Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zenji Nio
This has certainly gotten complicated. I knew this article smelled bad the first time I saw it. Yes, it had some references in seemingly reliable sources like the National Post and the Times of India. It seemed the figure had achieved some recognized status. But the name Zenji Nio was suspicious and photo searches confirmed it: Zenji Nio is the same person as Zenji Acharya (or Zen Acharya) (see images https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU6iJYGpThY here and https://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/buddhist-chaplain-zenji-nio-helps-deliver-six-parapan-am-medals here), who has been the center of continued disruption on Wikipedia for many years. In 2011-12, a person or persons related to Acharya had peppered Wikipedia with articles and references to Acharya (including the article JimRenge mentions), to his supposed museum, to his supposed film, and in support of his particular and dubious religious doctrines (which focuses on Buddhist Brahmins, Nio Zen, etc.). One article created from this was Niō Zen, which has since been turned into a redirect. All this came to the surface in part through the AfD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Karma:_The_New_Revolution. That AfD experienced what this AfD has as well: the sudden appearance of new SPA's participating in the AfD with grand claims about discrimination and intolerance. In that case, it became clear that these were sockpuppets: see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Buddhakahika/Archive. Since then, Buddhahahika's sockpuppets have appeared repeatedly to disrupt Wikipedia, spouting the same religious views using bad sources. While I will leave it to the SPI to determine if the accounts that created this article are sockpuppets of Buddhakahika, it is very clear to me that they are in the least meat puppets engaged in supporting the same person. Yes, it seems like the article has a few good sources and yes it seems this person has done something that a few news sources have reported. But I have noted that some of the use of these sources is blatant POV editing, such as changing the content of quotes (see my correction https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zenji_Nio&diff=774076033&oldid=773290058). I also recall that the original ''Karma: The New Revolution'' article also had some sources from The Times of India, reporting about some splendid film that, through hard searches, turned out never to exist. It seems that some of those sources may have been the result of the ability to manipulate media sources on the part of Acharya; I can't help but think some of that is the case here, too. In the end, given the history of this person--and again, Nio is Acharya--and the way Wikipedia has been long abused by supporters of this person, I must conclude that this article should be deleted. If there is an argument for notability, I would say that in the least, this article is so thoroughly tainted that it has to be |dynamited and begun from scratch by truly third-person editors
— User:Michitaro, 03:06, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Stance: delete
Cited policy: WP:TNT (Wikipedia:Blow it up and start over)