Talk:Vishnudevananda Saraswati

Allegations

Serious allegations have been made against Vishnudevananda. These must not be repeated in the article until they can be reliably sourced: until they are covered in a major national newspaper or serious journal, for example. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:09, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The statement above remains basically valid. If the BBC coverage reveals major new facts, rather than just repeating what has already been stated in the article, then of course we can add those.

The other major point is WP:COATRACK: the title of this article is not "Abuse allegations against Vishnudevananda", though editors might wish to consider creating such a thing if sufficient sources are available. This is a Biography article, and no matter how serious the abuse, it remains just one element of the man's life. Accordingly, only a small part of the article can be devoted to coverage of that subject.

A third point is that the language used must be encyclopedic, briefly and neutrally summarizing the main facts. A blow-by-blow account with day-to-day legal details is not appropriate; this is not a news or victim site, there are plenty of those for interested parties who wish to join debates, but Wikipedia is not one of them.

Fourthly, the citation style should follow that used in the article, which is to have {{cite book ...}} or {{cite journal ...}} templates with author, title, date, url, isbn, page number and so on all filled in. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:05, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I believe my edits are well-source, even without the Medium source. The BBC, for example. The BBC and the other international source DO indeed add many new facts, the ones contained in my edit (for example, it's not just two victims anymore, it's over 30). I believe my edits use objective language; the word "rape" is no longer whitewashed as "abuse" in the style guides of most major news sources. My edit updates the allegations with recent news from various reputable sources. It seems that the BBC is being rejected as a source as are the latest basic developments in the subject. I encourage other editors to weigh in and hopefully reinstate many of my edits. Localemediamonitor (talk) 12:17, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, thank you for joining the discussion. On the language we use about allegations, legal terms like "rape" are really only usable given a criminal conviction; it is not an encyclopedia's job to repeat serious allegations, especially with emotive words with legal connotations, but to describe the situation briefly and neutrally; we are not a news source and do not use their style guides. The BBC is certainly a reliable source, but as it was media (a podcast) and poorly-cited (a bare URL), it certainly needs an upgrade; the other sources were of doubtful or unacceptable quality. I shall listen to the podcast now and add a brief summary to the article, properly cited. Talk of "weighing in" and "hopefully reinstate" is frankly inappropriate, given the serious quality issues raised: WP:NOTNEWS, WP:COATRACK, WP:RS. It is equally inappropriate of you to WP:SPAM the same low-quality material to Sivananda yoga, especially as you had been notified of the concerns about the sources on your talk page; we obviously should not have the material (even if it were perfect) repeated on multiple articles on the project, even more so given the issues listed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:42, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I've listened to the (first) podcast and made notes. There is actually very little we can add from it. On "rape", the interviewer actually led Salter to use the word (leading the witness) at 17:35, while at 15:30 it is stated that Salter did what Vishnudevananda said, i.e. she was in a degraded physical and mental state to comply, which suggests psychological, physical, and sexual abuse from a position of power, but as I'm not a lawyer I'm certainly not going to speculate on the name(s) of the crime(s) that may have been committed in that process. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Can we call in some different objective editors here please? Maybe User:Gamebuster User:Gamebuster (talk) or hello is anybody out there? Localemediamonitor (talk) 16:29, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure you know that canvassing is not allowed. Don't do anything like that again. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:27, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Note: I have left a message regarding this dispute at User talk:Localemediamonitor. Gamebuster (Talk)║(Contributions) 02:59, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree that WP:DUE length must be observed, and that the key point here is the reliability of the sources. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:49, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Vishnudevananda Saraswati/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) 20:48, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks for taking this on. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:56, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Comments

• Any reason that "guru" reference needs to be in the lead? Can the claim not be made and referenced in the main body?
  • Done.
• "Sivananda Yoga Teachers' Training Course, one of the first yoga teacher training programs in the West" is this mentioned in the main body?
  • Added.
• "books The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga" The doesn't appear to be part of the formal title.
  • It's printed on the book's cover, both in the edition on my shelf and on the first edition photo in the article.
    • Cool, should the article be moved then? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:10, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
      • Maybe, but that's not for this page.
• In our article, Rāja has a diacritic.
  • It shouldn't, the project avoids them, or we'd have vṛkṣāsana for tree pose all over the shop. But they pop up like mushrooms in the night.
    • Cool, should that article also be moved? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:10, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
      • Maybe but that's not for this page.
• "Sivananda." can you contextualise who this individual was?
  • Glossed and wikilinked.
• "monk, in February 1949[2] and " comma after 1949.
  • Added.
• Can we replace the "n.a."s in the File:Soorya Namaskar in Complete Illustrated Guide to Yoga.jpg non-free image with suitable justifications, "not applicable" is not acceptable.
  • Added.
• "teach hatha yoga in " overlinked.
  • Fixed.
• "rock group The Beatles to" the Beatles.
  • Done.
• "and is said to have sold over a million copies" as of 1989?
  • Added.
• "in 1959.[12][13] In 1961" bit repetitive.
  • Edited.
• "he called into life" bit whimsical.
  • Edited.
• "and intuitively chose" is "intuitively" really necessary?
  • Removed.
• A lot of sentences in this para start "In (month) (year)". Bit repetitive.
  • Edited a bit.
• "ashram" doesn't seem to be linked anywhere.
  • Linked in 'Early life and training'.
• "he conducted peace flights" did he himself pilot these or was he a passenger? Did they literally just "fly" over things?
  • He flew himself. He literally overflew things like the Berlin Wall, yes.
• "flew from" if indeed he did fly it himself, could you use "piloted his Peace Plane from..."?
  • Done.
• West and East Berlin have separate articles.
  • Linked both.
• Where are the two works referenced (after the Complete Illustrated... one)?
  • I'd have thought listing these in 'Works' was sufficient really. There's no indication they achieved specially remarkable sales or anything like that.
    • How do we verify they exist? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:10, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
      • Added ISBNs/OCLC.
• Ref 31, spaced hyphens should be en-dashes.
  • Fixed.
• Ideally ISBN's in consistent format.
  • converted ISBN-10.

That's all I have here. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 09:33, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks, all done. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:40, 31 August 2021 (UTC)