Andries Krugers Dagneaux wrote:
I know a lot about gurus, small sects
and cults. I noticed that the articles here in this wikipedia are often
written by the followers of these gurus, sects and cults or the
information on the webpages of these religious organization is
uncritically accepted by other members and written down as a NPOV
article in wikipedia.
What the groups believe is what they believe, and who better to describe
that than the cult's leaders? This does not imply that we accept these
as truth, or that we are uncritical about their claims. Allowing a part
of an article to freely reflect what these people think is as important
to NPOV. A simple statement at the beginning of the section that this
is taken from the group's writings or similar productions is adequate.
Reading through something where every statement is dissected and
criticized as it's being said is very bad writing style, and in this
case completely uninformative since you end up not knowing what they
believe.
I think this is a wrong and dangerous thing to do.
Absolutely not. There is nothing dangerous about fair representation.
This leads to false
information because these groups are often self deceived and do a lot of
propaganda & rewriting history. Because so few people know about these
groups the information is rarely checked. Examples of disinformation
that I have seen here on wikipedia are Sathya Sai Baba, Sai Baba of
Shirdi, Eckankar, Theosophy, ISCKCON/ Hare Krisnha. I have already
adjusted the first three groups and I will try to adjust other articles
but I have limited time.
If these things have happened then they merit a whole separate section
to outline these accusations. Many of the people who leave these sects
have an axe to grind, so that much of what they say is unreliable.
There is no doubt that some of what some of them say is true, but just
as much can reflect personal antagonisms which they have had with the
leadership, either at the sect-wide level or at a local level. How
would you go about deciding which accusations are true without more
evidence than the anecdotal claims of the disgruntled? How much of what
really does go on reflects only incidents that are confined to the
misbehaviour of local groups. Is the entire history and theology of the
Catholic Church to be dismissed because of the recent convictions of
priests for pedophilia?
I would like to ask all members to help in this by
staying alert and
comparing the current articles with independent scholarly articles and
testimonies of ex-members of these groups.
Independent scholarly articles and the often slanderous statements of
ex-members can be incompatible.
Ec