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Archive 1Archive 2

More stuff to do

etc. — Cirt (talk) 15:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

— Cirt (talk) 16:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Notice given

I've given notice about this new WikiProject to:

  1. Talk pages of other related WikiProjects.
  2. Contributors to Featured Article, Featured List, and Good Article quality content related to Freedom of speech.
  3. Post to my user talk page.
  4. Meta-related Wikipedia pages including Wikipedia talk:Free speech, Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) and Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).
  5. Article talk pages of related core articles.

Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 23:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Corporate speech

Making some edits the Taft-Hartley Act, I realized there's no page on corporate speech. There's corporate personhood, but that's just a legal justification for corporate speech (and probably serves as a legal justification for other things as well. In the case of the Taft-Hartley Act, businesses successfully made a case that freedom of speech principles entitled them to distribute anti-union messages in the workplace and to workers' homes. The Act also affected the speech of unions, too. So "organizational speech" might be interesting, too, but I'm not sure if it's a term of art. Anyway, just thought something related to one of these might be an interesting big collaboration for this wikiproject. groupuscule (talk) 05:49, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

That's a great idea! Corporate speech should probably mention and discuss Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in some way. :) — Cirt (talk) 18:16, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Potential problems at Freedom of speech

I have just posted on the talk page of that article concerning the possibility that the article may have been seriously compromised by a now indeffed editor. Here's a heads up in case the project is interested. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:34, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, FWIW I agree with all of your actions there. :) — Cirt (talk) 18:17, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Freedom of speech project - The Signpost notice

WP:WikiProject Freedom of speech will appear as a notice in the next issue of The Signpost, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/WikiProject desk. Maybe at some point after that we could do an interview to let other editors know about ways to improve Freedom of speech topics on Wikipedia. :) Just something to keep in mind down the road in the future going forwards. Have a great day! :) Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Pussy Riot

I'm making a push to get WP:Freedom of speech article Pussy Riot up to Good or Featured Article status if anyone's interested in joining in. This article has been getting thousands of views a day for months now, and would be a worthwhile one to improve. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:33, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a nice project, good luck! Hopefully we'll get additional incoming readers and possibly interested editors to the project from The Signpost, perhaps some of them will also be interested. :) — Cirt (talk) 21:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
How does what Pussy Riot was doing constitute legitimate expression? They were trespassing in a church and disrupting a church service, were they not? That sounds to me like a violation of freedom of religion rather than any proper expression. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:01, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Generally, human rights groups half-agree with you and have just been criticizing the severity of the punishment. Rather than the misdemeanor offense you would expect for trespassing and yelling in church, two Pussy Riot members were given a two-year sentence in a former gulag. In other words, the thinking is that the group certainly deserved a minor punishment (a fine, community service, perhaps a night in jail), but got a gulag sentence since their disruption was to criticize the church's links with Putin. That's why the anti-censorship group Article 19, for example, called their sentences a "violation of freedom of expression"[1] and Amnesty International named them prisoners of conscience. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:54, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the sentence seems excessive for the offense. But could we not find better examples of violations of free speech in Russia? Surely there must be many of them. Let us devote our resources to the clear cases before we go to the fringe cases. JRSpriggs (talk) 11:15, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Up to you. I simply wanted to point out that whatever our personal opinions on the case, it's a highly trafficked article from the project that's undergoing some revision. Hope to see some of you there, Khazar2 (talk) 11:46, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The article is definitely within the scope of this project. — Cirt (talk) 15:30, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Scope

So would examples like "Langit Makin Mendung" and Indonesia Raya be in scope, or those often censored through imprisonment like Mochtar Lubis and Pramoedya Ananta Toer? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that would definitely be in scope. — Cirt (talk) 15:56, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Is freedom of thought also covered? (ie. thought policing) or is that still in the parent wikiproject, human rights ? -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 07:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes that would certainly be in scope. :) — Cirt (talk) 17:18, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

New article: Freedom for the Thought That We Hate

New article, created, at Freedom for the Thought That We Hate. Additional assistance in research would be appreciated, feel free to help out at the article's talk page. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 08:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Help pick Newyorkbrad's FA project

Feel free to suggest and/or discuss at User talk:Newyorkbrad/Newyorkbradblog your preferred options. :) Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 18:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Article alerts

I've subscribed the project to Article alerts, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Freedom of speech/Article alerts. The bot should come by soon and fill in some data at that subpage. — Cirt (talk) 03:45, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Relevant reference sources?

I like the idea of this group, but have some reservations regarding how exactly its scope would be determined, and which articles it might consider more or less of a priority. In general, I tend to try to find some sort of relevant reference work, possibly preferably an encyclopedia or similar, which would have separate section on the main topics and might indicate, by article length, which are more "central" than others. I'd mention one here if I knew of one, but, unfortunately, I don't. But I do think it would probably help the group a lot if it had some fairly clear indicators of what topics which do and don't yet have articles are the bigger priorities. John Carter (talk) 23:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the suggestions! Perhaps you could do a little digging and suggest some reference works? Maybe one or two from Category:Books about freedom of speech could that discussion started? — Cirt (talk) 05:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup listing

Adding this project to Cleanup listing tool, more info at

— Cirt (talk) 18:54, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

More info here toolserver link to output — Cirt (talk) 18:55, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Human rights coming up in The Signpost

WP:WikiProject Human rights will be discussed in The Signpost coming up, see link above for an advance look. :) — Cirt (talk) 02:19, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization: WikiProject Freedom of speech or WikiProject Freedom of Speech?

Should the second word "speech" in "WikiProject Freedom of speech" be capitalized as in "WikiProject Freedom of Speech" as if it were a proper noun? Int21h (talk) 04:29, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Nope, because it follows the naming convention per the main core article, "Freedom of speech". — Cirt (talk) 04:33, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Edward Coke at Featured Article discussion

This article is currently at candidate for Featured Article, discussion is at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Edward Coke/archive1. — Cirt (talk) 17:44, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Articles with topics of unclear notability

Articles with topics of unclear notability, per cleanup listing.

Here they are:

  1. Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund
  2. Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people
  3. World Day Against Cyber Censorship

These articles could use some evaluation and quality improvement to bolster notability. :) — Cirt (talk) 19:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

  1. Index Librorum Expurgatorum
  2. Bernt Hugenholtz

Redlinks in main article page, Freedom of speech, possible articles to create. — Cirt (talk) 22:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

First Amendment (US)

Hey all, I'm looking at trying to get First Amendment to the United States Constitution up to Good Article status over the next month or so. If anybody's interested in pitching in, I'll see you at that article's talk page. Thanks in advance! -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:38, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a great project on a core article! — Cirt (talk) 21:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

World Press Freedom Day

Every year, World Press Freedom Day falls on 3 May. It is commemorated by the United Nations, UNESCO, and world press freedom organizations like Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists and others worldwide. It would be great if Wikipedia's front page might reflect this day and also commemorate the ideal of freedom of the press and reality of safety and security issues journalists face. Does anybody have suggestions for DYKs and for Featured Articles that we might suggest? Crtew (talk) 19:45, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

For DYK, we'll have to keep an eye on what comes down the pipeline, unless some editors want to try to write content specially for this; articles can only be nominated five days after creation/expansion (don't forget to nominate your own in that timeframe, Crtew =)), though they can held as long as needed after that. I'll keep an eye out, though. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:21, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Thoughts for FA can be suggested at WP:TFAR, I'd suggest United States v. The Progressive, an excellent article about an educational and important topic. — Cirt (talk) 20:24, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Update: Please see notice I've posted at Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/requests#WikiProject_Freedom_of_speech_request_for_World_Press_Freedom_Day. — Cirt (talk) 04:25, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

United States v. The Progressive is now a candidate at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests, you can discuss it there under its entry for 2 May 2013. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 03:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm confused. Can anybody vote for it? Crtew (talk) 09:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes. — Cirt (talk) 14:20, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

As part of a quality improvement project on a topic related to freedom of speech, I've greatly expanded upon and improved the quality of the article at page, Fuck (film). — Cirt (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

As part of a quality improvement project on a topic related to freedom of speech, I've greatly expanded upon and improved the quality of the article at page, Fuck (film). Any further suggestions for additional secondary sources and referencing would be appreciated, at the article's talk page. — Cirt (talk) 20:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate - FA nomination

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate is currently a candidate for consideration of Featured Article quality status. The discussion page is at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Freedom for the Thought That We Hate/archive1.

Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 04:38, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Good book! -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:40, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! It was a fun topic to work on to try to get the article (hopefully) up to FA status, or at least ready for consideration at WP:FAC. — Cirt (talk) 01:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

New article: Urofsky v. Gilmore

I've created the new article, Urofsky v. Gilmore. Suggestions for additional secondary sources would be appreciated, at the article's talk page, Talk:Urofsky v. Gilmore. — Cirt (talk) 05:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Update on Liberty and Censorship templates

  1. {{Censorship}}
  2. {{Liberty}}

Templates used at article, Freedom of speech, to converted to footer templates using {{Navbox}}.

Update on status of footer template
  1. I posted a notice about this proposal to convert to a footer template that goes at the bottom of articles, using {{Navbox}}.
  2. I cross-posted the same notice to the talk pages for {{Liberty}} and {{Censorship}}.
  3. I waited over one week, and received one response in support of this proposal.
  4. Therefore, this has now been  Done.
  5. I also took the liberty of going ahead and moving the newly converted template to the bottom of pages in the article-main-space where it was being used.

Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 03:50, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

James Rosen (journalist)

Should we do anything with James Rosen (journalist)#Obama Justice Department issue, a journalist who is being treated like a criminal for merely doing his job? JRSpriggs (talk) 14:42, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, if you feel an article is relevant to the topic of Freedom of speech, you can add it to this WikiProject by adding {{WikiProject Freedom of speech}} to its article talk page. — Cirt (talk) 14:46, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Should the section title for Academic freedom controversy be changed?

There is an RfC here Talk:Hans-Hermann_Hoppe#RfC:_Should_the_section_title_for_Academic_freedom_controversy_be_changed.3F concerning the article on Hans-Hermann Hoppe. There is extensive background discussion elsewhere on the talk page there. – – S. Rich (talk) 22:11, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Note: I have revised the section heading here to reflect what the RfC title is and modified the link to create a Wikilink. – – S. Rich (talk) 22:11, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Okay, sounds good, thanks for the notice, — Cirt (talk) 22:18, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Fuck peer review

  1. Fuck (film)
  2. Wikipedia:Peer review/Fuck (film)/archive1

I've listed the article Fuck (film) for peer review.

Help with furthering along the quality improvement process would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Fuck (film)/archive1.

— Cirt (talk) 00:35, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Created new article: Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties

I've gone ahead and created a new article for the book, Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties.

Collaboration and particularly suggestions for additional secondary sources would be appreciated at the article's talk page, Talk:Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties. — Cirt (talk) 06:37, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Freedom-of-speech-stub template

I think we should create a {{Freedom-of-speech-stub}} template and category. This will make it easier for editors to categorize related articles and bring them to our attention without flooding the larger category with stubs and without having to create talk pages and add an assessment. I think this is orthogonal to the stub-class category. The asbox template documentation says "new stub templates and categories (collectively "stub types") should not be created without prior proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals" but I think this is not really for another WikiProject to decide. What do you think? Int21h (talk) 23:30, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

On second thought, maybe {{WikiProject Freedom of speech}} on the talk page is the most appropriate solution? Int21h (talk) 23:34, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Both would be helpful, but {{WikiProject Freedom of speech}} already serves this purpose. Up to you, — Cirt (talk) 02:54, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, maybe not. It sounded good when I first wrote it, but afterwards I thought if someone knows about it, they probably know about the talk page tag. Int21h (talk) 04:35, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
Hopefully. On the other hand, the main article space stub tag informs and requests readers to help expand the article. In that way, maybe it could be helpful in this additional capacity. — Cirt (talk) 12:52, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
Hrm, yes, maybe you're right. I mean, it can't hurt right? Int21h (talk) 20:07, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
Remember that a new stub category should have at least 100-300 articles that may fill it, before being created. Cambalachero (talk) 20:26, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
There are currently sixty-two (62) pages at Category:Stub-Class Freedom of speech articles, however, I'm sure there are many more articles out there not yet tagged with this particular WikiProject, that are still quite relevant to freedom of speech, and ripe for quality improvement projects. — Cirt (talk) 22:20, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

George Anastaplo and the First Amendment

George Anastaplo was denied admission to the Illinois Bar because he refused to answer [formal] questions about whether he have membership in the Communist Party of the USA, on First Amendment grounds.

Justice Hugo Black's dissent In re Anastaplo "would immortalize Anastaplo", exclaimed Justice Brennan upon reading it. It was read, by Black's own instructions, at Black's funeral service.

The new article George Anastaplo deserves reading and improvement, particularly by those with books or articles on Black. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:18, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Fascinating. Thank you for informing us about this most interesting aspect of freedom of speech history, — Cirt (talk) 12:53, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, good find. I have used one of your sources in judiciary of Illinois. I should note this case is exemplative of the ambiguous and ripe-for-abuse nature of government licensing. It is all related. SWAT teams breaking down doors and murdering lawfully killing people during "regulatory inspections" (and hence, without any warrant or even a court order), license-induced "implied consent", other forms of discretionary license grants, etc. I hope you continue to find cases like In re Anastaplo, both federal and state. I should also note that under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 § 212(a)(3)(D) [8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(D)], "Immigrant visa applicants who are or have been members of, or are affiliated with the Communist party or proscribed domestic or foreign organizations, are inadmissible..." (9 FAM 40.34), so for the most part, nothing has changed. Int21h (talk) 21:23, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Report

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Freedom of Speech for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to all of your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would any of you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day! -buffbills7701

I'm going to participate in this. Anyone else from the WikiProject who wants to participate, it'd be most appreciated! Thanks for your interest, — Cirt (talk) 02:46, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

FYI This was published in the 7 August 2013 Wikipedia Signpost Wikiproject report. Int21h (talk) 07:35, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Retiring

Thanks for the good works! Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:16, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome, and hope to see you online at some later date in the future. Enjoy the retirement. :) — Cirt (talk) 16:04, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Main Page discussion - Freedom for the Thought That We Hate

I've nominated Freedom for the Thought That We Hate for Main Page discussion.

Please feel free to comment at Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests#September_25. — Cirt (talk) 03:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

RfC concerning the Lavabit email service

There is a request for comments (RfC) that may be of interest. The RfC is at

Talk:Lavabit#RfC: Should information about Lavabit complying with previous search warrants be included?

At issue is whether we should delete or keep the following text in the Lavabit article:

Before the Snowden incident, Lavabit had complied with previous search warrants. For example, on June 10, 2013, a search warrant was executed against Lavabit user Joey006@lavabit.com for alleged possession of child pornography.

Your input on this question would be very much welcome. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:50, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice, was there significant secondary source coverage from WP:RS and WP:V sources about that information? — Cirt (talk) 21:00, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
There was not IMO. Good thing significant secondary source coverage is not a requirement. Int21h (talk) 03:24, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's generally a good indicator of what to include or not to include in articles on Wikipedia. — Cirt (talk) 09:15, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
It is not really uncommon for editors to pull information out of primary sources if you think about it. For example, we often pull information out of supreme court decisions that were not in any book or news article we cited, like dates, names, places, references to laws, etc. WP:PRIMARY. Its technically dangerous, like fires and scissors, but safe (and immensely useful) when used correctly. In this case it was facts related to information covered in recent news, and primary sources were used to prove mere existence of something.
A hypothetical would be if news stories kept covering a story in which a man was savagely beaten by another man seemingly for no reason, but primary sources give more information which could have bearing on the subject, like the fact that a woman claimed in police reports that the man was trying to rape her and was in her room when her husband beat him half to death. Its not WP:OR to pull information that's relevant out of primary sources to complement secondary sources, and is sometimes necessary IMO to keep articles more balanced. WP:RS and WP:V primary sources like that are much easier in US federal cases now because of PACER republishers, thanks be to Aaron Swartz. Int21h (talk) 17:09, 11 October 2013 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 17:27, 11 October 2013 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 17:40, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. You've convinced me. Thank you for such a polite and cogent argument, much appreciated. — Cirt (talk) 19:39, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Fuck featured article candidate discussion

Fuck (film) is a candidate for Featured Article quality — comments would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fuck (film)/archive1.

Thank you for your time,

— Cirt (talk) 18:05, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

The Abrams Dissent

There was an old request on the Abrams v. United States for review of the section on Holmes's famous dissent. I have had a shot at drafting a revision, substituting references to the literature in place of the somewhat confused account based on PBS etc. My attempt to summarize the literature centers on the idea that it is critics of the earlier Schenck etc. opinions who claim that the Abrams dissent stands on a different and better footing. Sheldon Novick 19:56, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice, I've added some links to above case Abrams v. United States, perhaps we can draw in some other interested editors. — Cirt (talk) 20:59, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Beck v. Eiland-Hall for Peer Review

I've placed the article up for Peer Review.

Participation would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Beck v. Eiland-Hall/archive1.

Thank you for your time,

— Cirt (talk) 04:37, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Created category for Streisand effect

I've gone ahead and created the category for Category:Streisand effect.

Please feel free to populate it with related articles.

Discussion is welcome at Category talk:Streisand effect.

Thank you for your time,

— Cirt (talk) 18:44, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Category for individuals who had their work censored?

Please comment at Talk:Censorship#Category_for_individuals_who_had_their_work_censored.3F. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:43, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the notification! — Cirt (talk) 16:31, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Portal:Freedom of speech - for peer review

I've placed Portal:Freedom of speech up for portal peer review. Comments would be welcome, at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Freedom of speech/archive1. — Cirt (talk) 23:41, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to request a page be setup to show the most popular pages related to Freedom of speech on Wikipedia.

See a similar model at Wikipedia:WikiProject Human rights/Popular pages.

Cheers,

— Cirt (talk) 04:02, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

This is actually the case: Unfortunately the popular pages program is too popular right now to accept any new requests for popular page setups. Argh. — Cirt (talk) 04:05, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

The Freedom of speech Barnstar

I've added The Freedom of speech Barnstar, please see:

  1. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Freedom_of_speech#The_Freedom_of_speech_Barnstar
  2. {{The Freedom of speech Barnstar}}

Cheers,

— Cirt (talk) 09:43, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I've nominated Portal:Freedom of speech for Featured quality consideration, discussion is at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Freedom of speech. — Cirt (talk) 04:49, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Notice of posting to TFA nominations

I've added Fuck (film) to TFA nominations, discussion is at Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests#Fuck_.28film.29. — Cirt (talk) 22:33, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Fuck peer review, again

  1. Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties
  2. Wikipedia:Peer review/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties/archive1

I've listed the article Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties for peer review.

Help with furthering along the quality improvement process would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties/archive1.

Thank you for your time,

— Cirt (talk) 01:07, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Portal:Freedom of speech is now a Featured Portal.

Thank you to all from this WikiProject who helped contribute quality content.

Cheers,

— Cirt (talk) 05:43, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to help craft a proposal

Surveillance awareness day is a proposal for the English Wikipedia to take special steps to promote awareness of global surveillance on February 11, 2014. That date is chosen to coincide with similar actions being taken by organizations such as Mozilla, Reddit, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Feedback from members of this Wikiproject would be greatly appreciated. Please come join us as we brainstorm, polish, and present this proposal to the Wikipedia Community. --HectorMoffet (talk) 11:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the notification here, this is a most relevant project. — Cirt (talk) 18:22, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite!

Do we have a theme song for this project? Maybe this would be appropriate. Well, rule #3... Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 18:11, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

You're most welcome, Lugnuts! And interesting idea, Know Your Rights seems like a most promising idea for a collaborative quality improvement project perhaps. — Cirt (talk) 18:12, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Template for the WP:FOS invitaion

I propose following template {{WP:FOS invitation}} to be created to make it easier to invite editors to join WikiProject Freedom of Speech. I guess, It would be much convenient to type a short template instead of coping message from WP:FOS page and paste it on some editor's talk page. Any suggestion? (texts or image? Texts are same as earlier). The image is a blue ribbon, because it earlier has widely been used as an awareness or activism ribbon. One more question, Would it be a copy of Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign? Anupmehra -Let's talk! 19:11, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Anupmehra, for your interest! It looks great except the image for our WikiProject is the Free Speech Flag. I've swapped that image in, above, and it looks pretty good! I've gone ahead and created the template, at {{WikiProject Freedom of speech invitation}}. Thanks again, — Cirt (talk) 20:58, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for creating the template. I've made an edit to create a level 2 heading in the template, Invitation to join WikiProject Freedom of Speech. What about creating a redirect, {{Template:FOSINV}}? Thanks again! Anupmehra -Let's talk! 21:09, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Looks great! Thank you, — Cirt (talk) 22:56, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Main Page appearance: Fuck (film)

This is a note to let the main editors of Fuck (film) know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on March 1, 2014. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask Bencherlite (talk · contribs). You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 1, 2014. If it needs tweaking, or if it needs rewording to match improvements to the article between now and its main page appearance, please edit it, following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. The blurb as it stands now is below:

Marketing poster

Fuck is a 2005 American documentary film by director Steve Anderson, which argues that the word is key to discussions about freedom of speech and censorship. The film provides perspectives from art, linguistics, society and comedy. Linguist Reinhold Albert Aman, journalism analyst David Shaw, language professor Geoffrey Nunberg and Oxford English Dictionary editor Jesse Sheidlower explain the term's history and evolution. The film features the last interview of author Hunter S. Thompson before his suicide. It was first shown at the AFI Film Festival at ArcLight Hollywood; it has subsequently been released on DVD in America and in the UK and used as a resource on several university courses. The New York Times critic A. O. Scott called the film a battle between advocates of morality and supporters of freedom of expression, while other reviews criticized its length and repetitiveness. Law professor Christopher M. Fairman commented on the film's importance in his 2009 book on the same subject. The American Film Institute said, "Ultimately, [it] is a movie about free speech ... Freedom of expression must extend to words that offend." (Full article...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Above was posted to my user talk page, posting here as well. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 23:17, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Not in Front of the Children

I've recently gone ahead and created an article about the book, Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth.

Help with suggestions for additional secondary sources would be appreciated at the article's talk page, at Talk:Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth.

Thank you for your time,

— Cirt (talk) 01:26, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Free speech flag - good alternate symbols?

So I wasn't too familiar with the history of the Free Speech Flag that is our Wikiproject's logo, and looking into it, I'm a bit disappointed. It's a nice enough flag and all the graphics related to the project are done very well, but I'm wondering if, despite its name, it's really a good symbol for freedom of speech writ large. It seems to me to be, specifically, a protest symbol regarding the current intellectual property regime, which is a different but related subject.

I'm a bit torn about the whole thing because I like what the flag represents - both the free speech aspects and the IP law aspects - but I'm afraid that my sympathies for both things might bias me towards conflating them. I'm afraid by using it as the symbol we might be bundling two concepts unnecessarily. Obviously it represents a topic which touches on free speech, but it's a symbol that encapsulates MUCH of the frustrations that people have with copyright law, and only a small portion of what free speech advocates are concerned with.

That said, I'm hard pressed to think of anything better. The flag works aesthetically, it's nearly infinitely scalable and it is called the "Free Speech Flag". If we did want to shift to another symbol, I can't think of any other options, much less any options with all the right properties. Thoughts? 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 18:11, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, I did go to the trouble to contact the author of File:Sample 09-F9 protest art, Free Speech Flag by John Marcotte.svg and successfully get WP:OTRS confirmation for the free-use licensing on the image. I do agree with you that the flag works aesthetically, it's nearly infinitely scalable and it is called the "Free Speech Flag" ! :) — Cirt (talk) 20:02, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Yes, well I agree that it was a good job and you can see that I'm trying to wrestle down my own biases in favor of the flag. If you're saying the stuff about OTRS because you think I mean are there any other options already available on Wikipedia, I'd say that's a secondary concern. I'm thinking we might want to cast a net out there and see if there are any other symbols that really say "Free speech" and unambiguously embody the concept of free speech. If we do find something, I find it likely that we'd be able to get a free use licensed image out of it. Even if it doesn't replace the Free Speech Flag on anything major, it's usually good to have available iconography ready for future designs - maybe we have a template where we'd prefer an image that has a different aspect ratio, or we need to make a collage of free speech symbols, etc. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 20:48, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Well, I certainly agree it is a good idea to compile various free speech symbols at Wikimedia Commons under Commons:Category:Freedom of speech so we have some available that could be used for multiple purposes in the future. It seems there are more interesting and iconic images that symbolize censorship. — Cirt (talk) 21:03, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Free Expression Policy Project

I've created an article on the organization Free Expression Policy Project.

Suggestions for additional secondary sources would be most appreciated, at Talk:Free Expression Policy Project.

Cheers,

— Cirt (talk) 04:26, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

My first suggestion is to remove their organization's logo. Pretty sure springing Papyrus on someone is some sort of war crime. That's why James Cameron has to hide at the bottom of the ocean. Also, white and black on solid red? Terrible on both counts for essentially opposite reasons. I'm actually half serious about that, at the very least, people should be on the lookout for any changes in that logo so they can be replaced lickety split. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 06:57, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
Heh, sounds good. — Cirt (talk) 07:33, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties for Featured Article

I've nominated Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties for Featured Article candidacy.

Comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties/archive1.

Thank you for your time,

— Cirt (talk) 05:32, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Created new article = Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars

I've created a new article on the book, Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars.

Help with researching additional secondary sources would be appreciated, at Talk:Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars.

— Cirt (talk) 08:57, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties promoted to Featured Article

Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties was promoted to Featured Article quality.

Thank you very much to all who helped with this successful quality improvement project related to freedom of speech and censorship,

— Cirt (talk) 00:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

New article = Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence

I've created a new article on the book, Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence.

Help with researching additional secondary sources would be appreciated, at Talk:Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence.

— Cirt (talk) 04:16, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Internet censorship map colors?

There is a discussion going on over in Wikipedia Commons about possible changes to the colors used in the Internet Censorship map and elsewhere. It would be good to get some additional editors comments on this. If you are willing, would you pop over to Commons:File talk:Internet Censorship World Map.svg and let us know what you think? --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 14:47, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars for GA

I've nominated Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars for WP:GA consideration. — Cirt (talk) 14:07, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Hate speech laws in <Country> articles - importance

I stumbled across Hate speech laws in India and added our template. I rated it "high" on the importance scale based on the rating of Freedom of speech in the United States, but I could be convinced to bump it down to "mid" importance. Any objections to that rating? I think there are similar articles for other countries, Hate speech laws in Canada, Hate speech laws in the United Kingdom, etc. I don't want to tag-and-rate them all and then have to re-do it again if the consensus is that these are something like mid-importance. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 21:39, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

A long time ago I ran into conflict with users over the "importance" of articles related to certain projects. So therefore, when in doubt, I always rate lower, rather than higher, to avoid such issues. So I'd go with "mid" rather than "high" for this one, but I'll leave it up to you. :) — Cirt (talk) 22:01, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
That sounds about right. I was on the fence about the "high" rating anyway. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 22:08, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
Okay sounds good. :) — Cirt (talk) 00:09, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

GA nom for Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence

I've nominated for WP:GA candidacy, Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence. — Cirt (talk) 14:09, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Article in scope? The Hindus: An Alternative History

The Hindus: An Alternative History was removed from Indian stores as the result of a court case. I'm thinking this puts it in our scope because it is the subject of censorship, even though censorship is not the subject. Do y'all agree? 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 08:59, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, 0x0077BE, most certainly seems relevant. — Cirt (talk) 17:01, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
OK, I added it as start-class, low-importance. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 17:07, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, — Cirt (talk) 17:07, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Why was no notice of this discussion posted on the book's talk page, the author's talk page, WT:INDIA or WikiProject Hinduism talk page. And how has consensus been achieved on the basis of one response in a mere 8 hours? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:17, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Fowler&fowler that all those notifications are appropriate. But it shouldn't seem cause any issues to simply add {{WikiProject Freedom of speech}} to an article's talk page, the mere placement of another WikiProject on an article talk page doesn't change anything about the article's actual text in main article space. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 17:24, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm afraid it does. It changes how a book is viewed. A publisher in India has decided to stop publishing the book; no court in India has banned the book, neither has the Indian government. Penguin New York continues to export copies of the book to India. Indians continue to buy the book on Amazon and kindle. What freedom of speech are we talking about? As a result of a "court case?" It was part of settlement with plaintiff to a lawsuit brought before an Indian district court. The Indian legal system hasn't spoken. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
It changes how a book is viewed, by whom? — Cirt (talk) 17:28, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that those notices are appropriate as anything more than a courtesy - we don't have to post notice about whether we want something to be in our scope. If Wikiproject Football wants to list Sturnidae as within their scope, that's their decision, no matter how anyone else feels about it. It's an internal matter for the people here who are interested in editing articles relating to free speech. I also don't buy the argument that it "changes how the article is viewed". If anything, it changes the view of the article accurately to reflect that people on this wikiproject are interested in the subject! 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 17:31, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Agree with this comment by 0x0077BE, above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 17:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid they are, besides, consensus hasn't been achieved here. Ask at the Village pump and get consensus. @Cirt: By anyone who reads Wikipedia. It casts the book in a slightly different light. Again, Penguin India has decided to not sell the book anymore. But Penguin New York has just exported 3,000 copies to India. Any Indian bookstore can sell those copies. The book has not been banned. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:34, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Easy fix. Just use {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and then specify added parameter |collapsed=yes. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 17:37, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: - Getting to the meat of the argument, the reason they stopped selling the book was because there was a court case against the publishers of the book which could have been costly to them. It's self-censorship due to Chilling effects. Either way, though, it's been getting a lot of press as a free speech issue, which makes it appropriate here whether or not any government censorship happened. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 17:39, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Hogwash. Penguin India has a lot more money than the little piddling outfit which challenged it. This sort of thing happens all over the world. @Cirt: I don't see how that changes anything, just makes it unobtrusive. Besides I don't see you guys on The Satanic Verses, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Topic of Cancer (novel), ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
As for the first claim, the point isn't how much money they have - they're a business. If they are looking at more money in legal fees and a possible judgement against them than the book is going to make in India, they'll stop selling it. As for the second position - good point. I think that those articles are all also in scope. Might be a good topic for a taskforce. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 17:46, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Ongoing troubles

Over at The Hindus: An Alternative History, there's some ongoing trouble regarding the book. Could use some more eyes, as the user above is not being particularly responsive to any of my concerns and seems to be pushing some sort of POV. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 18:57, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

This might not be appropriate for this particular issue, but as a sidenote it might be a nice idea to setup a WikiProject peer review process specialized for this topic of freedom of speech related articles. Could be standalone on itself, before, after, or and/or in addition to the normal peer review process. — Cirt (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm afraid it is #0033BE who is making the clueless edits. He know nothing about Hinduism, India, Doniger, or the book. He's jumped in there and making edit after faltering edit, summarizing a petition which has a number of statements (see a list of some highlights of the petition in Outlook magazine, a semi-academic magazine published in India) among which are: "That it is a shallow, distorted and non serious presentation of Hinduism." "That it is a haphazard presentation riddled with heresies and factual inaccuracies," "That it is written with a Christian Missionary Zeal and hidden agenda to denigrate Hindus and show their religion in poor light," "That the entire list of the books authored by Doniger concentrate and focus on the negative aspects and evil practices prevalent in Hinduism," "That the words used by Doniger for referring to various Hindu Gods are highly objectionable," "That on the book jacket of the book Lord Krishna is shown sitting on buttocks of a naked woman surrounded by other naked women," "That Doniger depicted Lord Krishna in such a vulgar, base perverse manner to outrage religious feelings of Hindus," "That Doniger's approach has been jaundiced, and 'is that of a woman hungry of sex'" And those are just the highlights. :) It is a poorly written petition to be sure, but user#00etc has summarized that summary as, "alleging that the work had "heretical" content which hurts the feelings of Hindus." Hinduism, whatever its faults, is not an Abrahamic religion. The concept of heresy doesn't exist as a major feature, let alone heretical. There is no canon, no one God, no one school. It is common sense to not use that word in a WP summary, especially not to summarize a long petition in that manner simply on the basis of putative WP policy on RS. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:58, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't know why you continue to attack me rather than my edits. I've justified everything I've done so far, on the talk page, and when I ask you for specific problems with what I've written, you rarely address these requests for information. By contrast, any time you ask me to justify something, I am very forthcoming in answering your questions. I don't need to know anything about Hinduism or India because original research is forbidden. All I'm allowed to do is take information in the sources and put them on the page. If my purported "ignorance" of India (of which you have no evidence, since none of my edits have been related to India or Hinduism) is causing problems on the article, address it on the talk page. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 21:07, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Government (FCC) to stick its nose into newsrooms

Have you heard about this? DrHurd: government researchers in newsrooms Investors.com on same WSJ on same JRSpriggs (talk) 11:46, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, JRSpriggs, perhaps you'd like to write a Wikinews article about this? — Cirt (talk) 15:46, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Some more links (from Google) about this "Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs": the study design Breitbart Nalip talkers benton bennetlaw allaccess

Negative reaction from conservatives seems to be causing FCC to have second thoughts about this. The Wall Street Journal article, which appears to have prompted the uproar, is behind a pay-wall so I cannot read it.

The points I would make are: 1. FCC has no business regulating or even studying newspapers, cable TV or the Internet since they do not use the supposedly 'public air-waves'. 2. Broadcast radio and TV (which FCC is supposed to regulate) would be intimidated by the study since FCC has the power to remove their licenses, if they refuse to cooperate. 3. The only reason to do such a study would be to serve as a basis for regulating the production of news which is clearly a violation of the First Amendment, regardless of the ostensible motivation to achieve 'fairness', ethnic balance, suppression of hate speech, etc.. 4. The public is quite capable of choosing different news sources, if they are not satisfied with what they get from the existing sources. No FCC involvement is needed to help them. 5. In any case, the government cannot be trusted to be objective. Instead, it would end up pushing certain favored POVs to the exclusion of all others, leading to ignorance and corruption in society. JRSpriggs (talk) 08:28, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Apparently, the Obama administration has not yet given up on this coup d'état against the constitution. See [2] and [3]. JRSpriggs (talk) 00:58, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Marjorie Heins article -- content dispute help

Hi. Another editor and I are having difficulty reaching consensus on content on the Marjorie Heins article. I'd really appreciate some third-party eyes on the content, and some other editors to weigh in on editor conduct issues (see Talk:Marjorie Heins). Thanks. --Lquilter (talk) 00:57, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Nimmer on Freedom of Speech: Treatise on Theory of First Amendment

  • Nimmer on Freedom of Speech: Treatise on Theory of First Amendment (1984), by Melville Nimmer (1923-1985)

Nimmer on Freedom of Speech might be an interesting one for a new Wikipedia article.

Or certainly, at the very least, a good reference work on freedom of speech.

Cheers,

— Cirt (talk) 05:56, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Concerning the suppression of observations that do not coher with Establishment views of history

I am bewildered by the poor access to public view certains aspects of recorded history receive, when they challenge the heavily redacted accounts that appear on some biographical pages. I am thinking of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's involvement in arms sales to Saddam Hussein (and the subsequent massacres of the Al-Anfal campaign), as even tangential allusions to those events are not even entertained on her page. How would one achieve appropriate and balanced additions? Or is this observation ironically to be hastily removed from this page also? Post by: Andrew David Harrison 109.152.74.233 (talk) 13:28, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

The best way to add content is to start by finding some really good reliable sources which meet the criteria documented here. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 11:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Raif Badawi nominated for "In The News"

Raif Badawi is nominated (Saudi blogger recently sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and 1000 lashes for blog content) for the Main Page's "In The News" section.

Any assistance in improving the article or comments on why the article should or should not be featured at ITN would be much appreciated.

Article: Raif Badawi.

"In The News" nomination: Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Saudi_blogged_sentenced_to_10_years

Thanks.

Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 10:48, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of List of works about Julian Assange for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of works about Julian Assange is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of works about Julian Assange until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines. XOttawahitech (talk) 11:59, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Kleargear deletion discussion notification notice

  1. Kleargear
  2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kleargear (2nd nomination)

Discussion about whether or not to delete article for Kleargear, discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kleargear (2nd nomination). — Cirt (talk) 23:50, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject Freedom of Speech At Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 15:09, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Someone should put the word "fuck" in giant bold letters with a quote of 18 U.S.C. § 4 underneath reminding people it is a crime to not report a crime, punishable by 3 years in prison, per violation. Because I think its important for people to know that speech cannot be criminalized, lest that speech be criminal and you become a criminal for not reporting it. Int21h (talk) 18:21, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Or just list all the exceptions to freedom of speech in the UK (I've noted quite a few exceptions on the Censorship in the United Kingdom article) in their full legalese. I don't think there would be enough room on a leaflet, so you would have to overlap so much as to be unintelligible (as in its unintelligible what speech is illegal.) Int21h (talk) 18:27, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Awwww. They require you to use a template? No creativity! How boring. Int21h (talk) 18:31, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Voting rights and free speech

Hello everyone, I was wondering to what extent you think that voting rights-related articles fall into the scope of this WikiProject. At least in the United States, the freedom of speech restricts the ability of the government to impose unreasonable or discriminatory restrictions on suffrage, as determined by the Supreme Court in cases such as Anderson v. Celebrezze and Burdick v. Takushi, and lower courts have struck down many election laws for violating the First Amendment (and in many cases, for violating both the First Amendment and a federal voting rights law, like the Voting Rights Act or the National Voter Registration Act). The importance of the freedom of speech to suffrage is why a wikilink to the First Amendment is included in Template:Voting rights in the United States. And then, of course, there's the campaign finance cases like Citizens United v. FEC that involve the freedom of speech, and I've noticed that they largely are are already included in this WikiProject. Thus, I'm inclined to think that other suffrage-related articles fall in the scope of this WikiProject, but I thought I'd ask before I started tagging the talk pages of several voting rights articles (e.g., voter registration campaign, voter ID laws, voter suppression) with the WikiProject banner like I've been contemplating. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 01:49, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

The First Amendment is not freedom of speech. The First Amendment is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, etc. While some freedoms may "embrace" other freedoms, they are not the same, although teasing out that they are "distinct" may be quite an effort. But I argue that freedom of speech possesses values which are not possessed by the other freedoms affected by the First Amendment, and so it is distinct. But I do think that freedom of association intrinsically implicates freedom of speech. So, in essence, I think the question is whether this WikiProject's subject matter should be transitive; whether, since freedom of speech affects freedom of association, this WikiProject should also be about freedom of association, and hence, issues of suffrage.
Is the refusal of the government to recognize or act upon speech, e.g., recognizing votes, a violation of freedom of speech? If it was, would not any demand or claim against the government also be a freedom of speech issue? Would not any civil action against the government, a civil action being speech, be a freedom of speech issue? I'm sure there is discussion somewhere about it, but I am of the present opinion that, in general, freedom of speech is a negative right; that is, it is a right restricting the government from acting differently based upon the content of speech, not a right requiring the government to act based upon the content of speech. So I would not say freedom of speech requires the government to recognize a vote, unless such non-recognition was based upon the content of speech. It could be argued that voter suppression is retaliation based indirectly upon the voters' political views, but it could also be argued voter suppression is an opening salvo of a civil war or tyrannical war against the people, and therefore should be in WikiProject Military; a suppression of the working class or whatever, and therefore part of WikiProject Socialism and WikiProject Communism; a mathematical and statistical process, and therefore part of WikiProject Mathematics and WikiProject Statistics; having an affect on economics, therefore part of WikiProject Economics; etc. It is not hard to imagine more and more innovating theories and outright legal fictions to connect the practice to ever more remote subjects.
But I don't think there are, without more discussion on specific topics, concrete relations to these other WikiProjects, or concrete relations to freedom of speech, again, based upon my example analysis of voting not being content-based speech discrimination. Now, speech-related activities that are also voting-related are obviously freedom of speech issues, but only if there is a bona fide issue affecting speech-related rights; not all speech is a freedom of speech issue if it does not implicate legal rights, or legal rights are not being contravened or potentially contravened. (Again, considering the strength of the nexus.) Int21h (talk) 19:56, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Int21h. If the freedom of association intrinsically implicates the freedom of speech, then that would make this an easier question to answer. In many cases that have followed the U.S. Supreme Court's test for evaluating whether a voting restriction violates the First Amendment (as set forth in the Anderson and Burdick cases that I mentioned above), courts have explicitly decided whether a specific voting restriction violates either the freedom of speech, the freedom of expressive association, or both; for example, restrictions on voter registration drives are often held to violate both freedoms. But in other cases, like Crawford v. Marion, which upheld a voter ID requirement under the Anderson test, the court didn't distinguish between the freedom of speech and the freedom of association. So at the very least, based on the strength of the nexus, voting rights-related areas like voter registration drives that courts have ruled expressly implicate the freedom of speech are probably relevant to this WikiProject, but relevance remains debatable for those areas that courts have held implicate only the freedom of expressive association, areas that courts have not addressed which of the two freedoms is implicated, and areas that courts have not spoken on at all. Perhaps there is no bright line rule to answer this question, and it will require a case-by-case assessment of that nexus . –Prototime (talk · contribs) 21:06, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Yes, there's definitely no bright line, given that I think we should err on the side that something is relevant, while staying cognizant that there should be a strong nexus. I think voter ID requirements are a category of freedom of association issues (for example when they are used for primary elections) that are largely unaffected by freedom of speech, for example. I think we should be cautious about transitive nexi, but I don't think there is a generic answer. And all this begs the question: Just how close should we tack to US Supreme Court (majority) opinions on these matters? If a good argument can be made, then so be it, the Supremes be damned. Int21h (talk) 22:42, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Wow, this subject of voting rights is actually more complicated than I originally thought. If a voting restriction is used in the context of primary elections, which is in reality a form of political speech in an internal political party debate which decides its candidates for elections, it is a valid argument that preventing you from voting is, in effect, preventing you from expressing yourself in that party's internal debate. So... Yeah, I don't know. I'm going to look into it. Int21h (talk) 23:07, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
I want to note that I've tagged the following article talk pages for inclusion in this WikiProject: Anderson v. Celebrezze (a U.S. Supreme Court case that established the test for assessing whether an election law violates the freedom of speech or expression), Voter registration campaign (a type of speech that has been protected by various U.S. courts under the Anderson test), Voter suppression, and Voter suppression in the United States (these last two articles encompass registration on voter registration campaigns). I did not tag voter ID law-related articles or Crawford, because after looking into it more, it looks like the Supreme Court in Crawford upheld the voter ID law under the Equal Protection Clause, not the First Amendment, even though it used the Anderson test. I haven't looked into the freedom of speech as it relates to primaries, but I'd be curious to hear if you find out anything interesting! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 15:44, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Request

Can you create these articles, please?

Gce (talk) 22:59, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Some related articles or sub-sections of larger articles already exist:

This isn't to say that the censorship articles shouldn't be created, just that there is some raw material available to help get started. -Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 23:32, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Notification of a TFA nomination

In the past, there have been requests that discussions about potentially controversial TFAs are brought to the attention of more than just those who have WP:TFAR on their watchlist. With that in mind: Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties has been nominated for an appearance as Today's Featured Article. If you have any views, please comment at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. Thank you. — Cirt (talk) 22:16, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

You may speak of almost everything, but not more than 1200 chars blurb ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:20, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Done. THANK YOU! I missed that. I was looking at characters without spaces, not characters with spaces. Now down to 1196 characters with spaces. Thanks very much for pointing this out. — Cirt (talk) 22:30, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for assistance at Obscenity trial of Ulysses in The Little Review

The captioned article could use a review by someone with better access to the sources than me. The article is a creditable, one-off article by a student, I believe, but may not entirely reflect a full understanding of the sources (for example, in an assertion, now removed, that the secretary of the New York Society for Suppression of Vice was the district attorney who brought charges, which I think is unlikely). Thank you in advance for any assistance you can give. Kablammo (talk) 16:42, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

More than creditable. It's a very nice article IMO. Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 10:31, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
I've checked and the original editor is right about Sumner, secretary of the New York Society for Suppression of Vice. Additional sources: New York Times, James Joyce Centre. I'll add these sources to the article.
The article doesn't seem to claim that Sumner was the DA though, just the person who lodged the complaint. Do get back to me if I've missed it in the text somewhere. (Oh - "assertion, now removed" - right).
Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 10:36, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
A person unfamiliar with the law might use "DA" when he really meant plaintiff or complaining witness. JRSpriggs (talk) 21:25, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
A new book makes it clear that Sumner instigated the charges but did not prosecute; he instead was a witness. Birmingham, Kevin (2014). The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1594203367. I will add that information to the article when time allows. Kablammo (talk) 18:46, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

UK law on torrents of beheading videos

In a discussion at [4] I have someone telling me, with a Guardian article as source, that it is illegal in Britain to view "extremist material" including the beheading of James Foley, and even claiming the same could be true in the U.S., which I doubt based on [5]. Nonetheless, I'm not a lawyer, and it would be prudent to nail down this issue with more confidence, if anyone would like to examine these claims. Wnt (talk) 00:49, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I do not know about Britain and I am not a lawyer. But I am fairly sure that merely viewing the material is not an offense in the United States regardless of the circumstances. There are two possible things which could get you into trouble: (1) if you pay someone for the material and that someone is associated with terrorists, that could be crime; and (2) if you send a copy of the video to someone else who might reasonably construe it as an attempt by you to intimidate him, that could be a crime. JRSpriggs (talk) 08:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Zoia Horn

Zoia Horn = possible Quality improvement project that dovetails nicely both with WP:WikiProject Freedom of speech and Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force.

I'll do some more research at some point and update after reading up more from additional sources. — Cirt (talk) 20:27, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Another interesting one could be the book Women Against Censorship, more info at: https://www.umanitoba.ca/outreach/cm/cmarchive/vol13no5/womencensor.html — Cirt (talk) 01:43, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Hustler Magazine case, Requested move

Please see Talk:Hustler_Magazine,_Inc._v._Falwell#Requested_move_8_February_2015.

Thank you for your time,

— Cirt (talk) 12:39, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Streisand effect category deletion discussion

  1. Category:Streisand effect
  2. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_March_12#Category:Streisand_effect

Category:Streisand effect has been nominated for deletion, the discussion is at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_March_12#Category:Streisand_effect.

Feel free to participate there.

Thank you for your time,

— Cirt (talk) 02:12, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Anti-censorship Barnstar

I came across this image called the Anti-censorship Barnstar, at File:Ac bstar.png, could be useful perhaps if made into SVG. — Cirt (talk) 16:43, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I've left a request at commons:Commons:Village_pump#Anti-censorship_Barnstar to see if anyone could convert it to SVG. — Cirt (talk) 16:48, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
Helpfully rendered in SVG format by Goran tek-en (talk · contribs), now at File:Anti-censorship Barnstar.svg. — Cirt (talk) 21:08, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
Barnstar template now at Template:The Anti-censorship Barnstar. — Cirt (talk) 21:15, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride!

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride!

  • What? Wiki Loves Pride, a campaign to document and photograph LGBT culture and history, including pride events
  • When? June 2015
  • How can you help?
    1.) Create or improve LGBT-related articles and showcase the results of your work here
    2.) Upload photographs or other media related to LGBT culture and history, including pride events, and add images to relevant Wikipedia articles; feel free to create a subpage with a gallery of your images (see examples from last year)
    3.) Contribute to an LGBT-related task force at another Wikimedia project (Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikivoyage, etc.)

Or, view or update the current list of Tasks. This campaign is supported by the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group, an officially recognized affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation. Visit the group's page at Meta-Wiki for more information, or follow Wikimedia LGBT+ on Facebook. Remember, Wiki Loves Pride is about creating and improving LGBT-related content at Wikimedia projects, and content should have a neutral point of view. One does not need to identify as LGBT or any other gender or sexual minority to participate. This campaign is about adding accurate, reliable information to Wikipedia, plain and simple, and all are welcome!

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the campaign's main talk page.


Thanks, and happy editing!

User:Another Believer and User:OR drohowa

The Half-scholar Author

In the Times of India of 15 March, 2015 there is an article on the subject. I spent my valuable time to gain an insight into this scholar. I was disappointed. Let me first say that she uses language which at best is un-scholarly e.g. hindutvavadi. How would she react if someone was to call her a Chritiantvavadi? Next, there is no bar on any scholar to write about Hinduism. Everyone, inside or outside the faith, has full liberty to do that. The difference lies in a scholarly mind and quest and an unscholarly mindset to just denigrate a rich thought tradition and treasure. In Hindu tradition, you can pursue even the worst subject in a purely scholarly manner. Doniger talks of the Kamsutra but not of the Brahmasutra. Last, she is mixing Tantra & Sex and is really lost in imbibing the entirety of an scholarly treasure and reducing it into a book. She would do better if she devotes herself to more academic process before taking to produce a book. She can write any number of books once she is able to understand Hinduism. Besides, there are many other subjects than religion, philosophy etc in the Hindu culture to study. It is all a matter of attitude- how do you approach a subject, like Feminism in modern times. M.L.GUPTA, e-mail: mlgupta@nic.in, Address: M.L.Gupta, Flat# 319, RBCACGHS, Plot-3, Sector-10 New Delhi -110075 (INDIA). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.162.185.48 (talk) 04:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Are you talking about Wendy Doniger? Please provide a link to the article to which you are referring. What does this matter have to do with freedom of speech (which is the subject of this project)? Freedom of the press includes freedom to write articles criticizing a religion for its position on sex and/or gender, even uninformed criticism (if it is such). JRSpriggs (talk) 12:46, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Our main article is under attack

All of you, please put Freedom of speech on your watchlists. An IP user (using at least two addresses) has been insisting on adding a statement which re-defines free speech as a narrowed concept under which not all speech would be free. So far, no one besides myself has opposed him in the article and only Coolcaesar has supported me on the talk page. JRSpriggs (talk) 10:18, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Freedom_of_speech/Archive_1&oldid=1136051487"