Talk:Gita Sahgal

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Neutrality of this article

I would like to point out that this article is biased in several ways and I would like its neutrality to be examined. A very large part of the article focuses on the Gita Sahgal-Amnesty International controversy. However, instead of stating the story from both perpectives, Gita Sahgal is presented as a hero that dared to speak out and Amnesty International as an organization that tries to suppress her voice. Please see http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7532 to get a different view on this controversy. It seems to me that certain media outlets (especially ones owned by Murdoch's News Corporation: Times of London, Wall Street Journal) have started a campaign to discredit the organization. Commentators like Martin Bright and Christopher Hitchens seem to have waited for this opportunity and seem to have forgotten to check the facts. Hdc-en (talk) 13:29, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing as there is now a neutrality tag on this article, which is supposed to discussed in the talk page, I assumed this section is what that tag is about.

But the blog linked above is about Zafari's clarification, and that is already represented in the article. I think we need a better explanation for the neutrality tag -- or it should be removed.

If there's something we can add, then go add it. I, for one, am eager to see Gita Sahgal's detractors quoted and remembered.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 18:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree w/Randy. Happy to have RS coverage of different view reflected. Also agree that, once that view is searched for and either reflected or -- if not found in RSs -- not found, the tag should be deleted. I'll look for such coverage myself as well. I would also note that the first comment above is by an apparent SPA.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This should make us all happy. NPR just yesterday ran a program interviewing both Sahgal and AI, w/AI giving a more in depth discussion of its views. I've reflected both sets of views presented in the program.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Still doubts about neutrality

I would like to have an external view on this (somebody who did not work on this article). Epeefleche (see above) has written almost the entire article. The suspension part of the article is huge. The article has grown in size tremendously. I have the impression that this article (although it's well written) not only serve to inform people, but rather to promote Gita Sahgal and her views. Hdc-en (talk) 17:49, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gato and Recentism

I fear you misinterpret what recentism is. You indicated that 75 per cent of the article is about a recent event. That is only recentism if markedly less than that percent of RS coverage of the subject is about such event. The opposite is the case, as the relevant searches will quickly reveal to you. As far as the event being minor, that's certainly not the case, and certainly not the case as to events in the career of the subject of the article.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP India Assessment

I will be assessing this for WP India in the next few days:

review comments

Sahgal has battled suppression of women by religious fundamentalists - This smacks of POV langauge. should this be in the lead?. A single line about her suspension from amnesty is enough in the lead. The suspension is covered in depth in the article and that is enough.

Truncated and combined w/existing para in lead.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Career section is disjointed and has too many subsections. The women's org, rape, prostitution and iraq invasion subsections should be merged into a single subsection (maybe titled as "activism"); film production and writing to be merged into one subsection.

Changed the first four from headers to non-header headings under activism. Combined the last two into the same section.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the career section list only her "deeds and actions" not her "views", words and positions. If necessary list those in a new subsection titled "views" or "positions".

Will add if can be found--so far, this is all I've seen.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The suspension section can be trimmed. (direct quotes can be moved to footnotes leaving brief descriptions in the prose instead)

IMHO this section is of appropriate length. Major incident, commented on from all over the world -- and those comments are what makes it major, in large part. Would not move them to footnotes.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am rating this as a B. I still wish the direct statements be moved to footnotes (for stylistic reasons. Reading her mother's and rushdie's reactions in full is a little bit tedious.) Other than that, this is a comprehensive, well sourced and balanced article, which gives all sides of the story.

Many thanks for your review and comments. If you wish to move the bulk of her mother's comments to a fn, that is fine with me. I think Rushdie's comment belongs in the text, as it is likely the most notable para in the article -- a statement by a person of great notability out how many hits his article gets per day, for example, without any "new" news) criticizing an org that presumably has aligned interests.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:38, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Serious questions about this article

I don't have time to edit this myself, or the energy for the inevitable petty battles over every word - but this article is really terrible on the whole Amnesty/Begg affair and surely violates Wikipedia stipulations on neutrality etc. Whoever wrote these sections I presume thought they were doing Sahgal a favour by grossly misrepresenting her opponents and Begg. Maybe for some readers, but most, I think, would be inclined to chafe at the obviously partisan language and go the other way. Some balance is needed here. Jamal (talk) 03:38, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's well-referenced and objective.

I think it might make you feel better if we had more quotes from the pro-Begg side. Perhaps Andy Worthington might have something we can add. I'll look around tomorrow.

-- Randy2063 (talk) 04:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. It does a good job collecting all statements in RSs on the issue. If more can be found by Randy or others, by all means they should be included. WP requires that the article reflect the balance that is in the real world RSs; it does not require that half of Adolf Hitler's article be about his art student days.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine that statements like "Yvonne Ridley (who coincidentally was invited, along with Begg and Qureshi, to speak at University College London in 2007 by Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab)" might give rise to concerns about agenda driven editing. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If that's not sourced, it should go. If it is, it should stay.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Appears sourced, but I would support reflecting the source in this case.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And have done so.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:14, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

At some point someone decided that it was a coincidence as it states in the wiki article but the source asserts the view that it wasn't. The source says "Abdulmutallab invited ....Ridley...to speak. He did so because he knew that the cumulative effect of their commissions and omissions would be to radicalise his audience." I would support reflecting that source, attributed to Aaronovitch, in an article about Abdulmutallab or Ridley but its pertinence in this article isn't clear because it isn't about Ridley's view on the Begg/Sahgal saga. At the moment the statement looks like a combination of poisoning the well combined with an attempt to throw an antidote into the well by misrepresenting a source. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Curious. It's clearly relevant. And it appears in a piece in a clear RS (this isn't some tabloid that someone pushed through as an RS when nobody else was looking). And it appears in a piece that is about the specific issue being discussed in that section of the article. I don't see censoring it. Would be open to your suggestion as to how best to reflect it. On re-reading it, I'm actually fine with the use of coincidentally there -- I read it differently than you do, though I recognize that it is open to different interpretations. Still, I'm fine with it.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not clear how speaking at University College London in 2007 is relevant to Ridley's view on the Begg/Sahgal saga. If Ridley and Begg being at the same place at the same time was a coincidence it's clearly irrelevant. If it wasn't a coincidence then the reader needs to know what it is that connects those 2 pieces of information or else why include it ? I don't know what connects those 2 pieces of information for us other than that they both appear in an op-ed not about Ridley. I know what connects those 2 pieces of information for Aaronovitch. More importantly, Aaronovitch didn't say 'coincidentally was invited'. He said that the common factor between Ridley and Begg was their intended role in radicalising an audience. This article states something that simply isn't in the source. Surely 'coincidentally' has to go ? Is the information here going to be about Ridley's view on the Begg/Sahgal saga or is it going to be about Aaronovitch's opinion about Ridley's view on the Begg/Sahgal saga or both ? At the moment it's more like neither. If we are going to include information because Aaronovitch, in an op-ed, thinks it's pertinent then shouldn't we be saying why it's pertinent and who says so. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:47, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I hear you. Let me explain my thoughts. We have a piece, in a clear RS, about GS/YR/MB. We are editing an article about GS, with a section about YR's views on MB ... which led to the controversy in question. The article author feels the fact YR spoke at that gathering alongside MB is relevant enough to include it in the piece. That is what establishes the notability of the information -- not your or my POV as to whether it is sufficiently relevant. (And, for my part, I see the relevance, though I recognize that you do not). We needn't engage in synth and lay out for the reader why it is relevant. Synth is both deprecated, and not necessary. We let the reader read what the RSs have highlighted as the relevant facts. And avoid ourselves engaging in synth. Otherwise, we open the door to deleting "idontlikeit" facts, which is censorship that we strive to avoid. We should say who raised it IMHO (a judgment call, but I agree that is the better approach, though I could see others saying it is not necessary) -- and I edited the article to reflect that. I'm open to suggestions as to what to do about the "coincidentally" language. I think that the ref that was in there should be restored, however, in one form or another for the aforesaid reasons. --Epeefleche (talk) 19:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also -- the piece in The Times identifies her as a former journalist. But SH changed that by deleting "former". Was wondering what the basis was for that change? Also, Begg has clearly (as reflected in the second source) championed Awlaki, not just his rights. And does not limit the Cageprisoners highlighting of Muhammad and Hamza to their "rights", either. Also, I'm unclear why SH deletedLetter to Amnesty from Denis MacShane, Member of British Parliament]. It's clearly relevant to the matter at hand. Tx.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:06, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is this article a biography, or an article about an event?

This article should (in theory) be a biography of Gita Sahgal, but in practice most of it is taken up with an account of the controversy that led to her leaving Amnesty International. Is this appropriate? I don't think this article is a case of WP:BLP1E (people notable only for one event), as Ms. Sahgal has several other claims to notability that would mean she should probably have an article even if the Amnesty controversy hadn't happened, but it doesn't look quite right to me. Would anyone else support moving the information about the Amnesty controversy into a separate article of its own, and leaving this one for the purely biographical content? Robofish (talk) 22:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As with many bios of people who are notable generally, but where most of the material about them has been written about one event, it reflects the preponderance of the RS coverage of the individual (which here relates to, if not one event, then at least one issue which has ranged over a period of a year or two as she complained to Amnesty, spoke to the press, was suspended as a result, was fired as a result, and a wide variety of notable persons commented on the dispute). The coverage in the article appears to be very much in accord with the coverage of her in the accessible press, but if anyone sees anything that is in RSs and missing from the article I for one would fully support its inclusion in the article.--Epeefleche (talk) 01:56, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Robofish that even if the article was prompted by the controversy about Begg, it is undue weight to give it so much space here. Just because RS published many lengthy quotes back and forth by all sorts of people does not mean they have to be repeated here. In the end, Saghal did not go back to Amnesty, and the organization did not drop its association with Begg. I would argue for more severe editing of the Reaction section to her leaving Amnesty. This is just a repetition of a media controversy, which people can follow by going to the original sources. I really think it is inappropriate to have so much on a short-term media controversy it in this article, and am not sure that it is notable enough for a separate article. So a lot of people talked/wrote back and forth about the issue - that's all that happened, in the end. The question of how this will affect Amnesty in the future is open. This is an example of Wikipedia suffering from too much absorption of the media cycle, which is not supposed to be what it is about. Now that it has all died down, no one has gone back to summarize the issues and positions and provide overview.Parkwells (talk) 17:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We often have bios that meet wp standards, where the RS coverage relates to one event. If it passes blp1E, as this does, of course that one event will mirror RS coverage and heavily relate to that one event. We don't censor out info on the one event, robustly reported in world-wide high-level media, to limit the coverage of that one event. Examples of this are replete across the project.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:15, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sahgal or Nayanatara??

The Arabic script at the top says "Gita Sahgal" just like the English, but the Devanagari says "Nayanatārā Gītā". Why?

Benwing (talk) 05:53, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Comments

There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:51, 26 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright problem removed

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