United States: Colorado Unassessed

This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Colorado, our collaboration to create, improve, and update Wikipedia articles about the U.S. State of Colorado. To comment about this article, select the Add topic tab above. For questions about, or to make suggestions for Colorado articles, go to our project's talk page. We invite you to join us!

Buddhism Start‑class

This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Buddhism, an attempt to promote better coordination, content distribution, and cross-referencing between pages dealing with Buddhism. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page for more details on the projects.BuddhismWikipedia:WikiProject BuddhismTemplate:WikiProject BuddhismBuddhism Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

This reads like an advertisement for this university. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Spikehay (talk • contribs) 02:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I agree. This page seems to abandon any sense of neutrality, and completely omits any mention of the various scandals that have plagued Naropa's history (Trungpa's well-known history of alcoholism, sexual liasons between administrators and students, etc.). I have a fondness for Naropa myself (as an alumni), but in the interest of providing a neutral POV, I think these things should at least be mentioned. When I Was Cool by Sam Kashner might be a place to start looking for references for anyone interested in tackling this.168.105.115.200 05:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there is a lot of info on the school itself, but "scandals" need evidence. There needs to be proof to statements made and I think you'll find that the above statement does not come from a "neutral POV" as the author is an alumni. Additionally, the cited Kashner piece contains no evidence of any of the mentioned "scandals."

I will start a "Criticism and Controversy" section. As the previous, unsigned, comment indicates, material in this section is likely to be challenged and will need to be carefully written and sourced. Bertport 11:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously this is a challenge for wikipedia because Naropa cannot be denied in that it is signficant and unique university and, yet, its very nature contrasts ultra rationality and factuality of the kind that wikipedia prides itself. Naropa is the object and the subject and that is always a tight squeeze for wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.57.255.242 (talk) 09:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Like the Dalai Lama and other exiled teachers, he continued to teach and transmit the wisdom of the Buddhist dharma." - The wisdom of the Buddhist dharma? Unless that can be restructured as something like, "Trungpa states his goal is to..." then that should definitely be struck for its non-neutral tone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.73.20.205 (talk) 20:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I took the time to remove any language that was clearly POV and advertising the school, yet leave factual information about degree program details or unique features of the school. There is probably more refinement to be done, but I think I got most of the problematic non-neutral and advert issues out of the article: at the expense of a lot of detail about the programs. I hope someone will someday add additional detail about unique features of Naropa, but I think this is a much better place to evolve the article from. I suggest that we now remove the advert and non-neutral banners, unless anyone has any objects. Please add them here. I'll remove the banners in a week if consensus agrees. Please also comment on any of my edits here, I'll watch this page for discussion and suggestions. - Owlmonkey (talk) 07:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any news on the size of the school's endowment? I'm sure it must have some generous alumni.

Only $2.9 million, as per yahoo[1] - Owlmonkey (talk) 05:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First off, this change by PastorJennifer (talk · contribs) is copied as is from an amazon review by Dean Farwood and is a copyright violation. Deleting it. But more generally, Peter Marin worked for a few weeks at Naropa, and wrote that scathing critique in Harpers in 1979. But he's not a neutral commenter. Naropa is a religious university and the rest of the quote - which was omitted - follows:

The history of America has in fact had little to do with reason, consisting instead of wave upon wave of zealotry and ideology, and religious excess, generations of superstition and foolish beliefs, and a yearning for salvation and the ceaseless abdication of the stoic virtues necessary to democratic life: independent thought; the acceptance of human weakness; humility in the face of complex truths; the refusal to abjure either choice or responsibility; and the willingness to choose conscience and uncertainty rather than submission and safety.

His 1979 article in Harpers (included in his 1995 collection of essays) has some factual information that is citable, but his quotation is POV. - Owlmonkey (talk) 05:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also removed the earlier quote by Marin as non-neutral, but added more details about the controversial incident with an additional citation, though it has plenty already and the Sanders citation is probably the only one necessary. The rest cite that one. - Owlmonkey (talk) 06:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have been looking over the official site, and I find that much text here was originally plagiarised from that site. So perhaps my major cuts can be forgiven. (Also, there were some inaccuracies in the list of degrees.)--Dawud

This page apparently has a tendency to attract edits from Naropa partisans (whether volunteers or employees I can't say) which replace factual, neutral language with descriptions taken from their marketing department. Perhaps some sort of administrative intervention is in order...?

A word to the wise, Naropa people: propaganda that looks like propaganda, is bad propaganda. --Dawud —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.167.161.33 (talk) 10:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

By "Naropa people" I assume you're referring to "Naropa partisans". I don't think all Naropa people are trying to white wash this article. But copyvio and POV editing is annoying. In my experience, school articles generally tend to attract negative vandalism more often. It is perhaps a positive note that this one is attracting more positivity issues than negativity issues. Nonetheless, I share your frustration generally with un-encyclopedic editing. - Owlmonkey (talk) 19:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While no one is denying that Trungpa’s life contained controversy, these events occurred over two decades ago and are already (and more appropriately) mentioned at length on his own bio page (a link to which is provided). If you still feel strongly about mentioning such events on the Naropa page, please leave the other content alone as it provides more accurate information about the institution than was previously listed (degree programs, for example, which were incorrect).

The anonymous editor who posted the above note clearly does not understand Wikipedia policies and is in no position to say who is "qualified" to edit the article or what constitutes a keep-worthy edit. This person should slow down and learn more about how Wikipedia works before aggressively entering into edit wars. Bertport (talk) 18:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's more, deleting the comments others have left on the talk page is, to say the least, bad form. Bertport (talk) 20:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, moving forward, what specific changes are still good to make? There are some things pointed out in the recent back and forth worth making, and I haven't looked at the article for a few months, here are some nits I have now:

• Correcting errors in the degree list, the April edits introduced some errors
• In the History Section
  • Trungpa Rinpoche is not a Kagyu teacher with Nyingma ties, he's equally Kagyu and Nyingma as per the Surmang tradition
  • Shambhala Training is just one facet of the dharma centers, probably need to cf. Shambhala International instead
  • The Merton incident looks out of place to me in the middle of the history section, highlighted too much. If consensus is really to include it - i would omit it altogether, it's already included in trungpa's article - at best it would be in a separate section and more about the class that investigated it and not as much the incident details.
  • The "party school" comment would need a good citation, does the school appear on someone's list of top party schools or something?
  • Same with "encouragement of free sexual relations" and "alcohol consumption", I've never seen a citation that he advocated such things.
  • Are there citations for what Naropa was like in the 1980's and what they had to "confront" during that time period?
• Contemplative Education
  • The comment that what is taught is "alternative rather than mainstream" may be correct but it is an opinion. Do we have an attribution for that or a citation?

Any thoughts on these specific points? In looking through the history, I think all of these issues I have were introduced by user Dawud between April 15th and April 19th, so I'm interesting in his feedback on these in particular. This is the version before those changes: [2] - Owlmonkey (talk) 22:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• • Okay, my vote then, for the time being, is to revert to the pre-Dawud alterations, which were quite massive and, in my opinion, decreased the quality of the page considerably. After looking at the pre-April version you linked to, I recognize it as more accurate (though the MDiv degree is still listed under the MA degrees instead of as its own degree) and a great deal more complete. Rather than considering Dawud's version (which, to me, appears to have an ax to grind) the default until the page can be filled out and improved, why not use this version as the default? Toward the end, it still includes mention of the controversy.

If proof is needed of the actual degree programs, nobody knows better what Naropa offers than Naropa itself: http://www.naropa.edu/academics/undergraduate/index.cfm http://www.naropa.edu/academics/graduate/index.cfm 205.170.134.65 (talk) 20:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the pre-Dawud revision identified by Owlmonkey above is a good baseline to revert to. I think the brief mention of the Merwin incident is reasonable to include in the article. Notice that most of the cited sources are primarily about Naropa, and those sources thought the incident was pertinent. The board of Naropa and the board of Vajradhatu were mostly the same people. Bertport (talk) 08:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A revert to there sounds good. And it sounds like a revert to that point has consensus - with any needed degree fixes. - Owlmonkey (talk) 16:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We recently had another rash of massive, POV, and unexplained Dawud edits, with effects similar to the last time. I have reverted. Bertport (talk) 05:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I intend to continue to revert them right back. What part of this needs explaining--the fact that I have cleaned up the ungodly mess that was your article structure (hint: single sentences don't need subheadings)? Or the addition of citations from Robert Goss's scholarly article discussing Naropa's religious stance and relations with Vajradhatu? --Dawud —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.167.169.239 (talk) 06:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dawud, the discussion above should make it clear to you that you need to explain your intentions and discuss with other editors before launching on another massive editing spree. Other editors had a discussion about your previous edits and agreed to revert them. So, then you just come back and crank up a new round without talking to anyone? That ain't playing ball. Bertport (talk) 15:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can see, it's just you and Owlmonkey. And whatever your motives, the results were an article which veers uncomfortably close to an ad for Naropa.

So, changes:

(1) You neglected to explain the name of the school. This strikes me as an obvious piece of information people will want.

(2) I moved "nonprofit" to the info box, on the grounds that most people will assume colleges to be nonprofits unless told otherwise.

(3)The nature of Naropa's religious origins, and current ideology, was handled inadequately. You simply repeated their favored buzzwords ("Buddhist inspired", "non-sectarian")without indicating what these actually mean in the Naropa context.

(4) Added a line about the Jack Keroack school to the beginning, since this is important in its own right.

(5) Some slight detail added to accreditation.

(6) Eliminated biographical information about Trungpa's childhood etc., since that is a subject properly left to his own article.

(7) The sources I have seen (including Goss) refer to Trungpa simply as a Kargyudpa teacher, and ignore whatever Nyingma ties he may have. I take your word for it that he has these, but they seem to be far less significant.

(8) I threw all the historical information in one section, and attempted to put it in chronological order. Before, you had the psychology and poetry programs in separate (but small) sections. Also, "criticism" had been relegated to a separate section at the end, which I believe is frowned upon.

(9) Added quotes from Goss about Naropa's early ties with Vajradhatu, and later independence therefrom.

(10) Added information about current presidents.

(11) Added bare bones of a reference to the AIDS / alcoholism scandal, with the intention of looking up published references.

(12) Oh yeah, a quote from Bhagavan Das about Naropa being a party school. You'll note that I exercised great restraint it not continuing the quote, which details sexual escapades.

(13) Goss quotes discussing the meaning of "nonsectarian" as used by Naropa. (Since he cites several of Naropa's own professors, I don't see how this could possibly be objectionable.)

(14) Quotes from Naropa's website on "Contemplative education," illustrating that Buddhist language is used to describe this.

(15) Got rid of separate section for Community Practice Day, which is only a paragraph long (and doesn't need to be any more than that).

(16) For the academic programs, I got rid of all the separate sections--which had the effect of making the table of contents almost as long as the article!--and also eliminated the part about minors, which I felt to be non-noteworthy. (People can always consult Naropa's catalogue for the fine print.)

(17) I proposed that another page, Contemplative education, be merged with this one on the grounds that that other article seems mainly to be about persons affiliated with Naropa, and contains little new material. The editors there are presently contemplating what scope they envision for the article.

You may wish to have a look at CIIS for comparison's sake. --Dawud