User:TimidGuy/Will

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Response to Will's evidence
I don't have time to research Will's other evidence pages, but I glanced at one, and a particular instance jumped out at me that shows Will's dishonesty in compiling this evidence. In the page User:Will_Beback/TM-General Will has a section titled "Complaints by other editors." He gives this diff by Atama from the TM Talk page criticizing sentences in the TM article in which Maharishi is quoted effusively praising his master, Guru Dev. The problem is that these sentences were added by Fladrif, not one of the TM editors. And in fact a TM editor had proposed removing these sentences.

In his Workshop remedy, he also mischaracterizes the editors in the list as being uninvolved, whereas quite a number of them have been very much involved.

Accusation of POV editing
Will accuses me of deleting sourced, negative material. The material wasn’t reliably sourced or was otherwise questionable, as follows.


 * Here I deleted material criticizing TM research sourced to the 1982 book titled Flim Flam by magician and skeptic James Randi. The subsequent MEDRS guideline affirmed this deletion in that it disallows such use of popular media and outdated sources in matters of science.


 * These edits aren’t a deletion. I moved the material to a proper context, but did it in two steps. Will only shows the deletion and not the insertion.


 * I moved this material to the Talk page for discussion. The insertion was completely one-sideid, and there are many issues regarding how to represent this 200-page 2007 AHRQ report. We should have discussed it first, and then added. But instead editors opposed to TM immediately edit-warred the material back into the article.


 * I stand by what I said in the edit summary: “Seems like her own autobiography should be the final word on this, not someone’s speculative commentary on what she said in her autobiography.” Farrow’s autobiography was clearly represented in the article. That’s enough.


 * This was a bizarre insertion of sourced material, put in the middle of the research section and inappropriately written. I explained at length on the Talk page that it was countering a claim that the article wasn’t making — and that in fact the organization had never made: that each person is given a unique mantra.


 * These studies were discussed and removed from the TM article. It wasn’t clear why there were still in this other article, which had been started by The7thdr, Fladrif, and Will, but then abandoned. Three of the studies were case studies, clearly disallowed by MEDRS. Two were falsely represented as finding adverse effects, when in fact each was a study that found that TM is a useful adjunct in treating psychiatric patients. The study by Otis wasn’t peer reviewed. Plus, that study and the one by Persinger were so poorly designed that they were omitted from consideration in the comprehensive 2007 AHRQ report.


 * This was factually wrong. The source was weak -- yet another skeptic book. And it’s simply not accurate that the 1984 paper by Deredinger developed a version of Flipped SU(5), as Fladrif wrote. It didn’t deal with Flipped SU(5). The model presented in the Flipped SU(5) article is from the 1987 paper by Antoniadis, et al.: supersymeetric flipped SU(5). Since Fladrif’s material wasn’t factual and didn’t accurately represent the source, I reverted to what had been there.

Will says I edited the TM article to accord with the official TM manual of style. At the time I made those edits in 2007, it was to bring the article into accord with what WP:TRADEMARK said back then: “Avoid use of trademarks as a noun except where any other usage would be awkward.”

This edit was a revert of obvious vandalism by an IP. It’s just bizarre that Will would fault me for this because I happen to know the person.

He objects to the length of the balancing material that I added to the 2004 review. But I didn’t see him object with Doc James summarily deleted that balancing material. Which is worse, adding material that Will thinks might be somewhat too long, or violating NPOV? Similarly, he objects to the length of the material sourced to David Orme-Johnson’s commentary published in JACM alongside the AHRQ article. But he didn’t object when that material was summarily deleted in violation of NPOV.

He faults me for arguing for the inclusion of a scientific study related to the Maharishi Effect. My preference would be to remove the Maharishi Effect from Wikipedia altogether. But if we are to include this hypothesis (and to include every passing comment that trashes it), then we should at least very briefly mention the peer-reviewed studies that support it. Will supported Kala in her argument for removal, suggested that the article simply link to abstracts, and repeatedly questioned why this material was added to the article.

Will says I added material that wasn't compliant with MEDRS. He doesn't say why it's noncompliant, but I assume that it's because they're individual studies rather than research reviews. Although MEDRS doesn't completely disallow individual studies, which are considered to be primary sources, I believe that in general he's correct here. I did indeed add a number individual studies to the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health Article. At the time I didn’t understand how to find research reviews, considered to be secondary sources by MEDRS. If I’m not banned from Wikipedia, I’ll replace those primary sources with secondary. I've already been posting citations to research reviews on the Talk page that can eventually be used to replace the primary sources.

Will says this material I deleted was published. Certainly I wasn't aware of that at the time I deleted it. But now that I look at his link that he gives as evidence it was published, I'm not convinced that this special interest group newsletter is a reliable source.

Editing behavior
I don’t edit war. In the 3 1/2 years I’ve been in Wikipedia I’ve gone to 3 reverts only a few times. This is not problematic behavior. I’ve never been warned, never received a 3RR notice on my Talk page. Two of the diffs reprise two given above and have been explained there.

Regarding the following:


 * Will says that I edit-warred over adding this material sourced to a blog. David Orme-Johnson’s personal website is not in any sense a blog. It doesn’t use blog technology nor any conventions associated with a blog. He is a leading expert on the effect of meditation on psychology, with around 100 published papers. All of the arguments presented on his website are sourced to publlished research. We have discussed many many times on the Talk page that he’s an expert and that his website meets the exception given in WP:SELFPUB. Will himself said as much back in 2006 when he reverted Sfacets’s tag related to material sourced to Orme-Johnson’s website and then posted a comment on the Talk page saying in his edit summary that Orme-Johnson has “excellent credentials.” Here he argues with Jefffire, who has said that it’s obvious that Orme-Johson’s website isn’t reliable. He defends the use of Orme-Johnson’s site. and says that the site can be used as a source.

In general, by consensus we have avoided using Orme-Johnson’s website in recent years, with the exception being his rebuttal of cult accusations. It’s the only source that’s been found so far to present the point of view that TM isn’t a cult. Is Will suggestion that we only say that TM is a cult and not give the other point of view?

Will faults me for adding a medical study that doesn’t comply with MEDRS. But he doesn’t say why it’s not compliant. Again, MEDRS doesn’t say that primary sources can’t be used. That particular study, though, was weak, and I subsequently deleted it, even though no one had objected to it.

Personal interactions
Please please look at the diff Will gives. I have no idea why he says it shows me making an accusation. Will had demanded one more time that I stop editing Maharishi-related articles. In that diff I point out the many errors and misrepresentations by Fladrif that I had corrected in the previous couple days.

Technique vs Movement
Why does Will hold it against me that I asked a question on the Help desk my first day in Wikipedia in 2006. Isn’t this actually evidence of a new user trying to do things right?

Regarding the diffs Will gives related to Transcendental Meditation and TM organization, he misrepresents them. I'm not arguing, as he says, that the article not discuss the TM organization in those diffs. I'm arguing about the meaning of "Transcendental Meditation." I made at least four arguments that it means a meditation technique practiced 20 minutes twice a day and that it isn't the name of an organization: 1) in common usage the term refers to a meditation technique, 2) linguistically it leads to nonsensical constructions if "Transcendental Meditation" can mean both a meditation technique and an organization, 3) there is no corporate entity named Transcendental Meditation, and 4) it is the right of a trademark holder to stipulate the meaning of a trademark.

Number of edits
Will highlights the number of edits that I've made. But if one were to count words, I believe that my contribution to Maharishi-related articles would be a fraction of his. Here are articles that he's created offline in toto and then posted:


 * Maharishi University of Management stabbing
 * Transcendental Meditation movement
 * Maharishi Group
 * David Orme-Johnson
 * Tony Nader
 * List of Transcendental Meditation practitioners
 * Bevan Morris

And he's contributed a majority of the content to articles such as:


 * The Beatles at Rishikesh

Reply to Woonpton comment posted by Will
Woonpton offered this as part of his narrative characterizing the behavior of TM editors: "it's people arguing that independent secondary sources should have more weight relative to primary, in-universe sources, vs people determined to keep the primary in-universe sources prominent and either discredit or exclude altogether the independent and secondary sources." This is false. I didn't complain when Doc James and Kala deleted every primary source from the TM article (and in fact I complimented Doc James). Instead, I added secondary sources. Kala, Doc James, and Tucker then tried to delete them, as I have documented in my evidence.            At the same time, Doc added material sourced to a blog and added a statement to the lead sourced to magician James Randi that the science behind TM is crackpot science.