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| November 2005 - July 2006 |
BKWSU information technology team
Greetings! I am a member of the BK information technology team approaching you, on their behalf, regarding the content of the article about the Brahma Kumaris on the Misplaced Pages page. It is a fairly comprehensive article with a clear structure and leaves the reader with an appreciation of the effort that may have gone into its research.
However, it is misleading in that whilst appearing to be authoritative, it is written in a way as to bias the uninformed reader against the organisation. In a number of places, use of disparaging language and a gross misrepresentation of facts gives the impression that the article hasn’t been written in good faith.
An example of a straight untruth appears in the fourth paragraph under “Origins”, where the entry states that the community moved to Mount Abu in 1950 “mainly due to the religious resistance to its activities in Pakistan”. In fact, the group had become well-respected in Karachi, where local leaders tried to dissuade them from leaving. They moved to India at the request of relatives.
Everyone has an equal right to contribute to this article and we respect that individuals have a right to express their opinions about the organisation. However, as the Misplaced Pages site is used by many as a reference for what they consider to be a neutral point of view, the existence of such a biased article is an issue that warrants attention.
With respect to the rules that Misplaced Pages sets out for proceeding forward amicably, I look forward to engaging in discussion with you so that proposed changes can be reviewed before any implementation occurs. Having read the discussion pages, I plan to start proposing incremental changes to the page over a period of time.
In the first instance, bearing in mind the above and evidence of obvious questioning of neutrality in the discussion pages, we would like to re-instate the neutrality warning box. I hope that this is acceptable. Bksimonb 05:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
- Welcome BK Simon.
- From our point of view, we have watched this topic develop with interest and welcome your input. The previous propaganda whitewashes and outright vandalism have done nothing to benefit the reputation of either your organization nor the Brahma Kumars and/or Kumaris that perpetrated them.
- Before any changes or edits are made, including re-instating the neutrality box as obviously your position is not entirely neutral, can we establish on which grounds you are wish to make these changes?
- Are you acting personally, on behalf of the "BKWSU MultiMedia and Global PublicRelations Wing" under B.K. Karuna, or under the instructions of some other individuals or element of the organization?
- How long have you been in the BKWSU/Gyan and what status do you have within the organization, e.g. surrendered or not?
- The problems I can forsee are that ;
- a) The BKWSU has invested fairly heavily in a very high level PR campaign which it is obviously protective of. It also has a history of rewriting its own history, beliefs, controversies within; while portaying itself quite differently without. In essence you must be part of that PR campaign.
- b) Individuals have to come to expect an unwillingness on behalf of the BKWSU organization to make public sufficient easily referenceable original material in order that third parties could use it to check details.
- c) The lack of sufficient third party sources to validate any claims by any parties.
- If you think that you can provide reference material when requested, where contention exists then I, personally, would say that we will be able to make progress towards the first complete, objective and public study of the BKWSU, its beliefs and its activities.
- So, rather than fluff around at the conjectural edges, what one unnamed family felt in comparison to the damage done to many others in some small community decades ago, I would suggest the way forward is for us to address the main contentions the BKWSU organization has with the article.
- Obviously, a Wiki topic should not be, and is never going to be, an advert for the organization, so;
- What do you, the Senior BKs or the organisation, consider to be the main points of contention?
- I am an ex teacher of the bks, Simon, and the official line of the bks was that due to resistance and the court injuctions imposed on the group to stop them gathering in numbers they decided to move. this was the official line until recently, and I would be interested in how you propose to prove otherwise.
- I guess that you would say that I have been in Gyan for 20 years or more. When you state, "proposing incremental changes to the page over a period of time", do you mean of the same sort the BKWSU have been making to the Sakar Murlis that contain that knowledge?
- I do not want to interrupt the discussion raised by user Brahmakumaris.info but could you also please identify those "a gross misrepresentation of facts" you refer to as I am prepared to give a second opinion.
- Thank you. 85.25.141.60 19:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Godly Intellectual Property.
In order to illustrate the Misplaced Pages article on the BKWSU, we propose to reference original teaching posters as inspired and authenticated by God Shiva and Brahma Baba.
We have listed the following images but these require a correct copyright to be assigned to them. This raises an interesting dilemma ;
- Who owns the copyright to God's works or God's versions? Are they covered by limited, proprietory licenses or are they open and unlimited?
To our minds, the answer has to be no one. They must surely be in the public domain, or Copyleft, as they have been given freely by God, and Prajapita, to humanity in order that eacha nd every individuall may use them to earn their own inheritance. In a sense, God Shiva appears to support the GNU 'General Public License' principle.
Following on from this ;
- What is the accredited creation date for The Cycle, The Ladder, The Trimurti, and the Lakshmi and Narayan concepts?
Presumably the individual artists gave over their personal rights to the images, as the ideas were not theirs in the first place, but perhaps you can clarify what rights Shiva Baba - or the BKWSU - exert over Godly Intellectual Property in your role in the Global IT Team.
- Lastly, if possible, we would like to give proper credit to the original artists.
We await your advises with concern.
Thank you.
