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WP:OR, Recent Lead Paragraph Edits to state Founder Left the Vadtal Temple

Hi all, recently unregistered users have been editing the lead paragraph to imply that Shastriji Maharaj left the Swaminarayan Sampradaya even though the cited references do not explicitly state that. My attempts to restore the original version have been reverted. Everyone, please review these edits. Harshmellow717 (talk) 03:27, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Hello,

A source was added that clearly states that Shastri left Vadtal. What more do you want? 200.52.183.195 (talk) 03:44, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

After reviewing the references provided for the new edit, I agree with @Harshmellow717:. This is clear WP:SYNTH, and we ask that you abide by WP policy in making edits to this article. Moksha88 (talk) 13:43, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
@Applebutter221: The cited sources state that he left the Vadtal diocese, not the Swaminarayan Sampradaya. The Sampradaya encompasses multiple traditions would not need to be explained here context. Otherwise, your proposed statement misrepresents what these sources state and implies he left the Sampradaya altogether which is why it is WP:SYNTH. These details are thus addressed in the article. (1). Moksha88 (talk) 21:32, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Hello @Applebutter221: As Moksha88 (talk · contribs) pointed out, the cited references simply state that he left the Vadtal temple. They do not explicitly state or imply that he left the Swaminarayan Sampradaya, so to assume anything otherwise would be OR. Here is what all four cited sources say verbatim:
Also, the topic of Shastriji Maharaj leaving Vadtal is already discussed in detail with appropriate context in the “Schism and early foundational years (1905–1950)” section of the article. It is inappropriate to include further details regarding this in the lead since we will not be able to accommodate the necessary context in the lead paragraph given the need to be concise. Applebutter221 (talk · contribs), your opinion that Shastriji Maharaj is not of the Swaminarayan Sampradaya because “He is outcast for breaking scriptures, betraying Swaminarayans family, and his god... Theologically, per the scriptures, shashtriji is is not in the Swaminarayan Sampraday created by Swaminarayan. He is an outcast for disavowing commandments and still in the cycle of reincarnation, basically hell in Hinduism. Plus he was okay with own image being worshiped. Pretty much his character was a lowlife.” is not supported by scholarly sources, so being un-encyclopedic, it is inappropriate for Wikipedia (see WP:WWIN and WP:NOTESSAY). Harshmellow717 (talk) 03:13, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
I am having a hard time seeing the encyclopedic value here, as well. Wikipedia is not a battleground to argue theology, nor does it welcome hostile aggressiveness (WP:NOTHERE). Applebutter221 (talk · contribs), please review WP:5P4 for a reminder about using respectful and civil language.
The 5 sources that Applebutter221 (talk · contribs) has added repeat the same information from the 4 that Harshmellow717 (talk · contribs) has cited. Adding them would not be necessary (WP:OVERKILL). That Shastriji Maharaj left the Vadtal temple is already described in the History//Formation section, which seems the appropriate section to note this point. I don’t see what is misleading about it. PinkElixir (talk) 14:14, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
Applebutter221 (talk · contribs), you seem to have misunderstood the purpose of a lead section. The lead should reflect topics relative to the importance given to them within the article (WP:LEADREL). I don’t think there is a dispute about the validity of the statement that he left the Vadtal temple; that is why it is already appropriately noted in the history within the formation and schism and early foundational years subsection. Given the length of the entire article and other topics discussed within it, it is inaccurate to add this to the lead paragraph.
In addition, I am not sure if you read my previous reminder about respectful and civil language. Let me also remind you to refrain from personal attacks, as we assume good faith on Wikipedia (WP:NPA and WP:AGF). PinkElixir (talk) 17:17, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

References

npov

The presentation of this article is in a wholly promotional and highly innappropriate style for wikipedia. This is an organisation with a million followers and not one significant negative thing to say about it? The tone of the article and its construction suggests editors with significant WP:COI? AlasdairEdits (talk) 19:59, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

It would not be appropriate to insert controversies that do not meet acceptable notability guidelines. It is difficult to demonstrate WP:COI in an article hundreds of editors have worked on for over 10 years. It is not obvious why the NPOV label makes sense here. Actionjackson09 (talk) 16:52, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
I have actively contributed in the past to both the article and the talk pages. I myself have been part of the many talk page discussions regarding different issues. There are many articles about religious organizations on Wikipedia that do not not have any controversies Bahá'í_Faith, Mormons, etc - does it mean that these articles have been edited by editors who have a conflict of interest? I am going to remove the NPOV tag - because I see no issue with the article. Instead I am going to propose editors to help me clean the article. Kapil.xerox (talk) 01:43, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
AJ, there are only a half-dozen editors with more than 5 edits to the page so far this year: @Swamiblue, Kapil.xerox, LeadSongDog, Sacredsea, Bbb23, and Actionjackson09: The top five earlier other editors were: @World, 141.217.233.69, Sfacets, Tuncrypt, and User2004: but none of those have touched the article in the past three years.

Article Clean Up

I have been pretty busy the start of this year with real life stuff. I feel it would be a good use of my summer to work on revamping a bit of this article. Yes, the article is still in good shape in certain areas but it looks pretty shabby in few areas. User:Actionjackson09, Tardispower, User:Swamiblue, Tale.Spin, User talk:Sacredsea, AlasdairEdits - would you be able to help? Kapil.xerox (talk) 02:00, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

It would be interesting to collaborate on this topic. I can take a preliminary read of the article and propose areas that need fixing. I am not a subject matter expert, so this would be more from an outsider perspective about the things that seem relevant and those that don't. From a very quick overview, what I noticed is that perhaps the ordering of the article can be re-arranged. I would suggest that the "origins" section, and the "philosophical" section come before the "mandirs" section. While the "mandirs" section may be interesting, they sound like a topic that may be secondary to the origin story and the philosophical stance of this organization. I was unclear on their importance until I followed up by reading about Mandirs on a separate article. Perhaps that connection between philosophy and mandirs can be made clearer. --Tardispower (talk) 14:54, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
I went ahead and read the article more thoroughly. I noticed a few things that I felt could be better represented in the navigation pane. It would be good if a subject matter expert can review this, but it seems like Pramukh Swami Maharaj is the living guru. I did not see any mention of Bhadreshdas in the article, who seems to be an external scholar studying this faith. I thus separated it in the navigation pane to prevent any confusions. I would appreciate a secondary look to confirm this. --Tardispower (talk) 03:39, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
I agree, Kapil.xerox, the article looks good, but could use work in some areas. I'll have some time over the next few weeks. Work is finally letting up a bit [knock on wood]. Actionjackson09 (talk) 16:10, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
@Tardispower - I reviewed the changes you made. They look fine to me. It was definitely confusing to outsiders to have Bhadresdas Swami in the list of Figures. Yes! That needed to be separated. I am also thinking along the lines of expanding the navigation pane to include AARSH and Bhadreshdas Swami in one related section. This article needs some content to link to the Bhadreshdas Swami article who is an important erudite Hindu scholar. Yes - the Mandir section need not be the first section. Let's clean that up. Cheers! Kapil.xerox (talk) 13:18, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
I've just done a huge named ref merger on the Williams refs, but there are many more still to be done. I'd suggest Kim as the next. It's a pretty mechanical exercise, but the article needs it desperately.LeadSongDog come howl! 16:40, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Adding to 'History' section and adding a new 'Festivals' section

Reading through the article, it looks like the history section walks through Foundation and Early Years (1905-1950), and then Development and Organizational Formation (1950-1971), but doesn't really have any information post-1971. I think there is value in researching and adding to the section to bring it up to the current day. What does everyone think? I found the following source from the organization's website. I'll have more time later this week to do some more research. http://www.baps.org/About-BAPS/TheCurrentSpiritualGuru-PramukhSwamiMaharaj/Spiritual-Lineage.aspx

Also, it seems like the celebration of festivals is a key component for this sect. Do we think there is value in adding a new section to explore this further? Actionjackson09 (talk) 03:20, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

It is true that the article is in need of a History section post-1971 and a Festivals section. I have added most of the early History sections but haven't found the time to complete the third era. If I can't be a big part of this - I would at least request that the flow be maintained. I will look into how I can quickly add a working draft since this is a really long section to begin with. It is not that I am interested in owning it. I feel it is best if editors try their best to maintain the original tone that I started with. Kapil.xerox (talk) 13:19, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
From a brief look at this organization's website, it seems that it does organize festivals, but I do not think it merits inclusion in this article. The celebration of festivals is not significant enough to warrant a section. It is a bit like having a section on how a Church celebrates Christmas every year. Unless there is truly something notable in connection with some Hindu festivals and this organization, I do not think it needs to be included in this article. However, I agree with the user above that including a section expanding the history section to the current date would improve the article quality. The list of achievements near the end of the article all seem to be from this "third era" and it makes sense to include a history on that topic. --Tardispower (talk) 23:21, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Re order sections of article

Should we move the history section after the lead section? Seems like it would read better. Any thoughts?Actionjackson09 (talk) 01:30, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it makes sense to make history the first section. But I'd say the introduction needs work because it isn't clear what BAPS actually is/does without reading the full article. Also I think letters in parentheses at the beginning need to be removed, i.e. "Bochasanwasi(B) Akshar(A) Purushottam(P) Sanstha(S)" Tale.Spin (talk) 01:54, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

BAPS Charities

Swamiblue, please do not remove an entire section of this article without discussing on the talk page. This section is in no way redundant. All of the information is new and there is no repetition. After reviewing, all of the information is detailed and from reliable sources. Please do not haphazardly remove sections from wiki articles because you alone think it is redundant. Actionjackson09 (talk) 02:42, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

I concur with Actionjackson09 that the information is clearly not redundant with other information in this article. The BAPS Charities section does have a link to a main article on BAPS Charities, however, the information regarding BAPS Charities in this article is a summary, while the information in the BAPS Charities main article is a more detailed and expanded version of this summary. That is how the section-main article system is meant to work. I would invite Swamiblue to share their thoughts regarding this on the talk page, and see if we can develop an alternate consensus on this issue. Until then, it appears that consensus remains in favor of keeping that section in the article, so I will go ahead and revert it until another consensus emerges.Sacredsea (talk) 22:11, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

:::The information is clearly repeating and you have said your self that the the BAPS Charities section does have a link to a main article on BAPS Charities. The article is excessively long and too wordy. The purpose of the article is to give information about BAPS, not draw out other articles. The paragraph neatly summarizes baps charities and provided the link. I assume that kapil and pundit will be here shortly in no time to disagree with me, give typical reasons and state the same stuff over and over again and revert my edits. I am requesting users without bias to provide their input. Until then, I am taking action of WP:bold and reverting your edit.Swamiblue (talk) 01:07, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, the section deleted by Swamiblue is well-written, well-referenced, cogent and relevant to the article, not 'excessively long' or 'too wordy'. But, let's see if other editors besides myself and Actionjackson09 agree or disagree. Sacredsea (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

::Consensus reached. Swamiblue (talk) 02:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

LeadSongDog, thank you for cleaning up the references. It was long overdue and improves the article. I noticed you also removed considerable material in the section on BAPS Charities. In April, a discussion occurred on this talk page about whether to keep that very same passage in this article. The consensus was to keep the passage. See above. Actionjackson09 (talk) 13:15, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Sorry that I did not notice the above discussion. The consensus, though, was between just two contributors and in any case wp:Consensus can change. It is clearly wrong to repeat so much of the main article here. It is often better to wp:PARTRANS the lede of the wp:main article so that they remain consistent and so that references reside in one place, with the text. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:10, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
There is an archived talk page which includes a discussion on the Charities section. Refer to: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Bochasanwasi_Akshar_Purushottam_Swaminarayan_Sanstha&oldid=728460422#RfC:_Is_the_longer_version_for_the_section_entitled_BAPS_Charities_in_the_BAPS_article_needed_when_the_link_to_BAPS_charities_is_included.3F
In that thread, two other users had agreed to keep the longer summary of the Charities section. Looking at the both discussions, four users have voted to keep the longer summary. Accordingly, I’m reverting to the previous version of the Charities section. We have to respect the consensus reached. Actionjackson09 (talk) 16:09, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
@Actionjackson09:Even if it had been four, that's a very limited consensus. The vast majority of that section should be consideded as promotional content based on POV sources: much of it is sourced directly from BAPS or BAPS Charities. It's bad enough to have that crap in the main article, but to have it repeated here is entirely unjustifiable. Would we want every faith's top article to similarly list all the tiny charitable acts they do? How far down that path would you want us to go? It simply does not belong in an encyclopedia. Further, when you reintroduce deleted statements, you should be aware that you are confirming that you have verified each of their cited sources as properly supporting those statements. Have you done that yet? LeadSongDog come howl! 15:26, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

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RfC: Is the "Fraud Organization" section relevant?

Should the article contain accusations of being a Fraud Organization? Dan Koehl (talk) 15:55, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Where is the prior discussion that made a formal thirty-day RfC necessary? See WP:RFCBEFORE. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Secondary Sources

I've added multiple secondary sources to address the tag on this page. I'll continue to add these secondary sources. I'm removing the tag.Actionjackson09 (talk) 20:32, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

In reviewing this article, I was trying to understand why the advert tag has been in place since September 2018. I'm going to take a closer look to see which edits were made prior to the placement of this ad and invite anyone interested to help me. Moksha88 (talk) 16:57, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

In reviewing the past versions of the article, the advert tag was placed on 9/13/18. Prior to this version, it appears multiple edits were made, mostly by unregistered users. I think the 2/11/18 version by @Actionjackson09: is a good starting point. Do you agree Actionjackson? Moksha88 (talk) 23:38, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, looks like there were a handful of edits made over the past year or so. I'll take a look to see if anything can be cleaned up with a view to remove the advert tag.Actionjackson09 (talk) 02:00, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
@Actionjackson09: Looks good for the most part. You corrected POV material that had been inserted between these two versions. I also took the liberty of fixing one of the sentences which used multiple references to draw a conclusion not directly stated by any of them [WP:SYNTH]. We should review it one more time just to make sure we didn't miss anything. Moksha88 (talk) 23:50, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Pending a drastic overhaul, am not seeing how the tag may be removed. ∯WBGconverse 04:17, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric: Thank you for responding. Can you please clarify which sections you feel need to be rewritten and why? Thank you. Moksha88 (talk) 14:19, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
After a thorough review of the article, specifically with the intent to find promotional content and inappropriate external links (as per the advert tags definition), I conclude that there isn't any advertisement-like content in this article. I believe this article has been written within the policy of WP:NPOV. Additionally, the references used for the article are valid primary and secondary sources corroborating the content. I look forward to hearing everyone's conclusions after they, too, thoroughly review the article. Apollo1203 (talk) 12:06, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
This tag interested me as I had worked on some tangential articles to this in the past. I've done a pretty deep dive into the content here as well as the sources, and I'm not seeing anything that stands out as being promotional. Being a page related to religion I believe it can be easily confused but the tone of the language is very objective and unbiased. I also do not see any puffery. I noticed that there was perhaps some verbiage in prior versions during my review that may have initially been the cause of the tag but in the current state I wouldn't agree that this tag should be kept. Furthermore to @Winged Blades of Godric:'s above message for a massive overhaul I would again disagree. There are basic facts presented in this article which after review of similar religious pages seem to align with both structure and content with them as well. After thorough review I can say with certainty that neither the content nor the sources contain any advertising, propaganda, marketing or personal relation type content. I welcome @Winged Blades of Godric:'s pointed assistance on what they believe may be the violating language and propose we work to come to a consensus. Regards ThaNDNman224 (talk) 19:58, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
I don't understand why the advert tag was placed. I agree with the points made by thandman224 and apollo. I'm removing the tag. Actionjackson09 (talk) 16:04, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Lead Paragraph Edits

In an effort to further improve this article, I have placed an edited lead paragraph in my sandbox and invite you all to review and suggest any edits or improvements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Apollo1203/sandbox Apollo1203 (talk) 05:38, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Apollo1203, bravo! Yes, this paragraph reads much better than the current version. I made a few minor edits. For the number of temples, we ought to use a secondary source. Let me see if I can find one. Also, there seems to be an error with the ISBN number for Reference #8. Moksha88 (talk) 07:57, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, Moksha88. I've corrected the ISBN error in the last reference. Please update accordingly once you find a secondary source on the number of temples. Thank you! Apollo1203 (talk) 11:31, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
Apollo1203, I found a current source verifying the number of mandirs and reworded the sentence to avoid WP:WEASEL. Moksha88 (talk) 06:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Moksha88 thank you for adding the source for the number of mandirs! Apollo1203 (talk) 05:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Reality

I firmly oppose all those editors who without assurance say that: " The org. Should realize that their Guinness Records are not authentic." Just go and Check all the proof at our headquarters.,And all other who are fond of saying without confirmation may come to any of our centers and please dont say without confirming any thing at 100% level surety — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.100.146.248 (talk) 05:41, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

If there is a Guinness record it is easily verifiable with the Guinness records organisation themselves. 86.24.167.96 (talk) 18:42, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

They have a article at the website for Guinness world records, it is factual Tilakny (talk) 08:32, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Mantralekhan

I didn't see coverage of Mantralekhan, which is a site with 11k users and 195 million mantralekhan. The purpose of this site is for adherents to type Swaminarayan, and the site keeps an ongoing total count.

There haven't been updates since 2010, but the site and twitter account still exist:

Additional refs:


Avindratalk 20:39, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

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