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Editing on Wikipedia can turn into a daily job and I wasn't willing to do it anymore. I argued with the premies there until I was blue in the face, and was threatened with being blocked, called a member of an insignificant hate-group, so that doesn't foster a civil environment. There aren't any neutral or uninvolved Wiki editors willing to moderate the discussions or even comment on those articles anymore. The logic behind all the deletions is that the criticism of a "living biograhical subject" in Wikipedia must be kept to a minimum. EPO is considered to be "original resesarch," owned by one person, therefore, it cannot be used as a source within the article, except in a teensy, weensy way. Any reputable media sources don't count according to the premies because ex-premies "instigated" that news coverage about ourselves -- can you believe that premies give exes that much power?!? The Rawat students don't seem able to believe that the mainstream journalists and newpaper editors actually have minds of their own. I'm not surprised at all that the premie editors have done this. I saw it coming and threw my hands up in the air. It was very difficult for me to edit the Rawat articles with the palpable hatred being directed my way. I started noticing that one editor was watching my edits and going in and changing each one (just about) -- even in small ways. I felt stalked. Plus, if "someone" doesn't like the Wiki guidelines or policy, they just rewrite them to suit their needs. Nifty, eh? Having said all that, jump right in and object to the deletions. A lot of Andries' work has been deleted, leaving only large groupings of footnotes, that a casual reader will never read. Up next? My guess is the wholesale deletion of the "Criticism of Prem Rawat" article. 
Modified by Cynthia at Sat, May 13, 2006, 07:15:36
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After thinking about it, I just couldn't let the deletions stand without saying something. I'm sure Jossi Fresco will now get one of his Wiki comrades to block me. I think Jossi Fresco is a very little prick with a very little mind. He angers a lot of people at Wikiedia with his passive-aggressiveness. All he does is refrain from calling names, but he certainly does know how to push buttons and insult people. I haven't encountered too many people like Jossi Fresco, who condescend to others in the way that he does. (Now he'll definitely have me blocked.) This is my favorite criticism of Jossi Fresco's recent attempt to actually change Wikpedia policy so that any Wiki editors will blocked permanently if they (me) write about other editors (him) on off-wiki forums or chat rooms, like this forum: "Delete. Why not start blocking people because they're not nice to their mothers? This is severely fucked-up control freakery." Like Master, like servant???? Anyway, here's what I wrote: Just because I don't have the time or inclination to edit this article right now doesn't mean I don't have an opinion about the wholesale deletions made in the past couple of days by Momento. It must be noted in the article that Sophia Collier is an ex-premie, or former follower which are the same thing. She may have written a book when she was 19, but she is most definitely an ex-premie. She became a premie at age 16, and her book cannot be compared to writings by religious scholars! Collier stopped following Rawat before she wrote that book, which was published in 1978, and the quotes by her are being used to push the pro-Rawat POV to somehow prove that Rawat never said he was God. In fact, the major reason she stopped following Rawat was because he was being openly worshipped by premies, a practice that was supported by Divine Light Mission. She found this out by going to nightly satsang, something she never found time to do when she worked at DLM in Denver. I don't expect any Rawat students to answer any questions here posed by anyone unless they are a premie, because they've proved so far that they don't believe it is necessary to discuss anything on this talk page with anyone, unless they are also a premie -- a practice here which is very rude. The text about Rawat by religious scholars must be reverted, imo. I support that. The text deleted so far represents extensive research done by Andries, and just leaving the footnotes is completely unacceptable. It's a show of bad faith on the part of Momento and Jossi Fresco. Even Jossi Fresco has expressed that it isn't acceptable to be deleting the hard work of other editors. This article has not been improved by removing the criticism. As as Pjacobi stated above, the article in the Daily Californian does provide a reputable source to justify including ex-premies' criticism. Removing the text and leaving only the footnotes grouped together makes the article look as if Prem Rawat has something to hide, looks silly, and also makes this article look even more like a hagiography, especially since premie editors have chosen to keep the eight photos while cutting the criticism. This article reminds me of the many ashrams I lived in, where there were photos of Maharaji on every single wall, not to mention the altar in the main gathering room and altar in the meditation room. Yes, that's what they were called: Altars. These recent deletions have not an improved the article to make it more encyclopedic. That is just wrong. Whatta gonna do, Jossi, threaten to have me blocked, just like you do to everyone else who doesn't agree with you? Yeah, I read your stuff. Sylviecyn 19:00, 13 May 2006 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Prem_Rawat
Modified by Cynthia at Sat, May 13, 2006, 14:36:44
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And well done, Cynth, and so well written, and so wasted in Wiki land - that's the tragedy. Might it be better if everyone just stays off Wiki and allow the Rawat article to blossom and grow into the absurd puff piece it is becoming? Momento is an unstoppable robot of very little brain and Jossi is a slightly more clever robot, but with a shared agenda and limitless dedication. Leave 'em to it, I say. Too bad for them that they can't see that the hideous picture of Rawat at the top of the main article will send more web-surfers running for the hills than any well-referenced 'criticisms' sub-section that nobody will ever read, whether Wiki-eds delete it or not. Everyone I know first uses Google nowadays for first-source information. Googling 'Rawat' will bring them to EPO. Job done. I predict Wiki-nerdsville-pedia will become irrelevant and abandoned within a couple of years, by sensible folk looking for hard information on pretty-well any subject. It was when I read (veteran Wiki editor) P. Jacobi waffling on authoritively about what it takes to edit an encyclopedia - when he clearly hasn't edited an encyclopedia in his life - I resolved to give up any future Wiki involvement. The whole thing is a game of 'let's pretend'. And let's face it, premies are better at that than you or I can ever hope to be - praise the lord
Modified by Nigel at Sat, May 13, 2006, 17:07:21
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Unless of course one enjoys being a member of a club for personality disordered white anglophone middle class men - in which case Wikipedia is undoubtedly where one would belong. Nik
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Thanks Nigel. One thing about Wikipedia is that those folks train themselves to think, then write in NPOV. Anyone who spends time doing that risks losing/mangling their writing skills, if they had any to begin with. The other thing is that they actually call themselves "Wikipedians," and use "Wiki" language to talk to each other. I think it's creepy. The majority of articles on that website are poorly written and contain many mistakes, from factual mistakes to grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. There's no accountability for the accuracy of the articles because any Tom, Dick, Harry, and their cousin (who may be a pedophile, one just never knows) can write an article. In contrast, take a look at the Encyclopaedia Britannica board. They have educated, credentialed people there, among them a Nobel laureate and a Pulizter Prize winner. Who woulda thunk? http://corporate.britannica.com/board/ Here's what Jossi wrote on my user talk page in response to what I wrote about the Rawat article. Jossi's making a case for himself to have me blocked from editing on Wikipedia, based on the changes he made amending the "No personal attacks" policy to include "off-wiki attacks." He's so transparent, it's hilarious, not to mention the hilarity of his comment!!! I find your comments about me in your forum in which your make an assessment on the size of my prick and on the size of my mind, to be just childish. Note that these silly attempts at provocation will fail. It only reflects badly on you, not on me. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC) - Jossi, believe me, the very last thing in the world I would ever want to do is to think anything about your penis, whatever size it is. What I said is the same thing as calling you a dick. It's transparent, btw, when you suddenly lose your ability to understand the English language when it suits you to misinterpret what someone says. Besides, it's absolutely none of your business what I write off of Wikipedia. Never was, never will be. You're such a chronic whiner. Sylviecyn 11:12, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
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Andries, Thanks for letting me know you repsonded. "The liquor store stating that alcohol is good and harmless" is the title of your post below. I don't think that's an apt comparison. The advertisement of liquor or alcohol isn't the same thing as a dangerous cult-leader and his organizations promoting a spiritual belief-system that includes the worship of another person as an avatar. As we all know, there is no truth-in-adertising when it comes to cults, and that hasn't changed over the years, at least not in the U.S. That's part of what makes them dangerous. However, in the U.S there has been progress with regard to manufacturers and retailers of any kind of alcoholic drink. Manufacturers of beer, wine, and spirits, do make disclaimers now and give warnings to consumers. They tell people to drink responsibly, to not drink and drive, not to drink while pregnant, etc. They do this in print and tv advertisements. Cults do the opposite by hiding the past and whitewashing the truth about a cult-leader's history, which demonstrates a marked regression in the way long-term cult leaders, such as Rawat and SSB, operate. But, once again, Andries, I think you missed my point. Or maybe it is a language problem. In the same paragraph, you disavowed that SSB is a dangerous cult leader, while describing the horrific abuse SSB committed on one of his followers. I won't go into another lengthy explanation for you explaining why someone, who is a cult leader (avatar-type) and also a pedophile is dangerous, even if they abuse "only" one person. That's all it takes to make them dangerous, Andries: abuse of one person. I've explained all this many times before and you seem unable or unwilling to understand. Btw, I don't know where you got the idea that I was paraphrasing Joe in my post to you. He may have expressed similar ideas, but I wrote that post with you in mind specifically, and I wasn't even thinking about what Joe had written in his post in that thread. That's why my post was titled "Andries, you don't have to think in NPOV here..."
Modified by Cynthia at Sun, May 14, 2006, 10:00:43
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Cynthia, I try to not exaggerate the matters because I believe, based on my personal experience with this, that inaccurate or exaggerated warnings work counterproductive. For example, the Dutch psychology professor Piet Vroon suggestively compared Sathya Sai Baba with Hitler in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant in the early 1990s in a very subjective article in the section "Science and society" where it should never have been published. I found this then so extreme that I did unfortunately take his other criticisms seriously. This is why I also object to statements by True Blue/Mary about cults. When somebody visits an Elan Vital introductory meeting or listens to a speech by Maharaji then s/he will probably come to the conclusion that Mary's statement in her article "[cults] use extremely effective coercive techniques to recruit and then control their members" is untrue and may not take her other justified criticisms and warnings seriously http://www.prem-rawat-talk.org/forum/posts/5647.html http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex-baba/engels/articles/santaclaus.html article by Piet Vroon with among others the following exaggerated, untrue and implausible statements in italics. "The behaviour of Baba’s followers can be explained as a kind of brainwashing. You are in a strange land, your individuality is diminished by the uniform, smoking is disallowed as well as alcohol, food is only vegetarian, walking around is forbidden on all kinds of times, most visitors have hardly any place for themselves and all and everything is focussed on darshan. This generates a kind of collective psychosis."
Andries (amended for contents)
Modified by Andries at Mon, May 15, 2006, 06:43:30
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Andries, I see your point about using hyperbolic statements to discuss the harmfulness of cults. But Mary's paper was written for a college course and it's unlikely that it will be read by anyone who's invited to attend an introductory program about Prem Rawat. What's more likely is that folks will do a Google search on Prem Rawat and find all information available online so they can make an informed decision. Hopefully, they won't choose the Wikipedia articles on the Google search. For your information, here are some synonyms of harmful: | harmful | | Part of Speech: | adjective | | Definition: | injurious | | Synonyms: | adverse, bad, baleful, baneful, calamitous, cataclysmic, catastrophic, consumptive, corroding, corrupting, crippling, damaging, deleterious, destructive, detrimental, dire, disadvantageous, disastrous, evil, harassing, hurtful, incendiary, inimical, internecine, malefic, malicious, malignant, menacing, mischievous, murderous, nocuous, noxious, painful, pernicious, pestiferous, pestilential, risky, ruinous, sinful, sinister, subversive, toxic, undermining, unhealthy, unsafe, unwholesome, virulent |
Modified by Cynthia at Mon, May 15, 2006, 06:47:52
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He probably drives a BMW too? (I am talking egos here, not the smutty inference  ) What I forgot to mention was Jacobi's line that Wiki should not encourage eds working on one item only where they have a special interest (er, does he mean 'expertise'?) Instead, he prefers to skip about editing numerous articles as the mood suits. Things are not much better when experts do join in. Without a peer review, and provided nobody cares that much about a subject to make corrections, articles become exercises in vanity publishing. There are numerous psychology-related Wiki pieces where the author makes a point of linking to their own research, citing their own university, and posing as authorities, when you don't even find their names in the textbooks. As an example, here's a sub-section on critical periods in language development. It is an area I find very interesting, but have no strong feelings about, one way or the other. >>>>>>The Critical Period HypothesisLinguist Eric Lenneberg (1964) stated that the crucial period of language acquisition ends around the age of 12 years. He claimed that if no language is learned before then, it could never be learned in a normal and fully functional sense. This was called as the "Critical period Hypothesis." An interesting example of this is the case of Genie, also known as "The Wild Child". A thirteen-year-old victim of lifelong child abuse, Genie was discovered in her home on November 4th, 1970, strapped to a potty chair and wearing diapers. She appeared to be entirely without language. Her father had judged her retarded at birth and had chosen to isolate her, and so she had remained until her discovery. It was an ideal (albeit horrifying) opportunity to test the theory that a nurturing environment could somehow make up for a total lack of language past the age of 12. She was unable to acquire language completely, although the degree to which she acquired language is disputed. [2] Detractors of the "Critical Period Hypothesis" point out that in this example and others like it (see Feral children), the child is hardly growing up in a nurturing environment, and that the lack of language acquisition in later life may be due to the results of a generally abusive environment rather than being specifically due to a lack of exposure to language. A more up-to-date view of the Critical Period Hypothesis is represented by the University of Maryland, College Park instructor Robert DeKeyser. DeKeyser argues that although it is true that there is a critical period, this does not mean that adults cannot learn a second language perfectly, at least on the syntactic level. DeKeyser talks about the role of language aptitude as opposed to the critical period. [citation needed] >>>>>>>>>>> I don't doubt this DeKeyser guy knows a few things, may have numerous publications, but I don't see the need for his inclusion in the article (he is not a noted original theorist in the area). And why the reference to the University of Maryland? In placing his name alongside those of Chomsky and Lenneberg - who are in all the textbooks - DeKeyser seems to be looking for a parity of significance that is more easily achieved via Wiki than by normal academic routes. BTW: It is only this last paragraph I object to. The rest of the article is fine. (Except 'albeit horrifying', whilst true, is hardly NPOV, and 'Detractors ... point out' is unsourced and weaselly. Different Wiki standards apply when nobody cares that much.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition#Nativist_theories
Modified by Nigel at Sun, May 14, 2006, 14:16:54
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Yeah it's mind-boggling how incompetent those articles are. All you have to do is pick one at random and there are messes upon messes to wade through. But, my question: How does one take a guy seriously who says this about himself? I consider my self a "Renaissance man"...
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Hi Cynthia, The recent deletions are unrelated to the question whether the ex-premies represent an insignificant minority POV. The reasons for the deletions are 1. a desire expressed by several editors to size down the article 2. clumsiness by editor Momento while downsizing the article Cynthia, when you edit controversial articles in Wikipedia, you have to know the rules and it takes time and experience to learn them. Do not give up so quickly. Andries
Modified by Andries at Sun, May 14, 2006, 04:49:56
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Andries, You're so naive, Andries, it's almost painful to observe. The changes being made by Momento, someone who has few writing skills and no academic skills, are terrible. I have read the rules on Wikipedia often. What good are those rules when anyone can change them at their whim? My experience on Wikipedia has been that there are more rules than brains there, and that's a giant problem. There are so many rules, it hinders free thinking. Plus, navigating the rules can become a mine-field, especially when editing a controversial topic. It's also very cultish and cliquish on Wikipedia. That's a visceral feeling I get all the time when engaging folks there. I don't know how you can stand that aspect of it. When you stand back and look at it, it's another experiment in thought controlling people. That's a poisonous environment for an ex-cult member, imo. Cynthia
Modified by Cynthia at Sun, May 14, 2006, 07:09:28
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If they can't even give any truthful or real information (and there is plenty of it) about a greedy little mind abusing cult and cult leader, someone called Prem Rawat who claimed himself to be the "The Lord All Powerful" by his own words and much, much, more. Then they are more than worthless in my opinion. Let's be honest about it. The information they give about this cult helps no one. That's the point... They suck!
Modified by hilltop at Sun, May 14, 2006, 02:17:05
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