Talk:Eckhart Tolle/GA2

GA Reassessment

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Initial impression

In general, the version that was approved for GA looks like a fanpov, PROMO piece. The recent versions have the same problems.

There's heavy reliance on information directly from Tolle, and using Wikipedia's voice.

The timeline is not chronological.

It appears his major successes were due to Oprah Winfrey's recommendations, though this is difficult to see from the article content.

Some refs appear redundant and promotional.

Some refs are missing basic information (publication date, author, etc).

I've only glanced at the recent dispute, and so am not addressing it at all. --Hipal (talk) 23:33, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with most of your edits, almost all of which are actually reversions of things that were added after the good article review. However, apart from the issues that you have already fixed, I don't really see your description as accurate. It seems chronological. Most of the claims made by Eckhart Tolle about his own life that are likely to be contested are not put in Wikipedia's voice. It often says "Eckhart Tolle says" which is neutral language and does not assert that the statement is true. Otherwise, uncontested and non-sensational auto-biographical claims may be the basis for some of the narrative but they are quite mundane. I can't see anything super-promotional in Wikipedia's own voice. The redundant refs have mostly if not all been added by spammers after the Good Article review, so I agree with your removal of those. The claim about his birth date is not backed up by a reliable source (except for the "reliable sources" that have used this article itself as a source) and I tried to remove it several times but it kept getting added back. I have no reason to doubt the birthdate but it's against policy so I tried to get rid of it. Otherwise I don't see big issues with the article except that spammers will keep trying to add spam like in a lot of good articles. Mr G (talk) 01:42, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

There are some weird claim that have been added since the review like that his friend as "psychic". I think it would be better to just fix these issues that remove the good article status, but I don't really mind either way. Mr G (talk) 01:50, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

The claim at the top of the article that the article is written "from a fan's point of view" is false. It's mostly neutral and most of the things you are objecting too have been added more recently by other editors. Mr G (talk) 01:53, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Giving UNDUE weight to material referenced only to poor or promotional sources violates NOT, POV, and BLP. --Hipal (talk) 02:10, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

It seems to me, reading the article now, that whatever "fan" material may have been there has been removed; the word "psychic" is not present in the text. I agree with Gregcaletta that the article is entirely neutral in tone now. The sources include The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Vancouver Sun, Time magazine, and The Observer, so the immediate impression is of a robustly-sourced article, and indeed of a figure definitely in the public eye on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. The use of interviews does not seem excessive. The primary material (sourced to Tolle) is used plainly and descriptively; it forms a modest percentage of the text, and it is clearly attributed and cited. The "Reception" section provides both positive and negative opinions of Tolle. It would be hard to describe any of this as promotional. I found some refs poorly-formatted and have fixed them; I've rescued one newspaper article with an archive link. Overall it looks pretty good. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:36, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Revisiting the article, I've done some more copy-editing so that it flows better in English, checking carefully for neutrality; I hope it reads better, but I found little in the way of neutrality issues to fix. It's a decent, honest article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:44, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

More comments

Remove the "Dialogues With Emerging Spiritual Teachers" reference, or use it only to provide important details already on topics from better refs.

Removed.

Remove the worse references.

Done.

Put more emphasis on the better and non-primary sources throughout.

Done. The article now contains almost no primary sourcing.

Rewrite the "Inner transformation" section title. This is improper use of Wikipedia's voice.

Said 'Reported.

I'm not sure if Oprah's multiple recommendations should be mentioned in the lede. Probably.

Mentioned her interventions for the two books. I think the webinar series is marginal for the lead.

Christian scholars have differing opinions on the compatibility of Tolle's ideas with Christianity. Remove, unless there's a summary from and independent source we could use. --Hipal (talk) 22:17, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

It was only a lead-in to the cited paragraphs that follow. In the interest of harmony I've replaced it with a brief statement cited to the article in The Independent.

Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:12, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Much improved. Thank you. --Hipal (talk) 16:05, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Great. Well if you or someone who knows how could close this, that'd be good. Thanks all. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:04, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

• @Hipal: This looks like it is ready to close. Aircorn (talk) 19:25, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Softlavender has done a great job cleaning up the article. I caught a couple of minor items. I wish I had time to review it closer, but I don't want to hold anything up given it's current state. --Hipal (talk) 21:17, 25 October 2021 (UTC)