Talk:Prem Rawat/Archive 2

Enough NOISE on this subject. If someone posts genuine quotes, they should stay. People can post quotes that counter some of the views if that is their disposition, and they are genuine. No one has to balance their contributions. Personally I'm not much interested in quotes from this guy past or present. ~ Achilles 23:31, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Exactly. Because you don't care about this subject, then may want not to get involved. Andries here is using Wiki projects (WP and WQ) to push his anti-guru POV, and that is not acceptable.

I might not be very interested in this particular person, and choose not to pay very much attention to this article, but I care about occurrences of censorship, or apparent attempts at it a great deal, and that is why I made the comment. Things seem to have been sorted out a bit more though, since I made my remark. "Long live freedom and damn the ideologies." ~ Achilles 03:56, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article's balance

I have been asked to become involved in this dispute, and a link to the article Maharaji and the Denial of the Past by Michael R Finch, with an obvious anti-Prem Rawat perspective was provided in a comment on my talk page. I still seek to avoid making edits here or having things descend into a unending edit war, or to a point where the page needs to be protected. At this point, I simply must assert that this is a compendium of quotations, and quotations will nearly always have, or address, particular Points of View (POVs, in the common parlance here), that will be promoted, opposed, reflected upon, accepted, rejected, or modified by people with their own POVs. Fairness and balance are proper considerations for everyone, but they are not mandates to be required of any particular person's contributions. This article has been the center of activity between at least two people of very conflicting perspectives, who have not exhibited very much high regard for quotations that do not support their own views. Everyone of any perspective can properly contribute such genuine quotes as they perceive to be significant about the history, character, present or past aims of Prem Rawat, or any other notable person. At this point, I would say that genuine quotations should not be deleted, and whether they support or oppose certain perspectives should not be a consideration. Andries may or may not have a general anti-guru perspective, but he has every right to have "anti-Prem Rawat" perspectives, and to choose quotes that support those perspectives, and others have a right to have "pro-Prem Rawat" perspectives and choose quotes that support these. The addition of a moderate number of quotes from either range of perspectives is something I cannot object to, but the deletion of genuine quotes merely because they promote or oppose a particular POV is something I cannot support. ~ Kalki 20:21, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Kalki, thanks for your insight on this (btw, the premise of Finch's article is without merit as no one is attempting to deny the past but rather to put that past in the approriate context). I have no problems in Andries adding quotes. What I object to is the fact that Andries is plastering the article with quotes from the early days (1970's) at the expense of more contemporary quotes. I am 100% for balance, but at this moment and thanks to Andries relentless pursuit of his POV, the first section of the article has 19 quotes, of which 11 quotes are from the 1970's and 8 quotes from the 80's until today. Please read the w:Prem Rawat article (content of which was agreed by concensus last month) in which you can see the evolution of Prem Rawat's message and the context in which these quotes were made. Andries attempt is clearly to place as many quotes from those early days as possible so that they take over the article, as his POV is clearly anti-Prem Rawat and he believes that these quotes put him in bad light.

I believe that a compromise can be achieved, that is to have a good selection of quotes for the three decades since Prem Rawat started his work. This way readers of Wikipedia an Wikiquote can get the possibility of understanding the degree of evolution in Prem Rawat's presentation of his message and make up their own minds about this subject.

My proposal is as follows: to have on the "Sourced" section of the article, 3 or 4 quotes from each decade 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000's, and leave it at that. I would think that this is a fair proposal that hopefully can be agreed by all. I have added decade sub-sectionsto the article for this purpose. ≈ jossi ≈ 22:16, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The addition of the sections for the decades is probably helpful, but at this point I don't support any absolute limits on the numbers of any quotations from any decade or source. I do hope that an acceptably stable balance of well chosen quotes can be arrived at relatively soon, without too much contention. ~ Kalki 22:36, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Jossi and Kalki, there are two good reasons to have many quotes from the seventies. First of all Rawat had his 60 seconds of fame in the 1970s. It is normal to have more quotes from or about a period of one's life that was important for society. The second reason is because the early quotes are important for the accusation of critics that current supporters give a revisionist view of the past. Jossi's attempt to limit the quotes from the 1970s to "balance" the article are part of this attempt to paint a revisionist picture of the past. Supporters even say that it is common in India to address a guru as "Lord of the universe" in their attempt to deny that claims of divinity have been made, which I think is hilarious and outrageous at the same time. Andries 08:04, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

For your information Andries, in 2004 more than fifty thousand people received the techniques of Knowledge in 700 Knwoledge sessions (and the year is not over yet). This is the largest number of people in a year since Maharaji started his work at the age of 8. Your assessment of "the 60 seconds of fame in the 70's" is hence invalid. There are more people interested in Maharaji's message now than ever before. Using your logic then we should have more quotes from 2004.

Thanks for that suggestion. Should be consider it?

Concerning your comment about "Lord of the Universe", you keep choosing to dismiss the abundant proof presented that supports the cultural context in which these were made. (read). In addition, quotes about Lord of the Universe and other statements are already included in this article. So I do not understand your accussations of "revisionism". Quotes from each one of the last three decades should be present. Not only those that in your view are negative to Maharaji's image.

Clearly you have no interest in pursuing a balanced view of Prem Rawat but to pursue a questionable form of therapy to address your bad pass experience with your guru. I find this pertty disturbing. ≈ jossi ≈ 14:40, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Jossi,

It is a fact that in the Netherlands and in the USA he had his 60 seconds of fame in the 1970s. There were quite a lot of media reports about him then and now not anymore. He is totally unknown here now, in contrast to the seventies. I don't know about India.
I am interested to present the relevant facts about Rawat in a NPOV way but I push back when you push your POV too much. I have done this with other gurus and religious groups and only for Rawat this has become a battle. The difference is that there is no Jossi working on other gurus and relgious groups.
I consider what you call proof only sophistry. I admit that a guru has an elevated status in Hinduism and Sikhism but you consider this is as proof that he claims about "Guru is greater than God and "Lord of the universe" were not to be taken seriously but that is a wrong conclusion. Those claims are taken very seriously in their cultural context. Do not blame on the followers for Rawat's mistakes. You do not understand how wrong and how unfair that is. Do you think it is strange that former followers get angry? And then you call them a hate group. How low can you go?
Those quotes are important as proof. They are an important part of the Prem Rawat article in Wikipedia.
It is true that I feel a lot of kinship with former followers due to my own experience and I can recognize my own old flawed way of reasoning that I had as a follower in your way of reasoning.

Andries 18:13, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Kalki:: The hope that a stable and balanced article would be achieved without some kind of limits is wishful thinking, IMO. If jossi's proposal is not acceptable to you, I would appreciate an explanation as for the reasons so that I may be able to come up with a counter-proposal that may get us there. FYI, Andries and jossi's contention extends well beyond this article, and it was only after careful negotiating that they have reached consensus on Prem Rawat's related articles at WP. If we want to help them reach agreement, we ought to find a formula that will satisfy both sides as providing balance for their POVs. --Zappaz 00:26, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I am aware of the controversy and contentions that have occurred with the Wikipedia articles as well as the articles here, and have examined them to some extent from time to time. I recognize the potentials for extremely tiresome additions and edit wars, but I do not feel there is sufficient reason to quantitatively limit the contributions of expressions from any side at this point, and genuinely do hope that there will not develop a need to do so at any point.

There is a clear need for the opportunity to express diverse perspectives here, but I do not perceive that there is yet a need for an imposition of any kind of balance among expressions of views upon anything. While insuring that there are fair and balanced statements in most articles is an imperative for any good encyclopedia, to minimize the occurrence of extremely unjust assertions or presumptions that are promoted, the attempt to set or formulate such balance in a compendium of quotations, can itself be excessively intrusive and presumptive. I am aware that many points of contention could occur for some time to come, but favor letting those with contending points of view have a chance to present the expressions they wish to, rather than to limit articles, or sections of them to any specific number of quotes, or any specific balance of ideas. Balance is usually a good quality to maintain and to promote, but insisting upon it as a predetermined goal in all instances, or a constant necessity usually is not, and often results in stagnation, rather than true fairness or opportunities for progress towards it. ~ Kalki 02:59, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Kalki, in many word what you are saying is "it will sort itself out given time and patience". I may agree with this strategy in other circumstances, but be forewarned that it has not worked in WP and it is unlikely that it will work here. See the additional attempt by Andries (I would call this "quote stuffing") to add more quotes of the 70's in additional articles such as Divine Light Mission. By the way, there are hundreds of addresses by PR in the 70's. Andries choses to "pick" quotes that from his POV throw a negative light on PR without even bothering to read the context in which these were made. As far as I can see he is copying these quotes from an anti-PR website.

Again Kalki, my feeling is that to leave this alone and without any boundaries of appropriateness, is a recipe for edit-disaster. --Zappaz 18:21, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Zappaz, In most cases I did read the context. And please note that the quotes were collected by the ex-premies as a reaction to Rawat's attempts at revisionism. And besides the same could be said about Jossi but then the opposite i.e. he chooses positive quotes from a pro-Rawat website, so I think the accusation is unfair. Andries 18:27, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dear Andries: I am not accusing you of anything, just pointing out facts about your involvement in these articles. It is a fact Andries, that for your own personal reasons, you have chosen to become a very active critic of Prem Rawat and to use WP and WQ as a way to express that criticism. It is a fact that you have chosen to post here only what you consider to be quotes that put PR in bad light. It is a fact that you have chosen to open additional articles such as Divine Light Mission with the purpose of further "quote stuffing". That is fair enough, but just be aware that other people feel very different than you and that these articles need to provide a balanced and neutral view of PR. Hopefully jossi and other editors will come to the rescue and add quotes from all these decades that can present a more accurate picture of PR than just the POV of a critic. From my side of things I support's jossi's proposal to put limits on the number of quotes per decade, with a caveat: let's first add enough quotes to the article to present a more accurate picture of the evolution of Prem Rawat's message through his own words, and only then see if we need to synthesize the article and reduce the number of quotes. And then let the reader decide if this is indeed revisionism or evolution ... rather than to make that assessment on their behalf. --Zappaz 19:07, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Zappaz, I will think about your proposal but I think that the remark that I want to post quotes out of context or did not read it is untrue and unfair. After all, I wanted to insert the links to the articles and texts to provide context to the reader but Jossi wrote that these links should be removed because I only did that to provide traffic to the ex-premie website. You can read our discussion about that hereabove. I think it would be better to re-insert the links to the original scans or text. Andries 19:32, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for thinking about the proposal. I think that it will eventually result in having a good balanced selection of quotes. Regarding links to scans, as you know (as profusely discussed in w:talk:Criticism of Prem Rawat), many of these scans are copyvios, and indeed create the sense of search engine spamming, so it is not advisable given the contention. Andries, you should not be defensive about your POV... it is your right to express it. Stating these facts in my previous response was just that ... made without prejudice or judgement on my part. --Zappaz 19:41, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Some progress seems to be occurring...

Quite a bit of discussion and dialog has now occurred, and despite the hostility of the perspectives and motives evident, some initial signs of progress towards mutually acceptable arrangements have already been exhibited. I remain hopeful that despite determined disagreement and contentions, eventual arrival at fair arrangements are possible. I continue to see no need for drastic intervention, intrusive supervision, or even overt mediation by anyone. There are many subjects that one cannot expect to fully resolve to everyone's satisfaction very easily, and time is usually required to arrive at an adequate assessment of the options that exist and many of the potentials to be considered. I do not expect full agreement to be reached on many things, but sufficient agreements can probably develop over the course of weeks, and months, if not always in days and hours. ~ Kalki 23:52, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Added quotes

I have added quotes from the 70s, 80s and 90's ≈ jossi ≈ 01:53, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Jossi, I thought that you wanted to limit the nr. of quotes from the 70s and now you add quotes yourself. I do not understand it anymore. Andries 17:51, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Also added quotes from late 90's and early 2000. ≈ jossi ≈ 17:20, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Compelling reading ... thanks for the effort. Is the article is a bit too long...? --Zappaz 22:50, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What I wanted is to provide quotes from each decade so that readers can see for themselves the progress and evolution of the presentation of Maharaji's message through his own words, from the very early days when he was a child, through puberty, youth and adulthood.

I wanted to limit the number of quotes but that proposal was struck down, so I went ahead and added quotes from each decade. Concerning Andries inquiry about quotes from the 70s, I added additional quotes, as the ones posted by Andries did not include quotes related to Maharaji's core message and were posted with the ill intention of portraying a distorted image of Maharaji, the one critics like Andries seek to promote. I feel that the current version provides a more accurate and neutral picture. and hope that you all agree with that. ≈ jossi ≈ 19:02, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Andries aditions

I object to andries aditions. Quotes are taken out of context. You need to read the whole article.

Then either allow me to link to the whole article or post more from the article but you have no right to removed quotes. Andries 15:36, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Context

Andries, if you want to add "selective" quotes from interviews, then you have to give context, otherwise is is unfair. Choose the "juicest" excerpt you want to satisfy your anti-guru POV, from that interview, but only one excerpt allowed. Otherwsie we need to publish the whole interview and that is not possible. ≈ jossi ≈ 03:51, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)