Talk:Michael Tobias/Archive 1

Dancing Star controversy

Thest that read "In February 2009, Tobias became the center of a controversy surrounding an animal sanctuary run by Dancing Star Foundation, of which he is the president. He had reportedly ordered a culling of rescued and retired farm animals that live at the sanctuary, claiming the financial inability to care for them any longer." was removed with the explanation that "Deleted material violates Wikipedia policy. It is defamatory, advocacy, blatant COI, based on unfounded allegations, unreliably and dishonestly sourced, and ignores contradictory facts." I have looked at the reliable and verifiable sources provided and they seem to support the claims made here. I see no defamation or advocacy. I see no conflict of interest, blatant or otherwise. The allegations are straight from the source, with no apparent dishonesty. If there are contradictory facts being ignored, they should be added. I see no reason to delete this material from the article. Alansohn (talk) 02:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Since the information is sourced and it does not violate WP:BLP in any way, there needs to be a discussion about this, rather than just wholesale removal of the material. The person(s) removing it are welcome to add their own sourced counterpoints to those facts, or discuss them here. §FreeRangeFrog 02:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The language used in the edit summaries is usually letter-for-letter the same. Anybody else detect the stink of sockpuppets? --Orange Mike | Talk 03:13, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Probably. See Wikipedia:AN#Michael Tobias §FreeRangeFrog 03:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I've updated this section to include Dancing Star's side of the story. It would be biased to include only one side. Note that Cal Coast News is operated by two veteran journalists. However, I wouldn't consider it to be as reliable as a CBS affiliate. Since its two stories cooberate the CBS5.com story, I don't see a problem including them as references as well. Personally, the fact that so many animals suddenly required euthanizing over such a short period of time lends a lot of credence to the employee's claims. Rklawton (talk) 04:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Organization

This article still needs significant reorganization to help it conform to more typical biographical pieces. Rklawton (talk) 03:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

To wit:

• Family
• Education
• Books
• Movies
• Businesses (or Career)
• Philanthropy
• Controversies
• External links
• See also
• References

Rklawton (talk) 03:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, structure needs improvement. In addition, though, it isn't obvious to me that the entire disputed section (California animal sanctuaries) has any place here. Yes, Tobias should be noted as President, sure. But unless sources are alleging direct involvement with the controversy or the policy decisions leading to it, then the material belongs in an article on the sanctuary. Placing it here implies a direct association with the issue, which if the sources don't support it violates WP:NPOV, at least. Rd232 ^talk 01:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. In this case, the sources do make exactly this allegation. They also allege that Tobias and his wife are drawing excessive salaries. However, Tobias has removed this from the Dancing Star section as well. Rklawton (talk) 01:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Having tidied the sources a bit I had another look, and I'm not convinced. The response of the Foundation ([1]) and independent animal services etc, and even the WP:RS reporting of these (eg citing the vets) suggests that this is a recentist storm in a tea cup. Furthermore, again, only one source links Tobias to this at all, and then only with a quote to the media via the PR director.[2] So again, does this really belong (a) here and (b) in WP? I would say (a) no and (b) maybe in a DSF article. Rd232 ^talk 02:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Salaries - if they raised enough controversy - may be relevant, since that is clearly about Tobias and there are multiple WP:RS noting the issue. Rd232 ^talk 02:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Unless we have reliable sources indicating Tobias made or approved these decisions, then I support your recommendations. I did find a source that claimed employees had notified Tobias, but I don't think that source is as reliable, and the link is still tenuous. If you'd like to take a stab at adding the salary issues as well as starting the new article, I'll do what I can to lend a hand. Rklawton (talk) 03:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

OK but I don't know if I'll have time soon, so please don't wait for me to get started, with eg moving stuff to Dancing Star Foundation. Rd232 ^talk 05:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to hold off until after the topic ban request sorts itself out. Tobias just reverts my edits. Rklawton (talk) 05:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Animal euthanasia

The California animal sanctuaries section introduces the subject of animal euthanasia. This subject should be linked to the related article since it describes this subject in greater detail. This is especially important because some readers may not be familiar with the ethics and various other considerations associated with killing animals for the purpose of ending their suffering. Rklawton (talk) 19:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Confirm

The SLO source, seeking to confirm the stories from the former employees, spoke with a current employee. They reported that he "confirmed" their stories. They also reported that this employee's employement was terminated the next day. "Confirm" is what fact checkers and editors do to assure themselves they aren't just dealing with cranks.

Speaking of fairness and confirmation, we should probably explicitly note in this section that neither local officials nor Farm Sanctuary were able to contradict the claims these former employees made - that the animals were killed as a cost-cutting measure and in contradiction to Dancing Star's mission. The former only indicated they found no evidence that laws were broken, and the latter indicated that they could not make a determination at all. By including the statements made by this two organizations without further explanation, we are leaving the reader to possibly erroneously conclude that the former employees claims were unfounded. Only Dancing Star makes this self-serving claim. Rklawton (talk) 00:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Lots of material verging on self promotion in "new age" and related articles

Im a little annoyed with the amount of excessive promotional tone and subtle bias in the New Age articles in WP. ill try to fix it up a little bit at a time. i agree this is poorly structured and written. im fairly knowledgeable about the topics, but i believe i can tell the difference between writing for a general audience and preaching to the converted. i have set up Parabola (magazine) to be an article, all WP references to it are redlinked.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 03:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

"complicated grownup stuff"

Ray Eston Smith Jr (talk) 01:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Removed my previous comment, which was about a quote from Michael Tobis, whom I had confused with Michael Tobias. Ray Eston Smith Jr (talk) 01:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Removing poorly sourced material from BLP article

Hi Wikpedians,

I've read through the talk pages and see a long trend of discussion about this article being poorly or inaccurately sourced, with questionable content being included. This article definitely needs cleanup. As I'm reading through it, I see the article has some weasel words and peacock terms, which I will boldly remove. Also, I see some of the claims are sourced only to primary source material a la either the Dancing Star Foundation webpage, or Michael Tobias dot org, which looks to me to be a questionable source, and likely a page he or his representative set up.

I will of course source check and look for better sources for info however none can be found then the proper thing to do is to remove the unsourced/poorly sourced material.

Thanks much. I'll aim to swing back here and leave notes before I leave. Curdigirl (talk) 16:07, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

So, it looks like no content about Michael Tobias' biography is available at Zorba Press. The provided link is dead, although the site is live. The site indicates it will be redesigned but in the meantime, there is no source for some of the information that is cited only to Zorba press, particularly some of the intricate details about his mountaineering. Since the info doesn't seem documented outside of self-published sources, it seems very self-promotional (i.e the info only came from Tobias's own foundation website, which is not a reliable source for his biography details.)

I'm being bold and removing such content to reduce the promotional tone for which the article was flagged, over 10 years ago. Curdigirl (talk) 16:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

As I'm reading through I am definitely getting a sense of the promotional tone. A lot of the material in this article has been synthesized by the author who added it, not by the sources provided. That is original research. Hopefully fellow Wikipedia editors understand this is not personal - we just don't put original research into Wikipedia. It doesn't detract from the importance of this person, it just means that we don't just put everyone's biography in Wikipedia just because they have a website with their biography. We need reliable sources.

I'm trying to access these sources which are included as a single citation - saving here bc they need to be reformatted to be of any use.

"Feeding the Population Monster– A review essay based on a new book by Michael Tobias entitled: World War III: Population and the Biosphere At the End of the Millennium," by Ronald Bleier, desip.igc.org/Monster.html;

Thomas Marks' review of World War III, published in the journal Small Wars & Insurgencies, Volume 7, Issue 1 Spring 1996, pages 112– 119; "

(Not a reliable source) -- Population Ethics For the 21st Century," by Michael Tobias, www.populationpress.org/essays/essay-tobias; See also "Listening To Women," by M.Tobias, The Population Press, Volume 10, Number 3, Fall 2004, pp.6–11.

"Regarding a sustainable world," by Olivia Redwine, New Perspectives, Winter 2008, pp.18–21. - No record of this source anywhere but on the Dancing Star website - it appears to be a publication put out by that organization. Saving it here in case it turns out to be useful...or if I can even find it anywhere online.

This source is provided as a citation but seems absolutely unrelated to the claim it is placed after - saving it here in case it may be useful to someone:

"No Vacancy, a Film by Michael Tobias," reviewed by Dr. Alvin Winder, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in Int’l. Quarterly of Community Health Education, Vol. 26(3) 319–320, 2006–2007

Content that doesn't belong

• In an essay on Jain conscience in 1997, Tobias described "the goal of absolute nonviolence" as an ideal that activists worldwide must take seriously, "every waking moment."

• Elsewhere he has argued that evolution does not condemn us; only our choices can do that, adding, "We have the capacity throughout our lives to give unstinting, unconditional love."

The cited resource could not be found:

Choosing Generosity–Filmmaker and author Michael Tobias on developing the capacity for unconditional love and making sense of our passions," Interview by Zoe Weil, Hope Magazine, Spring 2000, No.22, pp.51–53.

• The following section is sourced only to articles written by Michael Tobias. It is actually original research, because it is synthesizing the sources and analyzing them; no independent source is being provided for the analysis that is being claimed:

In examining the Bishnoi, he focused on universal principles of conservation based on long-term ethical convictions. In this case, the Bishnoi of Rajasthan who, during a sustained drought in Western India and Pakistan in 1988, were shown to have saved themselves and their communities and ecosystems through prudent and non-violent ecological behavior, a metaphor for progressive conservation that could be applied throughout Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. He pointed out that the entire society of the Todas of the Nilgiris converted to vegetarianism 1,000 years ago. This transformation of an entire community on ethical grounds is one of the "windows" he cites as key to understanding the potential for the human species to engage in non-violence. In his introduction to the book One Earth he wrote, "The human race is rallying. The earth desperately needs the personal help and restraint of each of us."

Other content that isn't sourced

• the film Ahimsa: "portrayed the life of Digambara, Shwetambara, and Sthanakavasi mendicants." Can't find this documented anywhere but perhaps someone else can. I've removed it from the article bc it is not properly sourced.

Curdigirl (talk) 23:25, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The following content from the section on the sanctuary movement and international conservation efforts is problematic for several reasons:

He endeavors to explore the concept of sanctuary in his, and co-author Jane Gray Morrison’s work, Sanctuary: Global Oases of Innocence. They track efforts by conservationists and animal rights activists to save habitat and individuals. They focused on Alaska (Wrangell-St. Elias National Park with Park Service and United States Fish and Wildlife Service researchers working to save a rare seabird, the Kittlitz's murrelet), the San Francisco Bay Area (Muir Woods and the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge), Central Park, Gene Baur and team’s Farm Sanctuary in Upstate New York, the Central Suriname Nature Reserve with Dr. Russell Mittermeier, the Iberian Wolf Sanctuary in Portugal, the work of Brigitte Bardot in France, continuing efforts to save Bialowieza National Park in eastern Poland and western Belarus, a European brown bear sanctuary in the Netherlands, Michael Aufhauser’s Gut Aiderbichl sanctuary in Salzburg, Austria, Howard Buffett’s cheetah sanctuary (Jubatus) in South Africa, Marieta Van Der Merhe’s Harnas Wildlife Sanctuary in Namibia, and other sanctuaries on Socotra in Yemen, in the United Arab Emirates at Al Maha, at the Al Areen Sanctuary in Bahrain, in the vegetarian Rajasthani city of Pushkar, and the Nilgiris of India (working with the Todas and Dr. Tarun Chhabra), in Indonesian Borneo with Dr. Birute Galdikas at Tanjung Putting National Park, in Brunei’s Ulu Temburong National Park, at a butterfly sanctuary in Malaysia, at nature reserves throughout Singapore, in Thailand, and the many moss temples of Kyoto’s Greenbelt, Japan, and in eastern-most Bhutan’s newest Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary, where he participated in a biodiversity survey across 125 kilometers of little-known Eastern Himalayan high-altitude terrain, under the auspices of Bhutan’s National Biodiversity Centre.

1. Most of the entire paragraph is a run-on sentence.
2. The paragraph is original research. Source is noted as one of Tobias' works, but the analysis of what it contains is entirely original.
3. Why is this even here? Content like this makes the article seem as though it's a resume or promotional kit for Dr. Tobias rather than a neutral encyclopedia article.

For these reasons, I'm removing this content. Citing the source in this case doesn't solve the problem of the original research. Curdigirl (talk) 17:23, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Copy Edit Guild - Cleaned up final thoughts

If you got this far you probably read my comments already. I did significant cleanup on this article and at this point, it needs another set of eyes. Although I know for certain I removed a lot of the promotional stuff, I looked at it for so long I may be missing something at this point. Please review and if it seems to be all good then remove the promotional and advert tags.

Also, it appears the Population and environment – World War III section, is comprised mostly of quotes about his work. It's not a very strongly written section. I did what I could to remove all the promotional material and original research. Perhaps someone has an urge to rewrite it to sound cleaner. Curdigirl (talk) 03:12, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

@Curdigirl: Fellow guild of copy editors editor here. You did a lot to clean this up - good job. I'm going to take a shot and see what I can do to carry on your legacy. It needs a more traditional chronological bio, a better organized, less essay-like section about his work, and better sourcing for his films and books. I started from the most recent films and will work my way back, to see what I can source, and then when I'm more familiar with his work, will take a shot at rewording the bio content. There's a lot of material here - this is going to be a challenge! TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 05:32, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Restoration of lists of books and films

UnnamedUser - fellow guild editor here. Thanks for your help cleaning this up. It looks better, but I wanted to let you know that I restored the list of books and films to the Tobias article, and collapsed it by default since it is so long. I spent several hours hunting down and adding sources for his works, and with the sourcing there now don't think it meets WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I'm not sure it warrants a list fork, since the sourcing is so-so, so the collapse seems like a good compromise. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 01:01, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 December 2020

Tobias was born and raised in San Francisco. He wrote his first book at the age of 7, whilst studying to become a classical pianist under the tutelage of the great Dutch conductor, Antonia Brico. But by an early age Tobias had already begun writing about ecology, animal liberation, as well as pursuing serious mountaineering solos.

In 1977, Tobias received a PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the History of Consciousness, a unique, interdisciplinary program. There, Tobias worked with poet William Everson, ecologist Gregory Bateson, and political philosopher Herbert Marcuse, among others. By then, Tobias was commuting between Big Sur, California and the Himalayas, where he lived for nearly one year, in Ladakh, studying mountain peoples and their ecological systems; alpine ethnography, Tibetan Buddhism, Bonpo and other indigenous traditions. Such research resulted in several of his early books -including two anthologies, Mountain People (University of Oklahoma Press) and The Mountain Spirit (Viking/Penguin/Overlook Publishers) CSNO20 (talk) 13:53, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:14, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 December 2020 (2)

Books 2021 Bhutan: Conservation and Environmental Protection in the Himalayas, with Dr. Ugyen Tshewang and Jane Gray Morrison, Foreword by Dr. Lotay Tshering, Prime Minister of the Royal Government of Bhutan, Preface by His Excellency Lyonpo Yeshey Penjore, Honourable Minister for Agriculture and Forest, Royal Government of Bhutan, Springer Nature, New York/Switzerland. Non-Fiction.[89]

Footnote # 89 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030578237#aboutAuthors

2021 The Earth In Fragments: A Memoir by Michael Charles Tobias, NOVA Science Publishers New York. “Distinguished Men and Women of Science, Medicine and the Arts Series.”Non-Fiction.[90]

Footnote #90 https://novapublishers.com/shop/the-earth-in-fragments-a-memoir-by-michael-charles-tobias/

2021 On the Nature of Ecological Paradox, with Jane Gray Morrison, Preface by Dr. G. Wayne Clough, 12th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution/President Emeritus of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Foreword by Robert Gillespie, President Population Communication, Springer Nature, New York/Switzerland. Non-Fiction.[91]

Footnote #91 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030645250

Films 2020 The Experiment, Director, A Storyteller Production, Dancing Star Foundation, Short Documentary Subject.[92]

Footnote #92 https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/the-experiment-featuring-john-harte-paul-ehrlich-and-michael-tobias/ CSNO20 (talk) 13:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:14, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 January 2021

Add to Selected Works Under Books, the following:

2021 The Earth In Fragments: A Memoir, Nova Science Publishers, New York, Non-Fiction

2021 Bhutan: Conservation and Environmental Protection in the Himalayas, with Ugyen Tshewang and Jane Gray Morrison, Springer New York Publishers, Non-Fiction

2021 On The Nature Of Ecological Paradox, with Jane Gray Morrison, Springer Publishers, New York, Non-Fiction

Films

2020 “The Experiment,” Director, A Storyteller Production, Dancing Star Foundation. Short Documentary. 2601:8C3:8201:1B4B:897C:879C:5813:83C2 (talk) 01:39, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Also, we shouldn't list everything just because it exists - see WP:NOTDIRECTORY... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:54, 23 January 2021 (UTC)