Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Media on Ram Bahadur Bomjon's controversies

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Ram Bahadur Bomjon#Media coverage. This should be a selective merge, with regard to WP:UNDUE and WP:OVERCITE. There's a suggestion here to skip the normal redirect after the merge, but I don't see any further discussion of that, so I'll just leave it up to whoever does the merge whether to leave a redirect behind or not. See WP:SMERGE to make sure we comply with attribution requirements after the merge. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:14, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Media on Ram Bahadur Bomjon's controversies[edit]

Media on Ram Bahadur Bomjon's controversies (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This very long article appears to be a POV fork to present all of the negative information about the subject.

This article does not indicate that the media coverage of the subject is itself notable or deserves its own article. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:09, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Nepal-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 21:07, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While I think there is room for elaboration of many of the paragraphs, it goes much too far to delete the whole entry. It abounds with very well researched information and is a very useful resource for people who want to know more about the many controversies surrounding this man.--Mathilde2009 (talk) 21:50, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And something else Robert McClenon: you are complaining that there are no external links to this entry. Correct, hopefully the will come, but what can you expect from an entry that was added two days ago in it's entirety? Best wishes, --Mathilde2009 (talk) 18:10, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete As pe nominator. The most permeant coverage should be summarized in the main article. Overkill does not reflect the actual subjects notability.PRehse (talk) 19:49, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry then. But someone wrote: This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; try the Find link tool for suggestions. (August 2017)

And my point is valid, I'd say.--Mathilde2009 (talk) 12:42, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Buddhism-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting to give time for TimTempleton's merge suggestion to be considered.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- RoySmith (talk) 22:37, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge I agree with TimTempleton's comment about merging, but after reading the article and the sourcing, it appears that the article is mainly a WP:POVFORK with quite a bit of WP:OR. Merging the content as-is would present a pretty serious WP:UNDUE problem; I think references to these controversies definitely belong on the main article, however. Cthomas3 (talk) 00:29, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment from nominator - The author of this article posted the following to my talk page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Robert_McClenon#Media_on_Ram_Bahadur_Bomjon.27s_controversies My talk page isn't the proper place to make the case to keep an article when there is an AFD. I would ask that the closer take it into account. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:27, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Robert McClenon, this new user (first registered edit 10 Aug) was unaware how to find this AfD entry page. He asked me on my talk page as well and I have now forwarded him a link to this page. Loopy30 (talk) 13:01, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"There's no reason for such extensive coverage", Timtempleton writes. What is the source for those words? I would say that, on the contrary, there is ample reason for this article because Mr Bomjan is at the center of a rather dangerous cult. [Would be] Followers looking him up will mostly find propaganda produced by Bomjan's adepts and little that will help them to move away from Bomjan and regain their independence. So, this Wiki entry is a rare, easy to find and useful resource for these souls. Deleting this article will help the inner circle of the adepts and Mr Bomjan himself, not those trying to research him and find reasons to severe their links with him. --Mathilde2009 (talk) 17:23, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm deferring to WP:CRITS which says to avoid articles or sections just on controversies. It can be kept balanced, but in this case this info can be dramatically condensed and merged. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 16:14, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment @Timtempleton: That very Wikipedia page says: "WP:BALASPS: "the weight a Wikipedia article gives to criticism of its subject should be proportionate to the overall weight of such criticisms in reliable sources on the subject of the article." The rest of my argument is found on my own Talk page, as I don't want to fill this space. DarkAges 15:44, 25 August 2017 (UTC)KaliageDarkAges 15:44, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment @Mathilde2009: All the more reason to move the controversial information to the article itself. If the main article shows both points of view, weighted appropriately, all readers can decide for themselves and they will not be unduly swayed by either the positive-spin main article or a the negative-spin controversy article. Cthomas3 (talk) 04:52, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Condense and merge per TimTempleton. The main article appears to currently have WP:UNDUE favorable information about Bomjon and his group of followers, and the tags that claims are not in the refs are worrisome. If most of the articles about them in reliable sources have been negative, then most of the article text based on those sources should be proportionally negative to maintain a WP:NPOV.   — Jeff G. ツ 14:10, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Condense and merge as per Jeff G. ツ if I have a right to vote about my own article (please advise). I am sorry to come late here, I was not able to find this link (Thank you again, Loopy30!). Reading your suggestions, I can agree with merging. I also took to my heart what Robert McClenon complained about, that it is too long. I think partly because - to enable quick search for references - I made each media entry as a single subtitle. This created an endless List of contents. I still consider these rather formal and cosmetic problems and can be solved easily. Someone above mentioned that same events had been mentioned repeatedly. That was my intention, so that there is proof from at least two independent sources that the event really happened. Please advise me what is the priority between the two approaches (shortness of final text versus reliable information from different sources)? TimTempleton and others suggested merging with the main article. I think it could be done in a way that the first descriptive part could go to the main article, and a "dry" list of the medias could make a new article of the type of "List of...". I have no problem to elaborate a list of "positive links" in the same format to have them all in one "List of" page. But in this particular case, I am afraid, mentioning just one or two links from the long list of sources about his controversies would not be reliable enough to positively prejudiced seekers for information, because this is an area full of mystification and there are claims the media had conspired against Ram Bomjon. I totally agree with the logic of Jeff G. about the importance of seeing the proportions between negative and positive information. I also agree with Jeff G. "the tags that claims are not in the refs are worrisome" in the main article. DarkAges 11:02, 23 August 2017 (UTC)KaliageDarkAges 11:02, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Also Mathilde2009, thank you to bring to the attention the need for reliable sources for those who really need them. It could even save some people to become his new victims, I am confident, because the drastic SEO of the propaganda pages about this person pushed out the critical articles from searches. Let me just add what I wrote to Robert McClenon, that because the article has in its title that it is about media and the controversies they cover, it is containing much more links supporting a negative image than a positive one. The article is not a biography or a general overview. But still it has many links to the main article and links to the cult's organization, their literature etc. - I counted, after latest editing, more than 26 links which belong to the "positive image" part. Which POV Fork would do that...? I also noted to Robert that not a single sentence is without reference to media sources. I think most opinions about POV Fork, WP:OR or WP:UNDUE are caused by not clicking on the links and not checking the reliability of quotes and claims from the references. I think anyone who have stayed Nepal or reads about it, or experts in Buddhism, recognize easily the notability of the article topic. Thank you everyone!DarkAges 19:17, 21 August 2017 (UTC)KaliageDarkAges 19:17, 21 August 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaliage (talk • contribs)
  • Delete per WP:TNT, WP:POV, WP:SOAP and WP:NOTWEBHOST. Even if this was not so close to bollocks because of how badly it's written, I would still delete it as . Bearian (talk) 16:03, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Don't bite newcomers @Bearian:. If the article is badly written, it can be improved, isn't it? Try to rewrite it, but why do you want to throw away a precise work in a good intention to provide a balanced picture? First look at the main article, and if that you find well written, impartial, neutral and well sourced, fair enough. Yet then cult propaganda and irrational statements with no other proofs than their own blogs will be regarded as Wikipedia standard, and serious works based on multiple mainstream media sources as "badly written". Also, the main article's biography stops somewhere in 2010, with a jump to 2012 mentioning one controversy in a single sentence. I disagree with you Bearian, as I am not pushing any opinion, I do not need to push anything, it is pushing itself to your eyes if you read those sources, check out the photos and news links, for example the Image TV channel showing his bloodied victims. One photo to an article in the Prateek Daily shows his own mother at the local police station reporting her son for keeping her and other 4 siblings hostage for five days, beating them and kidnapping the youngest daughter: do I need to push anything about this one? I only collected the sources, and put them on display alongside the "positive image" ones (more than 20 of these), if you care to read and distinguish them from each other. I could have just listed the links and not add descriptive text, yes, but then those unfamiliar with how things were evolving over the years, would not understand how it is that there were (seemingly) no (searchable) news for ten years, or why we find the controversies only in archives now: so I added the descriptive first part to explain the reason for uneven media coverage. ... However, the main article intentionally left out the most drastic controversies and mentioned only three, and only in two lines, and had not been updated by the latest interview where the follower actually admits Bomjon had hands in the death of his sister (Setopati). Can you put on a balance the two things? What is more important about a celebrated religious leader? Information (from mainstream media) about people being kidnapped, beaten to blood and (apparently) even killed, or a holy legend about the length of his hair and whiteness of his robe, and claims of inedia without any proof? As Jeff pointed out above, proportion should be kept. Thanks for thinking twice. This comment is reduced, the full version is on my User Talk page. DarkAges 22:03, 22 August 2017 (UTC)KaliageDarkAges 22:03, 22 August 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaliage (talk • contribs) [reply]

I completely agree with you, Kaliage. And to Bearian: If "pushing a point of view in violation of our charitable charter" is a problem, then why not delete the mostly hagiographic main article about Bomjan? This is not a rhetorical question. In the meantime I agree with Kaliage that there is no need to push the subject matter of this article because it pushes itself when you follow the links given. --Mathilde2009 (talk) 08:58, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Merge a few things in there worth keeping to the main article on there. Otherwise, I don't think it stands as an article on its own. South Nashua (talk) 14:42, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment to South Nashua It would be more constructive to give reasons, South Nashua. Articles solely focusing on controversies are many on Wikipedia. If there can be published controversies about Mrs. Clinton or Buddhism openly, or about totally unknown figures like Bulssy Jaybyeon (have anyone heard about him?) why not about a Nepalese religious leader with organization branches in the US, Japan and Europe? Any scientific reasons for such selectiveness...?Thanks.DarkAges 15:33, 23 August 2017 (UTC)KaliageDarkAges 15:33, 23 August 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaliage (talk • contribs)
  • Comment @Kaliage:Sure, happy to elaborate. There are few links in there that meet RS on a few of the controversies in the main article that can't hurt to be added (i.e. - the incident with the Slovakian). Also, a courteous tip, it's common practice on Wikipedia to use four tildes after each comment in non-article space and you also might want to use the ping template if you're talking directly to another person in a discussion. South Nashua (talk) 21:15, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment @South Nashua: As Jeff G. ツ pointed out, and also this Wikipedia page, the proportion of what is more in reliable sources (not on Google or cult-based sources), "admiration" or criticism, should be mirrored in the article. The main article has not kept faithful to that proportion. It deals with romantic mystifications, while the mainstream Nepalese media (which that author forgot to mention at all) had been describing over more than ten years a series of rather criminal deeds. So if you just add a few links from my article to the main one, without changing its whole structure, you will not mirror the true picture. Moreoever, don't know if you really read these things, but actually the link about the Slovakian had already been there, in the main article (in one sentence). So I am confident that there is also a need to show that his controversial actions are not just occassional "mistakes" but a regular pattern on a nearly yearly basis(a few lines down I show you why), and if you count, those victims are more than a dozen. Can you just satisfy a ten years long media coverage of his criminal deeds (totally ignored in the main article!) with adding a few other media links to the main article? The rest of my comment is on my User Talk page, not to fill the space here so much. DarkAges 14:51, 24 August 2017 (UTC)KaliageDarkAges 14:51, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment to GrammarFascist Thank you for your suggestion. I don't mind merging it with the main article, but there are important descriptions in the first part to understand the situation of media in that country, and the proportion of the coverage about controversies towards the propagandist sources should be kept according to reality. "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight" as well as ""WP:BALASPS: the weight a Wikipedia article gives to criticism of its subject should be proportionate to the overall weight of such criticisms in reliable sources on the subject of the article." Thus, if you want to merge it, OK, but please allow to mirror the reality in the proportion between negative news coverage and positive one. Actually I was not trying to write a biography, my article's main focus was solely on how the media perceived Ram Bahadur Bomjon, how many controversies he did over the years, how media was blocked in truthfully covering his controversies from 2012 till today and replaced by their "own media", actually how the cult PR, based on media influencing, is working in this case. That's why I added the first explanatory chapters (Violence against media, Censorship, Media as enemy) - they explain how the media coverage was evolving over the years, as influenced by the cult's efforts in a Third World country which is vulnerable to bribes.If there is any possibility on Wikipedia to check the "readership" counts of articles, I would request you to check how many readers read the main article. There are too many people searching for the truth about this person, but on the main article they do not find that (full) truth, and then they go to Nepal and get chained, raped and beaten... That is simply not fair. If you allow me to share with the public this complex view of his all media-covered controversies (and the explanation why they don't see any more news about his controversies in Nepalese mainstream media from 2012, and that after meeting the ex Prime Minister he is now celebrated as an untouchable national saint in Nepal), the wide public will appreciate it very much. People deserve to know the background of this cult, the full picture, from a reliable source like Wikipedia. Now, when he is invited to the USA, Europe, Canada etc., Westerners are desperately seeking updated information about him and his new religion, but they cannot find it on Wikipedia. In Google they get mostly propaganda or unreliable blogs. It took a nearly superhuman special effort to dig out the truth from the archives for me! But please understand me: I don't mind changing the tone of the title - "Ram Bahadur Bomjon and the media" or "Ram Bahadur Bomjon in the media" would be more neutral?, and I would add more "propagandist" (old and sensational links when even Western media admired the teenager meditator as "the new Buddha") to balance the mainstream media's more than ten years long negative coverage. Please advise, when can I get "endorsement" to start to merge the two articles, or am I not entitled to do that? Thanks.DarkAges 10:32, 26 August 2017 (UTC)KaliageDarkAges 10:32, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Media_on_Ram_Bahadur_Bomjon%27s_controversies&oldid=1138069341"