Talk:Ravi Shankar (poet)

Edit war over personal life section
It looks like there is a lot of activity back and forth among IP & some registered editors over whether several bits of info both negative and positive (the NPR story where he beats the "Stop and frisk" policy), often w/o any edit summary. I've edited this to include the secondary sources (which appear reliable) and removed the court docket search stuff. (Perhaps someone interested in the topic can research and update re: the disposition of his arrests...) Please include a rationale here, or within the edit summary, if you feel this needs to be changed. Roberticus (talk) 14:18, 29 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, there's definitely something weird going on here. I've reinstated the reliably sourced statements and done some additional cleanup.--Lemuellio (talk) 13:56, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry there's something potentially libelous happening and I am writing to respond to that. First of all there are erroneous attributions in the sourced material that need to fixed else someone could be opening themselves up to a lawsuit. Shankar was never convicted of larceny but that keeps appearing on this page. You can check the judicial site for accurate representation but again based on my research, there are only 3 convictions and 2 of them are motor vehicle. Certainly not enough to call someone a "criminal." Some would say that the ones who administer justice in the USA are the true criminals as they incarcerate 25% of the world's population and over 80% of them are African-American and Hispanic-American. See Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" on this. Finally, there have been a history of personally motivated attacks on someone who is essentially not a public figure. It's a poet and the notion that all former state employees are subject to this sort of scrutiny is outrageous - you are talking about sanitation workers and administrators at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles and others. Try to do background check on State Legislators - even many of them don't have their convictions for misdemeanors listed on their page - and that is all Shankar was ever convicted of, which is not enough for him to be labeled in this way. -D. Posey — Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.0.35.74 (talk) 21:06, 18 February 2016


 * The subject's criminal convictions, imprisonment and employment case is a matter of public record and was thoroughly covered in local and state media. Furthermore, the case precipitated legislation and discussion at the state-wide level by the Connecticut State Senate and the Connecticut Board of Regents. Attempts to erase this section and its multiple links to reliable, published sources in local and state media may be an attempt at editing by the subject of the article. YeAntientistWeepingBeech (talk) 03:55, 30 May 2017 (UTC)


 * YeAntienistWeepingBeech ID created 24 hours ago with explicit purpose of harassment. Suggest user edit more pages to establish veracity. See decision rendered by Wiki admin on public/private. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.128.80.184 (talk) 11:42, 30 May 2017

Possible attempt by subject to remove negative claims
The subject's criminal convictions, imprisonment and employment case is a matter of public record and was thoroughly covered in local and state media. Furthermore, the case precipitated legislation and discussion at the state-wide level by the Connecticut State Senate and the Connecticut Board of Regents. Attempts to erase this section and its multiple links to reliable, published sources in local and state media may be an attempt at editing by the subject of the article. YeAntientistWeepingBeech (talk) 03:55, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Not sure how to proceed, but the IP address that made the deletions, 155.143.7.252, is located in Sydney, Australia. According to both his Facebook and twitter accounts, the subject of this article was in Sydney, Australia at the time of the edits. This seems to be in violation of the policy against self-editing of pages by subjects of articles? YeAntientistWeepingBeech (talk) 04:28, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

BLP redaction
Fellow editors, I have redacted a section per WP:BLP, WP:BLPCRIME & WP:BLPPRIMARY. The article subject is not reasonably a WP:PUBLICFIGURE, and we are required to follow our policies w.r.t information on living persons. I note from the article history that a number of removals & inclusions of this or similar information have previously occured; but there does not appear to have been a consensus reaching discussion on this Talk page. Per WP:BLPREQUESTRESTORE, please obtain consensus before adding the information again. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 04:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC) Amended WP:CRIME to WP:BLPCRIME - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 23:58, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Include - Except:  It's reliably sourced except for the incidents that are being references to court documents, those documents, per WP guidelines are considered primary sources and cannot be used, a secondary reliable source would need to be used.  The rest are sourced to reliable news or newspaper sites.  Kosh Vorlon   16:55, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Please note persistent violations of Wiki policy on BLP and deletion of primary sourced material. This account has been flagged and reported to WikiFoundation. We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.[1] Users who persistently or egregiously violate this policy may be blocked from editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Literarybiographer (talk • contribs) 04:52, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Dispute resolution
As there appears to be something of an edit war here. I've reported this on the dispute resolution notice-board. Which you can find here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Ravi_Shankar_.28poet.29 If you would like to summarise your point-of-view then you can do so there.  J3 49  [Talk!]  12:26, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Edit request
trying to add recently announced award that "Autobiography of a Goddess" won the 2016/2017 Muse India Translation Award| also directed here by NinjaRobotPirate to remove untrue defamatory information as per BLP guidelines. The mention of "theft of school funds" here is false and should be removed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nutmegan (talk • contribs) 01:14, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The first part needs reliable sources. The second part has been removed.  JTP (talk • contribs) 01:45, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

semi-protection
Due to repeated removal of sourced content and addition of promotional content by IPs I have semi-protected this article for three months. Please gain consensus for any changes on the talk page before making edit requests. Thryduulf (talk) 09:32, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 August 2018
Consensus was reached long ago and this page needs to be reverted to the version created by Cameron11598, which is in line with Wikipedia's BLP rules. The rest of the stuff is not justified by criminal records and the continual mention of "theft of school funds" is simply false. Please revert back to the Cameron11598's version. 129.78.56.194 (talk) 06:34, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. You say "consensus was reached long ago" - a quick skim of the talk page shows no such thing. The information to which you object appears well-sourced and covered in several publications. NiciVampireHeart 09:55, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Section about Drunken Boat
An edit war in going to add the following section to the article. But they are not providing any secondary sources and the content is also very promotional. Lets see what others say about this addition. -Editor General of Wiki (talk) 03:39, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Drunken Boat
One of the world's oldest electronic journals of the arts, was founded in 1999 by Ravi Shankar and Michael Mills, and has published the work of over 1,000 writers and artists from around the world.

On his collaboration with Alvin Pang from Singapore and his contribution for the success of Drunken Boat in Singapore Ravi Shankar was speaking in his interview for The Rumpus "Drunken Boat is one of the first literary magazines to be published in digital format. And while a lot of poetry is published that way now, poets can move print runs up to the thousands in Singapore. Alvin Pang was really helpful, because when Drunken Boat began such a vast undertaking and decided to publish poetry from Central Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia, we of course couldn’t be experts in all of those regions. We had to find translators, arts organizations, and people who could help us know what was happening in the world of contemporary poetry in their particular countries. Alvin Pang was that person from Singapore. We became friends and I invited him to curate a folio for Drunken Boat on contemporary Singaporean literature."


 * Subsequent to your opening this discussion, another IP (can't really be sure that it is the same operator) added a single sentence about Shankar's founding of Drunken Boat, with a different source, to the lead. I didn't feel it belonged in the lead so have moved it to its appropriate place chronologically under Career.  To my mind, there is nothing much more to say about this aspect of Shankar's career or about the journal (which is not the subject of this article).  Perhaps the citation from the second paragraph above, without the extensive quote, could be added to the one-sentence mention of the journal now in the article; the rest of that paragraph (talking about where he was talking) is unneeded.  General Ization  Talk  03:48, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Whitewashing the article
There is an edit pattern throughout history to whitewash the article, probably by the subject himself or someone paid to edit the article. Ping ScrapIronIV for their info. Bulkreg (talk) 22:05, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This (apparently new) editor attempted to remove nearly 25% of the article's content, including sourced content, without discussion and as literally their fourth edit of the encyclopedia. I have restored the content and directed them to discuss it here and seek consensus for the removal of some or all of it.  General Ization  Talk  22:28, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * That's the version that I restored at 19:04, 22 September 2018. All the %25 stuff you mentioned was just added in the past 3 days. Bulkreg (talk) 22:43, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * You do not appear to have restored anything on September 22 using this account, as it was only created today. The edit that occurred at 15:04 UTC on September 22 was performed by me, not by you.  The fact that the content was added in the last 3 days does not mean it should be removed.  Please present your reasoning for its removal.  Specifics about the quality or lack of same of the content, not when it was added, are needed.  General Ization  Talk  22:52, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * That's the date of the version I restored, which means the %25 of content removed you claim was just added in the past 3 days. Consensus was reached regarding whitewashing the article long ago. There is nothing new to discuss on the article's talk page. Check Criminal convictions section and its content for example and how it was changed now under Controversies. You need to check the talk page of the article and its history. Bulkreg (talk) 23:00, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I understand now what you are saying about the 9/22 revision. However, we seem to be at an impasse on the content itself. I suggest we wait until ScrapIronIV and/or other editors have an opportunity to comment. The content will remain in the mean time.  General Ization <i style="color: #000666;">Talk </i>
 * Inviting to explain their edits and their relationship with the subject of the article, if any. <span style="font-family: Gill Sans MT, Arial, Helvetica; font-weight:140;"> General Ization  <i style="color: #000666;">Talk </i> 23:46, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think this version is whitewashing. This version still contains all information about his controversies like driving drunk, credit card fraud, theft of school funds etc. What else do you want? What I was trying to counter-balance the controversy section with his own statement about the crimes, as Wikipedia has special policies for BLP and NPOV. Also added expanded the career section from some news sources. There is no relation between this guy and me, I am not even based in US. Apparently, user:Bulkreg is not a new editor in Wikipedia, they know everything about COI and undisclosed paid editing etc. Probably sock of some other editor. - Editor General of Wiki (talk) 03:46, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 September 2018
Add to career section:

He received the University-level Trustees Research Award as a faculty member at CSUS in 2009. In the same year, he also received fellowship award from The Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism (CCT) and Summer Literary Seminars fellowship to Kenya.

Add to Literary career section:

His literary works appeared in Paris Review, Fulcrum, McSweeney's, the AWP Writer's Chronicle, and Scribner's Best American Erotic Poems. He was the winner of 2011 National Poetry Review Prize for his poem "Deepening Groove" and was the finalist at 2005 Connecticut Book Awards for "Instrumentality." In 2014 he won Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner. RubCube (talk) 09:52, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * as some of the info already exist in the article. - Editor General of Wiki (talk) 03:13, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 October 2018
He was a guest speaker at Jaipur Literature Festival in 2015. 136.24.81.148 (talk) 05:47, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Also why is this worth mentioning in the article? &mdash; KuyaBriBri Talk 14:01, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 October 2018
He was a guest speaker at Jaipur Literature Festival in 2015. He was also indicted in a rape case in Delhi. RubCube (talk) 18:12, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The rape case is not about the poet Ravi, but another person of same name. - Editor General of Wiki (talk) 16:45, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

"Arrested and found innocent"?
The Controveries section states "[h]e was later arrested and found innocent in a few public cases" (emphasis added), however the cited articles don't seem to contain any mention of this; in fact, the linked Hartford Courant oped by the subject states the opposite: "In June, I pleaded guilty under the Alford doctrine to operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license and interfering with an officer." The other two articles cited by the sentence also mention convictions, but don't appear to have any mention of not guilty findings, dismissals, etc. (Further, I don't believe it is possible the US justice system to be 'found innocent', only not guilty.)

As such I will replace the 'found innocent' phrase with 'convicted' in this section, and add another reference that clearly states he was convicted of the DUI charge.

--Ack210 (talk) 19:30, 10 May 2021 (UTC)