User:Robertinventor/tban appeal draft

draft 1 - draft 2 - draft 3

Draft for a t-ban on Wikipedia - done here as I can't mention the banned topic on Wikipedia until I submit the appeal. To be submitted at AN.

Request to lift topic ban (Robertinventor)

I wish to get my indef topic ban in the Buddhism topic area lifted. The main reason for the original topic ban is that my talk page posts were too long and I did too many of them. A secondary reason was that I did too many minor edits of my talk page posts after posting them. Several other points were mentioned but those are the ones that were given most weight in the discussion. All of these are easily addressed.

The original dispute over appropriate sourcing for articles on Buddhism was already over when the t-ban was taken out against me. It happened during a discussion in WP:RSN which was the last of the options available to try to resolve it. In the discussion the RSN editors there explained that they couldn't rule on an entire category of types of source. They suggested an RfC, which is something we had already tried with no success. It was in the middle of this discussion that I was taken to WP:ANI by the editors opposing us in the dispute, for verbosity, and for too many edits of my talk page posts, sometimes after they had been answered to.

I am an editor in good standing, and active in many areas of Wikipedia. I am often involved in talk page discussions and have only ever been taken to WP:ANI for my talk page discussions in the Buddhism topic area. I have no other sanctions against me.

The dispute is now over completely. @Dorje108: and myself have copied the deleted content to another project off wiki. I have never done more than minor edits in this topic area Robertinventor top edits in the Main namespace. If you lift the t-ban appeal, I expect to do only the occasional minor edit and wikignoming in the Buddhism topic area. Nevertheless I think this is a valuable addition to the project, fixing occasional minor issues.

I have added messages to my user space asking editors to please draw my attention to the matter if I do any of these things.

• User:Robertinventor#Over lengthy talk page posts or too many posts
• User:Robertinventor#Too many posts
• User:Robertinventor#Too many edits for a talk page post? Just remind me to use the sandbox - thanks!

Given how little editing I do of the Buddhism topic area myself, it's unlikely that this will be needed. But just in case, as explained there, this is how I can deal with these issues if they arise again, see also below (collapsed)

Extended content
The minor edits issue is easily fixed by using the sandbox I often use the wrong word or transpose letters, and I also copy edit posts for clarity. On other platforms it is not a problem. When I post in Wikipedia I tend to forget that it is an issue here, for instance, because other editors get notification of my edits. I was unaware of this way of using the sandbox until my t-ban (apparently someone mentioned it to me before, but I didn't understand or didn't notice). It was @Softlavender: who made this suggestion in the discussion. Since then, I have been using the sandbox for long talk page posts that need care for composition. I sometimes forget, recently another editor mentioned it on my talk page, [User_talk:Robertinventor#User:Robertinventor#Too_many_edits_for_a_talk_page_post User:Robertinventor#Too many edits for a talk page post, and I immediately started using the sandbox for this discussion. The t-ban discussion paid particular attention to a comment I made on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard that I edited after it had been replied to. The issue was that I did not indicate the correction with underline and strikeout. What confused me was that the discussion was in a separate subheading fron the comment I was editing. I now know that this still triggers the WP:REDACT guideline on the comment that is being discussed, and will not do this in future. The overlong talk page posts can also be fixed in the same way - by putting a post into my sand box and then working on it until I get it down to a reasonable length. I have also worked on some User:Robertinventor/Work arounds for lengthy talk page comments. Note that my long posts are written with the aim of improving Wikipedia. The issue has always been verbosity, not intent. Too many posts This can be dealt with by leaving more time between posts for other editors to respond, taking a wiki break if a conversation becomes heated and so on. I have an alternative wikipedia account disclosed on my user page to use if I need to take a wikibreak from a conversation in Wikipedia in my main account (of course editing in topics well away from any current discussion for the main account).

Background to the dispute

I was indef t-banned in the Buddhism topic area in the course of a dispute over articles on central ideas in Buddhism that had a major rewrite in 2014. We had irreconcilable differences in views about what count as reliable sources in this topic area, and indeed, what the central ideas of Buddhism are. Our objective was to get large amounts of highly cited material restored, after it was deleted from several articles on central topics in Buddhism.

These articles were written in a large part by @Dorje108:. He worked on them in collaboration with other editors, before the sudden rewrite which removed nearly all the work he had contirbuted to Wikipedia in these articles over the last several years. I only did one or two minor edits in the Buddhism topic area myself. I was topic banned for talk page activity during my attempts to get the material restored rather than for editing.

After my final indef t-ban it became clear to Dorje108 and myself that we have have taken the matter as far as we can in Wikipedia. We had already tried RfC's, see for instance:

• RfC: Are texts written by Buddhist writers and teachers that explain basic Buddhist concepts reliable secondary sources?

The increase in talk page activity that lead to my indef t-ban started when I tried to add a WP:POV tag to the Four Noble Truths article. I did this as part of a suggestion to try to resolve the dispute by having the two WP:SUBPOVs I'd identifired represented in separate sections or in separate articles, in much the same way the multiple WP:SUBPOVs are handled on the Resurrection of Jesus. However, the other editors did not agree that it needed this tag, and the tag was soon edited, and then removed. I did not try to reintroduce it but instead tried to resolve it on the talk page. When that discussion was not resolved, the opposing editors took it to DRN to resolve this dispute about whether the Four Noble Truths article in its current form represented a particular WP:SUBPOV.

After the DRN was closed with no outcome, the closing editor sent us to RSN, to ask them if they could help on this topic of whether the sourcing of the article primarily to Western academics made it into a WP:SUBPOV. This was the last resort, and it turned out to be inappropriate, sending us back to RfC's which we had already tried. So, already at the time of the t-ban we had gone through all possible ways to resolve the dispute, with no further avenue remaining.

Our solution: New Encyclopedia of Buddhism

We decided that the only way forward is to take the deleted material from Wikipedia, and to use it to start a new "Encyclopedia of Buddhism", which we have done. This is essentially the Wikipedia Buddhism project, but using as its starting point the original versions of the articles on central topics in Buddhism such as Four Noble Truths and Karma in Buddhism from 2014 or earlier.

These are sourced in the way that we consider appropriate for this topic area. The main difference is that we treat scholars in Buddhist traditions, including those who have taken monastic vows, as reliable secondary sources on an equal basis with Western academics. We treat them as the preferred source in matters on which they have special knowledge (e.g. their extensive knowledge of and fluency in the Tibetan or Pali texts). These are the likes of the Dalai Lama (who has written many books on Buddhism), Walpola Rahula, Prayudh Payutto, Ringu Tulku etc. These are the Eastern equivalent of Christian theologians. We took these articles, along with many other articles on Buddhism that Dorje108 wrote, and at the same time, copied over much of the Buddhism project from Wikipedia, which of course is permitted by CC by SA. This project is taking up a lot of my time nowadays.

Why I am asking for the ban to be lifted

As was remarked in the t-ban discussion, I never did more than minor edits in the Buddhism topic area. The dispute arose due to the deletion of content by @Dorje108: and oher editors who followed the same sourcing policy as he did. I do not expect to make more than minor edits myself in the future. I never proposed to add significant new content myself.

My only edits of the articles themselves of any significance since 2014, apart from that attempt to add a WP:POV tag to the Four Noble Truths article were these minor edits of Pali Canon.

AFAIK the WP:POV tag is the only edit I have made in the Buddhism topic area that has ever been reverted. So, apart from that, I am not a controversial editor in this topic area.

However, though the amount of editing I do in this particular topic area is low, and mainly in the form of wikignoming, I still have reasons to get the ban lifted.

• I would prefer not to have a topic ban against me in Wikipedia. For instance, it can sometimes lead editors in unrelated topic areas to jump to conclusions that you are a "problem editor".
• Sometimes while copying articles over to our new encyclopedia I spot errors in the original, simple ones, that I'd like to fix but of course can't fix in Wikipedia, only in our new encyclopedia.

Example of the type of edit I'd like to be able to do in the Buddhism topic area

The Gautama Buddha article has a minor error. It says

• "It was either a small republic, or an oligarchy, and his father was an elected chieftain, or oligarch."

The cite given, by Gombrich, actually describes how he thinks the Sakya society worked in some detail and then goes on to say

• "Some historians call this an oligarchy, some a republic; certainly it was not a brahminical monarchy"

The original source for the statement seems to be mis-paraphrased. Gombrich was not referring to a difference in view amongst historians about what kind of a system it was, but rather, a difference in view about what to call it. For such a high profile article, one of the central ones on Buddhism, I'd take this to the talk page. For minor articles with clear mistakes I'd use WP:BOLD and just fix it. Either way, it would be good to be able to fix these minor errors on the spot as I notice them, or mention them on the talk page so that other editors can fix them.

This might also involve wikignoming type edits such as fixing broken links or adding an extra cite.

No remaining major issues that would cause problems

Given that we have decided to just move the old 2014 articles to another encyclopedia, and are not going to try to restore them here, there is no remaining major issue that would cause problems in the Buddhism topic area in Wikipedia. Based on these considerations I'm requesting you to remove my indef t-ban in the Buddhism topic area, Thanks!