Talk:Mircea Eliade/Archive 2

message: The article is blatantly unbalanced - this opinion is endorsed by nothing less than five users on this talk page.
I am hereby explicitely joining the other users who expressed criticism regarding the undue weight of this article.
The only one claiming that the article reflects a NPOV as it currently is, is user dahn.
In order to impose his strong indeologised POV, this user breaks the 3RR-rule with the complicity of an acolyte.
  
As a supporting strategy, this user is trying to disqualify and delegitimize every user who contredicts him. Thus, I am a victim of systematic slandering perpetrated against me by this user, who absurdly accuses me of sockpuppetry. --Timor Stultorum 12:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had enough. Dahn 12:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: WHAT "diatribe"? WHERE is the verb or the noun that makes it a diatribe? Once and for all: I do not personally believe that you are as left-of-the-center as to consider all persons with a factual fascist past "doomed for eternity"'; therefore, I am led to assume that you have an agenda of cleaning up Eliade. You make NO SENSE: if you are endorsing solely the expansion of the article (which I do as well), there is no logic in calling the article "a diatribe", is there? If by "caricature" you mean "distorted rendition", then your posts are the actual caricature. Dahn 20:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is a caricature 

message: This article is now protected to give time to editors to find common ground and a way forward, withouy resorting to revert wars. When you are ready to resume editing, please make a request at WP:RFPP. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm very sorry to see this argument and the state of this article.   Wikipedia is a place to get to the crux of the matter, and it seems our friend Dahn is helping us do so.  I do agree that the article is unbalanced.  I'm not saying that the information covered in the article should necessarily be deleted for it may have a place in wikipedia, but not here, at least not all of it. Sayvandelay 12:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected 

message: On a lot of biographical articles of prolific writers, we put the bibliography in a separate article and give only a prose summary of highlights in the main article. You might want to take a look at how we handle Jorge Luis Borges in this respect. - Jmabel | Talk 01:50, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am confused about the section "References" which does not seem to be references for the article. This is not in accordance with normal Wikipedia practices. Andries 20:32, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Er... what? I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. Every single reference was cited at least once, as indicated by the notes. Care to look again? Dahn 00:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked again and I was wrong and you were right. In what section do I leave a book that is not used for the article, but that I will most probably use later to expand the section scholarship (which is clearly too short now in comparison to the rest). Andries 17:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest either leaving it in "Critical works about Eliade" for now, or adding it to bibliography when/after you have used it (and thank you, btw). Dahn 17:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bibliography

message: First, allow me please to clear some points. As I assured on previous occasions, 
* I never proposed, endorsed or even tacitly approved the removal of content on Eliade’s page. Moreover, on this talk page I explicitely expressed approval for the content
* I don't regard the POV tag as a tactical measure aiming at removing edits in order to re-balance the article
* I'm not preparing any coups or edits wars 
Nevertheless, I reaffirm that the article, as it is now, is a caricature, that is, a "distorted rendition". Moreover, the article shifts the emphasis from essential to unessential in such an arbitrary way, that it represents disinformation.
The current article on Eliade with its 70%-focus on his right-wing ideological inclinations is like an article on Mozart with 70% treating about Mozart's freemason activities and convictions. Freemason themes are incomparably more present and visible in Mozart’s work than rightist themes in Eliade’s work.  Nevertheless, Eliade’s article concentrates with 70% on rightist ideology while Mozart’s article mentions freemasonry with 64 words out of 4700 (!) 
The aim of any entry with encyclopaedical ambitions is to provide essential information. In the case of an entry about a personality, essential are those aspects  in his life and activity which are relevant for his notoriety. Eliade is universally known as an outstanding scholar with a seminal legacy. Any biographical and bibliographical fact, any account and interpretation of his work which can enlighten the scholar and his legacy is essential. The rest, not. 
Of course, "pop culture", not being able to access "high culture", remains a prisoner
of trivia, being interested e.g. in the mental suffering of Nietzsche or Eminescu, or in the sexual life of Rimbaud or Rousseau. This is what they understand, this is what they like. Though Wikipedia is inevitably invaded by pop culture, we shouldn’t let us overwhelm. 
A suggestion in order to get out of the actual impasse would be to follow the procedure used for every important entry: a main article with sections linking to in-depth articles. An excellent beginning was made by User:Phatius McBluff with his Eternal return (Eliade). (BTW, this first in-depth article should be better highlighted in the Eliade’s main article. I suggest creating a new section, called "Work" - which wouldn’t overlap thematically the section "Scholar". Thus, the "Eternal Return" would be the first linked in-depth article in this new section.
A further in-depth article could be created about the controversy regarding the ideological preferences of Eliade, while in the main Eliade article a compact section would present the main arguments. The material already exists.
I am ready to provide myself a rationale for such an article: it would be to highlight less known aspects in the life of a great personality. It still remains pop cultural trivia of the sort of “did you know…?”, but at least it wouldn’t interfere seriously in the main article. Currently, the Eliade’s article is properly squatted by this ideology stuff.
We are nothing left, but the hope that reason will prevail. Sursum corda, speranţa moare ultima ! --Timor Stultorum 12:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't you ever get tired of posting tons of propaganda? Dahn 19:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Let me add, for other users: the entire list of references is dismissed as "pop culture" in the above post. All this is is is an attempt to shadow in sophistry and highly irregular moves what is a large part of Eliade's life, based on some shrine-like cliche. If the "worry" is about length, we have featured articles that reach 100 KB in length; if the "worry" is about detail, let me caution you that a featured article is a featured article for including all relevant biographical detail in one place. All of these "concerns" are false, and based on original interpretation of wikipedia guidelines; "mending" in accordance with POV has been attempted before in this precise form, and has been judged to break several wikipedia rules. Dahn 22:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

text: In the meantime, I have trimmed this article a bit based on a logical guideline (note :Category:Bibliographies by author), per what has already been discussed on the page. Dahn 22:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree that this article should digress more on his scholarship. This does not mean that well-sourced information about rightist activities should be removed, though they should may be summarized more briefly. Andries 19:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creating topical in-depth articles 

message: Noticing that the old lead section did not reflect the entire personality of Eliade, I endeavored to rewrite it.
*I didn't see enough reasons for calling him a literary critic (the Encyclopedic Dict. didn't, either), so I removed that
*I added a paragraph about his work as a historian of religion (which is possibly incomplete, I tried my best to synthesize it in a few words)
*another paragraph with his literary works (and mentioned here specifically the best known ones, since it seemed the easiest way to pick out only a few titles -- two of those are studied in school, the other two are also well known) (feel free to review the list, of course)
*I wanted to write about his philosophy in a last paragraph, but I wasn't able to come up with something worthy enough.  One idea would be to mention his book Solilocvii.  Please help if you can.
*I kept the reference to the Iron Guard, moved it to a paragraph talking about his youth, removed the story about his lifelong friends (which belongs to the body of the article)
I hope at least this part can be considered NPOV now, so we can have something to start with.  Let me know what you think. Daniel Mahu 03:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If your intent is to be an apologist for fascism, then this entry is now NPOV. Otherwise you have failed.--Cberlet 03:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apologist for fascism?  I don't get it.  What part of what I wrote defends that movement?  (Also, please note I was only talking about the lead section, the first few paragraphs before the biography). Daniel Mahu 07:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Cberlet that is out of line and at least bording on a personal attack. Someone comes in here an actually expands the entry and fleshes out the lead without removing any information and he/she gets attacked?  Daniel good job, please don't let this scare you off. PelleSmith 12:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The edit and the current wording is a sanitization of the facts and the historic record.  We have had this dispute before. Eliade's support of the Iron Guard is not a minor error of youth, nor is there any serious dispute about it being fascistic.  I will start to add the published cites and expand the detail.--Cberlet 13:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't say that anything about it being a minor error during his youth.  It says he's been criticized since the 1970s for his connection to the Iron Guard.  Anyone who reads the article will find ample information about it.  The issue isn't about removing this information but having a good lead section.PelleSmith 13:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. François Mitterrand was member of the Croix de Feu in his youth, yet this is discussed only in two sections in his article, namely in his chronology and the particular controversy section. No why can't we do the same here? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pinkos (talk • contribs) 15:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New lead section

message: Probably. But do we really need to make such an intimate and reassuring claim in an encyclopaedia article? Dahn 14:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion, if you remove this part but leave the rest of the phrase where it is, it comes a bit abruptly after, and unrelated to, the list of his fiction works. I agree the reassurance is not really needed, but you'll probably have to rearrange paragraphs again. — Daniel Mahu · talk · 21:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Although his reputation..."