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Please start a new discussion at the bottom of this page

Following a complaint to the administrators' noticeboard about disruptive editing, I have thoroughly reviewed the recent history of the article and the talk page. I have a number of comments.

SSS108

SSS108 (talk · contribs) has engaged in edit warring and has reverted the article a number of times wiping out substantial contributions. This diff spans 8 days and 48 reversions and yet the content of the article is almost identical, except for rearranging a couple of paragraphs. Reverting is not an appropriate editing method. Reverting 3 times on 19 Dec is arguably a blockable offense even though it is one less than a 3RR violation. Even reverting once every couple of days to a favorite or preferred version is a bad practice and will keep the article stuck in a bad state. SS108 has also engaged in inappropriate personal comments. Simply searching for the phrase "You are..." on this page finds it used more often by SS108 than all other editors combined. It does not matter whether a editor runs an anti-Sai web site somewhere else, as long as their behavior here is appropriate and follows the rules. Accusing someone of being "the most vocal critic and defamer of SSB on the internet" over and over again is not how you move forward on editing an article. It is also not appropriate to link to google searches or external web sites on the talk page in order to demonstrate that an editor is opposed to SSB. (It is also not appropriate for opponents of SSB to try and denigrate SSS108 because he is a believer. Just deal with a person's edits on wikipedia and leave the rest of the web to itself.)

UNESCO

In general I agree that it is better to cite the Telegraph's report of UNESCO's withdrawal rather than UNESCO's press release. Partly because press releases are by definition self-serving (even if the release is by a supposedly non-political group like the UN), and partly because the press release is not availabe from an official UN web site. Archive.org is probably safe, but for a controversial matter it is better to rely on the primary source, and if that is not available, a reliable secondary source. However, since the two sources agree, this is certainly not an important enough difference to justify an edit war. (Note than when Mick Brown is writing as a reporter the article should state, "The Telegraph reported that UNESCO withdrew..." because a reporter writes with the backing of the whole newspaper. When citing books, he would still be cited as the named author).

Sex abuse

It seems all parties agree to certain basic facts: A number of sex abuse allegations have been made against Sai Baba; charges have never been filed officially in India; he has never been convicted; he (and/or spokespeople for his organization) denies the charges. It must be possible to state these things in a way that everyone can agree to without just revert warring. I suggest that the section should open by stating clearly that there have been many allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct against SSB, but that no charges have ever been brought and SSB and his spokespeople deny the charges. Then name some specific cases. However, I also believe there is some truth to SS108's complaint that "Just about every single negative article ever published against SSB is mentioned in this article (with more and more wanting to be introduced), despite their redundancy about the allegations." In a case like this where allegations are widespread but unproven, I would be very cautious to only include the best sourced allegations. The inclusion of the two alleged suicides strikes me as a particular problem. While I agree with Fred Bauder that the Michelle Goldberg piece is useable (with caution) to illustrate the wide scope of the allegations, one of its uses here is to state that SSB's connections with Indian government officials have kept him out of court. This sounds like speculation by Goldberg, rather than reporting of facts, and should not be included.

General form and content

Overall this article is a mess, with poor formatting and grammar. For example, who was 18 when Dr. Goldstein's son was allegedly molested, SSB or the son? Discussion of gender changing and other miracles is carried underneath the sexual abuse section. There are many other problems. A great deal of progress could be made if the editors, particularly any native English speakers, would take a few days and undertake to clean up the formatting and grammar, without making any content changes.

Remedies against SS108

I am in a tough spot here. The edit warring and continued personal comments require some response. However, it seems that the only regular editors here have either a strong pro-SSB or strong anti-SSB agenda, and if I block or ban SSS108, I will have to personally watch the article to make sure it doesn't deteriorate into an attack article. I also think the disagreements here are rather small, and can be worked out if the editors involved can set aside personal issues. Therefore, I will issue a 48 hour block of SSS108 (24 hours for edit warring and 24 hours for personal comments) which will be suspended—I will not actually carry out the block if SSS108 stops edit warring and making personal remarks. I am also placing the article on 1 revert parole. All editors of this article are limited to one content revert per day (obvious vandalism excepted). Editors who revert more than once may be blocked for up to 24 hours per offense. Hopefully you will be able to discuss your changes and come to an agreement on these issues, or at least agree that as long as "the other side's" version is not much different from the way you would want it, you can let it go for a while to work on some of the more serious problem areas. Thatcher131 04:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, Thatcher, for your exacting review. It was long overdue and thankfully you have provided some good guidelines for improvement of this article. I am especially encouraged by your ostensible agreement about this article being messy, which is something I've been saying for quite some time. As it is rather late here now, I may go forward tomorrow with my edits under your guidelines. Many thanks again for your valuable input. Ekantik ^talk 06:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the most part, I agree with you Thatcher, although there is more going on in the background with attacks on pro-Sai editors and anti-Sai Baba POV pushing in other wikipedia articles than you are aware. I think the 1-revert rule is an excellent idea and should have been used eons ago. I hope you'll stick around, I think your even-mindedness would help alot. Thanks. Jossi has also been a very even-minded stabilizing force also and I thank him or her too.Freelanceresearch 10:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on what Thatchers131 wrote wrote

"It seems all parties agree to certain basic facts: A number of sex abuse allegations have been made against Sai Baba; charges have never been filed officially in India; he has never been convicted; he (and/or spokespeople for his organization) denies the charges."

No, I do not agree with the summary

Hari Sampath has officially filed charges against SSB regarding the sex abuse.

It is also untrue that SSB has officially and clearly denied the charges. Some spokespersons refused to comment.

Some members and officials of the Sathya Sai organization admit that SSB does genital oilling when pressed, but deny that SSB has engaged in sexual abuse

SSB has been charged for violating the gold control act but SSB was acquitted.

Andries 18:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hari Sampath claimed he filed charges on behalf of alleged sexual abuse victims who were half-way around the world. He didn't succeed in filing the charges. Sathya Sai Baba has clearly denied the allegations against him and this was even reported in an Indian newspaper as well as Venkataraman (a Sai Devotee) on the official RadioSai website [1]. Sathya Sai Baba was not charged over any sexual abuse allegations. Premanand's petition was dismissed by the court. It did not formally go to trial and lawyers were never present on Sathya Sai Baba's behalf. Therefore, Baba was never "acquitted" because the case wasn't accepted. SSS108 ^talk-email 23:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have made this proposition a couple of times before and it was never agreed to by the editors of this article. In light of recent events, I once again suggest that any content changes that may be perceived as controversial (or that are known as being controversial) be discussed first on this talk page and consensus obtained before making the edit. This would not pertain to grammar or spelling. Before we engage in cleaning up the page, I suggest we see who is willing to abide by this proposition:

• Freelanceresearch: I Agree.Freelanceresearch 22:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Savidan: I agree. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 22:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Ekantik: I agree, with the proviso that excessive discussion does not obstruct responsible editing; common sense editing should be respected. Ekantik ^talk 01:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Andries: Partially agree. I will discuss substantical changes before I make them, but I will not always re-discusses disputes that have already been discussed at length. Andries 10:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Kkrystian: I Agree. Kkrystian^talk
• SSS108: I Agree. SSS108 ^talk-email 17:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with SSS108's proposal because he did not care about concensus but insisted on having the article changes as per wishes anyway. I continue to disagree with his re-structuring of the article that he introduced without concensus. If SSS108 is sincere then he should allow changing the structure back to the way it was before he broke concensus. Andries 10:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

on Thatcher131 Wikisunn wrote that information should be sourced to people who were there i.e. Kasturi and here he uses information sourced to Murphet written down as fact. How is Murphet a reputable source? I do not think that Kasturi is a reputable source, but Murphet is even worse. Andries 22:00, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Andries, I'd say for the very same reasons you cited Kasturi, John Hislop and Shakuntala Balu in the article. If one sets a standard, don't be surprised if others choose to follow it. SSS108 ^talk-email 22:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, Wikisunn set her/his own standards that s/he broke immediately her/himself.[2]

Hislop, I can try to remove him. I did not cite Shakuntala Baba, you did. Andries 22:24, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To the contrary, yes you did. You cited her through Steel [3]. I simply removed the intermediate source. SSS108 ^talk-email 22:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I cited Steel, not Balu. You chose to cite Balu. Andries 22:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. You cited Steel citing Balu. Happy? SSS108 ^talk-email 23:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Steel is secondary source reference that you changed into primary source references. Your behavior in this case contradicts your arguments regarding UNESCO in which you assert that only secondary sources should be used. Andries 18:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fantastic logic, Andries. So now you are arguing that when you want to quote a reference from a book, you should not quote the book itself, but quote a book that quotes the book! You must also remember that Steel is not notable whatsoever. You object when others cite Murphet citing Kasturi, yet think nothing when you cite Steel citing Balu. The contradictions never end. SSS108 ^talk-email

Why not just cite both the archived version of their press releas and the telegraph article? savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 22:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thatcher already gave his opinion why. SSS108 ^talk-email 23:02, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Savidan, this was what I had been saying since Day One. With all respects to Thatcher, I found his comment to be ambiguous; either offline (though archived "safely") reputable press releases from non-political organisations are acceptable for Wikipedia or they are not. He also said that since the two sources do not differ, there is little scope for disagreement. I propose sourcing the information to Mick Brown's Telegraph article while providing additional material from the press release, which does not need to be sourced (per se) and gives a better picture of the affair to the reader. This is common sense editing that is informative to the reader. Ekantik ^talk 02:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also wanted to point out that G. Venkataraman, on an official Sathya Sai Website, discussed the Unesco Withdrawal and stated that Unesco formally withdrew their notice after being contacted by an Indian Ambassador [4]. I was recently sent a copy of the letter in question and the text is correct. Since this material is located on an official Sathya Sai Website, I believe that this material can be incorporated into the article. SSS108 ^talk-email 23:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not so sure. The article is clearly an op-ed that may not necessarily reflect the truth of the events as they happened, what to speak of the fact that it is blatantly self-serving. Ekantik ^talk 02:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The attribution would state the relevant facts. This type of information is allowed if it pertains to the subject in question and if it is taken from official websites associated with the subject. Venkataraman is speaking on behalf of Sathya Sai Baba and the allegations leveled against him on an official site directly associated with him. SSS108 ^talk-email 04:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for being ambiguous. What I mean is that generally the more contentious a statement is, the better its sources need to be. Since everyone seems to be in agreement about the basics here, an argument over using the Telegraph versus archive.org seems relatively unimportant. In this case the newspaper is the better source, for the reasons I outlined. The UNESCO press release at archive.org should not be used alone. Does it add something else that the newspaper article left out? Then use both. The worst, or least good, source is the piece on the official web site. It is only even worth thinking about because it agrees with the Telegraph on the essential facts. (If it disagreed with the others it would be straight to the dust bin as self-serving, unconfirmed and self-published.) Does the official response add something important that is missing from the other two sources and is the additional material uncontroversial and otherwise acceptable per the self-published sources rules? If so then cite all three. If the official site does not say anything new or if what it does say is not appropriate per the self-published rule, then leave it out. Thatcher131 03:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thatcher, there is an official letter that Unesco wrote in which they expressed regret at publishing that statement on their site and removed it after talking to an Indian Ambassador. This fact was mentioned on the official Sathya Sai Site. I have a scan of the Unesco letter, so I know its true. Needless to say, no published source mentions this fact. SSS108 ^talk-email 07:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid it needs to be left out, then. A reporter looking into the situation could verify the letter with UNESCO and then report it but we can not, and anyone could fake up a letter. I tend to think its probably true that UNESCO regrets specifically linking their cancelation to allegations of sex abuse (usually such things are done with a diplomatic "no comment") but citations need to be verifiable by any editor. In theory at least, an editor with access to the right kind of library could verify even very old books or obscure newspapers; we're not going to be phoning the ambassador. Thatcher131 12:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You know, I just tried rewriting the Sex Abuse section along the lines of my previous edit of 19th Dec. Without explicitly mentioning the contents of the original UNESCO release in some way or form, none of the following points make any sense. It's impossible to work with it in it's current state. I just gave up, I'll need to devote way more time to it. For a start, all the points are in the wrong order. Exactly how much time passed for this article to be degraded into such a sorry state? Ekantik ^talk 06:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree very strongly with Thatcher131's comments on general form and content. In fact, I came to this article—not knowing anything about the Baba—after seeing it mentioned thousands of times on the RFC page, hoping to clean it up. However, if I'm not considered a neutral enough editor, I'll refrain from doing that at all. I would caution both sides though: no matter how much you succeed in pushing your point of view, if the article looks like crap, no one will buy it.

In general the article suffers from poor sectioning, bad grammar and syntax—part of which can be attributed to repeating the entire bibliography in the text—etc. This would take a lot of work on my part to get it up to snuff, and likely either SSS or Andries's faction would disagree with every change I make. So I ask: is there consensus on the fact that the article needs a thorough rewrite for general form and content; I am not interested in doing any research on the subject, so I will neither add or remove any references.savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 23:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree Savidan. Howevever, please tell us what changes you are proposing to make and how you are proposing to make them. We have a disagreement on removing dates (unless they are redundant). I suggest we go through the changes section by section. SSS108 ^talk-email 23:24, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Savidan, the main problem with this article is that it needs more eyes so I hope that you continue to stay on and edit the article. I do not consider you to be a biased editor as there is no reason to assume such. Your comments about poor grammar etc. are thoroughly echoed by me and I firmly agree that the article needs a thorough rewrite.

If any editor disagrees with your edits then they can just proceed to re-edit (without reverting back to previous form, usually) the words if they can be improved. This type of editing will take the article forward and a slow improvement will be made, and is a better strategy that endless revert-warring. Ekantik ^talk 02:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Savidan, we can also use this sandbox page: User:SSS108/Sathya_Sai_Baba to see the diffs before we accept them. If you like, you can create your own page. First, you have to save the article as it currently is, then make your edits and see if we agree with them. I think that would be the easiest. SSS108 ^talk-email 00:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that this suggestion is helpful for general editing as this will take far too long. Perhaps this suggestion can be employed when controversial changes are proposed. Ekantik ^talk 02:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is exactly what I proposed. Since Savidan is proposing major editing, I think using the sandbox would prevent an edit-war and will build consensus and good faith among all involved editors. SSS108 ^talk-email 06:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And as an addition to this discussion on form and content, beginning sentences with "According to..." is an incredibly amateur style of attributing sources. This wouldn't be so bad if it was written once or twice in the entire article, but to use it for the beginning of a lot of sentences is poor readability. Please find an alternative grammatical way of attributing sources. Ekantik ^talk 03:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be better to keep the sandbox in a neutral location and out of user space, such as Sathya Sai Baba/Cleanup. I would also recommend working on one section at a time, waiting for comments, then copying into the article. In the interests of peace I suggest that the cleanup process focus on issues of style, grammar, clarity, encyclopedic tone, and so on, and not deal with content issues. As long as it is only the existing content that is being cleaned up, the process should be non-controversial and non-confrontational, and there is no reason for it to take a long time. Rewrite a section, wait a day or so for comment or corrections, then paste it in and move on. Thatcher131 18:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have the following proposal for re-structuring. We re-name the entry beliefs and practices in the Sathya Sai Baba movement into the entry Sathya Sai Baba movement and move from the entry Sathya Sai Baba some organizational stuff to Sathya Sai Baba movement. Please note that the relationship between the various organizations and SSB should be stated as much as possible if it remains here. Is SSB a figurehead, founder, de facto or de jure leader, spirtual leader of the various organization? In many cases I do not know and I do not know how to find out. I heard some rumors about the power that SSB has that I will not repeat here.Andries 20:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree to changing the name to Sathya Sai Baba movement (so far only to that).Kkrystian^talk 23:40 (UTC+1) 23 Dec 2006

The Organization section is small and well summarized and I see no reason to move it elsewhere. SSS108 ^talk-email 23:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because the relationship between the person of SSB and the organization is totally unclear. They only have the names in common and promote their association with SSB. If somebody wants to remove the information about the organizations as off-topic then s/he may have a point. I think the structure of the article will improve if we move information from this article to the article Sathya Sai Baba movement that is is not clearly related to the person of SSB. Please note that lack of coherence of the article was one of the complaints during peer review. See the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Peer_review#Sathya_Sai_Baba Andries 07:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it be better to rename 'Movement' to 'Organization' or something similar? 'Movement' seems a little ambiguous IMO. Ekantik ^talk 07:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

yes, it is somewhat ambiguous, but it is clear that you can be an SSB devotee without being affiliated to the Sathya Sai Organization. See Talk:Sathya_Sai_Organization In addition, not all followers agree with all the doctrines, so it is not a sect in the meaning of Roy Wallis gave to it. May be Sathya Sai Baba cult would be better, but the problem with the word cult is that it has too many different meanings, though the SSB cult has been labelled as such by several reputable neutral sources, including Lawrence Babb and by Chryssides (though I think that Chryssides scholarhip is flawed). See list of cults. Andries 07:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh ok, then it looks like both 'Cult' and 'Movement' are likely contenders. Either are good choices. Ekantik ^talk 07:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can all sides agree that the link to the "official book store" is not encyclopedic and is commercial, and should therefore be removed? Thatcher131 18:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. But the person who adds this link has done so repeatedly under various IP's. I attempted to contact them under their IPs to no avail and I have removed that link perhaps a dozen times. SSS108 ^talk-email 00:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As long as removal is not contentious than any editor should feel free to do it whenever needed. Thatcher131 01:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thatcher, I do not believe it is contentious. I have removed it several times and no one ever disagreed. The link is clearly promotional for a commercial site. However, the person/people adding the link are very persistent. I even included hidden text not to add commercial links in that section and it was still ignored. SSS108 ^talk-email 07:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We need to agree on which English should be used for the spelling of "organization". Since India uses British English, the Sai Org spells it "organisation". I corrected other spellings to reflect American English but have left the word "organisation" alone because I do not know which English version should be used. I suggest we use American English because organisation redirects to "organization" on Wikipedia. SSS108 ^talk-email 23:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling should be consistent throughout the article, and should be based on the subject matter, or on the spelling preferences of the original major contributors. Your logic seems good here that British spellings should be used, in which case they should be used throughout the article, even organisation. Thatcher131 00:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thatcher, I think American English should be used. Is that what you meant? Or do you think British English should be used? Thanks. SSS108 ^talk-email 04:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer to use American English. The Sathya Sai Organization writes its name with a z for reasons that I cannot understand. See their website. Andries 06:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]