk) 02:21, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Merge totally different topics. If there are concerns with the notability of Dove Center, it should be deleted instead. Hobartimus (talk) 05:20, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge either way. The notability of the church is obviously a result of the Koran-burning. Nothing else. The previous actions of the church amount to little more than a background. On their own, their other activities are the run-of-the-mill crazy-person antics of Christian fundamentalists. Peter ^Isotalo 08:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Merge HOWEVER consider relegating Qur'an-burning controversy to a primary section of Dove World Outreach Center in the future; since this has now been called-off and the controversy is likely to fade in terms of significance over time. In any case, there are many other issues regarding Dove World Outreach Center and its, so called, pastor Terry Jones and his wife, Sylvia, which are quite separate from the Qur'an-burning controversy and which preclude merging Dove World Outreach Center into this page (2010 Qur'an-burning controversy). If any merge is to take place, this page should me merged INTO Dove World Outreach Center. Enquire (talk) 21:51, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - While there does not seem to be a consensus at this time as to which way a merge should go, interestingly there is a lot of sentiment to merge this article into another article. I think this should be addressed again in a few weeks, after the immediacy of this non-incident has faded somewhat. It may be that the correct place to merge it would be Islamophobia, where it is already mentioned. I don't think all the "reaction" in this article is really necessary. Everybody condemned it in one way or another, so I think all the reaction could be condensed into a couple of sentences. Neutron (talk) 23:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Merge. The articles are worthy enough to stand on their own. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saebvn (talk • contribs) 13:31, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge Were it not for the sensational publicity grabbing Qur'an burning headlines, this "church" would be completely and quite rightly non-notable. Such organisations are here today/gone tomorrow. The only thing notable here is the widespread press reporting of some ignorant and bigoted rantings which would have been better ignored.  Giacomo  21:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge, until the newspeople made the Church famous/infamous, very few people new the Church existed. GoodDay (talk) 22:53, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge, couldn't be a clearer example of 1E and wholly overlapping content. Abductive (reasoning) 21:46, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Merge This may become a national event like Guy Fawkes burning. Korans nor Qua-ra-nsz (this is an English Wikipidea), have been burned for years. Just check youtube. Its a form of protest, just like burning flags, draft cards, high rise buildings. Meishern (talk) 15:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose merge: Very simply, if you take out the Quran burning controversy out from the Dove page, it still has a lot of stuff left in it left to make it notable on its own (Lawn signs and t-shirts, Anti-gay activities, e.g.) and so on. And it doesn't matter if some people see this Dove center and its actions and words as crazy. Notable is notable. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 15:14, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
• Merge - the church is more notable than it was before, that much is certain. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 12:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

This paragraph makes absolutely no sense

Protests have ensued against the church in places such as Indonesia.[33] However, when death threats directed against Jones were mailed to The Gainesville Sun in a letter postmarked from Johnstown, Pa.,[34] the American Muslim Association of North America issued a statement signed by 15 imams including Ahmed Al Mehdawi of the Islamic Center of Gainesville condemning the death threats.[35]

3 different things going on (Indonesian protests, death threats mailed from a town, and 15 imams writing that letter)

1 what do Indonesian protests have to do with the rest of this paragraph?

2 why does line 2 begin with however, when the sentence has nothing to do with the previous one.

3. why would the AMA of North American issue a statement of response when all it says was the the town a letter had been sent to, never connecting with the AMA

4 how are any of these 3 stories even remotely related?

Seriously, this is LAUGHABLE —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.225.23.211 (talk) 12:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree with your point about the first sentence, if that was moved somewhere the paragraph would be fine though (getting rid of the However,) in the second sentence. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:12, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I've since done a major reorganization to sort out reactions by their nature, e.g. with different sections for protests and death threats. The paragraph was pulled apart to join similar content in two different places. I hope this helps... Wnt (talk) 19:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Nor does this:

Terry Jones of the non-denominational Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, United States, planned burning copies

should be:

Terry Jones of the non-denominational Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, United States, planned to burn copies

sheesh -- let's not lock pages if we don't know the difference between infinitives and participles —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.153.11.138 (talk) 15:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done I've changed it as it does indeed sound better. btw, the page isnt locked, just semi-protected due to it's nature and potential vandalism. this is why you can't change it. Dayofswords (talk) 02:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Relevance in their coincidental background aspects?

Resolved

I happened to notice the sentence stating that Jones & Limbaugh graduated in the same year and high school but is this any relevant?

Just to clarify, I'm supportive of neither and find both to be despicable persons but what significance does graduating in the same year and from the same high school have? Were they acquainted with each other or did one's views influence the other person's views?

Maybe I'm incorrect and there is something relevant regarding their coincidental background aspects but I don't see it. Phobosphobia (talk) 17:36, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

From what I read it was just discovered and has no relevance, though the pastor(presumably) and rush both have politically right views, there is no mention they know of eachother before this event or that the school had any influence on them. coincidental at best. I'm going to wait for others to chime in before changing Dayofswords (talk) 04:58, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

From my perspective, it seems to be more of a guilty by association statement more than anything. Phobosphobia (talk) 05:21, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Trivia at best. Get rid of it. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 05:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

 Removed. Since 3 of 3 people said it's not to be in the article, I removed it. I agree with the guilty by association idea too, I remember a big thing by him a while back that was met with harsh response. I replaced it with the year he graduated and kept the reference. i've also put the resolved tag at the top but if anyone thinks otherwise, feel free to comment. Dayofswords (talk) 08:59, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I suggest this be revisited. Currently, the Cape Girard Central High alumni home page is primarily concerning the notoriety of its 'Class of 69 alumni Terry Jones under the heading Koran-Burning Preacher Terry Jones and Rush Limbaugh: Class of 69. On the page, a former class-mate notes:

Former classmates remember Jones
* Van Riehl noted, “I think this guy may have been on my Babe Ruth team, The Mets. Interestingly enough so was Rush Limbaugh. ”

It is not credible to suggest that Terry Jones and Rush (Rusty) Limbaugh may not have known each other. Certainly they did know each other at high school. Whether or not they were friends at high-school and/or remain friends today is uncertain. See also:

• Rush Limbaugh and Terry Jones were high school classmates Washington Post
• Rush Limbaugh, Pastor Terry Jones Were High School Classmates Politics Daily
• Rush Limbaugh & Pastor Terry Jones YouTube
• Who knew? Terry Jones and Rush Limbaugh were high school classmates USA Today

In fact, Rush Limbaugh himself acknowledges that he remembers him from Babe Ruth League baseball although denying more affinity than that:

• Friday Quotes: It's Open Line Friday! (2010-09-10) rushlimbaugh.com

That they went to school together and knew each other is worthy of note. Whether they are or, or were ever, friends is debatable. However, if this is newsworthy for Washington Post, USA Today and even Rush Limbaugh himself then it is worthy of note here, even if of lesser significance. Enquire (talk) 23:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Dove not Christian?

I notice two people were going back and forth, with one changing "non-denominational Christian" to merely "non-denominational" because leaders said this wasn't Christian.[4] I think that common sense tells us that this has to be a Christian group, since we would not claim, for example, that those launching the Crusades were not Christians. I don't think that an encyclopedia can restrict the use of the word to its religious or philosophical sense, but must simply follow its vulgar meaning as a crude classification of people based on what they say they are. Even philosophically, I doubt that Christianity in any way prohibits the burning of an object you own if you feel that it is being used as an idol. Wnt (talk) 21:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

it being christian or not is not based off common sense but fact, I just visit the site of the church[5] and it does claim to be Christan, follow the new testament. but I don't know Christianity well (or any other for that matter), so what they be called i dont know... but is a christian church which claims to "also take a stand against Islam" Dayofswords (talk) 01:55, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

to add i propose (start)of the small, [[Non-denominational Christianity|non-denominational]] Christian Church ''[[Dove World Outreach Center]]'' in(end) to be used as it makes sense with the current linking to "Non-denominational Christianity"Dayofswords (talk) 03:50, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Pastor Bob Old

Evangelical Pastor Bob Old and another preacher burned 2 Korans.Tensions over Koran Please add this to the article.--72.152.238.164 (talk) 06:14, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it seems that he did. But I don't see much controversy over it. Koran-immolation publicity stunts seem so last week. -- Hoary (talk) 07:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Can someone get this video to play properly? [6] It concerns an "unexpected twist" to the Wyoming protest. (nay, it just has to be viewed with Internet Explorer, and takes some persuasion to start) Wnt (talk) 15:26, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Deletion

I believe that soon (next 2/3 months) this article should be deleted.

why? Dayofswords (talk) 07:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Keep Jcc1 (talk) 11:36, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Why delete? We dont delete Haloween after 2/3 months. This will be a yearly event from the strong reaction. Perhaps done in privacy of ones own backyard, to not get fired. Meishern (talk) 15:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

YouTube Koran-burnings

I started assembling a collection (likely quite incomplete) of quite a few YouTube videos ([7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21])showing Koran burnings (or other rough handling) in a footnote, but someone deleted it. I understand this isn't directly relevant to "International Burn A Koran Day", but it might be relevant to the "2010 Qur'an-burning controversy" in general.

I should mention that one curious feature of the YouTube videos was that it seemed like it was actually quite difficult to catch authentic decorated Arabic Korans on fire. One person douses the Koran in a flammable solvent and tosses a match on it, only to have it go out, and another tries repeatedly to set pages on fire with a match, only to have the fire taper out each time. Another video from an Islamic source shows a Koran that survived a van fire all but intact.[22] Is it a miracle? Is it fire retardant paper? I'll leave that to the viewer. Wnt (talk) 07:34, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

You have worked very hard at this. And people do do the durndest things to get watched on Youtube. But is there any real-world controversy over it? Or, failing that, is there any fourth-estate froth over it? Without much evidence of that, this looks like just another Youtube fad. -- Hoary (talk) 07:42, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I deleted because while it was a good collection of Qur'ans being destroyed, it didnt go with the reference. it was just general youtube people destroying Qur'ans not in response to the event, some were 2007, 2008. the one I left that was on the cite was in response to the event and was a good reference to the article. I was hesitant to delete that part because it was time you took to gather all the videos. If you still want to use it, it probably be a great reference (somewhere) at Islamophobia. I was just trying to keep the reference's content relevant and meant nothing against your effort. As for the paper and fire, i assume that quality books (ones decorated, bound well, etc) that most religious books are made from, are made from a paper that isn't nearly as flammable as copy paper or newspaper. Dayofswords (talk) 08:12, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think the youtube video postings need to be mentioned, any more than tweets about the event or blogs mentioning the event. If something is a current news item it will likely be referenced on youtube somewhere. Jcc1 (talk) 11:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Commenting directly on primary sources is something of a grey area. I recently ran into a vaguely similar situation at Jewish Internet Defense Force in which the question was whether to summarize articles at a web site or not, and opinion went both ways. Maybe the news coverage that comes out over the next few days will tip the balance. Wnt (talk) 14:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

"Several other YouTube videos of Korans being burned in private settings for "Burn a Koran Day" were posted without apparent media coverage" ← If there was no media coverage, there should be no Wikipedia coverage. The whack of YouTube links should be removed. –xeno^talk 15:47, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not ban primary sources. (See WP:PRIMARY) It only limits what can be done with them. There is nothing wrong with using a primary source to make a statement about itself. So we don't have to limit ourselves only to secondary media publications.

This is of unusual importance here, where the media has quite suddenly and rather monolithically switched from publicizing Koran-burnings to not publicizing them, over the course of a few days, under pressure from the military. By looking at the primary source, we can see that four videos of Korans burning were posted to YouTube - the one in Australia was covered and has turned into a huge flap, while the three in the U.S. have received absolutely zero press coverage.

It is interesting because you wonder how often similar directives go to the American media and are equally well obeyed.

To quote my section:

Several other YouTube videos of Korans being burned in private settings for "Burn a Koran Day" were posted without apparent media coverage.^[note]

[Note]: See [23], [24], and [25]. Many other Koran-burning videos were posted in the years preceding the event.[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]

Now originally I put up with leaving out the long list of non-"Burn a Koran Day" Koran burnings, but once even the most relevant ones were deleted, what was the point to omit them? Wnt (talk) 16:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

YouTube videos would only be primary sources if this article was about those YouTube videos. Is it? –xeno^talk 16:14, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, the article is about a Koran-burning controversy, and more specifically, about International Burn a Koran Day, and these are Korans burned for International Burn a Koran Day. Did you have something more specific in mind? Besides, WP:PRIMARY doesn't say that the article has to be about the primary source - only that the use of the primary source has to be about the primary source. Wnt (talk) 16:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

According to the lead, the article is about a controversy created by Terry Jones. Copycat YouTube videos should only be mentioned if reported on by reliable sources that connect the videos to the article subject. Direct links masquerading as sources seems to run afoul of WP:OR. –xeno^talk 16:44, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

The lead is the summary of the article, not the other way around. This article is about a Koran-burning controversy, and includes many instances where Jones is not holding the match. Wnt (talk) 16:59, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

So when you have a reliable source about the YouTube videos and their connection to the article subject, you can include mention by way of the reliable source. Otherwise you're just bootstrapping. –xeno^talk 17:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

What you linked is not a policy. WP:reliable sources, which you didn't link, says "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field". (though I suppose these people are as close to expert Koran-burners as is available) Wnt (talk) 17:12, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

This article is about a controversy that was sparked from a planned book burning by Terry Jones. Independently-created YouTube videos are peripheral at best and of extremely low-value; the existence of the these videos is easily noted by referring to the source that you've provided. –xeno^talk 17:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Your argument is that this article is about what you say it's about and anything you say it's not about doesn't go in. But the article is about the 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy and this is the business end of it. The value is not low (if it were, why would you be going to such trouble to exclude it...) - the most basic question of the whole controversy, seen everywhere from Islamic picket signs to the news coverage, is whether Korans were burned or not. The answer is, yes, they burned, and Americans retain their right to burn them. (Note: here's another one that just came in [41] which is covered in "a sort of" news article.[42])Wnt (talk) 17:31, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you show me a reliable source that indicates that YouTube videos have generated controversy? If so, wouldn't that reliable source be enough to note the existence of controversy-generating YouTube videos? –xeno^talk 17:35, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I included two articles that talked about this, and questioned whether YouTube would end up being forced to censor the videos, in the very next sentence after the one you deleted. (Oh, and here's another one: [43]. These get weirder and more elaborate every day... eventually, yes, we might have too many to include them all, but it's still a small footnote for now.) Wnt (talk) 17:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

If there are reliable sources discussing the videos, there is no need to link to the YouTube videos directly. –xeno^talk 17:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

"No need", except that people want to see for themselves that this happened, and hear the arguments used by the protesters, and, once again, there's absolutely no reason not to link the primary sources. (Another one: [44] Note that the viewpoints do vary quite widely, ranging from the pure free speech argument of the Australian smoker to the tit-for-tat argument used in this one. If you asked the various Koran-burners about whether flag-burning should be legal, you'd find a gap of opinion as wide as that between them and the Muslims!)

Those who want to see what some arbitrarily-selected non-notable book burner(s) put on YouTube can use the search button at http://YouTube.com ... This is an encyclopedia and we should only use primary sources when necessary, preferring secondary source material when possible. –xeno^talk 17:54, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

And it's necessary to use primary sources to show the Koran-burnings when the secondary sources don't. Wnt (talk) 18:05, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Why? –xeno^talk 18:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Because this is an encyclopedia article. It should give the readers the facts and make clear what is happening in the real world. You shouldn't always have to read through a Wikipedia article, then turn to Google and YouTube and such to see if it actually has any relation to the real world. (Though certainly you do have to do that, every time, since there are many here who insist on deleting things they don't like, no matter what) Wnt (talk) 18:12, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and as for the YouTube search button - it's not so helpful when you could have "koran" or "quran" or "qur'an", and 75% of the videos are responses talking about why it's right or wrong to burn one. Citing a Google search in an article is the sort of thing that went out of style in 2004, and I'd say the same here. Tracking the links is also important to allow future readers to see whether the links were retained or whether Yahoo eventually decided to censor them. Wnt (talk) 18:12, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

If any of these videos become notable in their own right, I could see us linking them. Otherwise, it will just be a partial and arbitrarily selected list of random YouTube garbage. I won't revert the addition of YouTube links further, but my position remains unchanged and you seem to be the only one in this conversation who thinks the links are appropriate in this article. –xeno^talk 18:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll leave this for further discussion for a bit. After that, since you've said you won't revert, which I appreciate, I'll set things back to the previous status quo of listing only the videos I can find of Korans burned for September 11 and/or Burn a Koran Day, or which reference this controversy, but not the whole ream of old videos that YouTube hasn't deleted (the current ones now make the same point). That's now up to five videos, I think. Wnt (talk) 18:24, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I too support this. No problems with the videos as such as long as they're sourced to such action and not anyone doing anything in their backyard.Lihaas (talk) 06:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's the rub. These were burned in private settings, but they were posted to YouTube with titles like "My entry for Burn a Koran Day". (The same is true of the Koran-smoking video that gained such news coverage in Australia) Even Terry Jones planned to burn Korans on private property. From the point of view of a Koran-burning controversy it doesn't really matter - the Muslim picketers only care that Korans were burned, not where they were burned or whether there was a live studio audience. Wnt (talk) 17:42, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Undue weight to Ahmedinijad and Obama; conservatism and Christianity of particular world leaders responding to the Koran-burning plan glossed over

I notice that the sections on the reactions of Ahmedinijad and Obama to the crisis are now gigantic in comparison to those representing other world leaders. Why is that? Are the "Obama-is-a-Muslim" types editing again? Why are the responses of those particular world leaders worthy of this kind of exclusive coverage?

I also notice that references to the political parties represented by Stephen Harper and Angela Merkel have also been deleted. Why is that? Again, are the "Obama-is-a-Muslim" types keen to make sure that no one knows that right-wing conservatives and Christian Democrats oppose the pastor? Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:50, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've fixed this...if people have a problem with the changes, could they please discuss things with me here first before making any changes? Zachary Klaas (talk) 16:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Good call. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

per the iran/usa reactions, your comment is the opposite of what was removed. In fact there is no "obama is a muslim thing," in fact the responses being so long are NOT of the presidents alone but official government reactions from within the country listed under the country. (perhaps put a double asterisks under if you want)

There is a huge Obama-is-a-Muslim thing. One out of every five Americans believes this, without evidence, because extremist spin continues to push the idea. When we present a list top heavy with information about Obama and about hardcore Islamist nations like Iran, but little blips of information about everyone else, it sends the message that only Obama's government and those of Islamist nations consider this a live issue, and everyone else doesn't consider it as important. I assure you, that impression is just what Terry Jones and company would like this page to convey. Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

For the canada/germany thing, again per reaction list precedence these things are not mentioned. I doesnt say not right-winged christian/conservatives oppose such (people can already see and click on the such link to know political affiliation). There are numerous christians/jews on this article or Park51 who have opposed such actions already listed and sourced.Lihaas (talk) 07:02, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Again, Terry Jones and company would love it if information documenting specifically that right-wing conservatives and Christian Democratic politicians opposed his Koran-burning idea were edited out of this page. Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Thats great, whether he likes it or not is irrelevant. The discussion is supposed to discuss the issues at hand to gain consensus.

Which isnot done for the supranational bodies

or the obama/ahamedenijad thing. The latter of which despite discussion to the contrary you have not indicated any "Clear undue weight" or even clear "give the impression that "Obama-is-a-Muslim"" Likewise, if you read what you deleted you will see there is a lot more than just comments from TWO PEOPLE. Lihaas (talk) 18:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

RfC: Does the article give undue weight to the political reactions of the Iranian and US governments?

See the above discussion, and look at what we have in the Political Reactions section. Zachary Klaas (talk) 21:54, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

This is partly true, but the way that the "undue weight" needs to be addressed is by adding commentary from other governments — especially, I expect that due to the violent events in Kashmir, that India and Pakistan likely have had something to say.

The U.S. government is the one on the hotseat, and inevitably it will have more reactions than all the others. A pity they aren't more firmly rooted in fundamental rights and principles. Wnt (talk) 16:45, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that until someone adds content to the other governments, it appears that Iran and the US are obsessed with the topic and other world governments have had nothing to say by comparison. I would encourage people to write content for the other governments, otherwise, I feel like I need to reach for the undo button again and pare down at least the overcoverage Iran is getting. Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:00, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, it looks like Iran was obsessed with the topic. The section names one high-level government office holder after another. Now by comparison, for say Canada, there's one reaction from a minority parliament leader. I don't think it's surprising that Iran is unusually strongly opposed to Koran-burning. Wnt (talk) 17:53, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

It looks like that because the names of every single person connected to Iran's government are listed, not because they spoke more about this than other countries did. Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:45, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's a good example of what I mean: "The parliament's Presiding Board member, Mohammad Dehqan, said that..." The parliament's Presiding Board member? Who the hell is that? Was the editor who added this doing a complete census of Iran here, adding the name of this guy? Why not ask the opinion of someone who works at the parliament? Or who lives a few blocks from the parliament? Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the government of Iran, and issues with translation and transliteration make it frustrating to figure out who this person is. I assume that he is at least a member of Parliament from this article, but probably more. In any case, his comment - that it's a way for the media to distract from a different atrocity - happens to be right on the money. How many stories did you hear about Afghan civilians being hunted for sport by soldiers taking their heads and fingers for trophies? And it so happens that we have the admirable Army Times breaking the story first, which is picked up by AP by September 9, while American officials are busy puffing up the Koran-burning story into the story of the year.[45]

If people can't figure out who this guy is, how do they know if he's notable enough to be quoting? It needs to be taken off until people can verify that. As it is, it's just an excuse to puff up the Iran section to make it somehow look like "good old Terry Jones" is taking on his two big bogeys, the Iranians and Obama, and they're both complaining real hard because he's giving it to them good. That's complete crapola and we shouldn't be a party to setting things up the way this fringe bigot wants it. Zachary Klaas (talk) 06:13, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, the Harper reaction was very unusual, and news articles dealing with his commentary about this use that word - "unusual". What I meant by "minority" is that his party does not hold a majority of seats in the House of Commons - he is, however, the Prime Minister of the country and his government represents the country. Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:51, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, well if he's prime minister then say he's prime minister. Americans never keep up with Canadian politics - the only person everyone in the U.S. knows has a role in their government is Queen Elizabeth. ;)

It does (and did) say he's Prime Minister. Zachary Klaas (talk) 06:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Another thing that keeps coming up. People keep adding "Afghanistan Hamid Karzai commented on the incident." to the top of the list of states even though this contains absolutely no information at all, transparently to get it so a non-Muslim country is not listed first amongst the list of states. Also, even though "Supranational bodies" is after "States" in alphabetical order, they place "Supranational bodies" first in order to get " Organisation of the Islamic Conference" listed first. This is also transparently done to get a Muslim entity at the top of the list. Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:35, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I've decided to remove the extra Iran and US material again because I don't think the people who have thus far commented are taking this seriously. Thus far what I've seen is people saying "We can solve this problem by adding more information about the other countries" but then adding no such information, and "that guy who may or may not be important in the Iranian government made a good point" which is irrelevant if in fact he isn't important in the Iranian government, and no one's bothered to check to see if he is. As far as I can tell from what I've seen, he isn't. If you want to challenge me on these points, do it, but respond here. These are substantial enough issues that I think the debate should be less superficial than it has been. Zachary Klaas (talk) 13:45, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not necessary to add all the information that belongs here in a day or a week. The article is incomplete, inevitably. The proper response to an incomplete article is not to make it more incomplete. Wnt (talk) 22:11, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have updated this - I ended up moving the information, in toto, to the "National" and "International" sections of the article. It's all still there, it's just not in the "Governmental Reactions" section because that's the section describing how governmental leaders (that is, heads of state or heads of government) responded. Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

RfC: Should the article specifically highlight that conservative and Christian political figures reject Koran-burning?

See the above discussion, and look at what we have in the Political Reactions section. Zachary Klaas (talk) 21:54, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're suggesting the article has too many or too few such reactions. In any case, if you think a sector of reactions is underrepresented, please, look for more sources to add. It's possible that there's been a mostly unconscious bias by editors, myself included, to ignore some of these because it is an unsurprising reaction. Wnt (talk) 17:00, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm saying it's too few such reactions. You think it's an unsurprising reaction that this guy Jones is presenting himself as a leader of conservative, Christian opinion, but people specifically elected as conservatives (Harper) or Christian Democrats (Merkel) are specifically rejecting what he's doing? It's pretty clearly relevant to demonstrating that this guy is not such a leader, but a fringe character rejected even by figures on the political Right. Zachary Klaas (talk) 17:07, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I think just about everybody knows this guy's a loon. Wnt (talk) 17:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

First, you would think conservatives and Christians would want people to know that they specifically want nothing to do with this guy. It's not fair to them (look at me defending conservatives and Christians here...I'm neither) to edit this material out when there's an example of a conservative or Christian Democratic world leader tearing Jones a new one. Second, you would think the prospect that a fringe character like Jones is being represented as possibly mainstream would raise the hackles of any serious Wikipedia editor - spin that serves the fringe is pretty clearly not the same as being NPOV. Zachary Klaas (talk)

Well, in case you have any doubt, I certainly would not revert any additions you can make to flesh that part out a bit. Wnt (talk) 16:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I added some in the "National" reactions section, representing the opinions of Sarah Palin, John McCain and Mitch McConnell. Since these are either unelected officials (Palin, she's no longer an elected official) or opposition figures (McCain and McConnell, who are at present in the Minority in the Senate), I am not including them as representatives of the government (that's Obama and the Majority who are at present the Democrats in both houses). But I have added a representation that these representatives of conservatism and/or the Republican Party all spoke out very clearly against Jones and the Koran-burning plans. Zachary Klaas (talk) 16:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of YouTube...

I read that Alex Stewart's Bible-and-Quran-page-smoking video was removed from YouTube, so can you please remove that link to the video that no longer exists from this article? Here's the story that I also updated in this article. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 03:33, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Note however that many copies remain online. Also, YouTube's message for this one is a somewhat unusual "This video has been deleted", with no mention of the poster requesting it, nor any statement that it violated terms and conditions. Wnt (talk) 17:56, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Al-Azhar

I notice the article does not currently mention Al-Azhar, which is the top Sunni religious authority (located in Cairo). The main reason this nobody pastor ended up getting worldwide attention is because Al-Azhar issued a very strong statement.[46][47] Kauffner (talk) 13:53, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I've added a mention of this, but from the timeline it's not clear to me how important they were. I encourage you to add more if you can to make the significance more apparent. Wnt (talk) 18:05, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

How about Flag desecration internal link in the "see also" section of the article?

206.130.174.42 (talk) 19:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

In fact, why not put it into the Category:Protest tactics?206.130.174.42 (talk) 19:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I could see a case for Qur'an desecration to be included in that category, but this article is but an instance of the QD protest tactic. –xeno^talk 19:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info.  :-)
But why isn't your link in this article?206.130.174.42 (talk) 19:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I might check Category:Bible more thoroughly to see if there's anything on desecrating the bible.206.130.174.42 (talk) 19:36, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

It's in the lead now. –xeno^talk 19:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Great.  :-)  206.130.174.42 (talk) 19:49, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

According to these sources, the first Qur'an burners were Muslims

First, there is this Youtube video The Original Burn the Quran Day Don't worry, there's no Qur'an burning in this semi-humourous video, but 46 seconds in to the 8 minute video, it showed something that lead to me searching and finding this link:
Virtues of the Qur'an
Bukhari :: Book 6 :: Volume 61 :: Hadith 510
Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.

206.130.174.42 (talk) 19:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Just like a national flag, the Qur'an may be burned in a respectful manner as the appropriate means of disposal, preferred to discarding, or recycling. –xeno^talk 19:44, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

True. Mind you, such is presumably to dispose old, tattered, or like flags. I think in the video, it was a case of censoring unauthorized Qur'ans. If done for such purposes, it could arguably be even worse than what Terry Jones was planning to do, given that he wasn't burning any rare unique copies that Uthman likely wanted to burn.206.130.174.42 (talk) 19:53, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Terry Jones in other wikis

I included this section as a way for some to blow off some steam that might boil here, as well as some OR, POV, and the like.

Conservapedia has him categorized as a liberal here (as well as Fred Phelps here).

Here's the RationalWiki article (RW being a reaction to CP, as CP is supposably is of WP).

Nothing on WikiIslam, a site critical of Islam.

Cheers.  :-)  205.189.194.208 (talk) 23:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow, check out Encyclopedia's take on Islam here.205.189.194.208 (talk) 00:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Eh! about the only thing notable about Terry Jones? his overgrown mustache. GoodDay (talk) 13:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Skateboarder rescues Quran from burning

"A man who planned to burn a Quran in Amarillo, Texas, on Saturday didn't get very far when his copy of the Muslim holy book was snatched out of his hands by a skateboard-toting 23-year-old, according to local media reports." The rest of the story can be found here. This could be a good update to the article! --Angeldeb82 (talk) 00:44, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Westboro Baptist Church burnt both the Qur'an and the American flag

About 5:54 minutes into this 8:53 Youtube video.
Westboro Baptist Church Burns the Koran (Quran) and American Flag on Anniversary of 9/11/01
205.189.194.208 (talk) 21:25, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

They describe Terry Jones as a false prophet here.205.189.194.208 (talk) 21:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes and no. I'm pretty sure this video was posted before September 11, and Phelps said that he'd already burned a Koran. I still haven't seen any coverage of whether he burned the flag and Koran on 12 noon 9/11 as promised. Maybe all the reporters really did stay home. No, wait, I just ran the search again, and, ta-da! [48] I guess it's time for another edit. Wnt (talk) 22:58, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

From that article:

"The fool in Florida one-upped them," Bunten said, referring to the Rev. Terry Jones, of the Dove Outreach Center church in Gainesville, Fla. "They were apparently tagging along on his idea, so the fellow in Florida had stolen the stage, so to speak."

The mayor said Westboro Baptist events are "kind of old hat now." [...]

"I thought it was awesome," Shirley Phelps-Roper said afterward. "It was another 14 on a scale of 10." [...]

Phelps-Roper questioned those who believed the church's event was being ignored, based on e-mail messages it had been receiving and the amount of online traffic it was generating.

"We get e-mails when things are happening here," she said. "We've had just a huge upsurge in e-mails. Plus, it's all over the Internet. It's all over Twitter." [...]

(my link, my emphasis) Yes, I suppose Wikipedia is duty-bound to help slake Fred's daughter's thirst for publicity. -- Hoary (talk) 01:12, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

As screwed up as they are, the Westboro Baptist Church has become a well-recognized pawn in American free speech debates - they're right up there with Larry Flynt and the Ku Klux Klan when it comes to legal debates, I think. Wnt (talk) 02:01, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The folks at RW here seemed underwhelmed. It didn't seem public and indeed could have happened anytime anywhere. "Shirley Phelps-Roper?" Doesn't seem that the WBC has a problem with hyphenated names. As for Larry Flynt, he took a bullet for the cause of free speech. Phelps picks soft targets.206.130.174.42 (talk) 18:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

It's really not a surprise from WBC, the entire world knows how crazy and hateful they are, so them burning the Qur'an isn't surprising... Dayofswords (talk) 04:59, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Hardly "Copycat"

Firstly, I don't think it is appropriate to have a headline contain scare quotes in the manner this section now does. Secondly, with the announcement of this day as "International Burn A Koran Day" people around other than Pastor Jones observing this day and following his suggestion can hardly be labeled copycats either. __meco (talk)

Suggestions? I've changed it to "Imitators" for now. –xeno^talk 12:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Disciples? Wannabes? Publicity-hounds? -- Hoary (talk) 12:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

How about "Concurrent Qur'an burnings"? __meco (talk) 13:01, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, but not all the entries are burnings (at least one is just a "threatened" burning to "test the limits" of free speech). –xeno^talk 13:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

In that case, I think that could be included in such a section since it comes so close. Do you disagree? __meco (talk) 14:06, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

There is also a couple entries where the Qur'an was simply ripped up and discarded in the garbage or used to make vulgar gestures. –xeno^talk 14:10, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

"Other Qur'an desecrations" or "Other concurrent Qur'an desecrations" then? __meco (talk) 14:18, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

"Other Qur'an desecration incidents" ? –xeno^talk 14:22, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

That one is fine with me. __meco (talk) 14:51, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Cheers, –xeno^talk 14:53, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Deleting reactions from non-governmental people

What is this nonsense I have observed in the past few days of removing reactions from influential people, typically religious leaders, because they aren't official government representatives? Since when did being a representative of a government become the meter for notbaility of opinion on this controversy? __meco (talk) 14:04, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Nothing personal Meco, but haven’t you heard of Political Correctness and the deep fear of the Religion of Peace? I had references removed from LA Times as being not main stream enough. Welcome to the new world! Cheers! Meishern (talk) 15:27, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm realizing that one instance that I reacted to was actually a moving of text to a different section, so maybe this problem is not as grave as I asserted at first. __meco (talk) 15:36, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

It was fair to create this page. It’s newsworthy. I don’t plan to edit it. My golden rule is to stay away from editing pages where my personal views will taint the neutrality. I leave that in some other editor’s capable hands. Cheers! Meishern (talk) 15:53, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Confusion regarding title

The page url is linked as "International Burn a Koran Day" The title of the page is "2010 Qur'an-burning controversy" It seems there is a bit of a discrepancy there.

Since the article talks about the Qur'ra'ran controversy, perhaps the URL should be changed as well?

I propose "In 2010 Holy Qur'ar'an descreated by American devil infidels"

Meishern (talk) 15:18, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

...

Have you seen this core policy? –xeno^talk 15:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes I have Xeno, and I never make an edit without applying that standard. However, this is a talk page and your npov comment didn’t answer the title discrepancy which was the reason for my question. i wont bother pointing out that 98% of the article is pov against the event. Cheers! Meishern (talk) 15:32, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what URL you came through (i.e. internal or external), but the page is currently located at 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy. If you come through the redirect (International Burn a Koran Day), it will still show the same in the URL. This is simply how Mediawiki works. –xeno^talk 15:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Xeno, my mistake. I appologize. I came from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/International_Burn_a_Koran_Day page, and saw the title of the url as such. Thats why I was surprised about the discrepancy. I withdraw my remarks made out of ignorance, not malice. Cheers! Meishern (talk) 15:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

No worries - see Help:Redirect#How it appears to the user for more. –xeno^talk 15:44, 16 September 2010 (UTC)~

Thanks. Wish there was a pdf file with all the nuances that I can flip through. ~I’ve been here 16 months, yet am still dense about lots of the intricacies. Cheers! Meishern (talk) 15:57, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

There is Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual and WP:A-Z. –xeno^talk 16:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

While it's too early to tell, it is possible that this article will be broken up into several sub-articles in the near future. It is possible that the original 9/11 "International Burn a Koran Day" will not be the most significant Koran-burning incident over the next few months, so we may wish to have most of this text there as one article, with a separate article about the broadening 2010 controversy. The reaction in the Kashmir, with 90 dead and an entire province under a brutal military curfew, is already far more significant in the absolute sense (though perhaps not in the number of news reports) than the original book burning, and some sources suggest it is not really that related. Even the Australian Koran joint roller has stirred up such a flurry of news that he would likely be notable on his own. For now, the article is not excessively large, and we seem able to fit all the information into it, but eventually we may want to split things out in WP:summary style. Wnt (talk) 18:04, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - Well first of all it's extremely biased and a direct attack("American devil infidels"), Beginning an article with "In" is bad as it's not a story where you beginning with the setting. Also "Qur'ar'an" is not the correct spelling. Also to comment on the bias of the article being 98%, I think that is completely wrong. The reactions and comments from media and officials have been against the event and are just reported in the article, the support for the event has been extremely small in comparison of those against. nothing in the article said it was bad or good, it just quoted reactions and events during and followed. and as xeno said, WP:NPOV isn't followed in your purposed title Dayofswords (talk) 09:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Meishern is a jovial fellow (note all the cheering), and has a distinctive way, which I have previously encountered, of attempting humor. Ignore. -- Hoary (talk) 01:36, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Please prune Kashmir text

The section containing information of the Kashmir deaths is way too extensive on covering issues and background not related to the Qur'an burning controversy. __meco (talk)

In doing so, please expand the abbreviations "SDM", "SDPO", "BDO" (or link to their respective articles). –xeno^talk 15:30, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I took out that detail, as it now isn't even the biggest burning. I think that some of the other "background not related" is essential, however. To put it bluntly, for purposes of illustration only, many Americans are going to read the short news story of this violence and say "ha ha, look at all those religious fanatic morons killing each other because somebody here wanted to burn a stupid book". It's only when you look at the broader issue and see that this is an ongoing separatist movement with the government treating the populace like an enemy, with many shot dead and serious issues of starvation by curfew to consider, that the deeper roots of their anger become apparent. It's like a science article that discusses how much the Moon heats the Earth - you have to talk about how much the Sun heats the Earth to put it into perspective. Wnt (talk) 17:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. This paragraph goes into great detail about the current situation in Kashmir which obviously has only tangential relevance to the subject of this article. I think we should briefly mention the deaths and that they occurred in connection with demonstrations that were organized to protest the Qur'an burnings in the U.S., and then inform that there is an underlying backdrop which would dictate that the Qur'an burnings were a mere trigger and that the political situation in this region is generally extremely tense, and we would then refer readers to the appropriate article on that instead of making any attempt at presenting the actualities of the Kashmir problems whatsoever. __meco (talk) 09:07, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I just found the article 2010 Kashmir unrest, which looks like a usable main article for summary-style devolution of some of this information. Wnt (talk) 16:39, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that article has since turned into a war zone (which I suppose is not surprising), and it's hard to find any trace of what I put there at the moment... Wnt (talk) 15:38, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Auto-archiving

As this talk page is getting long I've enabled 20 day/5 threads minimum auto-archiving. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:01, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Aftermath Of International Burn A Koran Day Disaster

Wasn't there some group that was going to do a big terrorism if this thing went off as planned? Few have discussed the motive a guy might have to rip one off like this, especially when all the search engines are bumping the story for their own reasons.

69.254.213.117 (talk) 09:05, 2 October 2010 (UTC) Arkhamite