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[[User:Robertinventor|Robert Walker]] ([[User talk:Robertinventor|talk]]) 13:19, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
== User Conduct issue for Karma in Buddhism and Four Noble Truths ==
Hi Robert, this is a question about user conduct.
There is a big discussion going on and an RfC, so not expecting you to say anything about that. Just about the user conduct issue.
It is particularly clear in case of [[Karma in Buddhism]]. It was a mature article, worked on for many years. [[User:Dorje108]] worked on it for eighteen months starting in spring 2013 before this incident.
[[User:Joshua Jonathan]] had never previously edited the page, and never commented on its talk page either. He doesn't appear in either history as far as I can see before these edits. Though he has been a wikipedia editor of articles on Buddhism for years.
Diff for Karma in Buddhism: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karma_in_Buddhism&diff=635624203&oldid=632340477
He has turned a mature article into an article best described as a reasonably credible first draft - but with many errors in it.
Here is his summary of his changes, which he posted as a "clean up" after he had finished his work rewriting the article. He didn't post anything before or during it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Karma_in_Buddhism#Summary_of_clean-up
He also applied the same approach to the Four Noble Truths, diff here:
For Four Noble Truths: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Four_Noble_Truths&diff=635891831&oldid=629066305
And this is what [[User:Dorje108]] says about it.
[[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Buddhism#Recent_re-writes_of_key_concepts]]
So - [[User:Joshua Jonathan]] has his reasons. Basically he thinks that these articles should rely on the work of a small group of Western academics and he doesn't think the Eastern references to Tibetan and Thervadhan scholars should be used here, or their views expressed in these articles.
He calls all these Eastern scholars "primary sources" that, hr believes, should only be cited in Wikipedia as primary sources and understood as filtered through the lens of the Western academics when they discuss their work.
He is undoubtedly sincere. We have a RfC on this issue, and there are currently three in support of use of Eastern scholars as secondary sources and three opposed to this.
But the user conduct thing is - that is it permissible for an editor to do such a radical rewrite of a significant article on Wikipedia without first discussing them on the talk page first?
Or, do we have a case for a rollback, just based on his conduct, and to require him to present his changes one at a time, with Dorje108 and anyone else who is interested? Or is there any other form of action we can take in this situation? He is not interested in rolling back of his own accord, have asked him several times about that.
I'd like also to mention that Dorje108 has ceased contributing to Wikipedia on Buddhism since this event which destroyed most of his contributions to the encyclopedia for the last eighteen months.
I don't want to do any action right now. Just asking for information. If you think we have a case for some form of action, I will report to Dorje108 and see what he wants to do and take it from there.
BTW I have never edited either article myself except to fix one broken link in the Karma in Buddhism article. I am writing this as a reader who is concerned to see what I considered an excellent article, one of the most scholarly articles on Buddhism in wikipedia in my view, "wrecked" in this way.
Thanks! [[User:Robertinventor|Robert Walker]] ([[User talk:Robertinventor|talk]]) 13:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
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