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Articles about Arai's books

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Hi, I just created this bio and I wanted to put a note here about some ideas for more articles about Arai. As I researched this bio, I found plenty of sources about Arai's books, mostly in the form of reviews, certainly enough to warrant the creation of new articles about them. The Tsomo source would be a good source about Arai's first two books, Women Living Zen: Japanese Sōtō Buddhist Nuns (1999) and Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Women’s Rituals (2011). It's just a suggestion, one that I may follow up on someday, so this note is more for me than for anyone else. If anyone else would like to take these projects on, I'm happy to assist. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 00:20, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by PrimalMustelid talk 03:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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** ALT1: ... that Paula Arai experienced racial and sexual discrimination as a scholar because she embedded herself in the lives of the Japanese Sōtō Zen women she studied? Source: Tsomo, Karma Lekshe. (2021). "Paula Kane Robinson Arai: Navigating Cultural Intimacy and Scholarly Authority". In Challenging Bias against Women Academics in Religion; Colleen Hartung, ed., p. 194-196.

Created by Figureskatingfan (talk). Self-nominated at 21:12, 5 February 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Paula Arai; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough

Policy compliance:

  • Adequate sourcing: Yes
  • Neutral: No - Some descriptions of the subject's books include non-neutral direct quotations from the subject; this is the case for Women living Zen and The Little Book of Zen Healing. Moreover, the often laudatory tone of a main source (Tsomo, Karma Lekshe, 2021. "Paula Kane Robinson Arai: Navigating Cultural Intimacy and Scholarly Authority") is perhaps not sufficiently toned down for an encyclopedia, especially because of the numerous direct quotations. Besides, the Tsomo paper often cites personal communication with the subject as its source, and for this reason its reliability as a source is perhaps not perfect.--NikosGouliaros (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can you point out the specific examples of non-neutral quotations? Are you talking about the LSU staff page in the case of Women Living Zen and Arai's webpage for Zen Healing? The use of quotations, or rather the overuse of them, is debatable, I think, but I could go through and paraphrase them if you like. And a source using interviews and oral history doesn't make it unreliable.

Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:54, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, these are the ones: The quotation from an author-affiliated website that she "changes the face of Zen scholarship", and the one from her own website that mentions how the practices she describes bring about "gratitude that melts fear and anger" don't strike me as absolutely neutral. Would I mind them in, say, a featured article? I think so. Are they reason to dismiss the dyk nomination? Possibly not; a more experienced reviewer should tell.NikosGouliaros (talk) 23:21, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: Yes
  • Interesting: Yes
  • Other problems: No - I dare say the hook may benefit from some tweaking: it repeats 'Buddhist studies' as 'study Buddhist'; and the phrase 'use ethnography' sounds (to my ears, as a user of English as second language) not great.--NikosGouliaros (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, it states that Arai studied Buddhist laywomen and nuns and using a field of study to conduct research is common use. Is this better? ALT2: ...that Paula Arai, a Buddhist studies scholar, used ethnographic data to research the lives of Buddhist laywomen and nuns? Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:54, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How about 'that Paula Arai, a Buddhist studies scholar, conducted ethnographic research on Buddhist laywomen and nuns?' Or perhaps (quoting from Tsomo, page 196) 'lived for more than a year at Japan’s leading Sōtō Zen monastic training center, conducting ethnographic research?' NikosGouliaros (talk) 16:32, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fine with your revision of ALT0. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
QPQ: Done.

Overall: NB: The alternative hook is not properly cited: it is a bold statement that is not nearly found in the source as it is written; one could perhaps accept it if 'because' (which just needs more context to be understood) is changed to 'when'. Still, one feels a bit unsure of the neutrality of the source.--NikosGouliaros (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, then let's make that change, although I suspect that we're gonna use ALT2 anyway: ... that Paula Arai experienced racial and sexual discrimination as a scholar because she embedded herself in the lives of the Japanese Sōtō Zen women she studied? Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:54, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I don't see how a phrase as strong as 'racial and sexual discrimination' can be gathered from the source. A more experienced reviewer should contribute here. NikosGouliaros (talk) 16:32, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Since it looks like we're gonna go with ALT0, I withdraw ALT1, so an additional reviewer doesn't seem to be necessary. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I note this is my first DYK review. NikosGouliaros (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Figureskatingfan and NikosGouliaros: I don't find ALT0 interesting, as a simple 'person does their job' hook. I do find ALT1 interesting, and I would say that "several of these institutions created an untenable environment for women, especially women of color" means the same as "racial and sexual discrimination". If you are happy to unstrike it, I can approve it.--Launchballer 09:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Launchballer and NikosGouliaros: I have both unstriked (sp?) and rewrote ALT3: ... that Paula Arai experienced racial and sexual discrimination as a scholar because several institutions created an untenable environment for women, especially women of color? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Figureskatingfan (talk • contribs)
Not bad, seems kind of tautologous though. ALT1 was fine; "that the Buddhist studies scholar Paula Arai suffered racial and sexual discrimination while researching Sōtō Zen laywomen and nuns" contains nothing not in ALT1, so I could approve it.--Launchballer 11:31, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me! I'd say, "Go ahead, dude!" but that's not gender neutral enough. ;) Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:39, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, I have genuinely been questioning mine. I normally call everyone guv, on the grounds that it's short for governor, and Joan Ferguson and Sarah Palin say you can be female governors. ALT4: ... that the Buddhist studies scholar Paula Arai suffered racial and sexual discrimination while researching Sōtō Zen laywomen and nuns? - this contains bits of ALT0 and ALT1, both of which are cited, and as such this requires no further verification. Let's roll.--Launchballer 09:39, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As NikosGouliaros mentiones, the only source for the hook's claim that Arai suffered discrimination is Arai herself, whose complaints Tsomo in turn just reports as a fact, assuming them to be true. However, there is no guarantee that it is. Just because someone complains or perceives themselves to be discriminated against doesn't necessarily mean that they really are discriminated against. People are often subjective and biased in their own favour. At most, an adequate summary would be that 'Arai reports having suffered racial and sexual discrimination'. But Tsomo chooses to treat every word by Arai as 'gospel truth', and since Tsomo's book has been peer-reviewed, it counts as a reliable source for Wikipedia and there is nothing to do about it. As subjectivity, poor sourcing and ideological bias seem to have become the norm in certain academic fields (hence, I suspect, the success of Arai's research, much of which seems to consist of blatantly subjective descriptions of her own personal religious feelings and of those of her friends), so Wikipedia articles on such subjects are bound to be equally unreliable.--62.73.69.121 (talk) 10:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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