Talk:Gene Savoy

Fluff job

This article is full of questionable assertions, giving to Mr. Savoy an air of respectability and a degree of credit that seems to me is not deserved. For example, Bingham was at Vilcabamba in 1911, and reported about it. We need to clean up this article. Kdammers 03:49, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Fluff job

This article is full of questionable assertions, giving to Mr. Savoy an air of respectability and a degree of credit that seems to me is not deserved. For example, Bingham was at Vilcabamba in 1911, and reported about it. We need to clean up this article. Also, since it reads a lot like the Time obit, I wonder if it is cribbed from the People article mentioned in the former magazine? (I don't have access to the latter rag.) Kdammers 03:51, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Poor Style

The previous comment is inflammatory as is much of the text of the original article. Gene Savoy was a public figure with a documented history. Suppositions about his character are out-of-place here. Stick to the facts and give references. Unattributed opinions are also out-of-place here. I will be working on a rewrite with appropriate references and photographs. owlsplace 21:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

unverified and probably false statement

"Savoy was credited with finding four of Peru's most important archaeological sites, including Vilcabamba, the last refuge for the Incas before the Spanish conquistadors took over." Credited by whom? The wik article on Vilc. credits Savoy with the identification (and successful spreading of this) of the Vilc. site as Vilc. itself, but not with the actual discovery. Kdammers (talk) 09:46, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Getting ready for a major rewrite of this article

User Kdammers seems to have some nits to pick for whatever reason. Since I lived and worked with Savoy for 30+ years I think I can manage to solve any questions that might arise, with references. --owlsplace 03:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Owlsplace (talk • contribs)

Books by Gene Savoy

In the interest of developing this article towards something like a feature article, I would like to provide here a complete list of the books by Gene Savoy, who was, after all, an author. The list to be used appears in the edit to this page dated 19 October 2009, which was undone. Rather than the bare bones list that now appears in the article, or the one that appears in my edit, I would like to provide full bibliographic information on each text. Since all religious books by Gene Savoy have a single publisher, I thought it best to note the publisher at the top rather than repeat it twenty times below. If there is a better method, please let me know. Please discuss. --RGP (talk) 19:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I have put the list online. I have one question though. Because all the books on religion by Gene Savoy are published by the International Community of Christ, I thought it best to simply note that at the top of the list rather than repeat the name of the publisher in the list twenty times. Is there a better way to do this? -- RGP (talk) 20:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:BIOGRAPHY might be a good place to seek some help on these issues. --Ronz (talk) 19:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Other Sources on Gene Savoy

To provide further information on Gene Savoy from sources that probably cannot be used as references within this article even if it were to be well-developed, I would like to make a section of "Other Sources" that lists or links to books on the subject, to feature-length films and videos, and to YouTube videos. The list appears on my edit dated 19 October 2009, which was undone. Please discuss. --RGP (talk) 19:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

A list on this talk page of potential references would be helpful. --Ronz (talk) 22:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Here is what I had in mind. Would this list be better under a title like "Further Information" or "Further Reading"? How about putting "External Links" as a sub-section here as well? -- RGP (talk) 18:10, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Other Sources

Print Media

• Gene Savoy: Feature Articles

• Discovery of Lost Worlds (American Heritage Publishing, 1979)

• Forgotten Vilcabamba: Final Stronghold of the Incas, Vincent R. Lee (Sixpac Manco Publications, 2000)

• The Lost City of Pajaten (American Heritage Publishing, 1967)

• Marcahuasi – Kuźnia Bogów, Roman Warszewski (Dom Wydawniczy Bellona, Warszawa, 2000)

• Terres vierges mondes interdits, le grand livre des explorateurs; selection du Reader’s Digest (1973)

• The White Rock—An Exploration of the Inca Heartland (Overlook Press, 2003)

Video and Film Documentaries

• The Gran Vilaya Expeditions (Andean Explorers Foundation & Ocean Sailing Club, 1996)

• Lost City in the Clouds (Discovery Channel, 2001)

• Lost City of the Andes (KGO-TV ABC, 1987)

• Royal Roads to Discovery (Andean Explorers Foundation & Ocean Sailing Club, 1993)

• Secrets of the Cloud People (BBC-QED, 1998)

• Trail of the Feathered Serpent (CBS Charles Kuralt Adventure, 1970)

-- RGP (talk) 23:44, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Additional external links

I would like to add two new links to this article. Both are to YouTube and both have biographical value, it seems to me. One link is a long and biograpically detailed eulogy. The other is to comments by various religious leaders on Gene Savoy's work, both as a religious leader and as an explorer. Here they are. Let me know what you think:

• YouTube - Gene Savoy Eulogy, Part 1 of 5

• YouTube - Gene Savoy Remembered, Part 1 of 6

-- RGP (talk) 18:40, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Changing Reference Format

While working on an expansion of this article (you can see the work in progress in the sandbox on my user page), it has become clear to me that there are great advantages to changing the reference format from what it is now to shortened footnotes. Any problem with this? -- RGP (talk) 22:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Can you explain or provide a link to an example or discussion? --Ronz (talk) 03:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The example provided in the guidelines on citations is the article on "Augustus." I am working up a revision of the "Gene Savoy" article on my user page and have used it there. Please take a look and give your comments. It is extremely neat and useful when there are multiple references from the same source. -- RGP (talk) 21:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. You mean splitting the notes from the references themselves. It's very useful when there are many citations to the same references. Hard to maintain though, unless there are some tools to help (which I'm not aware). --Ronz (talk) 22:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

NPOV

The article relies far too much on self-published and primary sources to give undue weight to otherwise unimportant information, while at the same time not addressing related information from tertiary sources. We have some very good tertiary sources. The article should be based primarily upon them per WP:NPOV, especially in the choice of what to present and in how much depth. Instead, it appears the Self-published and primary sources are being used mostly to promote the religion founded by Savoy. --Ronz (talk) 19:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Using only tertiary sources, the section you are questioning would look pretty much like this:

“Over several decades, Savoy uncovered and institutionalized a modern system for spiritual self-regeneration he called Cosolargy, believing that similar esoteric systems were practiced by ancient high holy orders around the world, including those of ancient America, and were eventually lost, in whole or in part, to modern society.

“In 1959 Savoy established the International Community of Christ to impart Cosolargy as the basis for a new understanding of the Essenes and Jesus as the precursors to a modern messianic age. Spiritual Christ energy, he taught, generates out of a non-physical world and manifests in the physical universe by means of solar energy, which serves as the “carrier” of the intelligence potential originating with the Thought and Will of God. Transformed sunlight, he believed, was the means to generate spiritual consciousness and the immortal Light body, which, once developed, could commune with God.

“Savoy wrote a number of books about his explorations and produced a steady stream of scholarly and transcendent literature, which included more than 60 volumes on Cosolargy, the Essenes, the origins of Christianity, and comparative religion.”

That is pretty meager. Without the use of publications by the International Community of Christ as citations, there can be no mention of the educational and research programs he founded and no mention of the sources of the doctrines he taught unless these statements were to go unreferenced. Is that preferable?

These publications in themselves do not violate any of the requirements of “Verifiability” stated in WP:SELFPUB. Is your objection that these publications are given visibility in the article and so seem to you to “promote the religion founded by Savoy.” Or is it that the descriptions of doctrine seem to you to be promotional rather that descriptive? -- RGP (talk) 00:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we only use the better sources, but that we use other sources appropriately. --Ronz (talk) 02:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any specific suggestions about how to use these other sources, or is it time to call in the biography specialists?

There is one other possibility. Would it be more appropriate to move statements on what Savoy taught to a new article dealing specifically with the International Community of Christ? Would that better address the problem you see? -- RGP (talk) 00:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Having a separate article specifically about the International Community of Christ would at least allow us to focus better on this one.

The article should be based mostly on the secondary and tertiary sources. Primary sources should only be used to provide important details, and meet WP:PSTS (and WP:SELFPUB if applicable).

Yes, it would be good to get some help here. WP:BIOG is a good place to get help. --Ronz (talk) 00:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

While working on the new article "International Community of Christ" on my user page, I found a tertiary source that works very well to replace my old references to the Church and University web sites, which were the only citations I could find until now for certain statements. Please take a look and let me know what you think about the neutrality issue at this point, now that a good number of primary sources have been replaced. -- RGP (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The Critiques of His Theories section is inappropriate per WP:NPOV. Such infomation should be included within the appropriate section of the article and given proper weight based upon the independent, reliable sources. --Ronz (talk) 20:01, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

You have mentioned before that it is better to fold critiques into the biographical narrative. I tried that, but not successfully. Incorporating negative statements and attacks into the body of a biography colors and biases a biography rather than neutralizing it. A biographical article cannot be expected to follow the same rules as a newspaper article. I did nome looking around and found a number of biographies in Wikipedia that had sections devoted to controversies. (I will round them up and list them if that will help.) So I would ask you to reconsider your statement on the propriety of including a separate section for this purpose. -- RGP (talk) 00:09, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

It's all part of the same problem - giving undue weight to self-published and primary sources, while underplaying or ignoring what's stated in the high-quality sources.

However, we do have WP:BLP to help with negative statements and attacks. Of course, BLP tells us to rely upon the best sources, and that contentous, poorly sourced material should be removed. --Ronz (talk) 02:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I will try to address and balance out the contentious statements one at a time. Perhaps it will be possible to fold them into the narrative after that. --RGP (talk) 00:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Much improved! Good work. --Ronz (talk) 23:48, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I tried. Now how do we go about resolving the neutrality issue? Between ourselves? Seeking consensus? Asking a third party? (As you know, this is new to me.)RGP (talk) 21:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)