Talk:Jung Myung-seok/Archive 5

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Primary Source verification

I would suggest any article that can not be retrieved from an original archive should not be utilized. The fact that a powerful search engine can discover an article somewhere in the internet is not very helpful since there is no distintion between a GENUINE ARTICLE and a planted article.

Both AP articles can not be located in the AP archives as discussed above and News Limited has never written an article about Jung Myung seok. I contacted Adam Suckling and his staff confirmed via email that News Limited has never written an article about Jung Myung Seok.

THe bigger concern here is that with little effort I HAVE uncovered a planted reference. Given the tone and one sided nature of this posting I call into question all references until they can be verified at the primary source.MrTownCar (talk) 05:38, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

This issue was beaten half to death about three months ago — see earlier on this talk page (for example, ). I would recommend, in the strongest possible way, that you bring up this issue (and the proof you say you have uncovered of fraudulent news articles) at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard (WP:RSN) and get a consensus of opinion there as to whether a specific item is or is not reliable for use here. If you do not raise the issue at WP:RSN, I am prepared to do so myself. And if others object to your latest removal of what appears to be reliably sourced material, and if you continue to demand that it be removed without seeking any sort of consensus, you risk being blocked for edit warring. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:36, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Post made Mr Wales. I am hoping others take interest in this article besides yourself.MrTownCar (talk) 13:19, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I tried to contact the author Bae Ji-sook of the Korea times article and the email is not valid. The evidence continues to mount.....MrTownCar (talk) 13:28, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Both of my emails to the Korea times authors are not deliverable and both articles can not be found in the Korea Times archives. Is anyone paying attention to the pattern developing here with the quality of the references and the lack of primary source verification? (please see comments at beginning of this section)MrTownCar (talk) 21:00, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policies on verifiability and reliability of sources do not require a source to be (currently, or even ever) available online in order to be usable. And it is not necessarily obvious that the online archives of a news outlet (such as the Associated Press) are irrebuttably 100% complete, and thus that an alleged AP article that does not appear in a search of the AP's online archives must conclusively and irrefutably be fraudulent despite its having been reported in other, normally reliable sources. As for the article which you say was disavowed via private communication between you and the staff of the alleged source of the article, that needs to be considered, but it is still not necessarily an open-and-shut issue (the staff might have been mistaken, or they might be under some sort of outside pressure to deny having printed something they did in fact print). Once again, these sorts of things need to be thoroughly investigated, starting with the people who hang out at WP:RSN. As for your own posting at WP:RSN, I applaud you for having taken this important step, but in order to have the best chance of being useful, your posting really needs to list specific articles and lay out the controversy regarding each article in much more detail. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:47, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of adding more specifics to the WP:RSN discussion. Please go have a look there, and if I have garbled any of the details of your claims, please feel free to set me straight. I will note here that my current analysis of the (alleged) News Limited and AP stories from 2008 strongly suggests that both stories are in fact genuine. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 04:01, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

There is a recurring problem with many but NOT ALL sources referenced. THE AP archives- two articles can not be found. Korea times can not find either article in the archives and both author's email address can not be delivered to, International Herald Tribune - article not found in the archive, Nathalie Luca article doesn't support ties between Jung and the Unification Church, News Limited stated they have NEVER written an article about Jung Myung Seok EVER, and since it took a week to respond I don't think they made shoddy attempt to search for the article. Two of the listed references are bulletin boards of the Korean police. The problems go on and on, too many to list. At what point does an objective outsider look at this and say there are too many red flags to chalk up the shortcomings of the references to inadequacies of MULTIPLE news media archives?MrTownCar (talk) 23:52, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Valid source removed

In a previous version of this article the monthly magazine whose translated title is "Civil Government" February 15, 2010, had multiple excerpts taken from it and included in the post. It was trivialized by some editors and it was stated in the talk page that the magazine was obscure and read only by JMS members. Both statements are categorically false and spoken by someone who does not live in S. Korea. A double standard is being applied to the source material which violates the encyclopedic nature of Wikipedia. A source that is well written from a NPOV without the scathing undertones of labeling JMS a rape cult gets thrown to the curb and there is no objection from the powers that be. MrTownCar (talk) 00:38, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:BLP rules

(I have moved the following from my user talk page to the article page, at MrTownCar's request. Richwales)

IF content posted on a page is categorically false and refers to a living person, why would this not be in violation of the BLP rules specifically the contentious material portion of the aforementioned rules and the material remains posted?MrTownCar (talk) 23:58, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:BLPSOURCES, "Wikipedia's sourcing policy, Verifiability, says that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." In an ideal world, a standard based directly on truth would probably be a good thing — but since people may disagree sharply on what is "true", the Wikipedia verifiability policy requires that material must be substantiated by reliable sources — and the Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy requires that we must represent, "fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources."

This doesn't mean we don't care about whether something is true or not as long as it has been published — only that we recognize that it's far easier to tell whether sources of information are generally reliable than to determine how factual a given piece is. If there is a broad consensus that a given piece of source material is suspect despite its having come from a source we would ordinarily accept as reliable, that source may (and should) be disregarded.

If some people insist that a given source is "categorically false", but the claim in said source is supported by material of a type that we can normally rely on, that claim may (and should) be included in the article. If there are multiple sides to an issue, each supported by reliable sources, we report both/all views and indicate who supports which view.

I must caution you here that if you are approaching this topic from the viewpoint that certain things are categorically false, and no matter how dependable the source is or appears to be, the source must by definition be somehow biased, deceptive, or fraudulent because you are absolutely convinced that what the source says is not correct, then you are not going to accomplish much of anything useful here on Wikipedia, and you will most likely end up being banned from this topic (or from the entire site) for edit-warring or other disruptive behaviour.

I would prefer, by the way, that future in-depth discussion of the Jung Myung Seok article and its proposed claims/sources should take place on the article's talk page — or on noticeboards such as WP:RSN. — rather than here on my own talk page. Please be advised that if you post further comments here on this article, I will probably move those comments to the article's talk page, so that others will have a chance to comment. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 01:49, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Reviving the edit war? I hope not

I note that MrTownCar has reverted the article to an earlier version that does not appear to be consistent with the consensus of a discussion about this article at WP:RSN last April (see the archived discussion here). The edit summary, "planted articles are not valid sources removed slander", seems to be a flat rejection or disregard for last April's conclusion over whether various sources not flattering to Mr. Jung are legitimate or not. There needs to be a good-faith effort — right now — to resolve this issue in a way that is in keeping with consensus and other Wikipedia policies. I will remind MrTownCar that consensus does not necessarily mean unanimity: just because he is dissatisfied with the result of the earlier discussion does not automatically make the consensus invalid or nonexistent. Additionally, even if MrTownCar is convinced that everyone else's opinion is wrong (or even contrary to non-negotiable policy), that is not acceptable as a justification for an edit war. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Given that nothing has changed since the prior consensus was reached, I agree that MrTownCar does not have a leg to stand on if extraordinary new evidence is not presented. Shii (tock) 11:47, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I have semi-protected this article for 3 months following a continuation of the edit war from an IP address. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 15:23, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Ravensfire, would you mind to explain what's wrong with the articles just added in edit you reverted? - Macauthor (talk) 23:59, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Macauthor, I would propose that your edit violated NPOV and used citations to a source whose reliability is questionable. The material you added was written in such a way as to make the editorial voice of Wikipedia take the side of Jung and his followers. And the cited source (providencetrial.com) should be assumed to be taking Jung's side, since (as best I can tell) it is in fact published by the Providence movement itself. This source may be usable for information on what the Providence movement believes/says — but even in this case, it should generally be used as representing only one of several different viewpoints. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:56, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Rich, Oh I thought I had added the other sources but I guess they didn’t get added to the source list after all. I’m having trouble using the new editor. I’m going to try it again, but this time hopefully the new sources will take hold.

The original sources are the two news articles, both of which are available on tertiary news sites.

[url=http://breaknews.com/sub_read.html?uid=122285&section=sc1 Break News]This is the article by Moon Il Seok posted in it's original Korean on Break News.

[url=http://www.mjknews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=58073 MJK News] This news article confirms the details in Moon Il Seok's article.

This article confirms both the number of churches and the possibility of injustice against Jung Myung Seok due to premature media broadcasts.

[url=http://www.newswave.kr/sub_read.html?uid=41702 News Wave]

If you double check each of the sources I added you'll find links to the tertiary news sites in their original Korean. Translations of them are provided on ProvidenceTrial.com. I do understand that if the articles were written by ProvidenceTrial.com then it would violate NPOV but they aren't sourced to ProvidenceTrial. The translations are helpful and we should have enough editors who speak two of any of the three languages to double check whether or not the translations match or not. Even a bad translation is better than google translator in my opinion. The text I added on wikipedia exactly matches the tone of the news articles, but you can modify it if you feel it can be made to feel unbiased. If we include the additions I would suggest we change the heading of that section to, "Trials and Court decisions" or something that includes the different types of cases since there is far more to the cases than just the trial that resulted in a sexual abuse conviction. Macauthor (talk) 19:09, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Poorly sourced ... still. Massively POV ... still. Honestly, just stop using providencetrial for any source except for basic background information purely about Seok and nobody else. Not even indirectly. It's a partisan site. You keep adding the same thing over and over despite multiple editors in multiple places INCLUDING on noticeboards saying it's not acceptable. Saying the same thing over and over the same way will not result in editors here allowing you to push your POV into the article. Ravensfire (talk) 20:27, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I understand what you're getting at, but the tertiary articles I'm adding again weren't really the discussion of the notice board I believe you are referring to and these are real trials that took place and are written about by proper news articles. Even if you want to exclude the providentrial versions, the article by Moon Il Seok and the article by Jeong Geong news still hold up to wikipedia policy regardless of my or any other editor's opinions. It's like the fact that Jung Myeong Seok served in Vietnam, except properly sourced to news articles instead of a biography. I noticed some discrepancies in the English translation and brought it up to the editors of that site. They have worked the past few months review and re-translate the article. It's worth taking a second look at if you have any editors that speak both Korean and English or both English and Chinese. Macauthor (talk) 20:49, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Objective analysis from the powers that be? I think not.

It appears that my pleas for outside analysis have fallen on deaf ears. I find it incredulous that Macauthor clearly enunciates that the sources he posted are not the same as previously discussed and one of the administrators laments that they are not NPOV. The whole point of this article is to present BOTH sides of view but it seems to me, the administrator only finds scathing, sensational articles to be written from a NPOV. The duplicitiy is incredible. Why not present both the SCATHING AND NOT SO SCATHING POINTS OF VIEW AND LET THE READER DECIDE? IT GIVES THE IMPRESSION TO ME THAT THE ADMINSTRATOR HAS AN agenda as does the contributor. MrTownCar (talk) 02:19, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

It is not necessary that each individual source must be neutral. However, each individual source does need to be inherently reliable for the purpose to which it is being put. Content from a source such as providencetrial.com cannot be used as if it were a major mainstream news organization — just as content from rickross.com (a source which I deleted just now), a self-published anti-cult website, is not appropriate here. Our policies do permit the sparing use of self-published or questionable sources (see WP:SELFSOURCE), but even in this case the sources can only be used "as sources of information about themselves". Now, if it happens that (quoting WP:NPOV) "all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic" do not represent some views, our normal conclusion is going to be that the unrepresented views are fringe views not appropriate for Wikipedia. If you believe this article is unfairly biased, then find reliable sources representing the missing views — but be prepared to substantiate your belief that the sources in question are, in fact, reliable and suitable for use here. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 04:47, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the input. I have repeatedly stated that the Civil Government article that was included in a former version of this article is fully bonafide and verifiable. This has been ignored by the adminstrators and smeared by one of the contributors as obscure and published by Providence which it is not. I have already done what was suggested Mr Wales and have been shot down repeatedly. Additionally, if you look at previous edits done by myself, I reviewed each reference at its orgin NOT through a link. MANY BUT NOT ALL of the articles are planted in the current version. Mr Wales has repeatedly stated that articles do not have to be available on the web but that makes it very hard to verify their existence and I see no burden of proof on behalf of the contributor to prove these are bonafide, reliable sources. I have repeatly stated in the TALK PAGE that numerous articles can not be found at the archives of the respective media outlets, i.e. 2 articles from AP and 2 articles from Korea Times amongst others. WHen you click the link for reference 33 from the current version it has this title "University]Columbia University Networks Global Alumni" whereas the title has nothing to do with the article which is about Jung Myung Seok. It seems very odd to me the that Korea times put the wrong title with yet another smearing article about Jung Myung seok. When one tries to search the archives no article can be found with the title as stated in footnote 33. Again the administrators take no notice of these facts nor does the supplying contributor have to "be prepared to substantiate your belief that the sources inquestion are, in fact, reliable and suitable for use here". The double standard continues. MrTownCar (talk) 14:19, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I see you are doing more work on the article today. In the next 24-36 hours, I plan to go carefully through the article (with your new changes) again and make whatever observations seem appropriate. I would like to ask other editors: Please don't summarily revert MrTownCar's latest changes until I (and others who may be interested) have had a chance to examine them. In the spirit of WP:NORUSH, I would propose that even if this new work does turn out to be unacceptable, it's unlikely to cause any real lasting harm if we take a day or two to go over it. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:49, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not done yet studying your latest batch of revisions. However, I want to say some things about reliable sources being used (or proposed) in this article.

Based on the earlier (January 2013) discussions on this talk page regarding Civil Government, the consensus at that time appears to me to have been that Civil Government (or, at least, the cited material said to be from Civil Government) was too closely tied to Providence's web sites providencetrial.com and gospelofprovidence.com to be reliable for substantiating statements of fact — though the Civil Government material might be reliable to a limited extent (per WP:SELFSOURCE) for substantiating statements regarding what Jung and his followers believe. See also this January 2013 archived discussion from WP:RSN. I understand that you don't accept this negative evaluation of Civil Government, but it is the currently effective consensus here — and for what it may or may not be worth, I honestly do not believe this consensus represents a double standard or a decision imposed/dominated by Wikipedia administrators.

Similarly, your claim that various items critical of Jung were "planted", fraudulent pieces was discussed in this April 2013 archived discussion from WP:RSN, and the people (other than you and me) who commented on the discussion at that time agreed that your claims were not plausible and that the sources in question were definitely reliable. If you still reject this consensus, I would strongly advise you to rethink your reasons and take the issue back to WP:RSN, and not act in defiance of the existing consensus (or the other one about Civil Government) unless you can get an unambiguous consensus supporting your positions.

I'll have some things to say about your latest set of edits soon — hopefully within the next couple of hours. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Regarding your latest batch of edits, my main concern at the moment deals with the "30 lessons". If (as you say) this material is not secret (despite what opponents of Jung apparently claim), then I believe it is reasonable to expect a verifiable citation to the 30 lessons — something much more usable than "30 Lessons Book". Also, the sentence saying "the final, most secret lectures prove that Jung is the Messiah" seems inconsistent with your claim that this material is not secret; perhaps you aren't finished redoing this part of the article yet? If what the mainstream sources say about Providence's teachings differs from what Providence itself puts forth as its teachings (e.g., if there are people saying "they publicly say ABC, but secretly they believe and teach XYZ"), it might be desirable to have separate subsections describing these two opposing views separately — but without having the editorial voice of Wikipedia take sides. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Since MrTownCar has not come back to do further work on the article, I'm going to take this opportunity to summarize the current state of the article as I see it.

• The current reference #1 ("Retrial needed for the case of Jung Myung Seok", from Civil Government) is, in fact, an opinion piece from the providencetrial.com web site. As such, it should be used only to illustrate the views of the Providence organization, and that only sparingly (if at all). I do not believe it is appropriate to use this source to substantiate facts — there must surely be other, far less controversial sources substantiating Jung's identity and aliases.

• It would be highly desirable if editors fluent in Korean (both pro-Jung and anti-Jung, as well as neutral people if there are any) could read the Korean-language sources and verify that they satisfy WP:RS, do in fact substantiate the claims to which they are attached, and that the overall use of these and other sources is furthering the NPOV goal. Source citations should, if at all possible, be filled out with publication names and dates. Several of the Korean-language source references have only Korean titles; it is absolutely essential that English translations of the titles should be added for the benefit of other editors and readers for whom Korean text is utterly meaningless. The same goes for the current reference #26 (in Japanese).

• The "Early biography" section seems very incomplete to me. From other discussions, for example, I understand Jung did military service in Vietnam; I'm not sure if this was omitted here by accident, for brevity's sake, or perhaps because this phase of his life is considered controversial in some way, but it seems to me that it is probably relevant and should probably be included. His birthplace should be further identified as being in Korea (present-day South Korea, though this would presumably be an anachronism since he was born ca. 1944). I'm also disturbed by the overly brief, very possibly slanted description of his church-related activities — the two cited sources are in Korean, so I have no way to evaluate their reliability or bias.

• The "Sexual abuse charges" section appears to be substantiated entirely (or nearly so) with anti-Jung sources. Now, I realize there simply may not exist any generally-accepted-as-reliable news sources which take a sympathetic (or even balanced) approach to Jung — and if that is the case, we may simply have to settle for what we have. Since Jung is a living person, WP:BLP applies here, but that does not prevent us from describing the misdeeds for which he has been tried and convicted by legal systems generally acknowledged to be fair. If any good secondary sources discuss any reasonable claims that Jung's criminal process has been flawed, we can and should report this, but not in such a way as to make Wikipedia's editorial voice take sides. I understand, for example, that there have been some civil lawsuits against media organizations over accusations made against Jung, and these should probably be mentioned if the fact of the existence of the lawsuits and/or court judgments can be substantiated via reliable sources — but again, we must not try to make Wikipedia take sides (e.g., verbiage along the lines of "such-and-so lawsuits won by Jung and his supporters prove the criminal charges against him are slanderous" is not going to fly here). If people need an example of a well-written article about a controversial religious leader who has got himself into serious legal trouble, you might want to read the article on Warren Jeffs (the leader of a polygamous group that broke off from the Mormons a long time ago).

• The "Jung's teaching" section is very problematic right now. The claims in this section appear fairly innocuous, but the cited sources appear to be mostly anti-Jung. (It's possible that I'm being misled here because of the repeated use of the word "cult" in article titles — this is an extremely strong, negative word in English, and I honestly don't know if the corresponding terms in Korean or Japanese carry the same connotations for writers who are native speakers of those languages as "cult" does for speakers of English.) As I said before, it may very possibly be the case that this entire section needs to be written so as to make it clearer what the Providence movement publicly teaches, and what outsiders or ex-members claim it "really" believes — but, if possible, not in such a way as to make Wikipedia take sides.

• The "30 Lessons Book" source (current reference #30) is, IMO, not currently usable (because it is not verifiable), unless a publicly available document is available somewhere for people to examine. It doesn't have to be in English — something in Korean would be fine, as long as Korean-speaking editors are able to study it and can vouch for what it says.

Those are the main issues right now, as I see them. I realize it's likely to be very hard for people with widely different views on Jung to come together here, but unless you all want this article to be whittled down to not much more than a two- or three-paragraph stub, I believe it's in everyone's best interest to find a way. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 18:10, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

In response to Richwales' above posted issues~ The article written by Moon Il Seok published by Civil Government is written by an investigative reporter who did 11 years research and his findings are published on breaknews.com and the magazine Civil Government. It’s writing, authors, and publications have absoulutely nothing to do with ProvidenceTrial.com or any other group advocating for Providence. So please stop labeling it an opinion piece written by ProvidenceTrial.com -- nothing could be further than the truth. It is only referenced on ProvidenceTrial.com which does not taint the news publications’ neutrality as viable news sources. It would be like saying that because an abortion advocacy group quoted an article on 60 minutes that it completely invalidates the article on 60 minutes as being a neutral news source. To see the article published completely separate from ProvidenceTrial.com simply visit the article as it is published by it's news agency at http://breaknews.com/sub_read.html?uid=122285&section=sc1

I agree with some of the other points you made. The personal profile is extremely lacking. We had far more biographical details about Jung in earlier versions of the article including a photograph of Jung serving in Vietnam, but such details have been removed so many times that I gave up trying to keep it in the article. We also had statistics on how many churches and followers there are in the organization confirmed by published articles in earlier versions of the wikipedia article but all such information has since been removed. As Mr. Towncar said before, Jung has self-published materials that we could use to improve the teachings section which could be provided/referenced. But before attempting to improve anything else I am waiting to see why we can't come to a consensus on the neutrality of the Moon Il Seok article (Civil Government) or this article from MJKNews.com which has also been added to previous edits of the wikipedia article only to be removed. If we can't come to a consensus on tertiary articles then why waste time trying to edit anything else based on self-published materials just to have it immediately removed again. Macauthor (talk) 13:39, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Even if Moon's article was not written or sponsored by the Providence movement, I am still not convinced that it is going to be helpful to us in writing about Jung in Wikipedia.

Accepting, for the sake of discussion, that Moon Il-Seok's article in providencetrial.com is a good-quality English translation of an original Korean article in Civil Government or breaknews.com (something which I cannot verify, since I don't speak Korean), the style of the article is still (IMO) firmly in the camp of "editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces" (see WP:NEWSORG). As such, it may be a reliable source for the opinions or conclusions of Moon Il-Seok, but we cannot take it (all by itself) as a reliable source for statements of fact. And in order for us to assess the degree of notability of Moon Il-Seok, his reputation as an investigative reporter, and the overall credibility of his commentary — things we would need to know in order to know how much (if any) prominence to give what he says — we would need more information on Moon himself. Can you supply any sources about Moon Il-Seok or his journalistic career, in English if possible, or else in Korean?

But again, despite all this, an article written in this particular way is — on its face and without really needing to dive deeply into its provenance — an expression of someone's opinion. It could very possibly be the case, for what little I know, that Jung Myung-Seok really was unjustly convicted and is in fact innocent of some (or even all) of the charges laid against him; but this one article is (IMO) usable only as an indication that at least one person (Moon Il-Seok) believes Jung was railroaded. Again, Moon's article (or any article written in a similar style) is not suitable for use in Wikipedia as a reliable source for statements of fact. I'm not really even comfortable with using Moon's opinion piece as a good source for the only facts for which it is currently being used as a source (specifically, that Jung is also known as "Joshua Jung" or "JMS"); this sort of detail must surely be corroborated by other, less problematic sources. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 17:07, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I can understand that you would hesitate to include one journalist's conclusion, but it is worth noting that the trials and court decisions in favor of Providence against the media mentioned by Moon Il Seong are all confirmed by the article posted on MJKNews (also provided here in English), as well as this article posted on Jeong Gyeong News. "Jung Myung-Seok may have been railroaded" might sound like an editorial styled conclusion, but it is a fact that both he and other journalists concluded that his trial may have been unfair, and mentioning that fact would give the readers some hint as to why Jung's final trial, or this article for that matter, could be considered controversial. Even if we choose not to include that fact, we should at least acknowledge that Providence church won a defamation court case against one of the 3 major Korean News broadcast companies, and that several others court cases have been dropped (a fact mentioned in the Jeong Gyeong News article and the article on MJKNews). That court decision was the conclusion of the Korean court's judges - not an editor or journalist. If you as editors decide to exclude those facts and intentionally decide not to acknowledge the existence of his other trials, when multiple valid sources have been provided, then you risk taking sides by omitting the existence of one side, thus making this article a one-sided biased article, even if you do so with the intention presenting only un-biased information. Macauthor (talk) 19:41, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I have no objection at all to having this article mention that some people have questioned the propriety of Jung's trial and that Providence has won some defamation cases. Any such material, however, must be from reliable sources and must be used in a manner that is consistent with the NPOV policy. In general, statements by journalists challenging the fairness of Jung's trial/conviction will be usable only to show that the cited journalists believe Jung was wrongly convicted — I can't conceive of any scenario in which the article could validly say anything like "it has been established, however, that Jung was unfairly tried and wrongly convicted" unless his conviction has in fact been legally overturned on appeal. And even if Jung has won defamation suits, those civil actions also do not prove that he is innocent (unless the legal effect of the defamation suits was in fact to void his criminal conviction under Korean law, something which I do not believe has been the case).

Additionally, I am extremely reluctant to accept any of Providence's web sites (such as providencetrial.com) as constituting a reliable source for anything other than Providence's or Jung's beliefs or opinions. Even if providencetrial.com is reprinting a news story (or an English translation of a news story) from some other source, the fact that it is coming to us via providencetrial.com will cause critical readers to (rightly) question its objective accuracy. I would rather see a link to an original article in Korean from a news source generally accepted in Korea as being impartial — as long as the article is readily available online so that Korean speakers can easily access it and read it for themselves. By saying all this, I am not trying to blacklist Providence or its media sources; I am only insisting that we need to use sources of unquestioned quality in an article (such as this one) dealing with controversial statements about a living person. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:17, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. "I would rather see a link to an original article in Korean from a news source generally accepted in Korea as being impartial — as long as the article is readily available online so that Korean speakers can easily access it and read it for themselves." This article posted on MJKNews.com (정경 "Jung Gyung" News), as well as this article posted on breaknews.com are both readily available to Korean speakers. There's also this one on NewsWave.kr. So is your question more about how impartial the news sites are? Yonhap news also has some articles about more recent events held in Wolmyungdong (Jung's hometown) which is a news site utilized by Shii and/or Peter Daley in the current version of wikipedia article, but to be honest I don't know which sites are considered more or less impartial. You could ask a Korean speaker, but you'd be getting their opinion. Where do you draw the line? I think the best we can do is determine whether it is a news site or an advocacy site. Macauthor (talk) 10:15, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Could you please respond with your opinion on whether these sources are valid or not? It seems to me that we agree that this article could be improved by adding in some of these sources or at least some more of the biographical content it had before. Macauthor (talk) 17:21, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

A note on the history of the article

As an editor of this page > 5 years ago, I am very happy to see so many neutral Wikipedians watching the page. However, I'd like to point out that the article has not substantively progressed much in the last 5 years, except in quality of prose and structure (compare the current page with [1]). The constant questioning by WP:SPAs on any non-Providence Trial references has limited this article to a small pool of references, especially English-language references that are available on the Internet, and an enormous amount of effort has been expended debating these references only to conclude that they are valid. The English literature is tiny compared to the non-English literature (especially Korean). I am concerned that the venomous atmosphere and absence of WP:AGF on behalf of the WP:SPAs frustrates and wastes the time of neutral editors, and prevents Korean-reading editors expanding the article due to the difficulty in defending non-English sources in such an atmosphere. Surely that would be the ideal, rather than continue to debate the stub-like state the page is currently in that has already been debated to death for the last few years.

(Also, the reference that was removed because it was "content from RickRoss" was cited to Crisscross News, not RickRoss. See: [2]) RB972 03:28, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

For what it may or may not be worth, I believe my 8-year history here on Wikipedia adequately counters any suggestions that I might be an SPA. And although I am not (and have no intention to become) a follower of Jung, I have been trying very hard here to remain neutral and have this article be as neutral as possible, reflecting what the reliable sources say, and fairly representing both the views of Jung's supporters and opponents (but without making Wikipedia itself take sides).

My apologies for mixing up Crisscross News with Rick Ross News. When I tried to search for a URL for the Crisscross News story ("South Korean cult merges sex with prayer"), the only thing I found (aside from the Wikipedia article itself and sites clearly copying the Wikipedia material) was a copy of the story on the Rick Ross site ([3]) — so I concluded at the time that "Crisscross" was a mangling of "Rick Ross". FWIW, it appears that the original Crisscross News (www.crisscross.com) is dead now; I was completely unable to find anything about who published Crisscross News, any biases it might have had, whether it was respected as a reliable mainstream news source, etc.

Regarding English vs. non-English sources, read WP:NONENG. Although non-English sources are allowed, we do prefer English-language sources where reasonably possible, with quotations of relevant portions of any source (accompanied if necessary by translations into English). — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 04:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I in no way meant to imply you were a SPA. I apologize for that impression. You are among the neutral editors that I meant to appreciate for taking an interest in this page. I am aware English sources are preferred to non-English sources, but in this case English sources are limited in number and especially in scope (primarily about the court outcomes). RB972 04:22, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, since my original point may have been misunderstood. I am suggesting that a great deal of the history of the article and its talk page is associated with absurd criticisms by some SPAs ('admins are biased' and 'references were planted' are recent ones). This atmosphere limits the available pool of references to the fraction of WP:RS that are most easily defensible to neutral editors (mostly English and available on the Internet). Hence the article is limited in content and has not progressed over the years because this history just keeps repeating. For example, the 30 lessons and other offline material published by the JMS group satisfies WP:SELFSOURCE but these references were always removed by SPAs. Third-party neutral editors cannot really resolve the issue as they are unfamiliar with the offline self-published material. Similarly non-English references have tended to be lost over time because third-party editors can rarely verify them and all it takes is for some SPA to claim the article was "planted." This is the effect of taking a soft approach to the SPAs. Maybe that is the Wikipedia way. I just wanted to put that in perspective for the current editors to consider if it is desired for the article to be expanded, and to show my appreciation that neutral editors are watching the article. I do not desire to spend much time on Wikipedia. RB972 05:33, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll be quite honest and admit I am what would be considered SPA. This is the only subject I am interested in editing but I feel I have much to offer by providing sources that give more insight into the subject. That being said, as an SPA I am welcome to edit here. I may have made some mistakes in the beginning, but I have learned a lot over the years with the help of editors like Rich Wales, and am now quite familiar with Wikipedia policy. I am not interested in trying to remove negative or positive facts from this wikipedia article, but only in adding more information and sources. I am a high school teacher who teaches computer classes and for me this is more of an experiment to see what it's like to volunteer in a crowd-sourced volunteer internet project, and so I chose an article that I am well informed about. There were earlier versions of this article with more biographical details and court cases involving Providence and Jung Myung Seok, but so many of these were removed time and time again. Quite frankly, I'm shocked at our inability to come to a consensus over the years and the inability of this article to inform it's readers properly about it's subject. The editing of this article has been very frustrating, due not only to the poor editing of SPA's but also because of the lack of informative details about the subject due to the lack of agreed upon sources as you said above. It seems like RB972 and Richwales both agree that we should find editors who speak both Korean & English so that we can utilize more Korean articles without debating so much. If that's possible I think it would be great. I myself do not fully speak Korean and rely heavily on friends who do when doing my research, but surely Wikipedia must have an experienced bilingual editor who can help out. Once we do begin utilizing Korean sources I hope that we can re-admit the investigative reporter references published in articles available on both www.BreakNews.com and www.MJKNews.com. The article referenced as "Civil Government" mentioned by RichWales in the previous section of this talk page is not an opinion piece written by an advocacy group as he said in his bullet points, but to see more about that simply reference the response I made above earlier today. If we can come to a consensus on tertiary sources then I can provide more sources to self-published sources as well, but I'm not going to waste time on the latter if we can't even agree on the former. Macauthor (talk) 14:34, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

You claim that we were "unable to come to a consensus", but in fact a very solid consensus has been reached which you are simply opposed to. A number of outside editors were involved to solidify the current consensus, and for it to be overturned a large discussion must be held again. Shii (tock) 15:38, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:ANI notice

Hi. In response to the recent (and ongoing) editing by an IP user, I've posted a notice on the administrators' incidents noticeboard (WP:ANI), asking for attention to this article from uninvolved admins. I've notified the IP address on its talk page. Anyone who wants to discuss this matter should probably watch WP:ANI and look for any followup to my request for attention. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 07:45, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank You for trying to get objective input on this contentious article. Can you explain to me the concensus process by which the article in Civil GOvernment was deemed unacceptable as a source and which contributors participated in that process? I see reference to a concensus process but no documentation of that process.MrTownCar (talk) 13:52, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I am not going to comment further on the issue of whether the material cited in Civil Government is or isn't acceptable as a source. I believe that issue was already adequately addressed by the earlier discussions on this talk page, and since I've asked for new and uninvolved admins to get involved here, it would be better for me to let others evaluate the issue and decide for themselves what they think.

Regarding your questions/concerns raised on my talk page: The light grey "Jung's teaching" in the edit summaries is what happens when someone edits a section of an article, as opposed to editing the entire article. If you select a single section for editing, the edit summary string is initially set to the section header with comment delimiters (/* and */) around it; any edit summary text delimited in this way is automatically shown in light grey when the article's edit summary is displayed. This isn't anything nefarious; it happens all the time, whenever someone edits a single section of a page rather than editing the whole page.

If I understand your second concern, you are saying that one of the edits which you made on July 28 seems to have been modified so that the change is something different from what you really did. I don't know of any way this could possibly have happened; the software base on which Wikipedia operates (called MediaWiki) doesn't provide any way for anyone at all (not even administrators) to forge or alter an edit in this fashion. I've never heard of anyone having done this, at any time, to any article anywhere. As far as I know, the only way what you're describing could have happened would be if one of the database sysadmins (not a regular administrator, but one of the small handful of people with direct access to the servers) had hacked into the database. The chances of this happening are so tiny — and the theoretical gain from doing it is so negligible — and the likelihood is so great that you simply forgot what change you made three months ago, or that you accidentally typed something other than what you had intended — that I doubt anyone is going to be willing to investigate your claim.

There is another privilege class (called "oversighter") which allows a small group of highly trusted admins to redact (completely hide) the contents of a change, the identity of the user who made it, and/or the edit summary (or any combination of these). This is done in rare cases where material is considered so objectionable (obvious libel, intentional or accidental revealing of a Wikipedia editor's real-life identity, etc.) that it mustn't be allowed to remain accessible in an article's revision history after having been edited out of the article's text. However, an oversighter cannot completely erase all existence of a suppressed edit (the article's revision history will still show that something happened, and the redacted material can still be examined by any oversighter who is willing to jump through some extra hoops) — and an oversighter also doesn't have the ability to reword an edit or an edit summary, or to make an edit appear to have been done by someone else (as I said, no one can do this, with the possible theoretical exception of a really good hacker).

It isn't possible to tell if someone is an admin simply by looking at their account name. However, there is a tool which you can use to see someone's set of permissions in a "popup" box. Click your "Preferences" link at the top of any page; then click on the tab marked "Gadgets", and look for an item called "Navigation popups". Check the box next to "Navigation popups", and then go to the bottom of the page and click "Save". Once you've done this, you can hover over any link (don't click on the link, just move your pointer to be on top of the link), and you'll get a popup box with a preview of the initial portion of the article corresponding to the link. If the link is a user page (or a user talk page), you'll see other information about the user — when they created their account, the number of edits they've made, and their permissions set. If you want to know if someone is an administrator, see if their permissions set includes the word "sysop". This feature, I hope you'll understand, will only work if you're logged in to your account — not if you're reading Wikipedia while logged out.

The admins (sysops) who have dealt with this article during the last year include Shii, Lectonar, Magioladitis, Materialscientist, and myself. Again, though, the kind of hacking of an article's revision history which you are suggesting took place here is not something which either admins, oversighters, or anyone else is able to do. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:03, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

thank you for thoughtful and informative response.MrTownCar (talk) 02:09, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Recourse at wikipedia?

When an admin abuses their position of authority and posts poor quality sources that violate BLP:NPOV and include a vistors board ---see citation 12, what recourse am I left with to call attention to this matter? I undid the edit in a despearte attempt to get outside objective evalution of this problem. Mr wales has already posted at the ANI. It is truly reprehensible that admin would post such a poor quality edit including a visitors board as one of its sources.MrTownCar (talk) 01:59, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

. Shii (tock) 04:12, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Three thoughts.

• The question of whether or not an external link to a web site critical of Jung Myung Seok is permissible here is independent of whether or not the main body of disputed text is permissible. If the critical web site is not appropriate to list amongst the external links, it might still be acceptable to restore the main body of disputed material.

• Japanese-language sources need to include an English translation or transliteration of the article and journal titles. Remember that Japanese, Chinese, or Korean text is utterly meaningless chickenscratch to the vast majority of our readers; we need to include enough English (or, at least, Latin alphabet writing) so that the typical reader will at least have a chance of finding the source.

• NPOV violations are not a valid excuse for edit warring. And while fixing BLP problems may sometimes qualify for exemption from edit warring / 3RR, "what counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial" — and if editors disagree over whether something is a BLP violation or not, you're far better off using dispute resolution rather than waging an edit war (even one where you're sure you're in the right). Be aware that two recent arbitration cases involved disputes over whether controversial edits were or were not BLP violations.

— Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:28, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Some additional comments.

• The fact that a user whose editing you disagree with happens to be an administrator does not automatically mean that the editing in question constituted an administrative action (or, more specifically, that it was a case of abuse of administrative privilege). Admins are not allowed to (mis)use their enhanced abilities in order to gain the upper hand in a content dispute — but when editing an article in a normal fashion, an admin has no more or less stature or privilege than any other editor, and their editing should be treated on a par with other people's editing until/unless it becomes evident (such as through edit summaries or talk page discussions) that an admin is intimidating other editors and/or trying to throw his/her weight around.

• The Neutral Point of View policy does not say that we are striving to find and express a single "neutral" viewpoint for a subject. It says that we are to represent "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." If multiple, conflicting views about a subject exist in reliable sources, we need to present them all, and (if necessary) acknowledge that the available reliable sources are in disagreement. Where (as I believe is the case in this article) material is substantiated by sources that have been evaluated by a broad consensus and determined to be reliable, it is not appropriate to delete this material in the name of NPOV merely because you disagree with what it says. Stated another way, a line of reasoning which says that "this source cannot possibly be reliable because I am sure what it is saying is wrong" is normally not considered valid here. If legitimate differences of opinion still exist as to whether certain other sources presenting a different viewpoint are "reliable" or not, my understanding of NPOV would say that the proper approach is to keep the existing material, seek to validate the reliable sourcing of the new material, and (if the new material is indeed reliably sourced) incorporate both the old and new material — recognizing and explaining the differences in views, but without trying to make Wikipedia's editorial voice choose any particular view as "the" correct view.

• The Biographies of Living Persons policy does not say that all negative material on a living person must be removed. It says that such material must be removed unless it is validly attributed to a reliable published source. Similarly to what I said above about the NPOV policy, you cannot delete properly substantiated material (and claim justification for doing so per the BLP policy) simply because you personally find the material distasteful. If other, reliably sourced material exists that disputes allegations made in already-existing reliably sourced material, it is appropriate to include it all and to point out the discrepancy.

• My impression (for what it may or may not be worth) is that the main body of text which is currently in dispute (removed by 50.27.76.7, reinstated by Shii, and then removed by you) appears to be properly substantiated via reliable sources — and, as such, I believe this material most likely should be returned to the article. If there is additional information that can be properly substantiated via reliable sources which reflects differing views, that material should be included as well. If there are valid concerns over whether or not certain sources are reliable or certain material is properly sourced, it is of course reasonable to discuss those concerns — though people should carefully read the past discussions (earlier on this talk page, as well as this archived discussion from the Reliable Sources Noticeboard) so as not to simply revisit the same disputed/settled issues over and over again.

— Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:03, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

There in lies my objection Mr Wales you quoted the policy "as far as possible, without bias" . the article as put forth by the contributor is written with extreeme bias based on biased articles that exist in the media. The tone of the article and sources is anything but neutral and is lacking high journalistic standards.MrTownCar (talk) 15:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Please remember to log in when editing this article

Hi. Since this article has been the subject of long-running content disputes (and, some would probably say, edit warring), I would strongly recommend that anyone editing this article who does have a Wikipedia account should remember to always log in and use your account when making changes to this article. While it is true that Wikipedia does not generally require people to register or use an account when editing articles, a user who edits a controversial article both via an account and also via an IP address may risk raising suspicion of violating the Sockpuppetry policy by "logging out to make problematic edits as an IP address". I am saying this, not as an administrator or other authority figure, but as a concerned Wikipedian who would like to see this article improved with the least possible amount of drama. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 17:03, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

FWIW the IP was not me and I think this article should be semiprotected permanently to prevent such edits, but obviously neither of us can do that. Shii (tock) 19:44, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Mr Wales-- the bigger picturer which I have repeatedly posted on this talk page is that many sources do not support the statement such as the Natalie Luca article saying the Jung was part of the unification church.. not true and not supported. The Korea times article is titled "columbia university networks its global alumni" after you click the link in sources.... obviously a planted article and so on. We have a version based on articles that cant be found at the source archives, articles with title that doesnt match the content and articles that dont support the text, articles written by authors with bogus email addresses etc, not to mention News Unlimited denied ever writing about Jung myung seok but miraculously an article attributed to News Unlimited is cited! All of this violates BLP policy.

My criticisms have been completely ignored in favor of a jaded, biased article based on biased writing which exists in the Korean media. Zero effort has been made by the powers that be to offer an alternate source. The civil government article is the single best article to shed light on this and it was shot down by an uneducated consesus panel that doesnt read Korean, has never visited Korea (self admitted in the talk page) and doesnt know who publishes Civil Governemnt as one contributor said it was published by Providence but in fact it is not. I stated previously that this was an independently published journal, again my comments were ignored. If the world wants to read about JMS on wikipedia then the article posted here should reflect alternate and mutiple views for the reader to decide for themselves. The article as put for by the admin contributor only reflects the jaded media bias that exists in korea plus poorly sourced material, which is my contention that he provide a more balanced article with view points from both sides but clearly no effort has been made to this end. Again I have repeatedly called for mutiple view points to be presented in this article but to no avail. If wikipedia can not post an article with multiple views expressed than no article should be posted at all.MrTownCar (talk) 15:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's fundamental concern is to present the consensus reality of reliable sources, not "multiple views" or "all sides". See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Giving_.22equal_validity.22 Shii (tock) 05:07, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

The part of the FAQ which you are citing says we don't have to treat all views as equal (especially when pseudoscience is involved). If appropriate, we can (and should) still make it clear that the majority view is the majority view, while still presenting minority views as such. I would also point out that if there is a disagreement between the NPOV FAQ page and the NPOV policy itself, the policy takes precedence over any interpretation of such in the FAQ. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:43, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Reviewing non-English sources for this article

About a third of the references currently in this article are in Korean or Japanese. Without any detail in English about what these sources say, it is difficult or impossible for most Wikipedians to confirm whether or not they really support the claims to which they are attached. Per WP:NONENG, "if a dispute arises involving a citation to a non-English source, editors may request that a quotation of relevant portions of the original source be provided".

Some claims in this article (relating to things which appear to me to be in dispute) are currently supported by non-English-language sources — e.g., the claim that Jung was a member of the Unification Church; the allegations made against Jung in 2006 by the EXODUS group; the claim that Jung's supporters rioted and forced a newspaper to shut down after Jung's conviction in South Korea; and claims of women being recruited for sexual exploitation by Jung and his associates.

I believe we need to clean up all the non-English sources and confirm that they are reliable and say what they are claimed to say. Any such source which cannot be cleaned up in this way should be removed, and any contentious statement which is not adequately substantiated after removal of such unusable sources needs to be removed from the article.

I don't know where this will lead, but I believe it needs to be done in order for this article to meet Wikipedia's standards. Unless there are reasoned objections, I will tag the non-English sources with the {{Request quotation}} template; and if no progress is made to fix up these references in a reasonable length of time, I propose to remove them and any material which depends on them.

In the meantime, I would strongly recommend that editors with strongly held views on Jung should refrain from edit-warring here, since this is likely only to get people blocked from editing and could derail a careful process towards cleaning up the sources in the article. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:36, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't see anyone disputing what the non-English sources say. If anyone doesn't believe what they say, I can supply a quote since they are all publicly available, but what a frivolous task! Shii (tock) 13:48, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

MrTownCar challenged some of these sources above. Some of the issues he has brought up appear to be issues which were discussed at great length previously (see, for example, this April 2013 discussion at WP:RSN about a possibly fabricated / planted news story), but in order to be certain, I believe the non-English-language sources do need to be gone through carefully and filled in with enough detail to eliminate any possible doubt.

Note that I am not proposing to rip out the uncertain sources (and text depending on these sources) immediately. Normally, the BLP policy would favour acting quickly with contentious material backed by questionable sources, but since the existing material has been supported in the past by a consensus, we need to respect that consensus until/unless we come up with solid reasons to revisit it. However, I do propose that we should act fairly quickly (on a time scale of a couple of weeks, NOT months or years) to improve the sources in this article. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:29, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Shii, thanks for adding the quotations from some of the sources. Could you also add (in brackets or parens) English translations of this quoted material? Again, the idea here is to allow editors and readers who do not speak the foreign language(s) in question to see that the sources do in fact substantiate the associated claims in the text of the article. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:25, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Can't remove properly sourced material just because you disagree with it

Please refer to this exchange on my talk page (and possible future followups thereto). In brief, I found the 2007 The Australian article on LexisNexis and have updated the source cite accordingly (including a quotation). And I would caution people that you cannot remove material which is supported by a presumably reliable source simply because you disagree with it; in such cases, edit summaries that say little more than that the removed material was not true are not sufficient to justify such removal. I restored some recently deleted material which, as best I could tell, was clearly substantiated by the sources (which had also been deleted). I did rephrase one piece of restored material (Yoshihide Sakurai's claims about Jung's early involvement with the Unification Church) to be closer to the quotation we have from the source, and I also explicitly attributed this claim to Sakurai (who, it turns out, is a sociology professor at a major Japanese university) rather than simply leaving it as a statement of objective fact. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:53, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I will ask for the last time of Mr Wales and any other scholars posting on this artile. what litmus test is being used to verify the veracity of the citation AND separately the veracity of the content of the citation? Finding an article in Lexis nexis or elsewhere doesnt prove the veracity of the article especially when the article can not be found at the original source as I have enumerated repeatedly elsewhere in this talk page. I SEE LITTLE to no effort being made to find the truth. Articles with unrelated titles, authors emails addresses that dont work etc etc etc. why so many problems with sources??????????????????????????????????????MrTownCar (talk) 02:03, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Since the sources have recently been cleaned up, and quotations from the sources have been added, to a considerable extent since the last time you called out specific sources which you doubted, I think it would be highly advisable if you would look at the article as it currently stands and give a specific critique (here, on the talk page) of each individual source whose suitability you are challenging. Note that if a citation is to a source that is generally recognized as being reliable, the burden falls on opponents of the material to show specific, compelling reasons why it is not in fact reliable after all. A source does not need to be found on the originating news organization's web site in order to be valid; reputable alternative services such as LexisNexis, HighBeam, and the like are routinely permitted here. The BLP policy does, to be sure, permit some leeway (aggressive proactive removal of poorly sourced contentious material, "consensus cannot override policy", and so forth) — but if a source is generally recognized as being reliable, you (or anyone) would risk sanctions for edit warring, vandalism, etc. if you insist on simply removing a source (and the material it substantiates) without first getting a consensus that the source is bad and should be removed, even if you try to justify your actions via an appeal to the BLP policy. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:28, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry my request is not clear. Please explain to me how high BEAM and lexis nexis distinguish legitimate articles from planted articles? That fact that these search engines find an article in the internet doesnt establish legitamacy. MrTownCar (talk) 17:50, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

The reasonable presumption is going to be that an article on HighBeam, LexisNexis, ProQuest, and other major research services really did come from where the service said it came from. These organizations are in business to provide high-quality, reliable material, and their reputations would quickly crumble if their paying customers were to conclude that any appreciable fraction of the articles they supplied had been fabricated. This means that the burden falls on you to come up with strong evidence supporting any claim on your part that an article was "planted". Without such solid evidence of fabrication (far more solid, I must say, than anything you have brought forth to date), allegations of this sort are likely to be viewed here as frivolous and disruptive. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:42, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Civil government magazine - monthly

The title of the magazine is min jung - transliteration which means Civil Government produced by the government notice the blue rose of sharon seal which is the official government seal.

Publisher: Jin soo Cha

Address: Gardenlife F8020, 66 Chungmin-Ro, Songpa-Gu, seoul, Korea

This is not a Providence publication!!!!!!!

All information taken from min jung website which is ONLY written in Korean and found with Korean search engine Snap-do. MrTownCar (talk) 18:30, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Here is the Original article taken from the source February 2010------

http://www.mjnews.co.kr/bbs/zboard.php?id=mj02&page=4&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=185 MrTownCar (talk) 01:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I asked a Korean-speaking friend last night to take a look at Civil Government and let me know what he thought of it. This is what he said:

“ As far as I can tell, Minjeong (Civil Government) appears to be an independent online news agency with a "government-watchdog" slant to it. I looked at the company history and background. On the surface, it does not appear to be religiously focused at all. They have a huge repository of articles, most of which are about local government. Not related to religious ideology at all. I think critics would have to demonstrate a more substantive link between the paper and JMS. Even the article published by the monthly on JMS was not apologetic. The JMS story was not the lead story, and the by-line on the article cover says, "Why Jung Myeong-seok? For whom is he bearing the cross?" — suggesting maybe that he is "bearing his cross" out of self-serving reasons. So as far as I can tell, they are legit. That being said, I haven't looked at the article itself, or JMS translations of it. ”

This friend of mine is definitely not a member of the JMS group (Providence) and has no interest in joining it. As best I can tell, he doesn't have strong opinions one way or the other about JMS (other than not being willing to accept his claims or teachings). In fact, I'm not even sure this friend of mine had ever even heard of JMS before I asked him to help me with translations of sources in the article.

So, I'm prepared to give fair consideration to the possibility that Civil Government is a reliable source for facts and/or mainstream opinions. I think it's possible that one of the main reasons people here have been reluctant to acknowledge Civil Government as a reliable source up till now is that the only exposure we have had to Civil Government so far has been in translations of articles available on JMS-associated web sites. The skeptics (and even neutral people) are simply not going to accept anything from providencetrial.com as being anything other than unabashedly pro-JMS — in order for material about JMS from Civil Government to be taken seriously here, we cannot use material from providencetrial.com, we need to go directly to the source itself.

So, I would like to ask MrTownCar (or anyone else here who has the required language skills) to give us a links to any Civil Government articles about JMS from the magazine's own web site. I realize these will be in Korean; that's OK, we'll find people who know Korean so that we can get an understanding of what the articles are saying and who is writing them. Then, we can make a proper decision — on a case-by-case basis — whether a given article is usable for substantiating facts, usable as an indication of the views of a specific author or of the JMS organization, or not usable at all. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:28, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

See above Mr wales post for link. Sorry I meant to have it below Mr Wales post.MrTownCar (talk) 01:36, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much, MrTownCar, for the link to the original Civil Government article about JMS. Once we can get an English translation, we can start figuring out what (if any) role this article might be able to play in the article. If you believe other Civil Government articles may also be helpful here, please give us links to them too. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The editors on Korean Wikipedia said that this article was a paid placement and written by JMS members. Shii (tock) 06:10, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. I'll admit I'm a bit surprised, since I was told earlier this evening that this Civil Government article didn't challenge the rape charges against Jung (though it does question the validity of the kidnapping charges). — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think their opinions can be worthy of inclusion here, but it's probably an indication that this publication is not exactly a journal of record. Shii (tock) 06:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I probably need to ask this for completeness' sake: What sources of information led the Korean Wikipedia editors to say that this article had been written and paid for by the JMS people? — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I just checked my ko.wiki contributions. It looks like it was not from them but from the anti-JMS website manager that I got this opinion. (Sorry, it was last year...) Shii (tock) 15:26, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

So in general, we can use information from this. Even better if we can link to the article on their website. I have zero confidence linking to the article re-hosted on a pro-JMS site, just as I would have zero confidence linking re-hosted on an anti-JMS site. Ravensfire (talk) 15:35, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Mr Wales you have independent confirmation that Civil Government is an independent publication, I strongly recommend continuing what you planned on doing and not be swayed by the say so of a non korean speaking contributor. There is no proof that the above claim is true. Please continue working with your Korean speaking contact and I will provide other articles from Civil government as I believe there are 1 or 2 others that can be reviewed and considered for inclusion.MrTownCar (talk) 13:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

@Ravensfire, we do have a link (above) to the original article on the Civil Government web site. I've been given a basic idea of what the article says by a Korean-speaking friend, so it might be usable as an example of independent opinion regarding the JMS trial. Everyone please note that the Civil Government article does not seek to completely exonerate Jung; from what I've been told (and people can correct me here if I've misunderstood), it doesn't question the most important accusations against him (that he raped female followers by abusing his position to coerce them into having sex with him), but it does question whether the kidnapping charges were solidly substantiated, and it suggests media hype in general may have influenced the trial. We should treat this article similarly to the way we've been treating other Korean-language sources — with English translations for Korean names, titles, and excerpts. Also, if there is any way to find out some background info regarding the author of this piece, that might be helpful as well. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 15:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Richwales for taking the time and finding the human resources to finally get an objective look at the Civil Government and related articles. I had requested this long ago and feared that my requests had fallen on deaf ears. Macauthor (talk) 02:46, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Clarification of teachings

Jung muyung Seok teaches a few very important priciples that are lost in the wikipedia article.

1) In order to grow close to God we must set the condition in our heart and our body to grow spiritually. JMS did this by reading the Bible over 2000 times and praying extensively over about a 21 year period from age 13-34. In so doing the Lord gave him many inspirations one of which included the Fall of Adam and Eve.

2) The Fall committed by Adam and Eve was a premature sexual encounter. They engaged in a sexual act before the LORD had granted them permission to do so. Knowing that the fall was a sexual act, JMS has taught repeatedly the importance of maintaining sexual purity.

3) The reason sexual purity is so important is that we are called to be brides of the Lord both in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. If we commit sexual sin we are severely damaging the condition of our soul and spirit and thus preventing ourselves from living as brides. The Scripture teaches us to keep the marraige bed clean. This has both a physical and spiritual meaning. If we commit sexual sin we not only contaminate the physical marriage bed but also contaminate the spiritual marraige bed by giving our hearts over to carnal pleasure instead of giving out hearts to God, just like Adam and Eve did. This is one of the absolute core teachings of JMS which is to elevate our spiritual condition by maintaining sexual purity so as to be a perfect bride of the Lord and live in intimate relationship with our Creator for eternity.

If one commits ANY sexual impropriety they are driving themselves away from the Lord and will exclude themselves from living in communion with the Creator for eternity unless they repent of those sins. For this very reason, the accusations as stated in the wikipedia article are so far reaching and absurd it begs the question, How can anyone (let alone 10,000 women) believe that the way to absolve themselves of the original sin is by commiting sexual sin with the man of mission of this time period?

JMS is not Jesus and is not an incarnation of God. He did not come to complete Jesus mission since we know Jesus said on the cross "it is finished". Jesus had to die for the sins of the world due to the ignorance of that generation. JMS will not die for the sins of the world but is put in jail for ten years due to the ignorance of this generation. JMS is a messenger of the LORD who calls all of humanity to purify itself and prepare itself not as children of God but as Brides of God.

This is JMS mission, to call the world to a higher spiritual level and purity in preparation for the rapture and thus ushering in the the thousand year peace alluded to in Scripture. In this regard he is the messiah of this time period not be confused with the Messiah Jesus who died for the sins of the world. JMS does not supplant Jesus but serves as the messenger in the next step in God's restoration history.

I have read many of his sermons and his proverbs. The man has a love for God that is unparalleled and is obvious to those who have witnessed his life. His greatest desire in this life is to please the heart of God and save spirits of human beings. Akin to Jesus, he loves those who persecute him and prays for their salvation. He underwent a sham trial and was accused by false witnesses. It is truly ironic and shameful that the very thing that he preaches against from the deepest part of his heart is that which the false witnesses accused him of and had him sent to prison for ten years.MrTownCar (talk) 06:14, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the opinion. Can you translate this Korean for me? 성범죄 피해자이기도 했던 한 탈퇴자는 "성상납 대기조 '상록수' 회원이 1천여 명에 이르며, 옥중에서도 미성년자를 포함한 여신도들을 관리하고 있다"고 폭로했다 Shii (tock) 02:12, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

one of the escapers who was an evergreen and also a victim announced the evergreen members are up to 1000 and he is still managing the female members including minors.MrTownCar (talk) 04:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's right! Thank you for correcting the translation in the article. Shii (tock) 06:28, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Jung's Teaching sections needs work

The teachings section currently lists the second tenant of Jung’s teaching as “2. it teaches that original sin, originating in Eve's intercourse with Satan, can be defeated by having sex with Jung.” The cite for this says, “South Korean media also reported that Jung had claimed to have received a "special revelation" from God, and that many female members of his cult were ordered to undress for a "health check" and have sex with him to wipe off their sins.” - http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/view/7f51b2b481ecfc4cc98ff70932bd2783?subClipIn=00:00:00&subClipOut=00:00:00

By listing this accusation/crime as one of the only two items listed under the teaching sections it implies that his organization's teachings include a sexual ritual to clear sins, but there is a distinguishable difference between “many female members” mentioned by the journalist and the entire audience of Jung’s teachings. The other article being cited still needs a verifiable quotation. Crimes held against Jung by a sub group of people are not going to portray Jung’s teachings to broader audiences accurately. Macauthor (talk) 02:42, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

We've already determined that over 10,000 women were treated in this way; we have photos and videos of the same. It beggars belief that this is not one and the same with the "entire audience". Shii (tock) 15:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The subject of this article has summaries of his sermons published every week. If we are going to have a section on his teachings then we could reference the primary sources authored/published by the subject himself. The article is currently just taking content that should be included in the sexual abuse charges section and using that same content in place of valid content (which is readily available with just a tiny amount of research. Even if you use the secondary source by the Japanese scholar you'll get far more valid content, but you'll be hard pressed to find any such absurd teachings about weird sex rituals in either the primary or secondary sources about his teachings. Macauthor (talk) 22:04, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the section order should be re-arranged. Put the teachings section above the sexual abuse charges section. Purely from a timeline perspective, the teachings started well before the charges did. From a flow perspective, the Early biography section mentions his church, so flowing into the details of that is natural. Following that should be the sexual abuse section. Ravensfire (talk) 16:57, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Ravensfire. This makes much more sense. Macauthor (talk) 21:57, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Translation by MrTownCar

MrTownCar in his latest edits 05:05 and 05:05, 7 November 2013 says he translates a Korean quote regarding the 28 March 2012 whistle-blowing press conference already in the citation, and he provides the edit summary even better ... complete and full translation from the Nocut news article regarding the sentence that mentions the number of evergreens

I suppose Evergreens/Evergreen Trees ('상록수') is church lingo ... it makes no sense to me, and I thus doubt it makes sense to the average Joe without affiliations to Jung and his people. We don't use euphemisms, so we need to determine what evergreens cover. "Women recruited for sexual exploitation" ... is that correct?

No you are not correct.MrTownCar (talk) 22:11, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I happened to find a full translation of whole article online at asiancorrespondent.com. Please compare:

NoCutNews	AsianCorrespondent	MrTownCar	Google Translate	IMtranslator
성범죄 피해자이기도 했던 한 탈퇴자는 "성상납 대기조 '상록수' 회원이 1천여 명에 이르며, 옥중에서도 미성년자를 포함한 여신도들을 관리하고 있다"고 폭로했다.	One former member who was a victim of his sex crimes said that “there were over 1,000 evergreen trees, and even from prison he managed them, including minors.”	An anonymous female who claims to be an evergreen and victim stated there are up to 1000 evergreens and he is still managing the female members including minors.	The one who was the victim taltoeja sex "sex kickbacks daegijo 'evergreen' members stands at more than 1,000 people, including minors in prison yeosindo manage," he revealed.	It is also a victim of sexual crime was unwelcome for the leavers ' keynote ' evergreens ' members among the Oaks, thousand persons, minors, including managing your followers ' and uncovered.

Now I would like to know how the following modifiers

• anonymous
• claims
• up to

enter the translation? Considering the discrepancies above I will put the sourced translation in the article. Sam Sailor ^Sing 20:35, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is the meaning of evergreens as supplied on the anti-JMS website. Shii (tock) 22:06, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Very simple the word is context... you are translating a sentence or part thereof using a "dumb" machine. I utilized a native speaker who was looking at the whole article IN CONTEXT.

Evergreen is the literal translation referring to a sexually pure person male or female. Surely you know this article is not about evergreen trees, so I hope you did not put that in as well. THere in lies the problem when relying on computers to translate.MrTownCar (talk) 22:09, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

The source for the given interpretation of 상록수/evergreen is? Sam Sailor ^Sing 19:59, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Sam-- Where did you come up wih the meaning of evergreens in quotations? It appears to be your presumption. THE antiJMS website is an opinion website not valid for referencing.MrTownCar (talk) 22:40, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Since the Asian correspondent appears to be translated by a machine as it can't distnguish "evergreens" from evergreen trees I would use it with caution.

ALSO I can't find the article on the link.... could you supply a better link? or explain how you arrived at the FULL translation of the nocut news article.MrTownCar (talk) 22:54, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Click the second asiancorrespondent link, not the first one. Shii (tock) 23:08, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

The sourced translation from AsianCorrespondent is rather obviously translated by a human, not by a machine.

There is no context that explains the introduction of words into the translation that are not found in the original. Neither anonymous, claims, nor up to can be justified. This attempt to distort article content is a fine occasion to remind that WP:NONENG says: Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians.

Sam Sailor ^Sing 12:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

That is interesting Sam since YOU posted the translation in the table above and insist that it is obvioulsy translated by human but the translator chose to put "evergreen trees" so please quote your source and justify your use of "women recruited for sexual exploitation."MrTownCar (talk) 02:17, 11 November 2013 (UTC)