Talk:Vishnudevananda Saraswati

Allegations
Serious allegations have been made against Vishnudevananda. These must not be repeated in the article until they can be reliably sourced: until they are covered in a major national newspaper or serious journal, for example. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:09, 15 December 2019 (UTC)


 * The statement above remains basically valid. If the BBC coverage reveals major new facts, rather than just repeating what has already been stated in the article, then of course we can add those.


 * The other major point is WP:COATRACK: the title of this article is not "Abuse allegations against Vishnudevananda", though editors might wish to consider creating such a thing if sufficient sources are available. This is a Biography article, and no matter how serious the abuse, it remains just one element of the man's life. Accordingly, only a small part of the article can be devoted to coverage of that subject.


 * A third point is that the language used must be encyclopedic, briefly and neutrally summarizing the main facts. A blow-by-blow account with day-to-day legal details is not appropriate; this is not a news or victim site, there are plenty of those for interested parties who wish to join debates, but Wikipedia is not one of them.


 * Fourthly, the citation style should follow that used in the article, which is to have or  templates with author, title, date, url, isbn, page number and so on all filled in. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:05, 21 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I believe my edits are well-source, even without the Medium source. The BBC, for example. The BBC and the other international source DO indeed add many new facts, the ones contained in my edit (for example, it's not just two victims anymore, it's over 30). I believe my edits use objective language; the word "rape" is no longer whitewashed as "abuse" in the style guides of most major news sources. My edit updates the allegations with recent news from various reputable sources. It seems that the BBC is being rejected as a source as are the latest basic developments in the subject. I encourage other editors to weigh in and hopefully reinstate many of my edits. Localemediamonitor (talk) 12:17, 21 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Well, thank you for joining the discussion. On the language we use about allegations, legal terms like "rape" are really only usable given a criminal conviction; it is not an encyclopedia's job to repeat serious allegations, especially with emotive words with legal connotations, but to describe the situation briefly and neutrally; we are not a news source and do not use their style guides. The BBC is certainly a reliable source, but as it was media (a podcast) and poorly-cited (a bare URL), it certainly needs an upgrade; the other sources were of doubtful or unacceptable quality. I shall listen to the podcast now and add a brief summary to the article, properly cited. Talk of "weighing in" and "hopefully reinstate" is frankly inappropriate, given the serious quality issues raised: WP:NOTNEWS, WP:COATRACK, WP:RS. It is equally inappropriate of you to WP:SPAM the same low-quality material to Sivananda yoga, especially as you had been notified of the concerns about the sources on your talk page; we obviously should not have the material (even if it were perfect) repeated on multiple articles on the project, even more so given the issues listed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:42, 21 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I've listened to the (first) podcast and made notes. There is actually very little we can add from it. On "rape", the interviewer actually led Salter to use the word (leading the witness) at 17:35, while at 15:30 it is stated that Salter did what Vishnudevananda said, i.e. she was in a degraded physical and mental state to comply, which suggests psychological, physical, and sexual abuse from a position of power, but as I'm not a lawyer I'm certainly not going to speculate on the name(s) of the crime(s) that may have been committed in that process. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Can we call in some different objective editors here please? Maybe User:Gamebuster User:Gamebuster (talk) or hello is anybody out there? Localemediamonitor (talk) 16:29, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm sure you know that canvassing is not allowed. Don't do anything like that again. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:27, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: I have left a message regarding this dispute at User talk:Localemediamonitor. Gamebuster (Talk)║(Contributions) 02:59, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree that WP:DUE length must be observed, and that the key point here is the reliability of the sources. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:49, 22 June 2021 (UTC)