Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Human rights/Archive 7

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Safe Planet

• Safe Planet (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I think that this recently-created article falls within the scope of this wiki-project.

On the talk page, a user has raised concerns that it is overly dependent on primary sources; I think that is true. So, if anyone can help improve it, trim out anything inappropriate, etc. - please do. Best,  Chzz  ►  03:28, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

United States Bill of Rights has been selected as the United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month for June 2011

The United States Bill of Rights, an article within the scope of this project, has been selected as the United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month for June 2011. The goal this month is to get this article to Good Article standards by July 4th, 2011. All editors interested in improving this article are encouraged to participate. You can also vote for next months article of the Month here. --Kumioko (talk) 16:03, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment - Santorum (neologism)

• Santorum (neologism)

Request for Comment discussion started, please see Talk:Santorum_(neologism)#Proposal_to_rename.2C_redirect.2C_and_merge_content.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 14:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Created new article on US Supreme Court case = Time, Inc. v. Hill

• Time, Inc. v. Hill

I have created a new article on the U.S. Supreme Court case, Time, Inc. v. Hill. Feedback and especially help with additional research would be appreciated, at the new article's talk page. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 00:17, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

United States Declaration of Independence article needs to be adopted

I have performed a review at Talk:United States Declaration of Independence/GA1. However, the nominator has exercised his WP:RTV. The article needs someone to adopt it and address my concerns in order to regain its GA status. I will allow seven days for someone to step forward.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:34, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

B'Tselem

I am engaged in a bit of a dispute over a paragraph in B'Tselem, which is a human rights group in Israel. The editor User:Wikifan12345 has made a number of arguments as to why the paragraph needs to be deleted. I would appreciate it if some of you guys could take a look at the talk page and the paragraph and voice an opinion. Thanks, --Ravpapa (talk) 18:45, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Female genital mutilation - RfC

People here may be interested to know about a RfC which is currently active :-

Female genital mutilation - RfC

I came across this by chance today. There is a discussion going on around whether or not it is appropriate for Wikipedia to use the term "female genital mutilation" (FGM). Some people think it would be preferable to use the term "female genital cutting" (FGC) on the grounds that this would be more neutral. They say that "mutilation" is POV. They acknowledge that the vast majority of academics use the term FGM, but they argue that the lack of neutrality in the term FGM outweighs this consideration.

Rubywine . talk 06:27, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Nasrin Sotoudeh

Does anyone know of any HR orgs that would be willing to donate a photograph of Nasrin Sotoudeh for use in her article? Viriditas (talk) 07:03, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I need all my rights & freedom

I am a person gay I am an Arab, but I do not have my rights, not even a complete part of it and I want to be one of those who are enjoying their freedom and all that we are a Muslim people, there is no gay rights and I hope the assistance of all human rights organizations that help me in that I enjoy all my rights as a gay — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zakariaawad (talk • contribs) 19:58, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Logo

File:Human rights logo.png

Free as a human. Winning logo for Human Rights in http://humanrightslogo.net/

Following massive official logo campaign, i have removed several different images that this wikiproject and portal used with official winner of the world contest. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 00:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Should we adopt the new "http://humanrightslogo.net/" logo

Recently, there was a "contest" organised by several large organisations (http://humanrightslogo.net/) to create an "official" logo for human rights. The winning logo has rapidly been adopted by several wikipedians and replaced our old wikiproject human rights logo, been adopted in templates and been placed (and reverted) in a prominent position on the wikipedia article on human rights. I am somewhat uneasy about this, though an admirable effort - the competition seems to have been a private effort by a variety of organisations and is certainly is not an internationally recognised logo in reliable sources. Certainly, as a symbol of human rights it has, currently, far less power or relevance than a logo like the amnesty candle, which for obvious reason we would never adopt. Should we be adopting this logo on wikiproject human rights? and should we be including it in articles as a symbol of human rights more generally? Ajbpearce (talk) 10:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• You can adopt whatever symbol you want - that is not a view for outsiders. This symbol, as not a recognized logo, is not appropriate for article-space. From the RFC. Hipocrite (talk) 13:19, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
• It is really a silly-looking symbol, and "man" leaves out more than half the human race. Thumbs DOWN on using it. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:57, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • The humanrightslogo.net people + people editing the WM Commons page are certainly well intentioned, but:
    1. there's no source that i could find for the image licence (public domain sounds rather unlikely to me; the website itself gives no clear statement rather than general mentions of "open source")
    2. i could not find a source for the "free as a man" quote; the Serbo-Croatian text clearly uses the word człowiek, which, at least in Polish, does not have the connotation of "male" - it just means person or human - and i would expect the meaning would be similar in other Slavic languages
  • Boud (talk) 00:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
• No need to use it; there's nothing "official" about it.--Miniapolis (talk) 01:50, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
• Not official, not recognized, no need to use it. Darkness Shines (talk) 20:14, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
• Ok seems like there is a pretty clear consensus that there is no reason for us to be using this logo at present. I will revert our graphics back to their older versions. Ajbpearce (talk) 18:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to Edit the 'Juvenile Delinquency in the US' Page

I propose to make edits to the current page titled ‘Juvenile Delinquency in the US’. Seeing as how important this issue is in America, I think the page is lacking a lot of important information. I plan to add the following sections: introduction to juvenile delinquency, recent statistics, the cradle to prison pipeline, and the juvenile justice debate, and preventing juvenile delinquency. It is very important to educate the Wikipedia world on this topic, and to show how much room there is for improvement. Showing the room for improvement, this page might have the ability of enacting social change and changing future generations of children for the better. I think that the editions I will make to the page are largely related with human rights because the crimes these teenagers commit might be violations of human rights. At the same time, many teens are born into such poverty and are considered to somewhat be doomed from the start. I see this, the fact that some children are born into such poverty that they are channeled into crime and into the prison system, as a violation of human rights. MariaNunez (talk) 03:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Comments requested

There is a Request for comment at Talk:First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Request_for_comment. Please do; constructive suggestions particularly welcome. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

99 Percent Declaration

I recently created the 99 Percent Declaration article, and now it's been nominated for deletion and rescue. I have lots of possible sources on the talk page, but I would feel more comfortable if there were other editors. Would you please help improve it? Or at least chime in on the deletion discussion or respond to the questions on the talk page? Thank you. Dualus (talk) 20:11, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Articles with cleanup templates

• During the BLP push, I and several others managed to clear up our unreferenced BLP backlog of articles so that we no longer have any unreferenced BLP's - However, almost half of the articles tagged as part of our project have other "problem" templates on them, which is an extremely high amount and speaks poorly about the general quality of our articles. It would be great if interested members could try and cull this down to a more reasonable level over the next year. Ajbpearce (talk) 21:42, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Hello

I am a relatively new user on wikipedia and became interested in human rights - it said to post Hello on the talk page - so I may have done wrong - Thetiesthatbind (talk) 21:42, 8 November 2011 (UTC)I

Logo replacement

Well, i have problems with a fact that human right's logo on this WP page is American Statue of Liberty. As United States were main perpetrator and founder of numerous international wars and conflicts, symbol of America IS NOT symbol for Human right. I respect your votes from above regarding A Logo for Human Rights, but, on the other hand, i don't understand your logic. Logo that was elected from more than 15,300 suggestions from over 190 countries by international jury and overwhelming number of online votes is not official? Official by whom? UN? OK, i understand that. But this wikiproject logo, this American symbol that should represent worlds freedom and justice, justice over Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc, was not even elected! WikiProject pages are not article space. I am asking that we restore Winning logo for entire non article space, and regarding human rights, and replace Statue of Liberty. Btw, i am well aware of statues international history, and supposed meaning, but wikipedia should represent fact, as they are, and not as they should be. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 23:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Whether one agrees with the stance on the US as a human rights violator or not, it is still not appropriate to use a symbol associated with any one country as a symbol of human rights. The arguments used against the hand/dove logo are somewhat specious: it is not "official" as opposed to... which other logo? GregorB (talk) 10:48, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, what do you propose? That was idea, as that logo elected in that competition was politically and nationally free of influences... --WhiteWriter ^speaks 11:40, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm not actually proposing anything. I came here to see why the logo was changed, I disagree with both the change and the reasons that were provided, and that's pretty much it. The project banner uses a non-descript torch (which is OK by itself), but the project's home page uses the torch of the Statue of Liberty (which is not only not OK, but is even somewhat perverse, given the fact that Barack Obama just signed indefinite detention into law). I'd like to see a discussion that would address these points as a matter of principle GregorB (talk) 12:00, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with both of you that a logo representing one aspect of human rights (personal liberty) in one country (US) which has a rather large number of Wikipedia articles about its human rights violations is not very NPOV. So someone should propose something more neutral.

Before proposing the humanrightslogo.net logo, someone needs to find a clear statement by the organisation that the logo is distributed under a free licence, and add that info to the WM Commons page File:Human_rights_logo.png i've been spending the last few minutes browsing the site and i have not been able to find that info. http://www.humanrightslogo.net/download says that the logo and related materials "are open source products" and adds that this means that they can be used to promote human rights. But a free licence allows modification, and puts no restrictions on uses. There's no point using a logo that sooner or later may be deleted because the licence is unclear. Boud (talk) 00:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

A very good point. Indeed, "free to be used by everyone, for the promotion and protection of human rights" is strictly speaking not Commons-compatible, as it puts a restriction on use. In fact, even the use of this logo by WikiProject Human Rights could be described as being incompatible with its license, since the purpose of the project is definitely not promotion of human rights (even if it could be reasonably argued that encyclopedic writing about human rights issues implicitly promotes them). GregorB (talk) 09:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I sent an email for link. It was in PD, when they announced the winner, licence (PD) was next to the download section. They will answer soon, i hope. :) --WhiteWriter ^speaks 15:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I got it! They have responded me.

The Human Rights Logo is an open source product, which means it is free to be used by everyone, with no costs or need for a license. In the download centre on our website (http://www.humanrightslogo.net/download) you'll find many different versions and formats of the logo. I am also sending you some attached.

Hope we were able to help!

Best

The Human Rights Logo Team

I suppose that this is it. What next? That was the reason i replaced that image, as we should have only one logo of the wikiproject, and not so many different (and questionable) ones... --WhiteWriter ^speaks 23:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Great for taking the initiative and emailing! The bad news: their response is insufficient for WMF project licensing. The good news: if you explain nicely and send them a new email which they essentially only have to forward to wikimedia.org after checking some key parameters, maybe they'll be willing to forward to WMF with cc: to you...

i would say something like:

Thank you very much for your reply. I believe I can guess the intended meaning of your reply, but unfortunately your statement is legally ambiguous, and I am sure that you can understand that the Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons projects, with huge numbers of text, image, sound and video documents to manage, have to be very careful about copyright questions. The term "open source" can have several different legal meanings, some related to copyright issues and some unrelated to copyright issues.

Could you please verify the following statement and *forward* it to directly to the Wikimedia Foundation at the following email address: (here you write in the permissions-commons -at- wikimedia.org email address in a non-anti-spammed version, i.e. you put in the @ symbol literally - since the person replying to the email doesn't understand copyright issues, s/he may not understand what parts of an antispammed email address must be replaced)? It is critically important that you state the legal name of the copyright holder. My guess is that as an organisation, you probably have a name like "The Human Rights Logo Initiative" and that you have some street address or other identifying information in Germany, but I'm just guessing. Please use your official name as the organisation (or person) holding the copyright in the text below.

Then you include the box at Commons:Commons:Email_templates.

• You can substitute http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Human_rights_logo.png for "SPECIFY THE WORK HERE ... online" since the image is already uploaded.

• I don't see much point trying to guess the institutional name of the copyright holder. They presumably got Predrag Stakic to sign a transfer of copyright agreement, but in any case, since they seem to claim that they have the copyright, it's up to Predrag Stakic to dispute this with them later if s/he wishes. WMF would have the evidence that we believed that Human Rights Logo Initiative or whatever the official name is held the copyright, and it could be deleted once the dispute became known. But such a dispute seems unlikely - Predrag Stakic would probably prefer the positive fame of being the author rather than the negative fame of being the author who fought a copyright battle about a logo whose obvious intention was to be widely used.

• I suggest you choose the default CC-BY-SA + GFDL copyright in the Commons:Commons:Email_templates example, making one less complication that the person replying has to think about. Since the reply you got did not use the term "public domain", the person replying is probably not going to claim that it must be "public domain" rather than CC-BY-SA + GFDL. My guess is that s/he (or the lawyers) are not aware of the term "public domain". In case s/he did say that to you directly, you would have to explain another complication - see Commons:Copyright_tags#Non-U.S._works - this presumably is a German-licensed image, so it would have to declared both non-US public domain + US public domain.

And finish with something like Please send this directly to (permissions-commons -at- wikimedia.org with literal @ symbol). It would be nice to send a copy to me too. Thanks, blabla.

I would say send the email in plain text. My suggestion is (apart from greetings and final salutation):

Thank you very much for your reply. I believe I can guess the intended meaning of your reply, but unfortunately your statement is legally ambiguous, and I am sure that you can understand that the Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons projects, with literally millions of text, image, sound and video documents to manage, have to be very careful about copyright questions. The term "open source" can have several different legal meanings, some related to copyright issues and some unrelated to copyright issues.

Could you please verify the following statement and *forward* it by email directly to the Wikimedia Foundation at the following email address: (permissions-commons -at- wikimedia.org with literal @)? It is critically important that you state your legal name as the copyright holder. My guess is that as an organisation, you probably have a name like "The Human Rights Logo Initiative" and that you have some street/town/country address or other identifying information in Germany, but I'm just guessing. Please use your official name as the organisation (or person) holding the copyright in the text below.

It should be obvious where you need to substitute your organisation's name and details (e.g. street address, or some other legally identifying information) in the text below. And then at the bottom, you will need to put your own name and date so that the Wikimedia Foundation will know who is making the statement on behalf of the organisation.

I hereby affirm that [PLEASE WRITE YOUR ORGANISATION'S NAME AND ADDRESS AS THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HERE], hereafter, "my organisation", is the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Human_rights_logo.png .

My organisation agrees to publish that work under the free license "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0" (unported) and GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).

I acknowledge that by doing so my organisation grants anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product or otherwise, and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws.

I am aware that this agreement is not limited to Wikipedia or related sites.

I am aware that my organisation always retains copyright of this work, and retains the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be claimed to have been made by my organisation.

I am aware that the free license only concerns copyright, and my organisation reserves the option to take action against anyone who uses this work in a libelous way, or in violation of personality rights, trademark restrictions, etc.

I acknowledge that my organisation cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the work may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.

[SENDER'S NAME AND DETAILS (to allow future verification of authenticity)]

[SENDER'S AUTHORITY (Are you the copyright-holder, director, appointed representative signing on behalf of..., etc.)]

[DATE]

After substituting all these details [INSIDE SQUARE BRACKETS, AND THEN REMOVE THE SQUARE BRACKETS], please forward this by email to (permissions-commons -at- wikimedia.org with literal @). And it would be nice to send me a copy too, to keep track of the process. After you forward a filled-out copy of this email to that email address, we should be able to use the logo on the Wikipedia and related Wikimedia Foundation projects without any more legal worries!

i have substituted "my" with "this", and "me" or "I" by "my organisation" in a few places. The info that person X is signing on behalf of organisation Y is supposed to be given at the bottom, but the person signing only has limited power - some of these statements clearly make more sense for the organisation as a whole - the person signing might not work for the organisation in the future and cannot say everything in his/her own name. Disclaimer: i'm not a lawyer, i'm just using common sense.

In case it's not obvious: you need to add your personal greeting and goodbye to this, and you need to substitute the @ email address in the two places i put it. This is a substitution for you, not for the Human Rights Logo contact person :).

After sending the email, you should modify the licence declarations at the Commons page where the image is CC-BY-SA-3.0 and GFDL, and add {{subst:OP}}, as explained on Commons:Commons:OTRS. The idea is that the image is tagged so that anyone looking at the page knows that an email confirmation process is underway.

Boud (talk) 01:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, this was the best explanation i ever saw. Bravo, Boud. But, as a trusted user on commons, i think that by sa 3.0 is not the intention of World human rights logo team. They would probably rather gave it in PD, as CC-BY-SA-3.0 is a bit restrictive, for the purpose of this logo. What do you think? As, open source is more closer to PD that CC-BY-SA-3.0. But i send the e'mail anyway, so we will see that they say. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 15:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It's mainly a question of how many cycles of response/counter-response you think the person who replied to you is willing to go through, and whether s/he and (in principle) the organisation's legal adviser(s) are willing to make the effort of understanding the different licences. For a project whose whole aim is to provide a logo for "wide distribution", it seems to me obvious that the project lacked anyone aware of what free software is and the lingual and legal complications and differences between open-source software vs free and open source software vs free software vs freeware etc. My guess is that the key people running the organisation are not (yet) aware of the differences between PD and CC-BY-SA-3.0. If they realised what PD meant (for example, anyone can publish a modified version under any licence that s/he wishes: the North Korean government could publish its modified version under a restrictive licence and Human Rights Logo Initiative would be legally forbidden from using that modified version!). As for which is closer to "open source", i would say that CC-BY-SA-3.0 is closer to The Open Source Definition. In any case, a WMCommons version which is CC-BY-SA-3.0 will not prevent the Human Rights Logo Initiative from deciding to declare the multiple versions that they distribute from their website as unambiguously non-US-PD + US-PD: "... my organisation always retains the copyright ...". If they are willing to license US-PD + non-US-PD, so be it. You could modify my proposed email above by substituting both US-PD + non-US-PD and say that they can choose that combination of licences if they prefer. But as i said, my guess is that they are not aware of the differences and detailed legal issues, and might be offended at the idea that their lawyers know less about certain legal issues than "some random person who edits the Wikipedia". Boud (talk) 17:01, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

No, no problem, mail i already sent. At the end, we will see their respond, so nothing bad! :) Thanks for fine and good explanations. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 19:49, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

OK. i received the answer! Sorry for late reply, but i had problems with my email...

Dear,

your e-mail has just been forwarded to me. I understand your point, We have one of those situation where the internet and international law seem to make things more complicated then they are in real life ;-)
The human rights logo initiative has been running under German law, since the staff was based in Berlin. Since an "initiative" is no legal entity under German law, and since the initiative was an idea of the German foreign office, the Federal Republic of Germany is the bearer of all rights with reference to the human rights logo. The Federal Republic of Germany committed itself, that it will not make use of its rights to control or exclude anybody from the usage of the logo. Untechnically speaking you can describe Germany´s role as a notary public of the initiative and logo. This makes the logo a real "open source" product with no necessity of any more licenses under German law (for example under cc).
However, since all legal (international) issues are a bit complicated I have asked our lawyer to check your proposal and if he does not object I will sign your paper in representation of the Federal Republic of Germany. I am the initiator of the whole human rights idea and the general coordinator of the initiative.
I have been following your discussion on wikipedia. That´s why I would like to add, that the whole campaign has only one objective: strengthen human rights. You can tell from the jury members that the initiatives has huge credibility - we have for example 5 nobel peace price laureates on the jury and Jimmy Wales the founder of wikipedia. Germany only gave the infrastructure. If you are interested in more details I would be happy to explain them on the phone.
Once I have an answer from our lawyer I will come back to you and sign the paper. If we can support you with more information or logo-material please don´t hesitate to ask!
best

Felix Schwarz

So, following this, and participation of Jimmy Wales in this, logo in question may be by far the best solution for our own wiki logo, imho. Do you have any other proposition about this? I would just sent email to ask for further steps, and sending of email to commons... Also, i would propose licence PD-release if this one is too restrictive? --WhiteWriter^speaks 17:53, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Felix said that he's waiting for the group's lawyer to check the proposed statement. I suggest waiting for the lawyer to do some work :). Then Felix will hopefully send the statement (maybe amended in a way that an OTRS volunteer will accept) to permissions-commons (with cc: to you) and you need to wait for an OTRS volunteer to have time to deal with it. The OTRS volunteer should hopefully update the Commons page where the logo is. See the Commons helps pages about OTRS for more details about OTRS. Boud (talk) 20:30, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, respond, again... :)

Please accept my apologies for keeping you waiting even though the dissemination of the Human Rights Logo via Wikipedia is of great interest for our initiative. However, as the text of the confirmation which you provided is not really consistent with the actual legal situation, I contacted our legal advisor in this regard and had to wait for some time for his feedback. As a result, I would like to explain the legal situation in more detail and would be grateful if you would let me know whether this is sufficient for your needs, or how we could assist Wikipedia with regard to the respective use and dissemination of the logo.

The creator of the Human Rights Logo is Mr Predrag Stakić. Mr Stakić agreed in a binding agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany represented by the Federal Foreign Minister to make the logo available to the public worldwide as an “open content” product and grants everyone the irrevocable right to free and geographically-unlimited use of the logo, including the right to modify the logo. Only in cases where the logo is used and simultaneously information about the origin and provenance is made accessible to the public has Mr Stakić reserved his right to demand that he be named as the creator of the logo. For all other cases of use of the logo, Mr Stakić has waived his right to be named as the logo’s creator. The above-described public licence does not include the right to obtain or attempt to obtain any exclusive right in the logo, e.g. by applying for its registration as a trademark or design right.
The Federal Republic of Germany has been hosting the initiative and therefore acted as the contract party to the above-described agreement with Mr Stakić. Therefore, I think that the Federal Republic of Germany would be the right entity to give the confirmation which you need. I can confirm the existence of the above-described licence on behalf of the initiative/Federal Republic of Germany.
Please let me know whether the above is sufficient for your needs, or how we should go forward in order to provide you with a sufficient confirmation.

Best regards
Felix Schwarz
Personal Secretary
to the Federal Government Commissioner for
Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid

acting for the "Human Rights Logo Team“

So, what now? Can we propose public domain? Can you propose something that i can send to them? --WhiteWriter^speaks 11:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Public domain means (more or less) "absolutely anything is permitted" - Felix does mention some restrictions, so public domain seems to be unlikely to be consistent with the actual agreement that Stakić signed with the German government. IMHO "not really consistent with the actual legal situation" just means that the actual licence and CC-BY-SA are not exactly the same. Given the huge number of free licences that exist, some of which are mutually compatible, others which are incompatible with each other while individually being free licences, that's hardly surprising.

To me, what Felix has stated sounds closer to CC-BY-SA than PD, although at least 2 key things are missing (the legal expert of the group really is lazy IMHO - the whole point of the project is to have a "free-licenced" logo and the legal expert has not bothered to read the legal literature on the subject):

• The_Free_Software_Definition#The_definition
• freedom 0: "grants everyone the irrevocable right to free and geographically-unlimited use of the logo," - YES
• freedom 1: "including the right to modify the logo" - YES
• freedoms 2, 3: distribution of unmodified and modified versions - not stated, so the rights are by default not granted
• BY: "Only in cases where the logo is used and simultaneously information about the origin and provenance is made accessible to the public has Mr Stakić reserved his right to demand that he be named as the creator of the logo" - Wikimedia Commons use necessarily makes the "origin and provenance accessible to the public", so this clause applies - but since CC-BY-SA forces everybody to acknowledge the authorship chain, this should satisfy the clause no matter whether Stakić uses his right or not

IMHO it's really time to get someone from the OTRS volunteers involved, which might speed up the communication cycle a little. My suggestion now: ask Felix to forward his message to the permissions-commons -at- wikimedia.org email address with cc: to you, but also add that the rights to distribute the image and distributed modified copies of the image would be needed in addition to what he has already stated. Then you reply to permissions-commons with cc: to Felix with a brief summary and point to the main URLs of the image at Commons and this discussion. The OTRS volunteer will have to decide if Felix's present statement is enough (sent from a credible email address) or propose modifications if needed.

To help explain the difference between freedoms 0,1 and 2,3 to Felix: based on Felix's statement, it appears to be illegal for anyone to publish an original or modified copy of the logo on a web page, since that constitutes publication and redistribution. Felix's statement only permits "use without redistribution" - for example posting on your own wall or t-shirt, carrying in a demonstration, but not publishing in a newspaper, book or web page. "Geographically unlimited" means that people in Saudi Arabia or North Korea or Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are allowed to post it on their walls or t-shirts or banners or whatever, but since it doesn't state that they may distribute it, they are not allowed (by Stakić, who apparently remains the copyright holder) to publish a few hundred pamphlets with the logo and distribute them - since he hasn't explicitly given this right, which is not part of default copyright.

Another way of putting it, Human Rights Logo's lawyer doesn't seem to understand that "open content" and "unlimited use" are not well-defined, and especially in terms of copyright, they do not give a clear legal authorisation for reproduction (copying, redistribution). Most books in any bookshop are for "unlimited use without geographical restriction" once you have bought them (though some books are illegal in some countries) and their content is "open" in the sense that you're allowed to cite paragraphs from them, lend them to your family, friends and neighbours, etc. But their copyright prevents you from scanning them and posting the full scan on a website.

Anyway, my suggestion is to ask Felix to email directly to the permissions-commons address with cc: to you and within just another 12 to 18 months or so, hopefuly there should be convergence! Boud (talk) 00:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I had some better idea:

OK, its me again!

Tell me, is this ok by you, and your laywers?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HumanRightsLogo.svg

I am quite sad that we have a bit of problems regarding this logo, it should be available to apsolutly everyone, and we are having problems over licence... I would love to tell you that without comercial use files cannot be on wikipedia, as that is one of the licence pillars of wiki.

Please, check it, and tell us what next. Is this licence ok, or not?

And his answer:

Dear,

do you mean, if the text:

"The copyright holder of this work allows anyone to use it for any purpose including unrestricted redistribution, commercial use, and modification."

is ok for us? yes, it is ok!

I don´t see any other legal issues, when I open the link. If there is anything else, that I should look into in particular, please let me know.

Best,

Felix

Therefor, i will start implementation of this logo, instead of lady liberty. --WhiteWriter^speaks 08:32, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Asking for help

On the Wikipedia page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Croatia#Information it takes a while exhausting debate on the writing and writing at all of minority languages in articles about settlements in Croatia. Please if you have time, look at the page and try to help us in forming some kind of agreement. We will highly appreciate your effort.--MirkoS18 (talk) 22:59, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

FA Nomination

1740 Batavia massacre, within this project's scope, has been nominated for featured article status at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1740 Batavia massacre/archive1. Any feedback would be welcome. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:50, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award template

Hey all, in the process of creating an article on Doan Viet Hoat today, I got a little overambitious and also created a template for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureates (below). I'm going to work over the next month or two to fill in some stubs on these folks and try to get it entirely blue. If anybody's interested in the home countries of these people--or is familiar with some of these individuals themselves--I'd welcome the help!

Also, if anybody's better than I at formatting and could give this a more elegant look, by all means take a shot!

Cheers, Khazar (talk) 06:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Help of the prisoners .

we are an organization and working for those prisoners who are lying in jails because they have no money to engage lawyers and they are suffering jails without trials.It is my request to the persons who want to promote human rights in pakistan .kindly contact uswe have started a work of helping the poor innocent prisoners who have been implicated in false criminal cases and suffering injails.It is easy to condemn all the people that they are not doing anything for the betterment of the country but unfortunately all of us just criticizing the people who are working.plz come forward and do needful to empower those people who are trying to work for the poor people of pakistan.my email adreess is gm_ramay@yahoo.com. phone number is 00923216521092 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.177.191.187 (talk) 12:42, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Prisoners and Human Rights Wikiproject

Category:WikiProject_Human_rights_articles seems to have a lot of articles about prisoners. (And of course there is Category:Prisoners_and_detainees.) Searching various Wikiprojects, I haven't found any related to prisoners, though there are all sorts of categories about prisoners or convicted individuals. I think there could be one or more prisoners and human rights-related Wikiprojects.

Examples covered by such a broad category might include human rights activist prisoners, political prisoners, prisoners of war on drugs, prisoners convicted on charges of terrorism, prisoners on death row, prisoners alleging entrapment/prosecutorial/judicial misconduct, prisoners abused/tortured in prison, etc. Of course, some of them also could be included under Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, but that project has more of a crime-related than human rights perspective.

I'm interested in creating a project related more narrowly to the various American prisoners who allege human rights violations. I know a few editors interested in this area and I think it would be easy to find more editors working on individual prisoner articles who would be glad to have such a project, network and learn about other prisoner-related articles to work on. Any thoughts?? Including about the name of such a project? Thanks. CarolMooreDC 06:39, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a pretty good idea. My first thought was that it would be a possibly POV leaning to append that to an article, but it would really be no different than the Human Rights banner itself. I wonder if you might be able to set it up to be a subproject of this project, the way WikiProject Africa has subcategories by country? If you look at Talk:Freedom Neruda, for example, there's subcategories of both Biography and Africa. That might be the way to go in this case, and it would also allow subprojects for non-US countries as well.

You might also post to Wikipedia:WikiProject Correction and Detention Facilities, which I think focuses on the prisons themselves, but I've never fully understood their scope. In either case, happy editing! It sounds like a worthy project. -- Khazar (talk) 11:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

After I posted that I saw a wikiproject that has subpages for different projects. Can't remember which one now. Since human rights violations that land people in prison is a big part of human rights that makes sense. Will look for that again and look at your example tomorrow. Thanks. CarolMooreDC 04:58, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Correction and Detention Facilities cites in it's scope "create and improve articles dealing with the treatment of prisoners". Maybe it would like to extend it to prisoners themselves? benzband (talk) 20:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I started making a comment about "I don't think they want to admit that prisoners are abused in their spanking new state of the art prisons!" But then did a little research and see Category:WikiProject_Correction_and_Detention_Facilities_articles has quite an eclectic list of articles including a few human rights related issues. As does Category:Penology. However, the main focus seems to be prisoner facilities and systems. Abuse just a small part of that. Also, it's really abuse through out the legal system targeting people's rights, from questionable laws, to entrapment, to selective enforcement, to prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, to imprisonment and maltreatment, especially as focused on those in the midst of some long drawn out trial process (whether in or out of jail), detainees, prisoners, etc. who have had most of those problems. Many found here: Category:Prisoners_and_detainees_of_the_United_States_federal_government. Can't think of the exact phrase for that whole process. Still in brain freeze mode. Will report when do and when check up on working group option in general. Thanks. CarolMooreDC 21:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, first checking out Freedom Neruda, I assume you mean the listing of several wikiprojects on his talk page. I'm thinking more in terms of a working group subpage like these which directly come off main page, as opposed to have a totally separate page: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Arts_and_entertainment, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Military, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Science_and_academia. Of course, I think what I'm really thinking of as the broadest category would be Wikipedia:WikiProject_Human rights/Human_rights_abuse_victims or whatever term is shortest for that. Or maybe what we need -- if there were editors wanting to address these in a systematic way -- is Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography/Human_rights_abuse_victims or Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism/Human_rights_abuse_victims or Wikipedia:WikiProject Drug Policy/Human_rights_abuse_victims. Thoughts?? CarolMooreDC 21:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, that's what I meant, too--the categories on Neruda's page displayed their subcategories (such as Biography/Arts and Africa/Cote d'Ivoire), and it just happened to be an example of those subpages I'd recently worked with.

What I worry about with creating a subcategory for "Human rights abuse victims" is that the classification itself implies a POV. Putting it on the page of, say, Bradley Manning seems like the leftist equivalent of labeling the page "WikiProject Traitors", unless we set some solid criteria (which will then lead to numerous debates). Why not just Human Rights/Prisoners? The Human Rights in front will already imply that human rights issues are involved, without needing to make a specific claim as to the status of each prisoner.

You might also narrow it to "Human Rights/US Prisoners" if you like, but just to put my own two cents, I do think it's a shame to limit the scope to US prisoners, when they're already covered more thoroughly on Wikipedia than those of any other nation; just compare the articles on, say, Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier to our fragmentary coverage of international award winners like Min Ko Naing, Andrzej Poczobut, or Zmitser Dashkevich. But perhaps other subcategories can be started by country... I dunno.

That's not to say it's not worth adding more coverage for the US where we can, so I don't mean to discourage you; it's just that as a crossover member of WP:Wikiproject Countering Systematic Bias, I can't resist the plug. =) -- Khazar (talk) 22:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I definitely get you point on POV. Even putting WikiProject Human Rights/Prisoners on some articles will cause a big brouhaha. Narrowing to convicted (or just detained/jailed for long periods) who are in prison rather than wider justice issues probably better too. Listing prisoners by country can just happen on the subpage itself. It can start out a simple page (simpler say than Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Arts_and_entertainment

• Description of project
• Listing prisoners articles needing attention with brief description of why
• Suggested/requested articles for creation
• Relevant AfD and Prod bots/boxes (and others as desired) created using Wikiproject banner tagging (Under "tagging" the above project says Any article related to this work group should be marked by adding |a&e-work-group=yes to the {WPBiography} project banner at the top of its talk page.
• Members list and user box
• Info box is an interesting issue since sometimes prisoners have {Infobox Person} and sometimes {Infobox Criminal} and that choice can be contentious if there are questionable prosecutions.
• Other? Thoughts? CarolMooreDC 00:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like a good plan to me. I especially like the idea of being able to list requested articles. A lot of Arab Spring protesters are getting locked up so fast that it's hard to keep up with new article creation; this might allow us to coordinate our efforts.

I wonder if the infobox solution again might be to just make a template:infobox titled something like {Infobox prisoner}. It could have all the same info as Infobox:criminal, including the formal charges, legal status, etc. but without the connotations of that title; we could use it for Min Ko Naing as well as Jeffrey Dahmer. Might be more work than you want to do, though--I'm just thinking "out loud". Thanks again for taking this on! -- Khazar (talk) 00:22, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I can start a simple page and yell when get stuck, unless you want to :-)

Good idea on info box. Of course there is a whole process to create them. I failed miserably once when I tried. I'd like to see criminal changed to something less POV sounding also, like "Individuals convicted of crime". Some people plead guilty when innocent or cop to something more serious like "conspiracy" when promised time served, or whatever, rather than go to trial. Even people who committed crimes and served their time deserve NOT to be labeled criminal by wikipedia. But then there is a whole Category:Criminals so trying to eliminate it probably would be a losing argument. CarolMooreDC 02:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

FYI, I still am going to do this but sidetracked by couple other things. CarolMooreDC 04:36, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Human rights will have interest in putting on events related to women's roles in women's and human rights. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

United States v. The Progressive

• United States v. The Progressive (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This is a fascinating legal case, anyone want to collaborate on improving the page with me? Please leave a note on my user talk page, — Cirt (talk) 18:21, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Info box

Why are there not an info box for human rights abuses? I tried to create one but lacked the knowledge and it is not getting deleted. If there are a project should there not also be an info box? Darkness Shines (talk) 16:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Restructuring and Expanding "Human Trafficking in Nepal"

I want to notify the members of WikiProject Human Rights for my proposed rewriting of the article "Human Trafficking in Nepal", and invite comments and suggestions!

Human trafficking is one of the greatest human rights violations of our time. This problem is especially rampant in South Asia, and the case of Nepali trafficking is particularly fascinating to study due to the country’s notable poverty, low development, deeply-rooted gender inequality, and prevalence of trafficking. With increasing international attention, the need for reliable, accessible information has become even greater. The public should have access to credible, non-sensationalized information in an organized, professional format that looks critically at the issue from multiple angles, but the current Wikipedia page on "Human trafficking in Nepal" is flagged for inadequate objectivity, citations, and Wikification. I plan on restructuring and editing the article through synthesizing multiple credible sources supported by academic research. I plan to objectively explore the realities of trafficking in Nepal, causes and drivers on both the supply and demand sides, interventions from the Nepali government, the international community, and NGOs, and roadblocks and success of these efforts. Such a pressing issue in human rights in our present day deserves informed dialogue rooted in evidence, and hopefully this edited article will be an important step toward this direction.

Any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks! Jennyxwen (talk) 23:23, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Revising and Expanding "Female Homicides in Ciudad Juarez"

Hello all! I am interested in revising the current article "Female Homicides in Ciudad Juarez." I wanted to open up the discussion of my proposed revision to the members of WikiProject Human Rights. If anyone has any interest or knowledge on this issue, I welcome your feedback or input.

Since the early 1990's there have been hundreds of documented brutal murders of women and girls in the city of Juarez, Mexico. Many of these murders have been classified under the term, femicide. This issue sparked international human rights attention due to perceived inaction on behalf of police, city, and government officials. As expressed on the article talk page by several Wiki contributors, the current page on "Female Homicides in Ciudad Juarez" is vague and inadequate at explaining this complex issue. I plan to objectively analyze available information from the academic community on this issue and present it from a neutral point of view in a comprehensive manner. There are various factors involved in the violence against women in Juarez that have been analyzed in the academic community including the implementation of NAFTA, the maquila industry, gangs, and drug violence which I hope to explore in detail among others. This issue has already demanded international attention, I hope that the revisions I make to the current "Female Homicides in Ciudad Juarez" help to provide better information to the Wikipedia community on this important issue. Cnovoa17 (talk) 02:24, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

The addition of Child Begging

Hi Everyone! I am interested in adding to the information currently available on Child Begging. The entry would primarily focus on forced begging in children throughout a multitude of countries, most specifically in relation to human trafficking. Child begging is a necessary addition to the Human Rights Wikiproject given the project's mission to address current threats facing humanity today. The forced begging of children certainly falls under this umbrella and by adding to this project I hope to increase knowledge on this important matter. While the practice of forced begging is mentioned briefly in articles on human trafficking in several countries, there has yet to be a centralized hub for this information. I was wondering if anyone has thoughts on whether it would be best to add information on child begging to the current article on Child Trafficking or if you could think of a better placement? The project emphasizes the importance of making information easily accessible, and I definitely want to add the entry where it is both most needed and most relevant. The current article on Begging does not seem fitting given its more Western focus and it does not discuss begging facilitated by coercion. I would love to hear your input since this is my first attempt at a Wikipedia article so your guidance is truly appreciated!Avo92 (talk) 21:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a great topic, and I'm surprised we don't have an article about this already. One article you might include some detail in/about would be Talib. I believe Talib technically just means a student of a madrasa, but in practice in West Africa, these children often are sent there by poor families and are then put out on the streets as forced beggars (called "garibou" in Mali and elsewhere). You might narrow the title of your article to simply "Forced juvenile begging" or the like to avoid having to cover both forced and unforced begging. Don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions.

You could then insert a simple paragraph in child trafficking covering your main points, with a "hatnote" like this one {{Main|Forced begging by children}}. Your topic seems important enough that I'd hate to see it limited to a paragraph or two in a larger-scope article... it depends on how ambitious you want to be, however. Khazar2 (talk) 18:18, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

That is a great suggestion, considering it's very hard to draw the line between begging that is technically considered forced and begging on one's own accord when it comes to minors. I have actually focused much of my research on the current state of begging in Senegal concerning Talib boys; even though it has its own page already the issue definitely deserves more notice. I am doing this particular entry for a course and my instructor advised me to include it simply as an addition to the Child trafficking page, however, I certainly agree that this is something that should be covered far more extensively. I will talk to my professor this week to see if I can make an entirely new article, because I am certainly up for the task and am also very surprised by its lack of presence currently. Thank you so much for all of your input and making that page for me! I will be sure to keep you posted on developments.Avo92 (talk) 01:02, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

My pleasure. I met quite a few Talib in my own travels in the region and was often disturbed by what I could see of their lives. I'll be glad to pitch in where I can. Khazar2 (talk) 01:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Trafficking of children

WikiProject Human Rights aims to develop and manage a comprehensive and accurate set of Wikipedia articles pertaining to human rights. In the upcoming weeks, I plan to make significant edits and additions to Trafficking of children, an article that is, appropriately, part of this WikiProject. Though this article is listed as High Importance, it is also Start Class, and thus in need of a significant amount of restructuring, revision, and expansion: the information listed is outdated and severely lacking in terms of content and writing style. I plan to create several new sections concerning child trafficking mechanisms, prevalence, impacts, and solutions. Essentially, I hope to provide a solid basic structure for this article that facilitates further more in-depth contributions by my fellow Wikipedia contributors. As I move forward with my proposed editing plans, I would sincerely appreciate any feedback. I look forward to the opportunity to develop this article, and ultimately, contribute to this project. Crr4 (talk) 21:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Human Trafficking in Houston, Texas

I am creating an entry on “Human Trafficking in Houston, Texas” which will specifically explore the types of trafficking found in the city as well as the city’s characteristics, laws and culture, which make the city a popular hub in the United States. There are pages created for Human Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery, but there are not sections designated specifically for Houston. Even on the page for Houston, Texas, where other crimes are listed, human trafficking is not. I plan to edit the page “Slavery in the United States” and add a section about the contemporary slavery issues in Houston today. Are there any objections to this? Right now the page is concerned with slavery in colonial America up until the Civil war, my edits would cover a very different time period and type of slavery. Amacune (talk) 22:25, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

HIV/AIDS in South African townships

WikiProject Human Rights intends to enhance the number and quality of Wikipedia articles that address human rights violations. In accordance with this goal, I would like to create a new article entitled "HIV/AIDS in South African townships." In this article, I will demonstrate the link between HIV/AIDS and poverty and the long-term effects of apartheid on health disparities in South Africa. Apartheid, which was not formally discontinued until 1994, left non-white South Africans trapped in underdeveloped areas known as townships with little access to social services. Today, HIV/AIDS is particularly concentrated in South African townships due to poverty and a lack of education and awareness programs. I hope to contribute to the efforts of WikiProject Human Rights through this article by underlining the relationship between the discriminatory policies of apartheid, which violated the human rights of black South Africans during the twentieth century, and the current HIV/AIDS crisis in South African townships, which perpetuates this violation.

I welcome your comments and suggestions! Thanks!

Jak8 (talk) 22:47, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Human trafficking in the United States

I plan on doing major edits to the page, Human trafficking in the United States . The page is currently written based primarily using newspapers as citations on trafficking that occurs in the United States. I plan replacing this information with scholarly research surrounding current and past debates about human trafficking in the United States. In discussing Human Trafficking, I hope to create a better definition of those being trafficked as they are presented in the scholarly works. In addition, I hope to elaborate on the different types of current legislation with regard to human trafficking and the debates surrounding the implementation of such legislation. I would appreciate any feedback about my proposed revisions. Specifically, please feel free to comment about any part of this topic you feel I might be missing, or comment on my user page if you would like hear about my revisions in more detail.

Cyoung530 (talk) 23:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Article improvement: Sexual violence in South Africa

I am planning on editing the Sexual violence in South Africa article. Sexual violence is a huge human rights violation and sexual violence in South Africa specifically is a great problem. I’m planning on adding more information about what sexual violence is because it is a broad topic and covers many forms, such as rape and sexual assault, child sexual assault, sexual harassment, unwanted sexual contact/touching/exposure, etc., all of which violate human rights. South Africa has the highest reported incident of rape in the world and the existing article now does not go into enough depth into the issue. The international community has also been paying attention to the problem, especially in cases of child and baby rapes and corrective rape. I hope to use a lot of evidence through employing medical studies, South African Constitution, laws, and reports to the United Nations, and more to give a more comprehensive account of this issue. I think that it is important to add onto this article in order to increase the knowledge in the community of this important human rights violation. I would appreciate any feedback. Juliabarrow3 (talk) 00:28, 9 March 2012 (UTC)Juliabarrow3

Revision and Expansion of Immigrant health care in the United States

I plan on expanding the stub article on Immigrant health care in the United States and adding it to WikiProject Human Rights. Though rather self-explanatory, WikiProject Human Rights seeks to include subjects pertaining to human rights—the scope of which includes the right to a decent standard of health. The rate of health care coverage between immigrants and native-born citizens is marked by a clear gap, with evidence from a number of medical journal studies and government data. This disparity has major implications for the inequitable distribution of health resources in the United States, and it furthermore indicates a violation of the foreign-born population’s human rights. As such, I wish to further develop this entry, currently a stub article, by adding more thorough background information. This topic complies with WikiProject Human Rights’ stated mission and should be recognized given the context of rising immigration rates in the U.S. If there are any objections or suggestions, I value all input. Thanks so much! JoyceChou (talk) 01:55, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Expansion of Water Scarcity in Africa

I plan on editing the current article on Water Scarcity in Africa and would like to add it to WikiProject Human Rights. I will expand the current brief article to address how clean water scarcity effects health, opportunities for women, education, development, agriculture, and regional conflict. All of these issues pertain to basic human rights in that when any of these elements are hindered by a lack of clean water, the country's ability to develop is not only stalled, but in many instances reversed. The current state of Africa's development is a glaring example of how denial of a basic human necessity, such as sanitary water, leads to the inability of African nations to support equal access to education, technological advances, and sustainable positive community growth. These issues are very much in line with WikiProject Human Rights' scope, and I would appreciate any thoughts from members on what should or shouldn't be included in the revision of this article. Hmccann (talk) 03:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Addition of Malnutrition to WikiProject Human Rights

I am an undergraduate pre-medical student at Rice University, and through my studies and experiences I have become passionate about health issues pertaining to unequal access to resources. I am excited to revise the malnutrition page in Wikipedia, which is part of [WP:MED]]. I also propose to add the article to WP:HUMANRIGHTS. I see access to adequate nutrition as a basic human right, and the capability of feeding oneself should be protected. While researching malnutrition, I came across a few conflicting definitions which made it difficult to understand exactly what malnutrition is. Here is how UNICEF defines malnutrition:

Malnutrition is a broad term commonly used as an alternative to undernutrition but technically it also refers to overnutrition. People are malnourished if their diet does not provide adequate calories and protein for growth and maintenance or they are unable to fully utilize the food they eat due to illness (undernutrition). They are also malnourished if they consume too many calories (overnutrition).

(http://www.unicef.org/progressforchildren/2006n4/malnutritiondefinition.html).

Based on this understanding, the current article has an incorrect definition and focus. It discusses deficiencies of nutrients (vitamins and minerals) in length. I propose to correct this faulty information and refocus the article on the actual definition. Since this will involve deleting certain parts of the article, I would appreciate feedback and critique throughout the process. I would also like the article to include more information on the social causes and effects of malnutrition.

As my contribution is for a “Poverty, Gender, and Development” course, I will be adding a section on gender issues relating to malnutrition. Also, people (especially women) with low socioeconomic standing are disproportionately affected by malnutrition. I seek to bring up more social issues surrounding the causes and effects of malnutrition, and plan on adding the article to WP:Economics to encourage more collaboration between different groups on this issue.

Through my research I have sought well-founded arguments and credible research, but I am seeking feedback and input on the most crucial issues pertaining to nutrition as a human right. Through this process, I seek to raise awareness of the causes and effects of malnutrition, and advocate thinking on possible solutions and policy changes that could diminish the extent of malnutrition. Khatchell (talk) 22:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Discrimination based on skin color

According to the WikiProject Human Rights mission statement, the project seeks to maintain an efficient and navigable category system to ensure that all human rights related articles can easily be found by interested readers. I am planning on improving the article on Discrimination based on skin color and making it more substantive. By changing the article title to “Colorism” the article becomes much more easier to find, and can be linked various theoretical arguments. I also intend to improve the wording of syntax of the article as well as add a worldwide perspective. In addition, I want to expand the article to include referenced information for areas such as Asia and Africa. I will use sources such as Rondilla’s Is Lighter Better?: Skin-Tone Discrimination among Asian Americans and Glenn’s Shades of difference: why skin color matters as starting points for expanding these sections. In addition, I want to discuss the impact of colorism on the commercial industry, perceptions of beauty, the accumulation of wealth, and individual outcomes. Futhermore, “colorism” is directly related to issues of human rights because it is a type of discrimination that leads to adverse differential treatment within and across cultures. The current Wikipedia entry on “Discrimination based on skin color” is not substantive enough to provide a comprehensive, unbiased perspective to an issue that greatly influences social structures and human rights at large. I would appreciate any feedback, and look forward to contributing to the project.

Cctomball (talk) 15:59, 9 March 2012 (UTC)