Talk:Landmark Education

explaining my change

My edit was not intended to be vandalism. I merely moved something to a more appropriate section and then added a fact related to the reference used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.17.108.54 (talk) 18:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

For what it is worth, my personal opinion is that your edit could not remotely be described as vandalism. In fact I would agree with you that it is a fair amendment and one which makes a marginal improvement to the article. The comment about Terry Giles being Werner Erhard's attorney is of tangential relevance at best and certainly does not merit being in the Lead section.

I also agree with your change to indicate the context of the New York Times article which had been referenced to his inclusion.

It seems to me to be a violation of Wikipedia's policy that we should assume good faith for anyone to accuse you of vandalism. However, if you wish to contribute to Wikipedia, I suggest that you register yourself with a user name and participate more widely. With best wishes DaveApter (talk) 17:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

While I think these edits are in good faith and clearly not vandalism, at the same time I don’t particularly agree with explaining the New York Times story about Landmark’s chairman – in fact, I don’t really think that trivia about a company’s chairman is useful to the article at all.

The point of having this in here seems to be to make it plain that Landmark has its roots with Werner Erhard and the est training, a point that’s already abundantly clear in the article. This connection is clearly stated in many places, to the point where it’s awkward and odd. Multiple references to attorneys that have worked for both Werner Erhard and Landmark seem gratuitous, and it’s strange that the only pull quote in the entire article is a non-sequitur about Landmark buying back the rights to operations in Mexico and Japan.

I think there needs to be some cleaning up of the history section so it reads fluidly and isn’t dominated by trivia. Thoughts, anyone? Nwlaw63 (talk) 05:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Identifying the Chairman of the Board of the company, in the article about that company, does not consist of "trivia". -- Cirt (talk) 20:43, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Naming a company's chairman might not be trivia, but giving extraneous information about him and various company employees probably is. You haven't responded to anyone's point here. Nwlaw63 (talk) 02:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Identifying the Chairman of the Board of the company, in the article about that company, as the personal lawyer for the founder of the company's prior incarnation, is not "extraneous information". It is indeed quite the opposite. It is vital information, that is educational and encyclopedic. -- Cirt (talk) 15:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Identifying the Chairman of the Board of the company, in the article about that company, as the personal lawyer for the founder of the company's prior incarnation, is not "extraneous information". It is indeed quite the opposite. It is vital information, that is educational and encyclopedic. -- Cirt (talk) 15:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Vital? As I said earlier, that Landmark has its roots in est and Werner Erhard is already spelled out extremely clearly in the article. This particular fact is vital? I don't understand - perhaps you want to explain. Nwlaw63 (talk) 01:15, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I find myself in agreement with Nwlaw63 on this one, I don't object to the information, but I don't see it as needed, and if you want to demonstrate the heritage of the company well by all means, but that seems well catered for already Jasonfward (talk) 01:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I think calling this information "vital" is an overstatement, but the CEO's background in the predecessor organization is relevant and appropriate, and hardly "trivia". Rlendog (talk) 01:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

As I say, I have no objection to the information, but I do not find it vital or trivial, I feel in the context of the article the information could be put in or left out without harm, but if it is to be included, especially if the justification is to show the history of the company, then efforts should be made to integrate the information, the edit was out of place and not needed Jasonfward (talk) 21:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Reverted edit to lead

I reverted the recent addition to the lead as it gave undue weight to a minority opinion which is already given a more than adequate airing in the body of the article itself. It is also a misleading synopsis of the facts. Although true that the French government did mention Landmark Education in it's list of 'Sectes', there is no reference therein to any judgement of it as being "dangerous" - in fact it is simply listed without comment (along with a large number of others, many of them clearly innocuous, such as the Quakers) in a lenghty appendix. DaveApter (talk) 14:52, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

(see also the comments in the section below)DaveApter (talk) 12:19, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

We seem to have a problem with neutrality – there is a lengthy criticism section with multiple sources which should be reflected somewhere in the lead; in addition, it would help to solve the glaring fault with the lead, which is that it sounds like a promotional leaflet written by the organisational itself. Jprw (talk) 16:40, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Try that version, less corporate speak, less verbose, contains all the information of the original (save for the Landmark forum being the "standard introductory course") and lets teh reader know that Landmark is/was/can be controversial. The intro is supposed to be just that, the intro, if people want to know more they can read the article. Jasonfward (talk) 00:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to make a change just now, but on reflection, a great deal of corporations are controversial in some way, and nearly all medium corporations having been involved in some lawsuit or other. It appears to me that people that Landmark are "more" or "especially" controversial just because of their chosen area of commercial endeavour, i.e. that of human endeavour and whilst many may get angry about a company illegally terminates and employee or which causes some environmental damage it is never really feared, whereas because of Landmarks looking into what it is to be human, what makes us tick, and how we may be different from that, it invokes a fear response in people. For me, it is Landmarks chosen field, and the reaction and response of people to that, that is of interest and importance, whereas a few law suits here and there are... well just that, law suits most likely only of interest to the parties and lawyers Jasonfward (talk) 00:34, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

That's as maybe, but can we stick to solving what appears to be a real problem with the lead: that in tone it does not resemble a Wikipedia article but reads more like a self-promotional text from the company's own marketing materials? After digging around a bit, I'm afraid that there does seem to be quite a lot of criticism/litigation associated with this organisation, and making at least reference to this in the intro, would appear to be justified and necessary for a balanced and objective/appropriate sounding lead. Jprw (talk) 13:54, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Clearly you didn't bother to actually read the rewrite I did then? As far as I'm concerned I have addressed all those issues. Jasonfward (talk) 17:29, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

This article has had a long history of disputes between editors who felt it too favorable towards the organisation and those who felt it too critical. The lead paragraph as it stood a few days ago was the outcome of an extensive sparring between these camps, and had been stable for a while. No-one previously has suggested that the lead "reads more like a self-promotional text from the company's own marketing materials", and maybe this is no more than your personal opinion? In any event the recent edits may perhaps have addressed your concerns? DaveApter (talk) 20:03, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I may have missed the interim edits that were made. Yes, it does seem more appropiate sounding now. Regarding my statement "reads more like a self-promotional text from the company's own marketing materials", yes I was of course expressing my opinion, which was that the lead had a distinctly non-neutral feel to it. I can scarcely believe that what was there was a compromise following extensive sparring between different camps. Perhaps a fresh pair of eyes was needed? Cheers, Jprw (talk) 07:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

No mention in cited ref

I searched Cults, Religion, and Violence, by David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton and could find no reference to Landmark Education at all, much less to its being listed as "dangerous" by government commissions in Belgium and France. Therefore I removed that claim, pending anyone being able to indicate the relevant passage. DaveApter (talk) 12:01, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

You removed this link: [1]. If you go to that page and use CTRL+F and do a search for "Landmark" you will find this text in French:

Les adeptes des sectes

Même s'il est difficile de procéder à un chiffrage précis, tant il est ardu de distinguer le véritable adepte du disciple occasionnel ou du simple sympathisant, les Renseignements généraux estiment à 160.000 le nombre d'adeptes au moins occasionnels, et à 100.000 le nombre de sympathisants. Il est cependant nécessaire d'affiner ces résultats en faisant valoir que 80 % des mouvements regroupent moins de 500 adeptes, près de 60 sectes comptant même moins de 50 adeptes. On constate donc une concentration du phénomène sectaire sur une quarantaine de mouvements, dont on verra, de surcroît, que ce sont ceux qui répondent le plus souvent à un grand nombre de critères de dangerosité. Les listes suivantes présentent, classées par ordre alphabétique et pour chaque classe d'effectifs définie, le nom des mouvements pouvant, à l'aune des critères définis, être qualifiés de sectaires.

Google translate provides the following rough translation:

The Cult

Although it is difficult to make any precise figures, it is more difficult to distinguish the real enthusiast or casual follower of single supporter, General Intelligence estimates at 160,000 the number of followers at least occasionally, and that 100,000 sympathizers. However, it is necessary to refine these results by arguing that 80% of movements fewer than 500 followers, nearly 60 sects number even less than 50 followers. There is therefore a concentration of the cult phenomenon in forty movements, which we will, moreover, that it is those who usually respond to a number of criteria of dangerousness. The following lists, arranged alphabetically and for each size classes defined, the names of the movements which, in terms of criteria to be classified as sectarian.

And then if you look a little further down the list you will see "Landmark education international - Le forum".

The reference seems to check out fine, and the clear inference is that the French government commission set up to investigate cults in the mid 90s considered this organisation a cult, although it was vague about the exact level of danger it posed. Jprw (talk) 15:50, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

It's more than vague - see the subsection below. Thanks DaveApter (talk) 12:19, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Also see here. Jprw (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Context in Cults, Religion, and Violence

Thank you for clarifying the reference within the book. I stand corrected and apologise. When I searched it I only found the reference to a "cultural landmark", and I missed the listing in the table on pages 114-116. However, it remains problematic as a source for the statement in this article. A reading of the associated text indicates that point being made by Bromley and Melton is entirely different.

They were not endorsing the government classifications of Landmark Education, or any of the other organisations listed in the table. On the contrary, they were casting a sceptical eye on the tendency of Governments to have a paranoid reaction to "new religious movements" in general. This is underlined by the fact that many of the groups mentioned in the list (eg the Quakers, Tai Chi and Tao Yoga - all also drawn from the French commission report) would not remotely be considered to be "dangerous cults" by any normal standards.

In any event there are problems with the French report itself (see below) DaveApter (talk) 12:19, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

As no-one has disputed the above point, I've edited the sentence to give a more accurate summary of the point the athors were making in the cited reference. I also removed the final sentence in the section on Evaluations which has been flagged as needing a citation for some time, and was in any case somewhat weasel-worded. At the same time, I've changed the wording of a couple of sentences to render them more neutral and accurate.

I also removed the mention of the Cult Information and Awareness Centre (again!) which is not remotely a Reliable Source, being a self-published website propagating the opinions of its owner; nor is it made reliable by being quoted elsewhere. DaveApter (talk) 10:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

French commission listing

Those who wish to disparage Landmark Education often refer to the French commission report of 1995 to justify their labelling of it as a Cult. However this is problematic for a number of reasons:

1. The pre-amble to the list refers to 40 "sectes which may be considered dangerous", but does not specifically identify which of the 190 or so "sectarian movements" listed are the dangerous ones. Presumably they would be ones that are dealt with more explicitly elsewhere in the report (which Landmark Education is not).
2. The list includes a number of plainly innocuous groups (eg the Quakers, Tai Chi and Tao Yoga).
3. The Report explicitly disclaims that a mention of any group implies any criticism of it (and the Belgian government report includes a similar disclaimer).
4. There were no published criteria for mention in the Report, nor is there any appeal process or any review mechanism.

DaveApter (talk) 12:19, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not a matter of disparage. The truth about Landmark is available for all to read. DaveApter seems to be on a mission to whitewash Landmark; see how he does with this. WikiLeaks: US Dept of Labor Investigation of Landmark Education

The french debate is circular at this point. I am dissappointed to not have any reference here to what happened in Sweden? My personal experience of Landmark was bad and I think it is an organisation that should be regulated more closely and any employer promoting their employees participation Is i think misguided.I would like to add a reference to the Swedish experience of this organisation in the critisism section and will revert with a suggestion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RogerGLewis (talk • contribs) 07:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Roger, but your opinion is irrelevant, as is mine, if you want something in the article find a reliable source for it. I don't know if Wikipedia has a policy about wikileaks, but I don't think it's a reliable source, indeed by the very inclusion on wikileaks you can conclude the authors never intended the material for publication, and whilst that maybe because they wanted to keep it secret, it equally be because the authors upon review found the material to be inaccurate. So having no way to know or judge why that report wasn't published, or even for sure that it is even what it claims to be it cannot be included here as a reference Jasonfward (talk) 21:57, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that including the information from wikileaks in the proper context is appropriate. Including it as a citation to make a point about Landmark being cult-like isn't appropriate as per Jasonfward's comments above. But the WikiLeak about the DOL investigation is not necessarily insignificant information. I remember some weeks that I put in more than 40 unpaid hours of labor for Landmark. I took many courses from Landmark about 10 years ago, but I haven't taken any courses for many years, and I can sort of see the good and the bad in perspective, looking back. I definitely think that Landmark is psychologically dangerous. Why else would they require a letter from the therapist of any potential participant who is in therapy first, in order to even let that participant into the course? Landmark Education should take some more responsibility for their reputation as a cult, and stop saying that it's a preposterous label. That said, the benefit of a fresh perspective on issues that are hard to see objectively is probably worth the risk for most people.. I might go in and try to objectify this article from that point-of-view... although, I do fear that if I were to review any of their courses now, I would, in all likelihood, lose the psychological objectivity from which I could do so, for the next year or two at least. Fulvius (talk) 02:18, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Recent edits

There have been a dozen or so edits recently which have had a cumulative effect of reducing the quality of the article by introducing subjective opinion, biased interpretations and unreferenced assertions, which I have now reverted. Bearing in mind that this is a controversial topic, please discuss any proposed significant changes on this talk page and ensure that they gather some degree of consensus.

An examples of violations of the neutral point of view policy is the replacement of 'A significant minority of newspaper articles about the Forum mention rumours or allegations that it is in some sense "cult-like".' by 'Many participants and significant newspaper articles about the Forum mention rumours or allegations that it is in some sense "cult-like". ' The original statement was factual and accurate, whereas the revised one adds subjective assessment by the editor which is not supported by any reference to reliable sources. DaveApter (talk) 10:57, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Legal actions

This article appears severely biased.

For instance 'their 2002 book Cults, Religion, and Violence, authors David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton noted that some governments were overly restictive towards New Religious Movements and Personal Development groups, illustrating this by the appearances of Landmark Education and many other organisations in lists of "Sectes" published by government commissions in Belgium and France.'

However this appears to be POV pushing. The book in fact makes NO direct mention of Landmark Education, merely noting it in a very long list of groups that include everything from the Salvation Army to the Order of the Solar Temple. No conclusions about Landmark Education can be drawn from the book. Also it would be less biased to document the fact that France and Belgium list the group as a cult rather than to mention it only en passant in an attempt to show the group is persecuted....

Thanks for your comments, and I would encourage you to register a username and get involved with editing articles which interest you as part of the on-going collaborative enterprise of Wikipedia. You should appreciate that this particular page deals with a contentious topic and the present state of the article is the result of a long process of interaction between editors who hold a wide spectrum of viewpoints on the subject.

With regard to the specific instance of Bromley and Melton's book, I think this passage is a fair summary of the point they were making in their reference to the French and Belgian lists of 'Sectes', and their listing of the extensive and varied organisations which had appeared therein. Critics of Landmark Education like to flag up the appearance in that list as implying an authoratitive judgement that Landmark is a "cult" and therefore insidious or destructive in some sense. However, as your own point above makes clear, these lists cover such a broad range of movements from clearly innocuous ones such as the Salvation Army and the Quakers to obviously dangerous ones like the Solar Temple, that no reliable conclusions can be drawn from the fact of an organisation's being included in the list. This is compounded by the fact that no criteria were ever published for inclusion on these lists and neither is there any appeal or review process. DaveApter (talk) 20:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The legal action page appears also to be severely whitewashed and includes lots of weasel words like 'admitted'. Salient facts such as the fact that Margaret Singer had appeared as an expert witness in ten cases issued against est and The Forum, as well as testifying for Erhard's ex-wife in his divorce are omitted.

The extent of the dispute with the CAN is also understated cf. Cult_Awareness_Network#Landmark_Education

The total omission of ANY detail on the nature of the legal actions is also biased.

Looking at the legal action page, there is a shocking difference between 'In September 1989 Stephanie Ney attended a session of "The Forum", conducted by Werner Erhard (doing business as Werner Erhard & Associates (WE&A)). In 1992 Ney sued Landmark Education Corporation (LEC, seen as the successor-organization of WE&A) for $2,000,000, claiming that three days after attending the Forum she "suffered a breakdown and was committed to a psychiatric institute in Montgomery County". [19] The trial court dismissed Ney's suit on summary judgment, and the appeals court upheld the decision.' and the article Ney v. Landmark Education Corporation and Werner Erhard (which is not linked, which provides:

'Judge James C. Cacheris entered a default judgement in favor of the plaintiff.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.56.179 (talk) 11:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

A more appropriate place to discuss the Landmark Education litigation article would be on that Talk page, but since you have raised these points here, I will respond to them here:

1. 'Admitted' seems to me a reasonable verb to use in the case of someone who claims to be an expert on a topic who then agrees that they have had no first-hand observation of it. However, if you want to go and edit it for a verb more acceptable in your view, we will see whether anyone wants to contest your change.
2. I cannot see the relevance of Singer's history of expert witness appearances to the discussion of Landmarks libel suit against her, still less her testimony in Erhard's divorce hearings.
3. I agree that a brief summary of the legal cases might be an improvement, and I may add that shortly. I would say though that it is my opinion that the whole litigation issue is somewhat overblown. I cannot see that it is a particularly pertinant fact that in the course of 20 years Landmark has issued about a dozen libel actions and has had three damages claims made against it (all of them unsuccessful).
4. I don't see the omission to mention the default judgement against Erhard in the Ney case to be significant. This was a technicality occasioned by Erhard's non-appearance to defend the suit, since he was never personally served. The case against Landmark was dismissed, as was the case against the leader of the course which caused the alleged damage. DaveApter (talk) 20:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

This article on Landmark Education is an example of why I woud NEVER EVER donate to Wikipedia. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.160.38.183 (talk) 05:32, 31 December 2011 (UTC)