Talk:Neohumanism

Neutrality

Somebody inserted the neutrality template on this article. I think that the article is very young and can be improved but it seems neutral to me. We have to encourage and help Abhidevananda in is work.--Cornelius383 (talk) 21:16, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

In my estimation, there is nothing wrong with the question raised about neutrality. Personally, I am not neutral on this subject. I strongly support neohumanism. It is only natural that an author's lack of neutrality may occasionally cause her/him to write in a biased fashion. However, the neohumanist emphasis on rationality requires that this bias be held in check and that we be open to the possibility that this has not been adequately done. At this stage of the article's development, I think it is premature to assume that objectivity (neutrality) has been adequately maintained. --Abhidevananda (talk) 08:27, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Neohumanistic education

I removed this section for numerous reasons.

• The material is largely orthogonal to the topic. The topic is the theory/philosophy of neohumanism. The section essentially promotes the Ananda Marga educational system. It does not adequately show the connection between the philosophy of neohumanism and this particular education system, which existed long before neohumanism was formally propounded. Furthermore, the section seems to promote mostly kindergartens, where neohumanism is not well expressed. It makes no mention of the fact that neohumanism is only taught formally at the university level (as a faculty of the Ananda Marga gurukula).
• The section is poorly written. It requires extensive proofreading. This problem could, of course, be fixed. However, it is not my priority right now to do that proofreading until and unless the first objection is overcome.
• The section does not fall logically under "Humanism redefined". This problem could be easily fixed. However, it is not worth doing that until the first objection is overcome.

As noted in the first comment by Cornelius, the neutrality of this article is questioned and for good reason. In my opinion, sections like this one and the "See also" and "External links" sections only reinforce the impression that a lack of neutrality necessarily vitiates erudition. That should not be the case with a neohumanist.

For the record, I am not necessarily opposed to a section on education in the Neohumanism article. But that section should amplify the understanding of neohumanism as a theory/philosophy and not merely promote Ananda Marga schools or particular authors as a means toward that end.

--Abhidevananda (talk) 08:16, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Dear Abidevananda I remember you that WP is an international comunity (different people of different languages, cultures, religion and experiences). We have to respect some rules: 1)Neutrality: nobody is neutral and everyone has their own point of view but the articles have to be neutral. 2)Collaborative approach: in WP user of different countries and cultural standards cooperate together. If somebody write something wrong (in terms of linguistic form, grammar etc..) you can simply fix it trying to help him or her on a cooperative basis. 3)Consensus: if you think that something should be substantially changed you have to discuss it on the talk page, trying to find consensus around your proposals. I reinsert my part of the article and you will be free to correct the parts of it that are not linguistically correct (english is not my mothertongue..) but please try to avoid edit wars: let's concentrate our energies to build a nice article on a consensual and on a cooperative basis. Thank you--Cornelius383 (talk) 14:11, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

If you don't agree to have the images of the Neohumanistic schools of Ananda Marga I'm going to delete them. But I reinsert the references 'couse I don't see a reason to delete it: as you know an article must contain, if possible, references from an accademical point of view. Thank you. --Cornelius383 (talk) 14:22, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Cornelius, I don't have a problem with the references. I have a problem with the "See also" and the "External links" sections, which mostly do not - and will not - add anything of value to an exposition of neohumanism. In other words, the reason for deletion is that these links mostly do not amplify the concept of neohumanism but do invite further criticism for lack of neutrality - a POV that tends toward advertising rather than scholarship.

Frankly, the external links are just a magnet for objection. See, for example, the flags on the "Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar" and "Ananda Marga" articles. Regarding the "See also" links to other Wikipedia pages, most of them are questionable and probably extraneous. I would have nothing to say if those links appeared within the content of the article, but - in my opinion - tacking them on at the end is unhelpful as it suggests that what is written in all of those Wikipedia articles accurately projects the position of neohumanism. I sincerely doubt that this is the case. Take, for example, links to specific people. If you examine the articles on the three people listed, there is nothing in those articles that talks about neohumanism. If any of them have written a book on the subject, that book may - and probably has been - included in the "References" section of this article. So why duplicate it? This gives an appearance of self-promotion.

Regarding collaborative approach, I have already stated that in principle I have no objection to a section on "Neohumanistic education", but the material must be substantially improved before inclusion in the article. Hence, I have temporarily removed it and will do so again, along with the "See also" and "External links" sections, neither of which are helpful in my opinion and both of which smack of self-promotion. Cornelius, collaboration cuts both ways. It is not an after-the-fact deal, where anyone can add anything to an article and everyone else should just correct the English. In my estimation, you should have posted the material that you wanted to add to the Talk page or a sandbox so that it could be discussed - and, if need be, improved - in advance. Surely you can appreciate that I worked hard to get this article up on Wikipedia and have spent many hours - indeed, days - developing it. I have tried hard to maintain a high standard of scholarship for this article and to meet the various WP requirements. Merely copying a bunch of links to or from Ananda Marga related pages or authors is not consistent with what I have been doing here. So let's collaborate. I did not just remove your material from the article, but I also added the reasons for doing so on this Talk page so that prior collaboration could be carried out. Once you do that, I will be happy to explain in greater detail the various problems I have with what is written in these three sections. If this type of arrangement is not to your satisfaction, then I would respectfully suggest that you create a new WP article entitled "Neohumanist education", where you may post the same material (assuming it is approved). In that case, I am sure that we could find a way to reference your "Neohumanist education" article on within the "Neohumanism" article. Indeed, I would be happy to write - or collaborate with you on - a section of the article that does just that. :)

Finally, please pardon me for not putting in more time on this particular topic. In addition to my other duties, I have been working on another major section of the article to cover some significant information gaps in the article.

--Abhidevananda (talk) 15:50, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

OK Abhidevananda now I understand you position better. First of all let me say that I appreciate your work. I agree with you with the points related with "See also" and the "External links" sections: you can freely delete those links that you think are inappropriate (but maybe the link to the Neohumanist Education web site or the one connected to the "P. R. Sarkar" article shouldn't be deleted...). I think that starting now a new article on Neohumanistic education is not a good idea, at least until the "Neohumanism" article has not been completed. The section on education was only a starting point and will be great if you also add some information. We can reinsert the "wok in progress" template, otherwise if you prefer, you can copy all on a sandbox and when all the article it's ok you can reinsert all on "Neohumanism". Thanks.--Cornelius383 (talk) 17:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your understanding and support, Cornelius. So, then, I have now placed your material in my sandbox at User:Abhidevananda/Neohumanist Education. We may do edits from there. And now I will remove this same material from the Neohumanism article.

Regarding the "See also" link to "Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar", if you look at the very first sentence of the Neohumanism article, that link is already there. Therefore a "See also" link is redundant.

As to a link to the Neohumanist Education website, that could naturally be included as part of any section that we add on the subject of Neohumanist Education. It makes no sense to me to create a "See also" section just for this one link.

--Abhidevananda (talk) 19:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Article already needs a near-total rewrite

The direction this article is going is nearly completely unworkable. The article has 39 footnotes, and almost all are to Sarkar, a few to other sources which appear to be in the same general spiritual community, and none to serious academic or journalistic works.

The article simply cannot be allowed to be "Neohumanism writing about itself", lenghty doctrinal quotes, etc. Also, due to this, the article is very hard to follow, being full of internal buzzwords and jargon. About 90% of this content needs to go, and be replaced by observations from WP:Independent sources. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:05, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I removed an editors caveat "This religion is new so we have to use Primary Sources" caveat from the article. First off, such discussion should be on the Talk page. Secondly, if there aren't a number of secondary, independent sources, there should not be an article.

That said, I have found a few scholarly mentions, why is this book (published by Oxford Press, no less) not being used as a secondary source: James R. Lewis Violence and New Religious Movements. Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN 0199735611, 9780199735617. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:26, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Matthew, thank you for your comment, although I strongly disagree with the flag that you added to the article. The point of this article - as with any WP article - is to explain the subject, in this case, neohumanism. How can any independent source comment intelligently without first knowing what neohumanism is? If you see the final section of the article ("Critiques of neohumanism") that I just added - and the article is now pretty much complete from my side - you will see that criticism is invited. But - and please pardon me for saying this - what you are suggesting (the elimination of 90% of the content) smacks of censorship. The simple fact is that neohumanism is a new philosophy. Do we not want to represent new things on Wikipedia?

Matthew, you and I have discussed this before (on my Talk page). I wrote that neohumanism is "innovative". You removed that word, claiming that it is "subjective". I let that go, assuming that the innovation would become apparent anyway during the course of the article. But now you would remove all of the innovative content as well, dismissing it as "internal buzzwords" and "jargon". Excuse me, Matthew, but I just do not agree with that. In my estimation, you should remove the flag that you put on this article. I would greatly appreciate any genuine assistance you may give in the writing of this article, but I would not appreciate any tailoring of the content of neohumanism to suit yours - or anyone's - preconceived notions (dogma).

The reason why the book by James Lewis was not mentioned in the "Critiques of neohumanism" section of the article that you simply removed rather than edited is because I had not seen it. Apparently, it was published in 2011. I have now read what was written at the link you gave. I think that Lewis raises some good points (albeit occasionally with some needless subjective language and needless speculation). However, very little of that pertains to this article on neohumanism. Feel free to add whatever is relevant to the article under a "Critiques of neohumanism" section, should you be so kind as to restore it. :)

--Abhidevananda (talk) 19:30, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Do we not want to represent new things on Wikipedia? Yes, exactly, spot-on. There's a fundamental guideline (WP:GNG) which states: If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list. You have not yet demonstrated that any such coverage exists. As noted above, I found a few books that mention Sarkar's Neohumanism, and we have no citations to any such books now.

I am greatly concerned that this is swiftly becoming an article for Neohumanism, not about Neohumanism. The "article" is now just a space for a homepage style "all about us" for Neohumanism, and completely WP:Undue lengthy quotes from the founder. That is not what an article is. So far as "internal buzzwords" and "jargon" - yes, that is what it is. The article is written as though it is promoting these concepts and taking them for granted. An article about Communism obviously must introduce and explain dialectical materialism, but we can't write the whole article as though that theory is the basis for the whole real world.

How can any independent source comment intelligently without first knowing what neohumanism is? - counterpoint, how can we expect Neohumanism to neutrally, accurately, and dispassionately comment on itself without neutral commentary from outside observers.

This is not "censorship", I personally don't care in the slightest whether your religion is right or wrong, but what I do care is that Wikipedia is used for neutral facts and not allowing a group to advertise itself. The tag should most definitely be there, and the article should be rewritten. I am genuinely trying to give you useful advice, but you are taking this too personally, which is precisely why we advise against people editing where they have a WP:Conflict of interest. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The reason why the book by James Lewis was not mentioned ... is because I had not seen it. ... Feel free to add them to the article under a "Critiques of neohumanism" section, should you be so kind as to restore it. - A few points: it is not incumbent on others to balance out your bias, it is incumbent on each editor to maintain neutrality. I'm not going to suddenly produce a dozen paragraphs of balance to complement your dozen paragraphs of Primary Source material. Secondly, the fact that you hadn't seen this book is exactly the problem: you don't appear to have ever checked for outside commentary. You have pushed forward deliberately writing an article based essnentially entirely on primary sources. Lastly, no, the "Critique" section you wrote was not inappropriate and should not be restored. The article body is not the place to post excuses for a lack of Independent Sources, excuse bias by challenging others to match your contributions, etc. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Again, Matthew, I consider my main work on the article to be complete. So this article is not "swiftly becoming" anything.

I wanted to encapsulate the main points of neohumanism, and there are many. I feel that I have done that now. But your classification of new terminology as mere "internal buzzwords" and "jargon" misses the novelty of the concepts. Pardon me, but this seems to be a bias on your part. When one wants to say something new, one often must introduce some new terminology. Otherwise, one goes on repeating long descriptions rather than using a single word or phrase. So I still don't agree with your dismissal of neohumanism's new terminology as mere "buzzwords" and "jargon".

As I have already stated, I was not aware of Lewis's article. I am quite happy to have his criticisms of neohumanism included in the article. However, I don't feel that I should be blamed for not having seen that book up to now. If you think I am not the right person to insert Lewis's critique, then let someone else do it. If you don't want to do it, maybe someone else will. My first priority was to present neohumanism. My second priority was to add any critique of it. I could argue with Lewis, but that would be pointless. Whether or not I agree with Lewis, he makes some cogent and well-researched points. The critique should be included in the article.

Regarding the article inclusion criteria, neohumanism clearly meets the standard by virtue of your having found other sources that comment on it. The fact that I did not include those other sources only points to my own lack of research on that point and the order of my priorities (as mentioned above). I would have gotten around to it - or someone else would have (as you have done). From my side, I am definitely not objecting to the inclusion of critiques of neohumanism. That should be readily apparent. I merely want to get this subject onto Wikipedia in the most informative possible fashion. To my mind, this means first explaining what is neohumanism and then discussing the critiques of neohumanism.

Abhidevananda (talk) 20:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

We're going in circles here, but:

• I'm not blaming you for missing the Lewis book specifically, I'm noting that you didn't bother to establish Notability at all, somehow considering it "not your job" and yet your job to fill the article with Neohumanism commenting on itself.
• Regarding jargon, yes, clearly you can note specific technical terms, but instead this article is promoting those terms, pushing them forward, and generally not viewing them objectively. You are simply reciting Neohumanism talking points, and claiming it's Neutral because you include the phrase "according to Neohumanism".
• Yet again, Neutrality does not mean you give a lengthy screed derived directly from Primary Sources and then challenge others to add critique. The amount of Primary Source material included here is totally unsuitable for an encyclopedic article.
• Your article is not informative, that's just the point. It is not a dispassionate, technical exploration of basic concepts and chronology. You literally have more Primary Source coverage and more extensive "exploration" of ideology than Shia Islam has, and that's a religion with tens of millions of adherents and extensive secondary coverage.
• This is again precisely why people should not edit articles on religious groups for which they are adherents, barring those few who are capable of doing it in accordance with Wikipedia rules. When people come here and edit nothing but articles about a particular religious niche, it's hard to believe they are putting encyclopedic quality first. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:39, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Matthew, regarding "notability" - if I understand the meaning correctly - someone from the philosophy portal (not I) rated this article at "mid-importance on the project's importance scale". I assume that signifies a degree of "notability"; however, being relatively new to WP, I cannot say. Maybe I am just wasting my time here. The fact is that I am new to this style of writing. I have learned many styles of writing in my life. This is yet another, and it will take a while for me to master it... assuming that I continue this work.

• As for jargon, surely you must know that this word has pejorative connotations (just like "buzzword"). Hence, I still think you used the wrong word there. As for the distinction between explaining and promoting, that is a bit hard for me to recognize here. I understand your point. I am open to the possibility that there is a more neutral way of saying what I wanted to say. I simply don't know how that would have been done other than constantly inserting critiques throughout the body of the article. Maybe someone should do a rewrite of the article. Obviously, I am not qualified for that. But just putting up a link that invites anonymous persons to spam the article - as you seem to have done - is also not a solution.

• I am not challenging others to add critique. If no one else does it, I myself will add a few lines, summarizing Lewis's critique. And I will do it without trying to counter it.

• A comparison to Shia Islam is meaningless here. First, this is a philosophy, not a movement or religion (as your flag suggests). Second, Islam has been around a lot longer than neohumanism, and there is much more information available on it than there is on neohumanism. To call neohumanism, which is inherently anti-religion, a religion tends to miss the point (although I do tend to think that atheism and materialism have a religious nature). Furthermore, the fact that Shia Islam has extensive secondary coverage, whereas neohumanism has much less, tends to explain why the balance of coverage is different in the two articles.

Anyway, as you say, this is getting circular. I think your flag needs a lot of improvement, and you could have handled this matter in a far less draconian - much more constructive - fashion. As always, I appreciate your mentoring. I understand that you see a lot of articles each day, and so I appreciate the time you spend in mentoring me. However, I think it would be more efficient for both of us if you were a bit less hasty and a bit more tactful in expressing and imposing your rejections... unless your intent is to drive me away. :)

Abhidevananda (talk) 21:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I've been a bit prickly, but partially because I've had to do just about this exact same argument with three different "new religious movements" in the last two days. All of which insisting on using massive amounts of primary material. And on one we have a guy who keeps coming it to post criticism, which would be great, but his criticism isn't from Notable/Reliable sources either. So I try explaining that if Group X doesn't agree with the Acme Church, that only matters if Group X is notable, and then I get him ranting about "censorship" and eliminating points of view, etc. Fundamentally, Wikipedia has a serious issue with people who come here simply to promote a given point of view. Are such people necessarily destructive? Not always. However a very unpleasant proportion of them prioritise making their group "look good", and "getting the word out" rather than actually building an encyclopedia.

If that's not you, and you're just having the regular process of figuring out what is and is not admissible material to Wikipedia, then it's not meant personally, but just my guardedness at seeing it over and over.

I strongly suggest you take a look at some other established articles and see how they're written. Check Christianity for example: nowhere does it have paragraph-long primary-source quotes. It notes technical terms, but does not accept them as necessarily inherent to reality. It has some primary source materials where specifically noting the belief structure, but supplements it with critical commentary, analysis by figures modern and historic, etc. If we don't let major world religions write their page entirely "in universe", then we don't make exceptions for smaller religions/philosophies, and "there just isn't coverage" is not an excuse to lean heavily Primary, it's a reason to not have an article.

This is not just me who's picky about this, so even if I disappeared tomorrow eventually someone would come along and require this article to make the needed massive changes for suitability. I just happened to get here first. Fundamentally, you need to base your article on Wikipedia policies, and that's really all there is to it. MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I do not insist on using massive amounts of primary material. I also feel that there is too much of that in the article. If there is a way to introduce the ideas without that, I am fine with it. I also do not insist on having a lot of quotes. I'd like to reduce the number. I mostly used the quotes for the purpose of what I considered to be necessary amplification of a concept and to spare me the possibility of being accused of plagiarism for excessive paraphrasing.

Comparing neohumanism to a vast religion with numerous contradictory sects makes no sense to me. Instead, consider another article that I have examined - a featured Wikipedia article... Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The lead contains several subjective and controversial words and phrases, e.g. "the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India". Go through the article, and you will hardly find any mention of the many critiques and controversies surrounding the man. The fact that he was ultimately assassinated by a frustrated Indian nationalist is almost whitewashed. And so on. So, in comparison to this featured article, I think that the article on neohumanism is not bad. The question is: Why give the article on Gandhi a miss and then put so many obstacles in the path of an article like mine? What's good for the goose should be good for the gander... unless I am unaware of some WP policy that insists on promotion of a specific social or political line.

Matthew, there is a view of law - I believe some call it the burnt toast theory - where it is claimed that a verdict depends on whether or not the judge's toast was burnt that morning. Frankly, whether you are prickly or not is not my concern. My concern is that you have effectively invited people to spam the article on neohumanism. I strenuously object to that. You know full well that the link encouraging people to make edits that you put into your flag, which you also inserted at the very top of the article, is likely to gain more attention from non-experienced writers than experienced ones. The simple fact is that, except for your patronizingly deprecatory remarks, your flag does not say anything substantially different from the other two flags. The main difference is that your flag is obnoxious, and it is more likely to create problems than to resolve them. Sorry for being blunt, but that is how I see it. I think you should remove your flag as it serves no constructive purpose whatsoever.

Abhidevananda (talk) 23:22, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

So far as the Gandhi article, there are a lot of emotionally-charged India articles on Wikipedia in dire need of cleaning. That said, we have a policy on this called WP:Other stuff exists; WP:OSE means that it's not a valid argument to say "other pages are worse". Same as you can't get pulled over for speeding in your car and demand you be forgiven because "lots of other guys are speeding". For the current week I've been diving into smaller religious movements, a lot of which are not properly written, and this is one of them that not only needs work, but has been greatly expanded with excessive Primary material in the last few days.

I may not have been warm and fuzzy on this page, but nor have I been deprecatory: I have clearly, clearly, repeatedly explained specifically what is wrong with the article, and cited it to WP policy. Cleanup tags are not personal attacks, they are are indications there is a problem. It already has a COI and Primary tag, and those don't seem to be having any effect, so a Rewrite tag is both accurate and necessary. I greatly differ with the allegation that I'm inviting people to "spam" the article ("spam", like "vandalism" means a very specific thing, so don't just throw the term around). Further, I really doubt that inexperienced editors wander around looking for controversial tags, as much as experienced editors use them to focus cleanup efforts. MatthewVanitas (talk) 01:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Come on, Matthew, please don't drag this argument on with such illogical arguments.

Regarding your first paragraph, surely you must realize that you began and ended the paragraph by doing exactly what you said I should not do in the middle of that same paragraph. I brought up the Gandhi article simply to indicate the injustice here. That is all. If I cannot trust a WP featured article as an example, then what can I trust? My point was that you imposed your obnoxious flag on the top of my article, but you haven't done the same thing with a much more prominent - and possibly much more needy - article. Why is this new article on neohumanism so important in the eyes of WP or MattewVanitas? That was my point. But when you reply to that point with a deflective assertion of WP:OSE, then it is absolutely self-contradictory for you to preface that straw-man assertion of WP:OSE with "there are a lot of emotionally-charged India articles on Wikipedia in dire need of cleaning" and then follow up your assertion of WP:OSE with "for the current week I've been diving into smaller religious movements, a lot of which are not properly written, and this is one of them that not only needs work, but has been greatly expanded with excessive Primary material in the last few days". (For the record, of course my article has been expanded in the current week. It is a brand new article that I was completing.)

Regarding your second paragraph, it is another straw-man argument. Indeed, it is a series of straw-man arguments. I never said that you have been "deprecatory" on this page. I said that the flag that you imposed on my article was deprecatory. Hiding behind what was presented in the History of the article as an automated or semi-automated robotic flag, you edited the flag with the insertion of deprecatory remarks and you also inserted what amounts to an open invitation to vandalism. You then pretend that this is not what you have done by hypothesizing about some "inexperienced editors wandering around looking for controversial tags" as if that somehow correlates with "experienced editors using flags to focus cleanup efforts". Good grief, Matthew, would an experienced editor looking for a specific flag require your editorial comments, much less your "You can help" link? Of course not!

Matthew, you effectively admit that the other two preexisting flags already made the necessary points, but you try to justify your obnoxious flag with the excuse that the other two flags were not having any effect. Come on, it's only been a little more than a week! Why not begin by bringing up your concerns in a polite fashion on this Talk page instead of hastily bludgeoning the actual article - a new article under development - with your defamatory remarks? I never objected to either of the other two flags. Indeed, when the neutrality flag was imposed, a short discussion ensued on this Talk page. I appreciated the flag. It struck me as reasonable. The same goes with the other flag. But your flag is over the top. Even if the Neohumanism article does require some rewriting - and I don't even dispute that - your flag is not just unnecessary but indeed counterproductive. In my estimation, your flag is prejudiced and irresponsible. I humbly request you to remove it.

Abhidevananda (talk) 04:56, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I understand the position of Abhidevananda about the Matthew's last template. Sorry Matthew but this template looks pretty offensive to me too. In communicative processes, as a matter of fact, form is often as important as the content. And the form (or style if you prefer) of this template sounds very bad to me. In a few word: it doesn't appear based on the cooperative style that forms the basis of WP. Writing an encyclopedic article on a new philosophical current is not easy, being sometimes difficult to find appropriate academic works dealing with it. For this reason somethimes we have no other option but to mention the texts belonging to the same current to properly describe it at the moment. This is the difficulty of the scholar but also of the encyclopedist. I believe that the contribution of Abhidevananda in the drafting of this article requires an encouraging help rather than an offensive approach. What makes interesting WP (in comparison with a paper-based encyclopedia) is that the articles here are "in progress": as users will find suitable books to be quoted here they will immediately insert them. This is the only way that allows us to appropriately add quotes to this kind of articles over time. The only thing which in my opinion didn't go so well in the article is perhaps the fact that it has too many quotes and is maybe a little too verbose: I would preferably make it a bit more dry and concise, avoiding too discursive or narrative forms and transforming it on a more encyclopaedic style. However, from this point of view, we must recognize that the article is still being processed and we have to wait until Abhidevananda finishes to write it. I therefore propose to remove the last Matthew's template replacing it with a "work in progress" template.--Cornelius383 (talk) 20:56, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Cornelius. I am convinced that MV's flag, which I removed an hour or two ago, was entirely inappropriate. The flag that MV used points to WP:MOS, which is the WP Manual of Style. In general, a manual of style talks about grammar, formatting, and the like. The WP MOS is no exception to that rule. However, MV only used the WP:MOS flag as a means to complain about other issues, issues that had already been flagged. In other words, MV used a WP:MOS-related flag for the purpose of promoting a type of editing that is completely different from anything contained in the WP:MOS. As such, what MV encouraged was likely to be more akin to vandalism. I could say more here. There are various reasons to question MV's neutrality in respect to this article. However, suffice it to say that MV's flag came across to me as completely non-constructive. It seemed that he was attempting to hijack the lead of the Neohumanism article by inserting his deprecatory opinions, which - among other things - completely misrepresented the article as being about a "movement" rather than about a "philosophical theory".

Regarding the question of "verbosity", I don't believe that my writing is verbose. I have been trained in a style of writing that is fairly ruthless about trimming the word count. Here I tried to pack a lot of information into a single article. I did that, because neohumanism is a broad topic with many facets. So if the word count is higher than it needs to be, I believe that mostly stems from the inclusion of quotations (some of which are longer than I would have preferred). In the last couple of days, I have reviewed the entire article only to consider which quotations might be removed or replaced with text. I have not done any editing yet, because I want to reconsider the matter in a couple of days. FWIW, I did not notice anything in the WP MOS about having too many quotations. However, I do appreciate the fact that this article is heavy on "references to primary sources" (already flagged); and for that reason it seems appropriate to reduce the number of primary-source quotation blocks in the main body of the article.

Abhidevananda (talk) 22:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Of course when I speak about verbosity I am not referring to the way you write (I read f. e. your devotional "The Passion of Lord.." and I appreciate your way of writing). I wanted to say, but I may have used an inappropriate word (I may be wrong because as you will easily understand English is not my first language.. :)), that the article seems too rich to me.. I prefer more dry and concise articles.. but this is only an opinion.--Cornelius383 (talk) 22:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support: I completely agree with MatthewVanitas. In every few days people come to India Noticeboard and start blaming Indian articles (and sometimes Indian editors too) for poor quality articles, writing style etc. And their words are not polite always. This article looks more like a leaflet than an encyclopedia entry (like all other Ananda Marga article). About Mohandas Gandhi article, I am a primary contributor and good article reviewer there, so, if you have comments on the article, mention it in the correct place i.e. that article's talk page! I suggest to remove most (or all?) of the self published sources and add only secondary RS. --Tito Dutta (talk) 04:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Tito's Rewrite

In a word... great! Thanks for your very constructive assistance. I think the article looks much better now, and it has a simplified and, presumably, more enclyclopedic flow. Hopefully, this will make the information presented in the article more coherent for readers.

I have noticed some minor inaccuracies and a few gaps in the information that I will fix later today. For example, I will add a sentence or two about geosentiment minimitis and maximitis (omitted in the first version because it was not significant at the point where it appeared). I will also do some slight restructuring of the "Exploitation" section for greater clarity. Other than that, I might shorten a few of the headings. And, yes, pretty though it is, I will eliminate the graphic of the layer chart, because it is just wrong. :)

Regarding that graphic:

• It makes little sense to have ego as the smallest circle. Though I understand why it was done, NH would consider pretty much everything up to the most expanded circle as an extension of ego (and the principle of selfish pleasure).
• The sentiment for family is distinctly a part of sociosentiment, but in the graphic it is presented as something before geosentiment or sociosentiment.
• There is no reason to assume that sociosentiment is necessarily more expanded than geosentiment, or that geosentiment is necessarily more expanded than family sentiment (which is itself a sociosentiment).
• For clarity, "humanism" should have been labeled "General Humanism" or "Ordinary Humanism", and it too is viewed by NH as a variety of sociosentiment.

So, for all those reasons, I would rather not include the graphic. It is pretty but misleading, because it oversimplifies the topic in a fashion that is easily shown to be defective.

Looking over the changes, I can understand why you removed the section on universalism. It was largely redundant. But I don't follow your reasoning for removing the sections on "Utility value versus existential value", "Two motives for human movement", and "Exposing exploiters". Okay, maybe the last section is a bit scary for some persons, but - like it or not - this is a significant element of NH - an element that James R. Lewis understandably takes note of. Tito, can you shed some light on this for me?

Anyway, once again, thank you for all your help, Tito. The article looks much better now, and I hope that any adjustments that I make will be consistent with the standard that you have set.

Abhidevananda (talk) 07:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

It was not rewrite. I mainly tried to work on the structure/outline/flow. Yes, I have deleted a good amount of content. But, you can call that "temporary move to sandbox for modification". You can still get the previous version here

About structure/Outline, I think something like this will be excellent:

Section	Purpose	Current status
Lead	2 to 3 short paragraphs summarizing the whole article	Needs splitting, lead does not summarize article, needs rewrite and expansion
Definition	Definition and etymology etc	Notes on etymology required, if applicable
History	when it was introduced? Then who followed it? When it became popular etc.. I mean brief timeline, not using any table or list, simply in paragraph style	Expansion required
Concepts	Different concepts using h3 header, only main points, not each and every details, we can create new article later if needed	Already too much details, needed to be summarized. I suggest to add a short Philosophy section like this Neo-Confucianism#Philosophy
Activities		Section may require renaming, merging
Influence		Does not exist
Comparison with other similar concepts/theories		Does not exist

After working on these we can think where to add success/failure, comments of notable social/political scientists there!

Removing Universalism section was not because of reasoning but it was a mistake. Actually I wanted to remove all concepts and rewrite everything (see points mentioned in table).

You can help to expand 1) Definition 2) History section for now.

The image was created by Sohail Inayatullah, see here: File:NH_Design.jpg#filehistory. That's the only graphic on Neohumanism we have in Commons. There is another language of the image too: File:NH Design-PL.jpg which is being used in Polish Wikipedia. Someone can create a new image if there are errors in the current image. Polish Wikipedia and Sohail Inayatullah can be notified too!--Tito Dutta (talk) 08:41, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I think your outline looks pretty good. I have already thought about some amplification of the History section, although the section would still be quite short. We also certainly need to keep the "Critiques" section at the end. As to the Comparison section, I am not sure that this is required, because there is a lot of comparison to general humanism, and that is the most important area of comparison here.

An Influences section would be interesting. Here we could definitely reference some poets like Rabindranath Tagore and Ramprasad Sen, both of whom are quoted in "Liberation of Intellect: Neohumanism". The dedication of the book - though probably not something we would want to mention - widens the scope of influences:

To those who think for all . . .

who offer others seats of honour and respect...
who venerate others, instead of waiting to be venerated –
to them I dedicate this book with humble esteem and deepest salutations.

–Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar

I noticed who created the image. It is still wrong. The fact that it was translated into another language does not make it right. :) As Patainjali said, there are three sources of knowledge: perception, inference, and authority. Common people - and Wikipedia - tend to rely almost exclusively on authority. But the fact is that all three sources of knowledge are fallible. Hence wise people - and good students - employ all three sources to the maximum. If you like, I can work on creating another graphic for WP, but I am not a graphic artist, and this might not be quite as pretty as the current one. And it would still be an oversimplification of sorts. (For example, a sociosentiment for a nation might be either more expanded or less expanded than a sociosentiment for a linguistic group.) Anyway, give me a couple of hours for that.

Abhidevananda (talk) 09:30, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

On Wikipedia's policy

Common people - and Wikipedia - tend to rely almost exclusively on authority.

Not really! Pllease see:

• WP:NOTFORUM
• WP:NOTPROMOTION
• WP:NOTGUIDE

See also

WP:FIVE--Tito Dutta (talk) 10:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Without meaning to turn this into a debate on a side issue, WP itself comes under the classification of "authority" in Patainjali's three-pronged scheme. And WP insists on references and citations from "independent and reliable sources", which also comes under the classification of "authority" in Patainjali's three-pronged scheme. There is nothing bad here. It's just that it is not sensible for anyone to rely 100% on "authority". Authority can be wrong... as, for example, the graphic created by Sohail and inserted by you into the NH article is wrong (and even inconsistent with the text of the article). Anyway, thanks for the links. They are interesting. But let's move on. I still have a graphic to work on. :)

Abhidevananda (talk) 10:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Following Jimbo Wales, we are trying to create an encycopedia and nothing else. This is an encyclopedia which depends on reliable sources and WP:V is a pillar. The other two types of knowledge- perception and inference are strictly disallowed, per WP:OR. We are not doing any original research, we are not creating any social law, we don't even try to bring any social/religious revolution.

Those perception and inference might be helpful for self-awakening etc but not very helpful in an encyclopedia, more importantly it is very very controversial, sensitive and prone to spam. If we allow first hand references and perception/experience based knowledge, we may find some editors adding information like, "I met Anandamurtiji in 1978 and he told me... ", "I am a mediator, and I have created a new explanation of Baba's theory"!

Example

• Example 01 Someone is claiming he has collected information from subject's relative, now how can I be sure that he has truly done it. Also I can write anything in an article and then say, subject has told me personally!
• Different people/groups/organization have different perception/inference/beliefs. I talked about Baba's consciousness and concentration, you told about mind power! Take any sloka of Gita, you'll get hundreds of opinions, inferences, commentaries! So? --Tito Dutta (talk) 10:53, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

That was exactly my point, Tito. WP relies heavily on "authority". It largely - and necessarily - disregards perception and inference. I did not mean anything derogatory by the remark.

Okay I finally uploaded two graphics for the NH article. The first graphic is... and the second file is... This took longer than I expected, so I don't expect to get any time to do any edits on the text of the article today. They are not so colorful as the other graphic, but I believe that they get across the point much better. Geosentiment and sociosentiment are orthogonal concepts. There may be points of intersection but not overlap. Only universalism overlaps as it is all-inclusive. (I don't know if this will mean anything to you, but in terms of spiritual philosophy, specifically brahmacakra, geosentiment is essentially concerned with physical or material objects, in this case territory; and hence it falls under saincara. In contrast, sociosentiment is concerned with mental or metaphysical objects, in this case people; and hence it falls under pratisaincara.)

Abhidevananda (talk) 13:44, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Looks great! --Tito Dutta (talk) 14:21, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Funny... I was just about to put your Under Construction flag on the article. You beat me to it by about 30 seconds. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhidevananda (talk • contribs) 07:36, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Restructured article

I have now completed my main edits of the article as kindly restructured by Tito. Hopefully, the article now has a more "encyclopedic" structure and feel to it. Admittedly, I probably have not overcome the issues raised in the two flags on the page. The neutrality of the article may still be questioned, and certainly there can and should be more independent sources cited. For that purpose, I invite others to add or edit material in the article, preferably without deleting any substantial content that presents the multifaceted philosophical theory of neohumanism (as that is the primary purpose of the article). In other words, both amplification and criticism of neohumanism are welcome, but deletion of key concepts would be less welcome. :) --Abhidevananda (talk) 08:19, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The article has again multiple issues!

• 1) Lead contains irrelevant content, we don't add long long quotes in lead. The purpose of lead is write a short summary of the whole article. The part from Neohumanism manifest in three stages of development... can be deleted.
• 2) The images of Che Guevara and McDonald are irrelevant (or not properly linked). See Yash Chopra, I added multiple images, now read the captions, you'll get details on how those images are relevant there!
• 3) Some paragraphs like "Existential value" are unreferenced!
• 4) Contains WP:OR.
• 5) Inconsistencies in citations without any citation style! --Tito Dutta (talk) 10:55, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Tito. Regarding your points:

• I did not put the three stages of development in the lead. Someone - looking at the history, apparently Yobot - removed the Definition section and moved that material to the lead. I will restore the Definition section.
• Actually, McDonalds Thailand is an example of pseudoculture. And the quotation from Che is supportive of the point NH makes about revolutionaries being the well-wishers of society. Perhaps it was too subtle. I can change the caption.
• I will add a reference in respect to Existential value.
• I suppose that anything that is referenced to P.R. Sarkar could be claimed as WP:OR. But this might be something that I cannot deal with just now.
• Inconsistencies in citation style are perhaps the result of some copy and paste, the great number of citations, and some gaps in information. However, I would be interested to know how to prevent or minimize such a problem.

--Abhidevananda (talk) 12:19, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

• Primarily it seems you are using Harvard or Sfn style citations which links citations and sources. To clarify this, go to Swami_Vivekananda#References, and click on any reference, it'll take you to book source section. You can click on any reference section. It works like this: all citations in references section and their details in bibliography section. In this article it is not like that. Thought it is not an easy task and might be time taking!
• It'll be excellent if in the captions of the images you explain how they are important in the article. Neohumanism etc image needs no explanation. And if we have 3-4 directly article related images, we don't need to add these Che Guevara or McDonald images too! --Tito Dutta (talk) 12:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Tito, I added several 'citations' just now and a parenthetical expression to both of the graphics you mentioned. The style of citation that I am using is basically what I happened to pick up from the 'Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar' and 'Ananda Marga' pages (some copy and paste). Alas! I just had a look at the Swami_Vivekananda#References on the Vivekananda page. They are much cleaner, although I did see what looked like a little inconsistency. That said, I like the idea of separating Notes (if that would be possible). Anyway, as you said, it would be time-consuming... and after two full days of working on this, I'd like to give this article a rest and move on to something else. I believe the inconsistency in the citations could be fixed by someone else or just remain as is for the time being.

Regarding the Che and McDonalds images, like the text boxes and the images of mottos of countries as well as the United Nations, they all largely serve as examples that substantiate the position of neohumanism as expressed to the left of the inserted item. None of them are arbitrary. All of them are more illustrative than essential. I took the lead here from the image of a mosquito sucking blood, the NH layer graphic, and the text box that you inserted into the article when restructuring. Perhaps I overdid my illustrations, but I don't think that they detract from the article. Let's wait and see what others have to say. --Abhidevananda (talk) 12:54, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

In this article you do not have too many images in hand, but generally in an article like Swami Vivekananda you have a bunch of images, we can't even add the important images. That's why we don't add other images. Readers ca ask you, this article is on Sarkar's theory, there is not an image of Sarkar then why Che? (please don't add Sarkar's image too)! --Tito Dutta (talk) 13:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I get your point, Tito. And, no, I won't add an image of Baba here. For one thing, that image is already on the Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar page and the template. But, mainly, Baba always insisted that we propagate his rational ideology and not any kind of personality cult. So, there is picture of Che, because it illustrates a concept within neohumanism. There is no picture of Baba, because that would only fuel an impression of a "new religion creating another homepage", which is definitely NOT what this article is about. :) --Abhidevananda (talk) 13:22, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Activities associated with or promoting neohumanism

This is an article about neohumanism, which is indeed a philosophy. But an important dimension of philosophy is its application. Hence, I believe that the section of this article removed by Garamond Lethe is entirely appropriate. Perhaps the title of the section could be changed for greater clarity. For example, it could be "Applied neohumanism" or "Activities reflecting or promoting neohumanism". Whatever may be the best title of the section, the section itself is informative in respect to this philosophy. Hence, I propose to restore the section that was deleted in its entirety by Garamond Lethe, with a change of title to satisfy his concern. Let me add here, that I believe it would have been more constructive and more courteous to have changed the title than to have deleted the entire section. Alternatively, if it was felt that the entire section needed to be deleted, I believe the more reasonable approach would be to initiate a discussion of that matter on the Talk page prior to such a draconian edit. --Abhidevananda (talk) 21:58, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm torn... I think the edits were helpful in moving neohumanism away from a legitimate philosophy and closer to a cult of personality (for example, the scientology article details how adherents promote that philosophy; you don't find that in articles on humanism or evolutionary epistemology or Kantian ethics or....). However, if I nominate this article for deletion I want to give it every benefit of the doubt and treat the topic as an independent, free-standing philosophy (where it will be relatively simple to show an absence of notability). If the edits were restored then I would recast the article as "neohumanism as the philosophy of Ananda Marga" and make an equally simple argument that this article should be merged into the Ananda Marga article.

So if you want to restore those edits I won't stand in your way. The real problem here is notability, and these edits don't address that. GaramondLethe 17:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

As we have consensus, I will undo the deletion and rename the section to "Applied neohumanism". --Abhidevananda (talk) 14:32, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Crovetto

"Crovetto discusses the movement, not the philosophy"... really, Garamond? I think I will have to quote you on that over on the PROUT talk page. And, while you are correct to some extent, Crovetto cloaks her third-rate critique of the movement with a veneer of discussion about the philosophy. So, for example, we see: "Sarkar also considered the imposition of social and religious dogmas, such as the caste system, to be manifestations of evil. He discussed his opposition to dogma and various kinds of groupism in many of his books. In The Liberation of Intellect: Neo-Humanism (1983), Sarkar did not limit himself to humanistic concerns and defended the developmental rights of animals, plants, and even allegedly nonsentient entities such as rocks." Of course, her date is wrong, and "manifestations of evil" is a gross oversimplification of Sarkar's analysis. But, right or wrong, she is "discussing" the philosophy of neohumanism here. At the beginning of the next paragraph, Crovetto writes: "Sarkar’s writings demonized sociospiritual exploiters, whom he called 'demons in human form'..." This concept is also a part of neohumanism, though it is not applied in a blanket fashion to all "sociospiritual exploiters", as Crovetto implies. In any event, I find it odd that you would delete this section of the article, and I do believe that both the section as well as the current content of the section is appropriate. I may not agree with Crovetto, but she has written a critique that is contained in a book published by Oxford Press and independently reviewed. Hence, I believe that the inclusion of her critique in a neutral Wikipedia article on this subject is appropriate. Hence, I propose to restore the section that you deleted without change. Needless to say, additional published critiques pertaining to neohumanism are also welcome in that section of the article. --Abhidevananda (talk) 13:34, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad we agree Crovetto is a reliable source [in the technical, wikipedia sense of the term; I'm not trying to imply anything about correctness]. May I mark the WP:RSN discussion as "Resolved"? I believe you've quoted the only line in Crovetto that mentions neohumanism. If that's the case (and I'm relying on you to tell me if it's not) then why does this warrant mention in the article, much less an entire paragraph? GaramondLethe 16:13, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Neohumanism is not a major topic in Crovetto's VaNRM article, although she does implicitly refer to it more than once. In that VaNRM article, she also explicitly refers to the book, "Liberation of Intellect: Neohumanism". However, there is a second Crovetto article, "Ananda Marga's Tantric Neo-Humanism" (published in "The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature", edited by Bron Taylor) that is, at least ostensibly, entirely about neohumanism. Once again, however, her remarks are not very accurate (reliable), and she often gets sidetracked with extraneous and highly biased comments and speculation about organizations. I have a copy of that second article, and will add material from it to the critiques section of the neohumanism article if we are now in agreement to restore that section. --Abhidevananda (talk) 19:15, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The ER&N cite sounds good. Looking forward to see what you do with it. I'll be at the UC Davis library tomorrow and will xerox a copy there. GaramondLethe 19:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

As we seem to have consensus now about the restoration of the Critiques section of the Neohumanism article, I will do that now. For your convenience, I have uploaded the TEoRaN article here. I might not get around to writing the additional portion of the Critiques section for a while. In addition to my other work, I am still dealing with all of the brouhaha on the PROUT article as well as your nine concurrent AfD nominations. So if you would like to write this part of the Critique section of this article - or even rewrite the entire section - please feel free to do so. --Abhidevananda (talk) 02:09, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I had intended to say that while restoring the "critique" section was fine, Crovetto's piece in VaNRM shouldn't be in it. I was unclear and since one or both of us will be changing that section soon anyway there's no harm in leaving it as it is for now. Once I read the ERN piece it may be obvious how to incorporate both. I'm catching up on real-life chores and so might not get to this before Monday. Feel free to jump in before that if you like. GaramondLethe 19:22, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I also don't have time for this just now. Please note that there is a lot more material to add in respect to critiques of neohumanism to be found here. --Abhidevananda (talk) 02:19, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Although I consider Crovetto absolutely not neutral, I agree with Abhidevananda: "...Hence, I believe that the inclusion of her critique in a neutral Wikipedia article on this subject is appropriate. Hence, I propose to restore the section that you deleted without change. Needless to say, additional published critiques pertaining to neohumanism are also welcome in that section of the article".--Cornelius383 (talk) 18:39, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

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