Talk:Sikh Dharma

Discussion of Sikh Dharma International

@SpacemanSpiff:You recently deleted and redirected this entry to Sikhism, the general entry for orthodox Sikhism. The entry previously contained information about the organization Sikh Dharma International, a U.S. non-profit corporation and religious organization, which is not synonymous with Sikhism generally.

Wikipedia has a page for 3HO which is an alternative name for the Sikh Dharma organization/sect. It appears that 3HO has become the main page for this entity, based on intra-site links from the entries for Harbhajan Singh Khalsa and Sects of Sikhism. However, most English-language information about the organization refers to them as "Sikh Dharma" or the "Sikh Dharma religious community" rather than "3HO", including in news reports and litigation documents.

The decision to redirect the page for Sikh Dharma to the general page for orthodox Sikhism fails to recognize that "Sikh Dharma" is the name in common use to refer to the 3HO organization and its adherents. Users looking for information about the American Sikh Dharma International organization and its history should be able to find the 3HO page.

Does "Sikh Dharma" refer to something specific other than the Sikh Dharma International/3HO sect? If so, a disambiguation page would be appropriate. However, I have been unable to determine what if anything the term "Sikh Dharma" refers to in Sikhism generally. -Lapith (talk) 18:55, 8 November 2018 (UTC) ; NOTE: edited with proper source citation Lapith (talk) 01:11, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

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After further investigation, a previous edit to this page indicates that "Sikh Dharma" is the original Punjabi term for Sikhism (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sikh_Dharma&oldid=590299692 (13:51, 25 November 2007)). If this is correct, I suggest the redirect be replaced by the following disambiguation message:

Sikh Dharma may refer to:

• Sikh Dharma, the original Punjabi term for the belief system generally referred to as Sikhism
• 3HO, a United States-based religious organization also variously referred to as Sikh Dharma International, Sikh Dharma of the Western Hemisphere, or the Sikh Dharma Brotherhood

-Lapith (talk) 01:11, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

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I have updated the page with disambiguation language similar to my original proposal here. I look forward to any further discussion to hone the exact language to maximize user comprehension and neutral tone. - Lapith (talk) 17:04, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

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@Whispering: You have reverted the entry to eliminate the disambiguation page, without providing an explanation or responding to the issues identified in this Talk page. Again, the term "Sikh Dharma" is regularly used in American English to refer to Sikh Dharma International and its adherents, as can be seen from the news references on this page or from a simple English language Google search. Please provide an explanation of your decision to delete the disambiguation page in favor of a redirect to the general article for orthodox Sikhism.

- Lapith (talk) 18:50, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

@Lapith: Honestly it doesn't need a disambig page. You only have two articles here if anything you just need to put a {{See also|Article}} at the top of one of them. --Whispering 20:16, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

@Whispering: I am amenable to that approach. It might be reasonable, for instance, for the Sikh Dharma entry to include a "see also" hat notation at the top for Sikhism generally. However, my attempt to restore the content at this Sikh Dharma page was reverted and I was threatened with a ban. And I believe the current redirect to Sikhism violates the principle of least astonishment, but my attempt to redirect to 3HO was also reverted. I would like to build some consensus about how to handle this situation. See below; I have attempted to pull in the editors involved in recent changes to the 3HO page for a more substantive global discussion about the proper place for this content. - Lapith (talk) 20:25, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

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@Girth Summit:, @Itsawizard:, @QuickWittedHare: You each recently made edits to the related 3HO entry.

As noted at the Talk:3HO page, 3HO and Sikh Dharma International are two separate nonprofit organizations started by Harbhajan Singh Khalsa, aka Yogi Bhajan. Until recently, the organizations each had separate Wikipedia entries. In May 2018, the Sikh Dharma entry content was deleted and the page turned into an automatic redirect to the main Sikhism entry. I have suggested that it would be more appropriate to redirect that page to 3HO, or to provide a disambiguation page. That discussion is ongoing here. To keep the discussion all in one place, I have suggested we use the existing discussion thread here to discuss these changes.

Currently, pages referring to the religious organization founded by Harbhajan Singh Khalsa link to the 3HO page. Notably, the entries for both Harbhajan Singh Khalsa and Sects of Sikhism link to 3HO. There is some support for doing so, as some sources use the term "3HO" to refer to the United States-based sect of Sikhism. Encyclopedia Britannica states that "Sikh Dharma of the Western Hemisphere . . . is commonly known as the 3HO movement (Healthy Happy Holy Organization), though this is, strictly speaking, the name only of its educational branch." Similarly, the 2009 book "Sikhism" contains a section on what it calls "The 3HO Sikhs" who it notes "are popularly referred to as the Sikh Dharma Brotherhood."

However, English language usage seems to predominantly use the term "Sikh Dharma" for the religious community founded by Khalsa, including news reports and litigation documents. So at a minimum, it should be possible for users to find the 3HO entry by searching for Sikh Dharma.

It seems to me that there is a substantial disagreement as to the proper home at Wikipedia for content about the religious organization founded by Harbhajan Singh Khalsa. Some editors seem to think that such content should disappear entirely; that strikes me as a form of vandalism, perhaps motivated by individuals who believe that 3HO Sikhism constitutes heresy (as someone has suggested on the current 3HO page). I believe this content belongs on Wikipedia, somewhere, and it's just a matter of agreeing on the proper entry for the content.

My current inclination is to have Sikh Dharma as a disambiguation page, linking to Sikhism (because Sikh Dharma appears to be a Punjabi term sometimes used to refer to the organized religion of orthodox Sikhism) and to 3HO (to be the main entry for the U.S.-based Sikh Dharma sect). 3HO would in turn provide links to Kundalini yoga, with appropriate context about its shared history with the 3HO religious movement and shared founding and ownership by Yogi Bhajan. I welcome any discussion from other interested editors.

- Lapith (talk) 20:19, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Lapith, thanks for reaching out. My only contribution was a revert while I patrolled recent changes. I saw a huge removal of sourced content, and a talk page that had had no activity for a couple of years - my interest was just to ensure that major changes were discussed. I haven't read widely enough on the subject to have an overall view as to what pages we should/shouldn't have, although I'd be happy to contribute to discussions about specific policy and/or sourcing issues. Let me know if I can help. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 20:55, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you @Girth Summit: for your offer for assistance. @SpacemanSpiff:, @Whispering:, both of you have summarily reversed my prior attempts to fix this page, but neither of you has engaged on this Talk topic. I am going to try one more time to move a conversation forward. I have provided numerous neutral sources on this Talk page and the related 3HO talk page (including encyclopedias, news articles, and court documents) describing the existence of an organization called Sikh Dharma and the common use of that term in the English language to refer to that particular organization and its religious adherents. Last year, the entire content of this page was vandalized by deletion and redirection to the general topic of orthodox Sikhism. I have attempted to move some of the information previously in this article to the 3HO page -- but 3HO and Sikh Dharma are two distinct organizations, as @Itsawizard: (correctly) pointed out in an attempted November 2018 edit (which was quickly reverted by Girth Summit for deleting rather than relocating well-sourced material). Spiff, Whispering -- Can you please provide some explanation for why you object to information about the Sikh Dharma organization being indexed on the Sikh Dharma page? If you continue to object to the existence of this page, can you indicate where you believe that content would be better housed so the redirect can be appropriately handled?

If there is no further discussion, I am going to revert to the status quo ante prior to vandalism, which is to restore the article to its status prior to the complete deletion of 5 years of material by [User:SpacemanSpiff|Spiff]], and then: (1) make appropriate neutral edits (mostly moving information from the 3HO page to this page) to address Spiff's concerns about hijacking and inappropriate content, with a "See also" link to Sikhism generally at the top of the entry; (2) remove those duplicative materials from the 3HO page to permit that page to return to providing information about the separate 3HO nonprofit organization, as Itsawizard tried to accomplish; and (3) update the internal links on the Harbhajan Singh Khalsa and Sects of Sikhism pages to correctly differentiate between the nonprofit organization 3HO and the religious organization Sikh Darma. In the alternative, I am open to changing this page's redirect from Sikhism to 3HO and making appropriate edits to the 3HO entry to explain the relationship and distinction between the two organizations.

Girth Summit, if you have other suggestions for how better to engage this discussion and build consensus please let me know; this is the first time I have dealt with such contentious edits, baseless accusations of a conflict of interest or "spamming and advocacy", threats of a ban, etc. I do not mean to transgress any Wikipedia rules or etiquette, but I have put a lot of time into explaining why the deletion of this page was improper and nobody has provided any explanation for why I might be wrong.

- Lapith (talk) 22:37, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Lapith. First of all, I'd suggest that you to stop using the word vandalism to describe what others have been doing. Vandalism has a specific meaning on Wikipedia, and it's restricted to doing something to intentionally damage the encyclopedia - if the other editors believe that their edits are in-line with policy, then their edits are good faith, not vandalism, even if they are wrong.

The standard question we would ask when establishing whether we should have an article about any organisation is whether it, as an entity, is notable. For organisations, they have to pass the standards described at WP:NORG, which calls for significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. For example, the NYT article below looks like it would pass the required standard for Sikh Dharma, which the article is about, but it wouldn't pass for 3HO, which it only gives a passing mention to. So, my questions for you are:

• What sources meeting WP:CORPDEPTH do you have describing Sikh Dharma?

* What sources meeting WP:CORPDEPTH do you have describing 3HO?

Once that's clear, that would help us more forward with establishing whether or not we can build quality article about them it. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 07:02, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Apologies - I skimmed your comments too quickly, I see that the article on 3HO currently exists. That being the case, the question just remains about whether we should have a separate article about Sikh Dharma. If there are multiple, independent reliable secondary sources giving significant coverage, and demonstrating that it is separate from 3HO, then I don't see why we shouldn't have a separate article. Looking at the source you've listed, I think that the NYT article would probably be considered significant coverage (but it says that 3HO is a non-profit venture owned by Sikh Dharma); the Oregonean one is reporting on a court case, so probably isn't significant coverage (it's really about the court case rather than the organisation); the court papers are primary sources, so wouldn't be considered; the Encyclopedia Britannica article gives fairly trivial coverage, and conflates 3HO with Sikh Dharma (it says that 3HO is an educational branch of Sikh Dharma); and I can't access the other one. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 07:55, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Further comment - I've now been able to access the final source below, the Sikhism book. That further conflates the terms 3HO and Sikh Dharma, simply saying that 3HO members are popularly known as the Sikh Dharma Brotherhood.

So, from an admittedly superficial reading of the sources, the understanding I come away with is the Sikh Dharma is an organisation with numerous religious centres across the US; it provides security staff for a number of governmental organisations; it has an education branch that is known as 3HO; and that black, white and hispanic converts to Sikhism who follow the organisation's teachings are known interchangeably as the Sikh Dharma Brotherhood, or as 3HO members. As it stands, I'm not seeing justification for two separate articles from these sources, unless I've misread them, but I can see a possible argument to redirect Sikh Dharma to 3HO rather than to Sikhism (or indeed to rename the 3HO article Sikh Dharma, which seems to be the parent organisation); on the other hand, if the phrase 'Sikh Dharma' has alternative meanings aside from this organisation, particularly in a global context, those changes might be contentious, so I would definitely want other people's input on that before coming to a firm view on this. GirthSummit _(blether) 08:34, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: Thanks so much for your engagement. I spent a little time searching around for additional sources for common usage at major news sites, and I agree that while some sources make an effort to distinguish between 3HO and Sikh Dharma, the press as a whole (in addition to the encyclopedias, as you note) has for many years tended to use the terms pretty interchangeably even when recognizing the formal difference between the two.

3HO adherents seem to have an objection to the conflation of their educational/yoga entity and the Sikh Dharma religion, as is apparent from comments by various Wiki editors and from the 3HO organization's website. If it is possible to remain neutral while also avoiding language that 3HO/Sikh Dharma adherents find offensive, I think we should do so. But I'm inclined to think that this falls into a similar situation as the LDS style guide, where the common usage of the term "Mormon" in 3rd-party sources may permit the use of that term even in some contexts where adherents of a particular church might not self-identify with that word. Moreover, most 3HO/Sikh Dharma adherents appear to simply self-identify as "Sikh", while orthodox Sikhs do not consider 3HO members to be part of their faith, so I don't think the self-identification is very definitive for presenting the information in an understandable and neutral manner. It seems appropriate to at least mention both terms and describe the technical difference between them.

Long story short, it sounds like we're on the same page that the 3HO and Sikh Dharma pages do not require separate entries. To the extent that 3HO is simply a network of yoga studios or educational centers founded by Yogi Bhajan to teach Kundalini Yoga, that topic seems to be adequately covered by those other entries. So the only question is whether the content about this religious sect should be indexed under Sikh Dharma or 3HO.

I took a look at historical use of the two entries. Prior to the May 2018 blanking of the Sikh Dharma entry, the most recent 3HO entry was 6,253 bytes. It asserted that 3HO was a sect of Sikhism, and provided information about Sikh Dharma, in addition to noting that officially 3HO is the name of the educational branch of the religious organization. At that same time, the most recent Sikh Dharma entry was 18,223 bytes; but a good chunk of that material was non-neutral or poorly sourced. The two entries were not duplicates, but neither one can really be said to have been the "main" article at that time. So I don't think that needs to guide us.

My position after looking at many sources is that, while "3HO" or "3HO Sikh" was common in early press coverage in the 1980s, "Sikh Dharma" is the more common term in recent coverage when referring to the religious sect. And as you say, that is also the name of the parent organization, which controls 3HO among other entities. So I think Sikh Dharma is the better location.

Is there any benefit to changing the name of 3HO to "Sikh Dharma", rather than simply restoring the Sikh Dharma page itself (and then redirecting the 3HO page)? You suggested this, but I'm not sure what the benefit is. I would think it would, if nothing else, create confusion in terms of tracing the history of the two pages. But, currently the 3HO page is included in the Sikhism project (with the accompanying sidebar). If that is a determinative factor, we should make sure not to disrupt that larger project.

You note, "if the phrase 'Sikh Dharma' has alternative meanings aside from this organisation, particularly in a global context, those changes might be contentious." An earlier version of the Sikh Dharma entry started with a Distinguish note: "Not to be confused with Dharma § Sikhism." In this instance, I think an About note might be more appropriate, provided we are able to determine what other context the term "Sikh Dharma" is used in. While I understand that the term "Sikh Dharma" has some meaning in the Punjab language, its primary referent in English is the organization founded by Yogi Bhajan: I have not found any 3rd party source using "Sikh Dharma" in English to refer to anything other than the 3HO sect. Where might we find additional information to settle this issue?

Finally, at the risk of being overly defensive: In my prior attempts at discussion I was careful to ask questions rather than lob accusations about the unilateral deletion of this article. Given the threats and lack of response from the deleting party, I was inclined to believe that it might rise to the level of "illegitimately blanking" the page: the reason for deleting all 18,202 bytes of content about this organization (including the well-sourced parts) does not strike me as "readily apparent", and no non-frivolous explanation for the removal of legitimate content was ever provided in the edit summary or in response to this Talk page. It seems to me that for whatever reason, there is an attempt by some editors to minimize or eliminate information about this organization or its links to orthodox Sikhism (for instance, this near-blanking of the 3HO page to "erase a blasphemy"; or this deletion of cross-links to the general entry on Sikhism for the purpose of "Neutralizing the biased positioning of 3HO with Sikhi religion"). But I recognize that part of my feelings on this stem from being accused of bias, spam, and advocacy (and for the record, I am not a member of 3HO/Sikh Dharma, have no connection to those organizations, and in fact I am not a member of any religious faith). Clearly this is a topic that garners significant controversy, and I will try to maintain a presumption of good faith going forward. Thank you for taking the time to resensitize me to those issues.

- Lapith (talk) 21:25, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

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