Self-righteous indignation voted the world's most popular emotion.
It's addictive, we all love it. Second rate journos make their bucks creating it, though they generally do it with more economy of words than this.
Wikipedia is a cheap target, and one not always easy to defend. Far from the "free-for-all" of popular perception, its rules are complex and comprehensive. Wikipedia administrators have no more power than any other editor. No one can create a policy or "maintain strict control" over an article. Consensus rules. What any editor can do is get thoroughly familiar with the Wikipedia Rules and Guidelines and insist they be followed, inviting comments from other experienced editors when conflict arises. Jossi has done this meticulously. I have tried to also, in the thousands of edits to the hundred or so Wikipedia articles I have worked on. They are good guidelines, particularly the stringent rules regarding Biographies of Living Persons. Believe me, if you became well-known and someone were creating an article on you, you would want them to be followed.
Basically, statements that become part of a Wikipedia BLP have to be from impeccable sources, researchers and commentators outstanding in their field. In the case of a religious or spiritual leader like Prem Rawat, statements by current devotees, except those of an uncontroversial nature (how many children, place of residence, etc) are not acceptable, as are those from former devotees. Neither are liable to be neutral or informative enough for an encyclopedia. Opinions expressed by members of competing religions are also disqualified, for obvious reasons. Tabloid articles do not get to first base. They are the ones that use emotive and meaningless words like "cult."
Part of the difficulty in producing an article on Prem Rawat's career is that once he abandoned the Indian aspects of his work (the ashrams, mahatmas, remnants of Hinduism, etc) and focused on encouraging the effort towards inner experience, most researchers lost interest. So there are few studies on Prem Rawat from the last 25 years, though in terms of world travel, addresses delivered, welfare work, it appears to have been his most active time.
It seems to me Jossi has been entirely open in the declaration of his Conflict of Interest. Wikipedia work is not an inquisition into someone's personal life, and we have no right to know any more about his activities. He continues to give advice on the article's Talk Page but I can find no place where he actively edited the article since declaring his COI.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
