User talk:Bksimonb/BKWSU Article Analysis 2

The Keinnyung Gazette

Conflict of interest and original research regarding reference "The Keinnyung Gazette, South Korea. http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general924.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-26"

This article came about due a collusion between User:CaptPorridge and the admin/Ex-L of the brahmakumaris.info website who has edited under many accounts on the BKWSU article but is best known as User:Lucyintheskywithdada.

First a post appeared on the BKWSU talk page, "If anyone has any more info about Lee James, please contact me at captporridge@gmail.com He is giving a lecture at my place of work soon, and I am a little disturbed by that. Thanks ````CaptPorridge".

Shortly after CaptPorridge appears on the brahmkumaris.info formus where he describes how he surreptitiously made a video of Lee James giving a lecture at his university. Later in the same discussion thread he posts a link to the article he wrote about it.

"Thanks for all the help everyone, I really got a lot of good advice and assisstance from people here.

My article is finished!

I still might add to it though, but I am happy enough with it to share the link:

http://gazette.gokmu.com/news/article.html?no=575

Since BK has a presence where I work and I know a couple of members, I'll certainly be keeping an eye on them here in Daegu and elsewhere ...

Thanks again,"

This is the same text as the article referenced on the Rick Ross website.

The article quotes one "Adam Shudradas", an unlikely name since "Shudradas" means something like, "slave of a shudra (one of the lowest castes in Hindu society). A search on Google shows that the name, Adam Shudradas, showing up only in this article and as the author of two Google Knols where the content of the BKWSU Wikipedia Article is copied and pasted [1]. This is possibly the admin of brahmakumaris.info / User:Lucyintheskywithdada again. The title he gives the Knols, "An End of the World cult whose teachings are based on channeled mediumistic messages.", seems consistent with his often repeated POV.

Given CaptPorridge's online treatment of the BKWSU, it is unlikely that he really tried too hard to find the "Medical and Science Research Institute" when he claims to have searched for it. Bksimonb (talk) 18:28, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Brahmakumaris.info website

Should this website be included in the links?

Points against inclusion are:

• The intro pages are clearly self published and appear to be heavily biased against the BKWSU
• It is basically a community website mostly featuring a discussion forum
• The link is inserted by the various incarnations of User:Lucyintheskywithdada who has been linked [2][3]to the admin of the brahmakumaris.info website so there is an obvious conflict of interest here
• It carries forum posts from time to time, made by the admin, that actually attack Wikipedia editors such as myself[4] which is a possible violation of Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#External_links and Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment

Points for inclusion are:

• It contains a library and other useful documents, including "murlis", that are a useful investigative resource, although their authenticity can not be guaranteed.

Brief Comments on Analysis

Dear Bksimonb, Here are my thoughts. Hope they help. I've ordered them by number of red block, so the first red block is #1, etc.

1. "neo-hindu sect" doesn't shock or bother me, and it is used by a reliable source (the source #8, Journal of Contemporary Religion). Source #7 is clearly a tabloid source, unreliable, etc., and should be deleted.

2. red text starting "The apparent source..." This statement doesn't bother me for the reasons you state above, but it bothers me because it seems cherry-picked from a large body of work, which means that the selective excerpt of quotations can definitely be POV (think of what would happen if one cherry-picked quotations from the Bible). I agree that if another source features this statement it should be included, otherwise it should be deleted.

3. red text starting "Self-published..." If the information is not controversial or contested, then it seems it would be okay. If contested, then I think the rule of thumb is that it should be removed until a secondary source is found.

4. red text starting "the source does not..." Should be changed to be in line with the source. This is a subtle example of someone trying to promote a negative POV. Rewrite to be in accord with the source.

5. red text starting "The reference used..." Given the concerns about the source, which seem reasonable as outlined in the discussion, I think the line should be deleted until a second source is found saying the same thing. If a second source is found saying the same thing, then it should be included.

6. I have no opinion regarding the books/publications listed. It does seem a bit odd to include only some and not others.

7. Regarding external links, only the official links should be included to avoid POV. I think this is the standard solution across many groups.

Hope these comments help!

Renee (talk) 14:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Renee. Thanks for your input. OK with (3)-(7). I have some comments on (1) and (2).

1. You are correct that the source [8] does use these words however they look less shocking in the context of the reference than they do in the article. In the UK, at least, the most common use of the word "neo" is proceeding "nazi" as in the example of this news article. Also, "sect" is listed as a Wikipedia word to avoid in some contexts. So "neo-Hindu sect" can come across as being somewhat extremist. My beef with the way many of the references are used in this article is that the references are being used, without quotes, for the shocking words, spin and phrases they may contain rather than as sources of information that one would normally expect an encyclopaedic article to present in a more neutral tone.

2. Perhaps a review about a book by Walliss by Paul van der Velde is a valid reference but in that case should it not be attributed to Paul van der Velde and not to Walliss as it presently is?

I am currently working (slowly!) to add more comments to the article. Right now I am not making any direct edits to BKWSU related articles. This may be an over-reaction but my present thinking is that so many editors who have edited controversial NRM articles have wound up being blocked, banned or topic-banned that, as a long term strategy, it is better to put the extra effort into getting edits peer reviewed that to leave any margin for being blacklisted for jumping in and finding myself getting embroiled (and blamed!) while trying to fend off hyper-disruptive editing.

I have had some success by using the {{Request edit}} tag such as here and I really appreciate the efforts of editors such as User:Themfromspace in making this system work. Eventually, I aim to flag up all the issues on the BKWSU talk page with a {{Request edit}} and a link to this article analysis.

Please feel free to add more red ink comments to the actual article analysis page if you see more POV editing in there. That's what I was inviting you to do but I think you may have thought I meant adding comments to the comments instead! Apologies if my request was ambiguous. I am certainly nonetheless grateful for your attention :-)

Regards Bksimonb (talk) 12:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

BTW. I found this interesting article, Brahma_Kumaris_Beliefs, which appears to have been created by User_talk:Karishma2314 who was doing a school project, according to his talk page. Though it needs some NPOV work, I think it is a more cleanly presented than the main BKWSU article and might be merged to make it more readable. Bksimonb (talk) 13:17, 16 July 2009 (UTC)