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Information about Art Of Living and its Contributions removed

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I am seeing lots of contributions, welfare achievements of this organization being removed. We can just write a big book of human welfare contributions of The Art Of Living Foundation. Unfortunately, some of the wikipedian editors are posing threat about this article. I thought Wikipedia a great site and contributed more than $100. I should have not done this as Wikipedia is not writing a good article on this fantastic humantarian organization. I have done all courses of Art Of Living and it is simply fantastic and life boosting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaimalleshk (talk • contribs) 09:25, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Information about Silver jubilee function which was largest event on planet, social welfare summary and activities need to be added. --Jai 16:28, 10 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaimalleshk (talk • contribs)


Please add all details regarding functions/events/awards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.162.17.49 (talk) 03:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Such information will continue to be removes as blatant advertising until editors are willing to address the many problems listed in the discussions below. --Ronz (talk) 19:55, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is not advertisement - I don't think that there is any claim seems advertisement. Listing can't be considered advertisement. It is article regarding International Social NGO. Please go through GREENPEACE and other NGO Website! They are listing completely similar content and hence offering/social project can not be considered advertising. Project and other sections have links from popular newspapers of India and can't be considered poor referring. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DeepeshdeomurariDeepeshdeomurari (talk) 08:38, 1 March 2013 (UTC) (talk • contribs) 08:09, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're completely missing the concerns. There's a discussion below. Let's try to keep the discussions in one place. --Ronz (talk) 18:09, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

From 2010 - Lots of content is removed on the name of advertisement - which have proper references! Anyways, I have removed the advertisement markup as nothing significant left in the page. Deepeshdeomurari (talk) 02:49, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removed 2013 tags stating advertisement and references. It was fixed long back. Deepeshdeomurari (talk) 11:00, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Courses

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There seems to be a great deal of trivial press promoting their courses. Is it enough to expand upon what's already mentioned in the article? How do we present it neutrally, when the reporting are puff pieces? --Ronz (talk) 16:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See to WP:SELFPUB, WP:RS, and WP:NPOV. --Ronz (talk) 18:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what is meant by "puff" pieces but the newspapers, e.g. The Washington Post, are not trivial press. Newspapers in general report in a neutral and even skeptical tone (the Washington Post article is not exactly promotional if you take a look). The university articles are not promotional either, they just report students' experiences and they are informative because they indicate that these courses are happening on campuses and that students have something to say about them. As for the TV News pieces, are they considered "puff" press? The Fox piece is about real-life problems in schools and how schools are using the AOLF courses to address problems like bullying. The MSNBC is more descriptive for sure, it highlights how NY'ers are using the course to address stress but it interviews a Columbia Medical school professor so that seems really legitimate. Please let me know your thoughts. thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Susandonald (talk • contribs) 18:31, 6 November 2009

Thanks for the response. I'm going to list the sources for easier discussion. --Ronz (talk) 19:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
puff piece: "an article or story of exaggerating praise that often ignores or downplays opposing viewpoints or evidence to the contrary" --Ronz (talk) 19:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK - so what are your thoughts on these pieces? I see them as providing information and they do ask people about their experiences - many of these experiences are positive which is actually a good sign seeing that the Washington Post is a huge national newspapers - does that make the article puff? I've looked for other Articles on AOLF in the press and these are the only ones I could find, that is why they are up there. Please share your thoughts. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Susandonald (talk • contribs) 19:12, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm rather busy and don't have as much time as I'd like to address this quickly. If you want to try to get more immediate feedback, WP:THIRD usually will get a quick response. --Ronz (talk) 19:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So in order for something not to be a "Puff Piece" it has to be overtly critical, is that what you are saying? I am not using these pieces to talk about how great AOL is, I used them to VALIDATE that the courses are indeed happening in colleges and NYC etc... I did not cite or quote from them. To this end, it is fine to use them. In other parts of the article you quote from "Readers Digest" which is not a high-end journal, and it's a critical piece. Does that mean articles are only ok if they are critical? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.15.24.80 (talk) 15:54, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"So in order..." I've said no such thing, nor made any implication or assumption along those lines.
AoLF is obviously doing a great deal to promote itself and it courses. As I pointed out at the beginning of this discussion, the sources we have about this are all trivial. To clarify, they are little more than press releases. Ideally, we need independent, reliable sources. Minimally we need to meet WP:SELFPUB. Given that one of the main purposes of AoLF is to provide courses and workshops, we need to be especially careful that we follow WP:NPOV rather than serving as a venue for AoLF's self promotion. --Ronz (talk) 17:34, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Go ahead add the courses section but It should match wikipedia standards Deepeshdeomurari (talk) 06:05, 27 April 2011 (UTC) .[reply]

I recently found that article regarding courses and projects are deleted considering it as "advertisement". Surely it is about the work that NGO do - You can compare it with wiki pages of Greenpeace, Red Cross and many more. Please discuss on wiki page before deleting.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.162.17.49 (talk • contribs)

I deleted the material without discussion,[3] and will do so again if restored, because it is composed of text copied from another website.[4] We are not allowed to copy material, except when there's no copyright (which is very rare).
We don't do so for several reasons. The main one is legal. See WP:COPYRIGHT. Almost as important is that copied text often does not comply with Wikipedia rules on using the neutral voice. See WP:NPOV. If readers want to get the foundation's view of itself, and read their text, then they can go to the foundation's website directly.
It'd be fine to list the courses and to write a short overview of them. That's common in university articles (though they exist almost solely to give courses, so they get more weight or space in those articles). Like all material, it should be verifiable to published materials. Independent sources are preferable, but primary sources (like a list of courses) would be OK too for this limited purpose.   Will Beback  talk  10:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Thanks. But it would have been great if you could have talked first that courses problem is having such problem or atleast in the comment(copyright issue). I will ask experts to write on it. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deepeshdeomurari (talk • contribs) 11:15, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The media reports are not just puff pieces. The emotional clensing that happens in t he Art of Living Workshops is of the highest order. Reports are published by the Harvard Health Magazine (U.S.A.), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi, India), NIMHANS (Bangalore, India). An editor must accept the reports by World Class Medical Institutes and Reputed International Dailies. There is no point ridiculing medical reports by independent agencies. User:Andy.went.Wandy —Preceding undated comment added 17:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but you'll have to be more specific. As you can see, I had listed all the references and commented on each. If you dispute those comments, or would like us to look at other possible references, we need some detail to work from. --Ronz (talk) 17:48, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Art of living is primarily an educational organization offering courses and programs. We have already acknowledged that in the statements about revenues etc. We need to expand on the section on programs and courses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.212.127.68 (talk) 17:25, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Poor referencing

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The previously mentioned promotional tone/slant detected by some editors may partly be explained by the article's reliance on references to materials self-generated by the AoLF and its associates. These fall into the realm of self-published sources and cannot be used to reference statements about the organization without some sort of qualifier (e.g., "according to the Art of Living Foundation's website..."). I have flagged some of the instances of this poor referencing, and there are yet others which I have left which are questionable and could be challenged. There is no lack of better secondary and tertiary references out there, and a rewrite and/or re-referencing of the article using those would be very welcome. • Astynax talk 18:07, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Given how long these problems have been going on, I'm for removing all sections that don't have independent, reliable sources. If anyone thinks any of the self-published references meet WP:SELFPUB criteria for inclusion, please note them. --Ronz (talk) 19:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this article considered to be advertisement/publicity?. In fact facts are not advertisements.

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Hi Wikipedians, why some of the editors have flagged this article as advertisements/publicity? Facts are facts. I have given citations for all guiness records and this has to be communicated to people. How can it be advertisements? Truth is truth. I have seen many articles in wikipedia where guiness records, acheivements of organizations are clearly written. May be some miscreants are flagging this article with publicity/advertisement tags. Please remove it.

Art of Living is world's largest NGO helping mankind. Lets do some thing good and support instead of pulling them down. Also the citations that I gave are getting removed. I always thought wikipedia to be a great site and have contributed $100. Hope you wikipedians do not shake the respect that I have for wikipedia.--Jai 16:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Please place new sections at the bottom of the page (or click the "New section" tab to add, which does this automatically). Truth is indeed truth, but on Wikipedia following Policy is required. The tag at the top of the article may have been inserted, in part, based upon the quality of the references used. Articles should summarize scholarly sources and reliable third-party sources. Non-independent sources such as press releases, news articles which are based upon press releases, publications from those associated with an organization, etc. may be used carefully when identified (e.g., "the Art of Living Foundation claims X"), though this does not obviate the requirement that the article mostly be based upon verifiable third-party sources. Statements which only reference the subject of an article (and associates of the subject, their press releases, etc.) create a problem of Undue weight and may only be used in a very limited fashion. The note at the top of the article invites other editors, who may have access to such sources and/or experience in editing in a WP:NPoV voice, to help improve the article. • Astynax talk 17:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Astynax is correct here; another thing to bear in mind here is WP:SELFPUB, which imposes certain restrictions on the use of self-published sources. It is always better to use third-party sources. Times of India etc. are fine, but please note that using whole sentences from a Times article like this, e.g. "Thousands of people from over 100 countries watched in ecstatic bliss as the silver jubilee celebrations of the Art of Living Foundation formally began.", is a copyright violation unless placed in quotation marks and attributed, i.e. like this,
  • "The Times of India reported that "Thousands of people from over 100 countries watched in ecstatic bliss as the silver jubilee celebrations of the Art of Living Foundation formally began."
The article needs to be looked through; direct quotes must be marked as such and attributed. --JN466 17:16, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed the quotes copied and pasted from the Times; there may be others though. Also, one little formatting hint: note that full-stops and commas always go before the reference, not after. For example: "this is the end of the sentence.<ref>Source</ref>" --JN466 17:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism

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Content in the Criticism is not having any significant reference. Please provide significant references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deepeshdeomurari (talk • contribs) 14:49, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again asking for references regarding content in this section. Most of the contributors to this section is not having talk page and not a logged in user(only ip mentioned). If no significant found till Aug 25(IST). Then I am going to delete content which is not backed up by references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.162.17.49 (talk) 11:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC) Thanks for refining content of criticism Deepeshdeomurari (talk) 04:42, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I undid this and this.
  • The case between AoL and the bloggers doesn't fit well into the 'Organisation' section.
  • That the bloggers were allowed to remain anomymous is an important piece of information from free speech point of view and deserves mention. Notable organisations like the EFF also helped the bloggers in the case, showing the importance of the topic.
--Knverma (talk) 08:02, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But why this topic is important in this article? Many ONGs and organizations may have different legal issues, specially big ones like AOL, reading wp:blp and wp:npv I don't belive this point has the enough importance to be included in this article, as it gives a big importance to a single incident. As a matter of facts, It doesn't even reflects a different point of view about the foundation and doesn't help at all to the encyclopedic objective of wikipedia (wp:trivia) Jmfalguera (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's important because of the independent coverage it received, which is better than many of the topics covered in this article. Granted, that's because this article is in poor shape...--Ronz (talk) 20:35, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But the independent coverage doesn't justify the pertinence of the material. As I said before, I don't think it has enough relevance, and it doesn't even reflects a different point of view. I agree, this article needs lots of work, but I don't think this material helps. Jmfalguera (talk) 13:26, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Seems well-referenced compared to most of the article. Removing it as such would seem to be a NPOV violation. How about trimming it? --Ronz (talk) 17:41, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What point of view is this material showing? The fact that there was a litigation with some anonymous bloggers? Is that a critic? The fact that other sections of the article need better work to suit npov has nothing to do with this material. We won't improve the article including trivial information. Jmfalguera (talk) 17:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be arguing that the point of view presented in the references is WP:UNDUE to the point that it doesn't belong at all. It might help to read more of the discussions on this talk page to put this in perspective. --Ronz (talk) 19:12, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is wrong to cite WP:NOTNEWSPAPER and WP:UNDUE for the edited content. I do not agree with Ronz. Unless the points about proceedings of the Courts, intervention of the chief minister etc. are mentioned the content as criticism does not make sense. It is definitely not undue. May be it needs to be reworded. I want to edit this again.Parjorim (talk) 05:48, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please explain why NOTNEWSPAPER and UNDUE don't apply, otherwise it comes across as an outright rejection of our policies. --Ronz (talk) 15:25, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

NOTNEWSPAPER can not be applied simply because we are only using the newspaper article as a source & not putting in the whole news item as part of the article. It is not UNDUE because in present form the information of the event is incomplete. Anybody can file a PIL in a court of law irrespective of the pleas being true or non-true. But in this case the state government filed an affidavit in the court confirming that the land was indeed encroached. Now the question arises, why the foundation was not prosecuted inspite of the affidavit. Thats where it becomes necessary to mention that the foundation & ravishankar were saved because of Ravishankar's influence on the government machinery in particular the then CM of the Karnataka State.Parjorim (talk) 08:10, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I'm just not following. Perhaps you should put together a clearer explanation and take it WP:NPOVN or another appropriate noticeboard per WP:DR. --Ronz (talk) 17:09, 28 March 2013 (UTC) --Ronz (talk) 17:09, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please use WP:DISENGAGE :-)welll.....Just for once I would re-word the edits you have removed before moving on to any DR noticeboard.Parjorim (talk) 11:59, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see only one source mentioning the intervention, and that is in a qualified manner. Am I missing something or are there more sources we could add? --Ronz (talk) 16:09, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. I tried to find further sources & did found some but then reading those I realized that the intervention is about another land grabbing case. May be I would update that sometime later.27.5.184.108 (talk) 06:23, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a Religious Organisation

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It is very important that people understand the difference between Religious and Spiritual Organisation. Particularly Art of Living is not a Religious Organisation; so please Don't include it in Hinduism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.162.17.49 (talk) 07:36, 15 May 2012 (UTC) Yes! I do believe that tagging it as Hinduism is restricting its scope. It is global organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deepeshdeomurari (talk • contribs) 15:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sudarshan Kriya

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I believe that Sudarshan Kriya should have its own page as it is quite vast subject and lots of researches is done on Sudarshan Kriya. It impacts of physical, mental and spiritual level further it is very important and practiced widely by millions around the world. We can't add all details of research- impacts and related controversies in this article. Please let me know your views.

Volunteer For a Better India

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Can anyone please enter details about New Initiative by The Art of Living Foundation - Volunteer for a better India. Lakhs of Youths joined have Volunteer for a Better India is registered 15,000+ social activity in few months. I am initiating the section but request further details. Deepeshdeomurari (talk) 11:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added a section upon Volunteer for a Better India, but it was deleted. Andy.went.Wandy 1 mar 2013. —Preceding undated comment added 17:22, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Continued use of this article for advertising

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Is anyone interested in adding such material in a manner that doesn't violate WP:NOT and WP:NPOV? Best to start here by listing some potential sources that are both reliable and independent. --Ronz (talk) 19:52, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Again, this is an encyclopedia, not a venue for promotion. --Ronz (talk) 17:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Information Removed

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This wiki page has gone through serious transformation. Lots of section and information has been deleted! Unnecessary things like including hate blogging website details etc. I don't think how it matters if art of living put case against hate group! This is not at all related to the foundation. Further Courses/Events/Projects/Activities everything is removed! I would request more attention of moderator to such users! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deepeshdeomurari (talk • contribs) 07:48, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You may have not noticed all the edit summaries and the discussions above, including the one directly above. I hope you'll take some time to read them now.
In general, this article has a long history of misuse for advertising. This needs to stop. I've requested the article be partial protected. Perhaps we need full protection instead so that no one can edit it at all without prior review? --Ronz (talk) 16:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removal Request: Settlement with anonymous bloggers

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This case is typical of one of the hate blog at WordPress. Please make me understand why Wikipedia started promoting hate blogs! There are hate blogs for almost all organization! It is not at all having place in Wikipedia. Art of Living filed case on one blog site; so should it be posted on Wikipedia that too of anonymous blogger! Doesn't Wikipedia encouraging hate blog by it! Please provide your views! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deepeshdeomurari (talk • contribs) 03:43, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the related discussions on criticisms. If you're not contesting the sources or how they are used, then it will be extremely difficult to make a case for outright deletion of sourced information. --Ronz (talk) 15:50, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

STRONG REMOVAL: Related Discussion was related to Criticism section - However, still there are no references to promote hate blog by using some news articles in such a way and there is no way that this section should have entry in the article. I tomorrow damage something and they put complaint on me and I do settlement with the party - So will it enter in Wikipedia? Content should be wikified.Deepeshdeomurari (talk) 18:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

STRONG REMOVAL: Complete story behind the scene: There were senior art of living teachers - who got great success with the course but however they started feeling that All success is attributed to me and not the technique(taught in the course). Success start running their head. So suddenly they started loosing the charm in matter of a year. Once Sri Sri Ravi Shankar visited that town then teacher told him that please ask others to respect him. Sri Sri replied that respect can't be forced it need to be earned. Then they started warning foundation that they are having art of living content(being one of 7500 teachers) and they will publish it; do negative publicity and also demanded extortion of about 3000 dollars to stop from blogging. So they started doing negative publicity. Refer to Commentary on Kena Upanishad. I wonder why some senior members of wikipedia board are more interested in putting this article as part of art of living wiki page so that people search for the keywords in Google and it can make hate blogs more popular which result in better indexing!!! Deepeshdeomurari (talk) 04:16, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, these are just all your personal opinions, and I'm concerned that you simply don't understand the comments made on this subject.
"However, still there are no references to promote hate blog by using some news articles in such a way and there is no way that this section should have entry in the article." I don't know what that is supposed to mean. Can you try to rewrite it, explaining in a lot more detail? --Ronz (talk) 16:26, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My question is very logical - How this section can contribute to wikipedia - what information it is having for or against organization! Read complete law suit it simply explain that bloggers started writing hate blog and at that time art of living foundation is not having copyright so ended up in settlement. But I don't understand that projecting such information in wikipedia will only degrade the quality. It is not about personal view - Even if I don't know about this foundation then also I would have pointed out what makes contributor think that any external blog information or law suit to stop someone from blogging directly related to the organization! Let other contributor put their view on this! Deepeshdeomurari (talk) 17:56, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You need to drop the "hate blog" label, and the attacks on those that ran the websites. If you're so blatantly biased against the material, I don't see how you're going to convince anyone about changing it. --Ronz (talk) 02:19, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removed Criticism section

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Sorry guys, I didn't mean to bulldoze discussion, I came across this page when logged out and made this edit before I noticed that there had been recent discussion about similar issues. If someone disagrees with this edit, feel free to open up discussion on it. My reasons for the edit are explained in the edit summary. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:31, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've restored it. The discussion above is on the current content. --Ronz (talk) 20:50, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I just looked at the discussion. I see that a discussion exists there, but it is not clear to me what point any of the participants is trying to make, so I will re-raise the issue here.
Here you restored the content, but did not really respond to my reason for removing it. As I explained in my edit summary, the section does not seem to be particularly relevant. At the very least, the section does not detail criticism of the foundation; it's just a news item that happened to be something that the foundation did. People can debate all they want about whether it is a notable enough event to merit the weight it is given in the article, but it is clearly not "Criticism". In your edit summary you only said that it shouldn't be removed because it's source; the fact that it is sourced does not in any way change these other issues.
Can anyone explain to me a reasonable argument for keeping this information here? rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So why is it you are removing sourced information? --Ronz (talk) 16:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I explained that just above, and you never responded. I pointed you to this discussion again in my edit summary. Are you planning on responding? rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:56, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry. I was asking for a policy-based explanation. You aren't disputing the source, nor disputing that the information is about the organization.
Given what's happened with the "Criticism" section, it should be renamed, if no one is disputing the other changes referred to in the previous discussion. --Ronz (talk) 16:59, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, whether or not I am disputing the source is entirely irrelevant to the points I raised above. I don't know why you keep bringing up the source, and I don't know how many more times I can explain myself. Could you please actually read my comments above?
The mere fact that something is sourced does not mean it warrants inclusion in Wikipedia. This is a basic policy concept that someone who has been participating in the project for 8 years should know. See Wikipedia:V#Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion, WP:IINFO, and WP:NOT#NEWS (there's your policy links). Repeatedly insisting that "it is sourced" is not in any way constructive.
As I already said in my first edit summary (linked above), I have no qualms against someone writing a real criticism section in this article. But the material under question is not one. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:32, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please try to focus more on content.
We agree that it is not a criticism section. So it needs to be renamed if kept.
Thanks for the policy links. If you'll look at the previous discussion, you'll see I brought up NOT#NEWS there as well. So how do we settle this given we have multiple, reliable sources, and more are available? NOT#NEWS and the other policies you mention all rely upon NPOV, which I also brought up earlier. So should we take this to NPOVN at this point? --Ronz (talk) 17:49, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to see how NPOV is relevant in any way. I am not raising an issue about the neutrality of the article or any part of it, I am raising an issue about the relevance of some content.
Regarding the discussion you linked from above: again, I don't see how that is relevant to this particular issue, either. As far as I can tell, it was a discussion about what to do with the news about the bloggers. This is a separate issue.
Personally I do not have a strong stance on whether the material is removed outright, moved to another section, or just relabeled as something other than "Criticism". (My opinion is that it doesn't need to be here at all, given that it seems only tangentially relevant and giving it its own section seems like undue weight; but that is just my opinion.) But in any case, it is clearly not "Criticism" (regardless of whether it's sourced--which remains irrelevant). rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We agree it should not be labeled "Criticism". How about "Land encroachment" or something similar?
"I fail to see how NPOV is relevant in any way." The policies you have brought up are based upon NPOV, and the only solution that I know of to resolve such disputes is by applying NPOV. If you think "Wikipedia:V#Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion, WP:IINFO, and WP:NOT#NEWS" problems can be resolved in some other manner, please offer it. --Ronz (talk) 19:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
None of those policies are related to WP:NPOV. Have you ever actually read that page? rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please WP:FOC. Thanks!

Wikipedia:V#Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion begins with "See also: WP:UNDUE"

WP:IINFO begins "See also: Wikipedia:Notability." Wikipedia:Notability addresses NPOV multiple times, most importantly the last paragraph of its introduction: "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list. For Wikipedia's policies regarding content, see Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not, and Biographies of living persons."

WP:NOT#NEWS is similar to IINFO in that it begins with a link to Wikipedia:Notability (events).

So, since we're talking about content within an article rather the article itself, WP:NPOV (especially WP:UNDUE) applies and is probably our best way or resolving this. --Ronz (talk) 17:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request on 10 April 2013

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Please delete section "Land encroachment". This is False. Please refer to news articles http://www.deccanherald.com/content/185862/art-living-has-not-encroached.html

Few people wants to defame the organization for its role in Anti-corruption moviement. Please refrain from such publications where the court has not given any judgements. Sentiments of hundreds of millions is hurt. Amgupta2000 (talk) 09:10, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's an announcement from AoL, and not a reliable source for anything other than their viewpoint. Removal of other sources based on it would violate WP:NPOV. --Ronz (talk) 15:31, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not done: per above comment. —KuyaBriBriTalk 19:03, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Ronz. The BLP & NPOV policies require that the content be suitable for an encyclopedia. So the presence or absence of content cant be based on opinions. This article has been needing a neutral cleanup for a long time. May be we can contribute by re-structuring the fragmented content. For instance, both the legal issues can be clubbed together in a "Legal Issues" (the name's just a suggestion) section. I'm ok with doing it. Traintogain (talk) 10:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But to suit NPOV policy the article should include the declaration of the foundation about this issue. Otherwise seems more like a defamation. That's not the right way to accomplish npov. Also, since there is no legal resolution about this, the title "Land encroachment" is incorrect as it gives the impression of a statement. It should be more like "accusations of land encroachment" or something like that. Jmfalguera (talk) 14:30, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a venue for AoL's publicity, but a brief summary of their viewpoint would probably be appropriate, or perhaps that they just contest the matter. --Ronz (talk) 15:15, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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I had added this section that were revert by User:Ronz. Reason given was "Sources are poor and event hasnt happened yet". IMO this section deserves a mention, it has been in the national news for the last 5 days now. ChunnuBhai (talk) 06:49, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ping User:Sitush User:Kautilya3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChunnuBhai (talk • contribs) 06:55, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ChunnuBhai, from what I can see, the edit you're talking about took the paragraph of text you added and integrated it into the preceding paragraph. The information is there, it's just more concise. Primefac (talk) 15:52, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The event hasn't even happened yet. Once it is over, we'll see what lasting impact it has, but so far it looks the press is hyping and sensationalizing it. We shouldn't do the same per WP:NOTNEWS. --Ronz (talk) 16:58, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2 June 2016

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: WP:BOLDly moved.(non-admin closure) Eventhorizon51 (talk) 19:46, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Art of Living foundation → Art of Living Foundation – Capitalisation -NottNott|talk Notify me with {{re}} 18:18, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Why is it that the article info has not been allowed to be updated?

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The article has quite a bit typo errors and outdated information. It is as if it still exists in the time period of 2013. Only updating that has taken place is in already contentious Legal Issues where it has managed to speak as if its early 2016. Why is it that the edits in these regards have been undone? The River Rejuvenation has well cited by News reports, The World Culture Festival was widely covered by media both for legal issues and its magnanimity. If the article is to be neutral it should contain actual information and up-to date information, not based on bias some editors my have. Improving upon edits is one thing and completely undoing it is another. We owe it to the readers that they be presented with correct and up-to-date info. --Santoshskcp (talk) 09:12, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Try fixing the typos separately from anything else. Make sure that any updating of information is reliably and independently sourced. Without independent sourcing, information can easily violate WP:NPOV or WP:NOT. --Ronz (talk) 17:05, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See also WP:COPYVIO. DMacks (talk) 21:31, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Contribution deleted without notification?

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I had added some text to the page about Sudarshan Kriya. It has disappeared without any notification and reasoning. It was a factual information with sources from scientific journals quoted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shantanu Deshmukh (talk • contribs) 04:51, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Programmes and Courses

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The sources look rather promotional, even WP:NOTNEWS. I'll take a closer look when I have more time, but hope others will comment. --Ronz (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also linking to Talk:Art_of_Living_Foundation#Courses, because this is a continued discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NewlyHookedToWiki (talk • contribs) 16:28, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Undisclosed payments

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The notice about undisclosed payments seems like an unsubstantiated allegation to me. Anyone has thoughts on why should it remain on the page? 71.245.186.73 (talk) 05:10, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We can look as to who and when it was added, but given the history of this article, I see no reason to doubt it. --Ronz (talk) 05:13, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Without WP:OUTING, we probably can't discuss at least some of the specific evidence on-wiki. DMacks (talk) 05:19, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand, there should be some evidence to continue using this banner. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 05:31, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ronz has alleged that one of the contributors is a paid contributor because they volunteer with the organization - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Art_of_Living_Foundation&diff=prev&oldid=874270341. I think this is a rather absurd assumption that anyone volunteering with the organization is a paid contributor or doing promotional advertising. According to the organization description it is a volunteer-based organization, and someone volunteering with the organization is probably more likely to explore this page. One could argue for a COI, but that COI would be same if one of the Wikipedia editors edited the page about Wikipedia (editing the page about Wikipedia would make you an editor - Catch 22?, btw :D). I would like to appeal to the editors to follow the guidelines suggested by Wikipedia and assume good faith instead of framing speculations and allegations. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 06:12, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is a general assumption that volunteers with an organization have a WP:COI, yes. And it's not unreasonable to assume that even "volunteers" might get non-monetary benefits. DMacks (talk) 07:26, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The organization of this scale and presence only has a budget of $4M in the US (https://www.guidestar.org/profile/77-0240101). They quite possibly don't have budget to pay anyone to edit wikipedia pages. Just to look at the issue practically. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 16:47, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I did not add the tag. I've not looked closely into why it was added. From what I see, it seems appropiate. If it's removed, a COI template should replace it. --Ronz (talk) 16:31, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please feel free to add COI. Currently the Criticisms section is described in a disproportionate manner as compared to other work done by the organization. This may be because you have found all sources talking about the organization to be puff pieces, if they are not being critical. I just wanted to point that out, since neutrality of the article would in fact be questioned not from the side your are accusing it to be. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 16:41, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Given the comments above, removing the tag is inappropriate. Ravensfire (talk) 16:49, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would dispute the COI as well, but there is no evidence for payments involved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NewlyHookedToWiki (talk • contribs) 17:16, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The UPE tag was put by User:Jytdog here [5]. Jytdog has been indefinitely blocked by the Arbitration Committee [6]. They have also had several COI-related issues and actions taken in the past. I would like to appeal all the editors here to re-evaluate the notice by reviewing the article again. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 18:50, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The only problem I'm seeing are these attacks on other editors. --Ronz (talk) 20:09, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
But, that's what you are doing, right? If someone is spending time contributing you are claiming they are paid to contribute? Is that not an attack? Are we not 'editors'? NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 23:43, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just to re-iterate the user who tagged this article UPE has been involved in other similar controversies. I am just requesting a re-evaluation of the article in this light. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 23:45, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Based on that editor's extensive history on multiple article areas that are often full of COI editors and fringe topics, I give strong credence to their UPE detective-work. DMacks (talk) 23:48, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Who is willing to take ownership of the tag now, given the user who tagged is no longer here? How do I seek clarification to fix the offending portions? Is there a way forward or do we want to stick with the tag forever? NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 23:52, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I see multiple editors in the article history who have COI, including some who I suspect might be employees. As I already said, some of this evidence cannot be discussed here (it would be against wikipedia policy to do so). But as one example I can mention here, User:Jaimalleshk is blocked for making legal threats in the name of this organization. DMacks (talk) 04:23, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
An organization like Art of Living, which is a volunteer driven non-profit, has hundreds of thousands of people connected with it (their website claims 370 million+ -- artofliving[dot]org/us-en/about-us). They may have taken one of the courses offered, volunteered at one of their social service event etc. The organization is like Wikipedia in many ways, and is accessible to everyone and anyone interested in being involved. We cannot establish anything from the statement here [7] that User:Jaimalleshk was officially representing the organization in any way. Here's his statement on this very talk page [8], where he says that he has merely taken courses offered by Art of Living. In any case, we would be better off discussing how to fix the article and how to clean up anything due to "paid" editors. I did a quick search and found that almost all of his contributions have been reverted or removed, unless minor edits [9]. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 05:48, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Related issue: It seems like User:Jytdog had also requested black-listing of the whole domain artofliving[dot]org. See here [10] for details. Undisclosed paid-editing was used as one of the reasons for the request. I would like to leave this documentation here in case anything is done about UPE. Personally I believe, black-listing the whole domain seems rather extreme even if you suspected wrongdoings from a few editors. Some of the links from the website could serve as the official source for statements missing proper references in the article. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 03:17, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It was already clearly stated that specific links for specific purposes can be whitelisted. DMacks (talk) 04:23, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It just makes things more complicated and takes time for someone to review and whitelist. Nevertheless, I have submitted one request here[11]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NewlyHookedToWiki (talk • contribs) 04:28, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The request to unblock a specific link was archived without any conclusion. See [12]. Documenting this here so that we know what happened. It is very hard to edit this page with such aggressive policing... NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 00:13, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Issues with the page

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The notice on the page says that the article reads like an advertisement and cites only primary sources. The first point may be subjective, but I don't see any primary sources in the references. In fact citing links from artofliving[dot]org seems to have been banned on Wikipedia. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 17:08, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

cites only primary sources That's not what it says. --Ronz (talk) 17:11, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed it says "too many primary sources". You are splitting hair now. Could you list a few examples of primary sources used on the page? Thanks! NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 17:14, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting for comments on the pending issues on the article. It would be great if we could pinpoint where the issues exist so that we may address them. Merely stating that issues are there doesn't help fix the problems. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 01:01, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Merely stating that issues are there doesn't help fix the problems. As before, that's not the case here as even the most cursory of glances at this talk page shows. --Ronz (talk) 01:08, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you are not making any suggestions on how to improve the article. I understand you know very well that this is the whole point of the discussion here. Thanks! NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 01:20, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:DR, "Focus on article content during discussions, not on editor conduct; comment on content, not the contributor." Per WP:NOT, "Focus on improving the encyclopedia itself, rather than demanding more from other Wikipedians." --Ronz (talk) 16:29, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This comment is about how to fix the article itself. I am not sure why do you claim that the article has too many primary sources. Based on my evaluation I see majority of newspaper reports by other journalists describing the events. If you could give me examples of primary sources then we could move forward with addressing them. My understanding is that you are sticking behind the tag stating problems on the article. Let me know if that is not correct anymore. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 16:49, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]


There has been a lot of discussion about the quality of sources used on the article. I am maintaining a list here to comment and discuss. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 22:55, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]


1. Pandya, Samta P. “New Strategies of New Religious Movements: The Case of Art of Living Foundation.” Sociological Bulletin, vol. 64, no. 3, 2015, pp. 287–304. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26290743.

Although India specific. This article covers social projects in great detail. Defines the role of social services in spiritual practice promoted by the foundation. It also analyzes how the foundations used this as a strategy to reach out to people. Describes the role of local governments and their partnerships with the organization.


2. Visnikar H, Mesko G. Evaluation of The Art of Living Basic Course as the Anti-stress Program for police Officers in the Slovenian Police. Republic of Slovenia: Ministry for Internal Affairs; 2002.

There are many research articles covering the effect of "Sudarshan Kriya" practice on the foundations website [13], but this one particularly stands out as it describes their "Basic" course as a whole. May also be used a reference for AOL programs tailored for specific communities.


3. Tøllefsen, I., 2011. Art of living: Religious entrepreneurship and legitimation strategies. International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 2(2), pp.255-279. doi:10.1558/ijsnr.v2i2.255

This is a good article describing the global AOL movement as "religious" entrepreneurship, with a specific focus on Norway and Europe. It also has a good discussion on classification of Art of Living as a religious organization. Some this is relevant for the discussion above on this page. However, more importantly it is a good source to talk about programs and courses apart from the official website of the foundation. It can also be used as a reference for the movement being compatible to vedic philosophy. This article also has another interesting remark about how bulk of sources have been authored by those connected with the organization, and shares another common feature with the discussion here on Wikipedia. Several points may also be used in the criticism section here in the section about religious entrepreneurship and organization's offerings as "repackaging" of other forms of similar techniques found in Indian yogic culture.


4. Allen Salkin, "Emperor of Air". 2007. https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/emperor-of-air

Although this article is an interview it serves as a good secondary reference for many facts about the organization such as centers, number of visitors etc., programs and offerings along with medical research on them, and social impact projects. The only issue here is that some of the numbers maybe a bit dated given that it was written in 2007. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NewlyHookedToWiki (talk • contribs) 23:13, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]


5. Jacobs, S. (2015). The Art of Living Foundation. London: Routledge.

This book covers the foundation very well. Shows an example of what all topics should this wiki article cover. Should definitely be looked into. I don't have access to it, but browsed through table of contents. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 04:03, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(alt) Shorter article by the same author: Stephen Jacobs, Inner Peace and Global Harmony: Individual Wellbeing and Global Solutions in the Art of Living, Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, Volume 6, Issue 4, 2014-10-01, Pages 873-889, ISSN 2000-1525 http://dx.doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.146873

  • Characterizes AOLF as (Seva-Sadhana-Satsang model):
    • therapeutic discourse (Self-Help) as in offering Self-development programs etc. (Sadhana)
    • Hindu inspired-meditation: Inner peace to bring about global harmony, combine aspects of Hinduism (Sudarshan Kriya is a type of pranayama, mantras, pujas, kirtans) (Satsang)
    • NGO concerned with social problems: 'Spirituality to bring social change' (Seva)
  • Courses for inner-well being (sadhana):
    • "attenuation of doctrine and the emphasis on practice are associated with the idea that AOL is not a religion, but spirituality."
    • Describes "Basic Course": lasts two and a half days, participants are taught sudarshan kriya
    • Graduate Courses:
      • The art of silence: 4-5 day residential course (at one of the AOL centers). Held in silence.
      • The Art of Meditation Course’ or Sahaj Samadhi Meditation
  • Cultural events (satsang):
    • Many AOL events are promoted as 'satsangs'
    • Emphasis on ‘a one world family’ (see also, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam)
      • Silver jubilee celebrations (25th anniversary, not in this article, but can be used from [14])
      • World Culture Festival in Berlin (30th Anniversary of AOLF) - cultural, spiritual and quasi-political
      • World Cultural Festival (35th Anniversary)
  • Social work / Other's well-being (Seva):
    • Partner organisation - International Association for Human Values (IAHV):
      • Main focus is on alleviating trauma and reducing stress through teaching AOL techniques
      • YES for Schools for education, (also sky for campus -- not mentioned in this article)
      • Aid and care for disaster areas around the world: examples, Haiti earthquake, Hurricane Katrina
      • Prison Programs, Project Welcome Home Troops (both not mentioned in this article)
      • Many of the crisis interventions also involve development projects, such as rebuilding schools, and creating community gardens for growing food.
    • AOL's commercial and social enterprise to support these initiatives:
      • Literature- commentaries on various Hindu texts such as Bhagavad Gita, biographies
      • Devotional music, guided meditations. etc.
      • Ayurvedic products and cosmetics ie. Sri Sri Ayurveda: Energizer drinks etc.


6. Chryssides, George D.. Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements, Scarecrow Press, 2011. This has an entry of AOLF. pg 75. Important highlights:

  • AOL denies being a religious organization.
  • Talks about AOL's Basic Course (says 5-7, but AOL website says 3 days). Graduate courses: Sahaj Samadhi (4-10 days) and DSN (Do something now).
  • AOLF projects are involving disaster relief, agricultural development, environmental protection, education, work in prisons, improving the status of women, and world peace
  • The International Association for Human Values (IAHV) works with AOLF, implementing development programs, promoting human values, and seeking conflict resolution.
  • IAHV claims achievements in Iraq, Côte d’Ivoire, Kashmir, and Bihar.


@Ronz, DMacks, and Ravensfire: I would like to invite you to review these references here. The can be used to significantly improve the quality of the article. I understand that I may be asking too much from you, but if we have a consensus on this we could have other editors to build on this. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 07:09, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A larger issue seems to be the fact that the entire article appears to have been copied from the Foundation's website. This text needs to be rewritten so that it is in your own words. Wikipedia articles should WP:NOTMIRROR other sites, nor should they contain WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASED material.  Spintendo  13:04, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion in this sectioon is irrelevant to the issue pointed by User talk:Spintendo.


I will leave this discussion here for some more time to comment upon. I'd be happy to improve the article on my own using these sources. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 00:16, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No citation for DPI NGO

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I didn't find any good citation for the following statement:

The Art of Living is a DPI NGO (Department of Public Information), which means it plays an active role in communicating and contributing to various United Nations goals (such as the UN Millennium Goals and the Stand Up initiative).

Please feel free to add it back with a proper reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NewlyHookedToWiki (talk • contribs) 17:01, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Needs a subsection on IAHV

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Needs more info about partner organization. I have requested to whitelist artofliving[dot]org/us-en/partner-organization-iahv. This can be referenced to statement about IAHV. There is also a relevant media that can be used here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IAHV,_Jordan_Program_At_Syrian_Refugee_Camp.jpg which is used on the article on European_Union. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 03:53, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is already some information about IAHV dispersed across Wikipedia as seen in this search result [15]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NewlyHookedToWiki (talk • contribs) 03:56, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested See Also

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Should any of this be added to the page?

List of notable persons connected with the organization. These pages acknowledge connection with the organization Rhea Pillai, Niraj Gera, Maheish Girri, Gayatri Asokan, Swami Purnachaitanya, Bhanumathi Narasimhan, Pakhi Tyrewala, Pradip Somasundaran, Iman Mutlaq (IAHV)

List of related pages: Sri Sri Ayurveda, Gurudev: On the Plateau of the Peak, Sri Sri Centre for Media Studies, Sri Sri University, World Forum for Ethics in Business, World Cultural Festival

--NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 04:10, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Care for Children

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The care for children section doesn't provide much details. The following may be added:

According to 2015 Tax returns filed by their American chapter, the foundation provided grants of half a million US dollars under Care for Children's Dollar a Day program. [16]. This increased to almost $US1M in 2016.

Although I am not too sure how cite this link [17] from ProPublica search tool.

NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 21:58, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Those are primary sources. I don't believe any weight is due to normal business reporting. --Ronz (talk) 22:15, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. But on the other hand we will have to have some primary sources given that the organization and its activities are current. It may not be possible to find secondary sources for many of these facts just yet. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 23:03, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to make a list of similar sources already used in the article. If removing them would help clean up the article: NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 00:08, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Cultural Events

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Section on cultural events has been removed.[18] Despite shortcomings, a few of those articles deserve separate articles on their own, such as World Cultural Festival. I am moving it here for a discussion. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 00:49, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a complete list of awards: artofliving[dot]org/art-livings-world-records. We don't need to list them all, but at least its summary, plus mention of the fact they exist and the foundation emphasis on art and cultural needs to be specified.

WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASE

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Text which was found to be insufficiently paraphrased from the source material has been omitted from the article. Text which is added to an article ought to be in an editor's own words, using an editor's own phrasing. A listing of the problematic text may be found here.  Spintendo  12:58, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thats a nice tool for comparison. On going through the links mentioned there, I found that the website with the high percentage of matching content are not the sources for this article. They seem to have copied content for this article. Its not surprising as many websites do rely on wikipedia for their content. Consequently, I had to revert the changes. 171.61.117.106 (talk) 07:43, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Spintendo: I agree this should be examined carefully. My first thought was that it's likely that other websites copied the content from here rather than the opposite.
Archive.org has some backups of bangaloretourism.org. The first version with relevant content is https://web.archive.org/web/20140817114622/http://bangaloretourism.org/bangalore-the-art-of-living.php .
The previous version at Archive.org, dated 21 Aug 2013, is a placeholder without relevant content. This suggests bangaloretourism.org scraped this Wikipedia page sometime after.
Spintendo, it seems like there needs to be a process put in place, if one doesn't already exist, to avoid such mass deletions of content without further investigation. --Ronz (talk) 17:38, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Running the copyvio tool with a 25 April 2013 version of this article gives similar results, so it looks like bangaloretourism.org copied from here. --Ronz (talk) 17:45, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Spintendo, Ronz, IP editor, I happened to notice this discussion. We do have a process for requesting detailed copyright investigation – blanking the page and listing it at WP:CP. I can't do more than glance quickly right now, but (discounting the bangaloretourism site) there does seem to have been a small but not negligible amount of copying – stuff about "100 million trees" in a source from 2008, added with this edit in 2013, for example. Listing at CP may be the best next step. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:31, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks.
I've spent more time than I would have liked trying to create an entry at WP:CP, with only partial success. I'm not going to work further to try to fix it.
For editors responding: I've had this article on my watchlist for a long time because of regular COI and SOAP problems. No doubt there were some copyvios in all the mess that didn't get detected or properly cleaned up. --Ronz (talk) 00:21, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone ahead and removed the disputed content while this is worked out. I'm not sure if the article should be blanked completely. --Ronz (talk) 00:33, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Copying my comments from COIN:
Running Earwig's Copyvio Detector on older versions of this article:
04:44, 16 December 2012 gives 91.6%.
18:07, 11 June 2012 gives 91.5%.
23:43, 28 November 2011 gives 82.7%.
I've no idea how to proceed, but this still suggests to me that the other website copied the Wikipedia article. --Ronz (talk) 01:10, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I just read what Ronz has said above and then saw the links he has kindly shared. It only shows that what he said about that tourism website copying stuff was true. And as Justlettersandnumbers said, if there are parts where editors have copied from other websites, wouldn't marking them as something that needs editing be better? At least visitors can then know where they can contribute.
As for the promotional language mentioned by Spintendo, can't some admins or moderators request some experienced editors to improve it rather than removing entire blocks of information? I'm not experienced so i don't know much of how this part works. But if editors don't see what needs editing how will they edit? Thanks 122.171.112.47 (talk) 03:11, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. For the longest time, I see that no effort is being made to improve the article itself. I have copied some references above which provide ample material to furnish a good article on the topic. I am hesitant to edit the article myself because then the experience editors here start slamming allegations that we are being paid to edit.NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 03:33, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken the liberty to make a few changes. Would be nice if someone reviewed and advised if that helps. I can continue based on that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.171.112.47 (talk) 03:46, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm waiting for a response to the copyright concerns. As I understand it, potential copyright violations are supposed to be removed from the article until resolved. --Ronz (talk) 04:12, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I find this discussion rather misguided. A cursory glance at the links pointing to copyright violations reveals that those website have copied the Wikipedia content than content being copied to Wikipedia. NewlyHookedToWiki (talk) 03:30, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

mission green earth UNEP associations?

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  • Purported UNEP source is a dead, archived link to a spammy site. Of the only two hits on UN associated sites to ever mention this mission, one is from a 2021 survey of faith based orgs and AoL themselves mention it without UNEP/UNMP association. The other includes a submission from AoL's sister org to UN Economic and Social Council, where they only say "Activities aligned with Millennium Development Goals" and mention no UN agency association). Archived ToI & Hindu links are barely more than PRs and based solely on comments from AoL.
  • In trying to find reputable sources, there's the issue of there being only 700 hits if AoL related sites are excluded (and just 8 before 2010) for "United Nations Mission Green Earth". Of the few non-spammy hits, all seem to be just PR copies from AoL.

So there's nothing to say it's a UN or UNEP program. UN refs should ideally be dropped and the text should just say that they announced a campaign aligned with UN millennium goals. Hemanthah (talk) 11:08, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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These kind of wordpress blogs are there for every organisation the size of AOL. It was never in news. For an organisation the size of AOL, It is unnecessary to advertise such trivial controversies on the main page. The said incident was never in news, Only 1 article was published in the entire internet. This looks like a deliberate attempt of advertisement of libel on the part of wikipedia editors — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teja srinivas (talk • contribs) 2022-01-26T03:13:35 (UTC)

I presume this is about "Settlement with bloggers" section. What exactly are you disputing here - that it is libel or that it is trivial (in general, libel isn't trivial)? Eastbayexpress.com is a tabloid, but has been cited a lot and the brief RSN discussion didn't throw up any redflags. If you are disputing it's reliability, take it to WP:RSN. Also as a note, per WP:BRD, after you get reverted, you discuss; not revert again. It's not BRRD after all. hemantha (brief) 03:44, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Teja srinivas? As you've repeatedly removed content, you can't choose to not answer this. hemantha (brief) 05:37, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The Wordpress You are insistent on keeping in the main page of a gigantic organisation; violates the Notability Rule of wikipedia and is considered as an advertisement. It is not newsworthy, gauged by the fact that the entire incident is covered by only one article in the entire internet in a tabloid magazine. The Tabloid article mentions that the said blog has 489 views in totality. Cite alternate news sources for it to be qualified to be included in the main page of the Organization. तेजा శ్రీనివాస్ 08:17, 26 January 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teja srinivas (talk • contribs)
Teja srinivas, The article isn't referencing any wordpress site? There is no need to find alternate sources because as of now, apart from you, nobody has questioned East Bay Express. If you get consensus at WP:RSN, take it off; but not until then. Notability policy you are quoting is for articles, not article content. Please take some time to read the links and make a coherent argument; otherwise restore the material. hemantha (brief) 08:49, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"But the foundation’s US chapter still decided to sue Klim and Skywalker anyway, alleging that during the two months it was posted, the manuals garnered enough page views (498, according to data tabulated by WordPress) to wreak economic damage on the organization, which normally sells its techniques for a fee."
Yes, The Article referred to the wordpress site and has declared the the said page has a total of 498 (Four Hundred and Ninety eight) views. So this is certainly a plot by certain certain nefarious wikipedia editors to advertise the blog when it had no initial views. So according to WP:Notability rules, the said article is not eligible to get published in the wikipedia main page. तेजा శ్రీనివాస్ 09:48, 26 January 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teja srinivas (talk • contribs)
You seem confused - the removed section is about the lawsuit; blog isn't even mentioned by name, let alone being advertised. Since you haven't really said why the lawsuit needs no mention, I'm restoring the content. Please note that if you revert again without suitable reason, it'll count as WP:EDITWAR and I'll report you as such. hemantha (brief) 12:16, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Since you say the blog which got 498 views before getting published on Wikipedia isnt being advertised, I removed the names of the blogs. Since your concern is only about the Copyright lawsuit, I kept it intact. तेजा శ్రీనివాస్ 13:51, 26 January 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teja srinivas (talk • contribs)

Promotional tone.

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Hipal Sir, the reference used in the line shows nothing to me. Ambalangirl (talk) 06:05, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hipal Sir??? Ambalangirl (talk) 06:54, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I don't understand. Is it or is it not a proper description referenced by independent, reliable sources? --Hipal (talk) 21:54, 6 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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