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Evidence presented by CiteCop
Freedom skies falsifies citations and cites unreliable sources
Indian mathematics
Jitse Niesen's comments on the references added by Freedom skies in this edit:
- "The Modern Review edited by Ramananda Chatterjee. Original from the University of Michigan. Page 634" - This probably refers to the monthly magazine Modern Review, published in Calcutta. It doesn't seem to be peer-reviewed. It's unclear what Michigan has to do with it. The reference does not include a volume number, so it is impossible to find what is being referred to.
- Replacing "Mathematical Expeditions: Chronicles by the Explorers by David Pengelley, Reinhard C. Laubenbacher" with "Toward a Global Science: Mining Civilizational Knowledge By Susantha Goonatilake (page 119)" - I don't really know which source is preferable, but I have my doubts about Goonatilake's book given that it seems to be written in order to argue that Indian's contributions to science are being ignored (anonymous (?) review) and that it got a rather negative review by Kavita Philip in Isis, Vol. 92, No. 1, pp. 247-248 (quote from the review: "The chapters on medicine and mathematics cannot therefore deal substantially with the provocative claims he puts forward.")
- "Science in Ancient India By Narendra Kumar (page 9)" - I can find very little about this book, suggesting that it is not used often. It's unclear whether it can be considered reliable.
- "Vedic Mathematics By Vasudeva Sharana Agrawala, Swami Bharati Krishna Tirtha" - don't know
- "Vedic Mathematics for Schools Bk.1 By James Glover" - this is published by Motilal Banarsidass. It doesn't seem a scientific text, according from the description at Google Books
None of the references have full bibliographic information, as normal in references. Based on all this, it seems correct to consider the references inadequate.
According to the description on its back cover, "Vedic Mathematics for Schools Bk.1 by James Glover" is "intended for primary schools in which many of the fundamental concepts of mathematics are introduced. It has been written from the classroom experience of teaching Vedic mathematics to eight and nine-years-old."
When confronted with the fact that the source he cited—far from being a scholarly work on the history of mathematics—was written for the instruction of third and fourth graders (US equivalent), Freedom skies replied, "Which would make the information incorrect then?" a response which was disrespectful to both myself and the principle of attribution to reliable sources.
Also note what Freedom skies tried to do with his citation of Modern Review, an apparent attempt to fool fellow editors into believing that the Indian nationalist magazine was a publication of the University of Michigan.
Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts
When I was attempting to verify the sources of this article, I clicked on "Kalari Payatt: Martial Art of India by Steve Richards 2002" where, on a website topped with the banner "Tibetan, Lion's Roar, Hop-Gar, Lama Kung-Fu," I found the following passage: "This author was astonished in 1982 to witness a British BBC television documentary entitled: "The Way Of The Warrior": 'Kalari, the Indian Way'. The opening film sequence was of a Southern Kalari Payat Guru (Master) performing a traditional 'Form' that was near identical to a Tibetan Lion's Roar Lama Kung-Fu form that he had learned! This was despite a separation between the arts of many hundreds of miles and several hundreds of years. The connection was real, present and obvious."
In other words, the material that Freedom skies is trying to attribute to a BBC documentary, he actually got from the web page of one Steve Richards.
Many of the references cited are web pages.
Of these, many, like Steve Richards', are personal or commercial in nature.
Reference 62 appears to cite The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind by D.T. Suzuki. However, if you click on the link, it takes you to the entry for The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind by D.T. Suzuki in a bookseller's online catalog. I strongly doubt that Freedom skies actually consulted the book.
Vedic Sanskrit
In November, Freedom skies waged an edit war on Vedic Sanskrit to replace J.P. Mallory's 1200 BCE date for Vedic Sanskrit with Max Müller's 1500 BCE date.
The thing is, Mallory has published work within the past 10 years, and Müller has been dead for the past 100.
In other words, Freedom skies sought to replace a work of recent scholarship with one that was over a century old and gave a more ancient date for Vedic Sanskrit.
Indian nationalism
Freedom skies attributed the following material to PDF format papers at the inline links.
- culminated in original findings, like:
- Indian philosopher, Pakudha Katyayana, a contemporary of Buddha, also propounded the ideas of atomic constitution of the material world.
- Similarly, the principle of relativity (not to be confused with Einstein's theory of relativity) was available in the ancient Indian philosophical concept of "sapekshavadam" (c. 6th century BC), literally "theory of relativity" in Sanskrit.
- Several ancient Indian texts speak of the relativity of time and space. The mathematician and astronomer Aryabhata (476-550) was aware of the relativity of motion, which is clear from a passage in his book: "Just as a man in a boat sees the trees on the bank move in the opposite direction, so an observer on the equator sees the stationary stars as moving precisely toward the west."
- These theories have attracted attention of the Indologists, and veteran Australian Indologist A. L. Basham has concluded that "they were brilliant imaginative explanations of the physical structure of the world, and in a large measure, agreed with the discoveries of modern physics."
The linked PDFs are the self-published work of the fringe theorist Subhash Kak.
Moreover, with the sole exception of a single claim (about eclipses), the PDFs don't support the material for which Freedom skies cites them. Neither the words "circumference" nor "gravity" nor "sapekshavadam" nor even "Pakudha" or "Katyayana" appears in a single one of the four papers cited. Neither do the Aryabhata quote or the A.L. Basham quote.
I've seen editors cite unreliable sources and I've seen editors attribute false claims to reliable sources, but Freedom skies is the only editor I have ever encountered who has gone so far as to attribute false claims to unreliable sources.
Conclusions
No matter the article, Freedom skies, everywhere and always, edits to push his nationalist POV and has done so in articles about science, mathematics, language, politics and religion.
To do so, he has lied about the content of sources, cites unreliable sources, and engages in incivility and personal attacks, behavior which drives away productive contributors.
Whatever accusations he makes against others you can be sure he's guilty of himself, a hundred times over.
That's the modus operandi he shares with his friends.
Freedom skies' statement "Actually, I can assert that India's achievements are inherently great. It's a fact, try living with it." pretty much sums up the whole of his edit history.
Not only does Freedom skies express his intent to push his POV, but he does so with his characteristic incivility.
Evidence presented by JFD
Freedom skies' incivility and personal attacks are a chronic rather than occasional problem
February 2007 – Fowler&fowler
January 2007 – Talk:Zen
To Kennethtennyson: You lie again, Kenny.
In response to a Request for mediation invitation: Would I want any part of this charade? The reply is an emphatic no.
December 2006 – Djma12
Note that Freedom skies has had no prior contact with Djma12 and is therefore being uncivil to an editor he has just met.
common sense dictates that I doubt your argument.
December 2006 – NinaOdell
November 2006 – MichaelMaggs
Note that Freedom skies has had no prior contact with MichaelMaggs and is therefore being uncivil to an editor he has just met.
August 2006 – JFD
Note that Freedom skies has had no prior contact with JFD and is therefore being uncivil to an editor he has just met.
JFD: If you want to say it, cite it.
Freedom skies: Before you go all "Cite it", try reading the articles on catch wrestling and shoot wrestling on wikipedia itself. You should find all your "Cite it" answers there. In other words, before you try removing things from people's articles "READ IT"
JFD: From Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources: "Misplaced Pages cannot cite itself as a source—that would be a self-reference."
Freedom skies: Try reading the articles before you go all lawyer-ish, you should find a few links that should have enough citation, that and a membership to scientificwrestling.com should help.
Freedom skies misrepresents sources
I think it would be valuable for the Arbitration Committee to read the Request for comment at "Indian mathematics", some of which I will quote here.
The Arbitrators should know that neither of the editors I quote has any history with Freedom skies prior to these comments and, therefore, no preconceptions or prejudices for or against him.
- DavidCBryant: Freedom_skies consistently pushes his own POV, does not respect guidelines, loses his temper frequently, and vandalizes Misplaced Pages with some regularity.
- ....
- I had never even heard of either of these gentlemen until this morning, about 14½ hours ago.....I formed my opinion by reviewing the available evidence carefully.....I characterized FS' behavior based on the solid hour I spent reading his talk page, reviewing the many times he has recently been blocked from editing, and reading the incredible exchanges recorded on this talk page, above.
- David Eppstein: This article is the center of a general pattern that I see in which the genuine accomplishments of ancient Indian mathematicians are artificially inflated so that they can be claimed as having precedence over similar ancient mathematics in Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and China.
- ....
- Freedom skies appears to be one of the principal perpetrators of the unencyclopedic exaggeration, adding speculative interpretations of what the ancients might have known, and badly sourcing things by leaving such claims undocumented, providing useless unverifiable documentation, or not taking care to distinguish sources that are accepted scholarly work from speculative popular-press writings.
- ....
- To put it bluntly: the purpose of citing sources is to convince your readers that you have thoroughly researched the subject and are fairly presenting it. Your insistance on using sources such as these instead convinces me that you are stretching, that solid sources are not available for what you want to claim and so you are citing flimsy ones instead. It makes me think there is a reason solid sources are unavailable. That is the opposite of what a source should be.
Indian martial arts
In support of material he wished to add, Freedom skies cited an article from a Tamil nationalist website, "Thamizhar Martial Arts" by one Alex Doss, whom Freedom skies strenuously insisted was an authority with "posts and accomplishments" whose credibility I would have to challenge "in court".
I didn't have to go to court.
Though it helped that Doss described himself as "a student at San Diego State University" on a Tamil nationalist message board.
There are only two explanations for Freedom skies' declarations of Doss' "posts and accomplishments".
- Freedom skies had information about Doss' "posts and accomplishments" that he chose to withhold.
- Freedom skies was lying through his teeth.
Consequently, Freedom skies agreed not to cite "Thamizhar Martial Arts" as a source, which somehow didn't stop him.
Nor did Freedom skies object when Doss was cited as "Alex Doss (2006). Thamizhar Martial Arts. San Diego State University" which makes it appear as if "Thamizhar Martial Arts" is a university publication with all of the peer review and editorial oversight that implies.
Pretty much the same thing he tried to do with Modern Review in "Indian mathematics".
This was not an innocent mistake.
This was a determined effort to deceive users of Misplaced Pages.
Indian influence on Chinese martial arts/Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts
Freedom skies describes the "larger martial arts community including authors, practitioners and major news institutions" rejecting "revisionist claims" and "negationism" of the Bodhidharma legend.
Freedom skies cited works from "martial arts authors across the world" rejecting these "revisionist claims" and "negationism," including:
- an article from the Massage Therapy Journal, not that you'd ever know from Freedom skies' citation ("Tai Chi by June Lordi")
- Karate for Kids
- another children's book, A Musical Journey: from the Great Wall of China to the water towns of Jiangnan, which Freedom skies credits to "Liow Kah Joon and Kah Joon Liow," apparently ignorant that these are merely two different renderings of the same name
- a New York Times article by Pete Hessler that makes no mention of martial arts whatsoever
Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia
More recently, Freedom skies cited Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia in support of the claim "Mudras are used throughout the Buddhist and Hindu world in Asia, and not only in religious practice but also in dance, theatre, martial arts and so on. The earliest evidence of such cheironomy comes from Pharonic Egypt."
When I read this, I expressed disbelief that mudras, cheironomy and Pharaonic Egypt would come up in a book entitled Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia.
Freedom skies' response was the following:
- The book "Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia: Arrows to Heaven and Earth By Richard L. Gawthrop" is described on Google Books as :-
- A remarkable collection of essays written by an international team of contributors explores different aspects of religion in Japan. Subjects discussed include new religions in postwar Japan, beliefs about fox-possession in the Heian period, and the religious life of the first shogunate in the late twelfth century. The essays offer fresh insights into the rich religious traditions of Japan, many of which have been previously neglected in the English-language writing on Japan.
- (source:google books).
It struck me as equally unlikely that a book with that description would have the title Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia.
Freedom skies' reply continued,
- The main search reads as "Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia: Arrows to Heaven and Earth by Richard L. Gawthrop - History - 1996 - 341 pages"
- If you'll take a look into the Places mentioned in this book you'll come across North america, Japan and Europe. However surprised some people may be, books with the word Prussia in the title can mention Japan and books like The Moor's Last Sigh can be set in Bombay, instead of the first image of the Iberian Peninsula that comes to mind.
Now, if you check, Google Books does, in fact, give that description of Pietism... as well as support Freedom skies' claim about the Egyptian origins of the mudra.
However, the copy of Pietism... available using the Search Inside function at Amazon.com does not.
Why? Because the copy at Google Book Search is the internet equivalent of a misprint that includes pages from another book.
Now, this is not Freedom skies' fault, but that leaves only two possibilities.
- Freedom skies is not knowledgable enough about history and religion for this to strike him as unlikely.
- Freedom skies lacks the curiosity to question or critically examine—or, apparently, read—his sources.
At least one, and possibly both, of these is true.
Conclusions
After months of persistence, Freedom skies has relented and removed most of the sources I mention above, but I have yet to verify them all.
June Lordi remains, as do questions:
- How deceptive are the citations of Freedom skies' that I haven't double-checked?
- Was Freedom skies just as careless/dishonest with other citations elsewhere in Misplaced Pages? (See Talk:Indian mathematics#Request for comment:Indian Mathematics)
- Why does it take months of persistence to get Freedom skies to remove unencyclopedic citations?
- Why does Freedom skies depend on such sources in the first place?
Think back to David Eppstein's words to Freedom skies: "Your insistance on using sources such as these instead convinces me that you are stretching, that solid sources are not available for what you want to claim and so you are citing flimsy ones instead."
What is clear is that Freedom skies' "research" amounts to little more than plugging keywords into Google and citing whatever pops up. This is especially clear in the wikicode of earlier versions of the article where he uses external links to Google as citations and the keywords are visible in the code of the URL.
As far as Freedom skies is concerned, if a source tells him what he wants to hear, its credibility is beyond reproach.
If it doesn't, then the source represents a "microscopic" view.
And woe—or at least incivility and personal attacks—to those who challenge him.
Freedom skies repeatedly disrupts Buddhism- and martial arts-related articles with edit wars
- 2007 January–February – Maha Bodhi Society
2007 January – Zen
19:37, 3 January 2007–18:31, 19 January 2007: repeated removal of sourced content from neutral narrative
05:00, 20 January 2007 (where do the sources say that?) uncivil edit summary/disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
17:53, 20 January 2007 (misrepresentation then, the view is both microscopic and misrepresented) uncivil edit summary/disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
04:29, 21 January 2007 (does that amount to a fundamental fusion ? can you get more sources to comply with WP:RS? Is your POV widespread? Did'nt think so) uncivil edit summary/disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
06:24, 21 January 2007 (the other POV is microscopic in extent of being non existent; Even then it had to be misrepresented. Zen predates transmission to China.) uncivil edit summary/disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
01:37, 23 January 2007(using taoism as an excuse to remove Bodhidharma? if you have to mention Huston Smith then mention that DT Suzuki says it's not as well) false statement about content of source/disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
In the above diffs Freedom skies dismisses Huston Smith's authority on religion is "microscopic" and the citation as "misrepresented" even though a verbatim quote is supplied. Also, he cites D.T. Suzuki in support of his assertion that Taoism had no influence on Zen even though the source he cites says no such thing, yet another falsified citation by Freedom skies.
04:02, 23 January 2007 (rv selective representation of microscopic sources) uncivil edit summary/disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
12:25, 23 January 2007–17:00, 25 January 2007: repeated removal of sourced content from neutral narrative
- 2006 December–2007 January – Decline of Buddhism in India
- 2006 December–2007 January – Pusyamitra Sunga
- 2006 December–2007 January – Sunga Empire
2006 November – Zen
08:48, 15 November 2006–21:29, 22 November 2006: repeated removal of sourced content from neutral narrative
10:22, 23 November 2006–11:28, 23 November 2006:
Freedom skies blocked for 3RR by William M. Connolley
16:28, 26 November 2006–22:56, 27 November 2006: repeated removal of sourced content from neutral narrative
2006 November – Bodhidharma
08:38, 15 November 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
08:27, 16 November 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
10:10, 16 November 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
10:18, 16 November 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
10:42, 16 November 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
Freedom skies violates 3RR but is not reported
19:40, 16 November 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
21:13, 16 November 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
2006 October – Shaolin Kung Fu
14:13, 21 October 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
05:55, 21 October 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
08:56, 19 October 2006 disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative
2006 October–November – Batuo
- 2006 October–November – Buddhism and Hinduism
- 2006 August–September – Indian martial arts
I have supplied diffs only for the more recent edit wars I was involved in or am familiar with. I am willing to supply diffs for the other edit wars upon the Arbitration Committee's request.
Other edit wars Freedom skies has engaged in
2007 March – National Development Front
05:23, 9 March 2007–18:01, 10 March 2007:
2007 February – Indian mathematics
09:23, 11 February 2007–10:12, 14 February 2007:
12:15, 14 February 2007 (blank sources once more and I'll have you reported Fowler, find the books at google book search by title.) uncivil edit summary
Freedom skies blocked for 3RR by Aksi great
03:46, 18 February 2007–10:17, 19 February 2007:
11:21, 19 February 2007 (rv edits by uninvolved user) WP:OWN
00:54, 20 February 2007–00:54, 23 February 2007:
02:28, 23 February 2007 (Fowler&fowler, removing sourced content is Vandalism! I'll see that you get to learn to live with WP:Policies this time) uncivil edit summary
03:46, 23 February 2007 (rv edits by fowler's sock/meatpuppet . a checkuser ought to reveal if they're in the same city or not if they are this is obvious) uncivil, accusatory edit summary
05:02, 23 February 2007 Freedom skies is not an admin and therefore has no right to add the "semi-protection" tag to an article as he does in this diff.
13:20, 23 February 2007–17:09, 24 February 2007:
2007 February – Trigonometric function
05:03, 23 February 2007 Freedom skies is not an admin and therefore has no right to add the "semi-protection" tag to an article as he does in this diff.
2007 February – History of trigonometric functions
05:03, 23 February 2007 Freedom skies is not an admin and therefore has no right to add the "semi-protection" tag to an article as he does in this diff.
2007 February – Michael E. J. Witzel
21:31, 21 February 2007–13:15, 22 February 2007: Biography of a living person
2006 November – Vedic Sanskrit Freedom skies blocked for 3RR by Rama's Arrow
- 2006 October – Muhammad Mahmood Alam
- 2006 August–September – Indian nationalism
I have only supplied diffs for the past month, which is sufficient to demonstrate that Freedom skies' edit-warring is not a thing of the past. As above, diffs for other edit wars are available upon request.
Evidence presented by {freedom skies}
I don't want to prolong this arbcom case as I'm on a wikibreak and cannot defend myself and make charges at the same time. I have resorted to just two charges as responding to the charges made against me consumed a lot of time.
Evidence against allegations by CiteCop
Indian Mathematics
- The allegation regarding "Modern Review" not being associated with the University of Michigan is incorrect. The Modern Review By Ramananda Chatterjee By Ramananda Chatterjee. Published 1907. The Modern Review Office. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Aug 14, 2006I..
Having said that, I worked through my examinations on Indian mathematics and could not work in the same manner as is expected of a Misplaced Pages editor. I'm not proud of my behaviour in that article but curiously enough, editors involved in that process seem to acknowledge the pressure on me and have been more cordial and kind then some of the uninvolved parties.
Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts
- The documentary can be read in detail on "The Way of the Warrior: The Paradox of the Martial Arts by Howard Reid." The BBC documentary maker has written a book which actually expands on the documentary. From Library Journal: This title is an expanded companion volume to a 1983 BBC series on Asian fighting systems. Each chapter includes the history, philosophies, techniques, and masters of such disciplines as Kalaripayit of India, Shaolin, and T'ai-chi ch'uan of China, sword fighting in Japan, Korean Karate, Thai kick-boxing, eskrido (stick fighting) in the Philippines, and more. While the punches and kicks are generously shown in photos and illustrations, more emphasis is placed on the traditions and spiritual growth of each style. This isn't a self-defense book or one with tips on improving katas (forms), but a serious student will find it fascinating. Recommended for larger collections.
Of course since you seem to dispute that source and I am under arbitration I'll just remove it and add content by Hyaku Hachi No Bonno: The Influence of The 108 Defilements and Other Buddhist Concepts on Karate Thought and Practice By Charles C. Goodin. The article has appeared in Issue #7, Winter 1996-97 of Furyu: The Budo Journal.
- The statement about DT Suzuki's book is incorrect. The citation reads:-
Since, you find even this source objectionable I'll just replace it with <>"Bodhidharma as the founder of Zen Buddhism naturally occupies the chief seat of honor beside the Buddha Sakyamuni". Manual of Zen Buddhism: (new edition) by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki. page 182. By Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki. Published 2000. Grove Press. 192 pages. ISBN 0802130658<>
Vedic Sanskrit
The staement "Freedom skies sought to replace a work of recent scholarship with one that was over a century old and gave a more ancient date for Vedic Sanskrit" is incorrect. additional sources which I wanted to put in the first place. Standardising. This version includes additional citations like "The earliest and most basic of Hindu scriptures is the Rgveda, usually dated to about 1500 BC" By Irene U. Chambers, Michael S. Roth. Contributor Library of Congress. Published 2002. Third Millennium Information Ltd. ISBN 190394211X
Indian nationalism
I believe there was some mixup in the sources with one source being replaced by another. I could'nt even place a ref tag back then and when confronted with people who said things like the following I thought it best to clean up and not engage in further "discussions" :-
Evidence against allegations by JFD
Fowler&fowler
Sometimes when editors are under some pressure then they make mistakes and other editors do not take it too personally:-
Indian mathematics was a mistake that I made, Fowler&fowler was most kind to write this and this to me so I don't see how that is of any significance at all.
Talk:Zen
Djma12
If Djma12 feels that I have been uncompromising then I'll accept a ban here and now by all means. I wrote My friend, I was initially hostile to you and for that I extend my apologies. Your AfD in the Jhoon Rhee article, another martial arts legend who supports the foreign Influence theory, made me apprehensive about your intentions, which I mistook as ones directed to erase every mention of the official and the majority held version. Your contributions to the article have been valuable and for that I send this note.
NinaOdell
This has been distorted. The complete version which has "It would do you both (including you Nina) to follow them (WP Policies, including civility). " by Peter M Dodge can be read here . I'm making this very lengthy but please do me the favor of reading it.
Nina was honest enough to apologize after that.
MichaelMaggs
MichaelMaggs is involved as a party to this discussion and I was very standoffish to him in the first place but due to his excellent behaviour and scrutiny I have immense respect for him and even have awarded him the barnstar of good humor for his role on this very discussion.
Response to "Freedom skies wages disruptive edit wars on articles relating to Buddhism or martial arts"
That was the argument that was bought to my attention by MichelMaggs. The details of this argument can be found in the version to which I linked to earlier in the section Talk:Zen. The discussion on Zen may shed a light on JFD's claims of "disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative."
The discussion will also reveal that I refrained from even the mention of Hinduism and have yet to place India in this Mahayana philosophy.
Response to Maha Bodhi Society
- (cur) (last) 04:44, 3 February 2007 Freedom skies (Talk | contribs) (blanked material?)
- (cur) (last) 00:34, 3 February 2007 Tigeroo (Talk | contribs) (rm OR, restored Blanked Material, rm sections which belong to Mahabodhi arcticle. restore formatting,)
- (cur) (last) 18:26, 2 February 2007 Freedom skies (Talk | contribs) (additional citations then)
Yes I restored to my version as I'll do this very instant if someone reverts blindly assuming that I "blanked material."
Response to Decline of Buddhism in India
The case in under mediation. The mediator is Utcursh and you may ask him if the process has failed due to my role or due to Tigeroo's lengthy Wikibreak.
Response to Sunga Empire
The difference between my version and the earlier ones is simply the addition of a quote from Ashokavadana. Edit war?
Response to Pusyamitra Sunga
The case in under mediation. The mediator is Utcursh and you may ask him if the process has failed due to my role or due to Tigeroo's lengthy Wikibreak.
Response to Michael E. J. Witzel
- (cur) (last) 15:20, 22 February 2007 Crculver (Talk | contribs) (Rv. A number of respected editors are reverting you. This should tell you something.)
- (cur) (last) 13:15, 22 February 2007 Freedom skies (Talk | contribs) (tagging for now)
- (cur) (last) 12:57, 22 February 2007 Dbachmann (Talk | contribs) m (Reverted edits by Freedom skies (talk) to last version by Crculver)
- (cur) (last) 12:43, 22 February 2007 Freedom skies (Talk | contribs) (I'm surprised, one user asking for footnotes means you produce them. If he finds the content unsourced then he will remove it vigilantly.)
- (cur) (last) 01:02, 22 February 2007 Crculver (Talk | contribs) (Rv. One user claiming "Need cites" when a plurality of other users think it's fine means: you're wrong.)
- (cur) (last) 00:53, 22 February 2007 Freedom skies (Talk | contribs) (this seems to be spiralling into an edit war, provide in article footnotes and you can keep the statement, or an rfc is in order)
- (cur) (last) 23:06, 21 February 2007 Zora (Talk | contribs) (rv to Culver)
- (cur) (last) 22:35, 21 February 2007 Freedom skies (Talk | contribs) (then I'm sure that the provision of multiple WP:RS sources is not going to be a problem)
- (cur) (last) 21:46, 21 February 2007 Crculver (Talk | contribs) (Rv. The textbook material was mainly removed by well-respected editors a few months ago. And that statement is sourced: Frawley's entire oeuvre.)
- (cur) (last) 21:31, 21 February 2007 Freedom skies (Talk | contribs) (→Criticism)
- (cur) (last) 21:29, 21 February 2007 Freedom skies (Talk | contribs) (→Politics)
- (cur) (last) 21:28, 21 February 2007 Freedom skies (Talk | contribs) (rem unattributed claim)
You can see in the history the responses I recieved.
WP:BLP ?? ??
I suppose you should ban me here and now.
Response to National Development Front
All my sentiments are covered in great detail here. I was against sockpuppets. When one deals with socks I guess reverting to a version which actually a David Bukay (University of Haifa) citation is edit warring.
Response to Trigonometric function and History of trigonometric functions
I added the tag during my time at Indian mathematics. I was under severe pressure and had to contribute extra hours during my exam time for that effort. The article was being vandalized by an unknown IP. I thought that placing that tag would actually enable the article to not be edited by a non extablished user. The fact that the tag was to be used by an admin honestly did not cross my mind as the description seemed to simply state this
Response to Bodhidharma
Blnguyen himself put a neutrality disputed tag on the article. The article began with Paul Pelliot goes further and argues that Bodhidharma is an entirely fictional creation (based on the creative misinterpretation of the citation which read "In his "Notes on some artists of the Six Dynasties and the Tang," Paul Pelliot asserts that all accounts of Bodhidharma are legendary.")
This should shed a light on the claim of "disruptive removal of sourced content in neutral narrative."
My involvement saw the article go from this to this and then the current version; undisturbed by the interference of either
Response to Batuo
As soon as JFD produced an actual quote let the statement stay.
Response to Indian martial arts
The Doss citation was in August 2006. JFD may recall the snide Congratulations on your discovery of Google Book Search! from that discussion.
The connection to Modern Review in "Indian mathematics"(I have provided a link to google books and their staement) is imaginary.
Response to Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts
- Those books were "additional references." Once the article had dozens of strong citations lined up for confirming the claim I put in the two books in question. One of the two books spoke about it's purpose as that of making the Chinese youth more familiar with it's glorious heritage. I wanted to demonstrate the extent of this POV by having the books additionally put in.
- After putting in sources such as these i.e. after compiling a list of prominent figures, authors, martial arts legends, news/print media etc. and martial arts institutions I provided a list of people in common media who supported the point of view; the list reads:- In addition, journalists and writers, including June Lordi, Cezar Borkowski, Annellen M Simpkins and C Alexander Simpkins, Thomas D. Seabourne and Yeon Hwan Park, Pat Zukeran, Ervin de Castro, BJ Oropeza and Ron Rhodes, Prof. J. Roe, P. E. Katzer, Jess O'Brien and Tony Sims have noted the foreign influence on Chinese martial arts.
If you'll take a look here then you can read the complete list and put everything in perspective.
Response to Buddhism and Hinduism
My content made it to the final stage in face of opposition such as users Green23 and Saavak123, identified as vandals as sockpuppets and have been been permanently blocked (Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Green23).
Response to Muhammad Mahmood alam
See here for the following:-
- Now that's good citation. Kudos to the guy who put it there. Instead of the pulp fiction garbage that was pushed earlier, this definitely clinches it. Grammer cleanup might be needed though. Freedom skies 15:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
- I have to add one more thing to it :-
- 12:08, 28 October 2006 Idleguy (Talk | contribs) (rv. I think reverting to a nonsensical version, especially when an official pak resource has been provided flies in the face of Misplaced Pages policies and ur own set of rules in the talk pages)
- I kinda missed it. Given the past, I thought it was another revert to the underground sites which claim to be privy to the official records. Sorry for the oversight.
- From my POV the official citations were still missing and reverting back to a version based on underground websites is something I cannot allow.
- Now that the official citations are provided, it's a whole different story. Freedom skies 15:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Charges
JFD engages in edit wars
JFD and Kennethtennyson have engaged in trolling and edit wars; often combined. JFD writes "let me do the actual editing." and since then Kennethtennyson has been revert warring with JFD.
Take a look:-
- Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts
- Bodhidharma
- Bodhidharma, the martial arts, and the disputed India connection
- Zen
- Batuo
JFD's contributions and Kennethtennyson's contributions. They match on the topics suggested and other topics as well.
Kenny and JFD have been known to have exchanged barnstars with each other. Kennethtennyson advances a barnstar to JFD on 30 August 2006 and JFD returns the favour on 1 September 2006.
Kenny's role on the internet discussion forums.
JFD violates WP:Soap
JFD admitted turning articles into a The article in its current state is a meticulously sourced point-by-point rebuttal.
JFD's articles include "point by point rebuttals" like Bodhidharma, the martial arts, and the disputed India connection and Yi Jin Jing. Both of which are gross violations of the WP:Soap and WP:NPOV policies.
JFD has been polluting the article with ethrocentric Chinese bias which has resulted in staements such as I'm adding a merge tag for now, but this should really be cleaned up and summarized in some neutral fashion asap. from the very nuetral Dbachmann.
Personal statement
Many of the above mentioned "violations" are just legitimate content disputes meshed in with my very early days on WP, as a new editor. I did make many mistakes, especially giving in to my temper back then. I'll try to not repeat them in future. I'll also repeat that I'm on a wikibreak and under constraints of time to actually make newer allegations. Consequently, I'm here purely to defend myself and not to make charges.
Many Regards,
Evidence presented by Bakasuprman
Response to Citecop
Kak is not an unreliable source. As a tenured professor at LSU he is a reliable source. The fact that Kak is a foe of Michael Witzel, a cult figure among many users, including many involved to various degrees in this arbcom, seems to be the justification for users calling anything from Kak unreliable.Bakaman 23:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Evidence presented by SebastianHelm
I met Freedom skies through Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-12-26 Decline of Buddhism in India, which I mediated from December 30 to February 2, when I passed the baton to Utcursch.
During that time, Freedom skies was engaged in several edit wars (most of them started by him) in the mediated article Decline of Buddhism in India (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I begged him to stop edit warring, and the frequency and intensity of edit wars did decrease. Similarly, he eventually followed my pleas to write edit summaries, although this was not as specific as I had asked him to be. He did not follow my request to write down his points for several weeks. He did, however, participate in the discussions, and we managed to get 5 of the 10 points resolved by Jan 17. On Jan 19 he edited the article without discussion, which resulted in an escalation from which we did not recover until Utcursch took over. (See list.) It is unclear why the other party left; this happened shortly after Utcursch took over. I can't rule out that they simply was exhausted.
Freedom skies cites User:NinaOdell's apology. This is a red herring. The fact is that Freedom skies called her a liar and did not apologize, even after I suggested an apology. Nina was very frustrated and gave up her mediation, without blaming anyone. — Sebastian 07:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe I should add that he made no effort to find common ground with the other party. I do not remember seing evidence for him to follow WP:AGF beyond agreeing with the mediation and giving me his e-mail address. Of course, he showed no inclination to heed WP:NPOV's advice to "write for the other party". This almost goes without saying since it seems to be standard for parties involved in ethnically motivated content disputes.
If I may make a remark beyond this case: I see this not as a problem with one particular editor, but with Misplaced Pages. I believe we are making it too easy for people who do not subscribe to WP:NPOV's ideals to disrupt our task of writing an encyclopedia. We have many cases like this; they can't all go through ArbCom. (Please tell me if there's a centralized discussion for that. Didn't Jimbo say something along those lines, too? I can't find the quote.) — Sebastian 19:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)