User talk:Robertinventor/POV tag

Summary of reasons for the POV tag and proposal for a solution

The POV tag states

"POV tag - Bias towards western academics - Gombrich etc - to detriment of recognized and well-regarded Buddhist authors Walpola Rahula, Dalai Lama, etc. No details on view of authenticity of sutras. Rewrite of four truths in lede is WP:SYNTHESIS"

Summary of the reasons for the tag

In the case of Buddhism then for central articles like Nirvana, Four Noble Truths and Karma in Buddhism then there is a body of core ideas that are accepted by all Buddhists in any of the sutra traditions, Therevadhan and Mahayana. So in that case, it does make sense to present these core ideas and then point out the minor differences here and there.

For the Western academics however such as Richard Gombrich and Stephen Batchelor then I suggest that their interpretations are so radically different from those of modern Buddhists in the sutra traditions, that it's impossible to merge them into one article without confusing the reader hugely. I list some of the differences here: Why the Western academic ideas need to be separated out as WP:SUBPOV articles, but the Therevadhan and Mahayana ideas on core topics can be handled within a single article

This is at least as radical a difference in view as the differing WP:SUBPOVs of Muslims, Jews and Christians on Resurrection of Jesus. The western academics themselves make it clear that they are aware of these differences in view and talk about how they think the scholars in the Buddhist scholarly tradition have just got many things wrong about what Buddha originally thought and what the original teachings were. For more on this see User:Robertinventor/Writing for a SUBPOV in the topic area of Religion

The wikipedia guidelines on reliable sources not only permit articles on religion to be based on the writings of those who are "recognized and well regarded" experts in the religion itself, they actually encourage this, in "significant world religious denominations with organized academies or recognized theological experts in religious doctrine and scholarship". See Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#Religious_sources

That definitely applies to Buddhism with a two thousand year old scholarly tradition. I go into this in a lot more detail in my Essay on Reliable Sources in Buddhism and a Proposal.

Incidentally, many outside the Tibetan tradition don't realize this, but the Dalai Lama is regarded as highly learned in Tibetan Buddhism by the standards used to evaluate WP:RS in this topic area. He passed his Geshe Lharumpa degree age 23. This is a Tibetan Buddhist qualification that normally requires fifteen years of study, often more. He is thoroughly versed in the Tibetan sutras. Not only that, he has completed studies in all four traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. This is rare. He is definitely recognized and well-regarded in Tibetan Buddhist scholarship by other Tibetan Buddhists. He has also written many books on Buddhism in English that are widely cited. He is one of the top WP:RS sources in Tibetan Buddhism.

Proposal for a solution

We have tried focused discussions in the past but they simply didn't work, the views were too different on the article to come to a consensus on even the smallest point. We ended up with long frustrating debates on what seemed the most focused RfC possible, on the use of the word "redeath" in the article, and I think I now know why.

My recommendation is based the observation that the sutra tradition Buddhists have such a radically different WP:SUBPOV from this small group of almost entirely western scholars - that they just can't be merged into a single article. We tried, it didn't work, and there is no real surprise about this when you see it this way. The western scholars barely mention the Buddhist scholars, and do so mainly to say that they got things wrong, and the Buddhist scholars don't mention the western scholars at all. They have radically different views on what count as WP:RS. Both types of WP:RS are notable and reliable and also valid secondary sources for their respective views according to wikipedia but not for each other's views. Their views are as radically different as the views of Christians and Muslims on Resurrection of Jesus who similarly rarely mention each other, and who similarly have WP:RS that are not WP:RS for each other's views.

For this reason I think the central articles Four Noble Truths, Anatta, Karma in Buddhism, Nirvana etc need to be split according to a WP:SUBPOV, just as was done for Resurrection of Jesus. The WP:SUBPOVs would rely on different WP:RS. After looking at this closely I now think that it would confuse the reader too much to try a parallel exposition of both at once in the same article.

This has been an issue with Karma in Buddhism, Nirvana and Anatta which often say things that for a sutra tradition Buddhist are controversial and indeed, sometimes just plain wrong as seen from their WP:SUBPOV. So it's not just focused on this article but is a much more pervasive issue in the Buddhism topic area. JJ did a rewrite of all these articles at around the same time in 2014, and since then they have all presented this WP:SUBPOV of the western academics. I think this is the main reason that the project is rather dead now, at least in its treatment of the sutras. There were attempts to revert the rewrites back then which failed, and you get hardly get any comments from editors familiar with sutra tradition Buddhism any more, only the western academic trained scholars, and many articles on the sutras are just stubs that are not getting revised, even on some of the most important sutras. The few comments you do get in these central areas nowadays are in the Anatta article where sutra Buddhists still continue to attempt edits of the article but get all their edits reverted.

Specific recommendations - how to do it if this solution is accepted

My specific recommendation, if this solution is accepted, is that we move all four of those articles to new titles, with the title expressing clearly that it is a WP:SUBPOV of Western academics. Then we roll back the originals of the articles to their versions from 2014 just before JJ's first major edit.

The original versions from 2014 used the WP:RS secondary sources recognized by sutra tradition Buddhists, and expressed the WP:SUBPOV of sutra tradition Buddhism. Sutra tradition Buddhists worked on these articles through consensus editing for many years right up to autumn 2014, at which point most of these articles were stable, with mainly minor edits. So they can be regarded as mature stable articles that we can roll back to.

After we complete this move and roll back, we then add a short sentence to the head of each version of the article, linking to the other, and add a longer but still quite short section towards the end of each one summarizing the views of the other.

The thing is we have very few Buddhist editors in the sutra traditions capable of writing such articles left in the project now, I don't think enough to do the job of creating these articles from scratch. It's not an easy job to expound the ideas clearly anyway, and especially so to Westerners who come with so many pre-conceptions about the ideas. But we do have excellent previous versions. So rolling back to those stable previous versions is the best way to get started on new sutra tradition versions of them. Then hopefully that will attract editors back to the project again.

I think it will benefit both types of articles to do it this way, with a clear separation which should also help with mutual understanding too. Editors will be able to work on the articles that describe the WP:SUBPOV they are most familiar with, and do it without the need to engage in constant edit reverts or long discussions with editors from the other WP:SUBPOV. Also if we do it this way, all the articles will retain their edit histories.