User talk:Abhidevananda

WP:ANI

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

You may be blocked if you continue to edit Sarkar-related articles against consensus

Please see my proposal in the ANI thread that you be blocked for one week if you will not agree to wait for consensus before making further edits to Sarkar-related articles. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 15:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Ed, are you writing to me as an administrator communicating a decision or just as an editor expressing an opinion after making a proposal? And have you verified that the claims made on that ANI thread are accurate? Just because I choose to remain aloof from all of the drama at SPI and ANI does not mean that I agree with the accusations. Rather, I dispute just about everything said there. And I also dispute the notion that an article on PROUT comes under any category associated solely with India, Pakistan, or Afghanistan (even broadly). As to consensus, the entire article on PROUT was hijacked and replaced without consensus, but you don't seem to be objecting to that, and I can only wonder why. --Abhidevananda (talk) 15:29, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm writing in my capacity as an administrator who may be in a position to issue the block, if you continute to force these articles into the version that you prefer, without waiting to get support from others. EdJohnston (talk) 15:46, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

In that case, Ed, I would ask you which "articles" are you referring to? I am only aware of one article on which I have been engaged in any editing dispute, and yet you are talking about banning me from making edits to all Sarkar-related articles. Pardon me, but without seeing any problem on multiple articles, why would you even propose such a broad ban? --Abhidevananda (talk) 15:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The ANI thread appears to show a broad problem extending to many articles. You probably have a good idea of what sort of changes are likely to cause controversy. If you show yourself willing to follow consensus on Sarkar-related articles then no ban may be needed. Your own edits on Progressive Utilization Theory in the last two days form a pattern that causes much concern. EdJohnston (talk) 16:01, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The ANI thread is a warped description of events. If it suggests "a broad problem extending to many articles", then I would challenge anyone to show a second article in which I have engaged in any activity that might be considered problematic. Rather, the situation is exactly the opposite, and that is very easy for you or any other administrator to verify. Just look at the article on Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, Ananda Marga, Neohumanism, Prabhat Samgiita, or any of the remaining or deleted articles on Sarkar's books. I am confident that there is not even one other article where I could be described as "disruptive" or even "obdurate", despite enduring many uncivil taunts on Talk pages and in edit summaries (for example, "removing crappy content", "removing Sarkarspam"). As to the article on PROUT, what has happened over the last two days is the result of the article that was protected for over two months getting unprotected without any genuine consensus (and without even any consensus as to whether there was consensus). This is all evident on the article's Talk page. Nevertheless, the FTN editors (who are complaining against me on ANI and who also launched two failed but highly derogatory SPIs against me and even a failed and derogatory Wikimedia complaint against me) took that opportunity to completely replace the article that was existing with their own, rather trivial article. I did not revert that change. Rather, as the article was presumably still under construction (per remarks on the Talk page), I tried to improve the article by adding various templates and making various suggestions through tags and superscript. (Perhaps that approach was ill-considered, but I am still a relatively new editor, and this is the first time that I have added any templates or superscript comments to any article. I did it only because I have seen it done in numerous other articles. "Tag-bombing" is a term that I was not even aware of before the accusation was leveled against me.) In addition, I also added some minimal content to the article - content that seemed necessary within the context, but which I expected to be edited. Instead, the FTN editors, who have essentially hijacked the article, reverted every single template, superscript comment, and article content that I added without making any significant attempt to fix the problems that I noted. Of course, I would have preferred to have made my suggestions and changes on a temp page, but the FTN editors precluded that possibility (and discussing all of these matters on the article Talk page has proven absolutely fruitless). When a neutral editor recently and formally proposed mediation on the article Talk page, I along with other concerned editors agreed to the proposal, but the FTN editors all rejected that proposal en bloc. Everything that I have said here is easy to substantiate; however, frankly, I did not get involved with Wikipedia to engage in such type of disputes. Indeed, I am already dedicating far too much of my time to such disputes. That is why I have invariably steered clear of ANI and SPI. My only interest in Wikipedia is to assist with the creation of informative and accurate, well-written articles. --Abhidevananda (talk) 17:01, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't find this lengthy post to be persuasive, or to remove the need for you to get consensus for your changes. If you make any edit to a Sarkar-related article that reasonably appears to be against consensus, you may be blocked. You had a chance to respond at WP:ANI but you decided not to. EdJohnston (talk) 17:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for the lengthy post. I did not respond at ANI, because I expected the administrators to verify the accusations before taking a decision. Even a minimal, impartial investigation would have revealed the truth. And even a minimal, impartial investigation would have demonstrated that there was only one article where accusations against my edits were being leveled. Anyway, about 10 hours ago, I referred the matter to Arbcom and have no intention of making any further edits to the PROUT article before seeing where that goes. Thank you for your kind attention. --Abhidevananda (talk) 17:24, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Your behavior across multiple Sarkar-related AfDs has been disruptive (remember this?). Garamond Lethet
c 17:37, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I do indeed remember it. That was an AfD nomination that you filed on an article about Sarkar's collection of 5,018 songs. Though your AfD nomination ultimately failed, the discussion dragged on for about three weeks with your final and firm position being that the article should be deleted. You continually described the 5,018 songs as a book, despite innumerable reminders that we were talking about music. And you rejected every single newspaper article on the subject as well as every independent source who commented on it. However, an AfD nomination is not an article, and understandably this discussion became heated. After your absurd nomination failed - despite the fact that all of your FTN editors also voted for deletion or redirect - you subsequently went to that same article, Prabhat Samgiita, and edited it. Even there you added a sentence implying that these 5,018 songs are a book. I never even commented on your edits (which I did not like), much less reverted them. So, thank you for proving my point with this excellent example. --Abhidevananda (talk) 17:58, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I have now closed the complaint at WP:AN3 with essentially the same message that I left for you above. You can see the result at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Abhidevananda reported by Location (talk) (Result: Warned). Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 22:59, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. -Location (talk) 15:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Progressive Utilization Theory

Discussion is taking place on the talkpage, which appears to be slow but positive. What assistance do you feel would be worthwhile? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 16:37, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest. Compare the article to what it was before it was replaced by persons who have not quoted Sarkar even one time in the current article. For example, see [1]. It is absolutely ridiculous to write an article about a social theory created by a single person (Sarkar) without quoting that person - the only certain and best authority on the subject - even once. This is completely contrary to established practice on Wikipedia. Many Wikipedia articles rely entirely on primary sources. For example, see Creative Commons license, or take a look at Division of labor. In a case like this, to have the article based entirely on hearsay and written by persons who have themselves never read anything at all by Sarkar is simply absurd. It effectively misrepresents the subject by reporting only a smattering of remarks by others on the subject. I don't say that those remarks are not valuable. I only say that typically such remarks are confined to a section on critiques or comments at the end of such an article. As a result of this 'hijacking', an article that had been rated as B-class in quality has been reduced to a mere stub. --Abhidevananda (talk) 17:04, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

If I may try to summarise your concerns. You feel that the Progressive Utilization Theory article should mention Sarkar, as this person created the theory. That's fine. Can you point me to the sources which mention Sarkar created the theory. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:37, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I just started a search, but note that Sarker is mentioned in the article. Am I misunderstanding something? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:40, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah, forgive me. I see what you are saying. You are not saying that the article doesn't mention him, but that the article doesn't have any direct quotes from him. Am I correct? Are there things that he has said that are regarded as significant enough to be directly quoted? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:42, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly! Well, almost exactly. Not just quotation but also citation. There is not even one citation that goes directly to anything written by Sarkar. And, yes, there are many things that he has said that are regarded as significant enough to be directly quoted. Look at the history of the article. It has been up for almost 9 years. Almost every version of the article references the "five fundamental principles of PROUT". But, in this case, an uninformed group of editors, none of whom have apparently read a single book (or even article) by Sarkar, have completely and purposefully omitted any reference whatsoever to those five fundamental principles. PROUT has its own, novel conception of economics. What is given in the article makes a farce of the subject. Books and articles have been written by other authors detailing or critiquing PROUT's theory of history. That is commented on several times in the current article. But nowhere is there any quotation directly from Sarkar on the subject, and what is actually given is highly misleading. I could go on, but you could also look at the article that was in place before this "stub" was inserted in its place. See [2]. I would have liked to seen a merger of the two articles, but the other group of editors (associated with WP:FTN) refused to cooperate and rejected mediation (see Talk:Progressive_Utilization_Theory#Last_resort:_Mediation). They also brought numerous, spurious complaints against me via SPI and ANI, which I preferred to ignore as my time is limited and the acrimony unappealing. In the end, I saw no option but to bring the matter to the attention of arbcom. --Abhidevananda (talk) 18:06, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

OK. What I need you to do is comment only on the article, not the other contributors. Complaining about the editing of the other contributors is unhelpful, unless they are actually being disruptive. It appears from what you have just said, that they are not being disruptive, simply that you disagree with their editing.

Can you point me to some sources which indicate that quotes from Sarkar are notable enough for inclusion in the article. If you don't do that, I will stop taking an interest in helping you. Help me to help you, or I will spend my time elsewhere. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 06:49, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Pardon me, but from my perspective, those editors are disruptive. They completely discarded an article rated as B-quality by two WP portals, and replaced that article with a stub. But perhaps Wikipedia has a different definition of disruptive than mine. If so, then I apologize for the digression.

Regarding your question about sources that indicate quotes from Sarkar are notable enough for inclusion in a theory that he himself developed and wrote many thousands of pages on - a theory that is directly associated with him - I would have guessed that this is self-evident. All of the secondary sources that write about Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) cite (or claim to cite) material directly from him. It is only the current Wikipedia article on Progressive Utilization Theory that does not do that.

In the short, current version of the article on PROUT, we see phrases like "Sarkar formulated the theory", "according to Sarkar", "Sarkar thought", "Sarkar's economic thought", "Sarkar positioned it", "Sarkar also supported", and "Sarkar's ideas of the social cycle". And yet there is not even one quotation (or citation) directly from Sarkar that would justify any of those remarks. It is all according to the claims of others. If I were to say SilkTor thinks something, would you not expect me to justify that on the basis of something you actually said... not just something that some third party says that you said?

Even here on Wikipedia, there are many articles on subjects connected with Sarkar. Sarkar himself has been deemed notable. Various books of his have been deemed notable (see, for example, Proutist Economics and Discourses on Tantra). (With respect to the latter book, you have another example of what I consider to be disruptive editing.) Sarkar's collection of 5,018 songs, known as Prabhat Samgiita, has been deemed notable. His philosophy, neohumanism, has been deemed notable (rated mid-level importance by the Philosophy portal). And his social theory, PROUT (Progressive Utilization Theory), has also been deemed notable. Under such circumstances, how is it possible that quotes from Sarkar himself are not "notable enough for inclusion in the article"? The article on Proutist Economics, just one book detailing a single aspect of PROUT, cites Sarkar 8 times. The article on the overall theory of PROUT does not cite Sarkar even once. How does that make any sense? --Abhidevananda (talk) 08:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Note: I believe part of the confusion here is in my use of the word "quote". My concern was more in terms of citation than quotation. While I do think that some quotations from Sarkar are essential to the article, my more important concern is that, for the sake of accuracy, citations to Sarkar's works should be the main source of information on this particular subject matter. --Abhidevananda (talk) 14:23, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

"Pardon me, but from my perspective, those editors are disruptive. They completely discarded an article rated as B-quality by two WP portals, and replaced that article with a stub. But perhaps Wikipedia has a different definition of disruptive than mine. If so, then I apologize for the digression." If you make another comment on the other editors, unless I ask for such a comment, then I will stop helping you. It may well turn out after I have looked more closely into this, that I may look into conduct, but for the moment I am ONLY interested in content. If your concerns about content are valid, and if with my support you address those concerns, and then encounter problems with other editors, THAT will be the time I will be looking at conduct. But not before. Is that clear? If it is, then we can proceed. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:42, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

It is clear. Moving on, have you understood my concern about the current article not citing even a single reference to anything written by Sarkar? --Abhidevananda (talk) 15:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)