Talk:Scientology/Archive 22

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Intro section, please end this edit warring bs

RookZERO, what is your justification for deleting refs to several expert statements? Misou 22:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

This lead change was already discussed. Personally, I don't agree 100 % with this paragraph but it seems to be a consensus here and your changes today where without any explanation. The new source(scholars and "high courts") is ridiculous because it is an anonymous website. Good Night ! -- Stan _talk 23:11, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

... By the way, you started edit warring and have actually to explain your changes ! -- Stan _talk 23:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Misou, in the interests of making this Talk page accessible to all editors, please stick to the English langauge. Thanks. SheffieldSteel 13:12, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Just chit-chatting, no relevance text. Certainly the really important stuff will be said in English. Misou 21:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Misou, are you really attempting to irritate somebody in particular?--Fahrenheit451 05:54, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Misou, you keep trying to weasel "Journalists, critics and religious groups worldwide have often referred to the organization as a cult." into the one Greed and Power article in Time magazine. There's only one cite there because that's the introduction, and a whole pile of citation marks in the introduction makes the article look like junk. If you insist, a large number of news articles could be added: Time (Remmber Venus, 1952) through four Reader Digest articles, LA Times, SP Times (Pulitzer winning), that likely all use the C-word. From critics, we could get their opinions from their sites (an allowable RS use in this case). I'm less familiar with the religious groups, but there's likely a number over the years. (The Church of England when they got Narconon ads pulled might be a good place to look.) I really don't see why you're trying to twist that part unless you're hoping and planning to cause an edit war to try for another freeze in a favourable state. Some people, courts and organizations, from time to time, over the years, have called Scientology a cult. Get over it. AndroidCat 04:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Wake up. I didn't, Jehochman did. Stop reverting my valid contributions, this is fanatic. Misou 05:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

• "Since 1954 numerous social scientists and religious scholars all over the world have researched Scientology and its church organizations and published research papers, essays and expertises which typically consider Scientology a religious belief."
• Do all social scientists and religious scholars consider Scientology a religious belief? Is "typically" the right fit? Isn't Scientology a system of beliefs? What is the majority view of religious scholars and does it differ from social scientists? This is a very vague and poorly worded addition. The first sentence of this article states that the teachings of Scientology were intended as a basis for a new religion. If a clarification is required, or if there is some need to add critical support to that notion, it should be phrased clearly and have solid backing. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 05:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I am happy you saw it this time. It has solid backing. And yes, this is the conclusion by the majority of the about 60 expert statements I could find online. There is one guy who was paid by Scientology critics and said something else. He got his own section in the Church of Scientology article. Otherwise I am not aware of any other viewpoints. Misou 05:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

60 experts ? how many paid by scientology ? how many were Scientologists ? how many are amateur experts ? only one counterstatement (; ? Since 1954 ? All the court decisions since 1954 in every country(even in the US) made decisions based on reports by scholars ! And in history and now courts have ruled negative more than once worldwide against scientology. That sentence is WP:OR and grossly inacurate. -- Stan _talk 05:49, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

(e/c) Of the three sources, [1] is a collection gathered by the CoS, [2] is a book review, and [3] appears to have no association to anything whatsoever. I can't honestly conclude that this is anywhere near a complete or unbiased survey of all scholarly commentary on Scientology. A better summation drawn from the provided sources would be "it is the conclusion of a number of social scientists and religious scholars that Scientology is accurately described as a religion or new religious movement." Note that this differs from your version by simplifying the claims and not adding aggrandizing phrases. Of course, the presence of a large body of contradictory commentary would dilute any such claim. Your sources are not comprehensive, so it is difficult to determine whether this is the case. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 05:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Neuereligion.de is plainly a Pro-Scientology website, though I do not see direct links between it and the CoS (other, that is, than the fact that the entire site from front to back is nothing but pro-scientology articles, no critical commentary whatsoever). J. Gordon Melton is mentioned http://www.rickross.com/apologist.html#Gordon_Melton here, though Signature Books appears to be independent (as independent as a bookseller/publisher for a relatively small religion [mormonism] which is looking for quid-pro-quo recognition by other organizations can be). "There is one guy who was paid by Scientology critics and said something else." is plainly setting up a straw-man. Once one has filtered out all of the organizations which are plainly paid for or directly associated with the CoS, a simply Google search will show the disparity between scholars who accept scientology as a religion (the majority of which ARE scientologists, or are members of other such cults, similar to the disparity between 'pro'-evolution scientists and pro-ID/Creation 'scientists', though I accept that a minor number of independent philosophers DO believe scientology is a religion in the same way that a minor number of 'scientists' are anti-evolution), and those which either only accept it as a religious cult, or do not accept it as a religion in any form. 66.167.51.8 06:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Cults (modern meaning) are organisations, they are not belief sets.
• Christianity is a belief set. Therefore, it cannot be a cult.
• The Catholic Church is a organisation. It could be a cult, but isn't.
• Scientology is a belief set. Therefore, it cannot be a cult.
• The Church of Scientology could be a religion, a cult, or somewhere in between - this is a sliding scale, not an either/or. So can any other such organisation.

I've read many of the papers claiming Scientology to be a religion (I've even written a critique of them!) and they are all concerned with beliefs, not organisation. None address the question as to whether the Church is a cult, nor were the authors asked to do so. The reverse is also true - to claim anything about the Church does not invalidate the beliefs. --Hartley Patterson 23:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Cults are not merely organisations. Cults are organisations which hide behind a cloak of 'religious belief', and in most cases do so only because calling one's organisation a 'religion' is frequently a shield of sorts against all criticism. Dawkins, Degrasse-Tyson, and others have been combatting this in the public forum far better than I can do here, so I will leave that topic be.

The Catholic Church is indeed, and has been frequently recognised as, a cult. That it is ancient and has based itself on what might be considered a 'valid' religious belief system is of no consequence. It may be considered a cult because it is an organisation which concentrates power in a single individual (The Pope) whose word is considered infallible and whose decisions are considered 'law'. The same individual (The Pope) may decide who will or will not be given spiritual rewards ('saved') within that organisation (via the power of excommunication).

'Christianity' (as well as Islam) is a belief set and cannot be considered a cult as it is not headed by any living person. Outside of specific offshoots (Catholicism), the only individual who is capable of providing any reward or punishment is an intangible spiritual being. No physical being retains any control over this basic belief set and, according to the various teachings of this belief set, no physical being is capable of altering any of the teachings or beliefs contained within.

'Scientology' is a belief set, but is a special case. As Scientology is, according to the belief set, wholly controlled by the physical (The Church of Scientology), it is a cult, and cannot be seperated into "belief" and "cult" or "belief" and "organisation". The organisation (CoS) *contains* the belief set, and not the other way around. 66.167.51.8 06:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

You make an interesting point, but as the article itself notes in the second paragraph, "Scientology also refers to the Church of Scientology". The two are so closely intertwined that to artificially separate them would be an injustice to our readers. Foobaz·o< 00:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

A little more WP:OR (: Do you think Scientology can be only a belief set ? I would consider every policy letters (tech and administrative) as part of the belief set. At least the administrative part requires an organised group of people wich would be an organisation. Regardless that the term Scientology is a trademark, can the term Scientology really be used only for the belief set or rather for any group of people wich practicices the belief set in organized form? Most encyclopedias define the term for both. I just read "the term defines the ideology as well as CoS". But remember also definitions wich also included the Free Zone(wich would make sense to me s.o.). ... the belief set of Scientolgy can not be a cult as the belief set of catholic church(cristianity) can not be a cult. But Scientology and catholic church could be a cult ?! -- Stan _talk 01:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC) ... and cristianity may be practiced without any organization but Scientology can't why it would make sense to me that there is no need for a term wich differs the belief set from an organization where it's practiced. -- Stan _talk 02:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

My point is that this has been covered already in these discussion pages. That Christianity and the many organisations that its adherents belong to are not the same is obvious. That this also applies to Scientology is not obvious, but to make sense an Encyclopedia must make this distinction, as we do. The only clear way to do this semantically is to consistently call the beliefs 'Scientology' and the organisation 'the Church of Scientology', while noting from the start that the Church is usually called 'Scientology' in the media.

Scientology can be practiced outside any organisation. As it does not include communal worship, it is easier to do so. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hartley Patterson (talk • contribs) 09:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Scientology cannot be practiced outside of the Church of Scientology and remain Scientology. This is a core component of the belief set. Further, anyone claiming to practice "Scientology" outside of the Church of Scientology is subject to lawsuits, as the Church of Scientology has copyrighted the entire belief structure, all related materials, and the name. It must further be noted that a core component of Scientology is Auditing, and it is not possible to legally obtain an 'E-Meter' outside of the CoS. 66.167.51.8 06:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the introduction does not set out to show or prove that Scientology is or is not a cult, but only to state that they have frequently been called a cult during their history. AndroidCat 02:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

This is factually not correct (the GROUP has been called a cult) and as valid as saying it has been frequently called a religious community or a bonafide group. By dozens of scholars, a bunch of governments etc. As Bravehartbear dug out a few. These are studies, a lot of them only available offline, or on some fan sites. If you want that debate, AndroidCat, we'll sit here forever. 60 years of expertises, most internationally known scholars have said something about it, testified in court, wrote essays and articles. You are aware of them but turn a blind eye, obviously, if it doesn't fit your think. Get real. Misou 01:13, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Single-sourced refs in Scientology as a state-recognized religion

(I've made the same comment about the intro of the Scientology as a state-recognized religion article, but since the remaining stub here is currently the same as the intro, I might as well make it here too.) All the references in the stub, except two CESNUR ones, are directly sourced to Church of Scientology web sites. One of the CESNUR ones is text of a letter from a South African official to P Sondergaard of the Church of Scientology, so Scientology is part of that chain. The other CESNUR one has serious problems because of the large differences between their English version[4] and the Le Monde text in French[5]. The fact that many of these claimed recognitions seem to be close to Hubbard's March 13 birthday (a CoS favourite for slipping empty "L. Ron Hubbard Day" proclamation requests past city mayor staffs) only deepens my unease at how reliable and verifiable the sources are. AndroidCat 12:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Standardizing punctuation?

A recent edit -- sorry, I'm not a Wiki pro and don't know how to do diffs yet -- reminded me that Wikipedia is an international resource. RookZERO moved a comma into quote marks, per American English. Under most circumstances, commas and sentence-ending punctuation should be placed inside quotes. Example: "Religion is an interesting subject," said the Wikipedia editor. But in British Enlish, the reverse is true. So... Which are we adhering to in this article? --GoodDamon 05:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's Manual of Style, "punctuation marks are placed inside the quote marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation." Foobaz·o< 12:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Interesting! I wasn't aware of Wikipedia's manual of style. I'll have to read it before commenting any further on punctuation. Thanks! --GoodDamon 16:02, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Messed up references

A lot of references don't actually say what the sentence before it is saying, e.g. the very first reference doesn't say anything like:

Scientology is a body of teachings and related techniques created by American science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard in 1952 as an outgrowth of his earlier self-help system, Dianetics. Hubbard later characterized Scientology as an "applied religious philosophy" and the basis for a new religion.

in fact, it's just a picture time-line with captions. Please no pro- or anti-Scientology people edit this, wait for a neutral person to make those edits, thanks. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 20:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The reference is obviously for the previous sentence in the introduction. I don't think an edit-war will break out if I shift the ref. Mind you, there are an awful lot of "Scientology says" ipsie dixie references in the article. AndroidCat 21:00, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Still, you seem to be involved in a lot of Scientology related things so I suggest you don't do anything, especially with other references that have less obvious references. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 21:05, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can suggest... AndroidCat 21:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Bizarre. Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 04:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

What is "bizarre"? Jeffrey.Kleykamp 13:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess I don't really know what you mean by "involved in a lot of Scientology related things". But from the outside, it looks as if you're saying that people with a history of editing Scientology articles should not continue to do so, and I can't understand why anyone would say that... so my conclusion is that something weird is going on. Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 14:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Other Scientology Related Organizations

I belive this section should be renamed as many of the organizations are simply frontgroups for Scientology and not just related organizations.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 158.234.250.71 (talk • contribs) 11:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 214.13.18.60 (talk • contribs) 06:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

"This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject." Please refer to the second sentence of this discussion page. The quality of an article is not helped by your opinions on the subject.Pafufta816 19:41, 8 August 2007 (UTC)Seth

If a reliable source describes a related organisation as a frontgroup, then that may be notable enough to include. But in general I think the term "frontgroup" is probably a word to avoid, in that it is rather non-neutral, having connotations of deception. Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 21:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

http://www.xenu.net/ is a reliable source, being the only consistently available source for verified information on Scientology's actions. The site has specific sections dealing with the various front-groups for Scientology. They are accurately described as "fronts" in that they are ostensibly independent organizations devoted to various causes, but are actually scientology recruitment centers which are directly linked to CoS. This is no less a "front" than a garbage-hauling operation used to launder money for the mafia. 66.167.51.8 05:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

http://www.xenu-directory.net/documents/scnsecularentities-royalties.html is a very well documented list of the many of these front-groups. RvLeshrac 08:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

????? What the heck????? Xenu.net is an anti-scientology website an it has its own agenda. That is far from NPOV. This is an encyclopedia, we are not to judge but to report. You can't call this group is a front group but you can say that some critics say it is a front group. Bravehartbear 20:09, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

HYLBTL publishing date

There has been an edit war over the publishing date of "Have You Lived Before This Life". General consensus seems to be for 1960, but i found an edition that Amazon claims was published in 1958. Does anyone still have reason to believe the first edition was published in 1960? Foobaz·o< 01:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have many reasons to believe it's 1960. The CoS says it's 1960, in its Technical volumes, in the copyright date, Hubbatrd says implicitly it's 1960 in the bulletins and articles he wrote in 1960 to announce the release of the book. The confusion comes from the history. In Oct-Nov 58 was the London 5th Advanced Clinical Course. During this scientologists came up with a lot of past lives memories, including space opera. End of Nov 58, Hubbard called for staff to put together these experiences for a future book. The book was completed in 1960. --Leocomix 09:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

balancing the controversy

I noticed two major objections to the controversy part in the lead.

Su_Jada beliefs: The church, on the other hand, holds that many of these issues were laid to rest by the recognition in 1993 by the IRS of the mother church as being "operated exclusively for religious and charitable purposes" after their review of "voluminous information provided by the Church regarding its financial and other operations." Misou wanted to insert that many governments and scholars consider Scientology as a religion.

my thoughts: Su_Jada's source(IRS) makes no statements that "this issues were laid to rest". After 1993 the controversy between critics,journalists, courts, some governments and Scientology is still the same and the recognition by the IRS is only for the US anyway. Su_Jadas prediction is quite unreasonable WP:OR. However, the recognition in the US as a religion is probably a very important and noteable issue even if it doesn't contradicts the controversy in general and a "religous charater" does not contradict the allegation that Scientology is a cult(There is an overlap). I would suggest following sentence in the intro instead of Su_Jadas aproach: "However, some governments and scholars consider Scientology as a religion today." It might be not the majority of scholars and governments wich do that but there are clearly some. It would avoid that the lead does inflate to an inappropriate degree. -- Stan _talk 01:15, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism edits

A little reminder about what vandalism is: "is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia." (per WP:VANDAL). Removing text to slant an article, changing content to cheat normal readers, are vandalism. Get a graffiti spray can and spray your daddy's bike. That's vandalism and his reaction might teach you the point more efficiently than a lot of Wikipedia talk page yap. Misou 02:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Hartley, listen up

How do you - fighting for an anonymous subdomained freebie website with invented, pardon, anonymized interviews - that this site has two Waldo B's? One Bettendorf (2004), another one Bettenforf (16 Aug 2007), with two different stories and dates? Seems the same person to me and I only read like 10 minutes. Misou 02:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I changed '100' to '200' as a factual update, the link to the Title of the webpages - 'Through the Door'. 'Anti-scientology' is tautological, every link in the Critical section is 'anti'. Anonymous I'll give you, it is a feature that contributers are not required to identify themselves. I'll put that back. --Hartley Patterson 03:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It's funny you should speak of clarifying what vandalism is while endlessly minimizing the CoS's rightful criticisms. You clearly have little interest in objectivity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.83.12.78 (talk) 19:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I realize this page has been edited to death

But this doesn't seem all too NPOV:

"In some instances, former members have claimed the Church used information obtained in auditing sessions against them.[131][132][133] While such a claim would be actionable as extortion, blackmail or harassment within most legal jurisdictions"

The first sentence is fine. It is fact. The first part of the second sentence above seems to belittle Church critics, seems unnecessary and has no proof of the claim. Sorry, I'm not a Scientology-article-editing regular around here but that caught my eye.. Panfakes 16:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, that kind of stuff isn't NPOV. Maybe you should make those edits, because it's new blood that this article needs. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 17:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Great idea. Let's act. Misou 17:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Summoning

Misou, you rudely called me to this talk page. I assume you wish to discuss a recent edit of mine. I looked over the diff carefully, and i believe RookZERO's edit improved the page considerably. You reverted it as vandalism, which it was not. If you're going to revert people, please at least use the edit summary truthfully. Now, here i am, is there anything you'd like to say to me? Foobaz·o< 02:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I am happy you decided for a more mannered tone, great. Yes, chime in above. I'd like to hear from you why it is ok to use personal, clearly biased pages as ELs. Let's start at the top of the list. Misou 02:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of ALL Critical Links

Interestingly, Misou's most recent edits have removed all links save those directly to the Church of Scientology itself. Relevent links (both pro, anti, and neutral to) Scientology are now gone, but the most significant aspect of this change is as a method of attempting to remove critical sources that are not used in the article but are related to the subject matter.(RookZERO 03:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC))

Psychocrap you talking. Make a constructive proposal and we can talk about it. But don't give me this nonsense. Misou 03:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The solution is simple. Leave the titles of the links as the titles on the sites, rather than replacing them with your commentary on them or censoring them entirely.(RookZERO 03:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC))

That does not change the fact that those ELs are in violation of WP:EL because they are private hobby sites full of biased data collections. You are trying to change the subject, that's all. Those sites are a violation of WP policy, quite simple. And I have not gotten any good argument why they are not such violation. But for starters, let's adjust all the titles to the homepage title then. I did to the Scientology links just as you did to the yapyap ones. Misou 03:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

And Scientology's official websites are completely free of biased data collections? Dave420 15:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I just read WP:EL. External websites that are biased do not violate it in any way in and of themselves. Only when links with a particular perspective substantially outnumber links with an opposing perspective is it a violation. The relevant section reads: "On articles with multiple points of view, the number of links dedicated to one point of view should not overwhelm the number dedicated to other equal points of view, nor give undue weight to minority views. Add comments to these links informing the reader of their point of view. If one point of view dominates informed opinion, that should be represented first. For more information, see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view—in particular, Wikipedia's guidelines on undue weight."

I'd like to point out here that there are 15 links in the "External links" section pointing to Scientology websites, while there are 10 pointing to sites critical of Scientology. It seems to me to be a ratio very favorable to Scientology. Furthermore, the favorable links are listed first, which -- according to WP:EL guidelines, would indicate that they represent the view that "dominates informed opinion." So I'm not sure what your concern over the critical websites is about. --GoodDamon 19:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have replaced a simple title with an editorializing description on the Scientology articles, just as you did on the independant ones. The only difference is that this editorializing seems to be quite positive, lauding the groups and praising their proported efficacy. WP:EL does not prohibit linking to sites that take a side on an issue, if fact it simply warns not to allow the number of links to sites advocating one view to overwhelm the number of links to sites proposing the other view. You seem to believe that simply stating that all critical information violates WP:EL enough times will make it true.(RookZERO 04:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC))

No, I copy/pasted the "title" line from the website. Which is how the site owner calls his/her site, so I did what you proposed, made "the titles of the links as the titles on the sites". Misou 04:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Terryeo attempted to use the excuse that critical sites are "personal Web pages" a full year ago, in an attempt to get their links removed from these articles. It didn't work then, either. --Modemac 13:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

hooray, the page is locked

I can go do something more useful now, like go to sleep. Misou 03:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The night is young. You can always run over to Church of Scientology and provoke another freeze there again as well. AndroidCat 04:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm currently in a different time zone. And I'm not taking the blame for "provoking a freeze". That was RookZERO who started it. I was willing to discuss on the talk page all along. But yes, I asked for it, because I like my time well used (like for sleeping). Bye for now. Misou 04:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Misou, you're awfully quick to start the finger-pointing. Foobaz·o< 04:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I call this contributions page and page history reading. Ciao. Misou 05:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Links to be removed

I believe the following links should be removed from the external links section, as they do not relate directly to the subject of the article, Scientology, and there are other wikipedia articles in which they are listed appropriately:

• The Way To Happiness: no need to list this here, this external link is appropriately listed in Wikipedia article The_Way_to_Happiness;
• CCHR: same reason;
• Criminon: same rason;
• Narconon: same reason (or else might as well list the other views on Narconon);
• Foundation for a Drug-Free world: same reason;
• Youth for Human Rights International: same reason.

Raymond Hill 14:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

As there are Wikipedia articles about each group already, perhaps the links should be adjusted to point to the main articles instead of the external websites? It's just a thought. --GoodDamon 19:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Raymond, i agree that those links should be removed per your reasoning. There is also a Wikipedia article for Operation Clambake, we can do the same for it. Foobaz·o< 19:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Good Damon. We can replace several external links with internal links to the relevant wikipedia article.(RookZERO 00:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC))

I would also be happy with GoodDamon's solution. Foobaz·o< 01:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

If this would be about making you happy, we might or might not have an encyclopedia at some point. I prefer to stick to some more stable rules, like WP:EL. Sounds old-fashioned and unpopular, I know. We either get rid of this whole link collection and leave the main site on the subject (Scientology, not "anti-Scientology") in the article. Or you will have to live with what is there. Raymond might just be pissed about my recent talk that he is an off-wiki anti-Scientology propagandist running his own website (illegally promoted on Wikipedia all over the place) and brings up the above in response to that. A bit lame, if true. Right, Raymond? Misou 05:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I mean, just check this one out for real: "* Narconon: same reason (or else might as well list the other views on Narconon);". Comparing an international drug rehab program with some dinky personal and outdated website set up by Dave "NoClue" Touretzky, who does not even dare to put his name on the site? Also that they are some kind of buddies doesn't make it more ok. Back to square one then. Misou 05:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Your interpretation of WP:EL is unorthodox to say the least.(RookZERO 05:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC))

I noticed, isn't that amazing?! You would think that someone reads all this policy and important stuff there on WP:PG. Misou 05:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, just a reminder to stick to the points I brought, not speculate about what might or might not affect my mood, etc. As said, the links I enumerated above are not directly related to the subject of the article. Narconon.org does not contain further information on Scientology specifically. Of course, it has been argued that Narconon is Scientology (in many newspaper articles), but that case is best left to the Narconon article on Wikipedia, in which case it is appropriate to link Narconon.org, as well as other reference works with differing views, like Narconon-Exposed.org. Raymond Hill 06:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Too long

This article is way too long, to keep neutrality let's create a list of things that should be deleted or moved to a different article and develop consensus on deleting/moving those items. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 21:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Of the major sections, i think Membership is the one that needs to be trimmed the most. Foobaz·o< 00:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the criticism section should be summarized and membership shouldn't have as many sections with one or two sentences below, instead it should mention those things in a summary. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 01:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"Scientology and other religions" is quite redundant and too long. It should only show the official view by Scientology(that it is compatible with the major religions), the general opinion by other religions(that it is not) and maybe the point that Scientology does not allow parishoners to practice other religions(praying, meditation is not allowed). It could be reduced to one paragraph in my opinion.-- Stan _talk 01:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It is long and rambling, but it has some interesting information. How about moving that section to a new article and summarizing in this article? Foobaz·o< 02:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

jap, that would be fine with me and the content could be moved into a new article and summarizing it here is exactly what I want. I think we agree on it. -- Stan _talk 02:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I added a results section to help us keep track of the decisions below. Please add anything I missed. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 03:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Results

• Scientology and other religions - Move to a new article and summarize here. Summary includes the official position, general opinion of other religions, and the fact that Scientology does not allow parishioners to practice other religions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jeffrey.Kleykamp (talk • contribs) 03:07, August 22, 2007 (UTC).
• Membership - combine smaller subsections into shorter prose.

other changes

• Review verifiability of all "references" Misou 04:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• As said earlier the "Auditing Confidentiality" section is hot air. There has never been any case of a breach and theoretical excursions are POV-pushing. Just like "it could be that some Scientologists believe that the sky will fall on their head one time". WEASEL-stuff, but hidden behind some "quotes". Misou 04:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• "Scientology as a recognized religion" has been vandalized over the past months, maybe years. Each country has a different idea what a "recognized religion" is, or a "not recognized religion". I would get rid of this section and move the actual data into a country-by-country account on Scientology (subpages). Misou 04:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
• Get rid of hobby and personal sites. Misou 04:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policy of verifiability concerns the verifiability of information in the article, not the information in our references. We don't fact-check the information in the sources; instead, we use sources we trust. Scientology as a state-recognized religion already has its own article. The section in the article is small because it's a summary of the larger article. It's valuable and should stay. You seem to have a unique view of what constitues a hobby or personal site, one that i disagree with. Foobaz·o< 06:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Misou - All I want to do is shorten the article, all other work is a distraction and can lead to edit wars. Just add stuff that will shorten the article, and keep neutrality about it (and don't make too many suggestions because they clutter the list), thanks, Jeffrey.Kleykamp 12:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Uh - excuse me? Misou can make all the suggestions he/she wants, and your post to Misou's talk page in which you stated "maybe it's time you stop editing those articles and move on to other subjects or to stop editing Wikipedia altogether" is a new low in obnoxiousness. Wikipedia does not revolve around Jeffrey Kleykamp's ideas of "clutter" and Jeffrey Kleykamp's ideas of who edits too much and who he wishes would just go away, so take yourself down a few notches, listen to other editors whether you like it or not, and drop the supercilious attitude while there's still a few editors even willing to communicate with you. wikipediatrix 13:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I know that Misou can make all the edits he wants, after all, I did say "there are no limits to the amount of edits you're allowed to make" before the direct quote you made, I just pointed out that all his edits are Scientology related, and maybe I wasn't clear: I want Misou to temporarily stop editing Scientology articles for his own good (i.e. not looking like he/she has a conflict of interest which could get him banned from editing Scientology articles), and I do listen to other editors and made the decision to post that on his talk page because I looked at this, and looking at that is standard practise for me. Let me say one more time that this has nothing to do with Misou's contributions above, Jeffrey.Kleykamp 13:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Scientology as a state-recognized religion already has its own article. However, both the article and the stub that remains here badly needs verifiable references for many countries since most of the claims come from the Church of Scientology's own vanity sites. AndroidCat 13:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

my two pfennigs

The subject of Scientology has been dealt with extensively on Wikipedia, down to every micro-nuance, across literally hundreds of articles. Therefore, I see this main Scientology article as more of a simple jumping-off point to all the other articles: give just the most basic smattering of info and point the reader to each of the main articles for each subject. Scientology is an extremely complicated multi-tentacled matter (and deliberately so) and there's absolutely no way to do it justice in the space requirements of a Wikipedia article - so don't try. Let the ancillary pages do the talking. Don't feel like you have to fit everything in this one article, or you'll go mad trying. wikipediatrix 14:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, the problem, however, is that no one agrees on which parts to delete, pro-Scientology want to delete Criticism, anti-Scientology want to save it, etc. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 14:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know of any section of this article whose contents aren't already mirrored on another Wikipedia article, so it's not like any info's being deleted, it's just being flowcharted outward. The "Beliefs and practices" section is totally redundant with the Scientology beliefs and practices article, so gut it and cut it, reduce the topic to a simple couple of paragraphs, and send the reader on to Scientology beliefs and practices if they want to read more, that's why the article exists. Ditto the controversies, they're all covered on Scientology controversy, Scientology vs. the Internet, Scientology as a Business, Scientology kills baby ducklings, etc., ad nauseum, so shunt the reader there. No one can cry censorship because the information hasn't really gone anywhere, it's all still here on Wikipedia. wikipediatrix 14:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Dianetics is a forerunner and substudy of Scientology

The intro says Scientology "as an outgrowth of his earlier self-help system, Dianetics". This statement makes you think that Scientology is a form of Dianetics and that is not true. I would like to see a clarification that Dianetics is a substudy of Scientology. The reference is the book: Scientology: The fundaments of thought / 2007 edition / page 5 Bravehartbear 11:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Dead references

Of 5 references (113-118) in the current revision (this one) that I checked, 3 didn't work (114, 116, and 118), that's 60%! Something needs to be done to fix that problem (maybe this: Wikipedia:Citing sources#What to do when a reference link "goes dead"), because technically everything without a reference can be deleted at once, see Wikipedia:Citing sources#Unsourced material. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 04:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Fabrication

RookZERO, how exactly is the phrase "In fabricating Scientology" vandalism? The definition of fabricate: "To make, build or construct by assembling parts or manufacturing. 2. To make from raw material." The phrase was added for accuracy's sake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.66.230.204 (talk) 23:25, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

My two cents: if you have to resort to citing a dictionary definition, you probably already know what's wrong with using the word. "Fabrication" (as, like I said, you probably know very well) has a strong implication of falseness or fakeness--"he fabricated stories to hide his misdeed" is a textbook example of the word. Regardless of my or your opinions on the truth of scientology, calling it a "fabrication" is essentially vandalism. Deptstoremook 14:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

External links

I deleted all external links ([6]) that don't follow the guidelines and now I see that RookZERO added them back, that's not right. And I don't want to accuse anyone but RookZERO this is the second time I saw you reverting legitimate contributions, the last time you just copied and pasted an older version instead of improving on the improvement like a you're supposed to with a Wiki. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 20:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Raymond Hill also has reverted you, stating "please, keep it this way, this has been discussed already many times in the past". I find his attitude puzzling. Just because prior editors discussed it doesn't mean they made an immutable decision handed down forevermore to all future editors. wikipediatrix 20:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

If you mean this then you're wrong, he undid the revert of my deletion, that's why I think he meant that it's been discussed that the external links should be pruned. PS: sorry to single you out RookZERO, I didn't realize that others also reverted. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 21:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right, of course. Raymond's recent knee-jerk reverting of most edits to these articles gets rather confusing sometimes. Certainly confused me here. Especially with all this non-stop edit-warring going on. Anyhoo, I'm definitely in favor of drastically reducing all external links on all articles to the barest of bare minimums. wikipediatrix 21:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

"Knee-jerk reverting"? Can you be specific? Did I revert something without explaining why? Raymond Hill 21:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, just to clarify my "discussed in the past": a bloated external links section is a recurrent issue, unfortunately, and appreciate you went ahead and cleaned it up. So for the benefit of people who think more is better, here are past discussions on the issue: External_links_needs_a_severe_cull, External_links (although some links suggested in these past discussions might be obsolete as of now). Personally, I think three links pro, three con, would be just enough. Raymond Hill 21:32, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Why three of each? Most Wikipedia articles don't insist that negative links be supplied in equal quantity, not even on highly debated subjects like Mormonism, even though there's loads of anti-Mormon sites out there. wikipediatrix 21:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Scientology is undeniably controversial, so expect external links to web sites with opposing views. The Mormons weren't involved in the "the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history", among so many other controversial events. Raymond Hill 05:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

"I'm definitely in favor of drastically reducing all external links on all articles to the barest of bare minimums. wikipediatrix 21:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)" Wow! I hope that does not mean engaging in tendentious editing. That is quite an agenda there Trix.--Fahrenheit451 21:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

You've been warned: stop following me around and posting irrelevant and insulting drivel such as this after every post I make on every page. Your entire contributions page consists of nothing but this offensive and stalkerly behavior. wikipediatrix 21:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I cut all links that didn't follow WP:EL, I didn't try to make it fifty fifty or anything like that, so that's why my version is a good one to keep, especially considering that we all agree that external links should be pruned. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 21:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Please make sure that you list which part of WP:EL you feel that the links don't meet. There are frequent personal interpretations that don't exist in the actual guideline. AndroidCat 03:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Scientology and other religions (summery per result section)

Scientology claims that it is fully compatible with all existing major world religions and that it does not conflict with other religions or other religious practices. See that major differences in the beliefs and practices between Scientology and especially the major monotheistic religions in their view a simultaneous membership with Scientology is excluded. Critics also highlight the fact that Scientology only allows a formal membership in a second religion. Parishoners are not allowed to engage in other religious activities such as praying or meditation.

HCO PL 15 December 1965R Issue 1 Revised 25.7.87

more primary source collections: for this issue: http://www.sweenytod.com/cos/ http://www.skeptictank.org/compat.htm a reliable secondary source might be still needed

source witch contradict the claim of compatibility: Steve Bruce: Cathedrals to cults: the evolving forms of the religious life. In: Paul Heelas (Hrsg.): Religion, Modernity, and Postmodernity, Blackwell, Oxford 1998, S. 19-35, 23.

-- Stan _talk 22:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing about no praying in HCO PL 15 December 1965R Issue 1 Revised 25.7.87. Is true that Scientology is not to be mix with other types of Spiritual therapies like meditation but still you can believe in anything you want. Parishioners are allowed to engage in other religious activities like Sunday services,praying and religious education. I'm a Scientologist and I can and do engage in Christians religious activities including praying. Bravehartbear 02:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

What makes prayer and meditation different? I see them both as spiritual therapies. Foobaz·o< 03:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Bravehartbear, I sourced it with Steve Bruce. The HCO PL was just one of many sources I listed. -- Stan _talk 03:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC) And despite the fact that secondary sources are usually to prefer there is no doubt that a primary source exist(still in use) wich explicit forbids praying. ...and its not a secret OT policy but a common technical bulltin.-- Stan _talk 03:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that your interpretation of the policy is correct.Bravehartbear 00:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't either. And he's making an even bigger mess with it over at Scientology and other religions‎. wikipediatrix 01:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't back up my edit with one single HCO Bulletin. -- Stan _talk 19:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

x-copy from RookZERO's talk page: RookZERO, you carefully misapplied WP:WEASEL in Scientology. Please stop it, and if only for the sake of preventing emotional "war-type" editing. You can be right elsewhere. Shutterbug 02:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Be more carefull when you revert. Most of his changes were wording and grammar corrections.-- Stan _talk 19:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Stan-san, are there changes with are not "wording" correction? Misou 23:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

why no public domain

why are non of the books related to this organization public domain? it's kinda weird if you call yourself a church Markthemac 01:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Some of the very first copyrights laws (and violations of) involve versions of the Bible (with punishments of up to being burnt at the stake). Even after a few hundred years, some versions aren't always as copyfree as most people think. King James Version of the Bible#Copyright status I think the accusation of Scientology "having copyrights" misses the mark. (I could say an awful lot about how they use those copyrights, but this isn't my soapbox.) AndroidCat 03:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The Taiwan news

Misou provided a reference in which it is stated that Taiwan recognized Scientology as a legitimate religion: this link. The first problem with this reference, which is a GIF, is that the exact date is not provided. I found that the exact date is provided by a parent page which links to this GIF, so it is better to provide a link to the parent page (which is in German), it offers more context, and might allow the reference to be verified by other editors. I'm not saying the reference is valid or not, I am just trying to improve its WP:V status. (I will note here that menschenrechtsbuero.de seems to be a site owned by a scientologist or Scientology organization.) Raymond Hill 22:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The photo of the taiwanese president giving an award to the president of the Church in Taiwan is not really connected to the recognition. The german page talks about a representative of the Ministry of Interior stating on 12 March 2003 that the Church of Scientology has been included in the list of recognized religious communities. "Ministry of Interior" is not part of the CNA Taiwan message (.gif). Anyone here with access to their archive? Misou 23:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Add: Here is the official list of recognized religious organizations in Taiwan, published by the govt there. Scientology is one of 26 religions there. Misou 23:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The gov of Taiwan site is perfect, thanks! AndroidCat 23:28, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Semper Fidelis... Misou 23:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Add2: Raymond, brush up your german... menschenrechtsbuero.de is a website of the Church of Scientology Germany. Misou 23:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Registered to the president of CoS Germany. AndroidCat 23:28, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the gif is contains the text "Taiwan Central News Agency". The Central News Agency (Republic of China) doesn't call themselves that. (The Taiwan/China muddle.) So whatever that gif is, it's not a scan of an actual article. CoS may have assembled it using the actual text from an article, CNA's logo and added "Taiwan Central News Agency", but the whole thing is just too dubious to accept as a reference. The WWRN link seems to be a Church of Scientology PR statement published "as is". Once again, a non reference of "Scientology sez so". This section has a serious problem with that. AndroidCat 23:28, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess it's a translation from taiwanese (or chinese, any difference?) to english. Read a bit like it. Misou 23:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Add3: refs ad nauseum... US Govt report about Scientology being recognized as a religions in Taiwan in 2003. Note to Kitty: It took me five google minutes to find several official references to support the ref you deleted. Are you slower when looking for docs supporting Scientology statements? I remember your data base researches (on LRH) when you were much faster. Does it make a difference for you, pro or anti research? Misou 23:34, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

In the last month and a couple weeks, I'm the only person that added any refs to that tagged section. Where was your five minutes then? AndroidCat 23:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Entangled in some verbose BS COI discussion... and some vacation, heh. Misou 23:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

the new source (www.gio.gov.tw) only provides a list of religions in Taiwan(23, wich contradicts the official statements by Scientology). However , it doesn't contain a recognition. -- Stan _talk 01:45, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is what I read at the Taiwan government reference: "[...] in 2005 there were 26 religions recognized by the government". Church of Scientology is part of the list. Raymond Hill 02:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

you are right! I was refering to the "table content" with 23 listed religions and my Browser didn't find the word "Scientology" in the text. Don't know why, but even the text message you refer to was not shown )): . I found the number "26" instantly but not the term "Scientology" even if both are indeed included in the text. I should trust less my browser but more my eyes. I won't challenge this reference anymore since it seems to be reliable and makes a definite claim.-- Stan _talk 03:46, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

It is mixed with Chinese text, so it might be a character set problem. (WinXP, Firefox 2 here.) AndroidCat 04:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why this happened. I experienced that my Browser(Firefox) does a good job and I usually had faith in it. But in this case it messed up. It is not even a character set problem because I can actually see everything. My problem was "Strg + f" wich didn't reveal the word "Scientology" even it existed muliple times in the text. Sorry for starting this needless thread! -- Stan _talk 05:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

In the 'Yearbook', it gives for the CoS 7 churches (they are Missions) and 20,000 members, but no date. It can't be up to date, there are 15 Missions now. I'd say 2003 if both figures were collected the same year. I can't find any evidence of a survey or census question about religious adherence in Taiwan! --Hartley Patterson 03:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The figures are provided by the religious groups themselves, see [7] ("Statistics collected by the MOI from religious groups"), and [8] ("they maintain registration statistics voluntarily reported by religious organizations"). Raymond Hill 16:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Lets simplify this page

This is the introductory page to Scientology instead of having complete information on a subject lets just have a quick intro to each subject with a link to the complete information that way the page will be easier to read and shorter. Bravehartbear 05:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

With such a controversial topic, I disagree with the way you acted: to post a "lets simplify this page", and then shortly proceeded to unilaterally make significant changes to the article, with no regard to consensus. Raymond Hill 16:42, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

"lets simplify your edits:" despite the fact that you deleted almost the entire controversy section in the lead ...

• you deleted discretly this link CAN here [9]
• nobody needs to know that there might be other organizations wich practice Scientology ? [10]

You didn't simplify but whitewash. Its really frustrating if you destroy other contributions without discussing it on the talkpage first. Many editors invested a lot of time to find consensus here. Ideally everthing should be reverted from you and you should explain the major changes here first.(summarization of definition and deletion of citicism) Otherwise it will end up in an editwar again. -- Stan _talk 21:27, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The lead is no place to take sides. There was only one point of view exposed. Both sides need to be exposed equaly or none. To say that Scientology is crontroversial is good enoght for the lead. Also it had uncited and false information: Scientology doesn't refer to the church of Scientology, Scientology is Scientology and the Church is the Church, lets differentiate.

There is no white wash, there is plenty of negative information in the page if you like that. I didn't touch that. Like I said the lead is no place to take sides.

The information about other orgs is still there and in the page as well. I don't see no need to stress out complexities in the lead.Bravehartbear 22:37, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

What does that CAN link had anything to do with the lead? It was inrevelent.Bravehartbear 22:52, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how you can characterize your edits as simply changes in the lead. Raymond Hill 23:11, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Most encyclopedias and dictionaries refer with the term "Scientology" also to the church. Despite the negative information, you deleted also the information that CoS is the largest organisation and now it looks like that CoS is the only one.-- Stan _talk 00:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I did other edits but Stan was refering to edits in the lead, I don't think that cares about the other ones. Bravehartbear 23:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

You have already experience in editing this article and know about existing tension between editors here. Please discuss your changes first and wait two days like Jeffrey Kleykamp did here to see what other editors might think about it. You just did it again! [11] It is not fair to other editors if you edit with no regard to consensus. I suggest you revert your major changes and than propose each topic here first.-- Stan _talk 00:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm sorry, I have the day off and I wanted to get to get some edits done here. Bravehartbear 01:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The CAN link was there because the source of that reference is the Foundation for Religious Freedom, who operate the new CAN. Even if you objected to the wikilink, you shouldn't have removed the publisher information. AndroidCat 02:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a good bit of cutting back, three paragraphs covering the three general reasons why people type 'Scientology' into Wikipedia: beliefs, organisation and controversy. Just remember it's a high risk thing to do, if you get it wrong revert wars start. Plus, this article has suffered in the past from manic editors causing confusion by making many rapid changes that no one can keep track of. --Hartley Patterson 01:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Scientology lead explanation

I added a sentence about what areas cover the Scientology phylosophy. Is important to give an idea of the subject we are taking about. Bravehartbear 01:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Scientology Controversy

To every story there are two sides. The lead had one sentence that was one sided. "Journalist, judges and goverment bodies has have said negative things of scientology". What about the ones that have awarded and said positive things? Don't they deserve to have their opinion exposed too? The lead has to be neutral. Stating the fact that Scientology is controversial is all what is needed in the lead or you have to expose both sides not only one.Bravehartbear 01:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

"Don't they deserve to have their opinion exposed too?" no, it is about Scientology and not critics. It doesn't matter as long we don't cite discredided sources and we didn't but I'm not sure how much controversy is needed in the intro. Ideally I think 1 section was appropriate since it is one of the most controversial "religion" with probably the worst reputation compared to other religions. -- Stan _talk 02:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Scientology and the Church are not the same thing

The church of Scientology is a sub-sudject of Scientology but to say that Scientology also refers to the church. Those are two diferent things.Bravehartbear 01:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

you also deleted other informations in this section.

[12] [13] -- Stan _talk 02:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

rewrite of the section beliefsystem

Bravehartbear simplified and added more content

summarization of the definition + new article Scientology Definition

article is too long and I agree with it -- Stan _talk 02:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

This appears to be an attempt to remove the pre-Hubbard use of the word "Scientology" from this article. Please restore it. --FOo 07:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Is still there you just need to follow the link. The subject is not that important to require detailed explanation in the Scientology Main. Interesting trivia though. Bravehartbear 08:28, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

How about one more sentence wich acknowledges that the word is not exclusively use by Hubbard? For example: Although today associated almost exclusively with Hubbard's work, the word "scientology" predates Hubbard's creation by several decades and was used bevore with varying meaning. Would still keep it short but gives a more concise summary. -- Stan _talk 09:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Its done. A statement clarifying that the word is not originaly Hubbard's is there.Bravehartbear 04:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course, Scientology Definition is not a well-formed Wikipedia article (bad title, incomplete content). It really isn't an attempt to create an article; it's an attempt to move facts that contradict the preferred "truths" of CoS off of this article. It needs to be reverted and re-merged, not linked to. --FOo 03:21, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

"So Suzie and I went to the library looking for a word" Come on! Who cares if Ron and Suzie went to the library. The section was too long. If you want to say that Ron didn't invented that word and it has other definitions, I already did that. Bravehartbear 12:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Church of scientology facing criminal charges in Belgium

I know that this article is currently locked, but where would it be best to include an edit about this news item? [14] Blueaster 19:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It is semi-protected, but you should be able to edit the article and put that info in. Of course in this particular article, it's going to be scrutinized and noPOVed until you're cross-eyed, but give it a shot. BURNyA 21:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The best place to write about the Belgium news is at Scientology as a state-recognized religion#Belgium or Scientology in Belgium, but you won't be the first person to do so. Foobaz·o< 22:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

New section - "Influences"

Bravehartbear created a new subsection on the main page called "Influences," and moved some of the details from Origins section to it. He also re-ordered the definition section, and added a new reference to Joseph Cressman Thompson (an article that needs a serious references cleanup, by the way). I think we should discuss these changes, since this article is on probation. I'm hesitant to leave the changes in place because they're fairly big, and were done without discussion. But in their defense, the changes don't seem particularly POV-pushing to me, nor do they delete any referenced data, at least that I've been able to tell so far. How do you all feel about them? --GoodDamon 16:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I like the changes and don't think they required prior discussion, as they don't bias the article. Foobaz·o< 19:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

As long as my edits are done in accordance Wikipedia policies there shouldn’t be no warring.Bravehartbear 06:51, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and having taken a closer look at the changes, they actually seem pretty minor, not as big as I first thought. Never mind, folks, nothing to see here, move along... :) --GoodDamon 22:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

References

Would anyone object if I placed a scroll box on this page? As they is a long list of references and I think it would tidy up the page. mattypc 17:55, 30 September 2007 (UTC) mattypc 17:55, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't see how this cleans up the article. The reference section is at the bottom. How about closing the contents box by default? That thing is much more in the way. Shutterbug 00:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

AndroidCat's POV pushing edits

The last two edits of AndroidCat were clearly POV pushing. 1) "trimming" the lead section by removing two rebuttals and leaving the "criticism" is pushing a certain agenda. 2) adding controversy about the Guardian's Office in the "Auditing" section (while these two are not related) is another one. I reverted this and ask AndroidCat to stick to WP:NPOV, especially WP:UNDUE. Shutterbug 00:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

And I ask you to please do the same. 1) The introduction is once again growing with POV rebuttals sourced directly to Scientology that belong in the body of the article. I could add references (proper secondary ones) for the German government's position on the question, Scientology's comparisons of the German actions with the Nazis, and so on and so on... "The US state department has supported Scientology's quest for religious freedom" is POV tub-thumping (especially the last four words), it doesn't seem connected to anything else, and I could add references and wording that clarify that, but once again that would be overloading the introduction with material that belongs in the article body. 2) If the well-worn apologia that Hubbard knew nothing about GO actions is there, then it should be documented that evidence collected by the FBI said otherwise. AndroidCat 02:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not convinced. On 2) you claim without need and evidence that Hubbard knew anything about the GO. This is not what this section is about. This section says that Hubbard laid out the Auditors Code (long before the GO even existed), period. And that no breach of it has been documented, period. You are trying to invent a new controversy here about FBI, Martians and what Hubbard might have known about tulips or so. But this is not the subject of the section. On 1) if you want to germanize this article, go ahead and take the heat. The US State Department criticized quite a lot of governments for religious discrimination of Scientologists, not only Germany. The usual blown up controversy is mentioned in this section in various ways and you try to delete the balance to it - i.e. other viewpoints which exist as well - which makes it NPOV. You doing this is POV pushing. Stop it. Shutterbug 02:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be a more productive use of your time to make contributions of well-cited facts to the article, rather than spending all your time attacking other editors and disputing facts that have been already well-cited to reliable sources such as the FBI. Please consider contributing reliably-sourced information that you have, rather than hopelessly trying to enturbulate other editors. --FOo 02:30, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I am sure there is a lot of well-cited content available. That does not make it right to add to a section which has not relation to it, which is disruptive per definition. If you have something to say about content, feel welcome. Otherwise, well, we have gone over that already. Shutterbug 03:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Android cat that I might have went overboard in the intro. The state department sentence should be reworded to be more NPOV. The sentence that most of the controversy is past hystory should shortened as Android Cat did. This is not about Scientology against Germany but exposing both points of view. Please peace out. (About auditing confidentiality I didn't look at it so I have no opinion.) Bravehartbear 04:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I tried to make my edits less POV but someone reverted me. You figure that one out.Bravehartbear 05:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought it looked like a good compromise. Mainly what I want is to avoid long pieces that will tend to attract more pieces. references and edit wars. (Introductions tend to try to regrow themselves into the whole article if not kept trimmed.) Each part should briefly say something, mention if there is a counter-position and move on. The time to go into referenced detail is in the body of the article. By the way, the CNN snippet was followed with a more detailed article a few days later. Tank, Ron (1997-01-30). "U.S. report backs Scientologists in dispute with Germany". CNN. Retrieved 2007-10-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) (My references, let me show you them The Copy cite to clipboard function doesn't work yet, soonish.) AndroidCat 05:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I know i could have done a better job with the references.

Well this is my sugestion for the paragraph:

Scientology and the organizations that promote it have remained highly controversial since their inception. Journalists, courts and the governing bodies of several countries have stated that the Church of Scientology is a cult and a unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and abuses the trust of its members. Scientology officials argue that most negative press has been motivated by interest groups, that most of the controversy is past history and that opposition by some governments sums up to nothing more than religious persecution. The U.S. state deparment has been critical against countries that violates Scientologist's religious freedoms.

What you think? I can even delete the state deparment section.Bravehartbear 05:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Seems balanced. But we could also shrink it to one sentence, like: "Scientology and the organizations that promote it have remained highly controversial since their inception.". Anything else is covered in the article anyway. Shutterbug 06:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Honestly I agree with Shutterbug in that last statement. Android Cat, you input please? Bravehartbear 06:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

HOW can it BE that some idiot

can rename the full article to "GRAWP NOT UNDERSTAND SCIENTOLOGY. IS TOM CRUISE A MORMON?"? Without alarm bells going off? Misou 03:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

i think u mean 'moron'

PS: Ok, this guy was pretty active. BTW, I read up on this article probation thing. Now, where are these guys? Haven't seen anybody showing up but the anti-Admins. What's happening? Misou 03:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

He's been blocked. The open nature of Wikipedia has allowed it to flourish, but unfortunately also enables jerks like this guy. Foobaz·o< 02:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the Fishman Affidavit

I was astounded that nowhere in the Scientology pages, much less Wikipedia as a whole, was there reference to or definition of the Fishman Affidavit.

The website documenting the Affidavit, having successfully defended it's content as legitimate and free of trademark/copyright infringements THREE times (up to a Supreme Court) seems to stand as possibly one of the most authoritative citations and legitimate references imaginable.

Not being a seasoned Wikipedia contributor (but a well-versed reader) this topic would be a bear to cut my teeth on, so I figured I should ask why there is no mention of, or reference to it. It's inclusion, atleast as an article in and of itself, seems rather important in dealing with the subject of Scientology.

After an hour of sifting through discussion pages and archives, I cannot make heads or tails of whether or not reasons for it's exclusion have been given or if folks are simply unaware of it. Any input would be appreciated.

It's there. Go to the Fishman Affidavit article. I'm not sure how you missed it. --GoodDamon 01:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Population figures

Misou, I have a couple of things I'd like to discuss. First off, there wasn't any reason for snarkiness when you re-added the population figure. You said here: "gee, what star have you been living on?" even though I was absolutely correct in pointing out that the number in question wasn't the total US population in 2001. You even changed the text you re-added to include the word "adult," and yet your edit summary is still, frankly, an attack on me, as if I were somehow wrong. You're showing a very consistent pattern in your edit summaries, and I don't deserve that derision. I wouldn't, even if I really had been wrong.

Secondly, how relevant is the addition of the total adult population figure? In a word, it's not. For statistical analysis, the difference between that particular sample size and the adult US population figure is moot. It's a valid sampling size. More importantly, the source is a reliable source, so we have no reason to doubt their numbers, their methodology, or their findings, without a countering source. Your insistence on pointlessly including that number is definitely getting into POV territory, because the only possible reason to include it is to improperly seed doubt about the reference.

So I'm reverting your edit once more. Please, don't push this matter. I'd still, even now, rather assume your edits are in good faith. --GoodDamon 01:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

First on, if I would be so sensitive as you bear yourself today (and you are not normally that way) I might as well turn aggressive. The amount of bullshit I have to read - about things I know well personally - every damn minute in this place is more than you ever could imagine. Believe me, bro, your complaining does not solve it. Let's try differently: You are deleting valid and correct data out of the ref. You state that US population was much bigger in 2001 than I wrote (100 million less!), which is correct, I wrote nonsense because "adult" was missing. Now you complain about me adding "adult". Just note that and get on with it. I don't understand why you jump on this minor details right now. The quote and data I put in are correct and they give a reader better information than before. The truth is that this survey is much too small for this country. Saying that would be OR - just as my % calculation might be - but the reader has a right to get enough details to decide him/herself. What you do is POV pushing by leaving out vital information and I do not understand it at all. You fail to give any Wikipedia policy to justify your reverts and - as you know - this is vandalism to me. So, can we settle this matter now, please? Misou 02:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not more sensitive today than I was yesterday or the day before. Perhaps I'm being a little more expressive than I usually am, but only because I'm seeing what I perceive as a trend, and I'm hoping to cut it off. Now then...

On the ref - I'm deleting valid and correct data, because as "valid" and "correct" as it is, it's not pertinent to the article. Let's say I added reliably-sourced and well-referenced data on the variance in Superman's powers through the decades of that comic's print run. My references were unimpeachable, each statement had two distinct sources supporting it, and so on. It still wouldn't be relevant, and would still be removed. The same thing goes for this detail on population. Heck, I even find it interesting, and statistical analysis is a fascinating subject. As a reader, I might be inclined to follow the ref, and read more detail about their methods. But that's off-topic for the article, and doesn't belong in it. And you say I "fail to give any Wikipedia policy to justify" my reverts? Well, there it is: relevancy. And I did mention it before.

On POV - Misou, the moment I mentioned I was seeing a touch of POV in this, you turned that back on me, specifically accusing me of "POV pushing" by removing the population figure from the article. I think I've established fairly well I don't have a POV on this topic. I have no irons in this fire, other than an academic interest as a writer. I've agreed with you before, strongly in some instances, and agreed with others in other instances. And in cases where I don't agree, I'm confident I've been a model of compromise. --GoodDamon 03:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I think I understand, "relevancy" is a pretty arbitrary concept, don't you think. However, I call this a day now (I start 3am tmrw). See you around. Misou 04:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

1)"The truth is that this survey is much too small for this country." That is your OR. The US population is quite redundant.(200 000 000 or 500 000 000 wouldn't make much difference for the accuracy of the projected numbers). However, the suvey was indeed too small to round the total number to the nearest thousand especially on groups with less than 100 000 members.(only 13 Scientologist have been inteviewed and it could be as well 50 000 or 60 000 total but that is my OR now). But where does this number 50 281 interviewees come from? I didn't find it in the source!

I'll tackle this one. The number of interviewees is there. The page has a menu of sub-pages about the study, including one for methodology where they describe exactly what they did. That sub-page lists the number interviewed. --GoodDamon 15:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

2)0.0002% was not only OR but also wrong(use your calculator again ;), ca 0,026%)

3)Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. You violate WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL each time when you refer to this term for justification or edits\reverts on established editors. -- Stan _talk 05:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I prefer to assume Misou didn't understand that before, and will refrain from labeling good-faith edits as vandalism in the future. --GoodDamon 15:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The City Uni survey is a respectable source in my view, if that source is to be questioned it should be done on this page not in the article. References to demographic data elsewhere in Wikipedia aren't accompanied by confidence level or error figures, these are assumed to be standard. I can't see anything wrong with it and the US Census Bureau has copied the data on it's website so presumably they think it's OK.

The point that is not made is that it is generally assumed that half the world's Scientologists are US citizens, since half of CoS staff and branches are in the USA. Hence 55,000*2 = 110,000.

I note that Misou deleted a reference to my webpage http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/stolgy_4.htm for being non-RS, personal and anonymous. Anonymous it isn't, my name is on the website front page, personal it is, non-RS is for others to judge.

--Hartley Patterson 10:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

That deletion was correct. Whether or not your information is accurate, your page doesn't meet Wikipedia's definition of a reliable source. Some of the sources you use might qualify though, so if you wish to restore text based off those sources, feel free. Generally speaking, personal pages that distill news sources to express an opinion aren't going to qualify for Wikipedia, but those news sources themselves, and the information they contain, are fine. --GoodDamon 15:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Scientology presence map

The Image:Scientology presence worldwide.png map is pretty, but it is misleading and contains a lot of OR or is sourced to non-reliable/verifiable sources (whatisscientology.org and the smi.org locator). The "Countries that recognize Scientology as a religion" areas are strongly open to debate, especially over what the vague recognized even means. The other areas have similar problems.

To illustrate the POV built into that map, imagine changing the main colour to show "Countries that recognize Scientology as a tax-free organization". AndroidCat 14:25, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree but ideally it would also differentiate between countries wich give some kind of religious recognoition but no charitable/taxfree status.

However, in the section membership is the color for religious recognition quite redundant. I already made a map without[15]. If everyone agrees I would replace it here. The map on Scientology as a state-recognized religion on the other hand could stop to differentiate between countries with missions and orgs but mark charitable status or religious recognition differently. What do you think ? -- Stan _talk 13:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the map's prettiness exceed it's utility and accuracy. On balance it's misleading and should be removed. Alice.S 21:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Inserted new map. Countries with missions and/or orgs can be shown quite accurate but I admit that the labels could be better.(probably not clear for most people what CoS defines as missions and Orgs/Churches) -- Stan _talk 22:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Lovely map, Stan! And you're right, it would be very difficult to improve on the captions without making them very long winded. It does graphically illustrate that CoS is not concentrated in the areas of the world with low disposable incomes... Alice.S 22:35, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Nice looking, but not exactly accurate (for example Poland is missing, and Luxembourg, just off the cuff). Where did you look for data? Misou 23:08, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The credit for this concept and image goes to user:LittleRoughRhinestone who created this image]. But he didn't specify a license nor answered on his talk page as I asked him. Now I created two new images myself based on a rawmap under public domain because I think I can't change images without free license or permission. -- Stan _talk 23:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Misou, I used the official directory for missions and Orgs from CoS. I also think that Poland has a mission but its not listed there. If you give me a source I will insert Poland and Luxemburg.-- Stan _talk 23:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Misou but neither mapquest, the official directory or google comes up with a mission or Org for Poland or Luxemburg. Maybe they closed. I thought too that Poland has at least some missions but not.

Can't find it, too. BTW, don't forget to give refs for the graphic. I think the "Luxembourg" one in my mind is Wiesbaden in Germany. But there is a group in Poland for sure[16], the closest mission in Banska Bystrica (Slovakia). I found four official directories [17][18][19] [20], not counting WISE and the millions of front groups some people see behind every bush...). What's your criteria for "significant" activity? Misou 00:32, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I think we can all just use common sense on that. A negligible Scientology presence without missions, churches, or sizable evangelizing groups is probably not worth putting on the map. --GoodDamon 00:48, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

There are many missions in Slovakia and Czech Republic, some even close to Poland but I doubt that many people from Poland participate there(completly different language etc.) There was one event in Poland(may 5 2006 in Warsaw[21]) probably with the intention to establish a mission or other kind of permanent office.(didn't translate the whole page properly;don't speak any language close to Polish good) But till there is no permanent mission,church or office there is no need to include Poland. I have no criteria for "significant activity" why the map only lists and refers to countries with an org or mission. However, I assume that a country with a significant number of members also has a significant number of missions and Orgs. Where else can you "get","study" or "experience" Scientology without leaving the country? Luxemburg may be an exeption due to its tiny size, beeing close to Germany and speaking also German many Scientologists there may cross the border to visit a church in Germany with no need of its own church but I think that is quite redundant and Luxemburg is that small that you can hardly see it on the map anyway.(I wonder how you did notice, ZOOM 1000x ? ;) ) -- Stan _talk 02:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

If I remember right, some countries, like Germany, had a mission first, then a big amount of members. But I'm sure it also works the other way, members make a mission or so, like Taiwan. Misou 07:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

And where are there the reliable, 3rd party sources for any of this? AndroidCat 07:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

There are no reliable 3rd party sources yet in the article for this. Its based on the mission directory and Org directory wich is already used as source in the membership section for other claims. I think its fine as long the statements from this sources are not controversial but it could be labeled more clearly that it is based on CoS own publications. Do you think its necessary to insert a secondary source for each marked country ? I would prefer to list a secondary source only if someone disputes a marked country.(insert a source for each country looks quite inconvinient to me and I would like to avoid that if possible)-- Stan _talk 12:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

There will never be 3rd party sources - why would anyone compile one? The references are the ones I recommend, so they are obviously the right ones. :-) Nice map, I'll take it! --Hartley Patterson 23:48, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, maps are pretty, even if based on something as vague as "an org" or "a mission". A map of "Countries where a Scientology corporation or officer of one was convicted of a criminal act" would be pretty too. (And could be based on actual references.) AndroidCat 17:32, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't care if maps are pretty or not but think that a map might give an usefull overview in some cases wich would not be possible without. I understand that you have objections to the other map(me too) but don't understand why you are still moaning about this one? Neither is an "org" nor "mission" vague?!(descibes pretty well countries with a permanant presence for Scientology members to go to) Listing all "Scientology groups" would be vague(What is considered as group?) but "mission" and "org" is defined quite clear by Scientolgy, its critics and neutral sources. I'm usually extra carefull with primary sources from this organisation and checked many entries in the directories before using it as source.I supported this map because I thought this might be usefull and uncontroversial for all parties ...well, I was wrong. If you want to delete it be my guest, I won't revert you. I'm sure you or others will find a wikified reason to do so.(just challenge it with another contradicting primary source(quite easy),point to WP:OR, and ignore common sense). -- Stan _talk 19:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the map should go, and stay gone. I don't think it's useful, and visually it's misleading. There's no differentiation between countries that have a very tiny Scientology presence, and countries that have the highest concentrations. One church makes you bright orange on the map, even if that one church is all you've got, while a dozen missions still only qualifies you for pale yellow.

If I created a similar map of countries with at least one Christian church, I would be creating an entirely orange map, and it wouldn't help me figure out where Christianity has a strong presence (such as the United States) and where it doesn't (such as China). The map's fundamentally flawed, and I think it's unnecessary. --GoodDamon 20:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that the present map is misleading because it states clearly what level of dissemination is refered to(at least one org/mission).The worldwide presence of CoS can be hardly compared with the presence of cristianity. Yes, a map about Cristianity with the same criteria would be filled with one color and be useless but Scientology isn't at the same level of dissemination. However, I would like to insert a map wich shows the concentration of Scientologists more clearly in each country but that isn't possible due to the lack of reliable sources. Anyway, I thought it might be notable and useful to give an overview about countries in wich this organisation is at least somehow presented today. But if you think the present map is misleading, delete it. I won't revert nor argue furthermore for it since their is no consensus and I am arguing only based on my own opinion. Maybe I did spend too much time researching members worldwide,present orgs/missions, "alleged expansion" and lost common sense for notablity and usefulness myself for this. -- Stan _talk 21:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

For those who want numbers of CoS branches the references are there. The map illustrates what would otherwise take lots of text, for example that there is hardly any Scientology in Islamic countries or in China but that otherwise it is a 'worldwide' religion. --Hartley Patterson 00:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Misou, thanks that you added the right org directory(I picked the wrong one). I deleted my old one but also the churchlocator. The churchlocator is often malfunctioning and does not contain additional org or missions. -- Stan _talk 12:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:ScientologySeries

Template:ScientologySeries has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Curt Wilhelm VonSavage 14:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

False Citation

I am new to editing pages but I just wanted someone more experienced to fix a false cited source. The Rolling Stone article which is used comes from issue number 995--March 9, 2006 pp. 55-66 NOT number 994 Feb 23, 2007 p 4. Thanks a bunch. Allygirl4g zus 19:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

level 0 to 5

Interesting info but shouldn't this be in believes and practices maybe under auditing. I don't challenge the info I just say is too detailed for this page that is only a intro to Scientology. Bravehartbear 07:10, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Huh? How involvement in the Church is subdivided is essential intro-to-Scientology material from a layman's point of view. And it has nothing to do with auditing! wikipediatrix 14:39, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipediatrix, do you really think this is informative for a layman? I doubt that this stuff like "Scientology Four deals with OT levels and Saint Hill Special Briefing Course (SHSBC) materials" can be understood by anyone except Scientologists and people wich investigate or study Scientology intensively but this article is written for an average citizen and should avoid "Scientology Jargon". This "level 0 to 5" stuff(not you) remembers me on your joke on your userpage(You guys have wifes?). (: I think it should be at least less technical rewritten.-- Stan _talk 20:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I think references to OT and SHSBC are no less dense than the rest of the barrage of Hubbardisms the novice reader is getting bombarded with in this article, and necessarily so. But these levels are extremely important in a number of ways: from a critical perspective, it shows precisely the mechanism by which the CoS manages to drastically inflate its claimed membership count, by including "Scientology One" people even though they may never have visited an org and never been audited (Which is also why this doesn't belong under the Auditing subsection). On the other side of the coin, pro-Scn editors should be happy to see this fundamental info here because it answers a lot of seeming contradictions pointed out by critics. wikipediatrix 21:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I doubt the claim of significance of this stuff within Scientology. I have to admit that I don't remember that I read it ever and I read a lot of this stuff. I don't doubt or challenge your NPOV and will just ignore the statements(good for contra and pro). However, I couldn't find that much unexplained "Hubbardisms" concentrated anywhere in this article. It makes no sence to insert something what no reader can understand. We don't edit this article for us but the convienience of average readers?! If it is really so important to the ideology I would suggest that someone rewrites it in order that average readers can at least benefit from it. -- Stan _talk 21:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Bravehartbear, This article is a summary and not an intro of the subject. We don't need "gradients" here.-- Stan _talk 20:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. I just put it under the heading of Auditing because these are auditing level. Bravehartbear 04:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Are there any publically available sources for this entire section other than perhaps those two magazines at the end? I ask because we have even CoS sources for the NOT levels, Auditor classes, etc, but apparently not these "Scientology levels". AndroidCat 05:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 14:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Alter-is refering Scientology 0 "... deals with the Scientologist's immediate surroundings...applying standart tech to them." This is not what the tech dic says. It is handling chaos, and wants to make people aware what the problem is. I want to put emphasis onto the word people, because Scientology 0 as a structure of knwoledge makes aware of this fact, not a Scientologist! Further, it is the beginning of Scientology, not standart tech refering to class VIII. Yes, of course standart tech is what it is, but think about, the person itself has begun with Scientology, he is on the way to Scientology V, so please, watch the gradient scale, and give men a chance to become a scientologist. Don't make the subject right complicate at the beginning! Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 14:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Clarification regarding connection with Ordo Templi Orientis

{{Editprotected}}In paragraph three under the heading of Influences it is stated that Hubbard considered Crowley to be a good friend. This is true, but it was not a mutual feeling. The paragraph should include mention that Hubbard was never a member of the OTO, and that Crowley considered him a "lout" and a con-man. Crowley wrote, "Apparently Parsons or Hubbard or somebody is producing a Moonchild. I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts." on 19 April 1946. See The Magical Revival by Kenneth Grant p.168 S. Weiser; [1st American ed.] edition (1973) out of print Full Text See also, Early History of the OTO and The Babalon Working (I'm new here, so please advise me if I'm not following protocol)Vitriolum 16:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Adding new information is just fine, and in fact you did very well by discussing it here first. --GoodDamon 19:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm brand new here, too. I've added your cited perspective using a webcite template. Isn't Wikipedia wonderful?Alice.S 19:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

This page is semiprotected; any username more than a few days old can edit it. There is no need for administrator assistance to edit this page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info and the edit! Vitriolum 14:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

What is Scientology?

Some how, I am a bit confused about the lemma itself. At the intro it is said: Scientology is a the body of beliefs and related practices. I think, this means, that there is a body of beliefs and sequently to that, practices. So there is a difference, the written data itself as organized strukture called body, and the use of it. A proper article would show the data itself, refering to the definiton of the Scientology Church as „the study of truth“, with a criticism part. Another article would display what men is doing with it, the results and meanings from the critics. There also is a Scientology Church with their staff, publics and the critics. A Scientology Church is an established place, where Scientology can be studied. Scientology itself can not have Scientology officials – stated at the intro -, but the Scientology Church can have officials! Some how, all that has been thrown into one pot and messed up. For me, as a reader, I would like to distinguish between the pure topic and what people are doing with it. The only expert regarding the knowledge and the practices is the one applying it, all others are critics no experts. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 15:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Scientology is tightly controlled by the Church of Scientology. They enforce copyright on its materials and occasionally change these materials. Because they, in effect, own Scientology, it makes no sense to argue that they are such separate concepts. Also, the person applying these practices is knee-deep in Scientology, and may not be able to see the forest for the trees. An outside viewpoint can be much more objective. Foobaz·o< 15:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Mmh, have you ever tried the Dianetics book. It worked, I have had results. What is now more objective, reading and trying it, or just having an opinion about it? "Scientology is tightly controlled by the Church", I went on their website, it seems to be easy to order some books. You know, I actually use Wikipedia for neutral information, but when I read this article, somehow, it doesn't match, including these statements. In fact, I don't want to buy all the books about Scientology knowledge, but it would be nice to have a neutral Wikipedia article, not what is wrong about it, and not what people are doing with it. Same thing with the bible, there is the book and there is Catholicism, Mormon and all others, but, only one source. So, what about a neutral article? Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 22:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I read the book some years ago as well, and experienced some benefits. The problem is, by definition, personal experience is not necessarily remotely objective. I'm not sure if you remember the number of people in the 70's who were willing to swear that laetrile was a cancer cure, but I do. Subsequent reports have said that the substance is inherently poisonous, and that what seems to have happened in most of the alleged "cures" was spontaneous remission. That's why personal testimony isn't what this, or any other wikipedia page, is about, but rather the verifiable information gathered from reliable sources. Unfortunately, we can't take any one person's testimony as objective, because, honestly, we can't even be sure that the person is telling the truth. For instance, I will tell you right now my real name is not, in fact, John Carter 22:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC).

Exactly, you describe a difference in knowledge itself and in practising it. The different experiences in practice would be a separate article, also a link to Scientology Church, splintergroups and a hint that individuals beside of those are practitioners. The main article the introduction of the knowledge, what implies an author, red the primary sources. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 09:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

"Scientology knowledge" is an oxymoron.--Svetovid 19:33, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Your opinion. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 11:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed on all points. Churches per se and their practices are uniformly seen as being at least somewhat distinct things, and there's no reason to think that it should be any different for this church. John Carter 15:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Seen by those familiar with the subject. Unfortunately we have a constant influx of newcomers who haven't been distinguishing between Scientology beliefs and organisations and get annoyed when they are told they should. --Hartley Patterson 23:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

mmh, are these inevitable together? Does it mean, if you read a Scientology book, you are a Scientologist? Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 09:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The Constitution of the USA founded Congress and spells out a role for Congress, but the Constitution is not Congress. So too, Hubbard's spoken and written word founded an organisation, but Hubbard's philosophy (scientology) is not the organisation his philosophy founded (the Church of Scientology). John Fitzgerald Smith 03:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with John Fitz it should be diferent pages but it looks like some people benefit from keeping it tangle up. With no distinguishment betwen the phylosophy and the organization. But hey you can go to the beliefs and practices page if you just want to study that. The fact is that scientology have been super bloated in wikipedia and there are so many pages that is sea to navigate. This page is the intro to Scientology in general, org + philosophy + controversy, it cover everything a little, for more specifics go to the sub-pages. Bravehartbear 07:08, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you guys think, that it might be possible to have one pure introduction of Scientology philosophy. It would match the neutral point of view, taking off advantage from the people what want to have this subject tangled up. It also would help the reader. Thanks for the tip, going to the beliefs and practices page. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 09:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

If you do separate the articles, it's important to note in the introduction that Scientology materials are tightly controlled by the Church of Scientology, and that the overwhelming majority of Scientology is practiced within the Church. Foobaz·o< 23:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Mmh, you are right in the majority of the points. But still, there are splintergroups, and you easyly can order the books online, or go to a Scientology bookstore. What do you mean with tightly controlled by the church? Keep one point in mind, Dianetics started in 1950. Christianity started and now, we have so many splintergroups. But, they all refer to the bible, what means, we have one pure source. Scientology itself should kept clean in regards of the Church and all the splintergroups what will follow! Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 11:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

(Resetting indent) - I don't think splitting the main Scientology article up like that would be a good idea. It's an overview of all the things modern society calls "Scientology" with links to specific and detailed information about organizations, beliefs, various controversies, etc... Take a look at the Catholicism page, because it's pretty similar. It presents an overall view of the practice of Catholicism, and has links to things like the Roman Catholic Church, Anglicanism, and so on. --GoodDamon 01:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

See my comment directly above yours: Mmh, you are right in... . "Modern society calls", modern society is informed by media with opinions and lies. "Scientology" presented by the media is just another modern lie. Modern society tells that the body burns nutrition. If you go to the Wikipedia articles you will read, that there isn't a thing that the body "burns". In some cases, it might be inpossible to keep things separate. But in keeping it separate, one can recognize, that there are differences and simularities. A Wikipedia what stands for the worlds knowlegde, we should spend sufficient attention, in keeping the source pure and comprehensiv. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 11:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

That trick never works. Didn't Scientology beliefs and practices get started for the same reason? AndroidCat 02:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It's a little odd, to start a new article, instead of getting the beginning clear. Go from one screwed article, to tangle up the next one. Further example: "Today the total body of beliefs and practices of Dianetics and Scientology are the sole intellectual property of the Church of Spiritual Technology". This doesn't work. As correctly stated in CST, this organisation is owning all the copyrights, what means the physical part in this universe like written paper, books and recorded reels. But you as a person can also have this body of practices and beliefes, without owning one single book! Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 14:15, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, perhaps we should just change the headline: Scientology interpreted by modern society. The interesting thing about a headline is, that the reader is given a certain viewpoint how to classify and arrange data in his mind. One thing should be clear, Scientology itself as a body of structured knowledge, what means the knowledge itself. In a 100 or 1000 years, you will find all things what man has been doing with it, but this is not changing the source, so this should kept pure. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 11:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Replacing headline of article in "Scientology movement"

In relation to the discussion point "What is Scientology", which is a struggle to differentiate Scientology itself, as a body of knowledge and all other things about "Scientology", the easiest way would be another name for the lemma. User AndroidCat mentioned, that the article Scientology practices and beliefes was called alive in efford to keep Scientology pure. In the intro of the article Scientology, some data are omitted, which belong into it, to keep the subject understandable: "Scientology itself as a body of practices and beliefes is also subject in Scientology splintergroups like freie Zone[22] and Ron’s Org [23] in Germany, which are telling, that they strictly differentiate from official or inofficial Scientology Churches. Scientology as a body of knowledge can be studied by the individual outside Scientology Church and their splintergroups, just by reading Scientology books." Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 15:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Wolfgang, all of that is already documented. The Free Zone article already exists, and it covers Ron's Org and the like. Read the articles. Everything you're talking about is already there. --GoodDamon 18:58, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Perfect! But wouldn't you think, it might be wise to have this explained in one sentence and linked at the intro of the main article? This is in fact the reason, why I posted this headline. It would help the reader. Thank you very much. Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.79 10:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Scientology is a large subject. We can't put everything in the intro. Foobaz·o< 10:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understand this. The article surely is overloaded, only the few mentioned lines to help the new reader for orientation - I didn't have it, therefore all this traffic. Read the intro yourself, it seems, that Scientology and Scientology Church is one thing, what isn't true! A couple of explaining lines would help a lot. Thanks Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.79 14:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Wolfgang. I wonder if this is just a language barrier problem. To native English readers, the intro doesn't confuse the Church with the belief system. Which line seems to be confusing the two for you? --GoodDamon 17:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your patience! :) Don't think it's a language barrier problem. Intro "Today the total body of beliefs and practices of Dianetics and Scientology are the sole intellectual property of the Church of Spiritual Technology that forms part of a network of churches and organizations that promote the use of Dianetics, Scientology and related techniques. Other organizations that promote the use of Scientology’s related techniques are the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises and the Association for Better Living and Education." This doesn't give a hint to splintergroups or the possibility of self study with books. Further, Church of Spiritual Technology can own the copyrights, not the total body of beliefs and practices. You can have the total body of beliefs and practices in your mind without owning one single book. "Journalists, courts and the governing bodies of several countries have stated that the Church of Scientology is a cult and an unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and abuses the trust of its members.Scientology officials argue that most negative press has been motivated by interest groups, that most of the controversy is past history and that opposition by some governments sums up to nothing more than religious persecution." This part has nothing to do with the believe, it belongs to Scientology Church. Further, Scientology Church can have officials, but not Scientology - Scientology is structured knowlegd. Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.79 17:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

(Resetting indent) - Ahh, I think I see what you're getting at. I think the confusion lies in the fact that the article Scientology is an overview of everything associated with the word - the Church, the belief system, the controversies... everything. There are specific articles for the Church of Scientology, which covers that organization in more detail, Scientology beliefs and practices, which discusses things such as auditing and the OT levels in detail, and so forth.

I'm afraid that with a topic as layered and controversial as "Scientology," the main article has to be a general overview of everything instead of delving too deeply into specifics. That's why the intro mentions both the beliefs and the Church. As for the splinter groups, they are mentioned in the article as well, but since they're a lot smaller than the main Church, they're not specifically discussed in the intro.

Yes, yes, yes....change the headline to Scientology movement, incl. a bit of the intro, what I mentioned in the first lines psoting this headline. Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.79 19:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, I should tell you that wouldn't make sense for English readers. I don't think changing the title of this article is going to happen, and I don't think it would be helpful if it did. --GoodDamon 22:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you feel that the splinter groups such as the Free Zone should be mentioned in the introduction? --GoodDamon 18:05, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if you concentrate your wording just around the church, it gives the impression, that Scientology and Scientology church are inevitable together, what is untrue! Again, thanks a lot for your patience. Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.79 18:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

"Wolfgang", I am getting tired reading this. Are you a self-assigned Freezone PR spokesman or what makes you pushing this agenda? And why don't you propose a wording for the lead if your burning desire is to change it? Shutterbug 18:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

mmh, see, there is a point, what is directly omitted in the intro. I am a Scientologist, I don't belong to any church or group. But I know one thing, if I don't push this agenda, to keep Scientology pure, it will get tangled up. Oh, did I forget? New wording for the leading headline: Scientology movement. Thanks for mentioning it. Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.79 18:26, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Aha. Why don't you propose a wording for the lead if your burning desire is to change it? Shutterbug 18:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, did I forget? New wording for the leading headline: Scientology movement. Thanks for mentioning it again. Does everybody agree with it? Greetings from Germany Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.79 19:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Somehow I am stupid, everything was said in the headline and the first lines of this. I just should have refer to it. Well, learning process...Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.79 19:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Somehow you will have familiarize with Wikipedia policy, like WP:LEAD, WP:COI, WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV. Or train a bit in your german Wikipedia. Shutterbug 22:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

That was rude and uncalled for. There is obviously a language barrier here, and you didn't need to make fun of him for it. --GoodDamon 22:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I thought that is how Scientologists ought to be treated, per _consensus_. Believe me, Wolfi knows better than what he claims (we are all big family). He should study up and propose a change. That's the rules, right? Shutterbug 22:39, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, I should study up, I am not completely familiar about Wikipedia rules. For example, I don't know, how to propose a change. But there is another thing what I have in mind: You guys caused the article, I try to cause you to get the article right, see below. Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.189 11:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

There is only one thing what I want to have clear: Scientology. You have the Scientology movement with the church, splintergroups and single persons, not in connection with the mentioned before. A right headline for the lemma would be Scientology movement. The first intro line could be "Scientology movement consist of Scientology Church (link), Scientology splintergroups (link) and individual what are reading Scientology books and are practicing it by themselves". The second sentence could be: "Scientology is a body of believes (link)...." Well, I have been polite to you guys and spent all my attention to the answeres I got. Let me tell you something, you have something, what I don't have, this is the reactive mind. The reactive mind thinks in identities, not in similarities. The reactive mind says: Scientology = Scientology Church. But this is untrue, there is a difference. With the right headline, you have the possibility to distinguish all the other articles. Further, the criticism will get clear, because most of it concerns Scientology Church, not the knowledge Scientology. In the German Scientology side, they do the same, no differntiation. The bad thing there is, that the primary source are all critics, no Scientology books which are actually explaining the matter itself. So, those critics in the German side tear up Scientology Church and state themself experts, but, they have no clue about Scientology. Did you guys get this?! Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.189 11:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

We understand what you want, but we disagree. Again, all of what you're asking for is already there. It's in the article. It's just not in the introduction. The reason it's not in the introduction is that Scientology is different things to different people. Scientologists think the intro should contain one thing. Critics think is should contain something else. Free Zoners think it should contain still other information. Neutral people like me have our own ideas on what should be there. So the introduction has become a consensus of what all these people think belongs in the introduction of the article. Accusing us of having "reactive minds" won't get us to change the article -- all it does is make us less inclined to be patient in explaining all this, because as far as Wikipedia policy is concerned, it's an attack. Furthermore, since some of the editors here aren't Scientologists, it's a nonsensical one, since we don't believe in "reactive minds".

In the end, the introduction can only hold so much. There need to be concessions to size. The rest is in the body of the article. --GoodDamon 17:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Wording in intro, and some issues therein

Paging Misou... You reverted my attempt to neutralize that contentious sentence that you currently have reading: "The U.S. State Department has reported about countries documented by Scientologists to have violated their religious freedoms." Perhaps I should clarify what I perceive as wrong about that sentence in its current form. It states that Scientologists have documented violations of their religious freedoms, while the refs do not reflect that. Rather, the refs reflect that the U.S. State Department has documented some such violations, from the reports of Scientologists.

Now then... There's another problem, and it's a doozy. I just spent the last half an hour reading those refs from beginning to end. Some of them definitely support that sentence (or some form thereof), but many do not. For instance, the Denmark reference only discusses the Church of Scientology's failure to get recognition as a a religious organization, not any violations of religious freedoms:

The Church of Scientology did not seek official approval as a religious organization during the period covered by this report. Its first application for approval was made in the early 1970s and rejected; the second and third applications were made in 1976 and 1982, and both were denied. In mid-1997, the Church of Scientology filed a fourth application, which was suspended at their request in 2000. In suspending their application, the Church of Scientology asked the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs to clarify the approval procedure; however, the ministry told them they must first submit an application before the ministry could provide any feedback. Despite Scientology's unofficial status, the Church of Scientology maintained its European headquarters in Copenhagen.

Failing to receive official approval doesn't equate with violation of religious freedom. --GoodDamon 23:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reading the refs. So you agree with what I said. Good. And take out Denmark then, seems to be half-cooked. You want to add the United Nations instead (E/CN.4/1998/6/Add.2)? Misou 00:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Heh... Yes, I do agree that reading the refs is a good idea. In this case, they demonstrate quite clearly that my wording was correct, so I have to wonder why you reverted me?

As for your link there, I thought we'd had this discussion earlier? That's a Church site. Remember, I'm neutral. Neither Church sites nor most personal sites count as reliable sources as far as I'm concerned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GoodDamon (talk • contribs) 00:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

So, you are neutral? Haven't noted that, 3/4 of the page concentrating on a weak link, not mentioning 5+ correct ones and all that. Strange neutrality. How about answering my question? E/CN.4/1998/6/Add.2 is right here (on top of Google results). And the UN press statement is here. Last time I checked the United Nations website was not a church site. Interested, or just critical? Misou 00:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I just saw your nth revert. Not accurate. You know who is doing the research/documentation, you just read it and said it above. Maybe the Scientologists in the those countries, but for sure the US State Department. Your edit is factually false, per the references, per your own knowledge. I don't get it. Misou 00:58, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hoo-boy, lotta topics...

• On my neutrality: See my ongoing argument with Anynobody about the Personality section if you want to see an example of my perspective in action. I don't agree with anyone in that. And which "weak" link are you referring to? Anyway, in this particular instance, I think you're mistaking a question of grammar for a question of neutrality. Your wording made it sound like Scientologists had documented these discriminatory acts, when it was the U.S. State Department that had. It's a difficult sentence, and I may not be seeing it the same way you are. But I think we're on the same page as far as its meaning is concerned, and it's just a matter of phrasing. It's funny... I predicted a while ago that my edits would annoy both sides, and it appears I was right. Neutrality achieved! ;)
• On the UN report and statement: Why the heck didn't you link to those before? Why did you use a Church-owned site, when you knew that would have to be dismissed as unreliable out of hand? Why use a non-reliable source when the UN report itself is available? I really don't get it. You said, "Last time I checked the United Nations website was not a church site." No, the United Nations website isn't a church site. But that's not where you linked before. You linked here, and you must have known that wouldn't pass muster.
• On my "nth" revert: It wasn't a revert. Again, I think we're actually trying to get to the same place on that sentence (see my nth+1 edit. I'm still working on it. Oh, and thanks for the U.N. link, I'm working on adding it as a ref. --GoodDamon 18:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any contradiction. His edit and his stated position match perfectly. I haven't read the reference, so i can't comment on how it matches that. Foobaz·o< 01:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It's really funny, so much text about 4-5 words. Ok, the ref shows the US State Department documents discrimination and reports about it. They use info they get from Scientologists (who got discriminated). So the sentence I was saying is exactly that. Right now it says the Scientologists are documenting and State reports about the Scientologists documenting. This is inaccurate. Or what? Misou 02:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Misou is right, we don't know how the state department got their information. Why are we assuming that the state deparment report because of allegations by Scientologist when Germany has publicly made policies to discrinate against Scientologist. What about Windows 2000 been shut down because a component of the software was created by a company whose CEO is a Scientologist. What about the American congresional hearings about Germany's discrimination against American products due to religious discrimination? Even thought some part of the reports are composed of allegations by Scientologist the entire report is NOT. The state department have even intervine and has played has a mediator role betwen Germany and Scientology. So to say that these are allegations by Scientologist is false. Bravehartbear 19:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

How many different ways can I say I agree? Your point and Misou's is spot on. The sentence was a clunker, and grammatically difficult, but again I agree with you both on the meaning it should convey. And you did a great job on it with that last edit, Bravehartbear. --GoodDamon 20:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Falsehoods in Scientology Missions

These are not small churches! You could say, that those are normally smaller than churches, regarding staff and delivering services. A mission is a mission and has not the status and rights as a church. See mamagement dictionary. Well, I know, Wikipedia is not source. You guys are doing an excellent job, but keep the wordclearer in mind, don't kill him with the work he will have afterwards. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 14:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

If they are churches, and they are smaller than average churches, doesn't that make them small churches? "Smaller churches" isn't grammatical, unless they're being compared to something. Foobaz·o< 23:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

A mission is not a church! Yes, the grammaticle term is correct, a mission in comparison with a church reagarding volume of staff and delivering services. Wolfgang --89.15.153.76 10:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Wolfgang, I'm renaming this talk section. "Alter-is" is a Hubbard-coined term that most non-Scientologists wouldn't understand. Anyway, I think missions are just being called smaller than full-fledged churches. Sorry if I'm not interpreting your question correctly. --GoodDamon 01:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok in altering the headline - see below: My dears... . Thinking and having opinions about a subject is POV, it is not what it is. That's mens curse, thinking what it might be, in contrary with the actual experience what it really is. There is lecture from LRH about this matter: Look, don't listen. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 10:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

A mission might be a small church, or it might be someone a real estate agent who does a little auditing on the side out of his office. Does CoS list the minimum requirements for a mission? AndroidCat 02:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Where did you get this information from? There is a sequence, going up to the volume and rights of a church. There are fieldauditors, Scientology or Dianetics groups, Missions and Churches. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 10:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Observation. The mission of East Toronto has only had a real bricks'n'mortar existence for a couple years after being listed for well over a decade. AndroidCat 21:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Your documentation is not given enough evidence and a clear distinction. Observing an object is not knowing the laws behind. Just go to the Scientology Management Dictionary and read the definition yourself. Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.79 10:37, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

My dears! My entry above is exactly telling what it is. So please, duplicate the words and the meaning of it. "Missions are commonly smaller than churches, regarding staff and delivering services (for a mission, class V services are not allowed, in contrary to a class V organization, see your link in the article to missions). A mission is a mission and has not the status and rights as a church. Wolfgang -- 89.15.153.76 10:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Gotta agree with Wolfi. The diff between a Church and a Mission is what part of the The Bridge they can deliver (and so is the training of the staff there etc). Has not much to do with size. Moskow Mission is 150 staff or more by now. And I remember a Church in Germany with about 50 staff. "Field groups" are just that, 1,2,3 people together, no formal organization. Misou 19:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Misou! Would you change this in the article? See also my first lines in this headline. Wolfgang -- 89.15.148.189 16:32, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Misou. The difference between Churches and Missions is one of function not size, though it is the case that in order to function effectively Churches need a higher minimum number of staff than Missions. --Hartley Patterson (talk) 01:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

CoS membership in USA

I've picked up a media article [24] which quotes a CoS spokesperson as saying "there are 10 million Scientologists worldwide including 3.5 million in the United States". Unfortunately the original article (Kansas City Star/March 17, 2007) is in the newspaper's subscription only archive section so the above reference is the only useable one. I intend to put it in as a counter to the NY Uni survey number of 55,000, but before doing so I thought it wise to explain why I'm referencing a critical website for it. If anyone knows a more direct reference to '3.5 million' that would be good. --Hartley Patterson (talk) 01:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

That's very helpful and considerate; I wish everyone was as good as you! Alice.S 07:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:EL

Misou, please enumerate the links the you feel are violating WP:EL, and exactly which part. (Note that terms like "hate site", "hobbiest", "POV-pushing", etc are going to be complete non-starters.) AndroidCat 04:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Private sites in blog quality, with unsourced content and by some strange persona have no place in WP. I did not take them out right away because of the painful noises I was expecting from you, Ron, but I marked them accordingly. None of the "Critical Links" sites is in any way encyclopedic. The Scientology Web Links are at least what they say they are. Misou 04:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

No no, I said enumerate. I'm willing to be flexible, but not when presented with a solid lump and with many apparent misunderstandings of WP:EL. Let's do this line by line. Anyway, I'm glad to see that you're on a first name basis with me. (Not that I remember mentioning it on Wiki, but it exactly a secret elsewhere.) And your name is? AndroidCat 04:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Misou for my friends, but for you I'll make an exemption. I'll switch back to your user name, read too many private hate pages today, also the ones of or about you. Now, actually any page in the "critics" section is no WP:EL, meaning private, collection of hate instriring crap and personal opinion, with no possibility to tell truth from invention, except for

• Scientology—is this a Religion? Stephen A Kent, 1979
• Rick Ross Scientology Information

Both at least legally liable for what they put out. Misou 05:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I have absolutely no idea what you're rambling about, especially the "read too many private hate pages today, also the ones of or about you" part. I suggest taking a break, go for a walk, watch the hummingbirds, 'cause if it persists... AndroidCat 05:19, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I am right in a break, why do you think I am editing here. But thanks. Misou 06:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, and WP:EL says for no-no links: "Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority.". That kills Ross as well. Misou 05:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

"personal web sites" seems to be one the misunderstandings frequently and deliberately introduced. (By the way, xenu.net is operated by an incorporation.) Please read the definition of Personal web page as used in WP:EL, links to be avoided. As for credible sources, don't just wave your hands, list a site and show where it doesn't meet the guidelines of WP:EL. AndroidCat 05:19, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

All those pages except the above two are operated by individuals (per the page or per whois). All giving nice long statements why they think Scientology should be annihilated one way or the other. There is no OC Inc.. Did you look? Misou 06:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

O RLY? [25] AndroidCat 06:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Yes, really. I guess your Norwegian sucks as much as mine, I don't read more than an "community of interest" or some such thing. A one-man show, confirmed by the contact data on the site: "Operation Clambake is registered as a non-profit organisation in Norway with myself as the only one in the organisation. State registration.no.: 982 983 126.". Look again. Misou 06:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

BTW, did you go to bed or are you still busy peaching me? Misou 07:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Note for any casual reader. Could you PLEASE come by and say something to this nonsense?!?! Misou 04:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Misou does have a point that these are the personal web sites of persons whose expertise is no more than their being Scientology-bashers--hardly the credentials to make them valid references in Wikiepdia. Personally, I would simply remove the links rather than call them "personal anti-Scientology pages." But if you insist on them staying, then the public at least have the right to know they are not credible sources (unless also we're going to go through all the sites on Judaism and cite Al Jazeera, and holocaust revisionist sites to create quote balance uquote.)Su-Jada 04:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Why not being consequent then? Misou 05:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

My views. First the sites that easily meet WP:EL:

• Operation Clambake on Scientology Xenu.net
• The Secrets of Scientology
• Rick Ross Scientology Information
• Scientology—is this a Religion?
• Scientology Lies
• Scientology at The Rotten Library

The above sites meet the following requirements....

• "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material"
• "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews":

Both requirements fit the description of the above sites. You will find a significant collections of newspaper articles, court documents, media transcripts at the above sites. These can be taken as "neutral and accurate", they are not the opinion of the site owner. Note that these sites also refer extensively to Scientology's own publications.

• Private Scientology parody site by Paul Horner

This one should be replaced with xenutv.com, which contains a precious archive of media materials relating to Scientology.

Now we shouldn't use "anti-Scientology" to describe these sites: it implies Wikipedia is passing a judgment value on the content of these sites. We should just describe in a short and neutral tone what the site contains: news archive, library of books critical, statistics, white papers, reports, etc. Raymond Hill 17:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

No, Horner's anti-Scientology spoof cannot be exchanged with Mark Bunkers personal anti-Scientology video site. That would be just the same. How about finding some reliable sources for this section? Until then the description should stay as accurate as it is right now. Or how would you call the personal anti-Scientology site you are running out of some 5 year old confusion? Misou 17:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Essentially, you are saying that Paul Horner's site, which you qualify as "spoof", can't be exchanged with Mark Bunker's site, which you will notice is an archive of media related to Scientology, and as such, a useful collection of potential references from reliable sources, suitable for, and complementary to this Wikipedia article. Your preference of Paul Horner's spoof over Mark Bunker's archive of reliable sources is puzzling, as this actually indicate that you would rather resort to 'spoof' material rather than materials from reliable sources to support this Wikipedia article. Also, your statement on my character, "5 year old confusion", is irrelevant in improving the current Wikipedia article, and has no place here. Raymond Hill 18:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Noted that you are trying to turn words in my mouth. Bunker's site has hardly a different purpose than Horner. Horner is just what he is, trying to show off, make noise, whatever, using existing crap on Scientology in a new patchwork. Bunker tries to intimidate, ridicule and make money with chasing and provoking Scientologists with his cam. Both purposes are just sick and their sites have no place in Wikipedia. Which is what I said. Which is what you ignore. Another thing you ignore is that you are thick in hunting Scientologists yourself, an active part of the Scientology bashing propaganda. It's called a WP:COI and you will have to decide if you want to just edit here or try to contaminate this place with hate propaganda. Misou 18:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Can we keep the focus on the content of their sites, rather than your opinion on their character and mine, which is irrelevant to this article? This is about external links we want to keep here. Also, I do not know why you bring WP:COI, can you be specific? Raymond Hill 19:15, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to focus on content, but for WP:EL we have to look for this "Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority." So I looked at all of them yesterday and they are obvious personal pages, some axe-to-grind type, some commercially motivated, others just nuts, none of them "written by a recognized authority". Also yours is not, as you say yourself, you thought in 2002 that the Church would try to censor the web or some such bullshit which was spread that time, and are hooked on collecting negative information on Scientology since (which is your COI point). Misou 19:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The way I see it, is that many of these web sites are archives of documents which are themselves from reliable sources, these documents are not authored by the web site owner. This is why I believe these sites should be included, to allow the readers to find these documents. Also, Andreas Heldal-Lund and Dr. Touretzky have been quoted, have been appearing in the media, so that indicates that they certainly have useful information on their web sites. Raymond Hill 20:34, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

You can't be serious about sites like "Scientology Lies" and "Operation Clambake" being neutral sites and/or containing neutral information. These are openly opinionated personal sites created by people who have no "expertise" in the subject in any quantifiable sense. That they've been quoted in the media is immaterial - so has Barbara Schwarz. So has my Uncle Ned. I could call a cheap webhost and start a dozen hyperbolic hand-wringing "oh, it's our duty to expose this global scam!" gossipy sites like xenu.net tonight. So could you. So could anyone. There is a real shortage of proper impartial sites about Scientology out there, but that doesn't mean that we must fill that vacuum with these amateurish homemade crank sites. I don't see any need to link to boorish and childish "I hate Scientology" sites than I do boorish and childish "I love Scientology" sites. wikipediatrix 01:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't claim that those sites are neutral, and i don't see anyone else, either. A site does not have to be neutral to meet WP:EL's requirements. Operation Clambake falls under "What should be linked" #4, "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content…", and does not violate any of the criteria in "Links normally to be avoided". #11 on that list recommends against "blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority". Operation Clambake is a recognized anti-Scientology authority, perhaps the biggest. Foobaz·o< 01:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I was responding specifically to Mr.Hill's quote from WP:EL that "The above sites meet the following requirements: sites that contain neutral and accurate material". I disagree greatly that Operation Clambake is a "recognized authority". A person can be an authority, a website cannot. And the site's index page states "I, Andreas Heldal-Lund, am alone responsible for Operation Clambake. I speak only my own personal opinions" which clearly earmarks this as a personal webpage. Furthermore, Lund's own FAQ contains the question ""Where can I find a neutral opinion?" which essentially admits that Lund's site is NOT a neutral opinion, referring the user to Wikipedia. (ha!) Further still, Lund is not an authority by his own admission in the FAQ: he admits he has no firsthand experience with the religion. Therefore, inclusion of this site and others of its ilk would be no different than including puerile "fuck the pope"-type websites on articles about Catholicism. wikipediatrix 01:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Surely a non-profit organization can be an authority. Can you suggest any better anti-Scientology links? To have none would be incomplete and POV. Foobaz·o< 02:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Really now. That's funny, I don't see any anti-Catholic sites in the Roman Catholic Church article. Nor are there any anti-Mormon sites on the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints article. And I don't know what non-profit status has to do with being an authority. The idea that we need anti-Scn links just in the name of balance is extremely misguided. wikipediatrix 02:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

We don't need them "just in the name of balance". We need them because Scientology attracts a lot of criticism. Ignoring this or hiding it away is not fair to our readers. Foobaz·o< 03:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

"... he admits he has no firsthand experience ..." thats called a secondary source! If he would have "first hand knowledge" some people would probably call him an apostate and would insist as well that the web site should be deleted. Which websites could be accepeted if primary and secondary sources are not WP:EL ?

"... A person can be an authority, a website cannot ..." we should delete all web sites ?

"... "Operation Clambake" being neutral sites ..." nobody insists actually that this sites are neutral. Therefore we have a section for critical websites where it is already placed.(even if some of them are only "data pooling" for all kind of stuff (neutral,positive and critical like the "Rick Ross institute"))

" ...would be no different than including puerile "fuck the pope"-type websites ..." don't kid yourself! -- Stan _talk 02:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I find your comments to be mostly non-sequiturs. wikipediatrix 02:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: the site's index page states "I, Andreas Heldal-Lund, am alone responsible for Operation Clambake. I speak only my own personal opinions" Of course it does, for a very practical reason. Anyone else named on a site masthead would immediately be open to harassment, the same as he has been. There's a lack of critical organization sites mainly because CoS has a habit of suing them out of existence. AndroidCat 03:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

That very well may be, but it doesn't really help us as far as Wikipedia goes. wikipediatrix 03:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, Kitty, this is kinda old-fashioned nonsense and actually illogic. Don't you think an individual can be silenced easier than a network or one big organization? I think so. Then it seems that in your world those baaaad Scientologists have no right of legal defense, is that so? And that courts closing down illegal organizations must be corrupt? Misou 05:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

rethorical, logical or just my languge skills ? -- Stan _talk 03:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Not your language skills. Rather the way you think is out of alignment with Wikipedia policy. Misou 05:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, I strongly believe the sites I listed above need to be included: they contain complementary information that a reader is unlikely to find easily elsewhere. Scientology is controversial, and removing altogether web sites which have Scientology controversy as its main topic is not to the benefit of the Wikipedia reader who would want to learn more about Scientology through the Wikipedia article. Its the content of the sites that is important: they do contain materials that are from neutral and/or reliable sources: courts, newspapers, books, government reports, well-sourced essays, etc. To add to this, Andreas Heldal-Lund and Dr. Touretzky have been quoted in media numerous times, so clearly we need to link to them.
Also, note that using other religion articles to justify the removal of critical links doesn't work. Scientology doesn't compare to the ones mentioned above because core beliefs of Scientology are not known by most scientologists themselves, until they reach the proper level, which takes years — and this is part of the controversial nature of Scientology. Raymond Hill 11:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. In addition, these sites are useful for cataloging Scientology's bad reputation in the media and legal battles related to Scientology materials. These issues affect Scientology to an extent unheard of in other religions, and deserve space in the article. Foobaz·o< 12:04, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Those sites are in violation of WP:EL. These are hobby sites, set up by individuals who have been actively harassing and intimidating Scientologists with no other purpose than discrimination and social ostracism of members of a minority religion. If they are celebrated for this by their special club of Scientology-haters or not, I don't care. And I couldn't care less what this club has to say about them. Fact is, their sites are no Wikipedia material per WP:EL. Misou 15:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Raymond said: "Andreas Heldal-Lund and Dr. Touretzky have been quoted in media numerous times, so clearly we need to link to them." That's the tail wagging the dog here. It's the same sort of "appearance alchemy" that the CoS itself uses. Lund creates an "Scientology is bad" site, and when the media look for an "opposing view" source to fill out a story, they often go to him out of laziness. This lucky break in no way imbues Lund with being an "authority" on Scientology any more than Narconon is imbued with being a reputable drug counseling clinic just because some media stories accepted their story at face value. Of the major Scn critics, I find Tory Christman the most authoritative, and it's unfortunate that she doesn't have a real website or a real organization. Touretzky's site is clearly a "home page", and so are most of the others. wikipediatrix 16:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I was going to add my pennyworth but this is a matter on which no agreement is possible. Does anyone seriously believe they have any fresh arguments that they believe can produce a consensus? If not, does anyone wish to go to arbitration to change the status quo? --Hartley Patterson 03:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree arbitration is required. There seem little chance that the ongoing discussion will lead to any kind of agreement. Raymond Hill 15:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Not really a case of "tail wagging the dog". It's not the media that made them useful resources. The mention in the media comes from fact that these sites are good places to find the other side of the coin. And I strongly believe that it's the spirit of Wikipedia to point the reader to complementary information regarding an important aspect of the subject, which in the current case is the controversial nature of Scientology. Raymond Hill 03:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The sites have names. Calling them by something other than their name, especially a derisive attempt to guess how many people are involved and calling the sites "personal projects" rather than the name given on the site is simply vandalism and a violation of the NPOV policy. If a page has a title, then that title should be used. I don;t see any critics of the cult renaming church of scientology links.(RookZERO 01:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC))

Hey, you can talk! Modern, modern. Yes, sites have names. And they are not "Scientology front" or so. But they are - for the lack of a correct name - "Personal website", "homepage" or "private dump of ugly thoughts". But, actually, they are a WP:EL violation and should not be there at all. Misou 02:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no policy in WP:EL saying that anything disagreeing with L Ron Hubbard should be removed.(RookZERO 02:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC))

Yeah, haven't seen that either. Misou 02:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Foobaz, dear, if you'd open your eyes you could see that RookZERO deleted a bunch of valid text and a reference. That is VANDALISM, per WP:VANDAL. If you want it or not. But I noticed over the weeks that cult-bashing seems not only be bad for the brain but also for the eyes. Don't fall for it. Misou 02:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I find it incredibly ironic that you're anti-censorship, Misou, when you yourself are trying to silence critics of Scientology. Riverose (talk) 03:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Introduction to Scientology Ethics

I tried to summarize the ethic and justice system of the church and introduced it in the article. The main problem here is that public statements from the church and the actual writings from Hubbard diverge quite a bit. However, I tried to integrate public statements(What is Scientology?), original primary sources(Ethic book) and secondary sources like scholar Stephen Kent. A stupid off topic joke came to my mind while writing. Didn't introduce it to the article but couldn't hold it. -- Stan _talk 02:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to insert following at in the end of the ethic section afer .. inside and outside Scientology:

Their official website states "with an understanding of how to compile, graph and compare statistics, the Scientologist is amply equipped to determine exactly what condition an activity is in, and thus exactly what steps he must take in order to better that condition." The "conditions" referred to, in order from best to worst, are Power, Affluence, Normal, Emergency, Danger, Non-Existence, Liability, Doubt, Enemy, Treason and Confusion. While members with high and uprising production have usually a condition between "Normal" and "Power", members with continuously low statistics can be assigned to lower conditions. Espescially conditions lower than "Non-Existence" require an extraordinary high contribution from the member in order to reach a higher condition again. Members assigned to a lower condition like "Liability" are not considered to be in "good standing" with the church anymore and and ought to be less respected by other members. Lower conditions can also be assigned to Critics of the church or former members in order to set clear regulations for staffs and members how to deal with them.

Ok, or to much "ethic" ? -- Stan _talk 04:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Hair raising. Mixing up organizations, groups, staff, members etc. Man, I wish I had the time for this. Did you read anything else than ex-Scientologist statements? Misou (talk) 06:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't include ex-Scientologist statements at all. Most can be found in the ethic book("Hat of an Ethic officer","lower conditions",essay about power", etc.) and some statements are primary source interpretations from scholars like Kent. I already mentioned in the article that ethics "can be applied to individuals, groups, organizations, and any production activities inside and outside Scientology." And I didn't mix up organisations and groups. Hubbard did that,not me.(Both are considered to be "third dynamic"). I would have no problems with an additional sentence or more wich explains that ethics can be applied on all "dynamics" and how, if necessary. However, the third dynamic is the most important one since the church , any group, organization or company wich is applying Scientology ethics is usually measuring its member on their third dynamic(production for the group,org, company). And we don't write only about individuals but also CoS and other organitizations wich apply Scientology ethics and ho0w it effects its members or emploayees. But go ahead and try to rewrite it more clearly. Right now its just a draft here on talkpage anyway. -- Stan _talk 07:40, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Stan you are full of it, Steven Kent is a Anti-Scientologist and a piece of the blue Sky is a anti-scientology book. But you just gave an oportunity to write about Scientology ethics so thank you for starting this subjuct I will really take advantage of this oportunity. Thanks again Love Bravehartbear (talk) 09:32, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Infant formula question

I keep seeing reference to Hubbard's infant formula being modified to use honey instead of corn syrup. Is this a common modern practice of Scientologists? If so, the section on infant care might be improved by mentioning that (with refs, of course). If I'm way off, then... well, never mind. :) --GoodDamon 16:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Exposing Stan En agenda

Stan En created new sections titled Scientology Ethics and Justice by using bias sources that place an un-due burden on this article. These bias sources are Steven Kent a notorious anti-scientologist and the book piece of the blue Sky that is an anti-scientology book. His understanding on this subject is simply laughable and ignorant; he totally misunderstands fundamental and principles. An example of this is the absurd statement that Scientologist are expected to keep statistics on their lives, statistics are only intended to be used to measure productivity. A Scientologist can use these to measure his productivity or the productivity of his company. I will try to fix this total screw up. Bravehartbear (talk) 11:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm done with ethics I will work with Justice when I get a chance. This bear needs to go to sleep. night, night. Bravehartbear (talk) 13:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, because everyone knows that all academics who aren't favourable towards Scientology are notorious anti-scientologists, almost all books on Scientology are anti-Scientology books, and all critical web sites are hate sites... Pointing out that sources might have a bias is one thing, but this continual OR chant is tiresome. AndroidCat (talk) 15:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Most of it can be found in Scientologys ethic book wich I tried to summarize. Is that book biased? I didn't know. -- Stan _talk 15:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Most of these expanded sections already have a main article. Why are they being stuffed into this one? AndroidCat (talk) 15:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I only wanted to summarize ethic and justice but Braveheartbear flooded the article with dissemination materials and deleteted parts of my version. My proposed version(deleted Atack but kept Stephen Kent):

Ethics in Scientology

Main article: Ethics (Scientology)

Ethics is defined by the Church of Scientology as the actions an individual takes on himself to ensure his continued survival across the dynamics.. In order to make these ethical decisions that affect others around them, Scientologists are expected to use statistical measurement to assess the "measurement of survival potential". According to The Scientology Handbook, the Scientology method of statistics can, and should, be applied to individuals, groups, organizations, and any production activities inside and outside Scientology.

Professor Stephen A. Kent quotes Hubbard as pronouncing that "the purpose of ethics is to remove counter intentions from the environment. And having accomplished that the purpose becomes to remove other intentionedness from the environment". What this translates to, says Kent, is "a peculiar brand of morality that uniquely benefitted [the Church of Scientology] ... In plain English, the purpose of Scientology ethics is to eliminate opponents, then eliminate people's interests in things other than Scientology."

Scientology Justice

Main article: Scientology Justice

If statistics are not brought up to a sufficient level of production and the person is not able to improve its production level sufficiently, it can be declared a PTS (Potential Trouble Source), a Suppressive Person, or even ultimately disconnected from the church. A person with high and rising production statistics is considered to be ethical by the church and usually unmolested from internal punishment. -- Stan _talk 16:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Braveheartbear, you included a lot of dissemination materials in the "Beliefs and Practice section" not only now but also in the past. A lot of criticism was deleted or removed to shorten the length of the article in past(Scientology and other religions) but you keep inflating "beliefs and practice" with your "propaganda" instead of writing a concise summary of each topic(where not just "What is Scientology?" material is explained). This time I reverted you because you also deleted significant sourced materials to spread your own agenda.(disseminate) -- Stan _talk 16:13, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

What you call dissemination materials is nothing else than basic concepts of Scientology.

• What is the dynamic princyple of existance?
• What is right and wrong?
• What are the dynamics of life?
• What are morals?

What you call "writing a concise summary" is simply altering and mudding the concepts in a way that they are un-comprehensible. I didn't delete any well sourced materials, I deleted some info that was just plain false information and you bull interpretations. You don’t have any rights to delete basic Scientology concepts these are not propaganda just the truth of what Scientologist believe in strait out of Scientology books. But you don’t want to these to be known. Your purpose is to ridicule Scientology, make it look like a weird believe system. You got something else coming. Bravehartbear (talk) 19:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Everthing is already explained in Scientology (Ethics). We should try to summarize it here. What do you think was plain wrong ? I read the ethic book and don't think that I did ridicule anything. It doesn't sound very shiny but is exactly what happens in Scientology and how it is described in Hubbards writings, thats (NPOV). ...and not just my interpretation, Stephen Kent is also cited. Before it comes to OR ourself we should look to interpretations from scholars. -- Stan _talk 19:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Breaveheartbear, the article is too long, thats my mainconcern. Do you think you can summarize "Dynamics","Right or wrong", morals a bit ? -- Stan _talk 19:25, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Lets see what the senior editors say.Bravehartbear (talk) 19:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

False information in the page

"If statistics are not brought up to a sufficient level of production and the person is not able to improve its production level sufficiently, it can be declared a PTS (Potential Trouble Source), a Suppressive Person, or even ultimately disconnected from the church.

This info is simply false there is nothing in the ethics book that states this. A person can only be declared afther commiting a Supresive act or a high crime and afther a commite of evidence. Older versions of the ethics are no longer used if this info was ever there. The only Ethics books currently used is 2007.Bravehartbear (talk) 19:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

read the book again. Continually low stats and not handling lower conditions(uprising production) is a "suppressive act" in Scientology! However, I am not very happy with this sentence because it may sound a bit harsh. You can try to rewrite that. -- Stan _talk 19:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Tsk, Stan, step back, Mr. Arrogant. Your free interpretation of Hubbard texts is just not visible in real life. I guess that is what upsets Bravehartbear so much. Which I can understand. It is you who should read the book to start with, or start to accept help from those who actually know what they are talking about. Shutterbug (talk) 06:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok I did it. I read every high crime/suppressive acts from the ethics book in the 1998 edition and the 2007 edition and guess what? There is no mentioning of what you are talking about. High crime/suppressive acts are located in page 294 of the 1998 edition and in page 308 of the 2007 edition. So can you tell me in what page is the high crime/suppressive act that you are taking about? If not I will have to remove the false information.Bravehartbear (talk) 11:21, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I get you all the quotations needed for that. -- Stan _talk 16:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I'm arrogant now ? Maybe, I became a bit harsh and upset here but I didn't start ...

• Did you read anything else than ex-Scientologist statements?" Misou
• Stan you are full of it, ... Braveheart
• Exposing Stan En agenda Bravehartbear
• Your purpose is to ridicule Scientology Bravehartbear

What bothers me is the cherrypicking for quotations from you in the belief section. If a quote sounds nice you push it but if something is inserted not sounding shiny you start to argue and take it personal. My proposed version didn't even include the "pie shop" story anymore". I also already said that the controversial sentence may be rewritten(because it is indeed a rare case and the justice system shouldnt be reduced to production). I also tried not to use only free interpretation and used Stephen Kent and Jon Atack but they are "Scientology haters" now ): . Looks to me that only active Scientogists but neither me nor scholars are allowed to interpret and cite Hubbard ?! I consider that as arrogant too. I also don't want to ridicule anything but tried to give a full overview. I have a proplem if only the basics are shown in full because there is some discrepance and misrepresentation between the "dissemination material" and actual course materials (Ethic course, PTS/SP course etc.). I think only to show the "bright" side does ridicule Scientology too. -- Stan _talk 16:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I went so hard on you but what you said was simply not true. Down stats are not a high crime/suppressive acts or a offense in Scientology. I think that you are the victim of false information from an anti-scientology book. I think that someone is misquoted Hubbard from the policy “ethics protection” were Hubbard said that that up-stats people are immune to justice whereas down-stat are not into meaning that being down stats is a reason to face justice. This was so absurd and so ridicule that I had to take offense. I apologize for going ballistic but I didn’t know what were you reason to write this false info. Usually I’m very mellow, I don’t like to fight, I like to educate. Just be aware that there is a lot of false information running around about Scientology and you should read the actual Scientology text before stating “Hubbard said this” because he can be easily being quoted out of content. Of course you can quote Hubbard but when you do don't do it out of content. Being that said I take that you did what you did in goodwill and you didn't know that Hubbard was being taken out of content. But now that you are more educated in this subject matter you can fix it. My purpose is to educate and I don't have any problem with information critical of scientology as long it is true. My problem is with blunt false information. About me quoting hubbard, well he said a lot of good things I just people to know that. I sincerely apologize for accusing you. Bravehartbear (talk) 19:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

PS I don't have anything against religious schoolars, in fact I like them. There is Melton and many other that have said positive and negative things about Scientology. But Kent is diferent, he doesn't have anything good to say about Scientology, he is involved with the anti-cult movement and in his web site he mostly has anti-scientology information. 131.36.116.37 ([[User

talk:131.36.116.37|talk]]) 21:47, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

We disagree here I think. In my opinion is Kent reliable and Melton not. However, both should be treated the same because both are recogniced scholars and experts. -- Stan _talk 22:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

What makes Kent more reliable than Melton? 205.227.165.244 (talk) 00:12, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, Kent doesn't fly to Japan to protect murders with dubious evidences. But did I state Melten is less reliable ? No, I didn't. I wrote both should be treated the same because both are recogniced scholars and experts. the rest was my oppinion, not more. -- Stan _talk 01:13, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

"I'm sorry I went so hard on you" no prob, already forgot ;). BTW. My wiki-ethic joke maybe wasn't the best way to relax tensions here either(I'll delete it). You would be surprised, I actually read more primary than secondary sources but I think "third party" sources may prevent us from WP:OR especially if statements or interpretations from primary sources are disputed. However, there should be consensus here that "Scientology justice", "punnishment" or "obligatory compensation" is usually applied on individuals with lower conditions (liability, enemy, treason etc.). My version was never meant to be stable and I would like to see that you improve or complement it. So lets work on it instead of having two versions(yours and my) in the article wich is quite confusing and inflates it unnecessarily. I already deleted some twin-sentences but its still a mess and neither me nor you can improve it furtermore without beeing attacked for removing sourced materials from the other party. But the quality of the article suffers under this condition.(You add positive stuff and I counter with negative; at the end we have a mess). So ... if you think you can describe "Scientology justice"(the disputed sentence) more concise than I did, replace it and if I dispute your version we might work it out on talk page.

BTW.: I never said that "Down stats" are a "high crime" or "supressive act" by itself. I said constant unhandled "Down stats" are "supressive acts". I did it in the light of "Hat of an ethic officer" and some policies regarding not handling lower conditions. There are also policies stating that a PTS declared person has to disconnect from the source of suppression or needs to handle it. If not he/she will be declared a "SP". SP's are usually disconnected from the group. I think it was not wrong what I wrote but admit that it was not really concise and not the best way to summarize "Scientology justice". However, there is always a better way .... :) -- Stan _talk 22:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

What's the source for "There are also policies stating that a PTS declared person has to disconnect from the source of suppression or needs to handle it. If not he/she will be declared a "SP"."? (second part) Never heard of that. 205.227.165.244 (talk) 23:48, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

"Never heard of that." don't believe you that!

• 13 August 1982, "Suppressive Act – Dealing with a Declared Suppressive Person"
• HCO PL 10 September 1983, PTSNESS AND DISCONNECTION
• HCO PL 7 March 1965RA, Issue III, OFFENSES AND PENALTIES
• HCO Policy letter of 18th October 1967 (not related to your question but usefull for my other claim) :)

quotation "Suppressive Acts": Any PTS who fails to either handle or disconnect from the SP who is making him or her a PTS is, by failing to do so, guilty of a Suppressive Act.

Don't forget to log in next time. You have enough accounts. -- Stan _talk 01:13, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Back to the subject matter.... Stan you said that your paragraph that you created was sourced from the ethics book, when I challenged you and asked to provide a page # you couldn't comply. It seems that the paragraph in question is original research i.e. your own personal opinion o someone else's view. I don't have a problem with you sourcing Kent or any other critical source but if you do it you must state your source. I think that a consensus has already been reached. Saying that I believe that we bloated the page out of proporsion and a good trimming is due. Bravehartbear (talk) 03:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I actually tried to summarize and only use the ethic book as source because it may give a good overview, even if not all policies regarding this issue are in the book, but it is verifiable wich may not be the case for other HCO PLs. I already said that I can't cite or quote one single statement or page to source the entire paragraph. I tried to summarize many of them. Please don't make me to quote down the entire book with all its chapters. Just some Examples:

• poor production can become a crime in Scientology(even the first time, not just if continiously done like I actually wrote). Committing a problem; Committing a solution which becomes a problem; Case on post; continuing the error and not remedying the matter right away; Failing to keep a computer clean and in repair (can be found in list of crimes in the ethic book)
• "Hat of an ethic officer" (tell me if I translated the name of this chapter wrong;I only have the German version of it but the chapter is in the ethic book, at least in the version prior to 2007) people who are "Downstat" or have a low production are almost "fair game" per this policy. And individuals with high statistics are pretty much above the law. The policy clearly states that ethics and punishment is more about productivity than moral issues and that ethics should be applied to increase productivity.(money,"study time",make other people to make more money or whatever the product may be)
• everyone can fall into "Liability" or below due to poor/low level of production in Scientology. Chapter "Condition of Liability" states (also in the ethic book):Apply for re-entry to the group by asking the permission of each member of it to rejoin and rejoining only by majority permission, and if refused, repeating steps 2-4 until one is allowed to be a group member again. (already quite close to a disconnect ?!) and that is the highest of possible negative conditions ...
• However, "Penalties for lower Conditions" HCOPL 18 Oct 1967 is not in the ethic book but shows with less OR that punishment for low production exists.

I'll take a break from this article for a few days.(just became too much involved here) Your chance to rewrite and hopefully improve the ethics and justice sections. -- Stan _talk 06:13, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Stan you are mixing apples and oranges. Scientology law is Scientology law, an advice for ethics officers are just that, an advive for ethics and background information is background information. The way you are doing it anything can mean anything, there is no differentiation betwen Law, advise and a commentary, everything equals everything. You are making everything too complicated, if it is not listed as high crime list it is not a high crime. I have read those policies too and I understand their meaning. Keeping low stats is a way to supress a organisation, so these people should be investigated, it does not say that down stats is an actionable crime it self. Also I know that people with low stats are trying to stop things, so if they do a knowledge report on a up stat person they should be investigated no the up stat person that is doing his job. Bravehartbear (talk) 23:12, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with your removal of "Scientology justice". I think its essential for the article and should be mentioned. -- Stan _talk 12:58, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Germany Seeks to Ban Scientology

• Staff (December 3, 2007). "German Official Wants Scientology Ban". Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-12-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Staff (December 7, 2007). "Germany Seeks to Ban Scientology". Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-12-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Charbonneau, Louis (December 7, 2007). "German ministers say Scientology unconstitutional". Reuters. Retrieved 2007-12-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

• "Scientology responds to German ban proposal". CNN. December 7, 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• "Scientology ban in Germany seen unlikely". Reuters. December 7, 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

---

This source info should be mentioned in the article. Cirt 10:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC).

Agreed that this should be noted. Maybe even an article like Status of Scientology in Germany is warranted, seeing as how there has been a long history of conflict of Scientology in Germany? ~ UBeR (talk) 01:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

This is nothing new, Germany has been discriminating against minority religious groups for as long as I can remember. As it has been noted by U.S. state department. Wasn't Germany responsible for the holocoust? It seems that they up to it again, balantly violating human rights while using the slogan "For Democracy" when it is the Geman goverment itself that is being anti-democratic. What's next? Tatooing all Scientologists with a serial # and put them in a concentration camp!!!

The reality is that the accusations are empty. Next year they are going to say "there is not enoght evidence" like thay always do. Even if they actually do a move it will end up in court and they will lose like Russia did.

About including this in the article, you can do that but remember all stories have two sides and both sides need to be exposed. Well anyway one way or the other the situation in Germany will be resolved. Or they follow up their words or give up their attacks on Scientology. One way or the other this will get resolved. I think we are watching the climax of this show. Funny :-) Bravehartbear (talk) 08:03, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Your comparison with the Holocaust is distastefull in any way and is disrespectful toward the victoms of Germanies Nazi regime(1933 - 1945). Now, its not about Scientologists and their right to practice their beliefs but about an organisation (CoS) which is considered to be unconstitutional. The judgement from politicians about this organisation can be disputed but don't use the Holocaust for a cheap shot! -- Stan _talk 12:51, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

"German ministers say Scientology unconstitutional". Partly agree with Bravehartbear, nothing new. Some politicians always talk about it. I'm sure they will talk about it next year too. Scientology is considered to be unconstitutional basicly since 1997 in Germany and nothing has changed. It might be notable in an article like Scientology in Germany but there is no such article now.-- Stan _talk 12:51, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

"But the domestic intelligence agencies have been closely monitoring Scientology's operations for a decade and see little hope of amassing sufficient evidence to justify a ban.""Citing unnamed domestic intelligence agents familiar with the Scientology issue, Der Spiegel magazine reported that German authorities where having little success infiltrating the organization."

Sorry for the drama. If Germany has evidence against Scientology they should press charges. Ohh I forgot they have already did and lost. Freaking laws, if only they could break the constitution, by pass the legal system and just ban Scientology. That's the way, don't let the constitution get in the way of defending the constitution. Bravehartbear (talk) 14:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep your cool. Comparing the banishment of a non-religious organization to the Holocaust was out of line. ~ UBeR (talk) 04:26, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Not really. I assure you any German learning about the full history of the Holocaust with open eyes can see how it started and see the parallels. It's just not smart to point it out here. There are no parallels if you only look at the end of the Holocaust but there are parallels when you look at the beginning of the persecution of minorities in Germany. Without that the Holocaust would not have been possible. I am looking at this article and it is clear that this is a mixture of pro- and anti-Scientology propaganda (mostly anti I think, at least the Scientology edits are obvious for everyone), playing by the rules of propaganda like nowhere else in Wikipedia. I won't get too much involved here but just wanted to say that "You Nazi" - "How dare you, ugly, ugly" exchanges will not improve the article. Taking out obvious propaganda will. Derflipper (talk) 22:29, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Bravehartbear, we aren't here to discuss the subject, but to discuss how to improve the article, see WP:FORUM. Whether Scientology can be compared to the holocaust or not is irrelevant until you can provide reliable third party sources discussing it. John Hayes^talk 15:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Scientific criticism section

The 'Scientific criticism of Scientology section contains no scientific criticisms of Scientology, but rather a court ruling and a comment by a scientist. I'm not arguing that the material should be removed, but rather moved to more appropriate sections. Ashmoo (talk) 11:53, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

error

In the Origins section, this article lists "John W. Parsons" as one of Hubbard's influences. As any occultist can tell you, JACK Parsons is the usual form of this fellow's name. His wikipedia article is under Jack Parsons. Can someone correct this and make it a link? This bit of history is important for understanding the Crowlyian influence in Scientology. Zosimos12 (talk) 20:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Introduction going fuzzy

"...the total body of beliefs and practices of Dianetics and Scientology are the sole intellectual property of....". This makes no sense. Neither beliefs not practices (eg auditing) can be copyrighted! I assume what the editor wanted to say was that the copyright on Hubbard's writings belongs to CST. So why not do so?

We've also lost the distinction between beliefs and organisation, again. This must be stated clearly and explicitly in the introduction (it's been moved down the page), as an article about any subject should start by defining it particularly in this case where a common misconception exists that the two are synonymous. It should then cascade down so that when the CoS is meant Church of Scientology is said, consistently. --Hartley Patterson (talk) 20:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The first problem is easily rectified. The second may take some work. I'm kinda bonked at the moment, so someone else wanna take a stab at this? --GoodDamon 21:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Scientology (as used so by the IRS) doesn't help matters with its purposely confusing cloud of incorporations and magical religious/secular line that keeps shifting as needed. As well, Scientology (the belief) is so tightly-linked to Scientology (the organization), that completely separating the two seems like an attempt to make the facts fit the classification system rather than the other way around. AndroidCat (talk) 23:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The lines may be blurry, but there is definitely a difference between the Church as an organization (yes, and all its sub-organizations), and the beliefs and practices of adherents to the belief system. I think that's what Hartley was getting at. --GoodDamon 23:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

When you use "the Church" to refer to Scientology (the organization), are you including the ABLE sub-groups? This seems to be a problem point. AndroidCat (talk) 23:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that's relevant to this discussion. I'm talking about the system of beliefs and practices that Scientologists use, whether or not they belong to or are employed by any Church or Church-related organization, versus the organization itself. Yes, I'm sure the ABLE sub-groups and such are basically part of the Church, but that's neither here nor there. The truth is, there are plenty of Scientologists who aren't part of ABLE or any other Church front organization, and their beliefs and practices shouldn't be confused with the Church's admittedly boggling organizational structure. --GoodDamon 00:04, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems like it's the core of the discussion—to make this article something which it has never been: purely about beliefs and practices across the Church of Scientology and the Freezone. Isn't that what Scientology beliefs and practices is for? AndroidCat (talk) 00:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, I think I see what you're saying now. If I'm reading you right, you're concerned that this article will exclude information about the Church's organizational structure in favor of purely describing beliefs, yes? I don't think that's what Hartley Patterson was getting at. I read her comment as concern that the intro has become a confusing jumble, which it has. The intro should be clear that this article is an overview of both the beliefs of Scientologists and the organizational structure that disseminates Hubbard's materials. --GoodDamon 00:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, basically. I don't think the trademarked word Scientology can be shoehorned to fit only the belief system and not the organization. For the introduction, shifting out most of those long strings of cites would be a good step. The introduction isn't the place to hold argument-by-reference and are most of these even cited down in the sections where they should belong? AndroidCat (talk) 05:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

This is an important distinction. Much of the controversy of Scientology relates to the organization rather than the basic beliefs, which really aren't that much more dangerous than the Christian Scientists or Jehovah's Witnesses (keeping in mind my ignorant perspective of all three religions/belief systems).71.35.252.65 (talk) 01:03, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the table of contents thing on the right side?

That was really nice for navigating the page, why was it removed? All the articles it linked to seem to still be there, that navigation section is just gone now.

FalseMyrmidon (talk) 13:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• Which table of contents thing? What are you talking about, specifically? If you are referring to the old template, please see the "footer" template at the bottom of the article. Cirt (talk) 18:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC).
  • Oh, that's it. I didn't realize it was down there now, it used to be a sidebar type thing. FalseMyrmidon (talk) 00:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

External links

We should really pare down the external links to those that are notable. Of course, the Clambake site is notable. Other than that, maybe Rick Ross? LMT is notable but I don't think I saw it in there. I think that is about it. The rest are non-notable, or copyvio sites (as is Ross), or YouTube. So I am thinking maybe three Church sites, three critical sites and are there any notable links in the others? Thoughts? --JustaHulk (talk) 16:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It irks me to remove links to the church's own websites which show just how hypocritical and deceptive they really are, but you are correct about the external link policies, to whit: Wikipedia articles should include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia if they are relevant. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability (such as reviews and interviews). The external links in the article probably could be trimmed down a bit. TechBear (talk) 16:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate you providing the reference and I appreciate your honesty in reverting yourself. Let me say that, as a Scientologist, I find the RFW site and most of the other chilling effects tactics reprehensible. I am not so disinclined toward legal action and threat of legal action but toward these extra-legal activities such as RFW and counter-picketing. One thing we, as Wikipedia editors, have to be careful of is a kind of sneaky original research. I know that was not your intent but I refer to trying to make a point not made in RS by means of external links or other "sneaky" methods. External links must serve the same purpose as the article, and they should be equally reliable and NPOV. Of course, the website of the topic of the article would be exempt from that requirement but Wikipedia is not the place to push non-RS opinions and non-notable off-site links. Since criticism of Scientology is a notable topic then a couple of notable critical sites have a place here. A few more notable sites could also be linked from the Scientology controversy article. What we have now goes well beyond any reasonable interpretation of the intent and policy related to external links. They exist in the article to serve purposes that are not Wikipedia's. --JustaHulk (talk) 17:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Check the history: I was not the one who inserted the link in the first place, I simply reverted your undo (and then reverted my undo of your undo.) The website in question certainly looks and feels like one maintained by the CoS, which is why I put it back in. Referencing websites operated by the topic of an article is NPOV, no matter what the content of the website might be. That does not necessarily mean the site meets the criteria for a referenced external link, however, which is why I took it back out. TechBear (talk) 17:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I know that you did not insert the link. And, as I mention above, I agree that websites by the subject of the article are fit links and need not meet WP:NPOV or WP:V standards. My objection is that there is no proof anywhere that I know of that this site has any official connection to the Church other than perhaps that a Scientologist runs it. Until such proof is provided, it cannot be put here to represent "the hypocrisy of Scientology" or whatever is looking to be pushed. --JustaHulk (talk) 18:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Scientology web links

It is imperative that we include religiousfreedomwatch.org in this section. Joel Phillips who is a Scientologist is the registered owner for the "Church". This site is probably the most important site that the "Church" owns. It lists every big time critic of Scientology. The site lists all of the facts that the "Church" believes is true about these people. It lists any crime that they believe the critic of their "Church" has ever committed. It even has a reward of $5000 against the person who made threats against it. The Scientology website includes articles that show the other side to something they believe is critical to Scientology. They list hate groups as anyone or any group critical of ONLY Scientology. They list religious experts as people that are Scientologists. This site is huge. It's updated all the time and shows up everywhere on all major search engines for every possible search you can imagine. Scientologists should be proud of this website. This website sums up everything that Scientology and the "Church" are all about. This website is Scientology, therefore it should be listed in the Scientology web links section. All in favor say "yes". All opposed, say "no. Thank you! K69 (talk) 17:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC) I vote "yes" K69 (talk) 17:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No. The site is a non-RS hate site that has no self-proclaimed or otherwise-sourced official connection to "Scientology" or the Church of Scientology. It is most assuredly not "everything that Scientology and the "Church" are all about" (that claim is unknowledgable, insulting, or both). That the site may or may not be run by a Scientologist is irrelevant. It is not a "Scientology site". --JustaHulk (talk) 18:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No. Sourcing is not established, official status is not established. As such, it is simply a record of one person's opinions, and clearly does not qualify. John Carter (talk) 19:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No. For the reasons listed above. It doesn't pass muster for WP:EL. --GoodDamon 19:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No Although I actually believe the church does run it, it still dosn't give any information about Scientology itself, any actuall information about scientology on this site is mixed up with alot of gobily gook and difficult to glean. Coffeepusher (talk) 20:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No. Raymond Hill (talk) 20:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No. Not even if CoS slipped up and admitted that they run it. AndroidCat (talk) 21:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No Personal websites are not allowed in Wikipedia. That same rules goes for xenu.net, operation clambake and Rick Ross. Now this bring into question: David Touretzky because he uses the university network to spread his junk it doesn't mean the his university aproves of what he does... Well anyway nice link but it doesn't seem it is connected to the church. The style is too agresive, it almost mimics the critics. So No, can't use it. Bravehartbear (talk) 12:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The sites you mention are not personal websites. Their purpose is not to tell you about the people running them and their personal interests. It is to provide a public service. Foobaz·o< 14:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I am sure that Religious Freedom Watch feels that they are providing a public service also. So which hateful and deceptive "public service" sites do we allow and which do we not allow? Trick question, of course, as none of them are acceptable. --JustaHulk (talk) 19:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia only reliable new sources that double check their sources are allowed. Personal web sites that are registered to an individual do not qualify as an encyclopedia reference. Is all in the Wikipedia policies. This was priory discussed long ago by user Misou. And it was determined that personal websites that are registered to a single owner are not allowed in Wikipedia. The discussion you guys just had about notable web sites is irrelevant. A web site doesn't get in Wikipedia because it is notable. It gets in Wikipedia because it is accurate and NPOV. Bravehartbear (talk) 21:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

JustaHulk: I agree, RFW is not a personal web page. However, this alone is not enough to qualify a link for inclusion. There are many other criteria which a site must also satisfy. RFW does not meet all of them, but as far as I know, there are no criteria that Clambake fails to meet. If you disagree, please point out exactly what makes Clambake unsuitable.

Bravehartbear: Just because a site is run by a single person does not make it a personal website. Clambake is not a personal website, and is allowed in Wikipedia. I didn't agree with Misou then, and I don't agree with him now.

Foobaz·o< 01:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Too long?

Is this article too long? GusChiggins21 (talk) 09:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems that this is being fix now. Bravehartbear (talk) 11:33, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Even with ADD (grin), I found the article well-written, fascinating, and of appropriate length.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 02:25, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

No mass deletions of links

Every and each link that some wants taken away should be discussed PRIOR to deletion. NOT the other way around. It took a while for these links to have ended up there. Therefore this should not be resorted to by some person just like that. In addition in the previous discussions various have uttered protests to various links included in this attempted mass deletion. --Olberon (talk) 12:23, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Rather than some generic "they are there so they are OK" argument and a mass reversion (i.e. edit-war), you are encouraged to nominate links that you think are appropriate for reinclusion (or removal). There is already a discussion above on the Touretzky link, feel free to add your opinion there. What you are proposing is NOT how Wikipedia works. See WP:BOLD. I was not reckless and I pared the links down based on their notability and relevance to the article. --JustaHulk (talk) 15:16, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

For your information YOU instigated an edit war by doing as you did! You ONLY may remove the links that have actually been discussed. You instead INCLUDED a whole bunch of other ones. Your reference referral obviously does not apply here. I oppose your actions and if needed I will report the matter on the board for adminstrators. This is supposed to be a discussion page, not a mass deletion festival. The fact you have to deal with is that in the previous discussions objections have been uttered about that you had included links that were not felt falling in the claimed category. You propose links to be deleted and not mass delete and then propose a discussion which are to be returned. That is absurd. Will I also remind you that these Scientology pages are in fact protected with a lock. --Olberon (talk) 15:34, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand what I did. You say "You instead INCLUDED a whole bunch of other ones." but that is not true - I added no links. The links I removed were inappropriate under WP:EL. You are, of course, welcome to report my actions and I encourage you to do so. Looking at your edit history, I see that this is not the first time you have taken a similar stance on inclusion of links. Previously, it was the Michel Snoeck page that you felt should not have been deleted. Is there one of the links that I deleted that you particularly feel belongs in the article? Again, Wikipedia is not intended to be edited in this pussy-footed manner you describe. Those links did not belong in the article and I removed them. That is what any editor can and should do. If I made a mistake in any particular case then I am more than willing to discuss it here. --JustaHulk (talk) 15:46, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with JustaHulk. The guideline regarding external links does present some fairly clear rules regarding inclusion. If anyone does feel that certain links mean that standard, however, they are welcome to indicate which links they are referring to and why. John Carter (talk) 16:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I am missing support for JustaHulks argumentation. The series of links that were removed were inappropriate per his personal interpretation. Furthermore notability are not the only criteria that should be considered. Talkpages are there for reason to discuss matters. Objections have been uttered in the previous discussions, for this simple reason I reverted this mass delete effort. --Olberon (talk) 16:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Olberon, you edit-warred with me over this and I have reported that on WP:AE. You went 2RR and I will not go more than one revert on a probation page so your version currently stands. I urge you to self-revert and back away from your edit-warring. --JustaHulk (talk) 16:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I did not edit-war anything. I simply object to your mass deletion solely based on supposed notability/non-notability per your personal opinion. My main motivation is the simple fact that the earlier discussions showed protest. Therefore I ask for a simple argumentation for each link. At this time you are threatening and attempting to intimidate me over this. --Olberon (talk) 16:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I very strongly disagree with the above. Particularly in a controversial page such as this one, it might even be possible that adding links, particularly if they are questionable, might be considered inappropriate content. Therefore, unless I am to remove the links on the basis of their inclusion is questioned and no clear reasons for their individual, specific inclusion given, I am requesting the clear justification of every recently included external link. Should I not receive such, then I may myself decide that their significance has not yet been demonstrated and remove those which have not been given credible reason for inclusion myself. John Carter (talk) 17:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

2¢ about external links

Just passing by, I noticed the above controversy about the list of external links. For what it's worth, I'd like to propose that the criterion for judgment here should not be focused primarily on talk page protocol, but on how the list of links serves readers of the article. In my view, it is worth considering that this article is relatively long and contains more than 200 notes, many of which include external links. There are also many internal links embedded in the body of the article that lead to related articles which, in turn, offer still more external links. I think it's fair to ask whether an "external links" section is needed at all in this case. Given the sprawl of the article, I'd say yes to that; a very concise list would be useful to someone who wants to go exploring the subject without reading the whole entry. I think Justahulk was right to cut the sprawling link list down. I'd suggest the list be trimmed down to the following, or something close: Official Scientology links: The CoS main page, "What is Scientology" FAQ, and the Scientology Handbook. Critical resources: Operation Clambake, Xenu TV. Independent Scientologists: Int'l Freezone Association. --BTfromLA (talk) 22:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

That proposal certainly has logical merit.

Incidentally, my last edit was truncated and would, if not for space limitations, have read: "When first proposed, if challenged, inclusion of an external link requires justification; if unchallenged then its long term and enduring presence indicates consensus so that subsequent removal (except for BLP violations, etc,) should be discussed and consensus reached before removal." Alice^✉ 22:09, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Alice, you merely continued an edit-war not supported by the established editors here on either "side" of the issue. What BT proposed is little different from what I did. Your idea that we have a bunch of discussion before making an edit violates the basic principles of this project, i.e. WP:BOLD, and is self-defeating as little editing would get done if we each wait for "committee approval". There is no committee, there is simply, in this case, rough agreement that something needed to be done. I did something and actions like yours in "protecting" earlier versions are not helpful and border on WP:OWN. --JustaHulk (talk) 22:56, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

And I would appreciate it if another editor would restore my edit as I did one revert already and will not do another. Thanks. --JustaHulk (talk) 23:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. Well, almost... I incorporated my minor changes to your earlier pruning. Tweak if needed. BTfromLA (talk) 03:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, BT, but I have a couple objections to the XenuTV site. One is I question its notability and the other and more decisive point is that it is a clearly a collection of copyright violation and that is something that we should not be promoting. From WP:EL#Restrictions on linking:

For policy or technical reasons, editors are restricted from linking to the following, without exception:

1. Sites that violate the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked. . . Knowingly directing others to a site that violates copyright may be considered contributory infringement. . . Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors.

That is pretty clear and XenuTV clearly is an inappropriate link. --JustaHulk (talk) 03:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a large amount of original XenuTV material on the site as well. AndroidCat (talk) 03:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

My logic in short-listing XenuTV is that I think the site is of great interest to someone wanting to get the video-audio side of journalism, ex-member testimony, etc., about Scientology and related issues. (Whereas Operation Clambake serves the same purpose for text-based materials.) Copyvio may be present, though I'm not sure it's such a slam dunk as you assert. As AndroidCat points out, for much of the material there--perhaps the bulk of it, though I haven't tried to measure--copyright is not at issue. I assume you are pointing to things things like the Ted Koppel interview with David Miscavige, which is both transcribed on the site and made visible inline through links to YouTube. I don't know where "fair use" begins and ends in such a situation. If folks who are better aquainted with the nuances of the wikipedia policy than I judge it to be out of bounds, then so be it. Personally, I don't think that a non-profit internet archive of otherwise difficult-to-see ephemeral materials that have little or no future commercial value but do have ongoing scholarly value violates the spirit of that policy. BTfromLA (talk) 05:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you feel that way, Justahulk. You're right in pointing out Wikipedia:Five pillars, but I usually interpret the fifth pillar in the light of WP:BRD and WP:Be Bold#… but don't be reckless once I see that revert warring has commenced. Alice^✉ 23:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect to Alice, a sow's ear does not become a silk purse if you hold on to it long enough. There could be many reasons that the EL list has not been pruned recently that have nothing to do with consensus; such as inertia, entropy, exhaustion, or choosing to deal with higher priority issues first. All parties are asked to behave themselves, as placing the article on 1 revert per person per week limit would affect all sections of the article, while hoping that "the other guys" get tagged for edit warring while you escape notice is not likely to turn out the way you want. Thatcher 02:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the smaller list of pages, however I would include the Touretzky pages under critical...and I agree that Xenu TV probably dosn't have encyclopedic value to it. my reasons are that they do provide information about the higher stages of Scientology.

and my 2 cents about this whole fiasco...I don't agree with mass deletes, especialy when you know it is going to cause trouble. When that delete was done the discription had the phrase "DO NOT EDIT WAR" in it, which is pritty much challanging anyone to disagree with you. Whenever I delete links that don't hold up to standard, the only notations I leave are "spam", "personal web page", "self published author"...and everyone knows what I am talking about. I believe that some of the links pruned where legitamate deletes...and I think that some of them probably should have been discussed. WP:BOLD but WP:BATTLE. on other pages, when I run into that problem I usually post 24 hrs ahead of time somthing to the effect of "I will be deleting the following...tomorow, any discussion beforehand?" and that usually avoids edit wars, and shows the other editors that I don't WP:OWN the page and I respect their opinion. Coffeepusher (talk) 04:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

MMMMM hmmmmmm. Excuse me gentlemans and ladies. We are missing the point.

Extremist sources

"Organizations and individuals that are widely acknowledged as extremist, whether of a political, religious or anti-religious, racist, or other nature, should be used only as sources about themselves and their activities in articles about themselves, and even then with caution." Reference: Wikipedia:Reliable sources

It is clear to be that Xenu TV and others are anti-Scientology links and being as such should not take part of the article. There is plenty of reliables sources like newspapers and magazines and there is no need to use such links. In my opinion this are nothing else than spam and propaganda sites. Bravehartbear (talk) 11:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Anti-religious links are fine, it's only extremist anti-religious links that don't meet WP:RS. And even if they don't pass WP:RS, they can still be used as external links. WP:EL says we can link to "Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources." Foobaz·o< 15:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Foobaz is correct. Braveheartbear is the one who is missing the point. The discussion is about external links, not sources for the article. The criteria for reliable sources has nothing to do with the issue at hand. BTfromLA (talk) 17:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, these people like xenu.tv are 100% anti-Scientology. I doesn't get more extreminst than 100%. How much more anti-Scientology you gotta be before you are considered an extreminst. Because if it was a 100% anti-Christian organisation and those videos were anti-Christian videos it would be considered an extremist link. What is the difference? 100% is 100%. Bravehartbear (talk) 09:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Honestly I consider those links very unapropiate and offensive for a encyclopedia.Bravehartbear (talk) 09:34, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Bravehartbear, the discussion is about external links, not about reliable sources for the article or balanced presentation. Do you not understand the difference? If the external links were to lead to information that is clearly false or fake, that would be an issue, but that does not seem to be at issue here, either. BTfromLA (talk) 17:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the link to xenu.tv should be removed because it's copyrighted and it's rich media. Foobaz·o< 17:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Soooo...if its like say 60% anti scientology 30% nutral and 10% "I liked battlefield earth" its ok?

I don't think it is an extremist scite (they arn't calling for people to kill scientologists, or burning tom cruse movies...they don't hire actors to scream "what are your crimes" into the camera, those are real scientologists) but I don't think it belongs as a link. my main reason is that all the information I can find on xenu tv, I can also find on clambake and I like reading better than watching videos. Coffeepusher (talk) 18:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, Church of Scientology sites are 100% pro-Scientology. It doesn't get more extremist than 100%. How much more pro-Scientology you gotta be before you are considered an extremist? (The leader of Scientology has given speeches with graphics showing psychiatrists being machine-gunned or blown-up. On that subject, a well-known Scientologist has also said "go to guns" and "no mercy". I'm not sure what they are calling for people to do, but it seems rather extremist.) I'm not being completely serious, just pointing out the fallacy of the argument to remove critical sites. AndroidCat (talk) 16:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Controversy and Criticism...

"Although Scientologists are usually free to practice their beliefs, the organized church has often encountered opposition due to their strong-arm tactics directed against critics and members wishing to leave the organization." (emphasis mine) is hardly neutral POV... Livitup (talk) 04:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It's a true but unsourced statement. It should be removed unless a reliable source is found for it. According to Tom Cruise one day CoS critics ("SPs") will exist only in history books ;-) Angry Christian (talk) 15:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Before removing it, keep in mind that much harsher descriptions could easily be used and sourced. At length. AndroidCat (talk) 15:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Then why not source it, at length as you say? Making unsourced statements about SoC using "strong arm tactics" really puts Wikipedia in a bad light. Again, I know this is true but the point is it's not sourced. Angry Christian (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Scientology being controversial since its inception

The comment that describes Scientology as such should be backed up with a citation. If it cannot be backed up with a citation, the comment should be removedJohn196920022001 (talk) 01:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why. That sentence is easily backed up by cites already present in that paragraph. You can't expect every single sentence to require individual citations. --GoodDamon 17:38, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

No, but that is a sentence that does need citing. If I wanted to slander the topic that's a sentence I might write when it might not be true, it's high risk for bias if it remains uncited. SGGH ^speak! 19:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe that TIME's Remember Venus? used to be cited at that spot. It's probably wandered over to another part of the intro. AndroidCat (talk) 07:40, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Tom Cruiseread the article everything is controversial it is wack! The whole article and history is about that any religion in a World that thinks the religion is a cult it will be controversial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.116.58 (talk) 16:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Broken link.

1. 210 in the notes section directs to a not found error page.

DebbieChinique (talk) 16:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Suzie an "him" in a library

Scientology#Origin_and_Definition: What kind of usefull information does the sentence " Suzie and I went down to the library, and we started hauling books out and looking for words. And we finally found 'scio' and we find 'ology.' And there was the founding of that word. Now, that word had been used to some degree before. There had been some thought of this. . . . But we found that this word 'scientology,' you see—and it could have been any other word. . . ." give to the wikipedia user. I think it is a quite ridiculous sentence. Did they drink a coffee after or even a beer. Will this sentence say to us that the wörd has been found in a library. Which word shall "Scio" be. And who the hell is Suzie ? --Arcy (talk) 22:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Weird... Your initial removal of that statement looks like this in the history. Note that it looks like you replaced a bunch of image lines, citations, etc. with redundant category entries. That's why I reverted it. But the more I look at it, the more it looks like a Wikipedia error, not a mistake on your part, so I apologize for reverting it. --GoodDamon 23:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok. i've some weired wp errors too (watchlist seems to be broken). --Arcy (talk) 23:20, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Admition of lies

I heard an interview with the comedian Del Close who apparently shared a room with Hubbard at University. Apparently Hubbard said several times during this period that one day he would become rich by inventing a religion. Unfortunately I can't remember the source for this but I feel it is worth highlighting if anybody can find the reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.244.73 (talk) 23:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't remember where either -- my father's been reminding me of that quote for years. I'll ask him where he remembers seeing it. I know that he read it somewhere, because he is a huge sci-fi booknerd and doesn't watch television. :) Though everyone would rage against it, I feel in my heart of hearts that such a quote fully needs to be in this article if it can be proven that LRH really did say it. Chacharu (talk) 19:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Legal Citation

The page is currently locked, but the case referenced at the bottom should be properly cited under either Blue Book or ALWD standards. In detail, under the "Scientific criticism of Scientology beliefs" section, the correct citation should read similar to this:

U.S. v. Hubbard Electrometer, 333 F.Supp. 357, 365 (D.C.D.C. 1971).

I have taken liberties with the abbreviation of the title for the sake of clarity. If unlocked, please drop me a line and I will update.

As to the text, it should properly omit the "(333 F. Supp. 357) section, which will be in the footnote. I would also add another quote from the case which further supports the section: "The E-meter is essentially a simple galvanometer using two tin cans as electrodes. It is crude, battery-powered, and designed to measure electrical skin resistance. It is completely harmless and ineffective in itself." Id. at 359.

Gorjus (talk) 23:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

Sigh... someone please remove the ballsack pic... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.180.91.136 (talk) 22:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't figure out where it was loading from. It's not in the article itself, so someone must have put it in one of the templates the article uses. I'm still trying to track down where. --GoodDamon 22:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry... I know it's vandalism and all... but I lol'd.76.116.26.154 (talk) 22:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

It kinda fits--217.113.225.116 (talk) 23:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I LOL'D —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.67.31.74 (talk) 23:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, after looking around it looks like a ton of other pages got the same or similar vandalism, so it was definitely a non-targeted attack against a widely-used template somewhere. Still haven't found where. --GoodDamon 23:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I loled. Anon rule.

Recent reverts

I'd just like to clarify. When I performed the revert a few minutes ago I intended to restore the whole page (reverting blanking of page). Apparently another reversion was done in the interim and my edit went over that. So whatever the dispute is about the see also section, external links etc is, I'm not part of that. Perhaps those who have concerns about that section may post their concerns here. JamesStewart7 (talk) 07:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Controversy and criticism

I'm a little perplexed by the first reference after the comment (next to last paragraph in the section): "While a number of governments now view the Church as a religious organization entitled to protections and tax relief, others view it as a pseudoreligion or a cult.[152][153]". The first reference is to the following article: http://www.humanrights-germany.org/issues/eng/relapa96/bonafide.htm - My concern is that the article referenced is published by the Church of Scientology and seems to overstate their success in obtaining legal status. If you look at the Wiki article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_as_a_state-recognized_religion the story definitely isn't as cut and dry as indicated in the reference. Not sure what to recommend here, just didn't think the reference was reliable or neutral... IrishTraveller (talk) 21:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not. I'm not sure how it got there, but it ought to be removed or replaced. --GoodDamon 23:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The sentence referenced gives two contrasting viewpoints. The first reference is to Church of Scientology webpages supporting the first viewpoint, the second reference is to a webpage supporting the view that Scientology as a set of beliefs is a religion and is not relevant. So yes, there is a problem here, NPOV requires that both viewpoints be sourced or neither. I vote for neither, since the viewpoints are wide reaching and covered in more detail with references elsewhere.

I would also like to express concern that in the following paragraph Steven Kent is referenced to two articles, one a critical response to an article of his and the other criticising him personally. This is mischievous, not NPOV, and I will replace them with a link to his Wikipedia page unless objections are made. --Hartley Patterson (talk) 15:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

"Sect" in the WP:LEAD

I reverted last edit by Attica42 (talk · contribs), per the last edit summary comment by John Carter (talk · contribs). I agree that "Sect" could deserve mention in the WP:LEAD, but this should be discussed on the talk page. Per WP:LEAD, the intro should be an adequate summary of the article. Cirt (talk) 02:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• The addition of "Controversial" by Attica42 (talk · contribs) seems fine for now, pending discussion. Cirt (talk) 03:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I would question the inclusion of the word at all. As per the lead of the sect article, a sect is a group which has broken off from another, often larger, group. I am aware of no such larger group scientology is a separated faction of, and thus do not think that it necessarily qualifies as a sect, as per the current definition we have of that term. If the editor seeking to add that word is aware of another sense in which it is used, we would need to indicate what meaning is being used. John Carter (talk) 14:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Sect or secte as used in French and German(?) means "cult". That is why you might see someone want to enter it; many of our critics and semi-critics here are European. It has no relevance to the body of the article but may properly show up in discussion of treatment of the Church in various European countries. Again, a distinction should be made always between "Scientology" as a belief system and the Church - most countries that object to the Church do not have any problem with the belief system (how could they?) --JustaHulk (talk) 14:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

My impression is that UK journalists sometimes use 'sect' as a euphemism for 'cult' with regard to Scientology, believing that readers will know what they mean. It may well be that this will cause 'sect' to aquire the 'cult' meaning permanently. The Dictionary definition doesn't help us here, the language is changing. Given the ambiguity, avoid the word I think. --Hartley Patterson (talk) 15:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Scientology DoS attack

User:Hierophantasmagoria has been seeking to add a section on a reported DoS attack on the official Scientology website [26]. Unfortunately we can't use that material - it's not reliably sourced and it puts undue weight on a fairly trivial incident in Scientology's history. On the reliable sourcing point, the three sources offered are:

1. a self-published source in the form of a "press release" issued by an entity calling itself "anonymous" and distributed through a publish-your-own-press-release service; this is completely unusable as a source (see WP:V#Self-published sources (online and paper)).
2. a Wikinews story - WP:V#Self-published sources (online and paper) prohibits the use of open wikis, including Wikinews, as sources.
3. a YouTube link to an unauthorised copy of a Fox News broadcast; apart from YouTube being a largely unreliable source, the link is a copyright violation and under our copyright policy we can't link to it, as it presents potential liability issues for the Wikimedia Foundation.

As for undue weight, ask yourself - how significant is it that a bunch of hackers has launched a rather ineffective DoS attack on the Scientology website? It's simply not encyclopedic information and we're not in the business of promoting the self-publicity of wannabe L33T H4CK3RZ. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Recentism and WP:NOT#INFO - Wikipedia isn't a news service! -- ChrisO (talk) 18:56, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

its not a DDoS attack from a load of hackers, its a DDoS attack from a load of internet users who want to take down their sites and send a message to the scientoogy ppl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.30.111.172 (talk) 02:13, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it isn't notable. They engaged in the equivilant of internet graffiti which disrupted buisness for scientology...for less than a day. posting ballsacks and gay porn is hardly an effective way to bring a religion down, and the only message it shows them is that Anon has a collection of gay porn to share. it didn't even blip into their profits. The only message it sent to scientology is "youve been pwned!!"...and then the site came back on line and buisness as usuall...Coffeepusher (talk) 19:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Noticeable? THEY HAVE REMOVED THE SCIENTOLOGY WEBSITE ALONG WITH NEAR ALL OTHER RELATED WEBPAGES FOR +5 DAYS. It has also gained news coverage from KNBC http://video.knbc.com/player/?id=209215

It is noticable.70.70.219.192talk

The word was notable, not Noticeable...I can see how someone can get them intermingled. Right now it is a current event, hence the media coverage...but even that is sparce when it comes to actuall news agencies. a google news search failed to produce any nation wide "paper" papers...The New york times, Washington post, associated press, La times, USA today (gag! I hate that rag) etc. all failed to pick this one up it seems. now this isn't nesisarily a reliable test, but it does put it into perspective a bit.Coffeepusher (talk) 06:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a page for Project Chanology. personaly I believe that this information belongs there.Coffeepusher (talk) 18:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

.[[User:|User:]] ([[User talk:|talk]]) 01:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

++: IMHO, ter K 06:06, 26 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tsilb (talk • contribs)

Anonymous vs. Scientology

Why is there no mention of the war between the Internet and Scientology? It seems a pretty interesting topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.79.26.253 (talk) 10:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

That and several reliable media sources have mentioned it:

NBC11

KNBC

SKY News (I know it's a youtube link, I can't find the actual SKY News page)

Other news outlets such as National Post and CNet also carry articles regarding whats happening.Bmorc (talk) 21:41, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Let me see if I can explain it... This is the sort of thing that does merit a mention on news sites such as those, as well as the WikiNews website. But this is the encyclopedic article about Scientology, and as long as the "Anonymous" attack on the Scientology website doesn't result in some kind of notable change to Scientology itself, putting the attack in the article makes no sense. It would make much more sense to reference this attack in Scientology and the Internet, which documents the specific relationship between the CoS and various other groups on the Internet. --GoodDamon 21:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous AKA Legion declared war on CoS. IMO this can be argued as the first official, public, large-scale war to be declared on the Internet; possibly the first of many. They just don't seem like they're going to give up. I say this issue should be revisited in a month or so with a more up-to-date status.Slackmaster K 06:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Slackmaster what you mean by "official"? Do you think "Anonymous" is official? LOLs --Critical Commentary (talk) 11:37, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Now you've said it, it sounds perfectly logical. Thanks for the explanationBmorc (talk) 22:35, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

There's an article on this if you are interested; Project Chanology.--Yamanbaiia^{(free hugs!)} 23:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I saw the "Anon" video and noticed they used the biblical phrase "We are Legion," so I mentioned it in the My name is Legion article. Maybe some of these editors might want to check it out and beef up that reference. Here are some more references: [27] [28] [29]--Shakeyhandzzz (talk) 05:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

and I am confused by what you mean "large-scale". in analising the attacks it was reported that when looking at the scale of the attacks "Arbor Networks has recorded data on attacks to other sites in the last year which were 200 times this amount", and called this a "garden variaty attack" of which the church of scientology itself has had over 200 in the last year. The only thing that is different is the propaganda that is beeing disiminated upon youtube, but the attacks themselves are buisness as usual as far as the interet is conserned.Coffeepusher (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)