Talk:Randolph Stone

inappropriate content in Wikipedia

The following is not appropriate WIkipedia content, mainly because this is an article about Stone; not about "polarity therapy", so everything below is basically WP:COATRACK. there are other issues, but that is enough to remove this from the article. I have copied it here for discussion.

Scientific research on Polarity therapy

In the following articles criticism as well as approval on Polarity therapy is scientifically founded:

The International Journal of Behavioral Medicine (2010) assesses Biofield therapies including Polarity asking "helpful of full of hype?" and comes to the conclusion that there is a need for further high-quality studies in this area.

Global advances in health and medicine (2015) states that "research in human biofield studies including polarity therapy involving preclinical models promises a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the efficacy of biofield therapies and will be important in guiding clinical protocols and integrating treatments with conventional medical therapies.

Journal of clinical nursing (2013): "Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Fatigue was the most used scale specifically for the evaluation of fatigue. Pretreatment fatigue level may be an important risk factor to aggravate it during radiotherapy and decrease the quality of life. Five studies proposed interventions, all of them involving nonpharmacological therapies: cognitive-behavioural therapy associated with hypnosis, moderate-intensity physical exercises, stretching programmes, yoga and polarity therapy. The studies showed good results in relation to fatigue, physical and psychological aspects, and quality of life. CONCLUSION: Early detection of fatigue, using appropriate scales, is relevant to propose suitable treatments and achieve better clinical conditions, adherence and continuity of radiotherapy treatment, aiming to ensure more effective responses."

The Cochrane database of systematic reviews (2014): "When respite care was compared to polarity therapy a significant effect was found in favour of polarity therapy for caregiver perceived stress (n = 38, MD 5.80, 95% CI 1.43 to 10.17), but not for other measures of psychological health and other caregiver outcomes."

Alternative therapies in health and medicine (1999): "The actual identification (let alone measurement) of "healing energy" has been elusive and controversial. Although healing energy has been defined as "subtle" and "undetectable," preliminary research indicates that these descriptions may be inaccurate. OBJECTIVE: To assess the fluctuation of extremely high-frequency electromagnetic fields, or gamma rays, during Polarity therapy treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary study suggests a consistent and dramatic decrease in the number of gamma rays measured in a subject's electromagnetic field during one type of alternative healing energy treatment (Polarity therapy). The authors strongly recommend the collection of additional data, especially on subjects with cancer, whose long-term survival might be enhanced as a result of the radiation hormesis effects of alternative energy therapies."

References

- Jytdog (talk) 16:34, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Your deletions and templates are disruptive to an article at AfD. It gives a clear impresion that you're trying to poison the well by deleting valid content and adding COI tags to influence readers to vote "delete". As I said before, please WAIT UNTIL THE DISCUSSION HAS COMPLETED. THen we can determine what is and isn't a COI. Kindzmarauli (talk) 17:10, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

This is inappropriate content for any article, whether it is up for AfD or not. Please do not shout. The COI analysis is entirely germane to what is happening now. Jytdog (talk) 17:29, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Please do reply here, thanks! Jytdog (talk) 18:12, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

As I've repeated explained, your deletion of this content gives the impression of trying to influence the AfD. Is that what you want? Kindzmarauli (talk) 18:19, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

No, and your assumption of bad faith is making working toward consensus impossible. Jytdog (talk) 18:29, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for leaving the independent sourcing tag. I will accept removal of the COI tag until we hear from that editor. I will accept retention of this section, but tagged it with "coatrack" to signal the problem. Hopefully we can agree on this for now. Jytdog (talk) 18:32, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Article improvements

I'd like to hear any ideas regarding how to expand the content of the article. It would be nice to have a lede and body with heading, I think we could accomplish that. Thoughts? The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 22:55, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

I think there's probably a limit to how much further the article can be expanded, although it should be restructured slightly to make the biographical narrative more coherent and chronological. Normally, in a biography for a long-dead person, uncontroversial, non-self-serving material can be sourced from autobiographical material or material published by people who knew him, e.g. when he married, whom he married, how the marriage ended, the two years he spent in California following retirement from his practice in 1971, etc.. However, given the attitude amongst some editors both here (and at the AFD) that this article requires the kind of sourcing you'd use for an article about open heart surgery, I don't think it's going happen without a huge time-sink. The whole notion of informing the reader about the basic facts of a person's life has gone right out the window. I've written approximately two hundred biographies on Wikipedia, almost all of them for long-dead people in the arts. This is the first time I've ever contributed to an article about a long-dead figure in this area and I've never seen anything like it. I have found the experience bizarre and not one I'm likely to repeat. Voceditenore (talk) 09:33, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Since the deletion discussion is over I figured I'd try to break it up with a heading. Otherwise, I think I'll stay away from this article... I also see evidence of the hyper-critical deletions you mentioned and I don't want to get into another revert war here. Kindzmarauli (talk) 15:21, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

India

Regarding this [1], can Jytdog please indicate to me where in the article it already says that Stone retired and moved to India? If you're referring to the clinic he had there, I believe that was in operation during the same period he had his practice in Chicago. He couldn't have been retired if he was running a clinic in India or elsewhere. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 01:17, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

It didn't state anywhere in the article that he retired before the wholesale removal of referenced material. Jytdog, if you read, Radhasoami Reality: The Logic of a Modern Faith (Princeton University Press), you'll see that Stone had been going to India and staying at the Radha Soami Satsang Beas for years before his retirement. He was initiated there in 1945. You'll also see that he then completely retired to the Satsang in Beas for the last 8 years of his life, living in a house with his niece Louise Hilger, and died there—in Beas. p. 203, p. 218. I have also restored the material about his disciple Pannetier (already in one reference) and added a second—total overkill—but obviously that's what some are insisting on. Honestly, the blanket removal of material without even reading the content of existing references, let alone the article itself is quite extraordinary. It left the article both incoherent and misleading. Voceditenore (talk) 08:45, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

OK I did conflate about the bit about treating people in India for 10 years and retirement. btw the google books version of the source for the "treating for 10 years bit" cuts off. Does that source actually say that? Jytdog (talk) 15:56, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Are you referring to the Neher, Andrew (1990). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination? That reference didn't belong after that sentence. It verifies the Panettier bit which got moved around. The Princeton reference verifies that he had been living in retirement in India for the 8 years prior to his death. The free clinics in India is referenced to an offline book by Stone himself. But I imagine it's similar to this edition of it and in particular this page. There's no reason to say he ran the clinics for free if that bothers you. There is also a useful chronology of Stone's life here at the website of The International Polarity Education Alliance, which states that from 1955 Stone spent six months of each year in Chicago practicing and teaching, and six months in India at the Radha Soami center and the surrounding areas. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of that simple statement, and frankly see no reason why the chronology cannot be used to source other simple facts of the biographical narrative as long as the source is made clear in the text as well as the reference. This is not a BLP nor does it require the kind of sources you'd need for a medical condition or treatment. Voceditenore (talk) 17:15, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes I meant that source. if that promotional claim is sourced only to an SPS it shouldn't be in the article. I'll remove that. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 19:21, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Please reach consensus before deleting content. Thanks. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 23:41, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

see above for V's suggestion. Where is the information about treating people for free independently and reliably sourced? Jytdog (talk) 23:47, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

You are an enormously frustrating person to deal with. The level of sourcing you're demanding on this article is greatly outsized compared to the length of the article itself and, frankly, ludicrous. In fact, it's downright disruptive and probably pointy. I think at this point it would be most helpful if you'd step back from this article as you seem to have an unhealthy fixation on it. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 03:32, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Please discuss content, not contributor. I see you removed the bit about "free" which is great. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 03:48, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Paragraph about ideas

In the section above entitled "inappropriate content on Wikipedia", discussion resulted in the decision to leave out coverage of Stone's ideas. Someone has decided to go against that consensus. Can they explain why? The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 13:52, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

A discussion between two editors is not a "consensus", secondly those sources listed above about "polarity therapy" did not strictly mention Stone so this is why they were removed (I even agree with that). The new references added in April all mention Stone specifically and that his claims are quackery or untestable. Therefore these new references should not be deleted. HealthyGirl (talk) 14:15, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree with HealthyGirl here - the text mentioned above was removed for various reasons including it was way too long, it didn't discuss Stone himself, and so on. It was not simply because it was "coverage of Stone's ideas." Indeed, any decent biography article of an academic or scientist should discuss that person's ideas. But Stone's main claim to fame - polarity therapy - falls squarely under the WP:FRINGE guideline, and therefore there should be at least SOME criticism of the idea right here in this article or we are violating that guideline. --Krelnik (talk) 15:48, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

From WP:LEAD "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents." so as this is the thing that makes Stone most notable, I've put it back where it belongs. -Roxy the dog of Doom™ woof 19:58, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm. I've buggered that up haven't I. I'll look and see if I can sort it out. -Roxy the dog of Doom™ woof 20:03, 9 June 2016 (UTC)Done -Roxy the dog of Doom™ woof 20:13, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Great, so now we've decided the article can be about Stone's ideas. I'll reinsert the content above that was deleted because someone else didn't want it to discuss his ideas. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 04:42, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

No, that is not what folks were saying above. Jytdog (talk) 04:46, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

You would say that. Either we discuss his ideas or we don't, you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 04:50, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Please discuss content, not contributors. Thanks. Folks above were not saying the article should include some discussion of his ideas, as well as a description of how they are FRINGE, per PSCI. No one said the article should be about his ideas. Jytdog (talk) 04:54, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Stop abusing guidelines to preserve articles in your preferred version. Thanks. The paragraph they repeatedly insert clearly covers Stone's ideas and should be removed in keeping with your logic. I've done so. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 05:00, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

You have not presented a valid reason for this. Am going to bed now; there is no WP:NODEADLINE here and others will surely put this back. Jytdog (talk) 05:06, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

(Outdent) I didn't need to. You did, when you said above that the article should be about Stone and not about his ideas. The paragraph you keep reinserting begins "Stone's ideas have been...", it is clearly about Stone's ideas and not Stone. I would be fine with the compromise of having it in the body of the article, where the other brief bit about his writings is, but you and the others up there refuse to compromise at all. YOU are the one who did not want this article to be about his ideas. I didn't even know this guy existed until a couple months ago and couldn't give two whits about polarity therapy, but I sure as hell do care about POV pushing and people turning articles into unbalanced slam pieces. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 05:17, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Stone's known for his quack ideas and we need to mention that. Precisely what flavour of quackery he flogged, is not important - enough to mention it's a type of vitalism. If we refer to "polarity therpy" we are obliged per WP:PSCI to contextualize it. This is NPOV, a non-negotiable pillar of Wikipedia. Alexbrn (talk) 05:50, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

I have removed the last line from the lead. From WP:LEAD, Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although not everything in the lead must be repeated in the body of the text. The lead exists to summarize the body. If you would like to discuss Stone's ideas a little bit and who and why people call them quackery etc, feel free to do so. Again from WP:LEAD, According to the policy on due weight, emphasis given to material should reflect its relative importance to the subject, according to published reliable sources. This is true for both the lead and the body of the article. If there is a difference in emphasis between the two, editors should seek to resolve the discrepancy. Please get consensus before inserting it again. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 10:47, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

You are correct Kingsindian that nothing should be in the lead that is not in the body and your removal was justified on that basis; thanks for that. I added it to the body. The first paragraph of the body does discuss his ideas a bit and this is the response per PSCI. Jytdog (talk) 11:38, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Yup, looks good - though we could now re-summarize some of this material in the lede too to get things just right. Alexbrn (talk) 12:41, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

removed my own comment if that's allowed - it's a decent article but the name of one of his books is off also, doesn't this belong here? https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5be365255cfd79dc41e5dc90/t/5c05bbcfaa4a99f49168b0f3/1543879631850/Triune_Autonomic_Nervous_System_Article-Chitty.pdf

pretty obvious there is a direct contribution of people like Dr. Stone, Deepak Chopra, Walter Russell, E Graham Howe, Usui to something valid