Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, additions of links to Wikipedia will not alter search engine rankings. If you continue spamming, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. —Moondyne 11:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you the Moondyne who left me a note telling me to stop adding "inappropriate" links to Wiki? The moderator, Dirk Beetstra, said it's okay to add links to the text, especially when they are relevant to the subject. The links I have added were not spam, were not aimed at increasing search engine ratings, are not commercial and are completely relevant to the subject of the article. What's wrong with them? I'm not trying to have a fight with you, but I need to know about all this. Beetstra said it's ok to put links in the text, so what's the problem? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Neilrobertpaton (talk • contribs) 08:34, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

By "moderator", I'm guessing that you mean User:Beetstra. If so I can't see where you asked and he "said its okay" to add such links. Regardless, in my view they are inappropriate links and are not OK. For example: http://gymshots.tripod.com/gymnast1.htm. The links are commercial (ie. contain Google ads) and are not allowed per our policy on external links as Wikipedia is not a link directory. If you are keen to contribute to the encyclopaedia, and you actually own the photos, you could of course upload some of them to Wikipedia with appropriate licensing tags (see WP:TAGS). Then you can insert the images directly into the articles. In the meantime, please do not add any more links like these to Wikipedia. —Moondyne 10:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello agian. I did not say that this was the way to add the links, I asked you to consider adding content, and when the site you are adding contains information that is added, you could use it as a reference. Adding a phrase 'pictures of her can be found here' is, IMHO, not adding content, but a short and quick way to spam a link. Please read through the pages linked in the welcome-message, they provide some information regarding these subjects. Please take some attention to read WP:EL, WP:RS and WP:A, they tell a bit more about which sites provide suitable information (pictures sites hardly ever do).

I notice these pages contain a lot of pictures, you could consider uploading some pictures. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! HagermanBot 09:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not use abusive language as you did on Talk:Siddha Yoga, (see here). Take a look at Wikipedia:Etiquette for guidelines about how to behave on this site. Lumos3 14:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Glad you found the Village Pump. If you have any concerns or ideas about the individual policies themselves, such as WP:ATT, WP:NOR or the like, you can comment on the talk pages for those policies. Glad you're interested in participating in policy and general wiki discussions. Be well! Vassyana 13:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikpedia is not a democracy, nor is it an anarchy. We have lots of policies but we are not a bureaucracy. While these policies may seem contradictory and overwhelming at first glance, the eight listed in the right hand side box of the list are the glue that makes the whole thing work. Before getting too involved in discussions, I strongly suggest having a read of those. And then, when you contribute to a discussion you can better appreciate other peoples points of view. —Moondyne 14:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

... have also been speedily deleted, for the above reason. – riana_dzasta 12:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay in replying. Yes, I'm Perth based. —Moondyne 04:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From article's talk page:

To the person who inserted the section that included the mantras: if the article makes a claim that the mantras are unique, it would be appropriate for you to add a sentence disputing the claim and then cite the book you noted. Your insertion of a long paragraph with a separate header in the midst of the research section wasn't appropriate. TimidGuy 12:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The section discussing the mantra is the appropriate location for a reference to disputes. Note also: large quotes from the book are WP:COPYVIO, unless properly referenced. It doesn't matter what language the words are written in. I would like to see the references: if this is correct, it is certainly notable. Michaelbusch 19:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your observations about my contribution to the TM page, but the list I provided was not a passage quoted from the book; it is a list which was in itself used at second hand by Steve Richards in his book. Nobody has copyright of that list. I am a published author and I'm quite aware of copyright law. The list is not, I can assure you, a quote from that book. As for the language, that was just my way of underlining that the mantras are not copyright by anyone. As for references, I provided enough, although I intend to add more detail about the book tomorrow.

What's your status at Wiki; are you an official or another contributor like me? Neilrobertpaton 07:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC) Wikipedia copyright policy is harder than that (see also Wikipedia:No original research and WP:CITE). Steve Richards has copyright on the text of his book. His original source has copyright on the list. Find them, cite them, and you will satisfy Wikipedia policy. And I was not the one who deleted your additions, as you can check from the article history (although, formatted as they were, they did not fit in the article). An observation: there are some very feverent supporters of TM editing the article. Unless you follow Wikipedia policy to the letter, they will remove whatever you add. Michaelbusch 17:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that the pictures you put on the SY article have a copyright notice in their caption. Did you mean to write that? Wikipedia doesn't accept copyrighted material, for the appropriate guidelines please read WP:COPYVIO. Thanks.TheRingess (talk) 13:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have reported several TM associated editors on the Maharishi article for apparent COI editing at the COI noticeboard, and I see the same problems exist at the TM article, where I will likely have to do the same thing. I found out it is like beating your head against the wall to get any objective information in, with a predetermined result, however civilly presented, it all amounts to the same thing. --Dseer 01:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In reply to your question on my talk page:

Yep! What you are describing is the results of rampant WP:COI, Conflict of Interest and article ownership, which they probably don't even fully recognize themselves. Yes, when I looked into it further and checked the history, I realized an organizational cabal of at least a half-dozen plus TM advocates, sympathizers closely associated with TM, many employed by TM, has totally taken over the TM related articles and suppresses any real dialogue. One has already lectured me on my Talk page on their intended consequences if I persist, after a "friendly" notice didn't work, which didn't surprise me really since I had comprehended what they are up to. Discussions are demonstrably a sham and a pretext designed to get nowhere with endless talks and trivial points of contention while pretending to dialogue so they stay under the radar, as others have pointed out. I got a friendly email from TimidGuy, and at first he seemed open to discussion and the idea that some criticism with rebuttal would be allowable. I wasn't that familiar with what I now see is clearly a cult, but I should have known better than to fall for a variation of the "love bomb" technique. After I saw how tendaciously they were responding with one issue after another, I did some checking and came upon this site: [1], and I saw how TM still threatened and went after a Professor known to be very sympathetic to that type group and that I was just addressing endless talking points that TimidGuy and the others see and can learn to talk from in their Maharishi University. I now understand what I am dealing with here. There is no point in trying dialogue with those whose only ideas come from canned cultic PR, no matter how nice they try to appear and how much they accuse you of bad faith, in fact, discussions with them gives a false sense of legitimacy to their efforts. So I wisely stopped playing their game. Anyway, when dealing with those who have an obvious Conflict of Interest and whose personal and financial interests are served by making a group grow, trying to be nice doesn't work, you need to report them to the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard for others to comment, which I did, as you can see here: []. If more neutral editors keep pointing it out there, eventually it may get enough attention. Ideally, once you see this type of Cabal, you want to build a case that Arbcom can look at, because in extreme cases they have banned COI editors before even when they used the excuse they were "experts" on the practices. Right now, I think that the general assumption is that it isn't that important because most people will recognize yogic flying for what it is and steer clear of the group, even though the article is mostly TM propaganda.

It is interesting BTW to see what Maharishi's more traditionally respected guru, Guru Dev, actually taught, and see the big differences, one big difference being his own guru refused donations, another being that his guru did not teach mantras in isolation. But then after more research I've done after starting at the article, it turns out evidence shows Maharishi was actually only the guru's secretary, was not initiated to the higher levels being ineligible to replace him, and it seems likely was able to exploit the succession turmoil and his secretarial position after the guru died to start out on his own. On a lighter note, if one actually takes the Maharishi's early teaching seriously about special mantras being useful for householders in prospering materially rather than spiritually, it would be amusing if Maharishi was doing just that, since his guru was very specific that meditation should not be taught based on money. Maybe he's really selling his soul for material wealth. :-). --Dseer 18:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your proposal is probably premature because the subject is likely notable and that de facto Cabal will read this stuff and will retaliate as a group along with their friends. Napoleon said: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." In short, let them take all the rope they want, and just keep pointing out the obvious NPOV and COI violations, maybe requesting deletions of the fringe articles where the absurdity warrants it will help undermine their credibility. I've concluded that they what they have done is over the top, but editors who've been stonewalled need to have an overkill case that we can prevail upon when Arbcom looks at it, and show harm to Wikipedia, and the evidence of willful violations is piling up, neither helping them create the pretense of neutrality or the case they are being harrassed will help. It doesn't take much, just point out the violations when you feel like it, ignore the flak, and note everytime they blow you off when you refer to policy. When the case is ready, then the editors they've summarily blown off all this time can bring the case and win it. --Dseer 05:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Neil, unfortunately I have no academic interest in the topic. I edited the article to remove the images you put in it, as they were speedily deleted for being uploaded under a restricted license (see the note I placed on your page a few sections above, in the green box). Sorry about that. – Riana ^talk 14:29, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've replied to your question on my talkpage. Cheers, – Riana ^ऋ 12:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:NOT#DIR. IPSOS (talk) 12:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's clearly the intent of this statement (bolding added): "For example, an article ... generally should not list upcoming events, current promotions, phone numbers, schedules, programme lists, etc." IPSOS (talk) 13:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would also make Wiki a better place for everyone if various "editors" stopped deleting other people's contributions (not mentioning any particular names).

You mean like not weeding the garden makes it stronger or not taking out the garbage makes the house smell better? Good to know your views, whoever you are. --Calton | Talk 14:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I am deleting your messages is because you are putting them on my user page rather than my talk page. Please use my talk page in the future. IPSOS (talk) 23:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You appear to be an Indian living in Australia. You are not alone!. There are many prolific editors with a similar background including me, User:Riana, User:Nobleeagle, User:Venu62 and User:Yama. It is nice too see Indian Australians thriving at Wikipedia. Gizza^{Chat ©} 09:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I'm not an Indian. I certainly follow Indian philosophy, however, namely Siddha Yoga in terms of my personal path in life. Am currently leaning towards using some Kali mantras to speed things up, since it's all been taking too long (like 30-40 years).

Sardaka 10:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not edit talk pages to delete the comments made by other editors, as you did here: [3]. The purpose of talk pages is to permit editors to exchange views about what needs to be done with articles. If you do not agree with an opinion given there, please state your own views without expunging those you do not care for. Removal of comments from talk pages may be construed as bad faith or vandalism. Buddhipriya 10:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm responding here about your comments on my talk page. As you can see I deleted them, not because I don't want anyone to see them (as you know, Wikipedia is database driven and everything tends to remain in the database), but because in general I don't respond to conversations of that nature without the involvement of a neutral 3rd party. My reason being that a neutral 3rd party helps me to remain objective about such material.

Here is a link to that diff, so that any interested party can read what was written [4].

I prefer to discuss specific edits I have made on article talk pages.

For instance, I found the Gurudev Siddha Peeth article on Sunday because I periodically check what links to Siddha Yoga and it's related articles.

I made a series of edits to the article and summarized those edits in the edit summary.

I added the {{reflist}} template in reference sections. This template creates a dynamic list that guarantees that any time a new reference is added it is automatically sorted appropriately. It also has the added advantage of linking the references in the body to the entries in the list.

I also added the {{cite book}} template to the book citations. This template helps ensure that citations remain standardized across articles and is commonly used.

I deleted email info for the ashram for several reasons. I thought that it was only of interest to SY students. It's available on the website.

I also added a stub classification and added the article to the India Project.

Basically, I wish to ensure that all articles related to SY conform to Wikipedia's standards.

Please don't take my edits personally, I provided the above summary to help establish that they aren't.

Thanks for the info about AFD's, I will certainly keep that info in mind for the future.

I am more than willing to discuss specific edits on article talk pages but will not discuss generalities and vague allegations without reviewing them with a neutral 3rd party. I feel that I cannot remain objective without the help of a 3rd party. That's just me. You might wish to read WP:DR if you wish to involve a 3rd party in order to discuss your concerns that aren't related to specific edits.

Om shanti, shanti, shanti.

TheRingess (talk) 18:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that when TheRingess doesn't like someone or when she takes an interest in someone, she puts them and their topics on her watch list and deletes their additions or topics. I agree that she destroys many people's good works by deleting all links in a topic except one to the often lame, outdated, and not-often usefull DMOZ link. I would suggest Sardaka, that you change your name before adding any material to Wikipedia so TheRingess can't find and delete your works. That's what I've had to do. Ganesham 17:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know:) Have a nice week and God bless:)--James, La gloria è a dio 10:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your conflict that is under discussion at: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#I.27m_Being_Stalked, please consider using the standard mediation and conflict resolution methods that have previously been explained to you. Continuing to raise the issue of your conflict in multiple places when you have declined to make use of offered mediation could be construed as disruptive behavior on your part. I encourage you to communicate directly with User:TheRingess so that you may come to agreement on use of a mediation process that will resolve the conflict between the two of you, rather than escalate it as you are currently doing. Buddhipriya 18:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In a complex environment like Wikipedia, conflicts occur often. For an overview of policies on dispute resolution, please see: Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution. The first step listed there is to talk directly with the party you are having conflict with. If that fails to resolve the problem, the next step may involve use of the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal (also know as "MedCab"), a voluntary process that brings in an outside party who is specifically intending to help others work out conflicts. Would you be willing to use a MedCab request? If so, that can become the immediate focus of attention and reduce cross-posting, which makes it more difficult for other editors to keep track of what is going on. Buddhipriya 17:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your concerns about being stalked, I would suggest you carefully read WP:HARASS, which explains harassment "does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors". So far you haven't provided any proof of disruptive conduct by any other editors. Also, I would suggest you have a look at WP:OWN, because I have concerns that you are being too possessive about the article content you have contributed. The nature of this project involves allowing other users to edit your work, sometimes drastically. Finally, could I suggest that you ensure your comments are civil. Thanks, Addhoc 13:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To be sure we are using terms in the same way, I would define "stalking" using the definition given in Wikipedia:Harassment#Wikistalking:

"The term "wiki-stalking" has been coined to describe following a contributor around the wiki, editing the same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor. This does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, nor does it mean reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason. The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful."

Please note that keeping an eye on the edit history of users once a problem has been identified elsewhere is part of the recommended practices both for Recent changes patrol (RCP) and WikiProject Spam. For example, the procedure for RCP says: "Check the user's other contributions. You'll often find more edits with similar problems. Fix those as well. The procedure for WikiProject Spam is similar saying: "Check the user's contributions: a user will often add the same link to multiple articles. This is often confirmation that the user is not editing in good faith. To check for this type of activity, select the contribs (or for anonymous users the IP address) link from your watch list or an article's history. This shows all the other edits the user recently made and selecting the diff link shows if the same link has been added to other articles. If inappropriate links are found, revert as in step one, but the user only needs to be warned once unless he has spammed since the last warning." These policies establish that it is standard practice on Wikipedia to study the contribution log of editors as a tool to find articles where problem edits may have taken place. Buddhipriya 18:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sardaka, I urge you to consider both AddHoc's and Buddhipriya's statements and read the links that they both provided. Those will help you to gain greater understanding of Wiki's policies. Given that you sought out AddHoc's advice I am confident that you will accept it. Personally, I am frustrated by the fact that you will not discuss specific edits with me. One of the guiding principles of Wikipedia, that is expressed in many places, is to discuss material rather than personalities. For instance, you left message on my talk page, after asking me several questions to which I gave brief specific answers (see here). Both messages seem to indicate that you either ignored my answers, or believed that I was not honest and forthright with you. I do not understand why you would ignore my answers, and continue to ask the same questions in further posts. Your comments also seemed uncivil to me. And you have been asked by at least one other editor to remain civil (see here. I also posted a reply here on this talk page, and you ignored it and seemed unwilling to discuss specific edits. I too agree that you might be engaging in ownership. I am writing this message because, to outside observers, your behavior and your messages might eventually be interpreted as disruptive. I also strongly suggest that you respond to comments made on the incident thread that you created, to not do so, dishonors the good will efforts of fellow editors to address your concerns. I cannot understand why you haven't responded there. I feel that you have a sincere desire to contribute to this project, and believe yourself to be acting in good faith, so don't let this go on too much longer without addressing mine and other fellow editors's concerns. Believe me, if another editor, familiar with our core principles, tells me that I am acting in bad faith, or that I inadvertently violated Wikipedia's core policies, I will be more than willing to make amends.TheRingess (talk) 19:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]