Hello!
Today I wanted to read [[Opus Dei]] - and frankly, I didn't exactly like what I saw. The article reads like it was written by the Opus Dei. Checking the history, I found that mainly two IPs have been editing the article a *few* times, spamming it with Opus Dei POV, and completely drowning the remaining bits of criticism. .
Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opus_Dei&oldid=10888580 to the current version.
Now, I put a Totally Disputed tag into it, but I don't really feel like doing a rollback, because I have to would roll back more than 600 (!) edits. (For the same reason I can't give you a diff - max shown are 500.)
Given that people still hit us with that one "checking" of WP where we didn't call the disputed birth date of somebody I never heard of "disputed" [1], well, if those people find that article, we will never hear the end of it - besides the minor problem of the article not exactly being up to WP standards, like NPOV. Something should be done, but as I said, I don't really feel I should do a rollback on my own.
Alex
[1] http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050419MicrosoftEncarta...
Alex Regh said:
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_Dei
Given that people still hit us with that one "checking" of WP where we didn't call the disputed birth date of somebody I never heard of "disputed" [1], well, if those people find that article, we will never hear the end of it - besides the minor problem of the article not exactly being up to WP standards, like NPOV. Something should be done, but as I said, I don't really feel I should do a rollback on my own.
Yes, I think I see your point. Here's on paragraph that caught my eye:
For those who keep on talking about the secrets of the Work, Escriva has this answer: "The secret of Opus Dei is prayer, and also work turned into prayer." If Christians are not men and women of deep interior life, souls of prayer and sacrifice, he warned the church officials who visited him during the Second Vatican Council, then instead of putting society and the family in order, they will just add their own disorder to the disorder that is already there. (Berglar 1994, p. 248) This is the same teaching indicated by John Paul II in Novo Millennio Ineunte as regards how to reach the goal of holiness: "a training in the art of prayer." This would certainly be appropriate for Opus Dei's own publications, but in my opinion it's a bit too much of a recruitment manual to be appropriate to Wikipedia. Opus Dei's chief encyclopedic attributes, in any case, are its influence within the Catholic Church, in secular life, and the controversies surrounding it (not that fictitious nonsense Dan Brown wrote, of course).
Today I wanted to read [[Opus Dei]] - and frankly, I didn't exactly like what I saw. The article reads like it was written by the Opus Dei. Checking the history, I found that mainly two IPs have been editing the article a *few* times, spamming it with Opus Dei POV, and completely drowning the remaining bits of criticism. .
But to be fair, you must admit that these two IPs that have been "spaming it with Opus Dei POV" also has added lots of valuable information, right?
BJörn Lindqvist wrote
But to be fair, you must admit that these two IPs that have been
"spaming it with Opus Dei POV" also has added lots of valuable information, right?
I had a look at it just now - temporarily it's a mess. In general it seems to need first an organisational edit; it has grown by accretion. It does read in parts like a tract, but I see no reason to despair of the page.
Charles
Hi!
On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 09:13:07 +0200, BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
But to be fair, you must admit that these two IPs that have been "spaming it with Opus Dei POV" also has added lots of valuable information, right?
Well, most seems to be just copied out of OD publications, which could just as well be linked instead. Not to mention that they also removed or drowned information, so, overall, those were hardly valuable edits.
However, The Anome has now reset the article "to a version before the astroturfing", and methinks there are a few more people now watching it, so, hopefully, this does not become such a problem in the future.
I might mention that since I moved lots of stuff from the talk page to the archive, I noticed that this article has obviously been the aim of the OD itself since 2003 - similar complaints since then. We do mind if Sollog spams the article on him, I think we should mind here just as much.
Alex
Alex Regh wrote
I might mention that since I moved lots of stuff from the talk page to the
archive, I noticed that this article has obviously been the aim of the OD itself since 2003 - similar complaints since then. We do mind if Sollog spams the article on him, I think we should mind here just as much.
Alex, you do need to moderate your language on this. The aim is to have an article everyone can live with. I have encountered what could be called Catholic POV pushing before (eg at [[Hilaire Belloc]]). For what it's worth, it didn't lead me to feel that there was any insoluble difficulty, or need to take it to an adversarial plane.
Charles
Hi!
On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 12:54:17 +0100, Charles Matthews wrote:
Alex, you do need to moderate your language on this. The aim is to have an article everyone can live with.
Errr ... yes, well, I think the very same thing; only I have my doubts about this being easily achieved. From what I know about the OD, they sure don't hold with such modernist views as NPOV. (And I have read a triffle more than a tabloid article or two, as well; oh, and I am catholic, so no misunderstanding there, please, too.) The history of the article and the talk page are a case to the point, hence my widespread alert yesterday. Since you got involved in the editing as well, you ought to be able to understand that, so what exactly is your personal criticism aimed at?
Alex
Alex Regh wrote
Since you got involved in
the editing as well, you ought to be able to understand that, so what exactly is your personal criticism aimed at?
Well, you have The Anome and you have me, now, trying to sort out the page. We have around 67000 edits between us, so I don't think we are going to get thrown by any little thing. However, the talk around the page is clearly very volatile. Your language on the talk page seemed a little too sharp for the requirements of the situation. I prefer to bring this up here, rather than anywhere else.
Charles
Hi!
On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:33:37 +0100, Charles Matthews wrote:
However, the talk around the page is clearly very volatile. Your language on the talk page seemed a little too sharp for the requirements of the situation. I prefer to bring this up here, rather than anywhere else.
Excuse me, but on re-reading the talk page I can really not find any comment that would warrant an extended debate on this mailing list. I do find however that you do not seem to mind to bring up this completely unwarranted criticism of my person on the talk page as well, so you *did* bring it up elsewhere. I dunno, but maybe there are worthier aims of your criticism, like the people that made the article in question into what it was yesterday. You do not seem to be particular inclined to criticise them, are you?
Nevertheless, methinks this is an utterly pointless debate, so if you have a _valid_ point to make, make it, and once will be enough, too. Otherwise, why don't you do something constructive?
Alex
Alex Regh wrote
Excuse me, but on re-reading the talk page I can really not find any comment
that would warrant an extended debate on this mailing list.
OK, if you want it in precise terms: your edit comment
Re-added {{TotallyDisputed}} - the content is still so much POV as I have never seen before on WP)
seems to not to be calculated to calm things down, but to make it all more adversarial. I see this morning that The Anome's fresh start has been reverted.
You asked for help; you have a couple of experienced admins now trying to help with the page; you said you couldn't revert far back enough. If you really request that help arrive in helicopters, I think you should tolerate some talk directed at yourself.
Charles