User talk:SebastianHelm/Buddhism

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1 Decline of Buddhism in India mediation
2 General Buddha
- 2.1 General Buddha promotion?
  - 2.1.1 Plan of action

[edit] Decline of Buddhism in India mediation

[edit] Greetings from Freedom skies

Y'know, I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Spider-Man 3 (two topics which interest me greatly) and I'm grateful that good editors contributing to articles like those are around. Compare that with monstrosities (forgive the strong language) like the Yi Jin Jing (another topic which interests me greatly) or the-prior-to-my-involvement Decline of Buddhism in India article. I've never been in contact with you so I can't say that I'm not going to be a bit apprehensive, especially since the last person who edited in between did this. Kindly read it for my problems with the editor in question. I do, however, honor your right to edit and welcome you to this article. I'll look forward to your contributions and accept you as an editor. Juggling college, boxing and the holidays have taken a toll on my Wikipedia contributions so I won't be sticking around all that much. Kindly just refer to this for my version of what needs to be done. Thanks, Cheers and a Happy New Year. _{Freedom skies| talk} 17:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you - I will add your acceptance to the case. I gained the impression from User talk:Tigeroo#Hi Tigeroo that Nina is happy now, so I don't see why the old case should influence me. Actually, At this time, I'm not even sure if the requestor still wants to uphold the mediation. Do you feel it should continue?

If we need to continue with the mediation, how about if we all contribute to a table similar the following:

Issue	wording proposed by party A	goals this wording is trying to achieve	wording proposed by party B	goals this wording is trying to achieve
(Just a name so we can refer to it. Needs to be agreed by both parties.)	row 1, cell 2	row 1, cell 3	row 1, cell 4	row 1, cell 5

I'm really impressed by the changes in Decline of Buddhism in India (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) during the last month - so much has changed that it's hard to compare the versions. Would you like to highlight some of the changes (diffs) you are most proud of? I will look at the Neutrality Review Requests later. Do you feel the people who contributed there should be included in the mediation? — Sebastian 20:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

My apologies for the delayed reply. I think you should just go ahead and work on the "encyclopedic language" part of the article. The parties involved may not be able to sufficiently deal with that particular aspect as they have strong opinions of their own. Your work on improving the the article's tone will actually end the entire "dispute" if you chose to undertake it.

The article now has good sources and basically correct information. It's the manner of representation that is fraught with grammatical errors, incessant repititions and strong language.

If you could find the time to see to the repititions being removed (I've done most of it though), the spelling/grammer aspect checked (to some extent, I have taken care of that as well) and the "enclyclopedic language" taken care of then you would have solved this entire NPOV issue, singlehandedly.

An experienced (and neutral) newcomer's attempts will not meet with doubts by the parties involved and as soon as the plentiful information in the article gets bolstered by proper representation, the tags will become unnessasary.

What am I proud of in this article ? Compare the number of citations before (the article did'nt even have a references/notes section) and after. I added most of those references in the Notes section.

_{Freedom skies| talk} 21:33, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

No problem about the delay. That was still quick enough - the requestor has not replied yet. It's a slow time of the year! I have the following questions for you:

Do you accept me as a mediator?
As far as you are concerned, does this still require mediation?
You mention the page needs "encyclopedic language" editing. This seems to require an editor, not a mediator, or am I misunderstanding you?
The Neutrality Review Requests lists a few more editing problems, but no NPOV problem. Do you see any NPOV problems that require mediation? If so, can you please be specific?
Do you feel it would help resolve the case if the people who contributed to the Neutrality Review Requests were included in the mediation?
I don't understand what you mean by "I've never been in contact with you so I can't say that I'm not going to be a bit apprehensive, especially since the last person who edited in between did this". (This may hinge on the words "edited in between".) If this is relevant for the mediation, can you please explain it to me?

Thank you! — Sebastian 06:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk with Freedom skies from my main talk page

1. Do you accept me as a mediator?

Yes.

2. As far as you are concerned, does this still require mediation?

Tigeroo is back, so Yes.

3. You mention the page needs "encyclopedic language" editing. This seems to require an editor, not a mediator, or am I misunderstanding you?

Unilateral editor, both sides can present their problems with him once you're done. In all events, a once-over by an experienced, neutral editor will benifit both sides.

4. The Neutrality Review Requests lists a few more editing problems, but no NPOV problem. Do you see any NPOV problems that require mediation? If so, can you please be specific?

Well, Tigeroo keeps reverting any mention of Islam and mentions any Hindu action thrice or more (copy-paste in the same article). A repitition check will take care of simply everything. My version is relatively free from repititions (of any POV) though.

My opinion, kindly see to it that unnessesary repitition of any POV does not occur.

5. Do you feel it would help resolve the case if the people who contributed to the Neutrality Review Requests were included in the mediation?

One of them backed out and said she does not research thoroughly and the other editor I leave to your scrutiny. I would still urge a unilateral once over though, the parties involved should welcome it.

6. I don't understand what you mean by "I've never been in contact with you so I can't say that I'm not going to be a bit apprehensive, especially since the last person who edited in between did this". (This may hinge on the words "edited in between".) If this is relevant for the mediation, can you please explain it to me?

Oh, I was a bit apprehensive as the editors involved have been known to repeat both mistakes and resort to insseant reverts. Not an issue.

_{Freedom skies| talk} 15:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your thorough reply! I now understand your proposal of a "unilateral editor" or "unilateral once over", and I see how that would address your concerns, and I see the connection with #6. This could become a compromise offer. However, I'm sorry that I'm not the experienced editor you're looking for; I'm only a mediator. So we would have to find one. How could we go about it? Maybe we could look for other editors who previously contributed to this or related articles who could be endorsed by both parties? Moreover, how can we ensure that this is a lasting solution - the fishing rod, and not just the fish?

Where would you like to discuss this? I want to move this away from my talk page because it gets too complicated when the discussion is spread out over several pages. An obvious choice would be case talk page. Or we could use e-mail; a private conversation can be more effective because partners don't have to weigh every word. — Sebastian 18:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The following headline has been inserted for easier reference.

[edit] Freedom skies is wrapping up projects

I would appreciate e-mail contact. Please forgive my delays for the coming few days, I have just about a few projects to wrap up before I can wholeheartedly devote my time here. Real life, too seems to be intent on not allowing me to contribute as much time to Wikipedia as I would like to. I ask only for three or four days more and then I should be able to involve myself thoroughly in the discussion towards a solution under your mediation efforts.

On a completely unrelated topic, a once over for the benefit of encyclopedic language and removal of repititions will be very beneficial. This only needs someone versed in Wikipedia policies and english, both of which I feel are your strengths. Regards. _{Freedom skies| talk} 19:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. As for the time, could you please write that on the mediation talk page so Tigeroo knows about it, too? Regarding the other points, I will e-mail you. — Sebastian 19:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reply by Tigeroo to my offer to mediate

Sorry was not around the holidays also was taking a wikibreak to distance myself from getting too caught up.

Sure, I think it will require mediation as there is a lot more to add to the article atm. I think the table is a good idea, I will use it get the ideas over.

The more people non-involved people engaged, I think it becomes easier to develop a concensus:

Thanks for joining us.--Tigeroo 16:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll update the case page! — Sebastian 04:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Freedom skies' reasons for the reversion

The version to which I reverted actually does cover all of the issues that Tigeroo has bought to the table. He fixed them on his own and then additionally listed them in the discussion. Now we have the version which corresponds to the list he bought to the discussion and the version which he unilaterally "corrected" on his own without any consenseus whatsoever. _{Freedom skies| talk} 19:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. That might explain why he seems to be so disinterested in explaining his goals now. I think the fairest solution would be if you could simply write "agree", "disagree - will explain" or "disagre - see discussion" (meaning the discussion of the issue on the discussion page). Once you're done, I will go through the diff and revert all "acute" changes (i.e. changes that have been made after I activated the mediation) that are not sufficiently explained, and I will post a note about this on the mediation page and alert the other party on his talk page. — Sebastian 20:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Edit conflict" on Talk:Buddha (general) ?

Hi Sebastian -

I think I might have just ignorantly edited your most recent post to Talk:Buddha (general) by moving the words "edit conflict" to my own post (since when I tried to save my post an edit conflict was flagged due to your posting first). In other words, I assumed that the system somehow magically inserted "(edit conflict)" in front of your post when mine should have been designated as such. So I moved the phrase to mine. If, however, you actually wrote "edit conflict" then I really apologize for modifying what you wrote. Please change it back, etc., or let me know and I'll be happy to do so.

Sorry for my perpetual confusion and I regret any negative feelings this might have caused you. I wish you the best, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 05:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes I did write it. But there are really, absolutely no negative feelings. Between you and me, I just rode my bike and apparently must have startled a driver inadvertently. He acted so angry; driving parallel to me and honking continuously. I was thinking, what a poor soul that he sees no other way than acting this way. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not A who makes B angry, but B allows himself to get angry and blames A.

Do you know the story of the magnanimous prince and the panhandler? Each day, the prince gives the panhandler 10 shillings, and the panhandler curses the prince. After a while, the prince's servant asks: Why do you keep giving him the money?". The prince replies "What would you do if you were in my position?". - "I would tell him what he could do with himself", said the assistant with feeling.

"There was a time when I did that", assented the lord, "But then I realized what I was doing. It is my nature to help those not as fortunate as myself. When I brushed him off in anger becaused of his surliness, I was letting him dictate how I would behave."^[1]

Everyone of us has a certain level of challenges we can master. When early this year, one of my Sri Lankan Buddhist friends, who knew someone who was killed in a bus bombing, got all angry, I asked him: "As a Buddhist, what would you do?", he replied "I don't know how foreign Buddhists would reply, but I'm pretty sure that any Sri Lankan (regardless of religion) will say “Kill them all to wipe out the terrorism”", which Perry Garfinkel confirms "Now these crrent events give “fallen tear” more than geologic meaning; it's the Buddha's tear now, crying for suffering in the land where his teachings were to be a role model. [...] [I] had suggested, that Buddhism must be doing something right. As justificatrion, I challenged my [...] editors to name a war in the world today [...] that Buddhists are fighting. Sri Lanka refuted my claim."^[2] When I spoke with other Buddhists about this, I began to understand that we each have a level up to which we can endure suffering. Well, almost all of us. I can only admire Viktor Frankl, who even found spiritual meaning in the holocaust.

I also want to add, I respect the Sri Lankan editors in the Reconciliation Project who, despite such events, manage, at least most of the time, to cooperate on contentious issues. This is one of the main motivations for keeping me going here.

Hi Sebastian - very nicely articulated. Also, I very much appreciate what you write about everyday Sinhalese Buddhists — given that the only Sri Lankan I've ever knowingly met is Bhante G., I never realized the very human feelings of everyday Sinhalese. Guess it helps me understand at some level the acts of other religion-wielding nations, such as my own (USA), which often self-identifies as "Christian" though falling far short of the values of the Sermon on the Mount, etc. Self-preservation, self-righteousness and revenge run deep, yes? I'd like to think, perhaps as you suggest, that Buddhism minimizes one's ability to objectively rationalize the resultant unwholesome actions but that is likely just my own egoistic naivete (sigh). Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 17:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, minimizes... I was thinking the opposite: That Buddhism provides tools that help us feel and act what our reason already knows is right. It never occurred to me that minimizing abilities could be a good thing. But I think I see what you mean. I have some terrible abilities: For instance, I am able to kill a person just by swerving a bit while driving. We don't want to generally minimize abilities like swerving and rationalizing, but it would be good if we could set them a limit. Are we able to set such limits? Maybe, after all, not being able to do something, is an ability, too? — Sebastian 18:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Or perhaps "tendency" or even "desire" would have a been a wiser word choice on my part :-) Take care, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 03:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

No, I like "ability". It reminds me of another book I read "The paradox of Choice: How the culture of abundance robs us of satisfaction", by Barry Schwartz. He certainly has a point. — Sebastian 08:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

^ Adapted from Srikumar S. Rao
^ Garfinkel, Perry: Buddha or Bust, p. 110

[edit] General Buddha

[edit] General Buddha promotion?

Okely-dokely? Hope what I wrote was sufficient. Thanks again for your patience. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 18:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sebastian - as I ready to leave my computer for a couple of hours, I just espied your sensible request for examples. I'll try to find appropriate examples either later tonight or sometime tomorrow. Thanks for all of your hard work. I wish you the best, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 21:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sebastian - I see there's been a hiatus in the Talk:Buddha_(general) thread. I apologize if you were awaiting a further response from me. Yes, your table's terrific. Please wait no longer. (If you'd like me to post this to that thread, let me know and I'd be happy to do so, or feel free to excerpt this there.) Of course, if you haven't been waiting, then please ignore this message :-) I hope you are doing well during this busy season. Best regards, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 18:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sebastian - I saw your unwatch tag on Talk:Buddha (general). Just want to make sure that you caught my last message right above and are not awaiting further reply from me for some reason. If you could just tickle my talk page to let me know, I'd appreciate it. Thanks! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 00:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I did indeed overlook your message! What do you think I should do? Start a survey, or go right ahead with the renaming? — Sebastian 04:23, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Beautiful! Are the ticklish ones yours? Either way, thanks for the big smile :-D

In short, personallly, I'd like to suggest starting a survey/vote/poll. If I may ramble more on this: I think developing some kind of communal consensus for such a move — especially because it will be changing the decision of a prior vote and because it involves a relatively significant article — would be beneficial, particularly because such consensus might diminish future argumentation over such a move. As it is, I think the vote to move the article to buddhahood is already by far, at this time, the popular opinion. And the excellent work you've been doing (e.g., questioning the current title, developing the very thoughtful table, providing google counts) certainly has gone a long way towards consolidating this opinion. (Kudos!) For this matter, I suspect it will be a relatively easy vote. The only quirky thing to anticipate is that it might be a very low turn out vote (e.g., see the voting on Talk:Buddha#Requested_move) so eliciting participation might require at some point leaving personal appeals on individual editors' talk pages (which is what I did on the first vote and which is one of the reasons why I don't want to lead this second vote -- I'm wary that I've warn out my welcome with some at this point :-) ).

On the other hand, I certainly wouldn't stop you (of course!) if you did the move. I think you've intellectually laid the ground work. Perhaps a related alternative is to leave a message on Talk:Buddha (e.g., tacked onto our current thread there) asking if anyone would object to such a move and then, after no one responds for a week or two, go ahead and do the move. (More formally, I guess, there is the whole WP:RM route, e.g., using the Template:Move and creating a "Requested Move" heading....) (Also, let me know if you'd like me to add a note on Talk:Buddha (general) explicitly stating my support for your table, if such would provide for a better segue to a new vote.)

So, to summarize, I like consensus but would support whatever decision you come to.

Hope you're doing great! Happy New-ish Year! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 11:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your nice reply! The kids are unfortunately not mine; I had to borrow them from this artickle. I'll go ahead and notify people, then. Since I found this discussion through WP:RM, I guess I should post it there, too. Thanks for your offer for the note, I think it's enough if I just add a link to this conversation if I feel I need proof that this was done after sufficient consideration. — Sebastian 04:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Good job! Well done! Kudos! - Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 05:09, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Sebastian -
I applaud you for all your hard work in pursuing the WP:RM process and leaving prompts on various user's talk pages. Excellent work!
Also, I just want to apologize if some things I've written in the past might have been misleading; specifically, when I've written that I believe the vote will be to rename the article to Buddhahood I did not mean to imply that that would necessarily be my own sole vote, just that I believe there is a clear majority vote for such (especially given that the three prior voters [including myself] for Buddha (general) have either changed their mind [me] or more-or-less seemingly expressed current indifference [Tony, Rudy]). Sorry if my words were in any way misleading.
Kudos once again. The end's in sight! Well-done. - Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 04:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry - there's nothing wrong with what you did. And thanks for the compliment! — Sebastian 04:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Sebastian -
I think the voting is going well and the majority vote fairly clear: if we assume people are allowed multiple "votes," then so far it appears that there are five votes for Buddhahood and no more than one for any other title (e.g., Buddha (general), Buddhas, Buddha (Buddhism)). (You've inquired about Peter's vote. I'd take it at face value -- just his vote. Your response is kind and generous.) Personally, at this point I feel that, if you're able to make the global changes you suggest easily, I'd say go for it! Also, I'd appreciate it if you could instruct me on how to do such. Is WP:AWB the mechanism? Or does it still ultimately involve a lot of article-by-article manual edits? (Or perhaps both?) If you'd like to split up such an effort, please let me know how to go about it and I'd be happy to help as time allows. (FWIW, I've stopped making such disambig changes at the moment given the current pending move of Buddha (general).)

As always, thanks so much for your excellent work! Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 17:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:AWB is basically a manual edit. Just imagine it's like using an electric screwdriver instead of a handheld one. The tool just makes it easier for you by opening and saving them for you, and by automatically changing the text, but you still have to look at each article, and you still have the same amount of dataflow between your computer and Wikipedia. I think AWB is easy to use and well documented, so I would encourage you to give it a try. Since I would like you to do the part where more thinking about the actual content is involved, you might not save as much time.

There is one other advantage: AWB can distinguish between piped links and direct links, which is something you don't get from Whatlinkshere. I had originally thought of using that to our advantage, but I now realize that that would only hold up the process. I therefore propose the following plan of action:

[edit] Plan of action

I will change the piped links from [[Buddha (general)|Buddhahood]] to simply [[Buddhahood]], using AWB.
I will collect the remaining links to "Buddha (general)" in a list.
I will change the remaining piped links from [[Buddha (general)|*]] to [[Buddhahood|*]], using AWB. (Or should I change them to [[Buddha|*]] - the disamb page?)
You then can go through the list which I created and change all links that should instead go to another Buddha article.

Alternatively, you can also start do step 4 before step 3, or both at the same time. — Sebastian 19:20, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Excellent! And definitely, (3) and (4) can be prenascent, conascent or postnascent (to use Abhidhamma jargon -- in other words, they can overlap anyway you like) -- just give me the list from step (2) and I'll start working on step (4) (though, given some serious real world to-dos I have, I'll likely only be able to change a few piped links every couple of days...). As for step (3), my suggestion is to stick with your initial inclination about changing existing wikipipes from Buddha (general) to Buddhahood -- at least that way the content of the existing wikipipe will remain the same, whether it's ultimately right or wrong. Just my half-penny though. I bow deeply to the dust of your feet (okay, a puja reference :-) -- sorry if I'm a wee punchy today, spent most of my free time trying to chart commentarial minutiae regarding dependent origination :-) ). Thanks so much again! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll go ahead then. I'll start with the menial work, because it would take me much longer to understand the articles you're citing! Can I also ask you to please add the term "buddhahood" to the lead section? — Sebastian 04:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding adding "buddhahood" to the article's lead: For you, I gave it a shot. I suspect it will be shot down in minutes, but at least I think I got the ball rolling. ;-) Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 07:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I did step 1, and I'm surprised to find very few articles that even link to Buddha (general). There was not a single one in step 1, and the list (without trivial cases such as your sandboxes) is:

— Sebastian 05:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Since there were so few links, I did not just bluntly change them all to Buddhahood, but had time to check whether they actually go there. About half of them referred to Buddha statues, so I changed the link accordingly. That means: We're done! No need for step 4 anymore! — Sebastian 06:21, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Bravo! Perhaps you can now sit back and enjoy the barnstar for a moment ;-) Excellent work Sebastian. Kind regards, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)