Bollywood and Plagiarism Page unceremoniously deleted edit
The Bollywood and plagiarism page had been around for several years. It was compiled meticulously with the collaboration of several users. Now with the request of a couple of users this page has been deleted and redirected to a single watered down paragraph in the Bollywood page. For some unknown reason they don't want wikipedia readers to see this page. This is against the spirit of wikipedia and the internet itself which is to keep information free and open.
I request anyone interested in keeping wikipedia an open source of information to help me in this task. Please express your opinion at Talk:Bollywood - where concensus regarding this subject is being discussed.
The argument for Neutrality Re-examined:
It has been argued here that putting up a list of copied films does not meet neutrality requirements of wikipedia.
Jesus is considered a God by many people - Is this a neutral statement? It is factually correct. It does not provide any opinions one way or the other.
The Bollywood film Criminal is considered to be a copy of the hollywood film The Fugitive by many people - Is this a neutral statement? How is this statement different from the previous statement?
If a well known fact offends some people, should it be considered as Not neutral?
The lack of sources argument Re-examined:
It has been argued here that there is no way to verify that a film is a copy of another film, hence it is only opinion of the individuals editing the page. I would like to make 3 points in response to this. 1) How is it opinion to make a factually correct statement like The Bollywood film Criminal is considered to be a copy of the hollywood film The Fugitive by many people?
2) If there is a WP:XYZ which quotes that EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE on wikipedia has to be sourced, I'd like to see it. It defeats the very purpose of wikipedia which is to compile the information in a collaborative manner from internet users. Why repeat the information which is in other places?
3) If you go to each of the individual wiki pages of some of the copied films, you will find that users have mentioned the Hollywood films they are copied from. If it can be mentioned here, why not in a list?
How do we control it when people make false allegations about movies being copied? Just like we control everything else on wikipedia - by collaborative editing.
The libel argument Re-examined:
It has been argued that listing films which are copied is libellous. Libel is when you make a false statement to harm another individual. Is it libel to say that The LTTE is considered a terrorist organization by several countries? This is a factually correct statement and is in no way considered as libel. So why is it libel when we say The Bollywood film Criminal is considered to be a copy of the hollywood film The Fugitive by many people?
The 'Unencyclopedic' argument Re-examined:
It has been argued that putting a list of copied films is Unencyclopedic. So what exactly does Unencyclopedic really mean? Open any dictionary and there is NO SUCH WORD.
If anything that is not in a Encyclopedia in Unencyclopedic then probably 90% of wikipedia is Unencyclopedic since it contains information not found in a standard encyclopedia.
One of the examples given here by a user was that the yearly sales figures of tampons in a region is Unencyclopedic. Does that imply Unencyclopedic means Irrelevant? Lets re-examine the Bollywood and Plagiarism page with this 'standard'. The page has been updated by several users over several years. It is a topic of active interest and can hardly be considered irrelevant.
Moreover, why such an urgency to go behind it and delete a topic which no one is supposedly interested in?