Meher Baba edit
- A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for June 2008.
This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because several editors in the past have expressed on its talk page their interest in seeing the article achieve A or FA status. One other has thought it should be demoted from GA. So there is general lack of consensus on how best to improve the article and move it toward FA. An objective outside observer's perspective would be of great help at this time. One prior peer review was done in December 2006 and since then editors have made efforts to respond to each of the excellent suggestions. I hope someone with experience in peer reviews will take the time to give this page some needed additional feedback and direction.
Thank you, DeanaG (talk) 11:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Ruhrfisch comments: Interesting article and I learned a lot about someone I knew only a little about before. While it is clear that a lot of work has been put into it, some more is needed to improve it further to FA quality. Here are some suggestions for improvement:
- A model article is often useful for ideas and examples to follow. There are a large number of Biography FAs and some in the Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Religion.2C_mysticism_and_mythology section may be useful as models, perhaps Adi Shankara
- The lead needs to follow WP:LEAD. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, but it makes no mention of his two automobile accidents, for example
- My biggest concern is that the article seems to be written almost entirely from a Meher Baba perspective, which does not seem to meet WP:NPOV
- Looking at the references, for example, most seem to be by Meher Baba or his close associates or followers. The independent third party sources are mostly news articles used to confirm realtively minor details like dates and places. Again, there should be as many third party, independent sources as possible.
- Article needs more references, for example the are some fact tags. Or these two paragraphs are uncited (and the second is italicized in the original for some reason): Gatherings of Baba followers are highly informal and social in nature. Special effort will be made to gather together on Amartithi, the anniversary of Meher Baba's death, and on his birthday. and Most Baba Lovers observe Silence Day individually on July 10 of each year, keeping verbal silence for 24 hours in accordance with the requests Baba often made for his followers to keep silence this day. or the last three paragraphs of the Metaphysics section
- My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.
- Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V
- Article has many one and two sentence paragraphs, which break up the flow. These should be combined with others or possibly expanded.
- Per WP:MOS#Images all images should be set to thumb width to all reader preferences to take over.
- The image Image:Meher baba car.jpg has no caption
- There seems to be almost no critical commentary on him and his teachings. What do academics think of him? What have academics written about him and his philosophy?
- I only count four people here for the five masters: He also contacted other spiritual figures, who he later said were the five "Perfect Masters" of the age: Hazrat Tajuddin Baba of Nagpur, Narayan Maharaj of Kedgaon, Sai Baba of Shirdi, and Upasni Maharaj of Sakori.[10]
- Please use my examples as just that - these are not an exhaustive list and if one example is given, please check to make sure there are not other occurrences of the same problem.
Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 05:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I have just discovered your comments, Ruhrfisch, for which I thank you very much.
- I believe that most of your stylistic comments are now addressed in the current version of the article, which has been worked over pretty good...Your concern about NPOV requires addressing by explanation.
- I and others have done what we can to NPOV the language of the text. As to using 'academic' references, here's the rub: There are very few references to MB written by 'objective' persons. It is not wrong to say that for the most part academics either ignore him, or quickly come under his sway, and start writing like devotees. This is true of 3 academics referenced in the article: Cohen, Chapman and Haynes, who wrote dissertations on MB, and later expanded or adapted them as devotional works. There are very few 'anti-cult'-types who discuss MB and his followers, as the group is fairly benign, loosely organized to put it mildly, and eschews evangelism or canvassing in any form. The Meher center gate is locked, but this is to keep out the Lost Tourists of Myrtle Beach -- all registered visitors and guests to the center are given keys so they can get in and out whenever they want. I've been involved with groups whose leaders had controversial or critical writings (Swami Muktanada, Yogi Bhajan); Meher Baba doesn't appear to have these sorts of 'expose' type controversies. So, in a nutshell, we're mostly stuck using Bios from devotees (extremely well-researched and legit bio, but devotee-based nonetheless), and news articles, on those few occasions when MB managed to hit the MSM.
- For a person who influcenced SO MANY celebrities in the 1930-1960s, and through them so many Average Persons, especially Average Hippies, Meber Baba is distinctly lacking in many of the trappings of similarly famous Spiritual Icons.
- If I can find ANYTHING objective or critical, I try to find a way to shoehorn it in. There's just not that much.