Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Sahaj Marg

Note. Sashwat may have limited availability for a little while. I am additionally considering recent responses and happenings before proceeding further. Please be patient. Vassyana 01:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreement to public venue. Archived discussion.

Mediator requests

 * 1) Please avoid edit warring about the subject. Revert warring and other types of contentious editing are similarly undesirable.
 * 2) If possible, please avoid editing material that is part of the dispute under discussion in this mediation.
 * 3) Please report any significant happenings or changes with the article, so we can take those into account in this mediation.

Relevant rules
This is just a reference list of policies and guidelines which are relevant to the dispute. Please take the time to review them and become familiar with them. Please also bear in mind that our policies and guidelines do not cover every instance, but instead elaborate the principles behind the rules.
 * Reliable sources.
 * Undue weight.
 * Manual of Style.
 * What Wikipedia is not.
 * Bold, revert, discuss.

Current circumstances
has suggested that reliable sources are lacking for the subject and that the article should be stubbed and merged with.
 * 1) Are there enough reliable sources to verify the information presented?
 * 2) Are there enough secondary sources to avoid original research?
 * 3) Are there enough reliable sources to create a complete and neutral article?
 * 4) Would you agree or disagree with jossi's suggestion? Why?

Responses

 * 1) The majority of the information is from the organization's website and books by the group. There are next to no secondary sources used for this article. Hence, Sethie is wondering, if per WP:Notability the articles should be seriously shrinked?
 * 2) Sethie doesn't understand the question, Sethie's understanding is NOR is when a user posts their own opinion in an article. He is not aware of a connection between OR and Secondary sources?
 * 3) Yes.
 * 4) Sethie declines to comment. He feels like his wikiexperience gives him the capacity to look at sentences and apply policies one sentence at a time. There are at least three issues, WP:Notability, WP:RS, WP:NPOV in this decision and would preffer Sfacets or Jossi make this call, or to hear from  you. Both of them have so much more wiki experienceSethie 08:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Additional comments Sethie's initial response is that this is WAY over Sethie's head. Sethie has a some understanding of wikipedia policy and modus operanndi and though he feels very comfortable applying wiki policy sentence by sentence, he does not think he (nor Shashwat) have the neccesary wiki experience to make a call like this. He will sit with it more and say more later.

Sethie would ask that during the meditation, Shashawat would leave Sethíe's userpage alone. If Sethie believed he and Shashwat could work things out on their own (much less via private emails!) he would not have asked for a mediation. Sethie 09:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Sethie may not be able to respond for one week. Sethie 08:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) Yes, i feel there are enough reliable sources for the subject
 * 2) There are secondary sources, but most of them are govt. reports or cult watch group reports
 * 3) Yes, a neutral article can very well be created, page was in balanced state, sometime back.
 * 4) I do not agree with jossi view, Stub will crub the information, and hide fact's, encyclopedia, must contain detailed information, as in case of word book. limited information is against the very concept of wikipedia.

I have never seen any stub on wiki til date. An encyclopedia has detailed/neutral and fair information. Page was in fairly balanced state, before few user's started edited the page, with perticular intention in mind!! travelling currently, kindly give me few day's to respond to above suggestion.--Shashwat pandey 05:12, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Additional comments.

For Sethie

 * 1) Is there a previous version of the article that you believe was neutral and fair?
 * 2) What do you think most needs to be done to improve the article?
 * 3) Absolutely not. Sethie feels there were small portions of previous articles which could be re-incorporated.
 * 4) Hmmmm Sethie feels like the main loose end is how to connect the Sahaj Marg to the Shri Rama Chandra mission article. This however feels like a task Sethie doesn't wish to pursue, and let jossi or sfacets handle. Sethie 04:38, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

For Sashwat

 * 1) What secondary sources are available?
 * 2) Are these all reliable sources?
 * 3) Are there enough views represented in the secondary sources to allow us to provide a neutral overview?
 * 4) What version of the article do you believe was neutral and fair?

1. There are few, for example  there are many more news paper reports and government listing which fall in catagory of secondary source.(can provide list of those article if needed, they were placed in article sometimes back need to go through archive) Primary source can also be used, but given the nature of the article and controvercies involved, only after much debate primary sources can be used as reference, as claims of different groups are somewhat contradictory !!

2. Yes, WP:RS includes newspaper and government agencies reports. Reports of cult watch group's also fall in catagory of RS as it indciates Reliable sources are authors or publications regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. 3. WP:NPOV can be achieved only after an indepth debate between editor's involved. A POV can easily be a NPOV for most of the people involved (including me and maybe sethie as well). NPOV is subject to discussion and subsequent conclusion's drown from those discussion's. Achieving a NPOV is the most difficult task at hand, as it requires lot of discussions between involved parties and mutual respect to various POV's irrespective of the varience in POV's.

4. Barring few claims this version was fairly balanced, referenced and in accordence with most of the wiki policies. We can start working from here and come to a conclusion after discussion with all parties involved.--Shashwat pandey 11:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)