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The article does not currently have sources that establish WP:BIO. Not that this is in question, but it's important even if WP:BLP didn't apply.
The article is basically an advertisement for him and his website. Third party sources need be found and used as the guiding sources for the article. Again, WP:BLP applies as well.
The references need to be expanded with publication dates, authors, etc. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:44, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
The article does not currently have sources that establish WP:BIO.Does my statement need clarification? If so, indicate so and how. Have you looked at WP:BIO? If you disagree with my statement, say so, and identify the specific sources that I am overlooking that indeed establish WP:BIO. If none exist, find some. -- Ronz ( talk) 15:54, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
I see you were reaching no agreement. I think I can see the problems Ronz was talking about and have modified the article accordingly. I am quite familiar with Berzin's work since I follow it for many years. I added some references to better cement the notability aspect (in the Tibetan Buddhist and academic religious study worlds) using third-party sources of biography. Also, I added third-party references about his life work in Mongolia and Kalmykia. I had to use a reference in Russian from a friend since no reference was available in English. I think the Reviews section I added better shows the appreciation many others have for his work. Also, the new Bibliography section contains selection of the non-website traditionally published material I know from him. For sure this needs to be expanded by others. I also think that this article shouldn't be an advertisement for Berzin's website. It should be a reference about him as an academic (who happens to publish almost all his work for free on his website since 15 years or so). I believe we can now remove both tags. What do you think? Jorgenumata ( talk) 20:29, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
This is long, I know. If you don't have time, skip it, but just one thing: take the tags down in the meantime.
Please can we continue this discussion calmly. I think you deal with a wide range of stuff on WP, Ronz and that gives you some common denominator expectations. This article is about a Buddhist scholar and this niche of WP tends to be particularly consensus driven. Once in a while someone combative does crash in on an article. We Buddhists tend to just get frightened away. If WP is lucky, one or two of us might come back in time.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SOURCES
On your user page you've got:
"Editors working incredibly hard to defend their personal opinions, rather than finding, evaluating, and incorporating more and better sources. It's the focus on sourcing that resolves these disputes."
This is true to an extent, but I have a qualification: Sources are not a be all and end all. For a start, they're not for legalities. For example, they do get thrown in as a pretext for adding nonsense to an article. Usually this happens when an editor has misunderstood the source or applied it to a context where it doesn't fit, but other editors don't have access to it. Then the first editor is too busy to reproduce the words in a discussion (all of them including context) and there's a communication breakdown.
Editors can fall in love with their contributions while they battle with whose source is bigger. I even had an experience some years ago where one in good faith wrote something smelly but with a reputable source attached. He just couldn't consider that there could be something wrong. In that case I actually got a reply by email from the writer of the book that what he meant was the opposite of what we were trying to say on WP.
PUTTING SOURCES IN THEIR PLACE
More crucially for us is the other side of the coin, where sources are missing. That's not a license for rubbishing good things.
This is my favourite part of WP:
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources
"The policy on sourcing is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations..."
Most stuff on WP is not contentious and doesn't need sources. A lot of editors don't get that. In fact, there is a trap of getting carried away and making sourcing a fetish. To put citations on stuff that's common knowledge and part of scholarly consensus looks plain silly to a reader.
SOURCES IN WP:BIO
That's why in WP:BIO, which is only about why someone can be notable enough to deserve an article on them and nothing else, it says:
"The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field." To scholars of Buddhism Berzin's lifetime of contributions are common knowledge. As if that wasn't enough, though, WP:BIO goes on with more:
"Academics: Many scientists, researchers, philosophers and other scholars (collectively referred to as 'academics' for convenience) are notably influential in the world of ideas without their biographies being the subject of secondary sources."
Even though Jorgenumata has gone out of his way to give you secondary sources on Berzin, this is a situation where wider knowledge of Buddhism could give more subtlety and humility to your editing. Students of Buddhism (and Tibetan Buddhism in particular) don't need secondary sources to know about Berzin's importance to our understanding of it.
TAKING YOU AS HAVING GOOD FAITH
You say on your user page: "I'm trying to find better ways of dealing with Tendentious editing, Disruptive editing, and the all-too-common bullying within Wikipedia… I'm looking for some preventative measures. First and foremost in my mind is getting editors to be more respectful of each other by being more respectful of the numerous policies and guidelines related to civility".
I too have had interactions with two editors that pushed me over the edge with glee at one stage. The worst thing was how one editor had the time to throw her weight around over a year and a half but no inclination to take responsibility for what she was doing or even acknowledge my talk about it. Yet it turned out, she had absolutely no insight into what she was doing.
Please stop and think. You've taken the trouble to put confronting tags on the Berzin article. I tried to talk about big problems with them. You ignored, changing the topic to WP:BIO, which, as I said, is just about criteria why someone is notable enough to deserve an article on them at all. That tells me, "Hands off the tags, no questions asked. I have the power to nuke the whole article if I feel like it."
Then look over the way you've first talked about WP:BIO. In tone it comes across as patronising and feels like bullying.
You've ignored what I raised at the start but look at how demanding you've been of us. Initially you didn't had the time to even glance at the work Jorgenumata has done to satisfy you. Now you tick him off on everything and don't give him an inch.
You've been bold enough with your tags but now you've demanded talk from us in future before contributing. Jorgenumata's new contributions are all there neatly laid out already in the article's page history.
And how curt and abrasive your responses to him! What could he or any of us expect from you in the piecemeal discussions you've demanded now? You yourself just don't have time in any case.
So, talk about sources and guidelines all you like. I agree, although I've seen legal games and warring over them too. But collaboration has to start with having the time for each other and then being prepared to look honestly at what we ourselves are doing.
WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU
I'd like to come back to /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources:
"The policy on sourcing is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations..."
What we need sources for is things that are *"challenged or likely to be challenged"*. Please consider that. What actual bits are you challenging in this article with your tags. And… *why*?
WHY IT MATTERS
I've never contributed to this article but I think the others have done a pretty good job. I know a bit about the field of study and the tags aren't cute. To people like me who come across them and then check out the context they trivialise WP. This is the wrong place for them.
They don't belong here but the thing that keeps coming through is that you're too busy to deal with this. The professional and respectful thing to do is take them down while you have no consensus and no time for it.
That won't stop you from discussing more as much as you like. We won't go away. Read up on Tibetan Buddhism. Contribute constructively. It really is a matter of respect.
WP:BIO has nothing to do with your tags. It's a red herring and it isn't your real problem. At least take the time to:
1) read this discussion from the beginning;
2) say specifically what's wrong.
Last of all, is there any one of us who agrees with the tags and does have time to elaborate?
EPILOGUE
It's not about you, Ronz. It's the tags and what you do with them. Please don't just spin off a dismissive response. Like others here I take care with what I write, including in discussions. Honour that by sleeping on it for a few days.
Moonsell ( talk) 21:17, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm glad we're starting to talk about content, not just legalisms. As for policies, after your display so far with WP:BIO, I think you need to show us first that you can cope with them. Also, "please focus on content". I've urged you to do that with the policy I emphasised twice and you haven't even noticed it.
WP:BIO
— Right at the beginning I alerted you privately on your talk page to big problems with your tags. You had done something hasty and with goodwill I was nudging you to reconsider early rather than digging yourself in.
— You raised WP:BIO for the first time (in the outrageous way I've said) later that day in response to me about the tags, not on your talk page but on this one, as you preferred. You were insisting on making a case out of this and you'd decided the tactic was going to be heavy-handed.
— From the start I had already allowed for you not knowing the material you were tampering with and offered you as much personal consideration as a newbie as I could. I'd given you a heads up that the guy you were dealing with was someone reputable and impeccable.
— From that time on you've banged on about nothing else except WP:BIO, taking a superior stance to us like a kindergarten teacher with a red pencil in her hand.
— You sent us on a wild goose chase with WP:BIO. With your editing experience you should have known what it said about you demanding sources like that over someone like Berzin. You wasted Jorgenumata's time and it isn't just your own time that matters.
— You want to focus on WP's policies but can't even understand WP:BIO yourself. You haven't commented on the other policy I emphasised. Maybe that's Greek too.
— You can't make sense of all this without a tag on notability (an extra one!), like a cop who's holding someone he doesn't like the look of, but groping for a technical label to put on it. What kind of a buzz can someone get from throwing round tags anyway?
THE TAGS
— At the start, when I tried to alert you to what Berzin meant to scholars of Buddhism, I wasn't even talking about WP:BIO. You brought it up. I'd never even considered it as a question. I was talking about those particular tags on a good article about a person like that and how the tags were trashing it. I thought at best they might come from some kid who had found new toys. This is the stuff that makes academia disdain WP. But I do also have first-hand experience of the tea party vigilantes who've been making havoc on WP the last few years. They make a show of tag versatility and quibbling over sources to evade accountability. Constructive volunteers get ward off them doing what they feel like with their wrecking ball on good content. You could have been one of them. Either way, I was talking about the tags, not WP:BIO.
— You can't say which actual parts of the article you dislike and what things about each of them make you uncomfortable. Now I'm starting to wonder if you know yourself. The tags are just your off the cuff impressions. Maybe you were in a bad mood that day and didn't like the picture of Berzin's face. Maybe you think there's no place for religion on WP, let alone voodoo esoteric stuff. Maybe you carry a bag of tags and pseudo-legalities round with you on this site, trawling it like a graffiti artist wanting to use up his paint.
— It's been six weeks now since I politely and considerately challenged those tags but you've just kept dodging the issue.
— You've kept the tags there all that time. That's not just inflammatory. It's not just arrogant. It's infantile in a professional sense on a platform like this with a sincere discussion ongoing.
— The tags are a contribution, even if a negative one, even if not constructive. You still need to take responsibility for them as your edits.
— At the start I detailed the exact ways they stigmatise the article. You didn't notice what I wrote. It's you who won't be informative. It's not enough to wave a hand around waftily. "You ought to know what I mean" isn't good enough. You've tagged the whole article. You can't lay that stuff on us and then not spell out each part that has issues and what exactly each of them are. I've been talking about content all along and you've been evading it.
Please do what I've asked for. Start by rereading this discussion from the beginning and actually taking the time to think about it.
Then look at the points I first raised. They are the criticisms the tags are making. You chose those particular tags.
Show us what each criticism has to do with each bit you don't like. (Content, not wishy washy feelings). The tags apply to the whole article so show which bits deserve each criticism and why (content).
Like I said, please give it at least a few days and show that you've taken the time to think before replying.
Moonsell ( talk) 21:41, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry for the hurtful words I used above, Ronz. I'm feeling at my wit's end. But emotion is taking over how I try to get understood. I need to back off for a while. Please give me scope to come back to it more harmoniously.
Moonsell ( talk) 23:39, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
… and thank you for not taking advantage of my shameful show of personal weakness here.
Moonsell ( talk) 02:23, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
I am somewhat astonished to find this article basically suspended and even nominated for deletion. Forgive me, as a an editor with little experience and only one year's track record, but I have personal knowledge of the subject and feel that deletion of this article in its entirety would be tantamount to vandalism. Berzin has a ginormous track record with 17 published books and endless articles, literally hundreds or even thousands of them; his compilation of Buddhist teachings and lore is probably the best and also the largest in existence on the internet - plus most of the invaluable information in it has been translated and published in no less that 21 languages.
To contend that he and his phenomenal achievements are not notable and therefore not worthy of a Wikipedia article would appear to be a travesty of justice. Agreed, it needs a re-write, with all the sources tied up to all the bits of information to be stated, but this can please be done in a positive, instructive and helpful way, rather than talking about deletion, picking holes in it, finding endless fault in it and condemning it for this that and the other as if it is some sort of dubious attempt to get Berzin's name in Wikipedia without justification.
I have to state my potential conflicts of interest here. I have known Berzin personally since 1975. The Tibetan master for whom he interpreted for 9 years, the late Serkong Rinpoche, was a teacher of the Dalai Lama as well as of myself. I have also worked to raise funds for the Berzin Archives to finance the translation of hundreds of his freely-available website articles on Buddhism and its history into Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Turkish and Indonesian, thus paving the way for greater understanding of Buddhism throughout the Muslim world, of which I also know a little myself.
In closing as a rookie WP editor I have been lucky to have been helped along by various senior editors who have mentored and coached me in the ways of WP editing in an extremely kind and helpful manner. I hope the same standards of positive and helpful behaviour will enable this article to be improved as it deserves to be without making any further unnecessary and if I may say so, inappropriate threats. Moreover, the text that has been removed should be reinstated as soon as possible and instead of all these endless reams of argument and criticism some good energy might be put into actually improving the existing information which is what I understood WP was all about. Thank you for your kind consideration of my intervention which I hope will be taken in a positive way. I have come to love WP and its ethic. Let that not get tarnished over time. MacPraughan ( talk) 13:08, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Just checking your reactionI'm sorry, but that's inappropriate as well. -- Ronz ( talk) 19:59, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Ronz and JimRenge, this is to confirm that the subject has made his website biography copyright-free by adding the following sentence at the foot of the page there: "The text of this page is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts)."
Please refer to the relevant website page, http://studybuddhism.com/en/who-is-alexander-berzin, to confirm this.
Please can the copyright violation allegation therefore be withdrawn and your deletion warning notice on his WP article removed. I am happy to assist with re-writing the copy in more appropriate/acceptable form. Thanks for your help it is much appreciated. MacPraughan ( talk) 09:02, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://web.archive.org/web/20060328032232/http://www.berzinarchives.com/author/short_biography_alex_berzin.html. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)
For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. — Diannaa 🍁 ( talk) 18:41, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
I double-checked, and we didn't lose any references in the copyright cleanup. They're all listed above at Talk:Alexander_Berzin_(scholar)#References. Note that I found a link to the full LATimes article: http://articles.latimes.com/1991-01-01/news/mn-7464_1_dalai-lama -- Ronz ( talk) 19:01, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
I propose to re-add the following books authored by Dr. Alexander Berzin (per WorldCat all of these can be found in many university libraries; translations into other languages exist but should not be listet here):
The following reviews may help to support notability as an author:
@ Ronz:, please consider to re-add these sources if you agree with me. I want to avoid a revert. :) JimRenge ( talk) 22:33, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
all of these can be found in many university libraries?
Ronz, how did you originally happen to come across this article?
Moonsell ( talk) 05:04, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
OK. Not transparent. But you see the point. Out of five million articles you've put your energies into this one. Something here particularly has pushed your buttons.
Your attacks have all been on aspects of form. You've never discussed content. Yet you've gutted the article of its content. Somehow even the page history has been redacted.
You haven't presented criticisms as a coherent whole. At every step other editors have shown you're wrong and you've ignored them but come up with a completely new one, just as bad as the last. So what's been the unspoken problem with the content?
The rest of us have had a dilemma. On the one hand, "the standard you walk past is the standard you accept." On the other, the pervasive wikilawyering, eschewing accountability, stonewalling and refusing to get every point, disdain for your fellow editors… you've been provoking an edit war from the start. We haven't known how far you would go. You've kidded yourself that you've been doing a bit of weeding. You've doggedly bulldozed where value others have been able to see things of value.
The premonition that's troubled me all along is, what else do you have in mind for those of us who value the availability of Buddhist-related information on WP. It boils down to two things now. You've done the wrecking here so fix it up. And find some way to reassure us about what else you're capable of.
Moonsell ( talk) 04:55, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
(See User_talk:Moonsell#Your_question_at_Talk:Alexander_Berzin_.28scholar.29 for some background on this discussion.)
My apologies for not addressing every concern above. As there are no diffs or other references to specific comments, edits or discussions, I'm going to address the concerns as a whole:
Let's all remember to refrain from using Wikipedia as a battleground. Let's focus on content and participate in a respectful and considerate way.
If editors would like me to address or refactor specific comments or edits I've made, I'm happy to do so. Please contact me on my talk page.
I'm sorry editors are feeling so defensive about working on this article. Copyright violations are very serious problems, and seeing how they are addressed can be very overwhelming and confusing.
Do the past problems need any further clarification or discussion? -- Ronz ( talk) 18:35, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
perfectly good article for no apparent good reasonYou appear to recognize that it was not a "perfectly good article" and you recognize the main the reason, a copyright violation. Are you disputing this? -- Ronz ( talk) 16:46, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
The editor concerned is (or was, at the time) evidently even more of a beginner than me and probably imagined it would be normal practice and common sense to copy Berzin's already prepared, potted bio from his website, with Berzin's permission, and paste it here.That's a description of a copyright violation. The material was an exact copy of copyrighted material, which you yourself admit. What am I missing? -- Ronz ( talk) 01:14, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
Moonsell ( talk) 21:23, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
I still don't understand why there's no external link to studybuddhism. Could someone explain?
[17]. There were two, but no External links section. I've added it with a link to Berzin's profile there. --
Ronz (
talk)
16:26, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
In July 2016 the warning notice about sources being too close to the subject was added. Since then, Ronz has deleted much of the content from the article. Assuming that the article has been sufficiently purged to Ronz's and everyone's satisfaction, I assume the warning notice about sources can now be removed forthwith, barring any objections. MacPraughan ( talk) 11:47, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
...be dismissed as 'too close to the author' (if that is what you are doing)?No, that's not what I'm doing. They currently aren't being used to verify any content on the subjects you discuss. I haven't found online access to any of them, so I cannot comment on their content, much less use them to verify anything.
...are you saying that it is not to be... and can be thus dismissed...No, that's not what I'm doing. It's the best reference we currently are using, but doesn't say much about him. This has nothing to do with sources being too close to the subject. It's the one independent and reliable source currently being used to verify content. Sorry I wasn't clearer.
There's a fine line between destructive editing and vandalism. Vandals don't obfuscate. They show us how open the systen is while destructive editors show us how trusting it is.
An editor without a personal agenda could not do what you do or write like this, Ronz.
Moonsell ( talk) 23:25, 12 February 2017 (UTC); edited Moonsell ( talk) 10:58, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
I suppose I'm wasting my time asking you once more to remove the latest of your inflammatory tags or at least justify it.
Moonsell ( talk) 02:32, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
Take a look over WP:DR, and find new approach from the suggestions there.-- Ronz ( talk) 17:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
There are two more overarching questions here that are even more important than the details above. They involve how much censorship we tolerate on WP and what sort.
Ronz or an anonymous colleague somehow redacted the bulk of the page history of this article. Some years ago an administrator told me such a thing was not possible on WP for even one page, that there was not even a mechanism for it. Ronz, it must have occurred to you that this would be an issue.
The questions are:
a) How was it achieved? and
b) Why?
Moonsell ( talk) 00:10, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
I have been researching Dr Berzin’ bibliography and came up with the following items. Does anyone have any objection to adding them?
"Buddhist-Muslim Doctrinal Relations: Past, Presenting Future” in Buddhist Attitudes to Other Religions (Perry Schmidt-Leukel, ed.). St. Ottilien, Germany, EOS Editions of St. Ottlilien, 2008, 212-236. ISBN 9783830673514.
“Historical Survey of the Buddhist and Muslim Worlds’ Knowledge of Each Other’ Customs and Teachings” in The Muslim World: A Special Issue on Islam and Buddhism (Hartford, Connecticut) , vol. 100, Nrs. 2 and 3, April/July 2010, 187-203. ISSN 00274909.
“The Sources of Happiness According to Buddhism” in Glück (Andre Holenstein, Ruth Meyer Schweizer, Pasqualina Perrig-Chiello, Peter Rusterholz, Christian von Zimmermann, Andreas Wagner, Sara Margarita Zwahlen, eds.). Bern, Stuttgart, Wien, Haupt Verlag, 2011, 41-52. ISBN 9783258076898.
(Editor) Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. An Anthology of Well-Spoken Advice. Dharmsala, India, Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 1984, reprint 2001. ISBN-10:8186470298, ISBN-13:9788186470299.
MacPraughan ( talk) 22:16, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Oh, i see. I thought we were looking for sources to improve the article. It seems to me that this should be priority, rather than adding a bibliography.-- Farang Rak Tham ( talk) 11:16, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
I also found this article, does anyone have any objection to drawing on the info published here in the first para, to add to the article? Tricycle is a major Buddhist publication in the U.S.:
From: https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/introduction-buddhism-dr-alexander-berzin-2/
Thanks for considering and advising.
MacPraughan ( talk) 22:30, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
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![]() | The following Wikipedia contributor has declared a personal or professional connection to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include
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The article does not currently have sources that establish WP:BIO. Not that this is in question, but it's important even if WP:BLP didn't apply.
The article is basically an advertisement for him and his website. Third party sources need be found and used as the guiding sources for the article. Again, WP:BLP applies as well.
The references need to be expanded with publication dates, authors, etc. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:44, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
The article does not currently have sources that establish WP:BIO.Does my statement need clarification? If so, indicate so and how. Have you looked at WP:BIO? If you disagree with my statement, say so, and identify the specific sources that I am overlooking that indeed establish WP:BIO. If none exist, find some. -- Ronz ( talk) 15:54, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
I see you were reaching no agreement. I think I can see the problems Ronz was talking about and have modified the article accordingly. I am quite familiar with Berzin's work since I follow it for many years. I added some references to better cement the notability aspect (in the Tibetan Buddhist and academic religious study worlds) using third-party sources of biography. Also, I added third-party references about his life work in Mongolia and Kalmykia. I had to use a reference in Russian from a friend since no reference was available in English. I think the Reviews section I added better shows the appreciation many others have for his work. Also, the new Bibliography section contains selection of the non-website traditionally published material I know from him. For sure this needs to be expanded by others. I also think that this article shouldn't be an advertisement for Berzin's website. It should be a reference about him as an academic (who happens to publish almost all his work for free on his website since 15 years or so). I believe we can now remove both tags. What do you think? Jorgenumata ( talk) 20:29, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
This is long, I know. If you don't have time, skip it, but just one thing: take the tags down in the meantime.
Please can we continue this discussion calmly. I think you deal with a wide range of stuff on WP, Ronz and that gives you some common denominator expectations. This article is about a Buddhist scholar and this niche of WP tends to be particularly consensus driven. Once in a while someone combative does crash in on an article. We Buddhists tend to just get frightened away. If WP is lucky, one or two of us might come back in time.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SOURCES
On your user page you've got:
"Editors working incredibly hard to defend their personal opinions, rather than finding, evaluating, and incorporating more and better sources. It's the focus on sourcing that resolves these disputes."
This is true to an extent, but I have a qualification: Sources are not a be all and end all. For a start, they're not for legalities. For example, they do get thrown in as a pretext for adding nonsense to an article. Usually this happens when an editor has misunderstood the source or applied it to a context where it doesn't fit, but other editors don't have access to it. Then the first editor is too busy to reproduce the words in a discussion (all of them including context) and there's a communication breakdown.
Editors can fall in love with their contributions while they battle with whose source is bigger. I even had an experience some years ago where one in good faith wrote something smelly but with a reputable source attached. He just couldn't consider that there could be something wrong. In that case I actually got a reply by email from the writer of the book that what he meant was the opposite of what we were trying to say on WP.
PUTTING SOURCES IN THEIR PLACE
More crucially for us is the other side of the coin, where sources are missing. That's not a license for rubbishing good things.
This is my favourite part of WP:
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources
"The policy on sourcing is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations..."
Most stuff on WP is not contentious and doesn't need sources. A lot of editors don't get that. In fact, there is a trap of getting carried away and making sourcing a fetish. To put citations on stuff that's common knowledge and part of scholarly consensus looks plain silly to a reader.
SOURCES IN WP:BIO
That's why in WP:BIO, which is only about why someone can be notable enough to deserve an article on them and nothing else, it says:
"The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field." To scholars of Buddhism Berzin's lifetime of contributions are common knowledge. As if that wasn't enough, though, WP:BIO goes on with more:
"Academics: Many scientists, researchers, philosophers and other scholars (collectively referred to as 'academics' for convenience) are notably influential in the world of ideas without their biographies being the subject of secondary sources."
Even though Jorgenumata has gone out of his way to give you secondary sources on Berzin, this is a situation where wider knowledge of Buddhism could give more subtlety and humility to your editing. Students of Buddhism (and Tibetan Buddhism in particular) don't need secondary sources to know about Berzin's importance to our understanding of it.
TAKING YOU AS HAVING GOOD FAITH
You say on your user page: "I'm trying to find better ways of dealing with Tendentious editing, Disruptive editing, and the all-too-common bullying within Wikipedia… I'm looking for some preventative measures. First and foremost in my mind is getting editors to be more respectful of each other by being more respectful of the numerous policies and guidelines related to civility".
I too have had interactions with two editors that pushed me over the edge with glee at one stage. The worst thing was how one editor had the time to throw her weight around over a year and a half but no inclination to take responsibility for what she was doing or even acknowledge my talk about it. Yet it turned out, she had absolutely no insight into what she was doing.
Please stop and think. You've taken the trouble to put confronting tags on the Berzin article. I tried to talk about big problems with them. You ignored, changing the topic to WP:BIO, which, as I said, is just about criteria why someone is notable enough to deserve an article on them at all. That tells me, "Hands off the tags, no questions asked. I have the power to nuke the whole article if I feel like it."
Then look over the way you've first talked about WP:BIO. In tone it comes across as patronising and feels like bullying.
You've ignored what I raised at the start but look at how demanding you've been of us. Initially you didn't had the time to even glance at the work Jorgenumata has done to satisfy you. Now you tick him off on everything and don't give him an inch.
You've been bold enough with your tags but now you've demanded talk from us in future before contributing. Jorgenumata's new contributions are all there neatly laid out already in the article's page history.
And how curt and abrasive your responses to him! What could he or any of us expect from you in the piecemeal discussions you've demanded now? You yourself just don't have time in any case.
So, talk about sources and guidelines all you like. I agree, although I've seen legal games and warring over them too. But collaboration has to start with having the time for each other and then being prepared to look honestly at what we ourselves are doing.
WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU
I'd like to come back to /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources:
"The policy on sourcing is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations..."
What we need sources for is things that are *"challenged or likely to be challenged"*. Please consider that. What actual bits are you challenging in this article with your tags. And… *why*?
WHY IT MATTERS
I've never contributed to this article but I think the others have done a pretty good job. I know a bit about the field of study and the tags aren't cute. To people like me who come across them and then check out the context they trivialise WP. This is the wrong place for them.
They don't belong here but the thing that keeps coming through is that you're too busy to deal with this. The professional and respectful thing to do is take them down while you have no consensus and no time for it.
That won't stop you from discussing more as much as you like. We won't go away. Read up on Tibetan Buddhism. Contribute constructively. It really is a matter of respect.
WP:BIO has nothing to do with your tags. It's a red herring and it isn't your real problem. At least take the time to:
1) read this discussion from the beginning;
2) say specifically what's wrong.
Last of all, is there any one of us who agrees with the tags and does have time to elaborate?
EPILOGUE
It's not about you, Ronz. It's the tags and what you do with them. Please don't just spin off a dismissive response. Like others here I take care with what I write, including in discussions. Honour that by sleeping on it for a few days.
Moonsell ( talk) 21:17, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm glad we're starting to talk about content, not just legalisms. As for policies, after your display so far with WP:BIO, I think you need to show us first that you can cope with them. Also, "please focus on content". I've urged you to do that with the policy I emphasised twice and you haven't even noticed it.
WP:BIO
— Right at the beginning I alerted you privately on your talk page to big problems with your tags. You had done something hasty and with goodwill I was nudging you to reconsider early rather than digging yourself in.
— You raised WP:BIO for the first time (in the outrageous way I've said) later that day in response to me about the tags, not on your talk page but on this one, as you preferred. You were insisting on making a case out of this and you'd decided the tactic was going to be heavy-handed.
— From the start I had already allowed for you not knowing the material you were tampering with and offered you as much personal consideration as a newbie as I could. I'd given you a heads up that the guy you were dealing with was someone reputable and impeccable.
— From that time on you've banged on about nothing else except WP:BIO, taking a superior stance to us like a kindergarten teacher with a red pencil in her hand.
— You sent us on a wild goose chase with WP:BIO. With your editing experience you should have known what it said about you demanding sources like that over someone like Berzin. You wasted Jorgenumata's time and it isn't just your own time that matters.
— You want to focus on WP's policies but can't even understand WP:BIO yourself. You haven't commented on the other policy I emphasised. Maybe that's Greek too.
— You can't make sense of all this without a tag on notability (an extra one!), like a cop who's holding someone he doesn't like the look of, but groping for a technical label to put on it. What kind of a buzz can someone get from throwing round tags anyway?
THE TAGS
— At the start, when I tried to alert you to what Berzin meant to scholars of Buddhism, I wasn't even talking about WP:BIO. You brought it up. I'd never even considered it as a question. I was talking about those particular tags on a good article about a person like that and how the tags were trashing it. I thought at best they might come from some kid who had found new toys. This is the stuff that makes academia disdain WP. But I do also have first-hand experience of the tea party vigilantes who've been making havoc on WP the last few years. They make a show of tag versatility and quibbling over sources to evade accountability. Constructive volunteers get ward off them doing what they feel like with their wrecking ball on good content. You could have been one of them. Either way, I was talking about the tags, not WP:BIO.
— You can't say which actual parts of the article you dislike and what things about each of them make you uncomfortable. Now I'm starting to wonder if you know yourself. The tags are just your off the cuff impressions. Maybe you were in a bad mood that day and didn't like the picture of Berzin's face. Maybe you think there's no place for religion on WP, let alone voodoo esoteric stuff. Maybe you carry a bag of tags and pseudo-legalities round with you on this site, trawling it like a graffiti artist wanting to use up his paint.
— It's been six weeks now since I politely and considerately challenged those tags but you've just kept dodging the issue.
— You've kept the tags there all that time. That's not just inflammatory. It's not just arrogant. It's infantile in a professional sense on a platform like this with a sincere discussion ongoing.
— The tags are a contribution, even if a negative one, even if not constructive. You still need to take responsibility for them as your edits.
— At the start I detailed the exact ways they stigmatise the article. You didn't notice what I wrote. It's you who won't be informative. It's not enough to wave a hand around waftily. "You ought to know what I mean" isn't good enough. You've tagged the whole article. You can't lay that stuff on us and then not spell out each part that has issues and what exactly each of them are. I've been talking about content all along and you've been evading it.
Please do what I've asked for. Start by rereading this discussion from the beginning and actually taking the time to think about it.
Then look at the points I first raised. They are the criticisms the tags are making. You chose those particular tags.
Show us what each criticism has to do with each bit you don't like. (Content, not wishy washy feelings). The tags apply to the whole article so show which bits deserve each criticism and why (content).
Like I said, please give it at least a few days and show that you've taken the time to think before replying.
Moonsell ( talk) 21:41, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry for the hurtful words I used above, Ronz. I'm feeling at my wit's end. But emotion is taking over how I try to get understood. I need to back off for a while. Please give me scope to come back to it more harmoniously.
Moonsell ( talk) 23:39, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
… and thank you for not taking advantage of my shameful show of personal weakness here.
Moonsell ( talk) 02:23, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
I am somewhat astonished to find this article basically suspended and even nominated for deletion. Forgive me, as a an editor with little experience and only one year's track record, but I have personal knowledge of the subject and feel that deletion of this article in its entirety would be tantamount to vandalism. Berzin has a ginormous track record with 17 published books and endless articles, literally hundreds or even thousands of them; his compilation of Buddhist teachings and lore is probably the best and also the largest in existence on the internet - plus most of the invaluable information in it has been translated and published in no less that 21 languages.
To contend that he and his phenomenal achievements are not notable and therefore not worthy of a Wikipedia article would appear to be a travesty of justice. Agreed, it needs a re-write, with all the sources tied up to all the bits of information to be stated, but this can please be done in a positive, instructive and helpful way, rather than talking about deletion, picking holes in it, finding endless fault in it and condemning it for this that and the other as if it is some sort of dubious attempt to get Berzin's name in Wikipedia without justification.
I have to state my potential conflicts of interest here. I have known Berzin personally since 1975. The Tibetan master for whom he interpreted for 9 years, the late Serkong Rinpoche, was a teacher of the Dalai Lama as well as of myself. I have also worked to raise funds for the Berzin Archives to finance the translation of hundreds of his freely-available website articles on Buddhism and its history into Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Turkish and Indonesian, thus paving the way for greater understanding of Buddhism throughout the Muslim world, of which I also know a little myself.
In closing as a rookie WP editor I have been lucky to have been helped along by various senior editors who have mentored and coached me in the ways of WP editing in an extremely kind and helpful manner. I hope the same standards of positive and helpful behaviour will enable this article to be improved as it deserves to be without making any further unnecessary and if I may say so, inappropriate threats. Moreover, the text that has been removed should be reinstated as soon as possible and instead of all these endless reams of argument and criticism some good energy might be put into actually improving the existing information which is what I understood WP was all about. Thank you for your kind consideration of my intervention which I hope will be taken in a positive way. I have come to love WP and its ethic. Let that not get tarnished over time. MacPraughan ( talk) 13:08, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Just checking your reactionI'm sorry, but that's inappropriate as well. -- Ronz ( talk) 19:59, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Ronz and JimRenge, this is to confirm that the subject has made his website biography copyright-free by adding the following sentence at the foot of the page there: "The text of this page is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts)."
Please refer to the relevant website page, http://studybuddhism.com/en/who-is-alexander-berzin, to confirm this.
Please can the copyright violation allegation therefore be withdrawn and your deletion warning notice on his WP article removed. I am happy to assist with re-writing the copy in more appropriate/acceptable form. Thanks for your help it is much appreciated. MacPraughan ( talk) 09:02, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://web.archive.org/web/20060328032232/http://www.berzinarchives.com/author/short_biography_alex_berzin.html. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)
For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. — Diannaa 🍁 ( talk) 18:41, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
I double-checked, and we didn't lose any references in the copyright cleanup. They're all listed above at Talk:Alexander_Berzin_(scholar)#References. Note that I found a link to the full LATimes article: http://articles.latimes.com/1991-01-01/news/mn-7464_1_dalai-lama -- Ronz ( talk) 19:01, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
I propose to re-add the following books authored by Dr. Alexander Berzin (per WorldCat all of these can be found in many university libraries; translations into other languages exist but should not be listet here):
The following reviews may help to support notability as an author:
@ Ronz:, please consider to re-add these sources if you agree with me. I want to avoid a revert. :) JimRenge ( talk) 22:33, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
all of these can be found in many university libraries?
Ronz, how did you originally happen to come across this article?
Moonsell ( talk) 05:04, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
OK. Not transparent. But you see the point. Out of five million articles you've put your energies into this one. Something here particularly has pushed your buttons.
Your attacks have all been on aspects of form. You've never discussed content. Yet you've gutted the article of its content. Somehow even the page history has been redacted.
You haven't presented criticisms as a coherent whole. At every step other editors have shown you're wrong and you've ignored them but come up with a completely new one, just as bad as the last. So what's been the unspoken problem with the content?
The rest of us have had a dilemma. On the one hand, "the standard you walk past is the standard you accept." On the other, the pervasive wikilawyering, eschewing accountability, stonewalling and refusing to get every point, disdain for your fellow editors… you've been provoking an edit war from the start. We haven't known how far you would go. You've kidded yourself that you've been doing a bit of weeding. You've doggedly bulldozed where value others have been able to see things of value.
The premonition that's troubled me all along is, what else do you have in mind for those of us who value the availability of Buddhist-related information on WP. It boils down to two things now. You've done the wrecking here so fix it up. And find some way to reassure us about what else you're capable of.
Moonsell ( talk) 04:55, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
(See User_talk:Moonsell#Your_question_at_Talk:Alexander_Berzin_.28scholar.29 for some background on this discussion.)
My apologies for not addressing every concern above. As there are no diffs or other references to specific comments, edits or discussions, I'm going to address the concerns as a whole:
Let's all remember to refrain from using Wikipedia as a battleground. Let's focus on content and participate in a respectful and considerate way.
If editors would like me to address or refactor specific comments or edits I've made, I'm happy to do so. Please contact me on my talk page.
I'm sorry editors are feeling so defensive about working on this article. Copyright violations are very serious problems, and seeing how they are addressed can be very overwhelming and confusing.
Do the past problems need any further clarification or discussion? -- Ronz ( talk) 18:35, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
perfectly good article for no apparent good reasonYou appear to recognize that it was not a "perfectly good article" and you recognize the main the reason, a copyright violation. Are you disputing this? -- Ronz ( talk) 16:46, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
The editor concerned is (or was, at the time) evidently even more of a beginner than me and probably imagined it would be normal practice and common sense to copy Berzin's already prepared, potted bio from his website, with Berzin's permission, and paste it here.That's a description of a copyright violation. The material was an exact copy of copyrighted material, which you yourself admit. What am I missing? -- Ronz ( talk) 01:14, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
Moonsell ( talk) 21:23, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
I still don't understand why there's no external link to studybuddhism. Could someone explain?
[17]. There were two, but no External links section. I've added it with a link to Berzin's profile there. --
Ronz (
talk)
16:26, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
In July 2016 the warning notice about sources being too close to the subject was added. Since then, Ronz has deleted much of the content from the article. Assuming that the article has been sufficiently purged to Ronz's and everyone's satisfaction, I assume the warning notice about sources can now be removed forthwith, barring any objections. MacPraughan ( talk) 11:47, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
...be dismissed as 'too close to the author' (if that is what you are doing)?No, that's not what I'm doing. They currently aren't being used to verify any content on the subjects you discuss. I haven't found online access to any of them, so I cannot comment on their content, much less use them to verify anything.
...are you saying that it is not to be... and can be thus dismissed...No, that's not what I'm doing. It's the best reference we currently are using, but doesn't say much about him. This has nothing to do with sources being too close to the subject. It's the one independent and reliable source currently being used to verify content. Sorry I wasn't clearer.
There's a fine line between destructive editing and vandalism. Vandals don't obfuscate. They show us how open the systen is while destructive editors show us how trusting it is.
An editor without a personal agenda could not do what you do or write like this, Ronz.
Moonsell ( talk) 23:25, 12 February 2017 (UTC); edited Moonsell ( talk) 10:58, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
I suppose I'm wasting my time asking you once more to remove the latest of your inflammatory tags or at least justify it.
Moonsell ( talk) 02:32, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
Take a look over WP:DR, and find new approach from the suggestions there.-- Ronz ( talk) 17:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
There are two more overarching questions here that are even more important than the details above. They involve how much censorship we tolerate on WP and what sort.
Ronz or an anonymous colleague somehow redacted the bulk of the page history of this article. Some years ago an administrator told me such a thing was not possible on WP for even one page, that there was not even a mechanism for it. Ronz, it must have occurred to you that this would be an issue.
The questions are:
a) How was it achieved? and
b) Why?
Moonsell ( talk) 00:10, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
I have been researching Dr Berzin’ bibliography and came up with the following items. Does anyone have any objection to adding them?
"Buddhist-Muslim Doctrinal Relations: Past, Presenting Future” in Buddhist Attitudes to Other Religions (Perry Schmidt-Leukel, ed.). St. Ottilien, Germany, EOS Editions of St. Ottlilien, 2008, 212-236. ISBN 9783830673514.
“Historical Survey of the Buddhist and Muslim Worlds’ Knowledge of Each Other’ Customs and Teachings” in The Muslim World: A Special Issue on Islam and Buddhism (Hartford, Connecticut) , vol. 100, Nrs. 2 and 3, April/July 2010, 187-203. ISSN 00274909.
“The Sources of Happiness According to Buddhism” in Glück (Andre Holenstein, Ruth Meyer Schweizer, Pasqualina Perrig-Chiello, Peter Rusterholz, Christian von Zimmermann, Andreas Wagner, Sara Margarita Zwahlen, eds.). Bern, Stuttgart, Wien, Haupt Verlag, 2011, 41-52. ISBN 9783258076898.
(Editor) Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. An Anthology of Well-Spoken Advice. Dharmsala, India, Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 1984, reprint 2001. ISBN-10:8186470298, ISBN-13:9788186470299.
MacPraughan ( talk) 22:16, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Oh, i see. I thought we were looking for sources to improve the article. It seems to me that this should be priority, rather than adding a bibliography.-- Farang Rak Tham ( talk) 11:16, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
I also found this article, does anyone have any objection to drawing on the info published here in the first para, to add to the article? Tricycle is a major Buddhist publication in the U.S.:
From: https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/introduction-buddhism-dr-alexander-berzin-2/
Thanks for considering and advising.
MacPraughan ( talk) 22:30, 18 October 2017 (UTC)