User talk:Jimbo Wales

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"This article is a Disgrace to Wikipedia"

Not my words but those of a recent visitor to Prem Rawat. A few years ago this article attracted considerable controversy when Rawat followers (headed by 'administrator' Jossi Fresco) conducted a massive and consistent clean-up operation of all articles even remotely connected to the subject. Most editors then simply gave up in the face of such zealous partisanship. There followed Arbcoms etc and the main offending followers were banned for a year. Most of those with interest and experience to edit the article had already thrown in the towel faced with the mammoth task of reconstructing the remaining mess. The banned followers have now returned with doubled determination to finish their job. Current impartial editors (attracted mainly by the controversy rather than knowledge of the subject) do not see the insiduous extent of misinformation but continue to express that the article appears disgracefully biased (as indicated above). A few exhausted editors think that to leave it alone is a preferable compromise. Their roles are now reduced to endless arguing over minutiae thrown at them by filibustering Rawat followers. No-one can possibly get around to tackling the bigger problems in these conditions. I'd like to but (like many others who've given up) don't have time to get past the 'owners' of the article. It's surely a major weakness that, despite all the mechanisms Wikipedia has in place to assure accuracy and fairness, determined partisans can successfully gain the upper hand over the years in this way. PatW (talk) 12:41, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, can you give me a list of 5-10 articles in this area to read, along with what you think to be the best 10 or so reliable sources to read? I can't become an instant expert, of course, but I could learn enough about the area to be able to make a more informed judgment and to study this case in more depth.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:30, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Will do... after the match :-) PatW (talk) 19:38, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

There was a match? (Haha, just an anti-American joke of sorts!) I am waiting for the world to get interested in a truly global sporting event like... the World Series!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I think he refereed to the final Spain vs. Netherlands in the FIFA world cup _→AzaToth 21:49, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I'm another editor from the Prem Rawat article, (I discovered the article as a mediator) and I would like to give you a slightly less extreme version of what PatW said above (no offense Pat, but you can get a bit extreme at times). Essentially, the article is under an extensive review to ensure that it complies with the current BLP policies. While doing this, a couple of editors noted (NickWright, PatW, and one or two others) that the article seemed a bit clean for such a controversial figure. PatW proposed the addition of a "Criticsims" box, but as you and I both know, those are POV and troll magnets that are often rife with poor writing. I suggested that we reivew the avalible sources and include critical content within the main body of the article. That's about where we are at this point in time. I can give you a couple of sources if you would like, but the best person to contact regarding Prem Rawat sources would be Will Beback a longtome editor of teh article who has composed a library of Rawat materials. Also in regards to sources, I am currently in the process of vetting some of the more controversial sources to ensure BLP compliance. Ronk01 talk, 01:46, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate your offer to check out the situation. A simple Google search leads to a plethora of sites that in turn lead to articles both critical and supportive of the subject. I tried to single out specific articles from these sites but decided it may be more useful to link to indexes on the whole. It's due to such an abundance of obvious critical material that I think many editors agree that the article still appears one-sided to the public.

Anti

• http://www.ex-premie.org/pages/press_room.htm
• http://www.prem-rawat-critique.org
• http://www.rickross.com/groups/vital.html
• http://prem-rawat-maharaji.info/
• http://www.prem-rawat-bio.org/
• http://ex-premie.org/
• http://ex-premie.org/gallery/news/index.html
• http://gurumaharaji.info/

Pro

• http://tprf.org/
• http://www.wopg.org/
• http://www.wordsofpeace.org.au/
• http://www.one-reality.net/wikipedia.htm  :-)
• http://maharaji.net/ (Official Website of Prem Rawat apparently)

The reliabilty of sources is historically the major bone of contention in this article. A current example is here where an editor is arguing to exclude the word 'scandal' despite it being used in an apparently reliable source. It's partly this type of constant, tiresome selective rejection of sources that resulted in this Arbcom decision. The 2 previously banned editors are again highly active on the article(s) and no-one wants the Talk Page to revert to a being 'battleground' again.

Recent reliable scholarly sources are rare but there are a lot of older ones, mostly which I don't have, and frankly my head is still spinning a bit as to what is reliable - the arguments never seem to end. At various stages these have been argued as reliable and then some not....

• http://www.ex-premie.org/papers/dlm_social_org.htm
• http://www.ex-premie.org/papers/charisma.htm
• http://www.prem-rawat-bio.org/library/wigm/wigm.htm
• http://www.prem-rawat-bio.org/library/sr/Soul_Rush.html

I have a few more recent in pdf format but don't know where to send them. Some of the more impartial, experienced editors have collections of sources which they are fond of. Hope this helps for the time-being. Thanks. PatW (talk) 22:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I apologise if my links have been too general but please understand that my involvement in this article has been necessarily fragmented and mainly limited to Talk Page discussions - in fact I have made few edits. However I am interested to help sort out the wheat from the chaff and will try to assemble pdf's of specific articles here for those who are interested to download.PatW (talk) 01:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I'll be taking a look at this later today and off and on this week. (I have a slight amount of post-Wikimania down time available.) My first instinct here was surprise that none of the sites you listed appear to me to be reliable sources at all. They mostly look like, at best, self-published websites. Activist websites for and against don't strike me as the kind of sources that are going to get us very far towards neutrality. But that's just a first thought, not a fully informed judgment.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

[Addendum: I see that what you linked to are indexes of news articles as well as self-published sites, so my first impression was mistaken. Thanks, I'm reading stuff.]--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I was afraid that your first impression would be that (in fact I've already been criticised for subjecting you to these links.) My reply was simply that I figured you'd have the wit to navigate to those articles - much as anyone might do who is interested in gaining a general picture of the subject. I agree that to refer to the pro and anti sites is itself potentially inflammatory on Wikipedia so perhaps it'd be better in future to simply go the filesharing route, although historically many of the articles existing sources have been most easily perused by editors via these anti sites.PatW (talk) 10:32, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo, I've sent you an email regarding this matter. No response required.   Will Beback  talk  08:56, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I've never even heard of Prem Rawat before ... but upon seeing this discussion I went I read the article. From my perspective as a disinterested (and somewhat ignorant) party -- this article comes across as one of the better BLP articles on controversial people that I've read on Wikipedia. Unlike too many other articles I didn't get the sense that the article was pushing a POV. Now maybe that just means that it contains very skillfully written POV -- but my sense was that the article did a good job integrating positive and negative information about Prem Rawat without being sensational. Hoping To Help (talk) 12:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I award you with this Barnstar

		The Excellent User Page Award
		I like your user page.  Polymathsj Talk 00:51, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I read somewhere that Jimbo did not design his userpage but it was User:Phaedriel who did. Is this true?--White Shadows ^{I ran away from you} 02:36, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I changed the colors. Do you like the new ones better? Access Denied^(t|c|g|d|s) 04:49, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

IPs are meaningless

not sure why i got the hate mail when i checked wikipedia article

but it seems that you all seem to think that all IPs are fixed

may i suggest that you REQUIRE log in before editing an article

the IP approach is totally erroneous and bogus —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.103.155.74 (talk) 17:23, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

We are aware that IP addresses can change, but they are the best way we have of attributing edits to people that choose not to create an account. We don't want to require creating an account because it would result in some people that would otherwise make useful edits deciding not to bother. --Tango (talk) 17:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

too hard to find a person or fix things

maybe wikipedia makes sense to you but to users wanting to fix problems or report same cannot do it unless they already know how

i got your name by accident when you all assumed that my dynamic IP of the day was the same as someone you wanted to ban or somesuch

otherwise i would still be hunting for a way to contact any person or even find a *DIRECT* way to make a correction/complaint that would be read not just disappear onto some "talk" page that noone ever looks at

you all need a direct email that will be read by some honch in a timely manner and for defamation or more serious issues a telephone number to reach someone with authority to fix the problem asap —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.103.155.74 (talk) 17:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I recommend that you use 'info@wikipedia.org'.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:14, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Update

FYI, please see my actions, here: [1]. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 23:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Real Clear Politicizing

Jimbo, I've been editing here off and on for roughly 3-4 years. I've yet to become as impatient and frustrated with the lack of help and oversight from uninvolved editors. I even felt it was quite necessary to simply excuse myself from editing the article or articles like it out of concern that my efforts and arguments have been meaningless and ignored, respectively. At RealClearPolitics, a quick look at the history and talk page shows that a quote in the lede has become highly contentious. One previous attempt by another editor drawing attention to possible NPOV violations, and my own request for comment have yielded no help whatsoever from uninvolved editors. I felt the points I've made in regards to why I think this quote should be excluded from the lede were quite clear and reasonable, initially citing a violation of wikipedia policy regarding undue weight. I pointed out that editors were attempting to keep the quote in the lede on the basis that it's the philosophy of their website, which I argued can't be demonstrated. In return, my arguments were consistently misconstrued (several strawmen appearing out of the woodwork). I was also accused of editing tendentiously, wikilawyering, being overly meticulous (okay, I'll cop to that), not understanding how wikipedia works, and misunderstanding and bastardizing the RfC process by allegedly summarizing the debate inaccurately (unbeknownst to me, I wanted to do this to predetermine the outcome of the RfC). While I won't make excuses for my occasional impatience/incivility, I still feel I've been mostly fair to other editors here and that these accusations were baseless.

As I've edited over the years, what's always been in the back of my mind regarding contentious articles like this is that it can become easy for a small number of vocal editors to make nonsense arguments to annoy and exhaust other editors to death in favor of having an article look the way they want it to, even in violation of policy. I'm not suggesting that I can know for sure that this is what has taken place here, but the lack of intervention from uninvolved parties here is alarming. I'd really like to believe in this site again, but it's hard not to get discouraged after seeing this kind of silliness so often that my words become completely useless. Ubiq (talk) 14:14, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The opening paragraphs seem pretty reasonable to me. The opening sentence says it is non-partisan, so excluding note of the owner/ operators views might be misleading. The text suggests that they reacted to a perceived bias to their own views, but have sought to include a variety of views. I suppose other aspects of the website could be fleshed out more in the opening, but the background seems fairly balanced to me. Can you explain how it is misleading, innaccurate or undue? Freakshownerd (talk) 16:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

My issue is directed towards Jimbo, and concerns a lack of assistance from uninvolved editors, even though involved editors went through proper channels to obtain some.

I don't believe the lead was inaccurate, but that there was undue weight given to a quote that editors insisted was part of the website's founding philosophy. I explained why I believe it's undue weight a million times on the talk page and the NPOV noticeboard, but if you want a brief rundown of the issue, just look at my argument under the RfC section of the talk page. I have since unwatchlisted the page, and don't really care about the article itself anymore. I'm more concerned with how easy it was for one editor to get away with making the page his own by constantly reverting others' edits and then providing laughable justification for inclusion, all the while making baseless accusations and blatantly misunderstanding other editors' arguments for exclusion. Ubiq (talk) 01:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

One way to get more uninvolved eyes might be to post your concern here if the others venues aren't working. I believe this page gets quite a bit of attention. Sorry about your frustrations. Good luck. Freakshownerd (talk) 02:44, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Ubiq, I know your comment is directed toward Jim, but I wanted to show my support, which I rarely do. I myself have been involved in a content disputed for a good number of months now and it's impossible to get uninvolved editors ever to comment. I just wanted to say I sympathize. Wikipedia is extremely frustrating when there is a dispute. As long as an editor or two wishes to oppose anything and has enough time to do so- they will prevail, regardless of the content of the dispute or the arguments involved. It's just the way this place is.. Outback the koala (talk) 03:16, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

It may well be that uninvolved editors looked at it, as I just did, and came to the same conclusion that I did - it's fine as it is, it would be fine with that comment moved out of the lede, it would be fine to not have the comment at all, it's basically all fine and a very minor issue not worth fussing about.

I think perhaps it would be better if uninvolved editors looked at a situation and left a comment of this type: "As an uninvolved editor, I just wanted to say good work, everyone, and try to relax, what you are arguing about isn't that important."--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:01, 15 July 2010 (UTC)