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Revision as of 04:55, 17 August 2018

To be done as four comments posted separately, one after another.

Context

This is what I'm replying to, full discussion here:

Robert and Dorje108 writing their own Wiki seems like a great solution. And no, I've never edited Milarepa, but Robert's draft does not seem to solve the issues with the lack of an encyclopedic tone.JJ 06:19, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

There were three issues identified, neutrality, sourcing and tone. Tone is subjective. For instance I am the main author of Planetary protection and nobody said it lacks encyclopedic tone. Note that ping|Joshua Jonathan has just edited the main Milarepa article to remove the banner. He gives only one of the two main sources for Milarepa's biography I mention in the lede. He does not mention the issues with his dates of birth and death or the historical context. Although he removed the banner about issues of sourcing, all the paragraphs are still marked as . He also presents a mythological account as if it was regarded as a historical biography, and so does not fix the issue of neutrality. He has also removed the section on "supernatural running". This breaks the redirect from Lung-gom-pa which is the reason I had for retaining that section in my draft. My proposal on the talk page of my draft is to make this into a separate article and run the redirect the other way. In short, it is a hasty edit of an article on one of the most important historical figures in Tibetan Buddhism, and sloppy work, introducing new issues that need to be fixed. RW 11:10, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

You're breaching your topic-ban here. JJ 11:39, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh yes, that's definitely a topic ban violation, and also shows why the topic ban should stay in effect. The fact that you didn't use your sandbox approach for at least one reply here shows that the "sandbox solution" isn't a viable solution for you. About Planetary protection: you were far from the only editor there, and it existed before you started editing it. Compare that article to Modern Mars habitability, which you wrote completely and which is not at all encyclopaedic in tone (disclosure: I've nominated the latter article for deletion). CJ 15:39, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

CJ and JJ (header to remove)

First a reminder that I am doing this in the context of a formal appeal process. So, ping|Joshua Jonathan and ping|Ca2james - according to WP:BANEX, it is not a topic ban violation to talk about the topic during a formal appeal, so long as it is relevant to the appeal.

I've been told that Topic bans are about conduct, not content. We let brand-new Wikipedians edit articles like this one all the time. This is about whether my conduct will be disruptive. I'm confident it won't.

I would not suddenly do a bold edit of an article like this. I would copy my draft over to my user space and then post to the talk page, asking other users if they think my draft is an improvement, or has contentn that is worth merging into the article. And take it from there. This is my normal practice as an editor. Instead of BRD, for mature article edits, I do DB (continues R D, if there's a revert, rare). For recent examples of my use of DB see my edits of the talk pages for: Conformal cyclic cosmology and Cosmic microwave background. All these proposals do is to fix minor omissions, but just in case of stepping on anyone's toes, I comment on the talk page first. This is what I would do with Buddhist bios too.

If my edits for Buddhist bios are not accepted, for some reason, I would still like to have the topic ban lifted for wikignoming, since I spot such issues from time to time while importing content into EOB. My main focus is on improving articles in our new EOB. In

By practicing in the sandbox over the past year, I've been able to reduce the number of small edits I need to make to my own posts down to reasonable levels. You'll see I didn't need to make many here in this thread.

ping|Ca2james we can continue discussion of the article you nominated for AfD on its talk page. I am in the process of fixing the issues you identified with it as best I can, as per our discussion there.

ping|Joshua Jonathan - I have some extra points I wish to make but they will require some more thought. I have to step carefully because of WP:BANEX but I think I may have some useful things to say even so. It is to help with mutual understanding as this goes foward, whether this t-ban is lifted now or for future appeals. You do not have any reason to be concerned about a repeat of what happened before, and one thing I'd like to do is to give a brief explanation of what that is. This is of course directly relevant to the t-ban appeal.

More later, I have got caught up with many things suddenly in the last few hours, both on and off wiki and am having difficulty keeping track of everything and fulfilling my commitments. Robert Walker (talk) 04:55, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Ca2james long posts (header to remove)

Replying to: "The fact that you didn't use your sandbox approach for at least one reply here shows that the "sandbox solution" isn't a viable solution for you"

Ca2james, you need some background. Editors are permitted to do minor edits of their posts after they post them by WP:REDACT. That wasn't the problem. The problem was my large number of minor edits. You can see how many minor edits I do between posts from my sandbox: .

I was told that this is a problem for other editors and I agree. ping|Softlavender suggested I use my sandbox, I agreed that this seemed a good approach to avoid this issue, and ping|Euryalus agreed in the closing statement that this potentially can solve the problem.

Even using the sandbox, sometimes I find a minor issue I missed in the sandbox or forget my signature. However, a couple of minor edits like that is normal. That's not what I was sanctioned for, as it is permitted under WP:REDACT. Also it is okay to redact posts even after they are replied to, if you use underline and strike out. You may notice in my original t-ban appeal at the top of this section I linked to the wrong point in the page and fixed it in that way.

Also - since there was nothing wrong with that post, everything was to the point, except for its length. So, I'd also like to say a bit about the "Walls of text" complaint. The admin summing up does not mention it, only mentions WP:REDACT.

You may get the impression that comments in the Buddhism topic area are typically short. But that is not the case at all. Here is the comment ping|Joshua Jonathan did on the WP:RSN where he objected to my walls of text in the discussion - and in context here: Response by JJ - (1071 words and 6920 characters, not including signature), and scroll to the end where he says "NB: still walls of text... ". When I posted a short summary of the main issues with the Four Noble Truths article, this was his reply: and in context here: Response by JJ 1726 words and 11,164 characters. In response to my new short summary of 627 words and 3572 characters.

In our debates from 2014 through to 2017, ping|Joshua Jonathan did them frequently; many more examples could be found. By both of us. From this it is clear that >1000 word coments are commonplace in this topic area (as is not unusual for a highly technical subject on Misplaced Pages). I do not think that long posts by themselves were the reason for the t-ban. Robert Walker (talk) 15:54, 16 August 2018 (UTC) Robert Walker (talk) 00:30, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

CJ AfD (header to remove)

Replying to: "About Planetary protection: you were far from the only editor there, and it existed before you started editing it. Compare that article to Modern Mars habitability, which you wrote completely and which is not at all encyclopaedic in tone (disclosure: I've nominated the latter article for deletion)."

Okay can I fill in some background for the other editors here? Your user page says you are happy wikignoming for now, and in our past collaboration you contributed as a wikignome. As the article progressed you agreed that I had improved it by responding to your comments and at the end were satisfied with the article. Sadly, as soon as we were finished, two other editors from the main article came and merged it away. However I created it, and you helped me write it in good faith as I had been told by one editor on the Talk:Morgellons page that this was an appropriate article to write. We weren't to know that two other editors would disagree and merge it away.

I was so surprised when you took my Modern Mars Habitability to AfD without posting on its talk page first, as I would have expected you to mention issues on the talk page first. You are not in its talk page or edit history before you added it as an AfD . Nor have you ever edited Life on Mars even as a wikignome. The only way I can think of that you could have found it is through this topic ban appeal itself.

I agree that at the time you sent it to AfD the lede paragraph had an unattributed paragraph that expressed a WP:POV and one that is likely to seem unusual, as much of this has not yet percolated far beyond specialist journals such as Astrobiology journal and the specialist planetary protection debates. However the WP:POV I have fixed that by rewriting that paragraph describing the full range of POV's of modern astrobiologists, all attributed with multiple cites, and finally, the main stream POV attributed using a carefully chosen suitable high reputation cite (from the German Aerospace HOME project on Mars habitability).

In short, I think it is a case of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV rather than WP:POV.

Your other main point is on encyclopedic tone. I think that also mainly applies to the lede. That was one of your main objection on the previous article, commenting: "Encyclopaedic articles start a particular way, which is to define the title of the article.". If so, hopefully, you will hopefully be pleased to hear that it is one of the things I'm working on fixing. If anyone looks at the article please be aware it is mid edit.

For another example to show how I write in encyclopedic tone see Hexany. I created the article and did more than 50% of the edits. It was one of my first articles here. And right from the beginning it defined what a Hexany is. I can definitely do it, just needed reminding in the case of Modern Mars Habitability.

Robert Walker (talk) 00:48, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

JJ (header to remove)

Replying to: "You're breaching your topic-ban here."

ping|Joshua Jonathan, my comments here seem to be covered by WP:BANEX as I am discussing edits you made in direct response to this appeal discussion. Only 25 minutes after my comment on 06:01, 15 August 2018 to ping|GenuineArt, you started to edit it for the first time, at 06:26, 15 August 2018 . Your first edit was to remove the POV tag I'd mentioned in that comment.

Please note, I raise this matter to demonstrate in this appeal that my own proposed edit is a good one. However, by your bold edits mid appeal, I am left with little choice but to mention these issues, if I am to continue with the appeal at all.

This is the version of the article I'm commenting on, as it is when I started to draft this comment in my sandbox: Milarepa (12:49, 16 August 2018) (I have to refer to a particular date as the article is in a state of constant flux at present as you edit it).

What I said about your edit is supported by facts.

• hasty (removing banners without checking issues were solved). The article was tagged as WP:POV by an uninvolved editor, Milarepa - 19 January 2015 - and it has been left it in place through 70 intermediate edits by multiple editors.
• sloppy (not checking for redirects linking to deleted sections of article). This page shows which links have been broken by your edit rdcheck Milarepa, they are: Lung-gom, Lung-gom-pa, Lung-gomm-pa, Lung-gomm and Lung-gomm-pa. These redirect to Milarepa, which will confuse anyone who does a Misplaced Pages search, expecting to learn about the legendary Lung-gom-pa runners of ancient Tibet. Also Lung-gom-pa in turn is linked to by two mainspace articles In Secret Tibet and Teleportation in fiction, as well as Portal:Literature/Did you know. Again, this will confuse a reader clicking through to find out more about this topic.

The version I am commenting on is still treating a Hagiography as if it were a Biography.

It's author was an inspiring and gifted poetic nyönpa, or "religious madman". See this paragraph in my suggested revision, emphasis added:

"The earliest account of his life is attributed to Gampopa (though probably they are lecture notes by one of his students), and it leaves out many of the events of the later story. No hail storm, no murders, mother apparently dies young rather than his father, no building of towers....

However the later story of the life of Milarepa is based on the traditional "Songs of Milarepa" and "Life of Milarepa" by Gtsang-smyon He-ru-ka. He was a nyönpa (Wylie: smyon pa) or "religious madman". When local villagers saw his body covered in human ashes and blood with his hair adorned by human fingers and toes , they gave him the name 'Nyönpa..... Many monks questioned his behavior and way of dress but Tsangnyön was known to strongly defend his unconventional practice through rigorous argument and accurate quotations from scriptures. As well as a famous teacher, he was also a composer of religious songs. These are classics of Tibetan literature."

As I say in the lede of my version Milarepa draft, citing Quintman, and paraphrasing him, little is known about the historical Milarepa. Gampopa's account is earliest but it differs from Gtsang-smyon He-ru-ka's one in many respects. Quintman doesn't attempt to reconstruct a definitive life story of Milarepa..

I am not interested in doing edits that are not welcome here. If necessary, I will just abandon the Milarepa article to other editors and go to another bio and edit that instead. If none of my edits to add content to Buddhist bios are acceptable to editors of this project, I will do wikignoming.

So, with this background one might wonder, why was I so passionate in the talk page discussions about the 2014 articles? Imagine if you were a theology wikignome, and one day you get an alert on your watch list that a favourite Misplaced Pages article about the Resurrection has been altered in a bold edit to say that Jesus was not resurrected, Imagine, what's more, that all material about the Resurrection has been removed from the article on the grounds that the sources for it are not WP:RS. That is similar to the situation that I found myself in after your bold edits. These are are amongst the most central of all the topics in Buddhism. For instance, traditionally, the Four Noble Truths was the main subject of the first and most important sermon delivered by the Buddha, immediately after his enlightenment, in which he presented the Buddhist path.

I think to try to explain what changed, and why it changed, from my own viewpoint, is beyond what I can do under WP:BANEX. However, that there is a significant difference of some sort is clear. E.g. Four Noble Truths, compare old version and Karma in Buddhism, compare old version.

I have solved this by working with ping|Dorje108 on our EOB instead. The old 2014 articles themselves, which I so appreciated, are preserved in the new encyclopedia and are being actively worked on and improved. My main focus is on improving articles in our new EOB. In the process I may produce new material that I think will benefit Misplaced Pages. One example is this new draft of the life of Milarepa article that I've been working on, on and off, since May 22nd.

I also often fix minor issues in the imported articles, and it would be good to be able to fix the originals in Misplaced Pages at the same time - broken urls, simple mistakes etc.

I hope with these remarks to persuade not just the other editors here, but you yourself also, that my proposed edit of Milarepa is a good one, and that my occasional edits of Misplaced Pages biographes can be a benefit to the project and will not cause problems to you personally.

Note, if I am unblocked, I would copy my draft over to my Misplaced Pages user space, and then post a brief note to the Milarepa talk page asking for comment on the draft. I would not dive in and do bold edits right away. This is my normal practice as an editor. Instead of BRD, For mature article edits, I do DB (continues R D, if there's a revert, rare). For recent examples of my use of DB see my edits of the talk pages for: Conformal cyclic cosmology and Cosmic microwave background. All they do is to fix minor omissions, but just in case of stepping on anyone's toes, I comment on the talk page first. This is what I would do with Buddhist bios too.

If this is not thought to be acceptable for some reason, I would still like to have the topic ban lifted for wikignoming, even if that is all that other editors here wish me to do, since I do spot such issues from time to time while importing content into EOB.

I raise these issues under WP:BANEX because as someone who proposes to edit Buddhist bios, I wish to establish that my proposed edits of Milarepa are good ones and that I will be a benefit to wikipedia.

Robert Walker (talk) 01:42, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

1. Quintman, A., 2013. The Yogin and the Madman: Reading the biographical corpus of Tibet's great saint Milarepa, [page 160 and following. Columbia University Press.
2. ^ Quintman, A. and Heruka, T., 2010. The Life of Milarepa.
3. Quintman, A., 2013. The Yogin and the Madman: Reading the biographical corpus of Tibet's great saint Milarepa. Columbia University Press.