Talk:Progressive utilization theory

So what needs to be improved first?

Please be specific. Here's mine:

1) There were a couple of independent, reliable sources unearthed after the current text was proposed. There are two in particular I can get out of UC Berkeley later this week.

2) Prout logo and photo of Sarkar would help the layout a lot.

3) More reliable sources. Not sure how realistic this is, but the ceiling on the quality of this article is going to be determined by WP:RS more than anything else.

Others? Garamond Lethet
c 05:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a SAGE account? There's one article I saw in a SAGE journal that looks promising. Mangoe (talk) 21:29, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Go ahead and post the cite. Garamond Lethet
c 21:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

As to additional sources, there's this. It's peer-reviewed, but I'm not sure how to describe the author. According to this he's getting around to getting his Ph.D. in economics but has taught the topic at the community college level for years. "Professor" is a bit too strong, as is "economist", but "teacher" and "instructor" are a little too weak. Suggestions? Garamond Lethet
c 04:39, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Instructor of economics.[1] Location (talk) 05:00, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Will do. Garamond Lethet
c 05:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

A few other ideas on what I'd like to see added to the article:

1. A bit more info on the context of where these ideas came from. (The Hindu caste comment by Sil is the only thing we have.) I don't know that this information is available from independent sources.
2. I'd like to include the fact that Proutist Universal (or whatever it was) was formed to propagate these ideas, and that it was intentionally kept separate from Ananda Marga. (I think this is Crovetto, but I'll have to reread the article to find it.)
3. Any info on whether or not Proutist is still a going concern. The web site doesn't appear to have been updated in a long time.
4. Mention of the Hilton bombing (was this Proutists, Ananda Marga, or are the two effectively synonymous)?
5. Listing Sarkar's works that discuss PROUT with a small amount detail (including the fact that the books are self-published).
6. A bibliography of secondary works: there are few enough of them that we might as well list them all with a bit of commentary for each.

Garamond Lethet
c 22:37, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm at UCDavis this weekend and they have [Prout Manifesto]. Only two copies of this book known to worldcat. It's in their Special Collection which doesn't open until 10a Monday, so I'll try to extend my trip until then. If anyone else here is in the NorCal area and can get access to this, let me know. Garamond Lethet
c 20:49, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Still very lopsided

I have made some contributions to the article. Someone suggested adding the logo. I did that. I also added the five fundamental principles of PROUT, because any article on this subject is absurdly incomplete without an inclusion of these five principles. As someone else (Garamond?) tagged the article as a stub in relation to economics, I added a section on PROUT's economic theory. These insertions also help to redress the imbalance of the article by omitting any input from Sarkar himself. However, in my opinion, the article is still hugely unbalanced, as PROUT is much more than an economic theory.

Regarding the comments that I added in the other section (Renamed to "Opinions of others"), they are for constructive purposes. Most of those comments can be easily addressed. But please do not just delete them. I inserted the comments rather than fixing the problems myself, because this section of the article is very poorly constructed in my opinion, and I doubt that the FTN people would appreciate my reconstruction of it. --Abhidevananda (talk) 06:31, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Please stop uncivil remarks here and on my personal Talk page

There has been no "tag bombing" or "edit warring". I am trying to improve an article under construction with helpful tips and additional material. I would have preferred to do this on a temp page, but the FTN people wanted to do it in an active article. I am trying to work cooperatively with others to create a joint article. Just passing negative remarks and threats (here and on my personal Talk page) is not helpful in this respect. As for going to ARBIND, I have no objection. I also had no objection to going to mediation. The FTN people may do what they think best, but - in the meantime - I would appreciate greater civility on their part. --Abhidevananda (talk) 06:58, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Abhidevananda, why not start working on and discussing material to go in, one piece at a time? North8000 (talk) 22:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The general problem was that each of those pieces didn't have any secondary sourcing. That doesn't make them useless, but I would be reluctant to have primary-sourced material taking up more than half of the article. Garamond Lethet
c 22:35, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Agree in general. But how 'bout a little bit? Plus would any of those removed images be good? North8000 (talk) 22:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

That sounds good to me! Garamond Lethet
c 23:33, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Article Structure

I'm thinking of splitting the description into "PROUT as social order" and "PROUT as economic theory" with Crovetto's work in the former and Friedman in the latter. Ravi Batra may be able to make an appearance in both; I won't be able to tell until I get back to the library.

Thoughts? I'm a little be leery of giving so much weight to Friedman—the paper has only been cited once—but there's so little independent work in this area that I hate to discard anything that has been peer reviewed.

Garamond Lethet
c 17:43, 20 March 2013 (UTC)