Talk:Cat Stevens/Archive 5

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Salman Rushdie

It appears that some whitewashing has taken place in the section about Rushdie. It currently reads as if Yusef Islam never intended any slight against Rushdie. But this BBC TV program shows clearly that Yusef Islam very publicly called for his death. I understand that as an entertainer Mr. Islam's P.R. people have gone to great lengths to deny it. But this is Wikipedia, and it does not seem appropriate that editors encourage this type of white-washing to take place here. What I've gathered from the Talk Page archives is that there was considerable dissension about it's importance. Since certain editors have changed the meaning of the paragraph and excluded this incident entirely, I encourage editors to continue to discuss it, considering the meaning of it being completely censored from the article. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oienjf0GK8 EyePhoenix (talk) 07:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

No, as you have been told before, there is no "whitewashing" here, and your accusations of such and of "censorship" are insulting and inappropriate. No one is minimizing the importance of this incident, other than to say that it shouldn't be treated as if it is the most important thing in his biography, because it is not. And it is not true that anyone has "excluded this incident" at all, including the subsequent tv appearance. There is a clear summary of what happened in this biography, with a link to the long article that goes into all of the details that could be needed to understand this incident - 20 paragraphs worth - including descriptions, transcript and link to the tv show that you keep bringing up as if it has not been acknowledged. It's all there, and if you think more is needed there, then make your suggestions over there. These articles are covered by our BLP policies, which among other things say that contentious material has to be especially well-sourced and balanced. As has been explained to you before, in this case adding more about the incident here would require adding more about his extensive denials here, and the subsequent section would be disproportionate to its importance in Stevens/Yusuf's life. Handling it this way - summary-style- has long been a stable part of this article - for years: it is neutral as required by policy and there is ample expansion in the daughter article. This is, after all, a biography of his entire life and career, which is a complex story, and this one incident should not be given so much more weight than everything else in his life. Your comments did not get any support here when you brought it up a few months ago, so there's no point in continuing this conversation. Take a look at the linked article - as I said last time, this is commonly done throughout the encyclopedia, and assigning motives to the editors is not helpful or conducive to improving the encyclopedia. Tvoz/talk 07:56, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Tvoz,the more you speak the more I am convinced my observation is correct. Just as you relegated the thread on this topic to the archives (including all protest and objection) you are trying to counter my observation. Suffice to say I disagree with you, and continue to insist that your mis-representation of that incident is very noteworthy.EyePhoenix (talk) 08:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I archived the talk page over two months after the last comment was made. That's common, all over the encyclopedia, so please stop suggesting there was anything untoward in doing so. I know you disagree with me, but I've answered your comments each time you post them as if you had not done so before, and you ignore my responses, and continue to make vague references to misrepresentation and implications of some kind of evil intent or something like that. I don't even know what you are suggesting - that his PR people are involved? Well, I'm just an editor here, with zero connection to the artist. I'm not going to again now re-state why the page was set up this way, as it's just repetitive. If you have something new and substantive to say about it, please do, but don't just keep posting a YouTube link that we have already dealt with in great detail in the daughter article - unclear if it's even an acceptable source, by the way - as that tv appearance is clearly mentioned here. Tvoz/talk 00:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh yes, I read the paragraph and am familiar with what it says. In fact I just read it again, which reminded me exactly why I raised this concern in the first place. EyePhoenix (talk) 03:21, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

"... No one is minimizing the importance of this incident, other than to say that it shouldn't be treated as if it is the most important thing in his biography, because it is not" (my emphasis)
since when is murder for a book not important fact for a biography?
Regards
Paranoid Android1208 (talk) 19:04, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Did someone say that "murder for a book" is unimportant? It is obviously viewed as important enough to warrant at least two articles in the encyclopedia about it. Once again, as you know, the section in this biography serves as a pointer to the much longer article that goes into a great deal of detail about Stevens' comments about this matter, including transcripts, the accusations, his denials, critical responses, etc. - much more detail than can be handled in this biography. This is not an article about Salman Rushdie or the fatwa. This is a biography of the whole life and career of an individual, and it necessarily includes a section on this matter, pointing to the long article about it, but it would be giving it more prominence in his life than is appropriate if we were to include all of that material. This is a BLP, and we cannot include accusations without the denials that followed, and so on. It has long been the preferred style of the encyclopedia to use daughter articles to go into the details of matters that are notable, but require more explication than the main biography can handle. There are dozens of them - see John Edwards extramarital affair, Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, Whitewater controversy, and so on. If we didn't have these daughter articles, the main articles would be overloaded with detail about these incidents, and the incidents would have undue weight in the articles. Tvoz/talk 05:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

overloaded and "undue weight" are very subjective
Nobody is saying that we should merge the article(that would be quite stupid), nevertheless the text to the pointer is way to short compared to the other incidents and makes it look as it was the least of those. Even if there is a link to an article
One could argue that this was the second most important incident of his (personal) life (2nd to his accident and subsequent)conversion)
Furthermore, (for search purposes.) the word "The Satanic Verses" should be used in the section.
Regards
Paranoid Android1208 (talk) 09:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

No, that's really not how it looks. None of the other incidents have long articles dedicated to the details - all they have is what is here. The Rushdie matter is dealt with at great length in the other article, and it's a matter of opinion as to whether this is the second most important event in his life. But the fact that there is a header saying there is a "main article" makes it clear that there is more to say about this, and that it is important. It's common practice, as I've said, all over the encyclopedia - in fact in many cases the bio has only the pointer to the dedicated article, with no text in the section of the bio that holds the pointer. This solution allows us to have the lengthy back and forth of claims and denials, while avoiding BLP issues that would be raised if we didn't give a full rendering of what he has said for many years on this about things being out of context, etc. The other article can and does go into all of that. I added "The Satanic Verses" and a link to another article about the fatwa on Rushdie. Tvoz/talk 08:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The article should explain that Yusef Islam publicly supported the killing of Rushdie. I agree with Paranoid Android, it is an extremely important incident. That Yusef Islam continues to deny the claims when numerous video clips show him actually making the statement on national television is very noteworthy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oienjf0GK8 It is given further weight because he later became a Nobel Peace Prize winner without ever having taken responsibility for this incident. Salman Rushdie has made clear the destructive and expensive impact Yusef Islam's public comments had on his life, and still Islam denies. There is no shortage of reliable sources for these facts, yet it continues to remain censored from the article. I agree with Paranoid Android, it should be included, not simply referenced with a "pointer". EyePhoenix (talk) 23:57, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with User:Tvoz. A great deal of work was put into the Rushdie remark article and observing the WP:NPOV rules. During that time there was one editor whose mind was made up before even reading it, it seemed. However, we moved on by consensus. What is important is to realize is that whatever the man did or didn't say was one event. Just one facet of a man with an incredibly successful musical career. His songwriting royalties alone have continued to sustain him and many other projects today. I really hate to say this but it appears that User:EyePhoenix has a fixation on this that is taking up valuable time by other editors. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 13:46, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I find it surprising that the actual words aren't in the footnotes:

• Eliot Weinberger Outside stories, 1987-1991 1992 p101 "February 23 ... In London, a nearly forgotten folksinger from the 1970s, Cat Stevens, surfaces as a Muslim convert named Yusuf Islam, and declares that Rushdie should die. "If he turned up on my doorstep asking for help, I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is." Radio stations around the world immediately ban his records, which provokes heated debate in the Top-40 world"
• Spin (magazine) May 1989 p20 "Cat Stevens went public with his support of Khomeini, saying, "The Koran makes it clear that if someone defames the Prophet, then he must die." In spite of this, Stevens's record sales have not been affected. As before, no one's buying them, ..."

These should be inserted in ref brackets. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:25, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Again if we include the quotes we have to include his lengthy denials and explanations - we cannot have just one side here, for obvious BLP reasons. It has long been agreed that the best way to handle this is to have the long subarticle that is clearly identified and linked to at the top of the section, where it all can be, and is, laid out. His quotes, the tv appearance, his explanations - all of it. This biography of the man's whole, complex life cannot handle all of that material without it being given more weight than it should have. So we do this as short summary here and long separate article. Done this way throughout the encyclopedia. Tvoz/talk 22:44, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't agree. What wasn't omitted is completely misrepresented. I continue to insist that TVoz' undue influence over this article and misrepresentation of the available information is extremely noteworthy. EyePhoenix (talk) 00:00, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me pretty clear that there is indeed considerable "whitewashing" in this article. Simply put Cat Stevens's original remarks about the fatwa alongside his later disavowals and let the reader himself decide whether Stevens is being disingenuous. TheScotch (talk) 09:36, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

We have an entire article dedicated to the details of this matter - linked prominently from this biography of his whole life - and readers can and should decide for themselves about this. The bio cannot support all of the material that would be needed here for a balanced presentation, which is why we have the fork. (See previous explanations of summary-style.)

And it would be appreciated if conscientious, thoughtful editing was not referred to as "whitewashing" which implies an agenda that does not exist, and is offensive to the editors who have labored long on this and come up with a workable consensus that is neutral and not in violation of our very important policies regarding biographies of living people. Thank you.Tvoz/talk 17:37, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect terms used for his faith change

It is commonly beleived by too many people that you convert to Islam. Everyone keeps using the term convert. This is incorrect.

http://islam.about.com/od/converts/g/revert_gt.htm

Muslims believe that all people are born with a natural faith in God. According to Islam, children are born with an innate sense of God, which is called the fitrah. Therefore, some people see conversion to Islam as a "return" back to this original, pure faith. For this reason, many Muslims prefer to say that they have "reverted," rather than converted to Islam. A common definition of the word "revert" is to "return to a former condition or belief."

This is just one of many websites that can be found also when you attend a mosque and speak to any brothers or sisters of Islam they will also confirm we revert to our true religion.

How can we change this in the texts about Muslim reverts on Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.19.151.81 (talk) 17:24, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I can appreciate your point of view, but the commonly used term for one who has changed religion is "convert", and our aim as an encyclopedia is to explain things so that our meaning will be as clear as possible to the widest range of readers, not just to one group or another who might prefer different terminology. There is a wikilink in this article to the article about religious conversion which mentions the idea of reverting to one's "original condition", but nonetheless still uses the term "conversion" even when discussing Islam, as it is the most recognized term. Please don't take offense, as none was intended - this is merely a matter of using language appropriate for writing an encyclopedia. Tvoz/talk 23:03, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Tvoz. Furthermore, because most readers are not educated Muslims, the use of the term "revert" would be misleading, as it would falsely imply to most of our readers that he had converted to Christianity before becoming a Muslim for a second time. --Dweller (talk) 12:42, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I am a Muslim, and I contributed a substantial amount of time on this article- mostly a couple of years ago. I recall tags for editors' user pages; but discontinued using it. This was because an editor appeared and was so critical of Stevens over Rushdie and several other issues, and who I felt was a troll. I didn't want to add more fuel to the fire. User:Tvoz is a gutsy editor. Where there is strife, be it political, religious, and so forth, Tvoz has been a fighter to maintain both accuracy and WP:NPOV, and does not disappoint with her results. True, we who aren't born to Islam but who choose that path of Islam are called "reverts", since the religion assumes that newborns are already born on that path. Thus if they know nothing of the religion, whenthey choose Islam, that's where they are reverts, in the religion. However, this isn't the place to discuss such matters. Pick a page on Islam and makes such changes there. This is just one man! --Leahtwosaints (talk) 15:55, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. --BDD (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Cat Stevens → Yusuf Islam – His legal name is Yusuf Islam, and has gone by that since 1978 as opposed to Cat Stevens. He is arguably more well-known these days as Yusuf Islam. Jgera5 (talk) 17:19, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• Strong support - current name is persistently, deliberately and blatantly in violation of WP:BLP. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:29, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
  • How? Wikipedia has thousands of articles about living people with titles not matching legal names from Ringo Starr to Lady Gaga. —  AjaxSmack  02:16, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Granted, Ringo Starr doesn't call himself Richard Starkey (although his son Zak Starkey doesn't call himself Zak Starr) nor does Lady Gaga call herself Stefani Germanott. On the other hand, if you look at other notable converts to Islam that were well-known under their birth names before converting (e.g. Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), do you think Wikipedia uses their birth names as well? I'm pretty sure those articles aren't titled Cassius Clay and Lew Alcindor, respectively. Just keep that in mind. Jgera5 (talk) 04:04, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I think Ajax knows that the birth name is Steven Georgiou. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Jgera, as has been said many times before - the subject's notability comes from his time as Cat Stevens. Muhammad Ali's initial fame was as Cassius Clay, yes, as was Abdul-Jabbar's, but their lasting fame and notability came from their names as changed early in their careers - both had long careers under their new names. (And they also didn't bill themselves as "the former Cassius Clay" as Yusuf has done on his albums.) And in all cases, the alternate names are redirects of course.Tvoz/talk 22:35, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support. In general, we should use living people's own names for themselves unless there is a very good reason not to. Any issue relating to this person's former name can be handled with redirects, and the current lead is already quite informative in this regard. 168.12.253.66 (talk) 19:00, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• Question in what way is using the current name a breach of BLP? --Dweller (talk) 21:17, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Because it misrepresents Steven Georgiou who changed his name in 1977 to Yusuf Islam with a stage-name he has deliberately repudiated and suffered discrimination for (having his plane diverted in 1994 for example). And yet as Jgera5 says above we accept Cassius Clay changing to Muhammed Ali. BLPs are supposed to accurately reflect people, this one does in its text, but has a skewed title. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
    • I don't understand which bit of the policy that contradicts. You wrote above that the current title is " blatantly in violation of WP:BLP". Presumably you can quote the part of the policy that it violates? --Dweller (talk) 08:36, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Evidently it's personal interpretation but "biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times" to me says we are fair (and that's a subjective word) also to subject's name/faith/present rather than offering a snapshot of the past. The article isn't "Cat Stevens was.." it is "Yusuf Islam .. is". If someone is dead then the view naturally focusses on their most notable period. But in the case of BLP we should defer to who the person is, not who he was in the 1970s. This is an exceptional case in many ways. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:00, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

There's also Wikipedia:MOSBIO#Tense which I was looking for earlier but couldn't find. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:30, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the article shouldn't refer to him as if he is dead. But no-one is suggesting that. --Dweller (talk) 08:56, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose WP:UCN,WP:OFFICIALNAME -- Yusuf Islam 1.7 Mghits , Cat Stevens 4.5 Mghits -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 23:54, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Google Books 2005-2012

"cat stevens is" -wikipedia -llc 139 results

"yusuf islam is" -wikipedia -llc 203 results

In ictu oculi (talk) 07:47, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I get 877 and 655 hits respectively for the same search, which argues against your point. Without the odd inclusion of "is" in the search, I get 36,100 and 5,680 respectively, which argues even more strongly for the status quo. --Dweller (talk) 08:40, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. On Amazon, the subject's best-selling album is The Very Best of Cat Stevens (2000). He was still using "Cat Stevens" in 2008 for the DVD Tea for the Tillerman: Live. So contrary to what the opening states, Stevens is his stagename, not his "former stagename." This ngram suggests that the current title is about four times more common than the proposed title. Kauffner (talk) 00:31, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:UCN (use common names), WP:OFFICIALNAME (Wikipedia need not use legal titles), the principle of least astonishment, and User:Kauffner's comment about recent usage by Yusuf Islam of the stage name Cat Stevens. —  AjaxSmack  02:16, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ajax, that DVD is of a performance from 1971 not 2008. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:27, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• Strong oppose per COMMONNAME. --Dweller (talk) 08:40, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, as before. The proposer claims that the artist is "arguably more well-known these days as Yusuf Islam" but fails to actually make said argument. Absent evidence that he is indeed better known as Yusuf Islam (such as, say, most news articles deciding not to gloss the name with "formerly known as Cat Stevens"), I believe that the principle of least astonishment would have us leave the title where it is. Powers ^T 18:14, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
• Strong oppose as each time this has been raised. COMMONNAME is the point - his notability clearly derives from his time as Cat Stevens, and continues to be derived from his work as Cat Stevens. He himself refers to that name on Yusuf albums and in interviews, not just when discussing his name change. His fame and fortune as Cat Stevens is what continues to fund his philanthropy, as he acknowledges, and is why we even are aware of him now. This is the name most likely to be searched on, while the standing redirect covers anyone who comes here in search of info using Yusuf Islam. No BLP issue has been articulated, because none exists regarding his name. Tvoz/talk 22:35, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
• STRONGLY OPPOSE And, agree with User:Tvoz, as this topic pops up almost as predictably as the lunar calendar... The man was born with one name, and adapted three stage names. The musician himself happily still responds to his second stage name, and it is his fame from the decade during which he adapted it ("Cat Stevens") that catapulted to fame, not the work he wrote or other professions he's had as either "Yusuf Islam" or "Yusuf". There is also no proof that he ever legally changed his name. It was his work under the name Cat Stevens that people continue to associate with him. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 19:18, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose It was as Cat Stevens that the subject saw the greatest commercial appeal and success. Yes, he's well known as an Islam convert too, but that 'notoriety' was short-lived compared with that he enjoyed while he was a recording artist. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 09:51, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Ministry of Truth

Nice whitewashing job on the Rushdie thing! Notably, not a single quote from Stevens, because quotes would show that the section in this article is rubbish. --79.223.27.248 (talk) 22:19, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

The name thing again

What with all the arguments about Chelsea Manning and all I think it is right to reconsider this again, though not in quite the previous way. The first para starts "Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; 21 July 1948), commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens," is completely accurate and uncontested. The sole issue is what pagename is indexed. His preference (leaving aside anything about 'legality' - we don't ask it for any other performers so why just for him? Islamophobia?) for the last 35 or so years has been for Yusuf, and the first line agrees with that, so why not make "Yusuf Islam" the page title and leave "Cat Stevens" as a redirect, instead of the other way around? If WP were truly interested in WP:BLP issues then this would have been a no-brainer change years ago. It should move now. --AlisonW (talk) 16:45, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Quoting from the article: As for why the album sleeve says "the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens", he responded, "That's the tag with which most people are familiar; for recognition purposes I'm not averse to that. For a lot of people, it reminds them of something they want to hold on to. That name is part of my history and a lot of the things I dreamt about as Cat Stevens have come true as Yusuf Islam." It does not sound like he minds. He uses "Cat Stevens" for recognition purposes and so do we. 99.192.51.153 (talk) 17:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

IP99 is right - Yusuf acknowledges, as do most other people, that his fame and fortune come from his years as Cat Stevens, and indeed he does not shrink away from the name at all. And in fact he now uses "Yusuf" alone in some contexts, yet we wouldn't rename this article Yusuf. There is no BLP issue here - no defamation, no unsourced speculation, no controversy - that's what BLP policy is designed to protect against. Cat Stevens is still the name most people search on, and it should remain the title of this article unless something changes. This is considerably more like Snoop Dogg (Snoop Lion, Snoop Doggy Dogg, et al) than like Chelsea Manning which is a lot more complex than just a name preference. (And I totally support our switch to Chelsea Manning throughout that article.) Tvoz/talk 18:37, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I have to say, I'm with AlisonW on this one. This page should be at Yusuf Islam - it's his name, and has been for 35 years. He recognises that many people still know him better as Cat Stevens, but that is, undeniably, not his name. That is a BLP issue. I don't think Snoop Dogg is a fair comparison; given how recently he changed his identity, it's understandable that we keep the article under the better-known title. As someone said on Jimbo's talk page, this article is more like if our article on Muhammad Ali was titled Cassius Clay. Robofish (talk) 23:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I think Tvoz is missing my point. A search for "Cat Stevens" will still go to the exact same article, and at the same time we'll be educating readers that he changed his name 35 years ago (which is, frankly, long enough to wait). That he permits people to use "Cat Stevens" would only be an issue if he released new work under that name. But he doesn't. BLP says we should respect the individual and, as I see it, we are not. 99.192.51.153 misses this same point. --AlisonW (talk) 16:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm quite aware of how search works, Alison, and of course the same thing goes for searching on Yusuf Islam leading here. We educate our readers in the first line of the article, so I'm not too concerned about that in this instance. We've given this matter serious consideration many times before - I don't have time to get the diffs at the moment, but they are in the archives. As you can see above, most recently the move was rejected in April. I think it is unreasonable to bring it up again just over 4 months later when nothing has changed. Numerous editors have weighed in against this before, and repeatedly bringing it up seems to me to be an abuse of the process which we see in AFDs and CFDs sometimes when they are launched again and again despite the consensus to keep those articles and categories, just to try to get a different result, perhaps because the people who have opposed before will be too tired of it to show up again. Yes of course consensus can change, but in my opinion just over 4 months is too soon to be going through this again, when nothing new has been offered. Sorry that I can't present the arguments again right now, but they have not changed regarding WP: COMMONNAME, etc. If need be, I'll go through it again when I'm back online, but I think the arguments are well known to anyone who follows this page. This is the name he is best known as by far, and why he even has an article. Tvoz/talk 23:20, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible to split this article into two, like with Dallas Green (musician) and City and Colour? Keep Cat Stevens for his early life and recordings and use Yusuf Islam for his more recent endeavours, feel free to grill me because I don't think I've thought this through. VEO^onefive 06:45, 5 September 2013 (UTC)