Talk:Mother Teresa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Anthere (talk | contribs) at 02:03, 28 October 2003. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Jump to navigation Jump to search

/archive1 The previous discussion has been archived here.

I suggest that we recognise that there are two primary perspectives on Mother Theresa, one from the point of view of Catholic missionaries and their supporters, and the other from development professionals and those critical of her work from the perspective of western standards of charitable intervention.

Perhaps we can list the outstanding issues that we disagee on here, and try to establish the facts as best we can, while agreeing that the two different points of view do not need to be reconciled.2toise 05:10, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Fixing NPOV

Well, here are a couple of examples:

1) Should the book "The Final Verdict" be described as a "more comprehensive and arguably more scholarly work" than Christopher Hitchens' "The Missionary Position", or as "an analysis on the same theme"?


I consider the latter to be a POV statement against Chatterjee since he distances himself from Hitchens' polemic style; see arguments above re: proven comprehensiveness and scholarly nature of the work. Anyone who has compared the two books would have to agree with the former characterization. As long as no informed person disagrees with a statement it is not POV.—Eloquence
Describing any text as more comprehensive and more scholarly is expressing an editorial opinion on the merits or otherwise of a book. That breaks basic NPOV rules. NPOV requires letting the reader reach conclusions, not telling them in editorial style how to see them. FearÉIREANN18:55, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
As per our NPOV guidelines, it is only an opinion if it is controversial. Do you disagree that Chatterjee's 425-page-book is more comprehensive than Hitchens' 100-page-polemic? Do you disagree that his work, which is backed up by video tapes, a comprehensive bibliography, transcripts, photos and so forth, which is comparatively neutral in tone and condemns some of Hitchens' excesses, is more scholarly? Can you cite anyone who disagrees with these claims? If not, they will have to be reinserted, as your version is clearly POV. These remarks say nothing about the quality of Chatterjee's book or his research other than in comparison to Hitchens' book. An editorial remark would be something like "Chatterjee's book is a well-structured collection of facts that have been unknown up to that point". To say that his book is "more comprehensive" than Hitchens is simply an indisputable fact. It puzzles me to no end that you insist otherwise.—Eloquence 19:11, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)
From the OED: comprehensive: Characterized by comprehension; having the attribute of comprising or including much; of large content or scope. scholarly: Pertaining to, or characterizing, a scholar; befitting, or natural to, a scholar; learned, erudite.
Sounds, to me at least, that Eloquence has shown that both words accurately describe Chaterjee's work. Now, do both words also describe Hitchens' work? If not, no problem. If so, is his work LESS comprehensive and scholarly? If so, no problem. If not, don't use the phrases. --Dante Alighieri 19:27, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

2) Should the statement "Critics of Hitchens and Chatterjee claim in response" require attribution to who makes these claims?

I consider this important. I have not read a critique of Chatterjee yet and to simply apply the same arguments that have been applied against Hitchens against him seems simplistic to me. In general, we should avoid attributing things to "generic" critics.—Eloquence

3) Should the sentence "How about simple algorithms that might help the sisters and volunteers distinguish the curable from the incurable? Again no. Such systematic approaches are alien to the ethos of the home." be removed from the testimony by Lancet editor Robin Fox?

Jtdirl removed this without explanation. It seems to be a rather crucial element of Fox' testimony to me as a lack of distinction between curables and incurables directly contributes to the spread of disease and to the death of those who could otherwise have survived. To remove that specific sentence seems a clear violation of NPOV to me.—Eloquence
You seem to be blindly aware that this is an article on Mother Teresa, not on medical procedures. It belongs in an article discussing the medical care offered by MT and her sisters, but not in a biographical article on one person. Any editor of any document would remove that line as 'irrelevant in this context' because it is not about the subject of the article but about complex medical procedures practiced by a religious order. Like much else you want to push in this article it could be relevant in a different context but it is as irrelevant here as including a discussion about FDR's mistress, Missie LeHand, in an article about the Second World War. FearÉIREANN 19:02, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I take it that "blindly aware" is a failed personal attack, so I will ignore it. As others have pointed out, MT's work is to a large extent inseparable from that of her order, since she formulated the instructions under which the Missionaries of Charity worked. This is also made clear by the sentence that follows the one you removed: "Mother Teresa prefers providence to planning .." Fox clearly attributed these policies to MT's own leadership of the order (note that he visited one of the homes under the direct leadership of MT). I can see it as defensible to move (not remove without comment!) statements that are exclusively about the MoT to the article about them, but not to selectively remove parts from quotations, especially when they are not substantially different from other parts of the same quotation. So if you cannot provide any good reason for your actions, that sentence will have to be restored.—Eloquence 19:23, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)
heh. will have to be restored. What's this? The infallibility of Eloquence? but not to selectively remove parts from quotations, especially when they are not substantially different from other parts of the same quotation. Actually, editors make a point of removing sentences that are not substantially different from other parts of the same quotation. It is called professional editing. FearÉIREANN 20:02, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
So you have no logical arguments? Good. We can restore that part of the quote then.—Eloquence 20:25, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)
Are you incapable or reading? Then try again: Actually, editors make a point of removing sentences that are not substantially different from other parts of the same quotation. It is called professional editing. FearÉIREANN 20:02, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

4) There are segments that are arguably about the Teresa organization and not about Mother Teresa. But should these statements simply be removed from this article, or do the ones removing them bear the responsibility for putting them in a more proper location, or at least collecting them in a single place?

I think these statements should be moved to Missionaries of Charity, and those who remove them from Mother Teresa bear the responsibility of moving them elsewhere.—Eloquence
Ha! When I did move them to an article that could deal in detail with the topic, you blanked the article and listed it on the VfD page. So much for consistency. FearÉIREANN 19:04, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Actually, you did try to move the entire 20K of criticism to a separate page. I objected to this on grounds of neutrality.—Eloquence 19:24, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)

On the grounds that it didn't follow your agenda, more like. Professional encyclopædia editors would have removed all the text on sight. FearÉIREANN 20:05, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree with you that you would never find a text like this one in the Britannica.—Eloquence 20:25, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)
Teresa founded that organization and headed it up. She performed her work through it and was responsible for the focus of the organization and for promoting it. Teresa's work and the organization's work cannot be separated. Paul Klenk 12:29, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
The organization still exists and operates after Mother Teresa's death. This fact refutes the argument above. However, to the extent that actions taken by the organization can be attributed to Teresa's poicies, they should be attributed to her. Onebyone 17:08, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

5) Should the sentence "Teresa praised the wife of the notorious dictator: "I have never seen the poor people being so familiar with their heads of state as they were with her." be removed from the caption showing Teresa and Duvalier? Similarly, should the sentence "Teresa posed with Duvalier's wife and applauded her politics" be removed?

This is a direct quote from Teresa and therefore of great importance. I consider it obvious POV to remove that quote. I can agree with removing either sentence but not both.—Eloquence

If the text contains the reference, there is no need to repeat it in a caption. Generally, captions should not be used to do other than say what is in the picture and if necessary the origins. Repeating textual quotes as captions breaks elementary rules of NPOV. The only people who usually add the sort of captions put here are political campaigners in their POV documents. It is not done in encyclopædias because it is seen as agendaising images, not allowing the reader to reach an independent conclusion from what the image shows, which is the hallmark of neutrality. FearÉIREANN 20:16, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There is no violation of NPOV in putting cogent summaries of historical events into an image caption. The reader can reach an independent conclusion based on the information provided. If that information is false, one-sided or biased that is another matter. In any case, you removed both occurrences. So do you agree that we can restore one of them?—Eloquence 20:25, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)
I'm in favor of putting the relevant information in the article body and removing it from the picture caption. If nothing else, picture captions ought to be brief, though that's just my stylistic opinion. But, by all means, the relevance of the photos (that she took Keating's money and that she had positive things to say about Mrs. Duvalier) should be in the article so that people know why the photographs are there. For the record though, I don't think it is inherently POV to put that sort of information into a picture caption, although, as with just about any kind of writing, it can be POV... --Dante Alighieri 20:37, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)


BTW, it is interesting that you chose to put quotes in headlines where they dominate the page, not simply bold or italics, which is how everyone else does it. So much for NPOV. FearÉIREANN

The text was covnerted into headlines by User:2toise in this edit. But hey, errare humanum est.—Eloquence 20:25, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)

If we can resolve these matters peacefully, then we can continue to improve the article.—Eloquence 05:52, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)

Wow, I was offline for about 12 hours and now I've completely lost the thread of what's going on here. Just one thing; yesterday I rewrote the "Missionary activity and extent of charitable activities" section to make it into Wikipedia text rather than quotation of another source, and now it's back to its original form again. Was that deliberate, or did my edit simply get lost in the reversions somewhere along the line? I don't want to dig it back out if someone reverted it for a good reason that I'm unaware of. Bryan 06:00, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Let's just say the war escalated, but I would appreciate your input on the above questions. As far as I know, your edits were simply lost by accident, I for one think many of the quotes can be rewritten.—Eloquence 06:11, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)
Okay, I redid that edit, in that case. We'll see whether it lasts. :) As for the specific issues above, I think 1) no opinion, I haven't read these books 2) attribution would be good, assuming the sources can be found 3) As long as that quote is left as an explicit quote, within quotation marks, then it seems fine to me 4) I agree about moving things about the organisation over to the organization's page, but make sure that Mother Teresa's influence on the organization's policies is clearly indicated on both pages 5) the first sentence, "Teresa praised the wife of the notorious dictator: "I have never seen the poor people being so familiar with their heads of state as they were with her."", should IMO be moved into the body of the article; it doesn't feel like something that should be in a caption. The second sentence, "Teresa posed with Duvalier's wife and applauded her politics", seems more appropriate for a caption to me. Bryan
I don't think that quote belongs at all. She could be expected to associate with unpleasant people for fund raising purposes and I think the quote is unfair to her. More useful, IMO, are quotes like that in a TV interview where she said to camera that her purpose wasn't to help people but to get converts to her faith. That places here work squarely in its context: work for a religious purpose. JamesDay 09:21, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
We have no obligation to be "fair". We have an obligation to be neutral. Is the quote factually accurate? Have critics used that quote against her? Yes and yes. So it belongs in the article. It's really that simple and wouldn't even be a matter of debate if this wasn't about Mother T.—Eloquence 15:02, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)
Characterizing the quote as "praised her" or "applauded her politics" may not be neutral, and might even be misleading, depending on the original context of the quote and other statements made by Mother Teresa about the Duvaliers. It would be disingenuous to claim as fact that Mother Teresa praised the Duvaliers once, if the fact of the matter were that she only praised them once and had harsh words on other occasions. I'm not saying that is the case here -- I am saying that if any person's viewpoint is being characterized by a single quote, then some hands should be waved in the direction of demonstrating that it isn't. Onebyone 17:03, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
It is difficult to see any better opportunity to protest against the human rights record of the Duvalier family than when Mother Teresa was in Haiti. She did not do so, and to my knowledge, she did not do at any other point. The burden of proof is upon her supporters to show that she did. Even so, the claim that MT praised the Duvaliers at this opportunity is a purely factual claim and perfectly neutral. To remove it is therefore unacceptable.—Eloquence 17:29, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)

I have once again restored the version of the opening paragraphs which contains the fewest subjective and propagandistic expressions. You can't say someone was "revered" in an encyclopaedia, especially when many people clearly don't revere her. I have still seen no evidence that she was a "peace advocate", whatever that means. The derivation of her father's surname is irrelevant and patronising - do we say at Franklin Roosevelt that his surname means Field of Roses in Dutch? Adam 09:39, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have still seen no evidence that she was a "peace advocate", whatever that means.
She did win the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979. So obviously a bunch of people in Norway thought she was a peace advocate. Onebyone 10:29, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994; does that make him a peace advocate? What "a bunch of people in Norway" thinks is irrelevant. Stating that she's a peace advocate is a matter of opinion. Stating she's a Nobel Prize winner is a matter of fact. Yes, she talked about peace a lot. So what? She talked about her hospitals a lot, too, but until people like Hitchens started nosing around, few people knew the truth behind that talk. Let's stick with the facts, shall we? This is the same reason I object to her being called "Blessed Mother Teresa." It would be more objective to state, "she is known to fellow Catholics and devotees as Blessed Mother Teresa." In fact, now that we're on the subject, the word hospital is sure thrown around cavalierly when speaking of Teresa. We need a more objective word to describe these institutions. Hospices, perhaps, or comfort centers. Hospitals, no. And no, this is not the difference between Western and Eastern standards -- that is another myth. There are plenty of real hospitals in Calcutta giving real medical care. Paul Klenk 10:48, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
No, stating whether she is a peace advocate is as much a matter of fact as stating whether Aung San Suu Kyi is a democracy advocate or stating whether Charlton Heston is a gun control advocate. The question is whether it's true or false, not whether it's opinion or fact. Onebyone 15:32, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
No, the prize is so highly politicized, it doesn't mean that the person actually did anything for peace, I think that MSF won it one year too - they do nothing for peace either, just emergency medecine. Of course, the fact that they won it doesn't mean the didn't do anything for peace...2toise 10:50, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Now Paul do try and be nice :) I have no problems with using Catholic titles - we don't say "Karol Wojtyla, known to fellow Catholics as Pope John Paul II," now do we? For that matter we don't say "Robert Zimmerman, known to some as Bob Dylan." We have noted her original name and that is sufficient. Adam 11:21, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Awww, Adam, you were one person I was hoping could come up with an alternative to the Blessed thing. Okay, I understand your point -- titles should be used. I wasn't aware, however, that Blessed is a title in the same way that, say, Pope is. Is it a title of office, or rank, or what? Can someone please give some facts that go to this point? (By the way, you win a prize if you can answer this non-related question of etiquette: If you are the Pope, and you are addressing yourself, what form of address do you use? Miss Manners taught me this one.) Paul Klenk 11:40, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Now that she has been beatified she is officially the Blessed Teresa. When she is canonised she will be Saint Teresa.Adam
ObPedant - if she is canonised. Onebyone 15:30, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
She is only "officially" the Blessed Teresa to Roman Catholics and those who accept their pronouncements. To those who do not accept the legitimacy of beatification or canonization, she will not be referred to by the titles Blessed or Saint. See List of saints for more on differences even between those sects that do recognize sainthood. I feel fairly strongly that using one organization's titles is highly POV; we should mention "she is officially called Blessed Mother Theresa (later, Saint Theresa) by the Roman Catholic Church and its faithful", because she will likely never be called Saint Theresa by the Orthodox Church. --Delirium 19:35, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)
Whatever. But may I ask your opinion on the lenght of facts/criticism? Would you mind reading [[1]] alternate text and giving us your ideas? I insist: there are lots of opinions in the present article and NO facts. Moreover, now there are TWO articles with criticisms of Mother Teresa and NONE with real facts... If this is not POV I am a banana (which might be true and I would thank being told). Pfortuny 20:03, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)


Sorry if this does not fit here... I only wanted to say what came to my mind on first reading the "Life and Work": there is something on her life but as for work, one almost only sees prizes, nominations... in contrast with the detailed specifics appearing on "Criticisms...". I have no means (no knowledge) to fix it, but could someone add something about places what kind of things her nuns do, the books she (if so) wrote, etc...? Thanks. Pfortuny

Peace Prize Politics

Didn't Jimmy Carter win a Nobel Peace Prize for getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program? You know, the program that they secretly continued despite the agreement Carter brokered (as they admitted recently) and which (they claim) produced 2 nuclear warheads?

Yep, I'd say there's no strong correlation between winning the peace prize and actually contributing to world peace. --Uncle Ed 14:35, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Carter got his Prize for his general contribution to supporting democracy and human rights since leaving office. Clinton brokered the deal with N Korea, not Carter. Adam

Ninety million people lost their human rights, during the years 1976-1980 when Carter was in office, because those countries became communist. Carter 'talked' a lot about human rights, but aside from brokering the Israel-Egypt peace treaty he did nothing for human rights. He just accused US allies and friends of violations while keeping mum about the violations of communists and other US enemies. Anyway, I guess I'm leading this discussion off track into a "value of Carter's Nobel Prize" discussion, when we're all supposed to be talking about Mother Theresa. --Uncle Ed 17:22, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

And what about Henry Kissinger? The day he won the peace prize the term lost any meaning it might have had. bmills

Hey, ending a war promotes peace... even if you end it by bombing the enemy to smithereens. :) Seriously though... offtrack? --Dante Alighieri 18:53, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Gareth, I've reverted the changes you've made... not just because they broke the formatting (the picture ended up in the MIDDLE of the page, but because this is a hotly contested article and you're making changes without discussion. No hard feelings. --Dante Alighieri 19:54, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

No offence taken. On the mailing list, Erik challenged me to precis his dull prose and over reliance on quotation -- despite the fact I've no wish to get stuck in this petty bit of factionalism. I was just showing that all Erik's points could be expressed succinctly, which (I think) is the main problem, the pro-MT people are terse, the anti-MT lobby are verbose to the point of verbal diahorrea : result an article that appears unbalanced because there's reams and reams of (repetitive) criticism and succint praise. Ho hum. Can I go back to trivia now, and leave you lot to your unproductive squabbling? -- GWO
Actually, I have always stated that the long quotes could and should be summarized. I have never claimed that this was impossible, and I have only cautioned that care should be taken not to remove relevant facts. I will not attack you for having made several mistakes in your summary, instead, I have simply edited accordingly. I would appreciate it if you would do the same and refrain from comments like "verbal diahorrea" (the word is "diarrhea", for what it's worth -- I wouldn't have known how to spell it either without looking it up).—Eloquence 20:17, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)

I think he was going for "diarrhoea" (the BE variant). :) --Dante Alighieri 20:43, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This doesn't work

Just like yesterday, all attempts to engage in reasonable discourse with Jtdirl prove fruitless. Instead of trying to respond to my arguments, he places long diatribes on other users' talk pages about me, full of personal attacks and libelous claims, and as yesterday, when I try to reach a compromise solution (in this case an edit of an image caption to be NPOV -- he believes NPOV to mean that "images must speak for themselves"), he just reverts to his version without so much as an edit comment. When I make even a sarcastic remark about this behavior, I am painted by him as the evil anti-Catholic who tries to insert extreme bias into pages.

There are only two solutions I see at this point: 1) Jtdirl pledges to change this behavior. 2) He is temporarily banned by Jimbo until he does so. I will refrain from further edits to the Mother Teresa page until Jimbo returns and consider my further course of action at that point.—Eloquence 20:52, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)

JT, Erik -- Mother Teresa/conflict ban -戴&#30505sv 21:48, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I am willing to ascribe our problems editing this article to mutual anger and frustration and have therefore made a peace offer to James. Please ignore my comments above regarding banning.—Eloquence 04:59, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)

More facts, less talk

I'd like to see more of what MT had to say, and less of what other people had to say. Frankly. The first part starts out well, but fails to really establish here views on matters. Were they all deferential to the HRCC? -戴&#30505sv 21:56, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Moved from Mother Teresa/conflict ban

The Mother Teresa article is highly disputed by two well-know and respected members of the community. In light of Jimbo's absence --in the need to maintain order and civility, I propose that both Erik Moeller and Jamed Duffy refrain from editing this article for one week.

If they disagree -- then the community should vote upon whether to impose a "ban" on them from editing the article --placing it under "protected" status, and allowing only moderate sysops to make edits. Erik and James can discuss changes on the talk page. --戴&#30505sv

(vote section removed as inappropriate prior to discussion)

I believe that I and at least one other Wikipedian have asked them both to quit editing the article and cool off for a while before continuing. Also, other users would be well advised to wait for a while before trying to fix POV issues as any edits may rekindle the flames.
I would suggest that Wikipedians offer a show of support for this by adding their names below:

Petition of Wikipedians who ask that Erik and James stop editing this page for a day or two

  1. Louis Kyu Won Ryu 22:02, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Isn't this irrelevant as Erik already said "I will refrain from further edits to the Mother Teresa page until Jimbo returns"? Angela 22:57, Oct 21, 2003 (UTC)


No, because James has not stopped editing, and because a strong consensus might provide Erik some additional support to help him stick to his end of the bargain regardless of what happens. <sigh> I think it would really help douse the flames if there were more of an attitude of community support and less of taking sides and picking the process apart when these things happen. Erik and James are both frustrated by what they perceive as unfair and out-of-process actions by each other. As a community, we should strive to assure them that we all care about fairness, and that we will work together to get the article right, and that if the rest of us take sides at all we will do so late in the process after everything has cooled down and we have all had a chance to research, review, and think. Louis Kyu Won Ryu 23:50, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Correction

From Slate.com article

Correction, Oct. 21, 2003: This piece originally claimed that in her Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Mother Teresa called abortion and contraception the greatest threats to world peace. In that speech Mother Teresa did call abortion "the greatest destroyer of peace." But she did not much discuss contraception, except to praise "natural" family planning.(Return to corrected sentence.) -戴&#30505sv 01:47, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This article has now become so infested with competitive pedantry, religious zealotry and rival egotisms that people who want to see a reasonable and fair consensus text will no longer be bothered contributing. Adam 05:22, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There is no greater example of the sickening disease that Nietzsche termed the 'slave morality' than Mother Theresa's death-cult. To worship suffering and inferiority is the epitome of the slave morality--it has clearly manifested in a most wretched form in this instance. Khranus

Dunno if the Khranus remark fits in any serious discussion. Anyway I think Mother Teresa's article as it now (07:50, 22 Oct 2003 UTC) stands lacks two essential properties in any serious encyclopedia:

a) "Criticism of the Sources" ("Crítica de las fuentes", sorry for my English). This means: the fact that there are books and TV shows does not give any more credibility to a historical source than to another. I cannot see any serious (i.e. referenced) quote of Mother Teresa, or at least none compared in lenght to her critics'.
b) Facts, not opionions. There are no facts -at least as compared to criticisms (which no matter what are opinions)- in the page. I mean, she must have funded several houses and worked in different cities and met different people and written some books and what else. But her life is told up to her going to India and then... prizes.

I know I am biased, but point a) is definitive. I do not trust a book or a TV show just because it has been written. I trust them because the source is reliable, and marking a source as reliable requires effort and -sorry- putting aside personal biases. As a matter of fact, there are no quotes (I am not going to include them right now) of the Pope's homily during the beatification ceremony... why? Because (almost) nobody would cite that source in a NPOVed encyclopedia (although this assertion is my opinion today). Pfortuny. 07:59, 22 Oct 2003 UTC

--- It is natural to expect a page on a personality who got fame by virtue of her/his goodness, service to humanity, etc., to first focus on why she became famous and revered, what are considered her good deeds, and so on- this is how the world knew her first. Then speculations on the faults can follow. But in this page there seems to be only around 15 percent of the former and 85 percent of the latter. It could just mean that there are more people who know/ want to know about the latter, or/and take the former for granted and hence neglect it altogether. It would be better if the first part is built up sufficiently. KRS 18:19, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I removed the following link:

For this reason I have created a suggested alternative, which can be read at Alternative Mother Teresa text Adam 14:22, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The reason was because it is not wikipedia policy to put alternative texts as links in an article. Wikipedia debated this issue before.

Just for the record, this is of course several removes from the truth. The one case where this was argued (New Imperialism), the upshot was that such a link should remain, if the alternate page was allowed to exist at all. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick

That should not be taken to mean that I am in any way rejecting or criticising Adam's text. I think it a very interesting, very useful and considerably more NPOV text than the current version and I would suggest that much of it should replace the current text. That is why I have moved it here, so others can look at it. But encylopædias do not provide alternative texts as an option at a page. Wikipedia debated this issue before and thought the practice unwise and unencyclopædic.

I must have missed that. Where was that discussion? What I do remember is that there was a wide consensus that separating "controversies about X" or "criticisms of X" pages is something which should only be done to temporarily alleviate an edit war, and all such separations should be re-merged as soon as possible. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick
There was anything but, for the very reason that providing external readers with two alternative versions of an article is so monumentally uneyclopædic that it risks making an encyclopædia a laughing stock. We are in the business of providing NPOV articles, not saying 'ah to hell with it. We cannot agree. Here, have two POV versions instead.' An elementary requirement in any encyclopædia is have one article, not a take your pick choice, on a topic. Listing two alternatives is so monumentally unencyclopædic it is probably the biggest faux pas an encyclopædia can make, sending out the message that 'we are so incompetent we cannot produce a single article.' A take your pick option is one way for a publication to send its credibility nosediving and make itself look foolish, incompetent and hopeless. A blank page is preferrable to that, in effect, credibility 'suicide' option. FearÉIREANN 20:54, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Ahem. Which side of the argument are you trying to argue again? Are you trying to defend the Criticisms of MT article you created, or attack it? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 21:32, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)


Its removal is simply a matter of encylopædic style, not in any way a criticism of its substance, which I have to say I found impressive. FearÉIREANN 19:15, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC

I agree that the alternative text is looking good. There are a few changes I would make (the explanation regarding the gulf between Teresa and her critics seems to be POV right now, and should probably be attributed). Most importantly, I am missing the pictures. Did you just forget to include them, Adam, or is this intentional? I think they should definitely be included.—Eloquence 20:09, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)
I was trying to ask for other people's opinions on Adam's paper (and here is the first one which prevented me from doing it :). I guess we are approaching a consensus? May I ask for more opinions? (James', Ed's, etc...). Adam's is mainly the present one with additions on her work, her life, what she founded, etc. (Facts). Thanks. Pfortuny 20:15, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Question Number 1: Any problems with changing sections 1, 2 and 3 of the present article with sections 1,2 and 3 of Adam's alternate text? I think Adam's work in these sections cannot just disappear and it is IMO way more interesting than the present quotes and Bishop's problems. I'd like to hear opinions (especially Adam's) on this before commiting any changes. Pfortuny 22:28, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Copy-edits

This section of talk is for people who are hoping to stay below the radar on any, um, unpleasantness brewing between other users.

This phrase sounds like an implicit criticism:

employed 4,000 unpaid sisters

It hints that they "ought" to have been paid. Was that the intent? Is there some MT critic who asserts this POV? If not, I think I'll change it to:

with some 4,000 volunteers -- all women

(or something like that) --Uncle Ed 19:53, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well, it's not exactly volunteer if they're following orders... depending on their level of involvement in the church, they may well have taken vows of obedience. I'm not clear on the details, but I'd say look into it before calling them volunteers. --Dante Alighieri 21:03, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Good point, Dante. There is a difference between a "volunteer" who can walk away at a moment's notice and a "sister" (or "brother" for that matter) who has made a vow of lifelong obedience, chastity and poverty. Is there a wikipedia article explaining the degrees of devotion in Catholic religious orders? (All I know is what I remember from The Sound of Music where the "novice" Sister Maria decides to "climb" another "mountain" by marrying the retired naval captain and mothering his 7 children.) --Uncle Ed 14:20, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Message to Jtdirl

James,

did you read the message I left on your talk page? Talk page notification does not seem to be working right now.—Eloquence 20:02, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)


Thanks for the various comments above on my alternative text.

  • Re the para on the gulf between MT and her critics: I think it is perfectly reasonable for an encyclopaedia to explain something rather than merely set out facts, which don't always make sense without explanation.
    • That becomes problematic once people disagree with the explanation. So we will have to give the critics' side of the story as well.—Eloquence 00:28, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)
  • I agree the photos should be reinstalled once the text is finalised, although one of them was IMHO too big.
  • Adam 00:14, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

If someone has an alternative explanation for why MT's reputation is so polarised then we can work that into the text as well. Adam 01:02, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

from Village pump

I'm sure everybody is as sick of the tiresome and juvenile edit war at Mother Teresa as I am. So I have witten a (largely) new text, which can be seen at Alternative Mother Teresa Text. Comments are welcome. Adam 14:39, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I don't know abt the edit war, but when I looked at the page yesterday it appeared more as a research paper than an encyclopedia article. Are there any guidelines on what not to include in a Wikipedia article ? I searched the wikipedia namespace but couldn't find any. I found pages on "how to write a perfect article", and "what wikipedia is not" but no page that specifies "what a wikipedia article should not contain". Jay 16:18, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)


I'm neither a Catholic nor a Mother Teresa detractor, but neither is NPOV. It's so far off the mark, it's a shooting range accident. I'm sick and tired of Wikipedia articles that are negative hit pieces. It may be standard for Wikipedia articles to drag people or institutions through the mud, especially if an editor disagree with their views or hates them, but attributing endless streams of crap to "critics" or "detractors" has got to stop at some point. And while it's perhaps a step down from the current article, that's no excuse for not getting someone neutral to fix the article. Just because the critics aren't getting to add all 45 pages of criticism and it's just half the article, does not make it okay. Only here on Wikipedia can Mother Teresa get more criticism than Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, or Moammar Al Qadhafi. Check those articles. Daniel Quinlan 20:31, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)
That's because in cases like Hussein and Stalin, what they did is far less controversial. Purges, executions, torture and so far are well documented, so we can just state them as fact. In the case of Mother Teresa, there is a large gulf of perception between her critics and her supporters -- it is therefore a sign that NPOV works that these criticisms are not stated as fact as they are in the Hussein or Stalin articles, but are attributed to critics (who are not anonymous, by the way).
It is not difficult to find someone who is on the "other side" of any issue.
That is true, and if that someone has substance to back up his opinion, it may well be included in an article. Did Hitler really reduce unemployment in Germany and was responsible for the "Autobahn"? Did Saddam secularize Iraq and promote public education? These questions should be examined carefully from all sides, not ignored.—Eloquence 22:23, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)
What you perceive as unfair to MT is in fact an attempt to maintain balance in the cases of controversial opinions. Or would you prefer it if we would just state: "Mother Teresa hurt the poor more than she helped them through her medieval 'homes of the dying' and her reactionary opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest, which she carried to the political level whenever she got the opportunity to do so. Building her up as a media figure allowed conservatives to sneak questionable values into society by using Mother Teresa as their crown witness." Or how about: "Mother's monumental work with the poorest of the poor in Calcutta has inspired thousands, if not millions, to follow her example. In a society with an oppressive caste system, she maintained modesty while impressioning upon the natives the true tenets of Catholic charity. Through decades of courageous work, Mother Teresa and her sisters did 'something beautiful for God'."
I somehow suspect that Encyclopedia Britannica or Encarta will manage to cover both sides far more neutrally (by having a disinterested person write the article) than we have (by trying to balance out critics with supporters).
My own suspicion is that you would be more likely to agree with Britannica or Encarta in this particular case, but that does not say anything about whether their article is more factual or neutral.—Eloquence
NPOV allows us to include information from all sides, without taking a stand on an issue. Abandoning this principle could lead to either of the above results, depending on which side has the longest breath and is willing to engage in the most aggressive tactics to get its way. Be careful what you wish for.—Eloquence 20:48, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)
Having a policy or goal of NPOV does not guarantee neutrality. People have to work for NPOV. The problem with allowing factual criticism to get out of hand is that there's always someone out there who will link two unrelated facts together to spin it into something worse and while it can be refuted, if you pile up enough negativity in an article, it can easily give the appearance of illegality or at least impropriety. Basically, if the negative side has enough breath, they can make anyone look bad. Daniel Quinlan 22:03, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)
I fail to see how the exact same argument cannot be made in reverse. It is possible to link two unrelated facts together to spin it into something positive (Hitler was in power in Germany, Autobahns were built in Germany while he was in power). As for "making anyone look bad" (as well as "making anyone look good"), aside from the question whether good or bad are useful attributes, one must also consider the possibility that this impression is correct. Did a person make more negative than positive contributions or vice versa? A comprehensive article should answer that question by listing both, attributed in proper form. As an open-minded reader, one should be willing to change one's mind about an issue.
On the other hand, Wikipedia is not a good place to go if you hold a strongly polarized worldview one way or the other and want to see that view confirmed. Because articles are written by a multitude of persons, all perspectives are likely to sneak in. Encarta or Britannica do not include an article about MKULTRA, yet that program undeniably has existed. The Britannica article about circumcision is ridiculously biased in favor of circumcision, repeating even the more bizarre myths about it (and a fraction as comprehensive as ours, which still takes a lot of work to be completely NPOV). Britannica & Co. enjoy a very good reputation, but that reputation is to a large degree undeserved. There is a certain myth of the "disinterested neutral writer". The moment a writer informs himself about a subject to write about it, he is no longer disinterested. He forms perspectives, conclusions and opinions which are likely to color his work. It is only through the mutual correction by each other that we can avoid a one-sided presentation. And the best way to go about it is to add facts, not to remove them.—Eloquence 22:23, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)
I personally think Mother Theresa's reputation is overblown, but the article as currently written is entirely unacceptable. It reads as an anti-Mother Theresa piece, and is clearly written by someone with an agenda. It's not even remotely close to NPOV, and nobody not already favoring that POV would find the article acceptable as a neutral source of information (it's clear to any disinterested party that it's attempting to convince the reader of why MT is bad, presenting evidence in a lawyer-like fashion and so on). A stub would be much better than what we currently have. --Delirium 22:31, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)
Considering that people from all sides of the issue have worked on the article, I fail to see who you are referring to when you are saying "written by someone with an agenda". Also, please cite specific passages which you believe are not NPOV, preferably on Talk:Mother Teresa. Please compare the article as written to my example alternatives in my response to Daniel above.—Eloquence 22:45, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)

Personally myself on the third tentacle... Think the single most salient feature of this whole debate is that no-one is disputing the "allegations" or provided any controverting evidence, denials by any source, or any point which would point towards a view that the organization led by Mother Teresa not only acted as alleged, but was open about acting as alleged, and in some instances even proud of acting as alleged. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 22:39, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)

Why don't you all read the the proposed alternative Mother Teresa text instead of repeating all the criticisms of the old one, which have already been aired many times? Adam 00:28, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I think this is a difficult one.
I don't think I have an axe to grind either way, but my personal impression of the current article is that it is POV and anti Mother Teresa. I think, for example, that including a photo of her alongside a person later convicted of fraud is more appropriate to a sensationalist magazine than to an encyclopedia. Does it really add significant information to the article?
This and one other photograph appear both on this page and the Criticisms of Mother Theresa page. I think they do belong there, but there only.
The rewrite does this and is an improvement, but I still had the same reaction. I'd like more of the critical material moved to the page devoted to it, or where it's already duplicated there, it can be simply removed. There is plenty of material to justify a separate page, so I think the main page should just summarise the allegations and link to the Criticisms page.
I'd also like the photo of the Home for the Dying retained.
I imagine that this article will get lots of hits, so while every article is important, this one will affect Wikipedia's reputation more than many others. Andrewa 01:02, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)
The photos of her posing with convicted criminals, or with dictators, are of course important documents of fact, just like the photos of her posing with starving children, and I see no reason to remove them -- if you want photos at all in an encyclopedia, then you will want photos that document important people and events, and these are such photos. To have a separate page about her criticisms is not in the spirit of NPOV, and whether that page should exist at all is still disputed. Why not the other way around -- a long page with just criticisms and then a separate Praise of Mother Teresa? Whenever the same logic can be applied in two different ways and you are only willing to go one of them, you are walking on dangerous ground. If the article gets too long, we can split it up in various ways, but neutrality is always of paramount importance. Reputation is a double-edged sword. I for one wouldn't think too highly of Wikipedia if it employed a double standard.—Eloquence 04:45, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)
Good points, but consider this. They are documents of fact, yes, but they aren't important to this article. I've probably been photographed with criminals too... actually I certainly have, I'm involved in a prison ministry! They are trivial in an article on her life. They are very important to an essay questioning the significance of her life or the validity of her likely sainthood, and they might even belong in an article reporting this debate, but they don't IMO deserve inclusion in the main article. The fact they are there is a symptom of its being used to promote a POV. Andrewa 06:35, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I fail to understand this argument. You may have been photographed with criminals, but did you take money from them and refuse to give it back? That is what MT did, and that is an important fact in any biography. Similarly, she praised the Duvalier regime she received money from, and that is also an important fact in a biography. Again, would you use the same logic if this article was not about Mother Teresa? Do you propose that the photo showing Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein shaking hands should be removed from that article and a separate article "Criticism of the behavior of Donald Rumsfeld" be started? That makes no sense to me.—Eloquence 06:38, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)
I think I've probably said too much already in the Pump. This discussion really belongs in Talk:The two opposing views of Mother Teresa, Talk:Criticisms of Mother Teresa or Talk:Mother Teresa. I see you're a regular in all those pages. Andrewa 07:23, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

In the end, this discussion has led nowhere and between the two possible articles, we are keeping the less NPOVed (as far as one can see from all the discussions here and in Talk:Mother Teresa). I am not changing the first three sections bc I am waiting for opinions on this, but I think it only fair to add all the bunch of facts that Adam has harvested to the real article. Pfortuny 12:18, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have photographs of Reverend Moon with Kim Il-Sung and Mikhail Gorbachev: hugging, shaking hands, sitting down at the same table. Does that mean Moon is a communist apologist or a supporter of communist mass murder? Some people might make that mental linkage. But I think we should go more by what was discussed at those meetings, and what the outcome was.

Moon warned Kim to change his ways, or that he would die. Four years later, Kim died (not having changed much of anything). Moon told Gorbachev to allow freedom of religion and to make various changes in socialism relating to worker incentives. Look at Russia now... :-) --Uncle Ed 14:36, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Image captions

Jtdirl has previously reverted my attempts to add an extended caption for the photo of the "Home of the Dying" in this text. The proposed caption that I have suggested reads "Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying in Calcutta. Critics state that conditions in the order's facilities are insufficient for proper care and may in fact contribute to the spread of diseases, while her admirers see her work with the poor as exemplary". He has reduced this to "Mother Teresa's Home of the Dying in Calcutta" and explained that he believes it is more professional to use "standard short captions", as he called it. Yet I just noticed that Jtdirl has himself added very lengthy captions to other articles. For example, in an edit to Pope John Paul I he added the following caption: "Pope John Paul I on the papal throne. Luciani's official portrait shows his own lack of preparedness for his election; a cheap silver pectoral cross, not the standard golden cross worn by popes and his uncut hair, clumsily brushed back. Papabile Cardinals enter conclaves carefully groomed in case they are elected."

I do not bring this up to imply that James is employing a double standard, as I realize there is a difference in the type of caption he used here -- it describes only the visual content of the image, referring to small details that are not addressed in the text, whereas my suggested captions are summaries of the broader context which are arguably, as all summaries are, redundant with that text. (Do note, however, that Jtdirl has added some extended summary-type captions to other articles, for example, Irish Houses of Parliament.)

It is my belief that both types of caption are acceptable in an encyclopedia article. Certainly we might write about Mother Teresa's sari in the photo showing her with Duvalier, but it seems equally appropriate to give readers a quick NPOV summary of what and when it happened, so that readers skimming over the article can use the pictures and associated captions to try to quickly figure out what that part of the article is about -- basically using the image captions as an abstract for the section in which the image is embedded.

I therefore propose the following ground rules for captions:

  • A caption consists of a brief description of what the image shows.
  • That description can be followed by a description of the image's visual details (maximum two or three sentences).
  • If the image's details are of comparatively little interest, a similarly long caption can be used to give an equally brief NPOV summary of context (in case of people -- who are they, what are they doing?).

Any objections? —Eloquence 20:38, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)

I think that is a little unsatisfactory. Many images don't need captions, though I think, visually, something should be put in. In general captions should be simple, very brief and descriptive, eg, Churchill and de Gaulle meet in 1945. Longer captions are only needed where

  1. The image contains a relevance not already touched on in the text;
  2. The image needs description for relevance - eg., Saddam's image on a 'throne' is a carefully constructed visual image, and so needs explanation but may not fit into the article; Pope John Paul I's official portrait, which captures the unexpectedness of his election by its attempt to conceal that he needed a haircut, hadn't got a proper pectoral cross, etc. Another example would be where a picture contained some important architectural detail (The beginning of the Civil War caused a halt to the building work, as the uncompleted east wing shows) or historic fact (one of the most widely featured images of the Vietnam War).

The images on this page don't need long captions because the topic they touch on is already covered extensively in the text. So between five and ten words is all that is needed to link to the article text. (BTW the pictures are also too big at 400. The maximum size that works at all browsers without throwing text all over the place is 350 as I learnt to my cost when putting images on the page some time ago. I am systematically shrinking images that I find that are larger, including some I put on before realising the problems they caused with some versions of I Explorer, etc.)

The use of images is one of the most sensitive issues in page layout. Size, location and caption can all editorialise if badly used. Two large pictures, both showing basically the same image, MT with some someone many people (including me) believe she should not have met, is unnecessary, just as two pictures of her beatification would be. NPOV should require an even spread of images; two large critical should be matched by two large supportive and vice versa. The use of two images that in size and captions visually dominate the page, whether they are supportive or critical, should be avoided. The problem with this page is the uncritical nature of the prose; uncritically supportive in some places, uncritically attacking in others. The fact that one side, either side, takes up most of the text, is visually dominant with the use of two large photos, and is then further editorialised by repeating the already too long text in equally too long captions, is something that is avoided in encyclopædias, because it is seen, in wikipedia language, as POV. NPOV means, as the n means, neutral. Neutrality means a visually balanced layout, a neutral writing tone, the coverage of the positive and the negative. It means above all else letting the reader, on the basis of objective evidence, (or subjective opinion, if the opinion is qualified in writing style by making it clear 'this is opinion 'a'. Others hold 'opinion 'b'.') reach a conclusion for themselves, not be editorialised into saying 'this is the truth.' Truth in most cases is an opinion. Someone believes this. Someone believes that. This article states as facts people's opinions. They may be true, but it isn't our job to be its propagandist. Our job is simply to let the reader read the text without loaded images, captions, headlines, etc, and let them reach whatever conclusion they want. This article fails to do that, which is why it has been so roundly criticised as not being NPOV by pro-MT people, anti-MT people, pro-Catholic people, anti-Catholic people and neutrals here, on the wiki list, at the village pump and elsewhere.

And BTW in saying that I am not criticising Eloquence. I think in this case, with the best of motives, Erik let his POV on MT cloud his judgment on producing an NPOV article. Writing NPOV is sometimes difficult. It is all too easy to slip into POV beliefs and we all can do it sometimes. One of the things I learnt in journalism and academia is how your POV can slip into what you think is an NPOV text, through using words like 'notes' rather than 'claims', 'shows' rather than 'asserts', 'proves' rather than 'suggests'. (And how, for example, the tabloid media and biased broadsheets push agendas by deliberately using POV terms.) I know I have changed some things I wrote on wikipedia after re-reading them weeks later and spotting POV language. I suspect Erik when he looks back on his text in the artlcle in a couple of months time will spot the use of ill-advised POV language or structure that in the heat of disagreements he cannot see now, but which many others, of varying opinions on MT, have spotted. Neutrality doesn't need to be a state of mind in writing on wikipedia, but it has to be a state of language. And this article, in a whole range of areas, fails the 'neutral language' test, the 'neutral visual impact' test, the 'restrained neutrality in captioning' test, etc. And that is its problem. Wikipeace. FearÉIREANN 22:03, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Before we continue the discussion about captions and balance (which we might distill into some general policy on the matter), do you agree with the proposed "ground rules" for editing the article as I suggested them on your talk page? I would like to have a basic agreement on the editing process so that we have a clear framework within which to work.—Eloquence 22:14, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)
I would just like to go on the record as opposing the sentiment "Truth in most cases is an opinion." I am of the opinion that in all cases, truth is an objective fact. Now, granted, truth can not always be known given limitations on human knowledge and faculties. In addition, there are many statements that are simply not truth statements (neither "true" nor "false"), but are, in all fairness, statements of opinion, belief, or faith. I think we should just be careful that when we say truth we mean verfifiable objective fact, and not "religious" truth, i.e. faith-based truths. Just another example of the stupid English language giving us words that aren't quite precise enough for our discussion. :( That's just my 2¢. --Dante Alighieri 18:17, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Time to abandon this version and work from Adam Carr's superior, NPOV starting text

I think there is clear agreement from all that is said that this isn't an NPOV article, or anything even remotely NPOV. It is unbalanced by writing style, image use, caption use, in a manner that would simply end up on the cutting room floor in any other NPOV publication. Erik was well motivated in his contributions but he seems unable to spot what almost everyone else can see a mile off, that this article, thanks to his particular edits, is so far from NPOV it is almost comical. What I attempted to do the last time is still the logical solution; remove the in depth criticism to a linked article and leave a summary and link here. That is what any other publication would do, to facilitate proper NPOVication of the main article and allow for the exploration of in depth analysis of the claims in greater detail elsewhere. That is the standard encyclopædia approach. It is the standard format used when, as here, much of the allegations made aren't directly about the person the biography is about. Anywhere else, they'd get a red line through it from a text editor, with the words "irrelevant . . . off topic . . . belongs somewhere else, not here . . . " And our photo usage in this article is almost a case study of how image use can POV a text and push an agenda. The version of the article we have at present should be kept as a copy somewhere to be shown to newbies as How Not to Write an Encyclopædia Article given that it breaks almost every rule of balance to an almost comic degree.

Maybe a good starting point would be to forget this article altogether and work from Adam Carr's version, for it at least is much less POV, much better written, much more professionally written. It is hard to see how this article can be salvaged without mass dumping and rewriting of text, and Erik has shown that he has an almost Churchillian determination to 'fight them on the beaches' to preserve his POV bits! :-) FearÉIREANN 20:43, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

While you are displaying your wish to "declare victory and bring the troops home", or are you still defending your Criticisms of MT method of improving the articles neutrality. If there had not been an ongoing battle between you and Eloquence, something like Adam Carrs version might have been the result of incrementally done improvements and summarisations of the quotes therein... The fact that it had to be done an other route because you did not want to edit a single article, but rather exised a chunk out, does not change the fact, that Adams version could have been reached by using normal community editing practises without pre-emptively separating a "Criticisms of X" article. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 01:48, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
Rhetoric like the above gets us nowhere, and I will not follow up with counter accusations of POV. I have made a peace offer to set ground rules for working on this article. You still have not responded. I have also made clear that I have no objection to summarizing the quotes and moving into the direction of Adam's version (which contains a few factual errors which I have not yet fixed because of my declared abstention from editing the article further until we can agree on how to do it).
Here's what happens next: If I have no agreement to my offer within the next 24 hours, I will nevertheless abide by the terms of it (e.g. if you revert what I do I will move the debate to the talk page, possibly to be followed up by a vote). I will document all actions (yours and mine) carefully. A couple of weeks from now, I will then draw conclusions based on this experience.—Eloquence 22:10, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Oh Erik, do you listen to anyone? This is getting farcical.

For the record:

  • I personally think Mother Theresa's reputation is overblown, but the article as currently written is entirely unacceptable. It reads as an anti-Mother Theresa piece, and is clearly written by someone with an agenda. - Delirium
  • I don't think I have an axe to grind either way, but my personal impression of the current article is that it is POV and anti Mother Teresa. . . . They are documents of fact, yes, but they aren't important to this article. I've probably been photographed with criminals too... actually I certainly have, I'm involved in a prison ministry! They are trivial in an article on her life. They are very important to an essay questioning the significance of her life or the validity of her likely sainthood, and they might even belong in an article reporting this debate, but they don't IMO deserve inclusion in the main article. The fact they are there is a symptom of its being used to promote a POV. - Andrewa
  • I think it only fair to add all the bunch of facts that Adam has harvested to the real article. - Pfortuny
  • I don't think that quote belongs at all. She could be expected to associate with unpleasant people for fund raising purposes and I think the quote is unfair to her. More useful, IMO, are quotes like that in a TV interview where she said to camera that her purpose wasn't to help people but to get converts to her faith. That places here work squarely in its context: work for a religious purpose. - JamesDay
  • The problem with allowing factual criticism to get out of hand is that there's always someone out there who will link two unrelated facts together to spin it into something worse and while it can be refuted, if you pile up enough negativity in an article, it can easily give the appearance of illegality or at least impropriety. Basically, if the negative side has enough breath, they can make anyone look bad. . . . It's so far off the mark, it's a shooting range accident. I'm sick and tired of Wikipedia articles that are negative hit pieces. It may be standard for Wikipedia articles to drag people or institutions through the mud, especially if an editor disagree with their views or hates them, but attributing endless streams of crap to "critics" or "detractors" has got to stop at some point. And while it's perhaps a step down from the current article, that's no excuse for not getting someone neutral to fix the article. Just because the critics aren't getting to add all 45 pages of criticism and it's just half the article, does not make it okay. Only here on Wikipedia can Mother Teresa get more criticism than Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, or Moammar Al Qadhafi. Check those articles. - Daniel Quinlan
  • I'd like to see more of what MT had to say, and less of what other people had to say. Frankly. The first part starts out well, but fails to really establish here views on matters. Were they all deferential to the HRCC? - Stevertigo

How many more people have to say there is a problem with this article before you notice? Come on, Erik, cop on. There is a clear problem here.

As I said earlier, I have no problem with summarizing the quotes, as Adam has done.—Eloquence 23:08, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Vote on Mother Teresa article

Comments on vote

Regarding picture usage, I asked: "I fail to understand that question. Please clarify what you mean with POV or NPOV in this context. Too many pictures? Captions? etc." Jtdirl added the definitions of POV and NPOV above (in parentheses) in response. I do not find these definitions particularly helpful. POV is about making statements without attributing them, about not putting statements and images into context and so forth. It is not necessarily about balance. A person writing an article about another person should make an attempt to write fairly about that person's life and work. Fairly means that they should try to make a judgment on which relationship between positive and negative claims about that person is justifiable.

We would not write a 50/50 article about Pol Pot (and, in fact, in his case we do not even attribute the negative claims, but just state them as fact). If another person reading the article thinks that the relationship is unfair, then that does not logically mean that the article is POV. That person can then add claims which they think are missing, and remove those which they think are redundant. The first person can then come along and work on this article again, and so forth. The same logic is applicable to pictures.

In general, if there is a feeling of imbalance, we try to add information, not remove it. What does it mean when we vote POV on this question? Does it mean that people feel more pictures should be added? That the existing pictures lack context (which I tried to provide in the captions removed by Jtdirl)? That the pictures are redundant (which I do not see -- they describe different events in MT's life)?

In general, I think it is a bad idea to vote on "POV" vs. "NPOV", as this is likely to simply turn into a vote on Mother Teresa, who is of course worshipped by many people, rather than a discussion of specific guidelines and violations. For example, if people vote POV, does that mean that they agree with Jtdirl's interpretation of the image captions being too long (now shortened)? Does it mean they agree with the removal of specific sentences, e.g. in the Fox editorial? Voting should always be done on specific issues to get useful results. The question whether Adam's version should be used as a basis for further work is a specific one. The remaining questions are more of an opinion poll.—Eloquence 23:08, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Erik, just vote and stop making the same points ad nausaum. Half the planet know your opinions by now, and throwing up Pol Pot in a discussion on MT is mindboggling. FearÉIREANN 23:49, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I cannot vote in a poll when I do not consider the options useful. I will try to provide some alternatives.—Eloquence 00:01, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
I had a hard time voting now that you've restructured it to reflect your own presuppositions, but I've voted on those questions that seemed clear and helpful to me. My votes are for for the current wording, so if you rephrase them again, please remove my votes and note that you have done so.
I'd have preferred in fact just to have question 1. That's the next step, and seems to have some degree of consensus.
I think that two of the current pictures (the two showing MT with people generally believed to be less than saintly) are POV in this article, because they add little content to the article but have effective smear value. However I think in the context of the Criticisms of Mother Teresa article they are good illustrations. Similar considerations apply to some of the text too, but I think the issue is clearer with the photographs. That's one of the reasons I'd like a separate article. If this challenges an existing precedent, let's deal with that. Andrewa 01:21, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
It can hardly be disputed that the photos in question have information value, they depict actual historical events. They also have emotion value, as almost all photos do, and this seems to be the problem. Would you protest against a photo of Mother Teresa with a child or a dying man? You seem to be OK with having the first two photos, even though they undeniably have emotional value (the second showing dying, starving people in one of Teresa's homes). Are you saying that it is acceptable to have photos of positive or neutral emotional value, but not those of negative emotional value ("smear photos")? Would you want the photo of Donald Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein to be removed from Donald Rumsfeld?—Eloquence 01:32, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
I think any photo needs to be assessed on the contribution it makes to the article. These photos are historically accurate, yes, historically significant, maybe. So in response to your first question, it depends on the photo and how it fitted into the article. In response to your second question, no I'm not saying that at all (and didn't use the phrase you quote). In response to your third, I'd keep it, although there are a few things to work on. I have copied the copyright details to the image description page. I haven't touched the article itself, which looks a bit messy on my screen. Andrewa 06:35, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Where have I heard that before, Erik. You don't like the prospect that people won't accept your view so you want to go off and do your own thing and ignore everyone else, as you did when you tried to enforce your choice of dating system over a consensus everyone else had agreed. For once Erik, listen to other people besides yourself and let them have a say. And leave the vote at the bottom rather than trying to bury it in the text. This page isn't your property, nor mine, nor anyone else's.

I don't think I should vote on whether to adopt my text or not, so I will just make a few comments on the above options.

  • There is a problem with "balancing" the criticisms of MT, which I discovered after quite a lot of searching, and that is that there is no balancing material to be found. I don't think MT ever really understood the ethical or political criticisms made of her, because she lived in such a simplistic world, so she never replied to them. Nor has the Church undertaken a detailed response to these charges, other than to assert they are false and/or malevolent. Where does this leave us? Can we only report criticism if there has been a response?
  • Likewise with the option add more positive claims. There are no positive claims to be made about MT other than that she was a model of saintly behaviour throughout her life, which point is already made with the quote from the Pope etc. The problem is that MT's critics and her defenders do not speak the same language. The critics speak as secularists and make detailed statements of fact (or alleged fact), to which her defenders respond with affirmations of her saintliness (or pietistic gush, depending on your POV).
  • Of course the choice and presentation of photos makes an editorial statement, ask any taboid editor. The choice and presentation of photos in the old article was obviously and deliberately anti-MT. Adam 07:50, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
This is the real problem, and Adam has stated it quite clearly. Pfortuny 08:43, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have used Adam Carr's revision to make my own revision which combines the criticism into the rest of the article. See User:TUF-KAT/Mother Teresa Tuf-Kat 09:17, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

Voting deadline

Is there a voting deadline? Should there be one (I say yes)? Dori 14:33, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

Lets vote on it! :-) The intention with the vote is to clarify whether wikipedians who work on numerous articles and know the principles of NPOV believe there is a problem, if so what is the starting point to fixing it (ie, which article?), what is the problem and what guidance would the community give in correcting the problem. So I don't think it is time-restricted in the way, for example, a vote on the logo by definition must be. The vote is simply trying to develop a consensus on the steps that need taking to solve what a lot of people seem to agree is a problem. Already it is clear that Adam's article is seen as a better starting point, and that most people see the criticism section as currently written as too POV and in need of NPOVing. But I am open to suggested dates for an end to the vote. FearÉIREANN 20:21, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

THE VOTE

So lets vote on it. Please keep the vote at the bottom of the page so that people can find it.

1. Should we start a rewrite with Adam Carr's version of the article or the version here?

  • Adam's Version
  1. FearÉIREANN
  2. —Eloquence (with pictures)
  3. Andrewa (with two of the four current pictures preferably)
  4. Delirium
  5. BCorr ? Брайен 05:13, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  6. Adam Bishop 05:20, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  7. Tuf-Kat
  8. User:Pfortuny
  9. JamesDay
  10. User:Alun Ephraim
  11. Fred Bauder 13:17, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  12. Dori
  13. Toby Bartels (on grounds that Erik and JTD agree on this)
  • The current version
  • A Merged Article
  1. Lirath Q. Pynnor (Please take the time to recognize those aspects of the original which are valid)

2. Is the criticism section as written in the current article POV or NPOV?

  • POV
  1. FearÉIREANN
  2. Andrewa
  3. ☮ Eclecticology
  4. Delirium (but mainly because of the "trying to prove the case" feel)
  5. BCorr ? Брайен 05:13, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  6. Adam Bishop 05:20, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  7. Tuf-Kat
  8. Pfortuny 08:43, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  9. JamesDay
  10. Fred Bauder 13:17, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  11. Dori
  • NPOV

3. Is the picture usage in the current article POV or NPOV? [this option is disputed by Eloquence]

  • POV (ie, unbalanced between positive, negative and neutral images)
  1. FearÉIREANN
  2. Andrewa
  3. Delirium (pictures should also be a little smaller)
  4. JamesDay They appear to be over-emphasizing minor encounters.
  • NPOV (balanced between positive, negative and neutral images)
  1. (if one or two more "positive" ones are added, e.g., with the Pope). BCorr ? Брайен 05:13, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  2. Fred Bauder 13:17, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  3. Dori (I agree with Bcorr, balance)
  • Neither
  1. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 07:03, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC) (meaningless question) and totally unique concept to boot
  2. Toby Bartels (definitions of "POV" and "NPOV" in answers are not correct)

4 Should the in depth criticism be . . .

  • Kept in the main article
  1. —Eloquence
  2. Tuf-Kat (criticism should always be folded in with other text; separation implies that there is a real version of the truth, and some "others" who disagree)
  3. Toby Bartels (voting for two approval-style, to vote against the other)
  • Summarised, with a longer version in a linked article that explores in detail allegations against MT
  1. FearÉIREANN
  2. Andrewa
  3. Delirium (if there is enough NPOV criticism to warrant a separate article detailing a "criticisms of MT" phenomenon; otherwise just summarize)
  4. Fred Bauder 13:17, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  5. Dori
  6. Toby Bartels (voting for two approval-style, to vote against the other)
  7. Lirath Q. Pynnor
  • Summarised with some details, but without a longer version
  1. BCorr ? Брайен 05:13, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  2. Adam Bishop 05:20, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  3. Pfortuny 08:43, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) (I do not object to its being long as far as criticism is no longer than "facts about her").
  • Expanded, but only in a NPOV manner
  1. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 06:58, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)
  2. JamesDay

5 In general, how to deal with the balance of the article?

  • Shorten criticisms
  1. Delirium
  2. Dori
  • Keep criticism to that which relates to MT in the article and place other criticisms in linked article
  1. FearÉIREANN
  2. —Eloquence (I have always agreed to moving criticisms exclusively about the Missionaries of Charity to that article)
  3. ☮ Eclecticology (Most of the Keating material is irrelevant.)
  4. Tuf-Kat (some could be moved to missionaries too)
  5. Toby Bartels (to support agreement between Erik and JTD, and to say that balance, while not everything as question 3 implies, is still relevant)
  6. Lirath Q. Pynnor
  • Add more positive claims
  1. —Eloquence
  2. BCorr ? Брайен 05:13, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  3. Pfortuny 08:43, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC) Not simply "positive" (which is simplistic). Mere facts of her life are enough (what one sees in any bio).
  4. JamesDay For some reason, Catholics and other organizations appear to like her. Why? The article doesn't say yet.
  5. Fred Bauder 13:17, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  • Balance is fine
  • Balance is irrelevant
  1. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 06:53, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

6 How to deal with image captions?

Question: is this a narrow vote for this article only, or for all of Wikipedia? Martin 20:39, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Answer: It must be for this article only, to have any legitimacy, since this is not a general policy page where one would expect to find the latter discussion. Toby Bartels 22:16, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

  • Only very short captions are allowed (e.g. "Mother Teresa with Charles Keating"):
  1. ☮ Eclecticology
  2. Delirium
  3. FearÉIREANN
  4. Dori
  5. Lirath Q. Pynnor
  • Short captions with extended text (1-2 sentences), which may only refer to the visual content of the image, and may not be redundant with the article text:
  1. BCorr ? Брайен 05:13, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  2. Tuf-Kat (generally -- not a rule for all articles, but good for this one)
  • Short captions with extended text, which may refer to the visual content of the image or provide some context (e.g. "Mother Teresa accepted 1.25 million dollars in donations from Keating, who was later sentenced to prison for financial fraud. Mother Teresa did not return the money, although she was asked to do so by the district attorney"):
  1. —Eloquence (only NPOV, of course)
  2. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 06:48, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC) Of course! This shouldn't even be voted on, it should be obvious.
  3. JamesDay But not the POV selection of facts which —Eloquence appeared to be doing. The example in this choice is POV in the context of the article.

7 How should the results of this vote be treated? '

  • This vote should be ignored. Erik and James should kiss and make up.
  1. Martin 20:39, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  2. Toby Bartels
  • This vote is just a method of talking about the article, the results should not be treated as sacrosanct
  1. Dante Alighieri 20:07, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
  • This vote is a consensus-builder, we should follow the results in the new MT article
  1. Lirath Q. Pynnor We should strive to respect democracy, bearing in mind that many users remain unaware of this vote; and, respecting the right of any user to reinitate the vote (provided they include all of these votes, within their new vote).
  • I have just come in on this one. I have no idea what has been going on here.
  1. Tarquin
  • Saved as a warning against something which should never ever be attempted again.
  1. Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 00:55, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)
  • Make the changes you discovered you agreed upon thanks to a vote (!), kiss each other, forget the vote, take a week off, come back and do it all over again, more nicely
  1. Anthère

I'm not sure a vote is a good idea - except where it produces consensus. I seem to recall there was some sort of edit war earlier in the month. If those who were battling each other have now found some areas of agreement, why not work together on this basis? Let's say X and Y were fighting, but now agree on questions #1, #3 and #5. Well, then let's go with the X+Y equation on those questions -- and leave the rest as open questions. --Uncle Ed 14:41, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Ed is absolutely right. Louis Kyu Won Ryu 18:01, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

But votes are so much fun! As long as you make sure to ignore the results. -_^ -- Toby Bartels 22:16, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

less bitching more writing

Eloquence said he'd like the article to be split up if it exceeded 32 kb and there is supposed to be 20k criticism in the article now. SO if Eloquence managed to get 20 kb bad stuff + some photos of MT SOMEone should be able to add 12 kb (32 - 20) good stuff about her and then split the article. That shouldn't be so hard for smart guys like you and then you can stop whining on the mailing list too. BL 16:34, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

totally unrelated

Shouldn't the cited passages be in italics ? They would stand out better as citations. I am tempted to italicize them, but, not knowing the general wiki guidelines about this, am waiting for your reactions. --FvdP 01:18, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Mother_Teresa&oldid=1659321"