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Evidence presented by User:Jossi
Backround on my involvement
- Jossi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- I declared my affiliation: on September 1, 2004, a few months after my first edit to Misplaced Pages.
- I made a further disclosure, User:Jossi/Disclosure, on October 2006.
- As of March 16 2008, I have performed a total of 61,987 contributions to Misplaced Pages, of which 22,721 in article namespace, and 11,563 in article talk namespace.
- In the course of my participation in this aticle over the years I have provided the vast majority of scholarly sources for the article (with the exception of scholarly sources in other languages than English and a few others), including works by Gordon J. Melton, John Bowker, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, E. Fahlbusch, J. M. Lochman, Charles Lippy, Ron Geaves, Rosemary Goring, Jeffrey K. Hadden, Stephen J. Hunt, Raymond Lee, Keneth Lee, James R. Lewis, Meredith McGuire, Tim Miller, Spencer Palmer, William Pryor, Lucy Dupertius, and other non-scholarly authors such as David V. Barrett, Sophia Collier, Andrea Cagan, and others, providing full cites for other editors to evaluate at Talk:Prem_Rawat/scholars. I have also contributed a number of WP:SELFPUB sources for editors' evaluation.
- In the last year (since March 16, 2007) I made a total of 64 edits to the Prem Rawat article, of which 47 edits where minor edits, such as correcting cite formatting, or adding refs; 6 edits where removal of obvious vandalism; and two of the remaining 11 edits performed in these 12 months were adding well-sourced criticism found in scholarly sources: diff, and diff, in response to a GA review performed by User:Vassyana circa March 2007.
- Despite these minimal edits over the last 12 months, after receiving community feedback, I declared my intent to limit myself to talk page discussions only - (February 10, 2008.)
- During the same time I engaged in vigorous debates in talk page, providing sources when requested, and assisted editors on ways to improve the article, while encouraging them to be respectful to each other and avoid misusing the talk page for off-topic comments, soapboxing and other obvious disruption.
- During 2007, I worked alongside other editors on the article Lord of the Universe (documentary) (a satirical documentary highly critical of Prem Rawat), which attained GA status on December 1, 2007.
- I have informed all editors, when needed, to respect Misplaced Pages's behavioral policies, such as WP:CIVILITY, to avoid soapboxing or using talk pages as a discussion forum, as well as encouraging editors to avoid edit-warring and to look for ways to find common ground and workable compromises. I issued warnings to editors, regardless of affiliation or declared or undeclared POVs, for example asking Momento to re-consider his editing behavior, warning PatW for making personal attacks, as I would have done in any other article I have come across in which such disruption was made evident.
- Despite unsubstantiated claims, I have never used or misused my admin privileges or exerted "administrator influence" (whatever that means) in this or any other related or unrelated articles. My contributions to talk page have been exclusively within my privileges as an editor amongst other editors on equal terms.
- My comments in the different noticeboards which I actively monitor and participate, such as WP:V/N, WP:BLP/N, WP:AN, WP:AN/I, WP:WQA, and WP:AN/3RR have been consistent, regardless if these comments were related to the subject of this arbitration, or not, or to involved editors or not.
Having said all this, I know I am not without fault, and acknowledge that I may have erred from time to time. I would hope that these faults would be assessed in the context of some intense personal attacks and misleading claims made against me and the subject of the article, on and off-wiki.
I consider myself a private person, and as such, I am unwilling to disclose any personal information besides what I have already disclosed. Given the speculation on and off-wiki about my involvement with the subject of this case, I will be willing to consider disclosing, in chambers, additional information to the ArbCom, if the ArbCom sees this as necessary and upon their request only.
Evidence related to other parties will be posted soon. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
User:PatW has misused talk pages, user pages, and engaged in personal attacks
PatW (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been warned numerous times for personal attacks, and talk page disruption.
- Despite the warnings, PatW continues misusing talk page discussions with long diatribes, baiting editors, expressing personal opinions about the subject of the article and its editors, etc.
- PatW has made a total of 1,084 edits to Misplaced Pages since his first edit on April 2006, of which only 22 edits are in article namespace. All other edits are to talk pages and exclusively about the subject of this case.
Some examples of recent personal attacks
Per Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive383#User:PatW
- User_talk:PatW#No_personal_attacks_3 Feb 9, 2008, for this attack (Feb 9, 2008): You horrible, HORRIBLE bunch of liars are all going to hopefully be revealed as the shameless dishonest, immoral brain-washed creeps you clearly are
- User_talk:PatW#Warning on soapbox, arguing, and personal attacks- for this comment (Feb 24, 2008), and previous comments during that period.
- User was warned about article probation. (March 4, 2008).
- Describing editors as "shameless servants". Diff (March 9, 2008)
Some examples of WP:NOT#SOAP and WP:NOT#FORUM violations
- Diff
- Diff
- Diff
- See also his talk page in which previous warnings where placed, and his user page (both blanked on March 10 after this good advise by non-involved User:Nsk92)
Replies to other evidence presented
@User:Matthew Stannard
- Multiple "press releases" have been posted under my name, but have not been posted by me or by the Prem Rawat Foundation. Evidence of this is the email addresses used in these postings: Example 1 posted October 2007 using an email address associated with a critical site (drek.org) drek.maharaji@gmail.com. Example 2: with an email address of a free email service maharajitprf@gmail.com. With the exception of one link, all these "press release" sites are free services that anyone can post to under any name.
- As far as I can see the Foundation's press releases are made through PRWeb and linked from their press releases on their website. Example which links to PR Web . The email address featured in these press releases are from the tprg.org TLD.
- I can only speculate why someone would want to associate my name with these press releases.
- Regarding this redirect, check the diff. I was just correcting a mistake. The previous version contained a redirect and the text of an old version of that article.
- Regarding user Prem Rawat (talk · contribs), he was not "banned" as Matthew Stannard alleges, but softblocked and encouraged to register with a different name , due to obvious impersonation and other shenanigans which can be read on his talk page. See User_talk:Prem_Rawat#Register_with_a_new_name.
Evidence presented by User:John Brauns
I am the webmaster of websites ex-premie.org and prem-rawat-talk.org where former followers of Prem Rawat give testimony on their time as followers of Rawat and discuss the topic. I also front other websites where the true owners are unwilling to risk the inevitable harrassment by current followers of Rawat by publishing their names.
Firstly, I unapologetically use the word cult in my evidence because after nine years of processing my 25 years as a believer in Rawat, I can see his movement in no other way. It is impossible to understand Jossi's role here without understanding more about the Rawat cult in a wider context than Misplaced Pages. From the early 80s to the late 90s, Rawat deliberately and pretty much successfully avoided all publicity. As a result, many cult watchers believed the cult had disappeared completely. Until ex-followers started posting on usenet in 1996, an internet search for Rawat under any of his names would have yielded no results. I heard Rawat himself diss the internet as of no value. Then the ex-followers presence became one that the cult could not ignore, so in 1999 Rawat changed his mind, and put up his first website, and followers followed suit. Around this time the cult embarked on what is called the 'legitimacy' campaign. City Mayors were lobbied to give awards to Rawat. Halls were rented in prestigious locations such as UN buildings and Stanford University and photographs and videos released that give the false appearance of Rawat speaking at the UN. Some of this policy was actually described in a cult publication, "Connect North America" , where a cult spokesman wrote; We’re looking at some unique speaking engagements and at ways for Maharaji to be formally acknowledged for his work. A US Governor recently recognized Maharaji "in honor of his exemplary career, life accomplishments, and many contributions to citizens". We’d like to pursue more tributes like that. Had a journalist tried to do research in 1995, after 24 years of Rawat's 'career' and 'achievements' outside India, he would have come up with some old obscure academic research and even older newspaper articles, and that's all. Part of this campaign has been to denigrate Rawat's former followers that post on the internet. A favorite tactic is to accuse us of mental illness.
I mention all this because Jossi has been at the heart of the attempt to establish legitimacy for Rawat on the internet from the start. He was the webmaster of Rawat's first website in 1999, as well as the webmaster of related websites such as Rawat's A/V company, Dunrite, and a followers' music website, Eversound. The early Misplaced Pages articles on Prem Rawat were battlegrounds between current and former followers (no one else had any interest in or knowledge of the subject). It quickly became clear to me that it was impossible to have a stable, accurate, article on Rawat in those circumstances, as any change by either 'side' would be reverted immediately by the other, and I largely retired from editing, as did most other former followers. Current followers, fired by their religious zeal, continued to edit. I can't prove it but I believe that the cult had the same thought, and decided that to get the Misplaced Pages article on Rawat to be as positive and as stable as possible, it was essential to have a Misplaced Pages Admin in place. Jossi is an intelligent person, and he would know that in order to be accepted as an Admin he would have to work hard to understand Misplaced Pages's rules, and to edit a wide range of articles. I have admiration for his dedication to his service. One of the three important tenets of the Rawat belief system is service to Prem Rawat. Jossi is a dedicated follower, and is willing to do what it takes to please his Master.
Regarding Jossi's evidence above, I am sure it is largely accurate. What is missing is that when he acknowledged in 2004 that he is a 'proud student' of Rawat's, he declined to mention his involvement in Rawat's websites, which was a clear breach of WP:COI. Also, in all his edits, I have never seen him revert a pro-Rawat edit, regardless of the quality of the source. I have asked him to show me such a revert and he was unable or unwilling to do so.
I appreciate that my evidence is not the kind that is expected here, and some of the committee may dismiss it as anecdotal or simply untrue, but I believe it is important that you understand the context of Jossi's involvement here. If Jossi really does believe in the Wiki project, he should be happy to avoid any possibility of further tarnishing Misplaced Pages's reputation by absenting himself from all Rawat related articles. This should apply to other long-time Rawat followers such as Momento and Rumiton. Myself, and, I believe, other former followers, would be happy to do the same and allow the article to be edited by neutral editors. The problem is that until the Register article, no else was interested in the subject.
A final word about my own contributions to talk pages. I have occasionally made comments to other editors about publishing information on them outside Misplaced Pages, and I have made other comments not related to the articles in question, that I have apologised for, and do so here again. --John Brauns (talk) 10:56, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Evidence presented by user:Andries
Brief history of the article
Talk:Prem_Rawat/Archive_28#Brief_history_of_editing_principles_used_for_this_article
After user:Vassyana's failed Good article review a complete condensed re-write had been made by user:Momento and user:Rumiton, supported by Jossi that replaced a longer version that had a degree of consensus. They rejected all my and User:Sylviecyn's objections to their version, both in the draft period and afterwards. 12:51, 13 May 2007 Diff comment by Andries on Momento's and Rumiton's complete rewrite Numerous other re-writes had been made and proposed by other contributors but the version by Rumiton and Momento remained unreverted in spite of my many criticisms. Then I decided that mediation was necessary. When the mediation between Momento and I was rejected. See Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_mediation/Rejected/28#Prem_Rawat_3, I became powerless to prevent the article becoming one-sided. Then the article received well-deserved bad publicity from the register. (I had no prior knowledge of the register article until it appeared.).
This register article brought in some new people in among others Francis Schonken who had little prior involvement in the article. Andries (talk) 09:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Andries' behavior
Andries has occasionally made mistake in paraphrasing sources, both in Rawat related articles and in unrelated articles. He attributes these mistakes to his habit of quick but not very accurately reading of sources. Andries (talk) 09:24, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Jossi's has repeatedly been unwilling or unable to assume Andries' good faith regarding his contributions related to Rawat. Andries thinks that Jossi's attitute towards him is partially due to his occasional mistakes in paraphrasing sources in combination with the hypersensitivity of the subject and opposing POVs of Jossi and Andries. Andries hereby admits that he has sometimes focused on providing sources for statements that can be intended as critical, but this grew partially out of the habit of Momento to challenge anything critical. Andries hereby vehemently denies that Jossi's opinion that Andries is a bad faith editor has any basis in reality and hereby states that the fraction and seriousness of the mistakes that he made in Rawat related articles is lower and less serious than the mistakes that he made in in unrelated articles. Andries (talk) 09:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Evidence presented by User:Maelefique
I don't know what death it is that we are referring to here, but I certainly think it is acceptable and reasonable to give Jossi a sensible amount of time to deal with it before continuing here. I don't see a problem with a temporary postponement or extension of these proceedings on that basis. I may or may not add to my evidence here in the meantime, but please do not interpret that as a change in attitude towards this statement.
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Evidence presented by user:Francis Schonken
Jimbo Wales' comment
Jimbo Wales' single known edit on the issue (diff) was divisive while it contained straw man argumentation (see discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 33#break 0). As such the edit was gefundenes fressen for yet another Cade Metz article (see link included in 4th paragraph of 'That's some catch, that catch-22' section at Why you should care that Jimmy Wales ignores reality: 'A great Wikipedian'). I don't like my name to be linked from some bad journalism, when this is the result of someone else's superficial comment (even if the 'someone else' is Jimbo Wales in this case). --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Kim Bruning's role
Kim Bruning (talk · contribs) carefully negotiated with PatW to see his behaviour improved. It's quite possible to stand your ground in a civil fashion, after all. Would you be able to manage that? - PatW's reply: "Absolutely yes of course ... I am coming to realise that I have violated a number of rules here - eg 'soapboxing' which I only recently even heard of, and of course being occasionally horribly rude to Jossi and Momento. ..." 11:06, 11 March 2008
Misplaced Pages is not a vindicative system. I don't see any necessity to "prove" errors recognised by PatW, and for which he promised to improve. Was there uncorrected or incorrectible behaviour by PatW after this recognition (11:06, 11 March 2008)? --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
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Evidence presented by User:Matthew Stannard
Criticism of Prem Rawat
There was a well-produced page with a good set of citations providing criticism of Prem Rawat and his business model at http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Criticism_of_Prem_Rawat&direction=prev&oldid=195507682. This page was originally set up by User:jossi in order to prevent criticism appearing on the Prem Rawat page itself. User:jossi was then involved in turning this into a redirect to the Prem Rawat page, without placing the criticism back on that page. This effectively resulted in the criticisms becoming hidden and lost to the type of reader who might be a likely prospect for Rawat's business. This story is told in some detail in the Register Article, which is well-researched, contains useful links to wikipedia diffs and should be read, I think, by anyone involved in this arb, particularly since that article has the propensity to bring wikipedia into considerable disrepute unless wikipedia arbitrators are seen to do something about the blatent POV-ineering that has so far been allowed to take place.
Removal of links to perfectly good and useful material
A much better story, in my opinion, of the pioneering phase of Prem Rawat's business than has ever appeared in wikipedia is provided at http://www.rickross.com/reference/vital/vital15.html, an article with a reference Sociological Review, 27, Page 279-296/1979, which I haven't checked but I've no reason to doubt its veracity, particularly since it gets an unlinked mention as Note 1 on the Prem Rawat page itself. A link to a page on the Rick Ross website, listing that Sociological Review Article was put on the Prem Rawat page but then removed, after User:jossi had made a contribution on the Prem Rawat talk page. The difficulty here is that the subscribers to Prem Rawat's services hold that any site that contains material that they don't like means that any link to anywhere on that site should be removed from wikipedia, regardless of whether a particular link is to something useful and informative. Hence User:jossi argues against Rick Ross in what is effectively an ad hominem attack, without taking account of the fact that the page linked to contains the material given in another reference on the Prem Rawat page (as I already mentioned).
The circularity of the discussion
Such circularity (repeated arguments) as is indicated on the Prem Rawat talk page between what I would suggest as representing, on the one side, secular, reasonable wikipedia contributors and, on the other side, those who overtly and covertly represent a POV in favour of Prem Rawat (in all cases, I would hazard, by being subscribers to Prem Rawat's services), is itself evidence that the neutral point of view sacred to the wikipedia project is being systematiclly abused by the latter group. This has been going on for years. My personal stance, if such be relevant, is that I am neither a subscriber nor an ex-subscriber to Prem Rawat's services, but I am conscious of the warning given by Richard Feynman that mind control is the most serious threat facing mankind, and when I see the victims of mind control desecrating the fine institution of wikipedia, which action is plain for all to see in the Prem Rawat article, I really feel that something should be done.
That subscribers to Prem Rawat's services wish to use wikipedia as part of their marketing campaign
This link shows that Jossi Fresco, aka User:jossi, acts as a press contact for Prem Rawat's marketing machine. To allow such a person to be a wikipedia admin and involved in the shameful controversy surrounding the the Prem Rawat page, and other pages in the category of the same name gives rise to a very bad smell. The fact that he may do good works at the same time should not distract you from analysing what he is really up to, and it doesn't stack up to acting in good faith, in my opinion. Just a small point on whether we can accept User:jossi's word. He says here that he has never used his admin privilege to ban anyone anywhere. This link shows that he did. Matt Stan (talk) 22:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Evidence presented by User:Jayen466
Deletion of the rickross.com external link
The rickross.com link referred to above by Matthew_Stannard (talk · contribs) was deleted by myself from the Prem Rawat and DLM articles – not because of Jossi's comment, but because I realised, after having linked to the site myself in another article, that it is in violation of WP:EL#Restrictions_on_linking. I discussed my concerns on the talk page, and Msalt (talk · contribs), considered neutral by all contributors to this article (I believe), concurred. Jayen466 22:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Evidence presented by User:Momento
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