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Apparent negative media bias

I know there is positive media in regards to the events that have been held by secular organizations run by members of Providence. However, primarily because these events generally don't present themselves as events of Providence, I believe such praise is better placed in an article about the secular organizations as opposed to this one. RB972 12:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Sources needed please

Hi, could someone please provide an independent source for the Korean EXODUS father who was attacked? It seems a bit far out there and needs some backing. [unsigned by Uptional]

The source is in the reference section: Seven Days SBS news report 13 June 05. You may also want to see this [1]. The pictures are gone now (probably to conserve disk space), but you can see the article with the pictures: [2], [3], [4]. (For those who don't know Korean, link [3] shows the picture of the father bashed, and the article/other pictures confirms it is in relation to JMS.) RB972 00:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Case in Point

It seems to appear that the author of this article has wandered into that gray area of conjecture again. Here's a perfect example of what conjecture is:

First read the article at this link: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/17201/police-raid-setsuri-cult

Now read how the author spun the article with this bit of conjecture:

Police have raided a Providence facility in Chiba, Japan on suspicion a senior member illegally obtained residence status. They also searched a facility in the city’s Chuo Ward. The police believe Jung used a room inside to sexually assault female followers.

Again, as on the Jung Myung Seok article, can we PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE (pretty please) refrain from these banal attempts at media spin? They do not serve the article well. As such, I will remove the offending section, quite legitimately. [unsigned by Uptional]

Please WP:AGF. It appears you did not notice the final sentence of that article. I don't appreciate your continual false accusations. (BTW: I replaced the link to Yahoo's version [5], although I don't think Yahoo keeps their news forever.) RB972 00:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Latest edits

After waiting patiently for citations for two sections of the article, I finally deleted them when no sources were provided.

I also added a paragraph last week in the theology section and cited it from one of the books that have been published by American Providence.

Remember: hearsay is not evidence. Just because someone tells me that Jung is a poor African farmer from Sudan does not mean I can write it into this article, no matter how strongly I believe it to be true.

Best regards, Uptional 22:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The Korea section was not uncited. As I said, it comes from Seven Days SBS news report 13 June 05. I am re-adding it. RB972 03:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Jung formermem assault.jpg

 

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BetacommandBot 15:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Edits by Unnamed Sources

There is a clear agenda by an unidentifiable source IP 98.14.50.144 to bring slanderous and libelous material to this article. I wish these types of edits would be forbidden. As it says elsewhere in the rules this is an encycloedia and not a tabloid. It is to be written conservatively. Clearly Shii and other sources have not abided by these ground rules.MrTownCar (talk) 14:41, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

RSN discussions

In order to create if needed a {{Recurring themes}} or similar, the two following noticeboard discussions are being copied. This section is for reference only. Please do not edit it. Sam Sailor Sing 20:50, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

The following is a closed discussion. Please do not modify it.


Can a new religious group be a reliable source for its own trial?

On Talk:Jung Myung Seok an argument is being made that the websites providencetrial.com and gospelofprovidence.com are RS for the trial of the group's founder for rape and sexual abuse. Example: [6] Please advise. Shii (tock) 11:18, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

These fail BLP policy. Use the mainstream press or leave the information out if it is not relevant or if you have no good sources at all. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
This is absolutely correct. You need impeccable sources for such claims. Dougweller (talk) 15:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Just for the record, Jung Myung Seok's 9-year fugitive status and conviction are attested by the national police of 5 nations, a dozen Korean newspapers, all major Japanese newspapers, the Associated Press, and Reuters (see my revision of the article). However this is being reverted to a version of the article sourced mainly to providencetrial.com and gospelofprovidence.com which claims that the entire story is in doubt. I will attempt to maintain the article with the sources I have named. Shii (tock) 15:54, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
The version of the article which uses only providencetrial.com and gospelofprovidence.com as sources is hopelessly unacceptable per WP:RS, WP:SPS, and WP:NPOV. The Providence sources may possibly (per WP:SELFPUB) be usable on a very limited basis as sources of information about Jung's movement, but absolutely not as reliable sources for factual claims about Jung himself or his legal difficulties. Material from well-established news sources may (and almost certainly should) be included, but I would be careful with any conclusory statements supported by police sources, since these sources will probably start from a presumption of guilt and could easily be biased. Regarding the description of Jung's teachings, I would advise avoiding either "pro" or "anti" extreme positions and sticking to dispassionate statements backed by reliable sources. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
There appears to be a similar problem going on at Providence (religious movement). MrTownCar insisted that the sources offered by others could not be verified (a legitimate objection if true) — but I was able to find most of the English-language sources in dispute. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 23:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Wow, the sourcing in the version perferred by MrTownCar is just terrible. Some education in what "independent" means with regards to sources is greatly needed. I did laugh that a section about bias was being sourced to providencetrial.com. Ahh, the irony. Delicious. Ravensfire (talk) 23:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Could these sources be of any uses at all? They could be used to source their own opinions. But I don't see a section of their site that's a simple clear-cut "here's what we believe" section. There's sermons, but the problem with citing those is that it may take some interpretations, and that's getting into WP:OR. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 05:07, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

The article being cited for the problems with Jung's trial is absolutely a reliable third party news magazine called, "Civil Government" published in Korea. It just happens to also have some translated quotations on ProvidenceTrial.com. Therefore the article passes WP:RS.

The religious movement has a magazine titled, "Joensori" that it publishes that could be used to verify several biographical details about Jung Myung Seok, like his service in Vietnam. Would these be safe to cite for biographical details or teachings? They also include publications of his sermons in both English, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. Macauthor (talk) 14:57, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Too many questions about the "Civil Government" magazine. Questionable source until that is resolved. "Joensori" is also not an independent source. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 20:29, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
The following is a closed discussion. Please do not modify it.

Use of unverified or planted references in article about Jung Myung Seok

I have posted extensively in the talk page, over the last 8 months, about the reference links (not the attached media outlets) used to post the article about Jung Myung Seok.

THe AP articles can not be verified at the original AP archives despite powerful search engines finding them somewhere in the WWW but not at the original AP archives. Much older articles are easily found at the AP archives with no problem.

The News Limited article is a planted article. I contacted Adam Sucking via email and his staff confirmed that News Limited has NEVER written an article about Jung Myung Seok.

A clear pattern is emerging here with the quality of reference links used to write the ARTICLE ABOUT JUNG MYUNG SEOK.

I am requesting previously univolved admins to help clean up this article.MrTownCar (talk) 13:13, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Supplying more detail to facilitate outside review here, MrTownCar is challenging the reliability of several sources critical of Jung Myung Seok and used in the article about him and his religious movement. See this revision of the article as it stood before MrTownCar removed a sizable chunk of material. I advised MrTownCar that he should ask for opinions here at WP:RSN rather than reopen a long-running edit war on the issue. MrTownCar is challenging numerous sources, but his present comment here appears to be focussing on the following:
  • A 2008 article by News Limited, reportedly entitled "Accused rapist cult leader faces extradition to Korea". This link is currently dead, but a copy of the page can be found here at Archive.org. MrTownCar says he has contacted someone (apparently working at News Limited) who told him that News Limited had never written any articles about Jung Myung Seok, and on this basis MrTownCar argues that this 2008 article is a fabrication (despite its apparently having appeared on News Limited's web site, news.com.au).
  • A 2008 TV story by the Associated Press, reportedly entitled "South Korean fugitive cult leader Jung extradited back to Seoul". MrTownCar has repeatedly stated on the Jung Myung Seok article's talk page that this article could not be found via a title search of AP's own online archive index, and has rejected reprints of this same story on HighBeam Research and LexisNexis (generally accepted as reliable sources) on the grounds that its absence from AP's own archive index conclusively proved the story was fabricated and fraudulently planted on these other sources. It should be noted here, though, that this particular link is from www.aparchive.com, a site which claims to be "the film and video archive of the Associated Press" — so the overall situation seems to me to point, not to fraud, but to possible deficiencies in AP's archive index.
I am supplying the above details to make it easier for people here at WP:RSN to evaluate the reliability of the sources in question. I am not arguing in favour of MrTownCar's position — on the contrary, I am skeptical of his claims and am assuming for the moment that the sources in question are most likely reliable — but I want to make sure these claims can be adequately reviewed and either confirmed or debunked as authoritatively as possible. If I have inadvertently misstated MrTownCar's claims here, I trust he will set us straight. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:55, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

The story referenced to the AP is not correct. It is an article titled "Alleged South Korea Rape Cult leader Arrest in China" 5/16/2007. This article can not be located in the AP archives. However, I found other articles regarding cults dating back to 1997. MrTownCar (talk) 23:36, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

This 2007 article appears to be substantiated by other sources (Kyodo, Fox, HighBeam). My opinion, for what it may be worth, is that this story, together with the 2008 articles reporting Jung's extradition to Korea, would almost certainly be reliable for purposes of substantiating the fact that Jung Myung Seok was arrested in Beijing in 2007 — and probably also reliable for establishing that Jung has been accused of coercing his female followers to have sex with him — but these articles do not prove that Jung actually did this (since these news sources would not normally have knowledge of the circumstances beyond what may have been reported by law enforcement agencies). As for the argument that the story (which Fox says came from AP) must be a "plant" because it couldn't be found in AP's search index, this line of reasoning is IMO not persuasive at all, because there may be many perfectly valid reasons why the article did not appear in your search. For example, there might have been minor changes in the headline title of an article (if you were searching for the exact title, rather than doing a full-text search for "Jung Myung Seok") — or AP might have chosen not to keep this particular story in its archives indefinitely — or there might have been a clerical error of some sort. As for whether it is permissible for a BLP to report criminal accusations against someone, this most certainly is OK if those accusations are a matter of public record, though opposing views defending the accused are also appropriate to report (per NPOV), as long as those opposing views are substantiated by reliable, non-fringe sources. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:12, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
These aren't merely accusations. There are multiple reliable, readily-available sources which support (i) that Jung was charged in Korea in 2001 with raping female followers; (ii) that he then fled to China (iii)he was arrested in China in May 2007 and (iv) extradited to Korea in February 2008 for trial (v) was then convicted of rape in August 2008 and sentenced to six years imprisonment and (vi) following appeals, his conviction was affirmed and his sentence increased to 10 years. See, eg [7];[8] The claim that other sources reporting exactly the same thing are fabrications beggar belief, and the argument that the allegedly fraudulent articles are reporting falsehoods staggering. Is the editor claiming that Jung wasn't charged, arrested, extradited, convicted and sentenced? It's fine to say that Jung and his followers deny the charges, as the sources indicate. But that is all that is required here. The sources are reliable, notwithstanding that they may now be dead links or otherwise unavailable online Fladrif (talk) 03:43, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Fladrif. In addition, personal communications ("Someone emailed me and said...") are not WP:Reliable Sources here. MrTownCar: You would need to find a published news story debunking what these articles said, from a source as respected as the multiple news sources affirming these claims, and even then both the widely reported (i)-(vi) above, and the dispute about this, would have to be reported, with weight given according to the number and quality of sources on each side. At the moment there's no documented dispute among the reliable sources about the truth of this sequence of events, however. hgilbert (talk) 11:10, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
And I agree with both Fladrif and Hgilbert. One other thing that might be worth bringing up here is that I'm wondering if MrTownCar's adamant refusal to accept the reliability of these particular articles is that he might be objecting to the use of terms like "cult" in the stories and their headlines. Accepting a source as reliable for purposes of substantiating the facts of Jung's criminal case does not necessarily mean we're declaring the same source as reliable for purposes of substantiating the accuracy of a "cult" label. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 15:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
We can, however, say that various sources have called Jung a cult leader and/or have referred to his movement as a cult. Normally, we would want to ask whether a given source is reliable for purposes of classifying a religious movement, but since "cult" is an inherently loaded, POV term, there may not be any universally accepted standards for deciding this — so I believe the best approach is simply to acknowledge that some/many people consider JMS/Providence a cult, while the movement's own followers (and, if sources exist, specifically named others as well) reject this label, but without taking a position ourselves as writers of Wikipedia. Acknowleding a controversy of this sort over the use of a contentious label does not violate BLP or NPOV.
MrTownCar, given that the consensus here so far is to accept the sources you have questioned as reliable (at least regarding the facts of Jung's encounters with the legal system), do you have any other specific sources you want to ask about, or do you have any other questions to ask people here? — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 16:55, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Another observation about the News Limited article now at Internet Archive. It says right on the page(upper right-hand corner) that the original source of the article is Agence France-Presse. So, even if MrTownCar was told that News Limited never wrote an article on Jung, it wouldn't negate the fact that it published an AF-P story on Jung. To claim that the article was somehow fraudulently planted is absurd. AF-P is, of course, a clearly reliable source. Also, the May 17 2007 AP article that MrTownCar claims isn't in the AP archive appears to be the same story published at the Fox News site linked above, albeit with a different headline. Again, these objections don't pass the smell test. Fladrif (talk) 01:28, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Non verifiable sources

Harizotoh9 and Shii insist on including material from supposed Secondary sources. The problem is these sources can not be verified. If one goes to the websites of these secondary sources and tries to retrieve the archived material directly, the material can not be found. I commented on this extensively in the talk page on Jung Myung Seok.MrTownCar (talk) 14:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I went to this version of the article and was able to retrieve most of the English-language sources (from The Australian, Fox News, and Japan Times). I did have problems with the Straits Times and Asahi Shimbun sources. I didn't try to retrieve the Chinese-language sources. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 23:32, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Coming from RSN, there are some serious sourcing problems here. Too much reliance on WP:SELFPUB sources and there's no way that providencetrial.com can be considered even remotely a WP:RS. Anything sourced from there needs to be resourced to an independant, reliable secondary source or removed. Ravensfire (talk) 23:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

This organization has two official websites, both of which you have completely removed from this article. Macauthor (talk) 23:46, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:ANI notice (merged from JMS talk page)

Hi. In response to the recent (and ongoing) editing by an IP user, I've posted a notice on the administrators' incidents noticeboard (WP:ANI), asking for attention to this article from uninvolved admins. I've notified the IP address on its talk page. Anyone who wants to discuss this matter should probably watch WP:ANI and look for any followup to my request for attention. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 07:45, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank You for trying to get objective input on this contentious article. Can you explain to me the concensus process by which the article in Civil GOvernment was deemed unacceptable as a source and which contributors participated in that process? I see reference to a concensus process but no documentation of that process.MrTownCar (talk) 13:52, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
I am not going to comment further on the issue of whether the material cited in Civil Government is or isn't acceptable as a source. I believe that issue was already adequately addressed by the earlier discussions on this talk page, and since I've asked for new and uninvolved admins to get involved here, it would be better for me to let others evaluate the issue and decide for themselves what they think.
Regarding your questions/concerns raised on my talk page: The light grey "Jung's teaching" in the edit summaries is what happens when someone edits a section of an article, as opposed to editing the entire article. If you select a single section for editing, the edit summary string is initially set to the section header with comment delimiters (/* and */) around it; any edit summary text delimited in this way is automatically shown in light grey when the article's edit summary is displayed. This isn't anything nefarious; it happens all the time, whenever someone edits a single section of a page rather than editing the whole page.
If I understand your second concern, you are saying that one of the edits which you made on July 28 seems to have been modified so that the change is something different from what you really did. I don't know of any way this could possibly have happened; the software base on which Wikipedia operates (called MediaWiki) doesn't provide any way for anyone at all (not even administrators) to forge or alter an edit in this fashion. I've never heard of anyone having done this, at any time, to any article anywhere. As far as I know, the only way what you're describing could have happened would be if one of the database sysadmins (not a regular administrator, but one of the small handful of people with direct access to the servers) had hacked into the database. The chances of this happening are so tiny — and the theoretical gain from doing it is so negligible — and the likelihood is so great that you simply forgot what change you made three months ago, or that you accidentally typed something other than what you had intended — that I doubt anyone is going to be willing to investigate your claim.
There is another privilege class (called "oversighter") which allows a small group of highly trusted admins to redact (completely hide) the contents of a change, the identity of the user who made it, and/or the edit summary (or any combination of these). This is done in rare cases where material is considered so objectionable (obvious libel, intentional or accidental revealing of a Wikipedia editor's real-life identity, etc.) that it mustn't be allowed to remain accessible in an article's revision history after having been edited out of the article's text. However, an oversighter cannot completely erase all existence of a suppressed edit (the article's revision history will still show that something happened, and the redacted material can still be examined by any oversighter who is willing to jump through some extra hoops) — and an oversighter also doesn't have the ability to reword an edit or an edit summary, or to make an edit appear to have been done by someone else (as I said, no one can do this, with the possible theoretical exception of a really good hacker).
It isn't possible to tell if someone is an admin simply by looking at their account name. However, there is a tool which you can use to see someone's set of permissions in a "popup" box. Click your "Preferences" link at the top of any page; then click on the tab marked "Gadgets", and look for an item called "Navigation popups". Check the box next to "Navigation popups", and then go to the bottom of the page and click "Save". Once you've done this, you can hover over any link (don't click on the link, just move your pointer to be on top of the link), and you'll get a popup box with a preview of the initial portion of the article corresponding to the link. If the link is a user page (or a user talk page), you'll see other information about the user — when they created their account, the number of edits they've made, and their permissions set. If you want to know if someone is an administrator, see if their permissions set includes the word "sysop". This feature, I hope you'll understand, will only work if you're logged in to your account — not if you're reading Wikipedia while logged out.
The admins (sysops) who have dealt with this article during the last year include Shii, Lectonar, Magioladitis, Materialscientist, and myself. Again, though, the kind of hacking of an article's revision history which you are suggesting took place here is not something which either admins, oversighters, or anyone else is able to do. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:03, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

thank you for thoughtful and informative response.MrTownCar (talk) 02:09, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Recourse at wikipedia? (merged from JMS talk page)

When an admin abuses their position of authority and posts poor quality sources that violate BLP:NPOV and include a vistors board ---see citation 12, what recourse am I left with to call attention to this matter? I undid the edit in a despearte attempt to get outside objective evalution of this problem. Mr wales has already posted at the ANI. It is truly reprehensible that admin would post such a poor quality edit including a visitors board as one of its sources.MrTownCar (talk) 01:59, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

. Shii (tock) 04:12, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
Three thoughts.
  • The question of whether or not an external link to a web site critical of Jung Myung Seok is permissible here is independent of whether or not the main body of disputed text is permissible. If the critical web site is not appropriate to list amongst the external links, it might still be acceptable to restore the main body of disputed material.
  • Japanese-language sources need to include an English translation or transliteration of the article and journal titles. Remember that Japanese, Chinese, or Korean text is utterly meaningless chickenscratch to the vast majority of our readers; we need to include enough English (or, at least, Latin alphabet writing) so that the typical reader will at least have a chance of finding the source.
  • NPOV violations are not a valid excuse for edit warring. And while fixing BLP problems may sometimes qualify for exemption from edit warring / 3RR, "what counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial" — and if editors disagree over whether something is a BLP violation or not, you're far better off using dispute resolution rather than waging an edit war (even one where you're sure you're in the right). Be aware that two recent arbitration cases involved disputes over whether controversial edits were or were not BLP violations.
— Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:28, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
Some additional comments.
  • The fact that a user whose editing you disagree with happens to be an administrator does not automatically mean that the editing in question constituted an administrative action (or, more specifically, that it was a case of abuse of administrative privilege). Admins are not allowed to (mis)use their enhanced abilities in order to gain the upper hand in a content dispute — but when editing an article in a normal fashion, an admin has no more or less stature or privilege than any other editor, and their editing should be treated on a par with other people's editing until/unless it becomes evident (such as through edit summaries or talk page discussions) that an admin is intimidating other editors and/or trying to throw his/her weight around.
  • The Neutral Point of View policy does not say that we are striving to find and express a single "neutral" viewpoint for a subject. It says that we are to represent "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." If multiple, conflicting views about a subject exist in reliable sources, we need to present them all, and (if necessary) acknowledge that the available reliable sources are in disagreement. Where (as I believe is the case in this article) material is substantiated by sources that have been evaluated by a broad consensus and determined to be reliable, it is not appropriate to delete this material in the name of NPOV merely because you disagree with what it says. Stated another way, a line of reasoning which says that "this source cannot possibly be reliable because I am sure what it is saying is wrong" is normally not considered valid here. If legitimate differences of opinion still exist as to whether certain other sources presenting a different viewpoint are "reliable" or not, my understanding of NPOV would say that the proper approach is to keep the existing material, seek to validate the reliable sourcing of the new material, and (if the new material is indeed reliably sourced) incorporate both the old and new material — recognizing and explaining the differences in views, but without trying to make Wikipedia's editorial voice choose any particular view as "the" correct view.
  • The Biographies of Living Persons policy does not say that all negative material on a living person must be removed. It says that such material must be removed unless it is validly attributed to a reliable published source. Similarly to what I said above about the NPOV policy, you cannot delete properly substantiated material (and claim justification for doing so per the BLP policy) simply because you personally find the material distasteful. If other, reliably sourced material exists that disputes allegations made in already-existing reliably sourced material, it is appropriate to include it all and to point out the discrepancy.
  • My impression (for what it may or may not be worth) is that the main body of text which is currently in dispute (removed by 50.27.76.7, reinstated by Shii, and then removed by you) appears to be properly substantiated via reliable sources — and, as such, I believe this material most likely should be returned to the article. If there is additional information that can be properly substantiated via reliable sources which reflects differing views, that material should be included as well. If there are valid concerns over whether or not certain sources are reliable or certain material is properly sourced, it is of course reasonable to discuss those concerns — though people should carefully read the past discussions (earlier on this talk page, as well as this archived discussion from the Reliable Sources Noticeboard) so as not to simply revisit the same disputed/settled issues over and over again.
— Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:03, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

There in lies my objection Mr Wales you quoted the policy "as far as possible, without bias" . the article as put forth by the contributor is written with extreeme bias based on biased articles that exist in the media. The tone of the article and sources is anything but neutral and is lacking high journalistic standards.MrTownCar (talk) 15:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Please remember to log in when editing this article (merged from JMS talk page)

Hi. Since this article has been the subject of long-running content disputes (and, some would probably say, edit warring), I would strongly recommend that anyone editing this article who does have a Wikipedia account should remember to always log in and use your account when making changes to this article. While it is true that Wikipedia does not generally require people to register or use an account when editing articles, a user who edits a controversial article both via an account and also via an IP address may risk raising suspicion of violating the Sockpuppetry policy by "logging out to make problematic edits as an IP address". I am saying this, not as an administrator or other authority figure, but as a concerned Wikipedian who would like to see this article improved with the least possible amount of drama. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 17:03, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

FWIW the IP was not me and I think this article should be semiprotected permanently to prevent such edits, but obviously neither of us can do that. Shii (tock) 19:44, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Mr Wales-- the bigger picturer which I have repeatedly posted on this talk page is that many sources do not support the statement such as the Natalie Luca article saying the Jung was part of the unification church.. not true and not supported. The Korea times article is titled "columbia university networks its global alumni" after you click the link in sources.... obviously a planted article and so on. We have a version based on articles that cant be found at the source archives, articles with title that doesnt match the content and articles that dont support the text, articles written by authors with bogus email addresses etc, not to mention News Unlimited denied ever writing about Jung myung seok but miraculously an article attributed to News Unlimited is cited! All of this violates BLP policy.
My criticisms have been completely ignored in favor of a jaded, biased article based on biased writing which exists in the Korean media. Zero effort has been made by the powers that be to offer an alternate source. The civil government article is the single best article to shed light on this and it was shot down by an uneducated consesus panel that doesnt read Korean, has never visited Korea (self admitted in the talk page) and doesnt know who publishes Civil Governemnt as one contributor said it was published by Providence but in fact it is not. I stated previously that this was an independently published journal, again my comments were ignored. If the world wants to read about JMS on wikipedia then the article posted here should reflect alternate and mutiple views for the reader to decide for themselves. The article as put for by the admin contributor only reflects the jaded media bias that exists in korea plus poorly sourced material, which is my contention that he provide a more balanced article with view points from both sides but clearly no effort has been made to this end. Again I have repeatedly called for mutiple view points to be presented in this article but to no avail. If wikipedia can not post an article with multiple views expressed than no article should be posted at all.MrTownCar (talk) 15:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia's fundamental concern is to present the consensus reality of reliable sources, not "multiple views" or "all sides". See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Giving_.22equal_validity.22 Shii (tock) 05:07, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
The part of the FAQ which you are citing says we don't have to treat all views as equal (especially when pseudoscience is involved). If appropriate, we can (and should) still make it clear that the majority view is the majority view, while still presenting minority views as such. I would also point out that if there is a disagreement between the NPOV FAQ page and the NPOV policy itself, the policy takes precedence over any interpretation of such in the FAQ. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:43, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Reviewing non-English sources for this article (merged from JMS talk page)

About a third of the references currently in this article are in Korean or Japanese. Without any detail in English about what these sources say, it is difficult or impossible for most Wikipedians to confirm whether or not they really support the claims to which they are attached. Per WP:NONENG, "if a dispute arises involving a citation to a non-English source, editors may request that a quotation of relevant portions of the original source be provided".

Some claims in this article (relating to things which appear to me to be in dispute) are currently supported by non-English-language sources — e.g., the claim that Jung was a member of the Unification Church; the allegations made against Jung in 2006 by the EXODUS group; the claim that Jung's supporters rioted and forced a newspaper to shut down after Jung's conviction in South Korea; and claims of women being recruited for sexual exploitation by Jung and his associates.

I believe we need to clean up all the non-English sources and confirm that they are reliable and say what they are claimed to say. Any such source which cannot be cleaned up in this way should be removed, and any contentious statement which is not adequately substantiated after removal of such unusable sources needs to be removed from the article.

I don't know where this will lead, but I believe it needs to be done in order for this article to meet Wikipedia's standards. Unless there are reasoned objections, I will tag the non-English sources with the {{Request quotation}} template; and if no progress is made to fix up these references in a reasonable length of time, I propose to remove them and any material which depends on them.

In the meantime, I would strongly recommend that editors with strongly held views on Jung should refrain from edit-warring here, since this is likely only to get people blocked from editing and could derail a careful process towards cleaning up the sources in the article. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:36, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't see anyone disputing what the non-English sources say. If anyone doesn't believe what they say, I can supply a quote since they are all publicly available, but what a frivolous task! Shii (tock) 13:48, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
MrTownCar challenged some of these sources above. Some of the issues he has brought up appear to be issues which were discussed at great length previously (see, for example, this April 2013 discussion at WP:RSN about a possibly fabricated / planted news story), but in order to be certain, I believe the non-English-language sources do need to be gone through carefully and filled in with enough detail to eliminate any possible doubt.
Note that I am not proposing to rip out the uncertain sources (and text depending on these sources) immediately. Normally, the BLP policy would favour acting quickly with contentious material backed by questionable sources, but since the existing material has been supported in the past by a consensus, we need to respect that consensus until/unless we come up with solid reasons to revisit it. However, I do propose that we should act fairly quickly (on a time scale of a couple of weeks, NOT months or years) to improve the sources in this article. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:29, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Shii, thanks for adding the quotations from some of the sources. Could you also add (in brackets or parens) English translations of this quoted material? Again, the idea here is to allow editors and readers who do not speak the foreign language(s) in question to see that the sources do in fact substantiate the associated claims in the text of the article. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:25, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Can't remove properly sourced material just because you disagree with it (merged from JMS talk page)

Please refer to this exchange on my talk page (and possible future followups thereto). In brief, I found the 2007 The Australian article on LexisNexis and have updated the source cite accordingly (including a quotation). And I would caution people that you cannot remove material which is supported by a presumably reliable source simply because you disagree with it; in such cases, edit summaries that say little more than that the removed material was not true are not sufficient to justify such removal. I restored some recently deleted material which, as best I could tell, was clearly substantiated by the sources (which had also been deleted). I did rephrase one piece of restored material (Yoshihide Sakurai's claims about Jung's early involvement with the Unification Church) to be closer to the quotation we have from the source, and I also explicitly attributed this claim to Sakurai (who, it turns out, is a sociology professor at a major Japanese university) rather than simply leaving it as a statement of objective fact. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:53, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I will ask for the last time of Mr Wales and any other scholars posting on this artile. what litmus test is being used to verify the veracity of the citation AND separately the veracity of the content of the citation? Finding an article in Lexis nexis or elsewhere doesnt prove the veracity of the article especially when the article can not be found at the original source as I have enumerated repeatedly elsewhere in this talk page. I SEE LITTLE to no effort being made to find the truth. Articles with unrelated titles, authors emails addresses that dont work etc etc etc. why so many problems with sources??????????????????????????????????????MrTownCar (talk) 02:03, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Since the sources have recently been cleaned up, and quotations from the sources have been added, to a considerable extent since the last time you called out specific sources which you doubted, I think it would be highly advisable if you would look at the article as it currently stands and give a specific critique (here, on the talk page) of each individual source whose suitability you are challenging. Note that if a citation is to a source that is generally recognized as being reliable, the burden falls on opponents of the material to show specific, compelling reasons why it is not in fact reliable after all. A source does not need to be found on the originating news organization's web site in order to be valid; reputable alternative services such as LexisNexis, HighBeam, and the like are routinely permitted here. The BLP policy does, to be sure, permit some leeway (aggressive proactive removal of poorly sourced contentious material, "consensus cannot override policy", and so forth) — but if a source is generally recognized as being reliable, you (or anyone) would risk sanctions for edit warring, vandalism, etc. if you insist on simply removing a source (and the material it substantiates) without first getting a consensus that the source is bad and should be removed, even if you try to justify your actions via an appeal to the BLP policy. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:28, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry my request is not clear. Please explain to me how high BEAM and lexis nexis distinguish legitimate articles from planted articles? That fact that these search engines find an article in the internet doesnt establish legitamacy. MrTownCar (talk) 17:50, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

The reasonable presumption is going to be that an article on HighBeam, LexisNexis, ProQuest, and other major research services really did come from where the service said it came from. These organizations are in business to provide high-quality, reliable material, and their reputations would quickly crumble if their paying customers were to conclude that any appreciable fraction of the articles they supplied had been fabricated. This means that the burden falls on you to come up with strong evidence supporting any claim on your part that an article was "planted". Without such solid evidence of fabrication (far more solid, I must say, than anything you have brought forth to date), allegations of this sort are likely to be viewed here as frivolous and disruptive. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:42, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Civil government magazine - monthly (merged from JMS talk page)

The title of the magazine is min jung - transliteration which means Civil Government produced by the government notice the blue rose of sharon seal which is the official government seal.

Publisher: Jin soo Cha

Address: Gardenlife F8020, 66 Chungmin-Ro, Songpa-Gu, seoul, Korea

This is not a Providence publication!!!!!!!

All information taken from min jung website which is ONLY written in Korean and found with Korean search engine Snap-do. MrTownCar (talk) 18:30, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Here is the Original article taken from the source February 2010------

http://www.mjnews.co.kr/bbs/zboard.php?id=mj02&page=4&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=185 MrTownCar (talk) 01:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I asked a Korean-speaking friend last night to take a look at Civil Government and let me know what he thought of it. This is what he said:
This friend of mine is definitely not a member of the JMS group (Providence) and has no interest in joining it. As best I can tell, he doesn't have strong opinions one way or the other about JMS (other than not being willing to accept his claims or teachings). In fact, I'm not even sure this friend of mine had ever even heard of JMS before I asked him to help me with translations of sources in the article.
So, I'm prepared to give fair consideration to the possibility that Civil Government is a reliable source for facts and/or mainstream opinions. I think it's possible that one of the main reasons people here have been reluctant to acknowledge Civil Government as a reliable source up till now is that the only exposure we have had to Civil Government so far has been in translations of articles available on JMS-associated web sites. The skeptics (and even neutral people) are simply not going to accept anything from providencetrial.com as being anything other than unabashedly pro-JMS — in order for material about JMS from Civil Government to be taken seriously here, we cannot use material from providencetrial.com, we need to go directly to the source itself.
So, I would like to ask MrTownCar (or anyone else here who has the required language skills) to give us a links to any Civil Government articles about JMS from the magazine's own web site. I realize these will be in Korean; that's OK, we'll find people who know Korean so that we can get an understanding of what the articles are saying and who is writing them. Then, we can make a proper decision — on a case-by-case basis — whether a given article is usable for substantiating facts, usable as an indication of the views of a specific author or of the JMS organization, or not usable at all. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:28, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

See above Mr wales post for link. Sorry I meant to have it below Mr Wales post.MrTownCar (talk) 01:36, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much, MrTownCar, for the link to the original Civil Government article about JMS. Once we can get an English translation, we can start figuring out what (if any) role this article might be able to play in the article. If you believe other Civil Government articles may also be helpful here, please give us links to them too. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
The editors on Korean Wikipedia said that this article was a paid placement and written by JMS members. Shii (tock) 06:10, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Interesting. I'll admit I'm a bit surprised, since I was told earlier this evening that this Civil Government article didn't challenge the rape charges against Jung (though it does question the validity of the kidnapping charges). — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't think their opinions can be worthy of inclusion here, but it's probably an indication that this publication is not exactly a journal of record. Shii (tock) 06:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
I probably need to ask this for completeness' sake: What sources of information led the Korean Wikipedia editors to say that this article had been written and paid for by the JMS people? — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
I just checked my ko.wiki contributions. It looks like it was not from them but from the anti-JMS website manager that I got this opinion. (Sorry, it was last year...) Shii (tock) 15:26, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
So in general, we can use information from this. Even better if we can link to the article on their website. I have zero confidence linking to the article re-hosted on a pro-JMS site, just as I would have zero confidence linking re-hosted on an anti-JMS site. Ravensfire (talk) 15:35, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Mr Wales you have independent confirmation that Civil Government is an independent publication, I strongly recommend continuing what you planned on doing and not be swayed by the say so of a non korean speaking contributor. There is no proof that the above claim is true. Please continue working with your Korean speaking contact and I will provide other articles from Civil government as I believe there are 1 or 2 others that can be reviewed and considered for inclusion.MrTownCar (talk) 13:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

@Ravensfire, we do have a link (above) to the original article on the Civil Government web site. I've been given a basic idea of what the article says by a Korean-speaking friend, so it might be usable as an example of independent opinion regarding the JMS trial. Everyone please note that the Civil Government article does not seek to completely exonerate Jung; from what I've been told (and people can correct me here if I've misunderstood), it doesn't question the most important accusations against him (that he raped female followers by abusing his position to coerce them into having sex with him), but it does question whether the kidnapping charges were solidly substantiated, and it suggests media hype in general may have influenced the trial. We should treat this article similarly to the way we've been treating other Korean-language sources — with English translations for Korean names, titles, and excerpts. Also, if there is any way to find out some background info regarding the author of this piece, that might be helpful as well. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 15:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Richwales for taking the time and finding the human resources to finally get an objective look at the Civil Government and related articles. I had requested this long ago and feared that my requests had fallen on deaf ears. Macauthor (talk) 02:46, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

This talk has been transcluded and continued on Talk:Providence (religious movement)#Civil Government mag self-published from 03:40, 3 September 2015 ~ 22:15, 7 September 2015‎ and sqq.--Kiyoweap (talk) 01:19, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Clarification of teachings (merged from JMS talk page)

Jung muyung Seok teaches a few very important priciples that are lost in the wikipedia article.

1) In order to grow close to God we must set the condition in our heart and our body to grow spiritually. JMS did this by reading the Bible over 2000 times and praying extensively over about a 21 year period from age 13-34. In so doing the Lord gave him many inspirations one of which included the Fall of Adam and Eve.

2) The Fall committed by Adam and Eve was a premature sexual encounter. They engaged in a sexual act before the LORD had granted them permission to do so. Knowing that the fall was a sexual act, JMS has taught repeatedly the importance of maintaining sexual purity.

3) The reason sexual purity is so important is that we are called to be brides of the Lord both in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. If we commit sexual sin we are severely damaging the condition of our soul and spirit and thus preventing ourselves from living as brides. The Scripture teaches us to keep the marraige bed clean. This has both a physical and spiritual meaning. If we commit sexual sin we not only contaminate the physical marriage bed but also contaminate the spiritual marraige bed by giving our hearts over to carnal pleasure instead of giving out hearts to God, just like Adam and Eve did. This is one of the absolute core teachings of JMS which is to elevate our spiritual condition by maintaining sexual purity so as to be a perfect bride of the Lord and live in intimate relationship with our Creator for eternity.

If one commits ANY sexual impropriety they are driving themselves away from the Lord and will exclude themselves from living in communion with the Creator for eternity unless they repent of those sins. For this very reason, the accusations as stated in the wikipedia article are so far reaching and absurd it begs the question, How can anyone (let alone 10,000 women) believe that the way to absolve themselves of the original sin is by commiting sexual sin with the man of mission of this time period?

JMS is not Jesus and is not an incarnation of God. He did not come to complete Jesus mission since we know Jesus said on the cross "it is finished". Jesus had to die for the sins of the world due to the ignorance of that generation. JMS will not die for the sins of the world but is put in jail for ten years due to the ignorance of this generation. JMS is a messenger of the LORD who calls all of humanity to purify itself and prepare itself not as children of God but as Brides of God.

This is JMS mission, to call the world to a higher spiritual level and purity in preparation for the rapture and thus ushering in the the thousand year peace alluded to in Scripture. In this regard he is the messiah of this time period not be confused with the Messiah Jesus who died for the sins of the world. JMS does not supplant Jesus but serves as the messenger in the next step in God's restoration history.

I have read many of his sermons and his proverbs. The man has a love for God that is unparalleled and is obvious to those who have witnessed his life. His greatest desire in this life is to please the heart of God and save spirits of human beings. Akin to Jesus, he loves those who persecute him and prays for their salvation. He underwent a sham trial and was accused by false witnesses. It is truly ironic and shameful that the very thing that he preaches against from the deepest part of his heart is that which the false witnesses accused him of and had him sent to prison for ten years.MrTownCar (talk) 06:14, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the opinion. Can you translate this Korean for me? 성범죄 피해자이기도 했던 한 탈퇴자는 "성상납 대기조 '상록수' 회원이 1천여 명에 이르며, 옥중에서도 미성년자를 포함한 여신도들을 관리하고 있다"고 폭로했다 Shii (tock) 02:12, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
one of the escapers who was an evergreen and also a victim announced the evergreen members are up to 1000 and he is still managing the female members including minors.MrTownCar (talk) 04:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I think that's right! Thank you for correcting the translation in the article. Shii (tock) 06:28, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Jung's Teaching sections needs work (merged from JMS talk page)

The teachings section currently lists the second tenant of Jung’s teaching as “2. it teaches that original sin, originating in Eve's intercourse with Satan, can be defeated by having sex with Jung.” The cite for this says, “South Korean media also reported that Jung had claimed to have received a "special revelation" from God, and that many female members of his cult were ordered to undress for a "health check" and have sex with him to wipe off their sins.” - http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/view/7f51b2b481ecfc4cc98ff70932bd2783?subClipIn=00:00:00&subClipOut=00:00:00

By listing this accusation/crime as one of the only two items listed under the teaching sections it implies that his organization's teachings include a sexual ritual to clear sins, but there is a distinguishable difference between “many female members” mentioned by the journalist and the entire audience of Jung’s teachings. The other article being cited still needs a verifiable quotation. Crimes held against Jung by a sub group of people are not going to portray Jung’s teachings to broader audiences accurately. Macauthor (talk) 02:42, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

We've already determined that over 10,000 women were treated in this way; we have photos and videos of the same. It beggars belief that this is not one and the same with the "entire audience". Shii (tock) 15:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
The subject of this article has summaries of his sermons published every week. If we are going to have a section on his teachings then we could reference the primary sources authored/published by the subject himself. The article is currently just taking content that should be included in the sexual abuse charges section and using that same content in place of valid content (which is readily available with just a tiny amount of research. Even if you use the secondary source by the Japanese scholar you'll get far more valid content, but you'll be hard pressed to find any such absurd teachings about weird sex rituals in either the primary or secondary sources about his teachings. Macauthor (talk) 22:04, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I think the section order should be re-arranged. Put the teachings section above the sexual abuse charges section. Purely from a timeline perspective, the teachings started well before the charges did. From a flow perspective, the Early biography section mentions his church, so flowing into the details of that is natural. Following that should be the sexual abuse section. Ravensfire (talk) 16:57, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Ravensfire. This makes much more sense. Macauthor (talk) 21:57, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Translation by MrTownCar (merged from JMS talk page)

MrTownCar in his latest edits 05:05 and 05:05, 7 November 2013 says he translates a Korean quote regarding the 28 March 2012 whistle-blowing press conference already in the citation, and he provides the edit summary even better ... complete and full translation from the Nocut news article regarding the sentence that mentions the number of evergreens

I suppose Evergreens/Evergreen Trees ('상록수') is church lingo ... it makes no sense to me, and I thus doubt it makes sense to the average Joe without affiliations to Jung and his people. We don't use euphemisms, so we need to determine what evergreens cover. "Women recruited for sexual exploitation" ... is that correct?

No you are not correct.MrTownCar (talk) 22:11, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I happened to find a full translation of whole article online at asiancorrespondent.com. Please compare:

NoCutNews AsianCorrespondent MrTownCar Google Translate IMtranslator
성범죄 피해자이기도 했던 한 탈퇴자는 "성상납 대기조 '상록수' 회원이 1천여 명에 이르며, 옥중에서도 미성년자를 포함한 여신도들을 관리하고 있다"고 폭로했다. One former member who was a victim of his sex crimes said that “there were over 1,000 evergreen trees, and even from prison he managed them, including minors.” An anonymous female who claims to be an evergreen and victim stated there are up to 1000 evergreens and he is still managing the female members including minors. The one who was the victim taltoeja sex "sex kickbacks daegijo 'evergreen' members stands at more than 1,000 people, including minors in prison yeosindo manage," he revealed. It is also a victim of sexual crime was unwelcome for the leavers ' keynote ' evergreens ' members among the Oaks, thousand persons, minors, including managing your followers ' and uncovered.

Now I would like to know how the following modifiers

  • anonymous
  • claims
  • up to

enter the translation? Considering the discrepancies above I will put the sourced translation in the article. Sam Sailor Sing 20:35, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is the meaning of evergreens as supplied on the anti-JMS website. Shii (tock) 22:06, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Very simple the word is context... you are translating a sentence or part thereof using a "dumb" machine. I utilized a native speaker who was looking at the whole article IN CONTEXT.
Evergreen is the literal translation referring to a sexually pure person male or female. Surely you know this article is not about evergreen trees, so I hope you did not put that in as well. THere in lies the problem when relying on computers to translate.MrTownCar (talk) 22:09, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
The source for the given interpretation of 상록수/evergreen is? Sam Sailor Sing 19:59, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Sam-- Where did you come up wih the meaning of evergreens in quotations? It appears to be your presumption. THE antiJMS website is an opinion website not valid for referencing.MrTownCar (talk) 22:40, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Since the Asian correspondent appears to be translated by a machine as it can't distnguish "evergreens" from evergreen trees I would use it with caution.
ALSO I can't find the article on the link.... could you supply a better link? or explain how you arrived at the FULL translation of the nocut news article.MrTownCar (talk) 22:54, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Click the second asiancorrespondent link, not the first one. Shii (tock) 23:08, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
The sourced translation from AsianCorrespondent is rather obviously translated by a human, not by a machine.
There is no context that explains the introduction of words into the translation that are not found in the original. Neither anonymous, claims, nor up to can be justified. This attempt to distort article content is a fine occasion to remind that WP:NONENG says: Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians.
Sam Sailor Sing 12:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
That is interesting Sam since YOU posted the translation in the table above and insist that it is obvioulsy translated by human but the translator chose to put "evergreen trees" so please quote your source and justify your use of "women recruited for sexual exploitation."MrTownCar (talk) 02:17, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Conflict amongst sources regarding timeline (merged from JMS talk page)

Nocut news said JMS left korea in 2003 many other sources in this article state he left in 1999. what should we do? throw out nocut news ? remove the year? average the two years?

I am baffled as to how there could be a 4 year discrepancy amongst so many bonafide sources.MrTownCar (talk) 04:05, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Averaging the years would be synthesis and/or original research — both prohibited. Just because sources don't agree absolutely, 100%, on every detail doesn't necessarily mean one or the other is totally worthless or fabricated; someone could simply have been confused or made a mistake. We may simply need to mention what the sources say and acknowledge that there is a discrepancy.
But I'm a bit confused here as to where a Nocut News source says JMS left Korea in 2003. Is this from a source that hasn't been translated into English or incorporated into the article yet? Forgive me if I'm a bit fuzzy on this; I've had other things I've had to do and haven't been able to pay much attention to this article for the past week or so.
if you click the asian correspondent link in the grey column you can see the translation of the entire Nocut news article translated which mentions 2003.MrTownCar (talk) 11:48, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Incidentally, I see there are still some Korean-language sources cited in the article without English translations of the quotations (current footnotes #7, #8, #25, #26, and #27). If this problem can't be fixed, these sources might need to be removed (along with the associated passages from the article). Additionally, footnote #36 (quoting a contentious statement by an anonymous lawyer) is IMO a very weak source for a contentious statement; if there is any better, stronger quotation from this source, I would recommend finding it ASAP. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 07:08, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Also citation 26 "One former member who was a victim of Jung's sex crimes said that "there were over 1,000 evergreens, and even from prison he managed them, including minors." another anonymous source quoted....MrTownCar (talk) 12:00, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
"Virgins" ought to read "women recruited for sexual exploitation" cf. the section above, and I will correct it. Sam Sailor Sing 12:52, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Here is a news report with photos of "evergreens" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVv4w-V3YX0&t=1m3s Shii (tock) 15:09, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
you tube is self published and not valid for referencing contentious material.MrTownCar (talk) 02:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
Evergreens are the equivalent of nuns or priests - males and/or females who have taken a vow of chastity to live a religiously pious life. Referring to them as, "women recruited for sexual exploitation" would be sloppy, slanted, blatantly wrong for more than one reason, and offensive. Macauthor (talk) 15:59, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
The source for the given interpretation of 상록수/evergreen is? Sam Sailor Sing 19:58, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Disclose your source Sam, since there is no agreement on the term and no objecive source disclosed I will change it back to the literal translation.MrTownCar (talk) 02:06, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
If you want to know what is meant by the people who use the term just ask the people using the term. Providence church is not some secretive organization trying to hide its beliefs. They have official websites with names of leaders and contact info posted on the sites. Simply ask them over email and they'll tell you, which is more than any of the journalists being cited bothered to do. By the way, is the Providence religious organization not considered to be an authority on the Providence religious organization? An even better question is Jung Myung Seok not considered a valid source information on the subject of Jung Myung Seok? We have lots of information about his life from his own published books, sermons, proverbs, and websites that could fill in the obvious lack of information in the biographical section. The wikipedia rules on BLP do allow for use of primary sources. And none of that information is contested. Some of the editors here agreed on re-instating some of that information, like his service in the Vietnam war, but no one ever re-implemented it back into the article. At which point is it considered a consensus?Macauthor (talk) 02:21, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I looked up Wikipedia's policies about this, and WP:SELFPUB says that such sources can be used only if the material is not in dispute. For the term "evergreens", for example, the definition is very much in dispute. The YouTube linked above is a news report giving another definition for the term. Shii (tock) 04:45, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The "Jung's Teachings" section opens with an entire paragraph based on one source - the Japanese scholar's research. Can someone point out to me where each of the first three sentences are in his research? I only see the fourth statement about Eve when I look at the actual source. Macauthor (talk) 03:17, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Also, the second item of Jung's teachings, "2. it teaches that original sin, originating in Eve's intercourse with Satan, can be defeated by having sex with Jung." cites 3 sources, but the only one that appears to be saying that is the quote from Japan Times. There are a few problems with this. First, there is no link for us to follow and verify. Is it originally in Japanese? Is this a translation? Secondly, according to the quote, "explains Toyoshige Aizaw..., 'it is necessary to engage in intercourse with the Lord.'... He means himself." This interpretation of Jung's teachings should be attributed to Toyoshige. Thirdly, even Toyoshige is not saying that Jung outright teaches that people must have sex with Jung, so it shouldn't be written/condensed in that way. It's a false representation of the cited reference. Macauthor (talk) 03:31, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like original research to me.MrTownCar (talk) 00:00, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Information Network on Christian Heresy (merged from JMS talk page)

where is citation 9 and 10 coming from ? seems like an opinion piece/ original research to me. Who bestowed authority / what makes this group authorative on determining what is and what is not heresy?MrTownCar (talk) 18:20, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I found newspaper citations that this group was sued for slander, and won; it seems like it is a fairly prominent Christian ministry. Shii (tock) 23:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Cite 14 of Asahi Shimbun is not available for confirmation. The url simply leads to the wikipedia article about Asahi Shimbun

Cite 14: It is unnecessary to provide a URL.Shii (tock) 15:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
It is necessary for a controversial BLP. Wikipedia is all about verifiability. Macauthor (talk) 16:43, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
Wrong. Shii (tock) 16:45, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Cite 7 Hokkaido University - The article is in Japanese. Whose translation is this? “There no sexual exploitation” is confusing and probably missing a word or two. Here's the full quote, “At the end of the trial in 2002, a witness who had testified there no sexual exploitation from 1993-4 was found guilty of perjury.” Is it saying the witness was found guilty of perjury?

Cite [1]7: The article has been translated. You can read the citation yourself. Shii (tock) 15:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
You didn't address the issue of confusion. Please make it more clear who the subject of the sentence is by adding whichever words are missing from the sentence. I clicked on the link but the citation does not appear to be available for me to read it myself. Macauthor (talk) 16:43, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
I do not see any confusion in the sentence. Shii (tock) 16:45, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
The way you are quoting it now is much more clear, but it's quite possible that the translation is wrong. The article by Moon Il Seok says that one of those who accused JMS of rape recanted her story in court even at the risk of committing perjury. Is the article available online for us to see it in its original context? Is this your translation?Macauthor (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:38, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
It is my translation in the Japanese. The source is Chūōkōron, a prominent literary magazine. Shii (tock) 18:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Cite 30 (JMS 정명석, 탈퇴자에 대한 테러 지시" [Jung Myung-Seok orders terror on JMS defectors] (in Korean). Nocut News. ) This article is also not available for confirmation. Macauthor (talk) 14:59, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Cite 30: The article has been quoted. You can read the quotation yourself. Shii (tock) 15:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Is there an article available online? Do you have a physical copy you are working from? Are you quoting from memory?Macauthor (talk) 16:43, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm not quoting from memory. You can read the quotation yourself in the citation. Shii (tock) 16:45, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
So you have a physical copy of the article issued by the publisher then? Or is wikipedia your source for the quotation?Macauthor (talk) 17:41, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
The article was available not a few months ago and I think there were multiple editors here who read it at the time the quotation was made. Shii (tock) 18:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I reverted Shii's edit of JMS' Vietnam military service and made it clear why in my description of the edit, "'allegedly' is a legal term dealing with crimes. There is no speculation about this and never has been. Military keep tight records." He then simply re-introduced the exact same edit basically reverting it right back. I was blocked from editing the page for a day when I made a similar mistake for edit-warring, but I do not have special editor priveledges to give him any such penalty. I please ask that Shii be held to the same standards. I did not re-introduce the paragraph about JMS' military service until after a month of discussion here on the talk page, until after RichWales suggested we re-introduce it, and after months of waiting for any objections. The same applies to the edits I am now making - all of them can be found thoroughly discussed here on the talk page over the course of several months. Macauthor (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

You are putting attribution tags on statements made in academic journals, so I provided attribution to the claim you added to the article, which is sourced to a sermon. Shii (tock) 20:25, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Harizotoh9 has set the back all of the recent progress on the article and removed three different sets of new edits which should be addressed separately since they come from separate sources and are in different sections stating his reason as, "Removing Providence sources, which time and time again have been said to be unreliable." Even after the at length discussion under the section, "Civil government magazine - monthly" section in which Richwales said, "So, I'm prepared to give fair consideration to the possibility that Civil Government is a reliable source for facts and/or mainstream opinions" and Ravensfire said, "So in general, we can use information from this. Even better if we can link to the article on their website. I have zero confidence linking to the article re-hosted on a pro-JMS site, just as I would have zero confidence linking re-hosted on an anti-JMS site." And so I finally posted the materials from third party sources only to have Harizotoh9 revert it. Secondly I added some titles of JMS' sermons to address issues over what he teaches. It is a primary source but as we discussed in the past it is allowed by Wikipedia policy and justified to do so in this particular case. Harizotoh9 also removed the biographical information recently added and said on RichWales's talk page that we came to a consensus against using Providence sourced sites in the talk page. But if he had thoroughly read the discussions on this talk page he would have seen that RichWales already addressed several of these issues. Here is one of Rich's statements in the discussion about the biographical details that I finally added and Harizotoh9 just removed, "The "Early biography" section seems very incomplete to me. From other discussions, for example, I understand Jung did military service in Vietnam; I'm not sure if this was omitted here by accident, for brevity's sake, or perhaps because this phase of his life is considered controversial in some way, but it seems to me that it is probably relevant and should probably be included." Rich, if your opinion hasn't changed on these matters then could you please re-instate not only my edits but the edits of Shii that have all been undone by Harizotoh9's revert?Macauthor (talk) 17:11, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I haven't been following this article for a while, and I am still tied up with some other matters which I can't drop right now. I will repeat, though, that I drew a distinction between material sourced directly from Civil Government on the one hand, and material taken from Providence-managed publications or web sites on the other hand (which I do not consider to be reliable for facts and/or mainstream opinion, even if Providence is quoting or reporting something originally published in Civil Government). But as far as I can tell, neither the current version of the article nor the text as it stood before Harizotoh9's latest removal of "Providence sources" contains any mention of Civil Government, so I'm not sure how my earlier comments about Civil Government vs. Providence are relevant now.
I would continue to say that material taken directly from Providence sources is unlikely to be acceptable as a reliable source for facts and/or mainstream opinion. Material from Providence may be usable on a limited basis as a source of information about Jung's public teachings (per WP:SELFSOURCE) — though since one big issue here is an underlying allegation that Jung has been teaching/doing things in secret that contradict his public statements, you need to be very careful not to use Providence material as a definitive refutation of negative claims made about Jung in mainstream sources.
I am disturbed to see that several Korean-language sources, cited in footnotes, have Korean-language quotations which have not yet been translated into English. This problem needs to be rectified ASAP, preferably by adding English translations of the quotations in question. Since I assume most of the editors here who are supporters of Jung are fluent in Korean, I would be very surprised if absolutely no one already participating here could do this, but the necessary resources to do the required translations must surely exist somewhere. A cited source for a contentious claim, available only in Korean or Japanese and without any English translation for the relevant parts, must (IMO) eventually be removed if no English translation can be obtained — but I really can't see such a thing legitimately happening in this situation, since there simply must be someone who is able and willing to supply the still-required translations.
Regarding the Asahi Shimbun material (which is apparently not available online), Wikipedia's policies on verifiability of sources do not rule out the use of a source solely because it isn't online. (See the essay WP:OFFLINE.) In such a case, however, the footnote needs to document the location of the source material very thoroughly, so that someone could (albeit with additional effort) find the material. If a cited source from Asahi Shimbun is in Japanese, by the way, the original (Japanese) story title needs to be used here, along with an English translation; similarly for the quoted material if it's in Japanese.
Sources used in this article were discussed on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard (WP:RSN) in January 2013, and also on the Biographies of Living Persons Noticeboard (WP:BLPN) in February 2013. If new issues have come up that need neutral outside input now, I would suggest that people should consider going back to one or the other (or maybe eventually both) of these places. However, be aware that simply going back for a "better" result from a noticeboard because you didn't like what people said earlier could be seen as disruptive (see the "I didn't hear that" subsection of the Disruptive Editing guideline).
If people simply cannot agree on neutral wording that fairly represents all mainstream reliable sources (per WP:NPOV), and if work on this article becomes (or perhaps already is) totally and irreversibly bogged down amidst edit-warring and accusations of bad faith from all sides, I need to point out that the matter could end up having to be dealt with by the Arbitration Committee. In this regard, I need to mention here that I am currently a candidate for election to the Arbitration Committee — and if I do end up on ArbCom, and if the Jung Myung Seok topic is brought up for consideration by ArbCom, I will almost certainly need to recuse myself from the case. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 20:58, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

(Comment from uninvolved editor) If I may so interrupt, there is a discussion on WP:ANI about these sources occurring right now. Maybe this discussion should be moved there, where admins can come and have their say on the matter. Epicgenius (talk) 23:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Rich. If you look at the article edits I made before you'll see that I did not use providencetrial.com as a source for the Civil Government, but instead used two third party news sites as the source. In the teaching section I quoted JMS according to BLP policy as you said again. But of course all of these edits have been reverted in big lump by Harizotoh9. Macauthor (talk) 23:30, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

More problems (moved here from Richwales's talk page) (merged from JMS talk page)

[I am moving this discussion from my own talk page to here, where extended discussion on this topic really belongs. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 18:56, 14 December 2013 (UTC)]

I want some guidance on what should be done. I ignored the page for a few months, and when I came back to it, I've seen the same pattern repeat that has been continuing for seemingly forever. A few Single-purpose accounts adding primary sources as references even though it's been discussed at great length and there a consensus that such sources are unreliable, and then a few people arguing with them. Something should be done to finally break this pattern.

I'm not that familiar with Wikipedia policy and stuff though. What noticeboard should this be taken to? There needs to be some outside arbitration to make a final decision about this. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 02:20, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Sam Sailor Sing 08:34, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Quotes from anonymous sources? (merged from JMS talk page)

@Sam Sailor: Can you discuss your reasons for reinstating this material removed by MrTownCar? On the surface, he would seem to have a valid point when he objects to supporting contentious statements in the article by quoting anonymous lawyers and ex-followers. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you view these sources as being of high quality despite their anonymity, but I think the point deserves at least some talk-page explanation and an opportunity for other editors to discuss the matter and reach a consensus one way or the other. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 23:02, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I think it is great you ask the question the way you do, Rich, as it gives the opportunity to remind that we do not here "quot(ing)e anonymous lawyers and ex-followers" but we quote sources presumed to be reliable for inclusion that in some cases have granted annonymity to their sources in order to protect them. Does it come as a surprise that Jung Myung Seok has a history of violently retaliating opponents?[9] Does it then surprise that his rape victims discuise their faces at a press conference?[10] I very much welcome disussion with other Wikipedians. Best, Sam Sailor Sing 00:05, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
I realize there may be legitimate reasons why opponents of Jung might prefer anonymity. When choosing source material for this article, we may need to try evaluating whether alleged sources which are anonymous are or are not credible — i.e., does the anonymity mean someone fears retaliation, insensitive media attention, or community harassment? — or does it mean the reporter or a news editor either didn't get the names or didn't consider them worth including in the story? — or does it mean the allegations are fabrications and the anonymous sources do not in fact exist? Similar questions frequently come up in criminal justice procedures, if a claimed victim or witness is using a demand for anonymity as a "sword and shield" to allow them to make unimpeachable accusations. In our situation as Wikipedia article writers, we need to determine (in light of WP:BLP, as well as our ordinary common sense) whether anonymity of the lawyers or ex-devotees in question automatically renders their reported claims worthless, or whether we can still conclude that the news reports were most likely based on real people giving truthful accounts of real events. The answer to this question may depend on the identity and nature (and, thus, reliability) of the source reporting the anonymous claims. I don't think we should automatically rule out all anonymous reports because they are flatly unverifiable, but on the other hand, I think we need to retain a certain amount of skepticism and not automatically assume all anonymous reports critical of Jung are obviously true accounts from frightened victims. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 00:33, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head. This is an article with a plethora of quotes and citations and I really don't see how these two anonymous sources making contentious statements holds up to BLP standards.MrTownCar (talk) 15:20, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


I ask firmly of sam sailor what is the basis for your air of irrefutable certainty of the guilt of Jung Myung seok? No physical evidence was produced at his trial. Simply the testimony of his accusers.MrTownCar (talk) 01:17, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
@MrTownCar: It really doesn't matter whether Sam Sailor or any other editor is certain of Jung's guilt or not. Please remember that we are required to write this article in accordance with what has been published in reliable sources. Since numerous reliable sources agree that Jung was convicted by a legal system that is generally acknowledged to have been fair and transparent, we must report that he has been convicted. To the extent that reliable sources may call his guilt and conviction into question, we are allowed (in fact, required) to report this too. But we may not insert our own original research into the article and discount source material that is otherwise entitled to a presumption of reliability because we, ourselves, hold a different opinion.
It might (or, possibly, might not) be instructive here to compare/contrast the way we talk about Jung with the treatment (in Wikipedia articles) of various other public personalities who have been convicted of crimes, but whose guilt continues to be challenged by their supporters. For example:
  • Warren Jeffs, a so-called "Mormon fundamentalist" leader who was convicted and is in prison in the US for sexually assaulting teenaged girls by forcing them to enter into polygamous marriages — accusations which members of Jeffs's church strongly deny.
  • Yulia Tymoshenko, a Ukrainian politician who was convicted and is in prison on corruption charges which her supporters denounce as heavy-handed political persecution.
  • Huseyincan Celil, a Uyghur imam (Muslim cleric) who is in prison in China; Chinese authorities insist he is a terrorist, but he is considered by several countries and human rights organizations to be a religious and political refugee.
This matter of reporting based on what reliable sources say has, as far as I'm aware, been carefully explained to you several times. And several sources proposed for use in this article have been discussed in the past on WP:RSN and other fora. While it is legitimate to examine new sources and make sure the material used in this article is of the best possible quality, it is not OK to go over the same ground again and again, and continued conduct of this sort is likely to get you sanctioned for disruptive editing (see WP:HEAR, WP:TEND, and WP:PUSH). — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 08:18, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
@RichWales: Is the last comment directed at the questioning of reports on Jung's criminal convictions, or my recent additions by Korean sources that mention the libel suit that Providence church won? Macauthor (talk) 13:20, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Mr wales- I asked the question for a very specific reason. I do NOT deny that Mr Jung was convicted and sentenced to jail for ten years. However, I have asked repeatedly on this talk page and personal talk pages for contributors to provide a single bonafide source that discusses the physical evidence used to convict Jung. Well it turns out no physical evidence was used. This is very relevant to this whole story and I believe is discussed in the civil government article. I will get it translated and include it in the article as you suggested it is our duty to report on.MrTownCar (talk) 13:38, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
This talk page is not a forum for discussing the fairness of the Korean justice system. The article as it is correctly reports Jung's life as it has been reported to us. Shii (tock) 17:16, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Wrong. The purpose of the talk page and article is to make sure that as much information is provided as possible for the readers to make an informed decision for themselves, NOT to have the decision made for them by selective inclusion and exclusion of material according to 1 or 2 contributors.MrTownCar (talk) 18:18, 19 December 2013 (UTC)


As an aside I resent the implication of bad faith on sam sailor talk page referring to me as one who "declares his admiration for a serial rapist,..." There have been many "convicts" here in the US that were imprisoned for rape and subsequently released after many years in jail when DNA evidence was introduced into the case. This is very pertinent to Mr Jung's plight and trial and is the very reason I am harping on the point.MrTownCar (talk) 13:58, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
I included those sources in the article earlier this week. But then it was reverted by Harizotoh9. Then the revert was undone by Epicgenius only be re-reverted by Sam Sailor. Regardless of personal views on JMS, the verifiable information published about him and even by him should not be excluded so long as it holds up to the highest standards of verifiability, so that we can provide readers with a more informed view of this BLP.- Macauthor (talk) 17:07, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Merge Providence article (merged from JMS talk page)

I agree with Harizotoh9 suggestion. how do we merge the two articles?MrTownCar (talk) 03:33, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Moved discussion: JMS follow up (merged from JMS talk page)

  Moved from User talk:Sam Sailor
 – Thread moved here as requested. --Sam Sailor Sing 08:16, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Can you kindly tell me the name of the "well known research institute" in citations 3 and 4 please? feel free to post answer on JMS talk page. MrTownCar (talk) 01:39, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Citations 3 and 4 are
  • 이대복 (2000). 이단종합연구 (in Korean). 기독교이단문제연구소. p. 647. Retrieved 2013-11-09. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help), and
  • 심창섭 (1997). 기독교의이단들. 대한예수교장로회총회. p. 274. ISBN 978-89-88327-28-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
and are currently only used to reference the birth date 17 February 1945. The same DOB is given on the corresponding articles in German, Japanese, and Korean.
Citation no. 3 is published by 기독교이단문제연구소 Christian Heresy Institute, www.hdjongkyo.co.kr, a quote "leading Korean cultic studies center researching Christian cults and helping their victims", and
citation no. 4 is published by 대한예수교장로회총회, General Assembly for the Presbyterian Church Korea, www.gapck.org.
Sam Sailor Sing 08:16, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
@Sam Sailor: I clicked the link in citation 3. on the opening page is about 20 links including JMScult.com. Can you tell me whether this is considered a cult or are they being endorsed by hdjongkyo.co.kr as a support group? My take: it is being portrayed as ?? I can't tell after reading the other links. Two of them were blog spots. Can you tell me the relation between jmscult.com and JMS?MrTownCar (talk) 03:10, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
The link in citation 3 is to Google Books[11] and does not mention JMScult.com. JMScult has been discussed before on this talk page, and you consider it "pure propaganda"[Diff] and prefer a version sourced by a member of Providence,[Diff] which is fully understandable since you are yourself a member of Providence.[Diff] I would treat direct quotes from JMScult.com with the same caution as I would with quotes from say ProvidenceTrial.com. Sam Sailor Sing 08:47, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

the link I was referring to was the website hdjongkyo in my question above not google books.MrTownCar (talk) 15:26, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

I prefer a version of the article that has sources from multiple points of view and reads like an encyclopedia not a tabloid as it written now with unproven sensational claims which is what you have reverted it to. Glad we agree that self proclaimed sources are not acceptable.MrTownCar (talk) 15:26, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
If you can find a single example of an "unproven sensational claim" in this article we'd be happy to look at it. Shii (tock) 15:42, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
it would be kind if you would let the person answer to whom the question was asked and not answer for them. To answer your question Shii As of 2012, at least 10 women were still being kept for sexual exploitation by church leaders, according to Kim Jin-ho, former director of the cult and a representative of the organization No JMS (JMS 피해대책협의회). One former member who was a victim of Jung's sex crimes said that "there were over 1,000 women recruited for sexual exploitation, and even from prison he managed them, including minors." Given that one statement is made by antiJMS member and the other anonymously, they dont hold as much weight as the other material posted in this article and fall short of the encyclopaedic nature of wikipedia. I know we can do better here.MrTownCar (talk) 23:54, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
One more- South Korean media reported that Jung had claimed to have received a "special revelation" from God, and that many female members of his cult were ordered to undress for a "health check" and have sex with him to wipe off their sins. There was no need for the AP to quote South Korean media generically, they should have cited the media outlet by name. Again we can and should do better than that here. let us raise the level where the professionals fell short.MrTownCar (talk) 01:16, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

() Okay, your first claim: "one statement is made by antiJMS member"... and former director of Providence! You quoted it yourself. I don't see a need to change that quote.

--->If I may unpack it a bit more... if Mr Kim left providence and voiced his opinion that is one thing, but he left Providence and is a representative of a group with an antijms agenda, in my opinion that is a conflict of interest/original research and therefore I felt not reliable.MrTownCar (talk) 06:36, 29 December 2013 (UTC)


Second claim is debatable, you have a good point.

Third quote is vague but the AP is a reliable source and I think we can trust what they say about multiple media reports. Shii (tock)

The fact that an AP news story didn't explicitly identify its South Korean media sources does not necessarily mean the AP story is suspicious or otherwise unreliable. The writer (or an editor) might, for example, have felt there was no need to give the names of local media sources which few if any readers of the AP story would be familiar with anyway. A news story which doesn't identify a third-party media source is, in principle, no less (or more) of a "reliable source" than a news story which doesn't identify an individual whose comments it quotes or reports on. And it's not supposed to be our role as Wikipedians to "raise the level where the professionals fell short" — we are supposed to report what reliable sources say, even if some of us think the source should have done their job differently. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:01, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
-->In brief I wasnt suggesting to throw away the whole article as there are other points and photos etc that are included in the source. However, as Shii pointed out above, the quote is vague and it hit me like a freight train as I reread the quote that it can be interpreted in more than one way. I believe the way AP intended to make the sentence was to split the ideas that "South korean media reports that Mr Jung claimed to have a special revelation from God " and " south korea media reports that many female members were order to undress......" I didnt want the quote to be construed as one flowing idea which is how I read it at first.MrTownCar (talk) 06:36, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
-->Based on the above conversation can we agree that the quote about the 1,000 women can be removed and for the AP quote can we insert the Phrase "south korean media" after the word 'and' to emphasize that it is two distinct ideas or may be just put the word 'and' in bold in the article?MrTownCar (talk) 06:36, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I still havn't seen anyone address why these edits were reverted twice by Sam Sailor. As I explained before the source has nothing to do with ProvidenceTrail.com which is considered POV so I'm going to restore them. I'm planning to restore it to at least the version restored by user:Epicgenius:Epicgenius. Macauthor (talk) 15:51, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Quick note of feedback (merged from JMS talk page)

Editors of this article may be interested in this comment Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#Jung Myung Seok (permanent link [12]). Nil Einne (talk) 02:18, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

After Merging the two articles

How do we access the history on the Jung Myung Seok page before the merger was made? A lot of information seems to have been removed. The Jung Myung Seok page had far more discussion, edits, and information, so really the Providence page should be lost and the Jung Myung Seok page adopted to represent both instead of the opposite which has been done. Macauthor (talk) 17:54, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree here. What were the arguments for merging? Best, Sam Sailor Sing 21:40, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
can we revert back? the talk page is missing key discussion points that took place in december. I agree with sam and macauthor.MrTownCar (talk) 00:20, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
I do think it is better to merge them, but not like this. The article on Providence was pretty much totally neglected because the editing of the BLP has been so contentious, but throwing out everything done in the past year is not good. This merge needs to be undone and redone correctly. Macauthor (talk) 00:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Reasons for merger:

1. The only reliably sourced biographical material for Jung Myung Seok seems to relate to the sexual abuse allegations and trial. That's not quite enough to really make an article. 2. The two articles would likely have very similar content. Even if the Jung Myung Seok is recreated all the material in the Providence article should remain. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 11:54, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

there was a great deal of information in the talk page especially from December 2013 amongst multiple contributors. If that talk page info and conversation is not accessible the old JMS article needs to be reverted especially since there was ongoing discussion with questions awaiting response on the talk page that now appears inaccessible.68.156.159.10 (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2014 (UTC)MrTownCar (talk) 03:13, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
The old talk page is still in place (Talk:Jung Myung Seok). If the merge is going to stay in place, people could still refer to the material on the old talk page, or it could be copied here (onto the new talk page). I'm not (yet) taking a position on the merge, but I'm just pointing out that the issue of the old talk page comments is not necessarily a reason to undo the merge. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 17:45, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
I am glad talk page still exists but it is not readily accessible the way it was before the merge. going through links to find the old talk page is not helpful in advancing the dialogue of this article. I suppose a merge of the talk pages would eliminate my concerns. However, as I see it right now no single person is in favor of this merge as it exists now except the merging editor and the merge should be undone until we have a proper concensus.MrTownCar (talk) 03:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
I've copied the current contents of Talk:Jung Myung Seok to this talk page. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:33, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Harizotoh9's argument for the merger, "The only reliably sourced biographical material for Jung Myung Seok seems to relate to the sexual abuse allegations and trial. That's not quite enough to really make an article." But this article is still really nothing more than Jung Myung Seok's sexual abuse allegations and trial. I do think it's better to keep the title, "Providence" as opposed to "Jung Myung Seok" but the contents of the Jung Myung Seok had a critical year's worth of editing that has been abandoned. Could those more closely edited contents be made available so that this article can be brought more up to date? Macauthor (talk) 12:11, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
There is a way to access the earlier revision history of the Jung Myung Seok article. If you go to "Jung Myung Seok", you will get redirected to Providence (religious movement), but you should see "Redirected from Jung Myung Seok" in smaller print below the article title. The link in this small print is a specially flagged link that will take you to the JMS page without following the redirect. Click on the history link for the redirect page, and you'll see all the old revision history. This requires a bit more work than people are used to, but it's not that hard once you know how to do it. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 15:50, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Rich. I figured wikipedia had that stuff somewhere. That was exactly what I was asking. Macauthor (talk) 22:26, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Pretty much everything that has ever been on Wikipedia is saved somewhere on the site. It may not be trivial to get to it all; and some things (such as deleted articles — which, BTW, this was not — or highly inappropriate edits) may be accessible only to admins, or sometimes only to a tiny handful of upper staff. But it's all still there, somewhere. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 22:48, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

"False media report" from Apple Daily?

@MrTownCar: Can you please explain why you consider this material to have been a "false media report"? Without a specific basis for your claim, others are likely to revert your edit on the grounds that you consider the material to be false only because you disagree with it. Apologies if I missed something in an earlier discussion. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 15:45, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

My agreeing with or disagreeing with the reference is irrelevant. The last citation (ie referencing a decision by a court of law) specifically sites media reports from oct 13-16 2005 as false and slanderous (the Apple Daily report was from October 13, 2005) and an individual was sent to detention for providing unverified material to the media.MrTownCar (talk) 16:26, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Since neither of the two sources are available it is hard to tell how MrTownCar decided to delete one part, call it a false media report, and keep the rest. For now I will remove both parts and hat them here in case someone can actually add sources that verify this story. Sam Sailor Sing 21:10, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
Unverifiable

In October 2005 Apple Daily (Taiwan) reported that many student clubs in National Central University and other campuses are recruiting for Providence Church. These clubs hold a wide variety of activities including the "Eagle Cup" soccer tournament in Taipei city and regular model training. The paper quoted an undisclosed former church member, that the church's "modeling department" is in fact a channel of recruiting sexual partners for Jung. The paper obtained three audio recordings of dialogs of some female members, which say that Jung have had sex with ten female members by mutual consent, most of them college students from the modeling department.[1]

In June 2006 Jung commissioned a friend to file a private prosecution against a former church member named Wang Wen-yi (王文益) along with many media in Taipei. During the trial Wang admitted that he released three unverified audio recordings to the media. Keelung District Court's judgment is that Wang's statements of "Jung sexually violated female college students" are defamations, media's reports during 2005 October 13 to 16 are untrue, and Wang was sentenced to 30 days of detention with two years of probation. [2]

  1. ^ 黃白雪 (2005-10-13). "踢爆邪教魔爪校園再現" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Apple Daily (Taiwan).
  2. ^ 楊惠琪 (2006-06-22). "攝理教主性怪癖 ? 教友亂爆料" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). United Daily News. p. C4/北市綜合. (Membership database)
@Samsailor: The source for the second paragraph was verifiable until you removed it. Your unilateral editing without consensus is concerning and appears as edit warring.MrTownCar (talk) 20:24, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
As you have frankly disclosed that you and Macauthor are both Providence members, it comes as no surprise that you retort to similar accusations. "Unilateral editing without consensus is concerning", very well. Please put your foot were you mouth is and file a case, I suggest you bundle it with Macauthor's to save commenting editors and admins a bit of trouble. And as for what you see as edit warring, your eyes might be opened to something else when you file the case at WP:ANEW, which I ask you to please do. Sam Sailor Sing 07:40, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

This part needs a quotation from the source. I don't read Japanese so whoever does need to find the part that says this and add it, "explain that those who do not "meet" him will not go to Heaven, and warn that any who betray him are committing a grave crime." cited from Sakurai, Yoshihide. "Cult Problems on Campus : Why were students involved in the “Setsuri” (Providence) cult group?" Journal of Higher Education and Lifelong Learning 15 (2007) Macauthor (talk) 13:21, 13 February 2014 (UTC)