Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Buddhism

Mongol prince

I don't know where to post it. Can someone knowledgeable about Sanskrit reconstruct the original name of the Prince of Liang from the Chinese transcription 把匝剌瓦爾密 (ba-za-la-wa-er-mi)? He is a Mongol prince, and like other imperial members, he had a very Buddhist name (Tibetan or Sanskrit). I think 把匝剌 must be "vajra" but I don't know what wa-er-mi (varmi?) means. --Nanshu 01:51, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion- Talk

In case you are interested. --Juan Muslim 06:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikiportal

Hi all. I hope you know about Portal:Buddhism. It is being discussed whether the portal should be deleted because it doesn't satisfy certain requirements, because not much work has been done on it. Please see the discussion here. I request you to please contribute and make the portal survive. Thanks. deeptrivia (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion

Please comment: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Religion#interreligious --Striver 05:13, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Improvement drive

Meditation is currently nominated on WP:IDRIVE. If you want to see it improved and could help us bring it up to featured standard, please vote for it here! --Fenice 08:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Comparative Religions Template

Please visit this template I'm working on to go at the bottom of all of the major religious pages as a way to facilitate comparative religion research. Leave your comments on its talk page. Thanks! --Mareino 01:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

{{Buddhism portal}}

Please put on important articles. deeptrivia (talk) 17:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Buddhism in Afghanistan

This article is a stub. There's a long history of Buddhism in Afghanistan. Please take a look. deeptrivia (talk) 03:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

every think about organizing the buddhism cat?

Place is a mess. I tried cleaning some but it's so big.--Dangerous-Boy 11:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:Indian Philosophy

Please fill the Buddhist Philosophy section with more details. I think we'll need to restrict it to Buddhist philosophy developed in India. deeptrivia (talk) 15:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikibuddhist.

Hi, i am starting a project to create a new wiki for buddhists. please sign your name on my userpage if you wish to help. will only create site if enough people are interested. Pure inuyasha 23:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Buddhism

Wow! This is a quiet corner of wikipedia. I was wondering if we can all work together in getting Portal:Buddhism the featured portal status. deeptrivia (talk) 04:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Fornication

I've recently been updating the article on Fornication, and I'm interested to learn about the Buddhist perspective, which i've left space for. Is it possible for someone here to write a paragraph or two?? A J Hay 07:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

A place to start might be Maurice Walshe's "Buddhism and Sex" BPS Wheel article posted on accesstoinsight.org at: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/walshe/wheel225.html. (Walshe is probably most famous for his translation of the Digha Nikaya.) [It's on my to-read list but I figured, given its author, publisher and hosting website, it's probably pretty good :-) ] LarryR 00:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0

Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team for Wikipedia 1.0 would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 0.5 and later versions. Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please add to the Buddhism WikiProject article table any articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist automatically for you, please contact us. Please feel free to post your suggestions right here. Thanks! Walkerma 06:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Help needed with problematic article (Phende)

I stumbled across this article by accident and found it to be very problematic with regards to sourcing, POV, grammar, etc. I made a few attempts to fix some obvious problems but a great deal of work remains just to meet Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. It's even possible this article may need to be deleted; I just don't know enough about Buddhism. My edits were purely from the viewpoint of what appeared to violate Wikipedia rules and guidelines. I don't have the time or knowledge to keep working on this.

I also noticed that the article's author had a history of submitting other problematic material (for instance American Buddha Online Library).

This article needs a review by someone familiar with the topic. I have left some additional comments on the article's talk page.
Thanks,
--A. B. 14:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

FYI, I just noticed another article, Ngor, linked to the Phende article that seems to share the same style and the same problems.--A. B. 18:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

How do I join.

Just maybe five minutes ago I decided I was a Buddhist. So I would like to join the WikiProject. How might I do this? Zazaban 05:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Couple of questions

Hi, regarding the category Buddhist myths: If I may say so, for me, the word mythical is very close to fairy tales and fantasy; when things fall in that category, I would not call them Buddhism. There are however aspect like you mentioned that are difficult for ordinary people to directly experience - but so is the backside of the moon. All in all, Buddhist mythology is for me almost a contradiction in terms.

Regarding a page for people in Buddhism: who needs that, and do you want to add a few, dozens, or hundreds of names? Of course Buddhist Teachers is a very valid sectionrudy 11:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you about Category:Buddhist mythology. I have long maintained that it should only be applied to fairy tales and such that are in some way related to Buddhism.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 18:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

religioustolerance dot org

I came across over 700 links to this organization, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. The site has a ton of ads but on the other hand, it has content (and a Wikipedia article).

Normally, such an ad-intensive site with so many links gets attention at WikiProject Spam for further investigation. Even if it's not spam, many links may often get deleted as not meeting the external links guideline. I've left a note at WikiProject Spam asking others to look at some of these and see what they think.

Even some non-profit organizations will add dozens of links to Wikipedia since links in Wikipedia are heavily weighted in Google's page ranking systems. (If interested, see the article on Spamdexing for more on this).

You can see all the links by going to this this "Search web links" page. I encourage you to look at Wikipedia's external links guideline then look at the links in the articles you normally watch. Also, if you don't mind, please also weigh in at WikiProject Spam with your opinions. If you see links to pages that you don't think add additional value beyond the content already in an article, feel free to delete them, but please don't go mindlessly deleting dozens of links. (Per WP:EL, links that don't add additional value should be deleted but that doesn't necessarily mean they're "spam").

Thanks for your help and for providing some second opinions. --A. B. 17:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Lerab Ling and related articles

I am crossposting this to WikiProject Tibetan Buddhism, but I thought I might get more response here. I was looking at random articles today and came across Lerab Ling, whose text struck me as something that could have been lifted directly from a promotional brochure. Following the links, I discovered Sogyal Rinpoche and The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, both of which are even more promotional. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is exceptionally bad; the first words of the article describe the book as "an acclaimed spiritual masterpiece," and glowing celebrity reviews are interspersed with statements like, "This jewel of Tibetan wisdom is the definitive spiritual classic for our time." In his article, Sogyal Rinpoche is described as "one of the most renowned teachers of our time" and "the author of the highly-acclaimed and ground breaking book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I have no idea how much influence Lerab Ling, Sogyal Rinpoche, and his book really have in Tibetan Buddhism, so I was hoping that someone more familiar with the topic could take a look at these articles and evaluate the truth of these glowing statements. In the meantime, I've marked all three with {{advert}} tags. Thanks. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 18:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Nice catches AdelaMae! A minor tangent, if I may: If The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is possibly going to be deleted, should it perhaps be subsequently made into a #REDIRECT for Bardo_Thodol? LarryR 22:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC) P.S. Whoops! My bad. My wife (who has a Vajrayanic practice) tells me that this Sogyal Rinpoche book is not the same as the Bardo Thodol (which was classically translated as "Tibetan Book of the Dead"). Please ignore yet another example of my vast ignorance. LarryR 16:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Religious leaders

The current organization there is abit muddled, and needs some discussing how to deal with. A general proposal for cleaning it up is posted at Category talk:Religious leaders#Organization proposal, and more input would be great. It doesn't address the issue of Religious leaders/religious workers/religious figures, but that is another issue that exists. Badbilltucker 21:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Assessment

I have noted that this project does not yet engage in assessment. I am a member of WikiProject Religion, which does engage in assessments. I was wondering if this project would have any objections to the Religion project setting up its banner in a way similar to WikiProject Australia, WikiProject Military history, and others, which have the "parent" banner on top with the assessment criteria and a section below indicating which particular projects have specific interest in the article. I could set up the Religion banner in a way to accomplish this. However, given the complexity involved, I would not want to do so and have things changed back later. Please inform me if this arrangement would be to your satisfaction or not, so I can know how to proceed. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this Badbill. NinaEliza (talk • contribs • logs) 22:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Renaming some articles

We need to start renaming or redirecting some articles of both people and concepts for clarity and common usage. If someone goes by a nickname, for example, it's most appropriate to have a redirect of that nickname. This is particularly true for honorifics.

For example, Nichiren is often called Nichiren Daishonin by his followers. A redirect to Nichiren would be in order (if it has not been done already). I propose we start a list of articles that need these redirects/renamings. Larry has kindly offered to help, and he has a lot of energy.

On a side note, the one time I looked at Nichiren, it didn't include his writings on the game Go, and a host of other things. I'm entreating others to look into it - I'm too cl ose to the topic. NinaEliza (talk • contribs • logs) 22:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

As NinaEliza indicates, I do second this effort. The thing that's troubled me lately (and I've perpetrated this problem myself multiple times) is the non-English-naming of articles on Buddhist terms and concepts, such as Sravaka ("disciple"), Upasaka ("lay follower"??), Upadana ("clinging") and even my beloved Skandha ("aggregate"?). Admittedly, this makes sense for some concepts (e.g., Nirvana, buddha), but I think it would be of benefit to have lesser-known terms have their "Main" articles using English titles. Any thoughts? Am I embarrassing myself yet again by rehashing something that was already discussed, decided and implement? (If so, humble apologies yet again :-( ). Metta, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 00:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion

The group indicated above was recently revitalized for, among other things, the purpose of working on those articles whose content is such that the article does not fall within the scope of any particular denomination. To most effectively do this, however, we would benefit greatly if there were at least one member from this Project working on those articles. On that basis, I would encourage and welcome any member of this Project willing to work on those articles to join the Religion WikiProject. Thank you. Badbilltucker 22:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Japanese Buddhism

It has been proposed elsewhere that Japanese Buddhism be counted as a separate specific entity, particularly because of the inclusion of many ideas and practices which seem to have been used in Shinto as well. Would the members of this project object if articles relating specifically and only to Japanese Buddhism were to be overseen by either the Shinto or Japanese mythology WikiProject as well, given its status as a kind of syncretion of Buddhism and Shinto/Japanese mythology? Badbilltucker 20:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Buddhist art up for featured article review

Buddhist art has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Green451 18:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Buddhist Images

An editor has proposed deleting the article Buddhist Images. Fg2 01:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Citations

I think it's clear from Wikipedia: Attribution that articles about Buddhism should be citing scholars, not Buddhists, except when they're specifically talking about the teachings of a particular person or organization. Peter jackson 09:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Peter, does that mean that for citations on Christianity, only non-christian scholars are acceptable? Geshes are considered Buddhist scholars, what about them? Is His Holiness the Dalai Lama an unacceptable source? rudy 09:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The question is, which hat are they wearing? The criteria given in the guidelines are basically referred to the publisher. Thus Nanamoli's books published by the Pali Text Society are proper sources to cite, because that's a recognized learned society, but his books published by the Buddhist Publication Society should be treated with caution, as it's a Buddhist propaganda organization, "promotional" as the guidelines say. The Dalai Lama's writings can obviously be cited in the article about him. Whether they could be cited in the article about Gelugpa depends on whether he is officially the head of it. I did read somewhere that the Ganden Rinpoche is the official head, but this is not my field so that would have to be checked by those who know. I do know there are disputes within the Gelugpa between the Dalai Lama & Kelsang Gyatso, so that article has to be careful about neutrality. Peter jackson 08:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a worthwhile area of examination but I think already too fine a line is being drawn. For instance, while the Buddhist Publication Society (BPS) and the Pali Text Society (PTS) can both be deemed "promotional," this is different from saying that either one of them is "propagandizing." Would you call the BPS publication of the Visuddhimagga or the Abhidhammattha Sangaha less scholarly than the PTS publication of the Dhamma-Sangani? Personally, I find that Bhikkhu Bodhi's BPS introductory analysis is better informed than C. A. F. Rhys David's PTS introduction (perhaps the difference that 80 years of scholarship makes), though I respect and am indebted to both greatly. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 12:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't, but WP is not supposed to be based on my opinions or yours, it's supposed to be objective. That's what the criteria are for. They say citations should be from publishers with a reputation for fact-checking, so that the source doesn't just represent one man & his dog. PTS is promotional in a literal sense, as its official aim is to foster & promote the study of Pali texts, but that's not what it means. It means that organizations that exist to promote a particular point of view should be treated with special suspicion. PTS is not that, but BPS obviously is. The reason why all this is particularly important is that most religious groups are not centralized monolithic organizations like the Roman Catholic Church with clearly defined official teachings. This is particularly so in the East, where the Western concept of a denomination as something with a central organization doesn't really apply. [1] Buddhist traditions are therefore quite amorphous, including a range of views. Everyone tends to think their view is the real thing, & say so, so their statements that Buddhism/Theravada/... teaches such & such cannot be trusted. Therefore such statements must be backed up by scholars who've studied more widely & objectively. Peter jackson 09:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think we can agree on a couple of points: your and my opinion should not be taken as guidance for judgment here; traditionally trained Western "scholars" (and it might be worth hammering out a definition of what a "scholar" is) have studied more "widely" (though not necessarily "deeply"), in general, than those not so trained; fact-checking is a good thing.... I'm not sure how fruitful this all is. I suspect you and I (and our dogs?) could find what might be deemed "propaganda" and "factual errors" in both PTS and BPS publications. I think it depends on what kind of information we're talking about — for instance, Buddhist history vs. Buddhist practice — and in regards to what particular text (such as, for instance, T.W.Rhys Davids' seemingly POV article on Buddhism in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica or anything else). I think most WP readers/editors know to apply critical thinking to all sources and that such is appropriate.

I guess I see two ways of making this thread productive:

(a) Is there a way for us to discuss to what degree "scholarly knowledge" vs. "practice knowledge" have their place in particular WP Buddhism articles?

(b) I'm wondering if there's a particular article or set of articles that precipitated the generalization that started this thread and, if so, might it be worth discussing the particulars of that article (those articles)?

Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 13:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

No particular article (to start at the end). I find this sort of thing all over the place, either no citation at all or only one from Buddhist sources. I noted some time ago on the Theravada talk page that nearly all the references were to Buddhist sources. The other day I deleted a couple from the text of the article. One of them described Bhikkhu Bodhi as a Theravada spokesman. Rubbish. There's no such thing as a Theravada spokesman because there's no central organization to appoint one. He could reasonably be called a spokesman for the BPS, as its President, if that's any good, & maybe he's been appointed as spokesman for some other organization, but otherwise he's just one monk among many, with his own opinions.

A particular example on which we may be able to clarify ideas. Most Western books on Buddhism start their explanation of its teachings with the 4 Noble Truths, & this has been adopted in Ceylon, where they teach them to children in Sunday schools. However, the scriptural & traditional approach is that they are an advanced teaching for those who are ready ((New) Penguin Handbook of Living Religions). This is an example where books by Westerners or Westernized orientals can give a quite misleading picture of the tradition.

To stick to Theravada, which I know something about. As I said, there's no central organization. That is, on a permanent basis. There was of course the Sixth Council, but as far as I know that did nothing but recite the scriptures, so we might say they are the only official teaching of Theravada as a whole. Then there are various national organizations. In Burma there is a central organization of some sort, & it recommended U Thittila as a contributor to The Path of the Buddha by Morgan, so that chapter can provisionally be regarded as official Burmese Buddhism (the book also contains similarly official accounts from the largest Zen, Pure Land & Nichiren organizations in Japan). There is a central organization in Thailand, but I suspect there's probably not much of one in Ceylon. In both countries the Western interpretation has been largely adopted by the establishment (see the citation from JIABS I put in Theravada & Pali Canon), so perhaps one can use Western accounts backwards to describe oficial Buddhism there. To go further of course there are all sorts of movements within each country, so there are Westernized Buddhists in Burma & un-Westernized ones in Ceylon & Thailand, and endless individual variations.

So what I'm saying is that it's extremely difficult to find out how widely what some Buddhist writer says is accepted. We need scholars to tell us that. Then we know which articles they belong in. Peter jackson 15:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm coming in in the middle of this discussion, but --

- "I think most WP readers/editors know to apply critical thinking to all sources" -- I sure don't see this, myself! IMHO, there are a lot of completely uncritical, credulous people using Wikipedia.

- IMHO "practice knowledge" is not appropriate for Wikipedia, except insofar as quoted as "So-and-so's unverified opinion". The standard for Wikipedia is verifiability, no original research, and reliable sources. Wikipedia:Attribution

- I'm strongly opposed to ruling out the citing of particular persons, publishers or schools across the board. We should consider the inclusion of any assertion on its individual merits. When Joe Crazy-man shouts "Fire!", or says "Lunch is ready now", he may well be right, regardless of what other goofy ideas he has.

-- Writtenonsand 15:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't suggest ruling anyone out altogether, but things must be looked at in proper context. There are a lot of completely uncritical, credulous people putting material into Wikipedia. we have to try to moderate that with proper checking. Peter jackson 15:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Peter, I think in general I can agree with just about everything you've written in your response and, as usual, let me thank for the additional extra information you've provided about Theravada countries. (Perhaps sometime, if not here then on your user page, you could clue us in to your background and how you have accumulated this impressive store of information.) I obviously took umbrage at the general comparison between PTS and BPS -- after all, I use some BPS sources in the articles I've edited/created -- but, realistically, I could see how one could argue your point. The fact that there is so much mayhem occurring on WP Buddhism articles and a real need for our continued contributions, I'm disinclined to disagree with you any further here.

Writtenonsand -- and I really like your user name, by the way, very appropriate for WP -- you are correct on calling me regarding my overly optimistic generalization about critical thinking. A few moments away from the keyboard I regretted writing such, as Peter might say, rubbish. Further, while my choice of the term "practice knowledge" was perhaps a poor choice of wording, I do think what I was alluding to is something real and valuable. While I definitely defer to "scholars" regarding Buddhist history, etc., there are some topics -- for instance, perhaps, practice topics -- that fall outside the scope of most scholarship but have been extensively commented on by some widely recognized "teachers" or "scholar monks," etc. Thus, for instance, in the absence of traditional Western scholarship, I think I've twice resorted to citing publicly available "dharma talks" in one or two articles. If you'd like to explore this further, perhaps as a backburner item, I'd be happy to.

I wish you both the best, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 18:22, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a place for gap-filling. If we have no adequate scholarly information, either because there isn't any or because we haven't come across it, it's perfectly OK to say "One interpretation is ..." or "Some Buddhists believe ..." or "The Dalai Lama says ...", but such qualifying phrases are essential. Peter jackson 11:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

From my experience with some of the Buddhism articles, I feel we need to make a clear distinction between two kinds of citations -- the research done by scholars who may not necessarily have experience in any Buddhist tradition, and the views of well-known Buddhists. Not that either of two should be considered right or wrong. But besides knowing what scholars say, it is equally interesting to know views and philosophies are held by the actual Buddhist traditions. Especially when scholars without sufficient experience in Buddhist practice write about Buddhist philosophy and comparison between traditions, it can sometimes be misleading. Of course they can't be ignored, following WP policy regarding sources, but perhaps we could try to distinguish between the two different kinds of perspectices. --Knverma 09:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that in practice scholars often talk nonsense, but then so do Buddhist teachers. I repeat that what the latter say is evidence only of what they themselves teach, unless they are officially appointed spokespeople of particular organizations. WP is supposed to be based on verifiable statements. That means we have to be careful about exactly what we're saying. We can say that the Dalai Lama says such & such & cite his own writings to that effect. But what do we actually mean when we say Buddhism/Theravada/... says something? We can cite scholars to that effect, provisionally, without knowing exactly what it means. But there is something of a hierarchy among scholarly authorities, which can be quite hard to find. The guidelines say the best authorities are publications by universities. Are all universities equal for these purposes? I'd guess not: would WP be required to treat as serious scholarship the publications of fundamentalist universities like Bob Jones, or Indian universities that do degrees in astrology? Again, I'd guess not. According to a recent survey, the best universities are, in order, Harvard, Cambridge & Oxford. I don't know of a general book on Buddhism from Harvard, so the best authorities to start with would be Harvey (Cambridge) & Gethin (Oxford). However, there are other criteria to take into account. Specialization is an important one: the closer the scholar is to the subject, the more they are relying on their own knowledge rather than trying to keep track of other people's research, the better an authority they are. Date is also important of course. Trying to find out whether there is a consensus can be hard. Peter jackson 09:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm gonna toss in another two cents, especially because I have been given a little (just a little) more thought to the matter of Bhikkhu Bodhi. If I may be straightforward, the intent of these comments are not meant to be adversarial but exploratory (and hopefully not a complete waste of WP bytes).

Peter, you wrote about Bodhi: "He could reasonably be called a spokesman for the BPS, as its President, if that's any good, & maybe he's been appointed as spokesman for some other organization, but otherwise he's just one monk among many, with his own opinions." I think it is important to also recognize, among other things, that Bodhi has a Ph.D. in philosophy and has also made significant contributions to Buddhist scholarship editing BPS books that even (non-Buddhist?) scholars such as Gethin references. So, how do we place someone like Bodhi or, for another potentially complex example, Trungpa Rinpoche (who studied Comparative Religion at Oxford, etc.) in the hierarchy of scholarship? Perhaps a matrix could be created: publication, author's credentials, year of publication, citations of work in scholarly journals....

Additionally, you've identified a survey that lists the best universities as Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge; can we readily extrapolate from such surveys that these are the best universities for Buddhist scholarship or Buddhist scholarly publications? (Maybe a pointer to this survey would help?)

Also, as others have pointed out, experiential wisdom is important to certain types of Buddhist discourse. For instance, it would make sense to me that someone writing on metta has actually practiced it deeply for a long period of time. Otherwise, they are just intellectually mapping their own words from the words of others which, prima facie, is rife with problems. Thus, for me (yes, launch the rotten tomatoes now), in such a matrix as mentioned above, "exposure to Buddhism" (quality, type), would also seem relevant.

Thanks for any feedback. (Extra points for those who use a non-condescending tone of voice :-) ) Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Bodhi's translations of the Majjhima (actually his revision of Nanamoli) & Samyutta have been issued in private editions by the PTS, which gives them scholarly authority in their own right. There is something in the guidelines about non-peer-reviewed publications by recognized scholars, which would have a lesser authority. Also, it seems to me logical that, if you can find a reputable publication that says that so-and-so gives an accurate account of such-and-such, then you can give the latter as a source, along with the review or whatever. It's true that the best universities overall may not be such in every subject, which adds complications. However, that is not so relevant to what I actually said. In fact neither Harvey nor Gethin is actually stationed at the university that published his book. What WP is about here is peer review. Camridge University Press, for example, sends every proposed book to two experts for comment, and a third if they disagree. The experts need not be at Cambridge. On your last paragraph, WP is about facts, not wisdom. your point about rephrasing is important. The guidelines say statements should be easily verifiable, which I think must mean minimally rephrased, only (ideally) as far as necessary to avoid copyright infringement. Peter jackson 09:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Peter - Thanks for the very prompt, thoughtful and helpful response. Frankly, I'm going to hold off on making future WP edits until I re-read and more fully digest Wikipedia:Attribution, per your pointer. (FWIW, in particular, I want to more fully understand what it says about uses of the Bible and see how that might pertain to our references to and quotes from the Pali Canon.)

If I may, the only part of your response with which I personally have any intuitive reluctance is the use of the word "fact." Hoping you don't mind if I wordsmith a wee, I think a phrase along the lines of "documenting contemporary scholarly consensus" might be more accurate. (For instance, to use a classic non-Buddhist example, a circa 1900 A.D. WP article on physics would document Newtonian physics not the writings of then-patent-officer Einstein, though the latter would be closer to the facts at hand.) I think both the effort to capture scholarly consensus and what we've momentarily referred to as "experiential wisdom" are both efforts to write down "the truth." Regardless, as you have very appropriately and repeatedly maintained, this is the WP playground, the rules are posted on the fence, and if one wants to play here they need to abide by the rules. Thanks again for your clarity and persistence regarding this.

Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 12:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the use of the term fact is odd, but that seems to be the WP usage. What the attribution page says about the Bible doesn't seem to be thought out: it treats the gospels as an unquestioned record of the words of Jesus, and only raises questions as to the interpretation. This is inappropriate there & even more so for the Pali Canon. We mustn't say that the Buddha said such-and-such, because there's no scholarly consensus. We might sometimes say that most scholars think he said something of the sort, but that would have to be checked. Apart from this, the interpretation question is important too. People tend to quote passages from the Pali canon (or the Bible) that seem to fit their own ideas. Peter jackson 10:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Solely for the sake of precision, the proposed-policy article Wikipedia:Attribution states:

How reliable a source is depends on context. In general, the most reliable sources are books and journals published by universities; mainstream newspapers; and magazines and journals that are published by known publishing houses....

For me, in our on-going discussion here, the phrases "depends on context" and "in general" are important. For example, year of publication (e.g., in regards to an academic publication) and scholarly citations (e.g., in regards to a non-academic publication) could be relevant to assessing a publication's reliability. I think it is useful to keep in mind the general rules (secondary sources, university presses, etc.) but it is also in the best interest of Wikipedia to thoughtfully use other sources.

In the end, I don't think what I write here is necessarily at odds with what Peter has written, for instance, Peter, when you wrote:

"Thus Nanamoli's books published by the Pali Text Society are proper sources to cite, because that's a recognized learned society, but his books published by the Buddhist Publication Society should be treated with caution, as it's a Buddhist propaganda organization, 'promotional' as the guidelines say."

I think my choice of words would have been significantly different (as indicated above) but, ultimately, in general, I think we could likely reach agreement on what sources are "reliable" and/or appropriately contextualized for a particular article. (Is this my unfounded optimism rearing its head again?)

Tangentially, Peter (and others), I'm honestly wondering about publications such as Nanamoli's Visuddhimagga in terms of to what degree it is a "(translated) primary source" and to what degree it is a "secondary source." Do you have a take on this? Thanks, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 17:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Transliteration

I'd like to remind people that many computers will not display some of the diacritic letters used for Pali and Sanskrit. Therefore I recommend both pointed and unpointed versions be given at first occurrence. For a different reason we should give both Pinyin & WG, & preferably tones & characters as well. As an aside, is it correct for us to be using Pinyin as primary? Last I heard most scholars used WG, but it's not my field so I may be out of date. Peter jackson 09:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Monastic naming conventions

Just to draw attention to a problem. In Burma, a monk may have various names. Thus Nanabhivamsa, Maha Dhamma Kyinthan & (1st) Maungdaung Sayadaw are the same. Peter jackson 09:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)