Talk:Human beings in Buddhism

Please have patience
It would help not to flag up articles that are still in the process of being written. Flags will be removed.RandomCritic 02:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I understand your frustration, but if you'd like people to know that an article isn't ready and that you're working on it, you should make that clear. Another option is to work on it in user space and move it over when you're ready. For those of us patrolling recent changes, it's hard to guess intent. Thanks, --William Pietri 02:52, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * As above, I understand your frustration, but if pages weren't tagged when they're new, most would never be tagged at all even if needed, besides, if you think about it, all articles on wikipedia are "being written". Flags merely reflect the state of any given article, and if they have to be removed because they do not reflect the state of the article anymore, well, that's good news for us patrollers :) Equendil 03:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Original Research?
This article is looking more like original research to me than an encyclopedia article. Do you have plans to shift the focus to secondary sources? Thanks, --William Pietri 02:56, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this criticism is frivolous. "Original research" does not mean the creation of an article based upon a variety of sources; that is how Wikipedia is supposed to work. Original research means placing unpublished private research online. This article is based upon multiple relevant sources, which are cited. I remain in the dark as to what your real critique is. RandomCritic 03:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I've upset you. I often come across personal essays when patrolling recent changes, and this looked like one of those. When I saw that you had reverted a cleanup tag with no discussion, I thought you were a novice editor. Forgive me if I seemed abrupt; no frivolity is intended.

Regarding the text, my real concern was that to me this didn't read like an encyclopedia article; it read like an essay. You seemed to be analyzing primary documents rather than putting together information from religious scholars. Quoting from the policy: "It is essential that any primary-source material, as well as any generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data, has been published by a reputable third-party publication." When I added my tag and comment, it looked like you were a ways from that, and I wanted to be sure you weren't heading down the wrong path. As you say, the article is in progress, so I'm glad to wait and see. More communication on your intent would have saved both of us time and frustration, though. --William Pietri 03:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm puzzled at why you think that sGam.po.pa and Ngorchen Konchog Lhundrub are not "religious scholars" -- as highly learned Buddhist monks, they were presumably qualified to write about their own religion. In the context of Tibetan Buddhism, their works are indeed secondary sources. But whether they are considered primary or secondary is irrelevant, as you seem to have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the original source policy.  Direct use of primary documents is encouraged by Wikipedia.  An writer for an article on Jane Austen is not barred from using the works of Jane Austen directly, instead of merely quoting from book reviews!
 * Note what is expressly said in the policy: "However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not "original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia." This does not contradict your quote, which is about validation of primary source materials. I assure you that the sources I'm using have all been published by reputable presses. It does, however, directly contradict your contention that "analyzing primary documents" is somehow a form of "original research".  This article collects and organizes verifiable information from primary and secondary sources on the topic, consistent with the guidelines. RandomCritic 04:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. I hope we can fix that; there was no ill intent on my part. As I said, I'm glad to wait until you're finished. However, to answer your question, for topics as POV-prone as religion, I prefer to also see references from modern scholars outside the religion. And now that I think about it, part of what made me think it was an essay was that the text seemed POVish to me. However, it seems like you're not particularly interested in outside feedback on your article at this stage, so I'll move along. Feel free to press on ahead; perhaps I'll check it out again in a month or so. --William Pietri 05:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I would like to assume good faith on the part of the critic, but the nature of the critique is troubling. At first, it was claimed that the article was unsourced. When references appeared, it shifted to a claim that the article was using primary sources contrary to guidelines on original research. When it was shown that this interpretation of the guidelines was mistaken, it shifted to a claim of POV, for which no evidence is supplied and no edits are suggested. Also dangled is the suggestion that the use of Buddhist sources for an article about a Buddhist philosophical concept is inappropriate. (There is a hint of ethnocentric bias in the assumption that scholars who follow a religion are intellectually or temperamentally unfit to make credible statements about their own religion.)

This pattern could easily be interpreted as an intention to attack the article on any possible grounds, without particularly caring what the grounds are. I gather, however, that it is more a case of the critic feeling uncomfortable with the article without really knowing why. I suspect the discomfort arises from a lack of familiarity with the style and subject matter of encyclopedia articles on topics in philosophy, religion or literature, which are text- and idea-based rather than data- or experiment-based. The primary difference, of course, is that a philosophical position is simply whatever its proponents say it is. The only type of verification that is possible is a test for whether a position is widely or narrowly held, e.g. by examining whether it appears in a large number of texts among several different groups, or is held only by a single school or even a single individual. As Wikipedia is not limited to scientific subjects, there are necessarily going to be some articles that discuss philosophical or religious positions from an emic position. It would be possible, I suppose, to say something like "These ideas are stated in Buddhist texts, but non-Buddhists, who do not believe in the claims of the Buddha, or the possibility of enlightenment, or in karma or rebirth, reject them all in toto." But that goes without saying, and is superfluous. Does every article on Christianity have to say "non-Christians, not believing in the divinity of Jesus, don't believe any of this"? Or mutatis mutandis, "non-Muslims, who don't believe in the divine mission of Muhammad, don't give any credence to Islamic law"? Readers of ordinary intelligence should not have any trouble figuring that out, as long as it is clearly stated that the article is about beliefs within Buddhism, or Christianity, or Islam. In this case, the title of the article, "Human beings in Buddhism" is intended to point that out.

The subject of the article, as I think the intro adequately states, is how the human state of existence (or technically, "the human rebirth") is viewed within Buddhism. The relevant sources are thus naturally going to be Buddhist ones; as we are discussing a mode of intellectual or philosophical analysis, and not an external behavior or a natural phenomenon, there is of course no corresponding "etic" interpretation. "Modern scholars outside the religion" could not (and do not) do more than summarize the statements of texts scholars within the religion, except in those rare cases where historical motivations and developments have been overlooked, or a fair statement of positions has been distorted by a nationalistic or sectarian bias. When one finds dubious statements in Wikipedia articles about religion, they are generally of the form of stating myth as fact, or giving partisan summaries of history. Those factors, however, seem unlikely to have influenced the presentation of the relatively uncontroversial subject of this article.

The most likely sources of possible POV in this article arise not from stating the Buddhist position on a philosophical topic (that is, after all, the topic of the article) but from intentionally or inadvertently asserting a sectarian Buddhist position to be a general Buddhist one. I am not aware of having done so, and have used sources from multiple traditions to avoid stating a narrow position too broadly, but it's still possible that some things are stated more generally than they should be. If so, I welcome edits and corrections by anybody knowledgeable about the subject-matter that will help make the article more broadly applicable to its stated subject.RandomCritic 19:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Again, I gather from your tone and behavior that you're not interested in an outside opinion right now. I read your writing as one half of an argument that I'm not interested in having. As I said, I'll drop back in a month or so and see how the article has progressed. At that time I'll certainly consider your concerns about my ability to properly read an encyclopedia article. Thanks, --William Pietri 06:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you could spend that month doing some research on the subject-matter of the article and seeing if you could come up with some substantive changes of your own to propose. Additional sources, details, constructive editing for accuracy of content and clarity structure are things I'm always very interested in. RandomCritic 10:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

please add
In all other buddhism articles, I can eaily found the sanskrit name of the terms. However, the easiest term seems to be the hardest term for me in mean of finding its sanskrit and pali. thanks 15.219.153.75 (talk) 16:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)