User:Sethie/wapnicktalk
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discussion
(I copied this from where I originally posted it on the ACIM discussion page.) Anyone remotely familiar with ACIM will agree that it is a tremendous oversight not to have a Wikipedia article on Kenneth Wapnick. Whoever decided that Wapnick was “non-notable” with regard to ACIM is ignorant of the facts. (No animosity intended, purely an honest observation.) I was not involved during the Wikipedia “editing wars” but from my brief reading of the comments here it seems there were some ego battles waged on Wikipedia, which is the kind of behavior that damages Wikipedia’s reputation as an encyclopedia. Wikipedia authors/editors should strive for objectivity and accuracy. It is inevitable that there will be some disagreements about the interpretation of philosophical terms and the “true meaning” of ACIM, but a biographical entry should not be so divisive if one sticks to the facts of the subject’s life. And yes, I do believe that sources should be cited. There is a lot of fiction posing as truth on the internet and too much reliance on it as a primary source without extracting the nuggets of truth. [SEE COMMENT BELOW REGARDING NPR AND WIRED ARTICLES] If there are not enough known personal facts about Wapnick’s life then stick to his work, which is voluminous and speaks for itself. After all, that is why he merits a biography here, for his work. The intimate details of his life may be interesting, but they are relatively unimportant to most people. Having read several of Wapnick’s books, my opinion is that his writing is extremely cogent and incisive, an almost impossible feat given the abstruse subject matter. If for no other reason he is “notable” for that accomplishment. I for one am grateful for his deep understanding of ACIM and his ability to articulate his thoughts with great clarity. I believe the most important reason for a biographical entry is to make others aware of his important body of work, which is a valuable resource to all students of ACIM. Secondarily, he should be given some “credit” as one of the “founders” (or “midwives” if you will) of ACIM.
FYI, today there is a relevant article on NPR about the lack of reliability of Wikipedia information, with two links to recent Wired articles on the same topic. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12823729
As I mentioned above, I think the lack of a section on Wapnick's body of work is a serious omission. Perhaps it could be titled "Wapnick's published commentaries on the ACIM material" or something. I will try to draft something and post it here for comments, but it will probably take a while as time is tight right now. Zopupa 17:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Upon my first reading of the deleted Wapnick article I discovered information which I think is good news for those of us wanting to reinstate and expand the article on Wikipedia. At first blush the article appears to have no actual cited references, leading one to question the credibility of the information. The source material for the Wapnick biographical information is cited merely as an “external link”. Regarding the “external link” (which is the website www.miraclestudies.net): 1) The external link appears to be a legitimate site run by a person (Joe Jesseph) who claims to know Wapnick personally and has “his permission to reproduce on the Internet certain excerpts from his writings”. This appears to be legitimate, but applying the principles of the skeptic we need to dig further to get to the source. The good news here is that 2) Jesseph cites Wapnick’s own books and two interviews as his source material for the biographical information. The bio facts appear to have been taken directly from the introduction of two of Wapnick’s books, “Forgiveness and Jesus” and “Absence from Felicity”, which are excerpted on the Jesseph website. Thus the bio facts would appear to be credible, all that remains is for someone to get copies of these books and read the introductions to verify this. Then the two books can be cited as the source materials rather than the website. I do not own these two books, though I have no objection to purchasing them. However, if anyone out there has them already and can verify this we are one step further on the road to validating the source material and then building on the article from there. The interviews cited by Jesseph might be harder to verify, I haven’t looked into that yet. Zopupa 12:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
For additional recent comments on the subject of Wapnick see the ACIM discussion page under the section "Kenneth Wapnick and the Article" Zopupa 21:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
