Alyoshevna

Religious Freedom

If you want a "gradient" in the religious freedom column, I'm afraid you have to find a third party that did that job already, since we can't start making those decisions ourselves. I looked, but I didn't have any luck so far.
We need a methodology that is "judgement-free". There are enough people out there who object to having this column in there in the first place, and our case for keeping it in has to be bullet-proof. As soon as you get into judgement territory, you open yourself up to all kinds of attacks regarding Original Research, Verifiability, etc. So - if you want a column that represents religious freedom you would either have to find a very good external source, or, if we classify it ourself have, use a method that cannot be attacked with those arguments... --Frescard 03:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC) P.S. I have found this list by Freedom House, which has a very nice rating from 1-7. Not specifically for religious freedom, but for freedom in general. (And I would assume that there is a pretty high correlation.) Should we use that perhaps?

I'm a new Wikipedia participant. Just what you've said here has helped me understand the process.
The hitch is that this column can't be entirely judgment-free. Somebody already has to judge from State info whether a country meets the UN definition. Someone (you?) judged Syria to be a Yes, but Syria falls short of the UN definition by officially restricting Jehovah's Witnesses and especially Jews. It ought to be a No.
The key, I think, is to make the process as explicit and transparent as possible. Not about specific countries, but something like, "Countries marked no...fail in law or in practice to meet the United Nations description of conditions that enable citizens to practice the non-majority Islamic faith without penalty." This is why and how I think gradients could be employed. "The Religious Restrictions column reflects impediments, if any, to religious freedom as defined by the United Nations which would hamper citizens from practicing religions other than the majority Islamic faith." Either the text or a footnote could specify criteria for the gradients, and linked reports would enable readers to look up a country's impediments for themselves.
The gradients might be more acceptable because then we wouldn't wind up with a chart showing most Muslims as religiously unfree - since the UN standard is so hard to meet. The onus ought to be on critics to show how criteria have been inconsistently and/or erroneously applied - i.e., corrupted by POV.
I'm not sure Freedom House wouldn't complicate the process. We're trying to it make as simple, clear, and trustworthy as possible, and FH addresses many other kinds of freedoms. Alyoshevna 22:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Unless an entry into Wikipedia is judgement-free, it will get killed sooner or later (especially with a controversial subject like this). So, making our own judgements, even if they're well defined, would not be accepted.

I've implemented the ratings by Freedom House now. They're used on other WP pages, so that means they're accepted on Wikipedia. Unless you can find a better source (and we need an external source) I'm afraid this is all we can use. --Frescard 22:58, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

What a great idea, to use the Freedom House gradients. Are the colors theirs? The colors show graphically how un-free much of the Muslim world is - perhaps objectionable to those who object to the very existence of the column. Ought you to delete the colors? Or would that act be NPOV? (What a complex process this is.) Alyoshevna 23:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll leave it like this for now (with the colors), and then we'll see what kind of response we'll get from the people who are opposed to any kind of critical content. So far they kept surprisingly quiet about it, but that may change... --Frescard 23:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me guess: you're a Brit. I make judgments, and you make judgements. (Enlighten me, if need be, as to whether such inquiries are not the done thing.)

Your link for 2004 Religious Freedom of the World goes only to the Center for Rel. Freedom home page, not to the report. I could only find Figure 1: RF by Area, which grades from 1 to 7, not a report with grades as you use them. Does that matter? Should the link go straight to whatever you found?