Talk:Tahir Shah

Removed POV content
The following paragraph is unencyclopedically fawning, and has no references.


 * Shah is regarded as an author with a uniquely observant eye for people, places and for detail. He often says that nothing is so important for a traveller as sitting in a café and watching or listening to the surroundings. Shunning tourist sights and national monuments, he strives characteristically to decipher the precious underbelly of the lands through which he travels. Tahir Shah has developed an immense and faithful international readership, and is regarded in literary circles as one of the most original writers of his generation.

WP:V
We need a source review to see what has been published about this author in reliable sources. Awards, critiques, descriptions of style etc. should be sourced to published statements.

Here is a Google News search – note that some of the articles are about other people named Tahir Shah, but there are quite a few good search results, covering his books etc. Jayen 466 12:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * What's going on with the editing, folk? 81.192.167.196 is an anonymous Morocco-based IP address and Coldwinterday who's made major edits has no user page, making the user effectively anonymous.
 * EricT (talk) 16:39, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Anonymous/pseudonymous editing is perfectly fine and one of the basic user rights within Wikipedia. However, the article does need some work. Jayen 466 18:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Governor of the Royal Humane Society, memberships in gentlemen's clubs
These statements are unsourced, and I am also not sure how encyclopedically relevant they are. "Governorship" in the RHS is, if memory serves, bestowed for donations paid; it is, I believe, a purely ornamental title that does not entail any involvement in the actual running of the charity. I suppose membership in the Athenaeum Club and Travellers Club is biographically more relevant, as these clubs are choosy about whom they will admit as a member, but even so, if would be nice to have sources (perhaps a Who is Who or something like that) mentioning these memberships.

Note that the clubs mentioned are not academic institutions; the wording here was thus somewhat unfortunate. Any memberships in academic institutions should be listed separately, with citations of reliable sources given. Jayen 466 14:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Obituary source reliable?
Regarding family origins and life: "According to his father's obituary", the source is an article on the front page of http://www.idriesshah.com/. The author of the article and owner of the website are not specified, nor is there any indication of whether this material was used and subsequently published elsewhere.

Is this OK, or am I just being pedantic and mistaken? See WP:RS.

The previous source was "According to his book In Arabian Nights, Shah was born ..." which I guess also fell short of WP's standards? EricT (talk) 17:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, Eric. I've had a look and can't see any indication of this obituary having been published by a reliable source. For the moment, could you revert it to "According to his book ...", and we can have a look if we can find something more solid (could also be something published about his sister's family background, am still looking)? I've had a look at the Doris Lessing obit, but it does not go into that detail. Jayen 466 17:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Would you mind doing the reversion, please, Jayen? I'm still very much a novice here. EricT (talk) 17:56, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Jayen 466 18:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * ... and better reference found. Jayen 466 19:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:SPS Wikipedia sources
Wikipedia articles must not be used as sources. The same applies to sites that borrow and mirror Wikipedia content. Example: "One example of this work is the Qantara Foundation[ref]http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Tahir-Shah[/ref]" (now reverted) EricT (talk) 14:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Especially when the reference is to the same article "Tahir Shah" borrowed from Wikipedia. Altogether too self-referential :) EricT (talk) 14:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Good catch. I've updated WP:SPS accordingly. Jayen 466 14:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Now we have "He also has a twin sister, Safia Nafisa[ref]http://www.freebase.com/view/en/tahir_shah[/ref]." A note at the page bottom mentions the "Tahir Shah" Wikipedia article as the original source, (but that original has since been worked on). EricT (talk) 15:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Report on Conflict of Interest noticeboard
See here. Jayen 466 19:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Much as I hate to say it, I think you're right to raise these issues concerning the editing of this article and also the possibility of a cottage industry regarding associates of the editors. 86.149.22.127 (talk) 08:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Articles on Tahir Shah's books
Linked articles have recently been created for several books by Tahir Shah, which is very much welcomed. Most of the descriptions seem to be based in part on web pages containing already-published material (see the book articles' talk pages) and may need a cleanup-rewrite? EricT (talk) 13:25, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Books (and other works) by Tahir Shah
Have created: Works by Tahir Shah and Books by Tahir Shah and linked the book articles to 'Books by ...' Esowteric (talk) 13:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Hannibal Fogg
Tahir Shah reports that he's just finished writing a novel, Hannibal Fogg and the Supreme Secret of Man, loosely based on the real-life explorer Hannibal Fogg. See Tahir's web site.  Esowteric + Talk  11:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Peacock template
This article has become quite ... something again. Unsourced fluff like "Shah's style is one of simple prose and overwhelming humour, straining to educate and inform his readers, while at the same time amusing them. In this capacity, one could liken Shah's work to the literary devise employed in several books by his father, Idries Shah, who used the wise fool Mulla Nasruddin, to illustrate deeper ideas in human understanding." really has no business being here, nor do link farms to every interview and article by Shah ever published. Stuff like that should be on the author's website, not in Wikipedia. Wikipedia should focus on coverage of the subject in independent, reliable secondary sources.  J N  466  02:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Will leave others to look at the fluff. Regarding the link farm, would it be okay or better to create one or more list pages and link to the list/s in the biography, or to radically prune? It's actually quite useful to have the lists as a centralized resource, though I quite see your point. Regards, Eric:  Esowteric + Talk  07:18, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It needs radical pruning. It's okay to have two or three major interviews, and perhaps three or four notable articles written for major publications, but right now it's completely over the top. We are linking to Tahir's website; if he wants to make that information available to people, he can do it there. Cheers,  J N  466  09:27, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding this set of edits: The idea is not that a Wikipedian should write down an a-priori idea that is in their head, and then find and cite sources that could be construed to have said something very vaguely similar. The idea is to read sources, and summarise them, or in some cases, quote them, within quotation marks. That's not what has happened in those edits.

So now, instead of

"Shah's style is one of simple prose and overwhelming humour, straining to educate and inform his readers, while at the same time amusing them. In this capacity, one could liken Shah's work to the literary devise employed in several books by his father, Idries Shah, who used the wise fool Mulla Nasruddin, to illustrate deeper ideas in human understanding."

we have

"Shah's style is one of simple prose and overwhelming humour, with the intention to educate and inform his readers, while at the same time amusing them. In this capacity, one could liken Shah's work to the literary devise employed in several books by his father, Idries Shah, who used the wise fool Mulla Nasruddin, to illustrate deeper ideas in human understanding."

but with footnotes inserted, to make the existing text look as though it were based on sources. It isn't; it is unsourced puffery, and moreover, it reads like puffery, and does not do Shah a favour at all. There are plenty of legitimate, complimentary sources about his writing for there not to be any need to stoop to this sort of thing.

And what about this paragraph: "Although most of Shah's work is non-fiction, he has at times blurred the boundaries between fact and fantasy. Time and again, he addresses the idea that nothing is what it seems, considering his subject matter in ways sometimes missed by other authors. Having come in for his share of criticism, and for hyperbole, Shah sticks to his message that reality is often far more bizarre than fiction. A champion of idea that anyone can be an explorer, Shah has for more than a decade, coaxed anyone to set off in search of exploration—whether it be to locate a lost city or a hidden treasure. His book House of the Tiger King (and the film of the same title) and his film Afghan Gold, both consider the search for that which is has been lost—a lost city and a lost treasure, respectively."

Not a source in sight. How do we know this? Who thinks this? Are these Shah's thoughts (in which case they belong in one of his books, but not here) or are they the thoughts of some anonymous internet user who mistakenly imagines he is sitting in Shah's head?  J N  466  13:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I apologize - I noticed this on Jayen's Talk page and cut right in, not initially realizing there was a COIN discussion. I took a VERY rough cut taking out external inks in the body, materials that only cite the subject's website or YouTube channel, unsourced content and other promotional or unhelpful info. I have probably cut out some useful content in the process, but it is better in my opinion. I also noticed all the books written by this author have promotional pages. Corporate 01:42, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, CM. Much better.  J N  466  21:58, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

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 * Cosmic Picture is not dead.  Esowteric + Talk  09:36, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

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