Talk:Scientology

The use of self-published sources

I just want to point out that self published sources can be used!!! WP:SPS states:

Using self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves

Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

the material used is relevant to the notability of the subject of the article;

1. it is not unduly self-serving;
2. it does not involve claims about third parties;
3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
4. there is no reason to doubt its authenticity;
5. the article is not based primarily on such sources;
6. the source in question has been mentioned specifically in relation to the article's subject by an independent, reliable source.

WABOB! Self-published sources are not reliable nor trustworthy nor in a way peer-reviewed. Everyone can publish his own thesis in a book, and there is no reason for taking that crap into wikipedia. --Yikrazuul (talk) 11:47, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Celebrities?

I don't see the point of saying what celebrities are in this religion. i think thats only a promotional fact, not really interesting. If we had to put how many celebrities are in christianity for example, it would ocuped pages and pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.32.198.117 (talk) 20:20, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

C-class?

Just curious: This article has a pile of references and seems pretty substantial. Why is it rated only C-class? Shouldn't it be B-class? -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:24, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, until fairly recently it was an unreadable amalgam of badly written crap that was obviously just an attack piece. This article has improved a bit lately, but not knowing the Class criteria I cannot second your motion or answer your question. Slightlyright (talk) 06:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

No Primaries Rule Should Be Rescinded WAS: Help with Cites Please

I recently expanded the Bridge to total freedom section a bit and included a cite which is a link to a nice big copy of the Bridge on a CoS site. I reference the site three times in the section and don't know how to make all three of the references use the same note number. Will someone kindly fix that for me? Currently the cite occurs at the bottom three times, each with a different cite number. Much appreciate the help. Slightlyright (talk) 06:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Slightlyright, thanks for trying to expand the Bridge section. I'm glad you think the article has improved. It has. But I've reverted your recent additions because we're trying to get away from reliance on primary sources. Please help researching secondary sources, ideally scholarly sources, to expand and improve the article further.

For how to reuse a reference, see WP:NAMEDREFS. Cheers, Jayen466 07:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

yeah, we are gonna have to talk about the colossal idiocy of not being able to use primary sources. When a section entitled "The Bridge to total Freedom" cannot use a link to the ACTUAL DOCUMENT that IS the Bridge to total freedom, Then something is horribly, horribly, badly and stupidly misunderstood about the reason that primary sources are bad. And if these articles are ever going to have anything in them that is actually scientology instead of just criticism of scientology, then primary sources are going to need to be allowed.

Just a fact.

I had hoped that the recent activity on this article was indicative of someone somewhere wanting to get some scientology into the scientology articles. I guess not. Slightlyright (talk) 11:54, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The Christianity article is full of scriptural references, and if that is not a primary source then i don't know what the hell is. This aversion for Primaries is way outta hand here. It is being used as a device to keep the article quality here horribly low. Horribly, Terribly low, humiliatingly low. And it's pissing me off rather.

So someone better cogently explain to me why completely legitimate primary sources are being rejected out of hand even though they are the only logical reference for fluff's sake. Slightlyright (talk) 12:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Slight-- you don't understand. This article has faced some extreeme edit warring. Opening the door to primary sources will also pen the door a bunch of critical primary sources. a totaly bias article and edit warring. The solution was to agree to use only reliable secundary sources like schoolars and journalists. If you do your research you will some secundary source that will cover whatever you want to talk about. We are not lowering our standards, that would have daring consecuences. 114.180.77.4 (talk) 22:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, i know about the warring. It's why I left for a couple years. But here's the thing: Scientology articles should have Scientology in them. Google's Top link for 'Scientology' is this sad, tortured and pathetic article. Now, While i will grant that it is in fact much improved, I will not grant that it contains much Scientology, nor will I concede that it is good enough to be the first stop for someone trying to learn about the subject. An encyclopedia is supposed to be a good place to learn about something. Currently Wikipedia is positively THE ABSOLUTE WORST place to learn about Scientology. This is primarily because Wikipedia's reputation and authority is being hijacked by anti-Scientology hate groups. People come here expecting some sort of objectivity and authority on the subject, They do not get it but since it's Wikipedia they assume they are getting it and thus go away badly misinformed. This is not the result one expects from an encyclopedia. It is the result hoped for by certain hate groups though.

You see, the no primary sources... uhm... rule? - guideline? armistice? compromise? blight? idiocy? blatantly-obvious-evidence-of-rampant-braindeath? whatever it is - insures that there will NEVER be any Scientology in the Scientology articles, ever. There will only be what people have said about Scientology. And thus, the hate groups win. And thus, the Nazis get to control what gets said about the Jews. (and yeah, that analogy is gonna piss some people off, but that's how I feel about it.) Scientology primaries (At the very least Hubbard primaries) must be allowed to be included in Scientology articles. Other primaries don't. A source from an attack website is not on a par with something Hubbard said about Scientology. What a scholar said about Scientology is not as authoritative as what Hubbard said. The basic lie here is that a primary is a primary, obviously there are primaries and then there are primaries and the difference is obvious. (The not-quite-bright who cannot appreciate irony, need not comment on the previous sentence.)

Imagine an article on Geometry that couldn't include anything by Euclid. A Calculus article containing nothing by Newton or Leibniz. Absolutely, incredibly, moronically asinine. Asinine. Asinine. Asinine. And lest my position be misunderstood - not allowing Hubbard primaries in a Scientology article is ... uhm... asinine.

It is so simple: Hubbard Primaries have legitimate and overriding authority in an article about Scientology. They are authoritative on Scientology, primary screeds by apostates and hate groups or well intentioned others or knowledgeable scholars are not at the same level. Apostate venom on a par with Scientology doctrine??? PUUUHHHLEEEEEZE. Equating them is bogus. And almost certainly deliberate. There is probably a wikiword that has to do with Meta Editingingishness: using policies and definitions and precedence to skew local, consensus editing policy in order to create an editing environment that skews articles toward a given PoV. I don't know what this word is, but that's what's happening here.

Let's remember what started this thread: I expanded the section called "The Bridge to Total Freedom" by about 2K characters. AND I included a link to A Beautiful, High resolution scan of the ACTUAL DOCUMENT. THE ACTUAL GORRAM DOCUMENT. Complete. Unabridged. (couldn't resist) and because it was a primary source, my good faith edits were reverted out of hand. So let's make sure no one misses this: A LINK TO THE ACTUAL DOCUMENT THAT BEARS THE EXACT TITLE AS THE SECTION IN QUESTION, AND IS IF FACT THE EXACT DOCUMENT IN QUESTION WAS DISALLOWED based upon some sort of house rule. And now... instead of being able to spend time expanding another article or section and actually being of benefit to the encyclopedia, I have to spend time pointing out that the Scientology article should include some Scientology. Sorta annoying actually.

Look, I know y'all are battle weary, really, I get it. But the Scientology articles should allow people to learn about Scientology. That is the purpose of an encyclopedia. Honest. Really. That IS the purpose, I looked it up on Wikipedia. You can't pass rules that prevent this from happening, otherwise you're doing something, but whatever it is is not contributing to the mission of Wikipedia, it is something else. Allowing this asinine rule to stand is a pathetic and cowardly (or maybe just exhausted) surrender to the hate groups. It's also a grotesquely irresponsible abdication of the encyclopedic mission.

This rule has to go. And don't tell me that hate group primaries have to be allowed too then. They don't. A differentiation needs to be made between a primary from the creator of a subject and primaries of lesser magnitude. This would be the best solution. Barring that, allow the hate mongers but confine their bile (I mean balanced and objective wisdom) to the controversy section. I suspect that strict enforcement of such a rule would have prevented the need for creating the current idiocy we are forced to labor under.

That's my three cents. Slightlyright (talk) 21:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:OR

A discussion on this rule is better suited to this forum -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research#Religious_primary_sources

Your comment reminded me of the following which, while a Scientology policy is not a Wikipedia policy:

Extract from HCO PL 7 Aug 79 entitled “FALSE DATA STRIPPING” “Where a subject, such as art, contains innumerable authorities and voluminous opinions you may find that any and all textbooks under that heading reek with false data. Those who have studied study tech will recall that the validity of texts is an important factor in study. Therefore it is important that any supervisor or teacher seeking to use False Data Stripping must utilize basic workable texts. These are most often found to have been written by the original discoverer of the subject and when in doubt avoid texts which are interpretations of somebody else’s work. In short, choose only textual material which is closest to the basic facts of the subject and avoid those which embroider upon them.”

78.16.206.27 (talk) 12:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the Scientology Study Tech method of "False Data Stripping" as defined above serves the purpose of removing any third-party observation or criticism from consideration, thus providing a stumbling block for any objective analysis or research of a subject outside of the oft-repeated Scientology exhortation that one must "try the 'tech' for yourself to see if it works". The Lizard (talk) 15:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

(od) All editors, both pro and critical would love to use Hubbard's writings, lectures, documents, HCOBs, etc, directly, but there's usually just too many problems with added interpretation, synthesis and messy looong arguments about context. Scientology is unusual in that there are few Scientologists writing to explain and interpret Scientology in secondary texts. ("Verbal tech"?) Failing that, there are non-critical scholars who have written about Scientology beliefs. See: Massimo Introvigne, Eileen Barker, Bryan Wilson, Derek H. Davis, Gordon Melton, James R. Lewis for starters. (True, I sometimes have problems with their fact-checking and referencing in areas outside of beliefs.) It will require some searching and digging (try GoogleBooks), but sometimes you have to do the work.

Meanwhile, I don't think the charged rhetoric about hate groups and false-data stripping is helping much. AndroidCat (talk) 17:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Wuao, for 1st time I totally agree with Android Cat. Bravehartbear (talk) 13:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I mangled an edit summary

The summary for my last edit (287768835) should've read "hitherto" does not help make the article neater or nicer, but does make it harder to understand. See e.g. Tony1's suggestions.

My finger slipped on the Enter key there, but the edit itself was as intended. --an odd name 02:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Can you heip me?

Dear sir.

First at all. I 'm patty . and I interest scientology. but i 'm can read and listen english not very good. but i would like to know about scientolg too much. Can you have thai language.? I would like to speak and listen english.but I cannot do it well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.24.191.85 (talk) 03:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

There are Scientology books in Thai, I just purchased a couple for my GF Waraporn. Just visit the Scientology official web site. Look for the basic books and select your prefered language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.1.122.63 (talk) 23:19, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOT#FORUM  Aar  ►  03:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Membership edit reverted

An edit of mine was reverted. I took the US figures on membership and put them in Scientology in the United States. Even though Scientology started in the US this article should not be about info specific to the US (or other countries for that matter) especially since a suitable article exists for such information. There are two reasons for this: to avoid systemic bias and to keep articles to a reasonable length. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 19:47, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Hiya, I disagree. The US as the country of origin of Scientology has the largest membership figure; I think this info is worth having in this generic overview. Also note that if you chop that single sentence out, the following paragraph about Scientologists disparaging general surveys, and the inflated membership statistics, loses its reference. There won't have been a prior mention of surveys then. JN466 21:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I mean, if you do insist on taking that sentence, then you have to take the following sentence along with it. Then we can lose this as a separate section here (because only two sentences will be left), and integrate the remaining sentences in the preceding section. JN466 21:32, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Project Chanology

Shouldnt there be a seperate heading for Project Chanology under "Scientology and the internet"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.205.119 (talk) 01:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Reliable source

"The collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia has banned the Church of Scientology from editing the site. The Register reports Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee, or ArbCom, voted 10 to 0 in favor of the ban, which takes effect immediately." [1]. There you go. Shutterbug (talk) 06:01, 30 May 2009 (UTC)