Talk:Slavery in al-Andalus

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✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 00:47, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Some sources need improvement

Some citations are incomplete (e.g. "Muhammad Abdullah Enan, p. 544", "Carlos Dominguez, p. 26"). Please be sure to provide the full citations (if they were copied from another article, the full sources usually listed at the end of that article). "Ransoming Captives, Chapter One" is also an extract from a published book, please include the book's full details, not just the link. Brepolis (currently last citation in article) links to a login page with no other details.

More importantly, some of the sources are of dubious quality and some are not reliable. For example, this source by Ana Ruiz is not a reliable source, the author seems to be a travel writer and has clearly no academic background. "Slave Market of Dublin" is a blog. Fernandez-Morera's (2023) "The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval" is a clearly polemic work from a non-academic publisher.

I didn't check every citation systematically, so these are probably just some of the fixes required. Many of the other sources do look good, so hopefully this requires only limited cleanup. This is a topic that could easily run into POV disputes, so the article needs to be carefully sourced. I do have some concerns about WP:OR or WP:SYNTH for some of the content, but I'll leave that for another discussion. R Prazeres (talk) 19:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for expressing your concerns. Since I have written the article as it stands now, I will be able to answer them. Some of the content in this article was copied in from other articles - which is still allowed in Wikipedia, as far as I am aware - and the sources simply went along with them. I should have checked them. Such sources have now been adjusted. As for Fernandez-Morera, I was not aware of the problem with that source, and it has now been removed.

It saddens me to be suspected of deliberate WP:OR or WP:SYNTH, but there is nothing I can do to answer such accusations. I have written from the sources to the best of my ability: it is of course not allowed to copy text outright - unless it is an actual citation - but you are advised to phrase the information in your own words, which is of course always a challenge. This is, as you say, a sensitive topic. I respect that it is not a topic that gives a good impression about al-Andalus. It may therefore appear disagreable to people who otherwise have a good impression of al-Andalus. However, I have been correct when describing it.

I am aware of the sensitivity of the topic. I am aware that slavery in the Muslim world is often referred to in common public debate as "benevolent", and that it is not uncommon to select information that depicts it as such. I have been careful to avoid such POV description. Naturally, slavery is never benevolent, but there is no need to lie to give a bad impression of it; one need simply to read the sources.

However, I am afraid that you may already have affected the POV of this article by alerting the attention of User: M.Bitton to it. I have had previous experience with this user. Several acts made by this user has raised my concerns around his POV in this subject. There are several examples that alerted me.

On one occasion, User: M.Bitton removed a piece of information from Barbary slave trade. The information described how the Barbary states had defended the slave trade as permitted by Islam, and it was referenced. Naturally, to mention how the slave trade was motivated by those conducting the slave trade in an article about the slave trade, is perfectly valid.

User: M.Bitton removed this piece of referenced and contextually correct information by calling it Cherry picking.

I recently added a small piece of well referenced information about the slave trade conducted by the Aghlabids during their warfare in Italy. This slave trade was the cause of diplomatic letters between rulers and comment by contemporary chronicles, and can thus be described as notorious. It was connected to the warfare conducted in South Italy, and to add the information describing a part of that warfare to a section dedicated to that warfare, should be perfectly valid.

User: M.Bitton removed this piece of referenced and contextually correct information by calling it Cherry picking.

In yet another incident, I added the category:Slavery in Algeria to the article Haratin. As you can see, the article Haratin describes the descendants of slaves in Morrocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Naturally, to add a category of slavery in Algeria to an article describing a subject about slavery in Algeria, should be perfectly correct.

User: M.Bitton removed this category by calling it un-referenced.

I am sure you realise which impression this gives. The impression is that User: M.Bitton, who is well informed about regulations and aware how he should express himself, have a bias agenda to delete information connected to slavery in the Muslim world.

I have to express my concern that the attention of User: M.Bitton was brought to this article. My concern is that User: M.Bitton will delete as much as possible of the information of the article by claiming it to be Cherry Picking, irrelevant, or any form of excuses the regulations will allow. This will make it possible to shrink the article until it has reach such a small size that it can be merged with another article, after which the remaining information can also be deleted. Any information allowed to remain, will be made to sound like benevolent slavery.

I may of be wrong, but I am sad to say that this is the impression I have been given by the activity and - if I can borrow an expression used by him to describe me - "Modus operandi" of User: M.Bitton.

It is regrettable if this article is deleted, or if its information is deleted and selected to make it the subject matter slavery appear benevolent. That would not be in accordance with the purpose of Wikipedia. But I will not be able to do much about this.

I have a condition which makes it difficult for me to engage in conflict. I suffer from anxiety. The reason I mention it is not to attract sympathy, but because it will affect my behaviour as an editor. This condition can be dangerous for the person suffering from it if triggered, and there is therefore a responsibility to avoid triggers. In my case, it would trigger my condition to engage in a conflict with a user who - and I am describing my impression, and I might be wrong - have a bias agenda to delete as much as possible about a subject as the rules may allow, or make it appear benevolent. Consequently, my anxiety have caused me to develop a policy in respect to User: M.Bitton which may not be beneficial to Wikipedia: whenever we interact, I will, ultimately, let him do whatever he wishes. This is done because I have a responsiblity to avoid triggers, and do not expect myself nore the subject matter to be treated constructively, but I realise the negative effect it has on Wikipedia.

Viewing your conversation about me on the talk page of User: M.Bitton, there does not seem much interest to interact with me in a constructive way. I am not suprised to see User: M.Bitton describe me as a user with a "Modus operandi" for cherry picking and misintepreting the sources. I realise that this makes my future involvement with this article useless. I have saved this article in another place in the event of its deletion, and I will ask the advise of non-bias users and alert the attention to this subject. I will now take this article of my watch list. The whole affair is regrettable. --Aciram (talk) 11:05, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any deletion request so I don't know why you've assumed that. As for M.Bitton, I've invited them to look precisely because they have experience with this, and may be able to see problems more easily than I would. It is counter-productive and usually inappropriate to criticize another editor in this manner on a talk page. if you think they've actually behaved wrongly, you should bring it up at WP:ANI; otherwise, any discussion here should be focused solely on the article's content. Either way, all edits on Wikipedia, including new content, new articles, etc are subject to consensus. If objections are raised, it's up to you to explain and convince others; please see WP:ONUS. It doesn't always go your way, but as this is a universal encyclopedia that can be read by anyone, all new content comes (or should come) under scrutiny.

I appreciate the effort to fix some of the sourcing following my comment, which is exactly what constructive editing looks like. As for the WP:OR, that remains to be seen and it would require more careful checking. I saw one or two things that appear to not be verified by the sources, which is why I raise the prospect of that for future attention. I did not say it was deliberate; if OR is present, it often occurs due to a misunderstanding of Wikipedia's policies, and it could have simply been present in the content you copied. Regardless of the reason, it's something that would need to be fixed. R Prazeres (talk) 20:01, 21 April 2024 (UTC)