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Few Comments

• I am ok with not mentioning Tyagananda. The Kripal's section looks balanced, with a quote supporting and against the book. But I would suggest to have the "salacious" in the ref as priyanath suggested.
• I am also ok with not having Somnath Bhattacharyya in the section, since his work is primarily connected with Kali's Child. However his works are important because they have made important conclusions on psychoanalysis. Since the larson's quote on secondary transexuality related to Kakar is not present, I will not press for the inclusion on Bhattacharyya's conclusion on transsexuality.
• "...Sil. Bhattacharyya and Tyagananda, on the other hand, I would argue that we are obligated to ignore them completely, just as the academic community has ignored them." -- the academic community hasn't completely ignored them, for ex: Beckerlegge (2006) mentions about them. And we cannot ignore them completely, remember WP:BIAS. Also the multi-scholarly work of Antonio De Nicholas et al, includes all the three.
• "Another ramification of the JSTOR analysis --- If we add anything to my version of the reception section, it should be on H. Smith's, H. Zimmer's or Spivak's views of SRK."--I dont think that the analysis gives the complete picture, so we cannot impose restrictions like this, however, I am ok with the current version, with the inclusion of a line or two on Alan Rolland, because if we consider other equally important journal sites like springerlink, we can find several of his works there.
• "The Ramakrishna Mission's opinions have been very strongly applied to this article, and to a reprehensible extent in the ridiculously one-sided article Views on Ramakrishna." -- when things are begin discussed calmly, does attacks like this make sense? Comments like this will only encourage more arguments/comments like we have had before without bearing much fruit... isn't it?
• The Reception looks balanced now, but I would like to see a line or two on Alan Roland a very notable psychoanalyist.

Goethean, regardless of all the altercations we have had before ( and may have in future :-) ) I appreciate your version of Reception! --Nvineeth (talk) 06:34, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

P.S: I hope we will be having a line or two on the religious views, on signs of death during samadhi. (G.C.Ray's IEEE paper) --Nvineeth (talk) 06:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

the academic community hasn't completely ignored them, for ex: Beckerlegge (2006) mentions about them. And we cannot ignore them completely, remember WP:BIAS. Also the multi-scholarly work of Antonio De Nicholas et al, includes all the three.

Maybe you could point me to a review of that book in an academic journal. If no scholar reviews a book, the academic community by definition has taken no notice of the book. — goethean ॐ 14:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Original research --Nvineeth (talk) 03:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense. Quote from the Misplaced Pages WP:OR policy if you want anyone to give any credence to your accusation. — goethean ॐ 05:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Here is the excerpt from WP:OR--

Misplaced Pages does not publish original research or original thought. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position. This means that Misplaced Pages is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, or arguments

Even the "Jstor analysis" comes under this. Nvineeth (talk) 08:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that using my JSTOR analysis on my userpage is a violation of WP:OR. And I am not advocating for the publication of any original thought. Instead, I am suggesting (insisting, really) that our coverage in the article reflect the current academic discussion. Our coverage of the reception of Ramakrishna should reflect the contemporary academic reception of Ramakrishna, instead of reflecting your personal, subjective opinion regarding which author is better, more important, or more amenable to your point of view. That seems like it should be uncontroversial. Alan Roland has written a single article on Ramakrishna, which has gone completely unremarked upon by every other Ramakrishna scholar in the world. The rest of his work is generally on the use of psychoanalysis on South Asian cultures. His work on Ramakrishna is therefore not notable. So your advocating that he gets an entire paragraph in the reception section is clearly without merit. — goethean ॐ 17:19, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I dont think that the analysis gives the complete picture, so we cannot impose restrictions like this,

Then maybe you could point me to your superior analysis. — goethean ॐ 14:09, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Very Simple, your "analysis" comes from a small subset, does not include other journal sites. See WP:BIAS. --Nvineeth (talk) 03:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

hen things are begin discussed calmly, does attacks like this make sense? Comments like this will only encourage more arguments/comments like we have had before without bearing much fruit... isn't it?

That's a statement of simple fact which any fool could easily observe from a quick look at this article. Maybe saying the clear truth over and over again does not have any purpose, but I'm still going to say it. You look at the Views on Ramakrishna article and tell me its balanced. What a joke. You have completely removed the opinions of academics and replaced them with the opinions of a religious organization. I can understand that you don't like people saying it over and over again, but it still needs to be said. — goethean ॐ 14:22, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes any "fool" can also see that few editors don't look into the peer review and discussions and keep repeating the same stuff "over and over again". Any "fool" can also see that its such a nice "joke" to try to revert the article to an version which is one month old. Any "fool" will also dislike the presence of original research, personal comments, ...."I can understand that you don't like people saying it over and over again, but it still needs to be said." --Nvineeth (talk) 03:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Roland, as the only actual psychoanalyst in the bunch, and a well-published author on the subject, is relevant. He has also written on psychoanalysis applied to Ramakrishna by others. Because of that, a one sentence addition to the summary could read "Psychoanalyst Alan Roland, writing about those who attempt to apply Western psychoanalysis to Ramakrishna, describes the application of Western meaning to Hindu symbols as "facile decoding" that has long been the bane of psychoanalysis."

• Roland, Alan (2004). "Ramakrishna: Mystical, Erotic, or Both?". Journal of Religion and Health. 37: 31–36. doi:10.1023/A:1022956932676. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Just a few of his other publications (not all), journals and books:

• Roland, Alan. (1996) Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis: The Asian and North American Experience. Routledge. ISBN 0415914787.
• Roland, Alan (1998) In Search of Self in India and Japan: Toward a Cross-cultural Psychology. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691024588.
• Roland, A. (1991). Sexuality, the Indian Extended Family, and Hindu Culture. J. Amer. Acad. Psychoanal., 19:595-605.
• Roland, A. (1980). Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Personality Development in India. Int. R. Psycho-Anal., 7:73-87.

Priyanath  14:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Why hasn't anyone in an academic journal ever discussed, reviewed, or referred to Roland's writings in connection with Ramakrishna? Since no academic has ever discussed his writings in connection with Ramakrishna, it would be patently absurd for us to do so, especially since we are ignoring other, more notable scholars. The suggestion to cover this scholar, who is clearly not notable in connection with Ramakrishna, when coupled with your suggestion to reduce to nearly zero the coverage of the writings of John Stratton Hawley, the eighth most dominant Ramakrishna scholar (and the fourth highest living one), make me wonder how serious you are about trying to write a neutral passage. — goethean ॐ 15:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, although I shouldn't have to remind you of this every day, this is a biographical article on Ramakrishna. What has Roland written about Ramakrishna's biography? Is Alan Roland a notable biographer of Ramakrishna? Of course not, and I don't think that anyone thinks he is. You want him here because he criticizes Kripal. Take it to the Kripal article. You need to start getting serious about sincerely attempting to write a neutral article and stop trying to use this article as place to display your personal editorial opinions, or those of some organization. — goethean ॐ 15:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Why hasn't anyone in an academic journal ever discussed, reviewed, or referred to Roland's writings-- pls read Antonio De Nichola's book, Invading the Sacred for a simple example. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The Reception looks balanced now, but I would like to see a line or two on Alan Roland a very notable psychoanalyist. --Nvineeth

Yeah, sure. Just point me his his highly notable biography of Ramakrishna and we'll be all set. Or you can stop wasting everybody's time with transparant absurdities. — goethean ॐ 15:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Roland, as the only actual psychoanalyst in the bunch, and a well-published author on the subject, is relevant. -- Priyanath

If the subject you're talking about is Ramakrishna's biography, then that statement is false. I'm sorry, but no academic ever refers to him in connection with Ramakrishna. A simple academic journal query makes this perfectly clear. If this situation changes in the future, it can be discussed again. — goethean ॐ 16:02, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

"A simple academic journal query makes this perfectly clear."

Did you check springer, google scholar? --Nvineeth (talk) 04:46, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Roland is published in many academic journals and by university publishing houses as a leading psychoanalyst, specializing in cross-cultural applications. As such, he is clearly a reliable source for that field according to WP:RS. Moreso, in fact, than Kripal and other religious scholars who are not published in the field of psychoanalysis or its cross-cultural application. Priyanath  06:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I would not press for the inclusion of tyagananda, somnath etc., now, but Roland has done work independent of Kali's Child, so he deserves attention of a line or two. --Nvineeth (talk) 08:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but (again) unlike Kripal, no one discusses his work in connection with Ramakrishna. It is therefore obviously as inappropriate to discuss his work in the Ramakrishna article as it is to discuss the work of Somnath Bhattachayyra, Swami Tyagananda, or any other scholar whose work is non-notable on the subject of Ramakrishna. This seems...elementary and something I shouldn't have to repeat over and over again every day. — goethean ॐ 17:10, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

"the work of Somnath Bhattachayyra, Swami Tyagananda, or any other scholar whose work is non-notable"--If they were non notable, why did kripal even bother to reply to them, and why did he "read with a mixture of embarrassment, sadness, and hope Swami Tyagananda’s Kali’s Child Revisited." They are equally notable like kripal. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• I don't see why exclusion from the American academic discourse--that is, the world of universities and "scholarly journals"--automatically disqualifies a scholar's work from mention in Misplaced Pages. America is one country; its scholars don't have a monopoly on thought!
• By the bye, keeping the Kripal material here will, I suspect, become increasingly difficult, as the number of devotees of Sri Ramakrishna continues to grow. There will always be more people on the RK Mission side regarding this dispute. I do admire Goethean's perseverance and dogged tenacity. I couldn't keep up with him and dropped out of the debate. There were others who did the same. But the RK Mission side will always have new recruits to fight that side.
• It's funny really, how difficult we find it to appreciate the other side's views. If I understand him correctly, Goethean honestly believes that Kripal makes a true or at least very plausible analysis, and considers actions by the RK Mission and people like me to amount to egregious censorship. He points to enough material published by sources generally considered reputable to support his view. And I honestly believe Kripal is hopelessly misguided--a belief supported by study, a passing familiarity with the Bengali language, and deep thought, not to mention published sources generally considered reputable (though perhaps not appearing so much in the narrow field of American academia). But I try to respect Goethean's right to believe as he does. And who knows, there's probably a kernel of truth in Kripal's work. Time will tell: in 20 or 30 years, I imagine, Kripal's work will either have been verified and supported by others, or it will have been completely forgotten. Anyhow, it's nice to see the discourse mellowing out, and both sides recognizing that including both sides of a debate will make for a better article. Let each person discover for him or herself who Ramakrishna is.
• My apologies for personal musings... Devadaru (talk) 03:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

There's no need to apologize, I actually appreciate your honesty. It's a refreshing change from all of the pious lies that have been typed into this talk page. My analyses do not only cover American academic journals. JSTOR and GoogleScholar cover most international academic journals. And if it did, that doesn't explain why Alan Roland makes such a poor showing in all of the citation indexes.

Your comments about Kripal are much more serious. It shouldn't matter whether you think that Kripal's interpretation is right or wrong. Attempting to distort the truth by suppressing information from articles is dishonest and shameful. The ends do not justify the means. That means that you should not do bad things for a good cause. I don't care how evil and wrong you think that Kripal and his book is, it is dishonest to present an inaccurate picture of reality in this article. Any religious organization that asks you to suppress information from this article is doing something that is dishonest and shameful. They are asking you to lie for them. And no genuinely spiritual person would do that.

Misplaced Pages has ways of dealing with simple vandalism. Otherwise, it would have been rendered irrelevant long ago.

All academic work has some truth and some error. None of it, even if it is done by a Swami, contains 100% truth. And not even Kripal's work contains 100% error. In one of my descriptions of Kripal's work, I called him post-modernist author. I think that's a fair assessment. He has a sophisticated understanding of the fact that different people interpret things in different ways. His book reflects his personal interpretation of Ramakrishna. It's not 100% true. But it is the most commented-on academic work on Ramakrishna in the past thirty years, and therefore deserves a special place in this article. — goethean ॐ 04:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your musings, Devadaru - they are appreciated by both sides. I too see progress in the discourse, and hope that we will be able to present both sides of the academic debate in the summary section. Priyanath  04:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing the musings, "America is one country; its scholars don't have a monopoly on thought!"--exactly, see WP:BIAS, "But the RK Mission side will always have new recruits to fight that side." -- :-), gives the idea that they are recruiting for a jehad! What Initially brought me to this article was : 1. Single Sided POV, I was aware of the postcolonial studies, psychoanalysis stuff etc., 2. Ironical it may seem, Personal attacks and interesting discussions on the talk page was a great motivating factor! Misplaced Pages is an great place and intellectuals with different POVs will always come here! --Nvineeth (talk) 07:12, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

"It's not 100% true. But it is the most commented-on academic work on Ramakrishna in the past thirty years, and therefore deserves a special place in this article."'--why did several encyclopedia described above not even mention about it? "deserves a special place" is WP:UNDUE. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Attempting to distort the truth by suppressing information from articles is dishonest and shameful. -- please read this. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Isn't "dishonest" to indulge in personal attacks? --Nvineeth (talk) 07:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• I sense your real frustration, Goethean, at what you perceive is unjust censorship. I think I misstated something above, about new recruits for the RK Mission. In my understanding, the Ramakrishna Mission is not some monolithic institution with swamis plotting how to suppress Kripal. They are not organized enough for that. They are very busy running hospitals and schools and so many other projects, and don't have a separate department for "dogma" as the Catholic Church does. I suspect that all the editors who have worked on this article, supporting the "RK Mission side" have done so of their own free will, and acted according to their own beliefs, not prompted by any swami. So it may be more accurate to call this view the "Ramakrishna devotee" side, or "Kripal doubter side", than "RK Mission side". I realize now that my comment about "RK Mission recruits" was not well-considered. I meant that there will always be a stream of "Kripal doubters"; your position, I am predicting, will remain a lonely one.
• I sense that part of your frustration stems from a belief that the RK Mission is actively opposing Kripal and, moreover, is purposely suppressing relevant information. I don't think your belief is correct, though. I find it impossible to believe that any swamis, deep down inside, know that Kripal is right, and are trying hard to make sure the "truth" he has uncovered doesn't get out. No. They honestly believe Kripal is utterly mistaken, and, finding his views offensive, his method flawed, and his approach towards them aggressive, naturally fight back to some extent, eg Tyagananda, Atmajnanananda. Yes, we know the mission withholds stuff--you have mentioned, for example, all the ellipses in the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. I hope you might acknowledge at least the possibility that they are not trying to hide an ugly truth they are afraid may come to light, but rather, are withholding material they feel would be misunderstood. Just imagine: a bunch of old monks who look on Ramakrishna as God incarnate are suddenly told by a non-Hindu American scholar that their God was actually a repressed homosexual who was abused by his guru and later abused his disciples--if there is some reaction, is that surprising? I mention this in the hope that your frustration might diminish to the extent that you can see the other side is also acting in good faith, according to the faith they have. I'm not arguing that Misplaced Pages shouldn't offend old monks, but that the more we can understand an opponent's position, the more persuasively we can argue our own position. Arguing that Kripal's work is relevant because it is widely discussed, as you are now doing, is more persuasive than arguing that he's right; the latter argument will only offend, never convince. Devadaru (talk) 15:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments Devadaru. I count myself among the "Kripal doubters" also. That's why it is easy for me to argue that Misplaced Pages should cover his work (as well as that of his most notable critics) regardless of the accuracy of that work.

If the Mission called themselves the Vivekananda Vedanta Society (as they do here in Chicago), I wouldnt have any problems with them. But instead, the call themselves the Ramakrishna Mission and then completely misrepresent Ramakrishna — much like the Vatican completely misrepresents Jesus (if you read the Gospel of Thomas you find out that Jesus was against organized religion — much like Ramakrishna had contempt for the type of social work to which the Mission is dedicated). Sure, I'll grant that they are more self-deceptive rather than deliberate liars....sort of like how Bush and Cheney really believed that they were doing a great thing for Iraq and the US when the invaded Iraq. But that doesn't change the fact that they wanted to believe the lies that eventually became apparent to everyone. At the highest levels, it is clear that the Mission has and continue to deliberately obstruct and censor many important documents — Vivekananda's letters, the Kathamrta, an English translation of Ram Chandra Dutta's Jivanavrittanta, anything that would result in an accurate understanding of the bhakti and tantra aspects of Ramakrishna's mystical realization. At the highest levels, they are dishonest, corrupt, and morally reprehensible. Now there are so many lies and deceptions in these Misplaced Pages articles, they will probably never be accurate. Behold the legacy of the Ramakrishna Mission: mendacious dishonesty. — goethean ॐ 15:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

"I hope you might acknowledge at least the possibility that they are not trying to hide an ugly truth they are afraid may come to light,"--Yes I sincerely acknowledge this, but this does not mean that the article is written in such that it has only such information related to these "secrets". I am not a blind "RK mission follower", but the article when I initially read it was written with WP:OR as if to create a lot of suspense and "secrets", completely ignoring the other views. Had I not been aware of the several studies, I wouldn't have bothered, but if you consider all the studies available--the psychoanalysis, the postcolonial studies etc., there is lot more to write, than projecting the "secrets". What Neevel says in this light is very true, "some of Ramakrishna's followers tend to be apologetic about his taking up tantric practices because of the eroticism that has discredited tantric schools in general and those of Bengal in particular." Ramakrishna may have practiced with the attitude of "expression of the eternal male-female principle" as Isherwood puts it, but it is also very easy to be misunderstood."At the highest levels, they are dishonest, corrupt, and morally reprehensible."--this explains why so many personal attacks are made... Misplaced Pages:Do not disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point by categorically calling all the translations "highly problematic", when the actual verfication with the references do not prove this, there are other POVs which also needs to be expressed. There is no need to try prove that they are "dishonest, corrupt..."--"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." and differnt scholars will express their views which should be expressed neutrally, and not add non existing references. And according to one "recent" academic study I was going through, the sources have been overlooked and misunderstood in the process of "deconstruction". A question, aren't personal attacks, adding non-existant references to prove a point "mendacious dishonesty" as Goethean puts it? Thanks for the Urban link you posted, but I am also aware of others like Hixon who have written that translation across boundaries is no easy task and very easy to be misunderstood "...One might be surprised to learn after reading the preceding quotation that the text in question was printed and published by the very organization accused of suppressing and eliminating it, the Rimakr..s.na Order, through its publication department in Udbodhan, Calcutta."...how can the texts which are existing from the past 100 years in Bengali suddenly become "secret" when are translated? --Nvineeth (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

but the article when I initially read it was written with WP:OR as if to create a lot of suspense and "secrets", completely ignoring the other views

Yes, and then you immediately moved all of these secerets out of the main article to the POV fork Books on Ramakrishna, in flagrant violation of WP:SUMMARY. Get all of the "secrets" out of the public eye, away from the main article. That was and is the strategy of the Ramakrishna Mission and its devotees. — goethean ॐ 18:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not a blind "RK mission follower"

Then maybe you should distinguish yourself from them in your deeds as well as in your words. — goethean ॐ 18:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Strange that a "Kripal doubter" becomes infuriated with anything added against Kripal, and terms it as "religious"! Speaking of "deeds" and "words", the archive stands as a testimony to what you have said before, "I, following Kripal, disagree."(Archive2) --Nvineeth (talk) 05:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

• Well, Goethean, you obviously have strong feelings about the Ramakrishna Mission. You have every right to them. But I think when we vent our feelings and opinions in strong language here, we tend to alienate those who disagree with us, and make reasoned discourse difficult. That goes for all sides of course. But supporters of the RK mission, reading your characterization of the mission as "dishonest, corrupt, and morally reprehensible", will tend to dismiss everything else you write as well. Remember, the mission is one of the most highly regarded and influential religious organizations in India; there are many who will take offense at your words. (India is full of corruption; it is institutionalized, it is almost everywhere. The mission is known for not engaging in corruption.) Again, not that you don't have a right to believe what you believe, or to express it, or to offend people, but that expressing it here in the strong language you used will tend to elicit similarly strong responses from those who disagree; thus the dialogue spirals down into name-calling, and the article is set aside to pursue silly arguments on the talk page. Anyhow, I wish for all participants in this discussion that we could step back, remember that we are interacting with other human beings who deserve our respect (by virtue of being fellow human beings), and also remember that this is only Misplaced Pages, it is not a matter of life and death. I don't think I can spare more time for this, but thanks for listening. Devadaru (talk) 19:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the good advice. I have as hard time respecting people who stoop to the deliberate suppression of facts. And look: they are still succeeding in suppressing information from this article. There is no tag on the front of the article informing readers that they are reading a censored article. Ranmakrishna Mission: 1 Misplaced Pages: 0. — goethean ॐ 19:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again, Devadaru. You have a great deal of good insight into the situation here. The Ramakrishna Mission, as you imply, is not all powerful. Heck, it's been two months since they sent me a paycheck for this work (just kidding...). In fact, I'm not a follower of Ramakrishna, or a minion of the Ramakrishna Mission. Just someone who is interested in Ramakrishna (though not in that way, Goethean ;-), and again, just kidding). Like everyone else here, who I believe are all acting in good faith, I'm interested in the article reaching a point of balance that reflects the mainstream thinking about Ramakrishna. We just disagree on what that means. I also respect and understand your stepping away from this article for a time. Misplaced Pages, and the discussions here, provide me a great deal of enjoyment and education. If that were to go sour, I would probably take a 'time out'. I hope you can continue to add your musings here occasionally, as a welcome reminder to all of us to be more respectful of each other, more human, and more humane. Thanks, Priyanath  22:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments Devadaru very welcome at this point of time and this is only an article, not a matter of life and death, well said. Reg "I have as hard time respecting people who stoop to the deliberate suppression of facts."--Is it respectable to distort the sources, add non existing refs? --Nvineeth (talk) 05:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Question

I have a general, personal question for my interlocutors. You don't have to answer me here, but you can if you want to. Do you think that it is possible to suppress information about Ramakrishna from Misplaced Pages indefinitely? I suggest that it is ultimately impossible. If some academics believe that Ramakrishna was a homosexual, that information will eventually be displayed in this article, and there's not very much that you can do about it. You have both read all of the same articles that I have. We all know what information is out there. Do you really think that you can keep it out of this article forever? The article is currently a whitewash. We all know it. You two have been busy busy busy little bees since September, busily whitewashing the article. You think that you can keep the views of secular academics out of this article forever and replace it with the traditional views of the Mission? You cannot. Your cause is lost. You will save us all a great deal of stress if you cooperate. — goethean ॐ 17:38, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Goethean, Just above I suggested and approved of the statement "Kripal, based on his psychoanalytical study of Ramakrishna's life, portrayed Ramakrishna’s mystical experiences as symptoms of repressed homoeroticism. John Stratton Hawley agreed with him,...." being part of the summary section in the Ramakrishna article. Nobody is trying to hide anything. I'm also now going to insist that a sentence or two about Roland's studies be included in the summary section. He gets 83 JSTOR results and 365 Google scholar results. He meets every qualification according to WP:RS as a Reliable Source for his field, psychoanalysis. Both sides must, and will have their point of view in the article. Priyanath  04:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Those search results don't match mine. Could you share the exact search terms you used which yielded those results? — goethean ॐ 04:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I got 365 Google Scholar results for the search term "alan roland"."alan+roland"&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search But that search doesn't tell you how notable he is on the subject of Ramakrishna. It only tells you that he's notable generally. There's not enough room in this article to include the opinion of every notable author in the world who has ever written on Ramakrishna. — goethean ॐ 04:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

He meets every qualification according to WP:RS as a Reliable Source for his field, psychoanalysis.

But this isn't the article on psychoanalysis. It's the article on Ramakrishna. Unless he is notable on Ramakrishna, we are not going to include him. Don't bother writing the passage. Unless you can prove that he's notable on Ramakrishna, he's not going in. — goethean ॐ 04:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Roland is notable On Ramakrishna, and for "But this isn't the article on psychoanalysis"--the views section indeed gives coverage to this. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Both sides must, and will have their point of view in the article.

There aren't two sides. There's an accurate account and there's an inaccurate account. — goethean ॐ 04:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

"If some academics believe that Ramakrishna was a homosexual, that information will eventually be displayed in this article, and there's not very much that you can do about it. "'

Well ofcourse this will be displayed, but few editors prevent the other views from coming in, which is not possible and the other POV will "eventually be displayed in this article". --Nvineeth (talk) 06:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Apart from Roland, Another POV is missing in the "Reception", the other postcolonial POV for Sumit Sarkar exists, which will be added later. --Nvineeth (talk) 07:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Again again again. please try to get out of this mindset in which every view has to be negated by an opposing view. Do I insist that because you added Spivak, someone else has to be added to negate her views?

Do I?

No I do not. That's because I am reasonable and follow Misplaced Pages policy as well as common sense and you are not and you do not. Not every view needs an opposing view added to the article. That idiocy is how we ended up with a Views on Ramakrishna article that bears no relationship to the real world, and instead reflects the fantasies of devotees of the poorly-named Ramakrishna Mission. If I had collaborators that strove to have this article accurately reflect reality, instead of bickering over trying to have their partisan sectarian interests represented more and more, like they are haggling over potatoes in a bazaar, there would be no conflict on this page. You do not need to insert the opinion of a non-notable no-name scholar in order to somehow "balance" the views of Sumit Sarkar. Go around and look around Misplaced Pages. Not every views needs to be "balanced" by another view! — goethean ॐ 12:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

It is not "idiocy" Goethean, when several views on something exists, they should be reported to give an accurate picture, and this is what wikipedia asks... I am not trying to "somehow balance", you may find it surprising that I was planning to write more on Sarkar's views on "othering" of SRK which is not so "religious organization" friendly and other postcolonial works.... When this is done, you yourself will see that the Sumit Sarkar's works represents only a small view. --Nvineeth (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to avoid the continual expansion of the text into a unwieldy mess, like what resulted in moving all of the text to Views on Ramakrishna. Being the main instigator of this activity, I think that you are familiar with what I'm talking about. This is when I add two positive words about Kripal and you add ten paragraphs about some non-notable swami, for "balance". — goethean ॐ 18:45, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm ok if Roland is only included in the daughter article. And yes, his views are notable, even though he isn't a religious scholar. 'All views' means the views of different academic disciplines, all of which are valid. Priyanath  22:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Fine. Are we done? Nvineeth? — goethean ॐ 22:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes Goethean I am fine, but before adding, we need to work a bit on the references, (missing titles, page nos). The "non-notable swami" you are referring above, is Sumit Sarkar's collaborator in postcolonial studies. Anything that is opposed to Kripal and "contemporary reception" becomes "non-notable" and "religious", even though it originates from sources like OUP, IIAS... --Nvineeth (talk) 05:32, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Pending Issues

Pending issues to be sorted at this point:

• Summary Vs Highlights -- so far everybody has more or less agreed to go with Highlights instead of summary as suggested by Goethean
• Alan Roland -- discussion underway
• Sumit Sarkar -- I see a very valid other POV from a Postcolonial study which can be added, will add later when I get time.

Thanks. --Nvineeth (talk) 08:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Alan Roland does not go in. He is not a notable Ramakrishna scholar. We already have two scholars (Smith and Larson) saying what is wrong with Kripal's book. Here we see the complete unreasonableness of Kripal's opponents. They insist not merely that Kripal's opponents be represented, which is fair, but that the article must be totally one sided. Just like the main article, the Views on Ramakrishna, and all of the articles on this topic must be completely lop-sided, against contemporary scholarship; Kripal must be utterly destroyed. Not only must most of the Kripal paragraph be dedicated to showing that Kripal is wrong, but we must recruit another author, from another field — someone who has nothing to to with Ramakrishna studies — to say that Kripal is completely full of crap. The religious editors will INSIST that the section be completely one-sided against Kripal. Forget it. Roland is clearly inappropriate to this article. He is quite clearly not a notable scholar on Ramakrishna. No other scholar has ever referred to his work in a journal article. You religious people do not have to win everything every single time. — goethean ॐ 12:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Roland's work, I was under the impression that it was an original work, but when I read it again, just from the first page it can be linked to Kali's Child, so its ok even if it is left out. --Nvineeth (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Summary Vs Highlights -- so far everybody has more or less agreed to go with Highlights instead of summary as suggested by Goethean

I don't have any clue what you are referring to here. This is the first time that the term "highlights" has been used on this page. Please try to write clearly so everyone else can figure out what you are talking about. — goethean ॐ 12:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I meant that the "Jstor analysis" instead of WP:SUMMARY is being used, apparently in support of what you have written in the Reception instead of summarising, but amidst the personal attacks, you probably failed to get "any clue". --Nvineeth (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

You are not making a bit of sense. There's nothing wrong with noting which scholars are notable on a particular subject and which are not. That does not in any way contradict WP:SUMMARY. You are the one who flagrantly and deliberately violated WP:SUMMARY when you moved ALL of the reception text to the POV fork Views on Ramakrishna, because you prefer religious material over academic, reliable material. — goethean ॐ 18:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I have no qualms in repeating again : Go through the discussion archives and peer review before making allegations. To repeat , "religious material" is WP:OR. --Nvineeth (talk) 05:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Sources section

Goethean, creating a blank section to start an article, just to protest a perceived wrong, is a violation of WP:POINT. If Nvineeth removed that section from the lead, he was correct. Articles don't begin with a discussion of sources. I couldn't find a single biography that does so. If you do find one, there will be fifty more that do it the typical way. When there is a discussion of sources, it's at the end of an article. More often, there is simply a list of sources. Either way, it belongs at the end. Putting it at the beginning to make a point, or to push a point of view, are both incorrect. Priyanath  04:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Have you ever read a book? All scholarly books begin with a discussion of the primary documents. Why are you hiding the discussion of primary sources? First User:Nvineeth, in blatant violation of WP:SUMMARY, moves the section to another article as well as inexplicably (apart from blatant POV, pro-Mission editing) removing the publication dates for the Kathamrita, and then you move the link to the end of the article. And there is, of course, no summary section per WP:SUMMARY. It's almost as if you want to use a traditional, non-scholarly biography of the saint and remove all scholarly materials from the article. I guess that's what you would call "a perceived wrong". — goethean ॐ 04:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

"moves the section to another article as well as inexplicably"

Goethean, did you read archived discussion + Peer review? When these things were discussed, you did not even participate, None of the articles begin with a lengthy discussion of the biographical sources, esp like the original research, failed reference checks section that existed before. But I do feel that a small section overview without original research, and editorial comments like "highly problematic" will be a good addition. Can you find the FAs or GAs or biographies which begin with a very lengthy discussion like it existed before? --Nvineeth (talk) 06:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Another question, have you seen a WP:SUMMARY for a Bibliography ? (Check the category for the books article). When the discussions were made and the article was made into a bibliography, your did not even participate...the allegation of "blatant violation of WP:SUMMARY" is false. --Nvineeth (talk) 10:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As is completely bleeding obvious to everyone here, what we are discussing is not a bibliography. It is a discussion of the primary source texts upon which a scholarly biography of Ramakrishna would be based. Of course, those interested in suppressing scholarly information and replacing it with religious texts from swamis might not care so much about that. — goethean ॐ 12:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Goethean, did you read archived discussion + Peer review?

Actually, I wrote most of the archived discussion. And even if you got the pope to approve of this article, that still wouldn't make it neutral. By the way, why did you remove the publication dates for the Kathamrita? They are in this version, but have mysteriously disappeared in this version. Was it just an innocent oversight? Or were you deliberately suppressing information again? — goethean ॐ 13:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

This is beyond. No specific proposed changes are listed in this entire section. You are all just arguing with eachother because you like arguing on the internet, right? Could you take this somewhere else? This is an encyclopedia. Hipocrite (talk) 14:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I propose that the discussion of primary documents, now located at the vaguely-titled POV fork Books on Ramakrishna be returned to beginning of the biography section in the main Ramakrishna article, as it was in this version. To clarify, the discussion of primary biographical documents does not have to be identical to how it was in that version (obviously improvement is always good), but to remove the scholarly material in order to make way for a traditional hagiography is outrageous. Something the size of the first section (between the header "Biographical sources" and the header "Datta's Jivanavrttānta" would be fine. That material has been completely deleted by User:Priyanath and User:Nvineeth from all Ramakrishna-related articles in their present version. — goethean ॐ 16:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for having made this talk page a hate-fest. I just cannot sympathize with what seems to me to be a clear suppression of academic material in favor of religious material, material which appears to me to be false. User:Nvineeth's refusal to admit that he deleted the publication dates of the Kathamrita is a clear example of this. And I'm saddened that Misplaced Pages administrators don't seem to care about the integrity of Misplaced Pages content. — goethean ॐ 16:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As an example of how ludicrous the situation is, the word "kathamrita" appears one time in the current revision of the article. It is in the caption of M's picture. In other words, this article never mentions the title of the major biographical source material of Ramakrishna's life. It did when I was working on the article, but our two helpful editors have removed all mention of it. This is extremely bizarre if you assume that they are editing in a neutral manner. For this and a blizzard of other problems, this article should have an NPOV tag affixed to it as a warning to readers that the article content has been severely compromised. — goethean ॐ 17:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• "As is completely bleeding obvious to everyone here, what we are discussing is not a bibliography. It is a discussion of the primary source texts upon which a scholarly biography of Ramakrishna would be based."-- Your were nowhere to be seen when the changes were underway and discussed and even the pope can verify this :), and another editor in the peer review suggested to make it a bibliography, so your allegations are untenable, to quote from Peer review: ""Notes on Biographical sources" can be merged with "Bibliography", ..." All this was done with good faith, and proposed by a neutral editor.
• "Actually, I wrote most of the archived discussion"--The archives tells a different story. When specific discussion were made related to the biography sources, you did not comment. And remember silence means acceptance according to wikipedia terms.
• "I propose that the discussion of primary documents, "--So do I, but definitely not at the begining, nor in greater depth. As an example you can check the encyclopedias listed above while discussing about Kali's Child. In fact, the very same encyclopedia article you have listed begins with the biography and not with the discussion on biographic sources.
• "User:Nvineeth's refusal to admit that he deleted the publication dates of the Kathamrita"-- :-)) what do you want prove by this? The dates are :"1902, 1905, 1908, 1910 and 1932." On the similar lines I can say that even you are refusing to admit the failed reference checks, original research, personal comments in the article.
• "As an example of how ludicrous the situation is, the word "kathamrita" appears one time in the current revision of the article."-- :) , did you check the references to, "Sri Ramakrishna, the Kathamrita and the Calcutta middle Classes: an old problematic revisited"?
• "And I'm saddened that Misplaced Pages administrators don't seem to care about the integrity of Misplaced Pages content."--Editors who are concerned about integrity refelect the same, for ex: trying to revert the article to an month older completely sacrifices the "integrity"..

Thanks!--Nvineeth (talk) 06:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

And remember silence means acceptance according to wikipedia terms.

Sure. Please point out where that is spelled out in Misplaced Pages policy for me, would you? What I remember Misplaced Pages policy saying is that articles can always be improved no matter what obviously flawed "peer review" process this article has gone through, and that those improvements should be embraced and encouraged rather than fought by groups of sectarian editors through edit warring.

did you check the references to, "Sri Ramakrishna, the Kathamrita and the Calcutta middle Classes: an old problematic revisited"?

Yeah, I saw that. I'm talking about the body of the article. The word kathamrita never occurs, except in an image caption. The title of the primary source document for Ramakrishna's life has been removed from the article, along with all other discussion of the source documents. You have clearly and plainly worsened the article with your edits. — goethean ॐ 13:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

what do you want prove by this?

The dates of the publication of the primary source documents for Ramakrishna's life are obviously the first fact that a scholarly article on Ramakrishna would start with. And my version of the article included it. One of the first things you did was to remove those dates. Then you began to fill the article with cant from the Ramakrishna Mission about how Nikhilananda's translation is so accurate. Cant which every contemporary scholar rejects. You removed my scholarly text and replaced it with falsehoods. That's why you keep citing sources from 1898 and removing my more recent scholarly references. That's why you have worsened the article with your edits. That's why the article is not neutral. That's why the text that you moved to other daughter articles needs to be replaced. — goethean ॐ 13:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Goethean, no biography begins with the biographical sources, either here on Misplaced Pages or in other encyclopedias, for anyone. I've moved it to the end of the "Biography" section, where it may belong. It certainly doesn't belong at the beginning of the article. Misplaced Pages is written for the readers not the editors. Readers want a biography to begin (which is why all biographies are written that way), not an academic discourse about sources. Nobody is trying to hide anything. There will be a biographical sources section, done appropriately and in the right position. Priyanath  20:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Please see Socrates. — goethean ॐ 21:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Please see the FAs : Adi Shankara, Nostradamus, Hubert Walter, John Calvin... BTW did you check the encyclopedia link you had posted? --Nvineeth (talk) 06:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what that means. Did I check the Socrates page? Yes. It contains a duscussion of biographical sources before the biography, as this article did, before you deleted it. — goethean ॐ 16:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Stop the personal attacks, incivility

Goethean, This is neither a discussion group nor a blog:

• stop personal attacks.
• stop blaming other editors, if you did not participate in the discussions before when changes were discussed by the community, its not the fault of the community.
• stop using incivil edit summaries, directed towards other editors
• From the archives and the discussion its is very very very clear that you have a hatered towards some religious organizations, and you attack anyone who try to add anything related to this organization.
• stop adding tags claiming about century old sources. You did the same thing during GA Review, stop this, NOT AGAIN. A work does not become unreliable just because it is century old. I had given the example of Darwin before just to put this across.
• We can discuss about this in the Administrator's Noticeboard, Shall we?

Nvineeth and Goethean, both of you stop digging up old edits and diffs, concentrate on the present article. --Bluptr (talk) 10:28, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

We can discuss about this in the Administrator's Noticeboard, Shall we?

I love it when you threaten me, especially when its the same, hollow threat you've made before with no result. Yes, please do. Go for it. The more attention that is shown on this article, the more this article will be improved. The problem here is a lack of attention, which is allowing unscrupulous editors to get away with dishonesty. If you think that neutral administrators are going to defend the style of editing that has dominated this article's revision history, you got another thing coming.

Your example of Darwin is laughable as I outlined above. Darwin is no longer a reliable source for for contemporary topics in biology. Similarly, Muller is not a reliable source when we have had 108 subsequent years of work by historians and religious scholars. Why on earth would you use a 108 years old source when there are a variety of contemporary sources available? POV editing, that's why.

Why should I stop digging up old diffs when they show exactly what is wrong with the article as it currently stands? Why doesn't this article ever mention the kathamrita, the single most important primary biographical material on Ramakrishna? Why was all mention of the title removed? When I tried to re-insert the biographical materials section, why did User:Priyanath edit war with me to remove it? The fact is that this version of the article from April is more neutral than the current revision of the article. That's an ugly fact, and it points out some ugly things that are going on here. But its true, and I am confident that a neutral admin will see that. — goethean ॐ 13:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Goethean, Bluptr is correct regarding your personal attacks and incivility. Devadaru also alluded to your behavior. These are two neutral outside opinions. Do you really think that's the best way to make progress on the article? Priyanath  20:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The best thing would be for you and Nvineeth to stop reverting everything that I do, stop removing reliably sourced material, stop calling reliably sourced material "original research", and to start using reliable sources rather than outdated material like Muller, Rolland, Isherwood, Neevel and other sources favored by the Ramakrishna Mission religious organization. In sum, you should begin to follow Misplaced Pages policy. Bluptr has taken your side on every content issue as well as complaining about my supposed "incivility", and his argument (that using outdated sources is appropriate) was, to be extremely kind, completely fallacious. So I'm not sure that he's the most neutral editor that we can find. Devadaru has also edited in a manner similar to you and Nvineeth. As I have said repeatedly, I do hope that Bluptr makes good on his threats — the more people that start looking at this article and examining your and Nvineeth's behavior, the better off this article will be. — goethean ॐ 21:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

For Bluptr: We are quited used to Goethean's "supposed incivility" and don't take the personal attacks, circular arguments (see below) seriously and dont waste your time. Goethean, from above you mean that every other editor is against your :) ? even when you blatantly write hate speech and you yourself have acknowledged this above -- "I apologize for having made this talk page a hate-fest." and "hate-fest" is incivility. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I was pretty busy and could not edit wikipedia, so I missed out all the fun!--Bluptr (talk) 10:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Circular Arguments

Argument 1

1. Goethean says, "Muller, Rolland, Isherwood, Neevel" are outdated
2. Goethean also says that according to his jstor analysis Muller, Rolland, etc., are very notable and he writes, "Muller and Rolland in particular are scholars of giant historical importance"

All the above statements are self-contradictory and how can they be "outdated" and be of "gaint historical importance" :-) and as per wikipedia guidelines, Muller, Rolland, Isherwood, Neevel, etc., surpass the requirements for WP:RS.

We need to go by Misplaced Pages's guidelines, and pay no attention to self-contradictory statements. According to Misplaced Pages, Muller, Rolland, Isherwood, Neevel are all highly reliable.

Argument 2

1. Goethean says, "Neevel is obselete"
2. The same editor Goethean had added Neeval (1976) under the title "Views on Ramakrishna". But now suddenly they become "obselete".
3. Goethean's favourite contemporary scholar Jeffery Kripal, acknowledges Neeval as Here I am building on the thesis of Walter G. Neevel, who in his seminal essay "The Transformation of Sri Ramakrishna"...(Chapter 2, Page 86), so does Amiya P. Sen, Chaterjee, Sarkar in their essays.
4. So calling Neevel obselete is WP:OR

Argument 3

1. Goethean is not clear if it is "last 30 years" or "last 40 years". And there is no such guideline in wikipedia.

Argument 4

1. Goethean writes, "To clarify, the discussion of primary biographical documents does not have to be identical to how it was in that version (obviously improvement is always good), ... Something the size of the first section (between the header "Biographical sources" and the header "Datta's Jivanavrttānta" would be fine." and wants to write a summary.
2. Goethean also adds the mergeto tag!

There is no question of merging, that article is big and going to expand in future.

There is no question on the reliability on Muller, Isherwood, Rolland, Neevel, etc., Now the current discussion is on Biographic Sources section whose summary should be added to the section. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:47, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

To summarize the above, you continue to refuse to use reliable, contemporary sources per Misplaced Pages guidelines. Instead, you use 100 year old sources because they reflect your POV. And when I insert reliable sources, you revert my edits, calling it "original research". — goethean ॐ 15:15, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

See Goethean, you have acknowledge the 100 year old sources as of "scholars of giant historical importance" and at the same time you challenge their presence... --Nvineeth (talk) 07:43, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, duh. They are important as figures in the historical reception of Ramakrishna. But you deceptively quote them as if they are contemporary scholars. The goal here should be to inform the reader of the article, not to decieve him or her. — goethean ॐ 15:58, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"contemporary scholars" is WP:OR and I cannot find it in Misplaced Pages's guidelines. The question to be asked --Is it right to "deceive" the user with Original research, One sided POVs... 1? When the situation demands, a scholar becomes "notable" but again in another couple of months, they become "non-notable"! --Nvineeth (talk)

Biographic sources

"Something the size of the first section (between the header "Biographical sources" and the header "Datta's Jivanavrttānta" would be fine."

Around 2 Paras should be fine. --Nvineeth (talk) 10:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Goethean, Thanks for violating the wikipedia policy and adding the biographic sources with failed reference checks, original research, One sided-POV. We all clearly remember the way you tried to revert the article to an month older before. Moreover, you yourself have acknowledged the problem with the biographic sources you added above, "To clarify, the discussion of primary biographical documents does not have to be identical to how it was in that version (obviously improvement is always good)" but apparently you added the identical section! This will be removed, and this has to built in a neutral way. --Nvineeth (talk) 07:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Goethean, you are using using wikipedia to illustrated a point. By trying to revert and add back the disputed content with OR, failed reference checks again and again, I feel that you are unnecessarily instigating other editors like Devadaru pointed out. For Ex: Other editors can easily illustrate the point, "Kripal’s personal experiences (somewhat “dark” and presumably “pathological” or, to quote his own expression, “psychosexual”) at that monastery may have something to do with his understanding of Ramakrishna’s ecstasy via what some psychologists would call “projective introversion.”" and this has been published by a neutral publisher ( Antonio De Nicholas ) and even Sil acknowledges this., and mind you, no balancing POV exists for this. But I feel that there are other important improvements that needs to be done in other articles rather than wasting energy on trying to illustrate a point...Pls think about it. This is an example I wanted to give. Pls avoid WP:POINT --Nvineeth (talk) 07:39, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Pls think about it

You have a lot of nerve asking me to think about anything. Your contributions to this article have been consistently vandalistic. You should think about whether you can succeed indefinitely in suppressing the academic material from this article and replacing it with religious material. You go think about whether you want to begin to be a responsible Misplaced Pages editor. — goethean ॐ 15:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

"You should think about whether you can succeed indefinitely in suppressing the academic material"--The question to be asked is, whether an editor can succeed in suppressing the so called "religious material" published by WP:RS in the name of "notability".

and this has been published by a neutral publisher ( Antonio De Nicholas ) and even Sil acknowledges this

Are you joking? Rajiv Malhotra, who bankrolled Invading the Sacred is a right-wing ideologue with zero academic credentials and the furthest imaginable thing from neutral. The book has never been reviewed in any academic journal --- for good reason, since it is an attack on scholarship itself. It is a non-academic book by a non-academic publisher which attacks academic work as illegitimate. So your endorsement is unsurprising. However, since Misplaced Pages is not a branch of the Ramakrishna Mission or any other religious organization, the book should be ignored. — goethean ॐ 17:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Nice WP:OR, do you know who is Antonio De Nicholas, Rosette etc.,? Misplaced Pages policies does not give credence to the WP:OR above. "the book should be ignored. "--yes as expected anything which speaks for Hinduism and Ramakrishna should be ignored as "non-notable" according to you.... which is not possible here.--Nvineeth (talk) 05:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Few problems

To highlight few of the problems in the biographic sources section recently added:

• Not all of these documents have been translated into English and scholars find some of those translations to be problematic.--very ambigious references, and you have not mentioned the other POVs. And who says that "all of these documents" as "problematic"? This is WP:OR
• There are four major sources of information for the life of Ramakrishna -- is WP:OR, which scholar says this? So is the next line.
• Regarding Jivanavrittanta, the information that it has been published in 10 editions, and this POV is not even mentioned. Also the date 1885 is wrong, failed verification check.
• Although Vivekananda loved the 1894 edition, he also offered editorial suggestions for future editions of Sen's poem.--how can this make it problematic?
• he substantially altered Gupta's text, combining the five parallel narratives into a single volume, -- This should "Kripal argues", and there are other views which also oppose this which are not even mentioned.
• Brian Hatcher noted that a passage in the Kathamrta.... -- does not mention the context (tantra) which has been clearly explained by Somnath Bhattacharyya. (See also the discussion ) Also in the Gospel section, the other POVs of Lex Hixon, Tyagananda, Bhattacharyya to mention a few are not even mentioned!
• It has been clearly discussed above that articles begins with Biography not "Biographic sources", check the encyclopedias and also the link you posted.
• This section relies heavily on Sil and the other POV of Openshaw is nowhere to been seen!
• Let me quote from NPOV Faq, "there are legitimate reasons for removing text because of bias"

--Nvineeth (talk) 08:35, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The section has been put online by Goethean here : Ramakrishna/Biographical documents and I have marked the issues, let other editors see the issues. This section is not going in without these POVs, ORs, failed reference checks being addressed. --Nvineeth (talk) 10:14, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I just can not understand why "Books on Ramakrishna" must have a section. Ramakrishna's biography should be the focus of "Biography", not which books? which authors and why a book is better or worse than others. Biographical sources is WP:UNDUE in this article, add more info in ]. Also, if a fact is disputed and included in one biography not other, sometime like "According to ABC, (Fact)...., but XYZ disagrees OR but other scholars like ... dispute this claim." can be used. --Redtigerxyz 07:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment Redtigerxyz. It's not really a section on "Books on Ramakrishna". That's the poor title that was given by Priyanath/Nvineeth when they removed the section from this article. I believe that there should be a section in this article on biographical materials before the biography section. Ramakrishna is like Socrates or Jesus insofar as we don't have his works, but we only read about him through the works of others. We either read Plato's, Xenophanes' or Aristophanes' Socrates. Similarly, our image of Ramakrishna has been shaped by which sources have been emphasized by posterity. So to me, this section is of critical importance for the reader. Scholars Walter Neevel, Narasinga Sil and Jeffrey Kripal have all written extensively on the role played by various parties in shaping the portrait of Ramakrishna that has been passed down to us. I think that readers should be aware of this dynamic. Ramakrishna's biography is not the simple, naive, unsophisticated, uncontroversial thing that some editors would have us believe. — goethean ॐ 15:33, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

What about others?? A.P.Sen, Lex Hixon, etc., Were they ignored again because they are "religious organization" friendly? --Nvineeth (talk) 05:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes this is a very valid discussion, but there are other POVs to it which are removed saying that they are non-"notable" and "religious organization" friendly... the other POVs should always be presented. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

This section relies heavily on Sil and the other POV of Openshaw is nowhere to been seen!

As you know, Openshaw has only written two short book reviews on books on Ramakrishna. She is not a notable scholar on Ramakrishna and she has no place in this article or the related articles. — goethean ॐ 15:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

As expected, anything that supports Ramakrishna is "not a notable scholar". I want to ask another question, you had added Openshaw to the article before, was she notable then and suddenly became non-notable? --Nvineeth (talk) 05:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

This section should be "Quite a few problems", not "Few Problems"! --Bluptr (talk) 10:59, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

More vandalism

I just noticed that all of the scholarly material has been stripped from the "References" and "Further reading" sections. The sections are completely dominated by works which uphold the Ramakrishna Mission religious perspective. At one time, these sections had scholarly works listed. This is vandalism. The editors who vandalized these sections should be blocked from editing this article. I'll begin to repair the damage. — goethean ॐ 01:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Pls "repair the damage"; I wonder what should be done with the editor who tried vandalism like this? Do you know as per WP:EL, we don't link to self published works like the wikinfo.org? If there is any other way to justify the self published work at wikinfo.org pls let me know because I see greater avenues in which this can be used in various other articles. To quote,

"Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research." and "Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors."

--Nvineeth (talk) 05:29, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Another question, can any editor justify the presence of "npov" tag? I have justified my removal of the original research, one-sided POV above. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:18, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Since you specifically ask, I'll answer. Not one contemporary scholar of Bengali religion, let alone the most notable scholars, is referenced in the entire biographical section. Instead, outdated 25-, 50-, 100-year old books favored by the Ramakrishna Mission religious organization are used exclusively. This is because recent scholars tend to discuss Ramakrishna's eccentric sexuality, discussion of which the Mission, as well as certain Misplaced Pages editors, actively suppress. These editors have been assisted in thier censorship of this article by the neglect of Misplaced Pages administration. The article used to be something a scholar might approve of. In clear violation of Misplaced Pages policy, you removed the references to contemporary scholars and transformed the article into something a right-wing religious advocate would approve of. The article is about as far from neutral as is possible and your edits have been outrageously, vandalistically one-sided, among other things. The article should be reverted back to the last neutral version and then improvement on that version should begin. — goethean ॐ 17:00, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Disregarding your personal attacks, I would like to point out the missing POVs in your one sided additions : Dr. Jean Openshaw, Somnath Bhattacharyya, Tyagananda, Huston Smith, Atmajnanananda, Gayatri Spivak, Antonio De Nicholas, S.N.Balagangadhara, Vrajaprana, Alan Roland, Radice, Arvind Sharma, Amiya P. Sen to mention a few. And pls stop spamming wikipedia. There is clearly a guideline in WP:EL which prevents this. Also as per lead, "Well-publicized recent events affecting an article subject, whether controversial or not, should be kept in historical perspective. What is most recent is not necessarily what is most notable: new information should be carefully balanced against old, with due weight accorded to each.". --Nvineeth (talk) 06:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

"The article should be reverted back to the last neutral version and then improvement on that version should begin."

Do you have any plans of vandalism like this? Sorry this is not possible in wikipedia, nor are the one sided POV additions, with WP:OR. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

"This is because recent scholars tend to discuss Ramakrishna's eccentric sexuality, "

This is what a "recent scholar" Hawley wrote : "neither the gopis’ torment nor Ramakrishna's must be allowed to devolve to a bodily level that could be indiscriminately shared—either between religious communities, or between the erstwhile colonizers and their erstwhile colonial victims, or between communities of people who respond to different sexual orientations. Eros is too dangerous." but the one-sided additions did not take this into account. Speaking of "Censorship", this is what Kripal writes, "I have also, I believe, overplayed the degree to which the tradition has suppressed Datta's Jivanavrttanta. Indeed, to my wonder (and embarrassment), the Ramakrishna Order reprinted Datta's text the very same summer Kali's Child appeared, rendering my original claims of a conscious concealment untenable." Again the one-sided POV additions did not take this into account. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Goethean, the question to be asked is who is indulging in Vandalism? The other editors have presented very valid wikipedia guidelines to justify their actions, and on the other hand, Goethean continues to indulge in incivility, add tags indiscriminately. Your description of outdated 25-, 50-, 100-year... is not supported by any guideline of the wikipedia community. The deletions of one-sided POVs by other editors are justified. I have spotted more vandalism, which should be reverted. Bluptr (talk) 11:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Goethean, you have things against some religious organization, does not mean you indiscriminately try to revert and remove content from the article. Bluptr (talk) 11:20, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Why dont you guys try dispute resolution? Bluptr (talk) 11:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Claim that discussing sex in lede is undue

User:Priyanath removed my extremely well-sourced material from the lede paragraph, claiming that mentioning Ramakrishna's sexuality in the lede paragraph is "absurdly undue weight". Of course, as we all know, most of the literature produced on Ramakrishna in the past 30 years by academics has focused on Ramakrishna's sexuality. Since I take my queues from academia rather than from a religious organization, I do not see mentioning Ramakrishna's sexuality as undue weight. Instead, I see the long paragraph in the lede dedicated to discussing how many locations etc, the Ramakrishna Mission has as inappropriate. This is a biographical article on Ramakrishna, not promotional literature for a religious organization. My version fixes both of these problems. — goethean ॐ 14:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, the language was too strong there, making outright statements of the opinions of a few scholars. Please rewrite it to reflect that these points are not established "facts" but opinions. Devadaru (talk) 15:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me. If you take the time to look at the references, it is the majority of top scholars of Bengali religion whose views are represented. Additionally, one of the references says that this view is the consensus view among academics. If those references are not enough for you, I can easily add more. — goethean ॐ 15:22, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Just so that no one is deceived by Devadaru's words, the "few" "opinions" of scholars who are represented here include: Narasingha Sil, William Radice, Jeffrey Kripal, John Hawley, David Haberman, Malcolm McLean, James Gerald Larson, Sudhir Kakar, Brian Hatcher. This group constitutes the majority of the most important writers on Bengali religion. — goethean ॐ 15:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

My apologies for the uncharitable remark in the edit summary. Why did the language suddenly become so strong in the intro? Just because a handful of western academics say something doesn't make it true. There are plenty of opinions to the contrary available from reliable sources. I dare say, Goethean, that your thinking seems a bit clouded by your evident dislike, or is it hatred? of the Ramakrishna Mission, and you seem to suspect that the rest of the editors associated with this article are mere stooges of the Mission. This dislike seems to color all your comments on this talk page. Do you think you need to step back for a while? Because the constant snide comments, sarcasm, and insults to the Mission seem to be not so helpful here; rather, as I explained before, they tend to anger. Today, alas, I too got angry, and made a snide comment myself. Well, I apologize for that. Devadaru (talk) 15:49, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It may surprise you that I have very sincerely attended services at the Vedanta Society in Chicago. That was before I discovered the Mission's antagonistic relationship to any facts regarding Ramakrishna's biography, their bullying tactics, and deep dishonesty.

I ask you to put yourself in my shoes. Image if the facts were absolutely clear that Jesus was gay, or something like that. And that the majority of academics on the subject supported that view. And I opposed you editing the Jesus article, simply because I felt that Jesus being gay would ruin my Christian faith (which is a slightly bigoted view in itself). Imagine if I was able to successfully keep the relevant facts out of the article for months and years simply by joining with other fundamentalist Christians and edit warring. Imagine if you weren't even able to tag the article for neutrality. You might be slightly peeved at the Christian organization that I represent.

That is my position today. Despite many months of effort, I have been prevented from adding blatantly clear, well-supported, obvious facts to the article by a gang of religious believers, because they think that those facts contradict their faith or sensibilities. It is an outrage, and the only reason that you have been able to get away with it is because most Misplaced Pages editors and administrators don't know these facts and don't care. If you have read the same articles that I have (And I know that at least Nvineeth has), you know that I am merely representing academic facts. And suppressing them is dishonest. And you all have been doing it with glee for months. — goethean ॐ 16:10, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Again, use talk and drafts, not edit warring

The last time this broke out, we came to a mutually agreeable solution by having individuals who wanted to make changes to the article post a draft of their changes, take comments, reach agreement and then incorporate the draft into the article. Please do so again.

Goethean, could you please compost a concrete proposed change to the article for everyones review, and then post it on this talk page? Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 14:30, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. I put it at a sub-page because the long reference section will make a mess of this page. — goethean ॐ 15:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Any comments from the other participants? Try to be concise. Hipocrite (talk) 15:29, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

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