Talk:The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power

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The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on March 12, 2010.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 16, 2007	Articles for deletion	Kept
October 28, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
November 3, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed
January 23, 2008	Featured article candidate	Promoted
Current status: Featured article

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Remaining issues

To those who made this into an FA, good job! However, no article is perfect and I see some clear issues from a glance, especially with images.

The page of File:Time Magazine Scientology cover.jpg has two non-free rationales. Either use the box template or the free text. Consider the page of File:Interactions Spider-Man.jpg, which I edited, as a model rationale.
The images in "Research for the article" and "Awards" look skewed and bent to various degrees. See if an imaging pro can straighten out the bends or even retake the pics.
Some images are of plain text. They should be removed or replaced with the actual text. See the accessibility and alt text guidelines for info on this and other such issues.

There may be more bugs, but I haven't checked for them. I hope those help. --an odd name 00:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Will probably get on addressing these, one-at-a-time, at some point in the future after TFA-day. :) -- Cirt (talk) 03:50, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Behar's countersuit

I couldn't find in the article where it said what happened with Behar's countersuit against Scientology. How was his suit resolved? Cla68 (talk) 04:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wondered the exact same thing.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 05:04, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Will do some additional research. -- Cirt (talk) 06:23, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I checked Infotrac and ProQuest NewsStand and couldn't find anything on the result of his countersuit. Perhaps some of the regulars at WP:LAW with access to LexisNexis or other legal databases might be able to find something. Excellent article, nonetheless. Cla68 (talk) 07:31, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! -- Cirt (talk) 14:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations

Just want to express my admiration for everyone involved in the making, big or small, of this article. As an encyclopaedic entry, it's excellent. -The Gnome (talk) 09:47, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant. --65.207.116.226 (talk) 13:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Had to toss in my thanks as well. I'm a retired admin here, and I know that it's exceedingly difficult to write any controversial article, let alone getting it up to FA status. Well done. 98.232.51.88 (talk) 17:08, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was difficult. And thank you very much! -- Cirt (talk) 17:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My congrats also on having this become a Featured Article. Well done (again, and you're probably tired of reading this :).)

However, now that it's "high-profile" you might want to consider semi-protecting it. I'm worried that somebody might not think the article has a neutral POV.

Happy Trails! Dr. Entropy (talk) 19:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again, -- Cirt (talk) 21:13, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dollar figures

I see that money is referred to in one place as "USD" and another as "US$." I prefer the dollar sign myself, since it's more universally recognized than USD for "US dollars."--~T P W 14:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, will get to fixing that, some time after TFA-day. -- Cirt (talk) 14:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can take care of it - I'm just a bit hesitant making even a minor change that should be based on consensus to an FA on the main page that I didn't contribute to before today!--~T P W 14:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like someone already did it. -- Cirt (talk) 14:46, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, seeing as how all the events in the article take place in the U.S., the USD or US$ is probably only needed on the first occurrence, with the rest being just plain $. MutantPlatypus (talk) 07:01, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. -- Cirt (talk) 20:09, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Behar's full disclosure

Forgive me if I'm misremembering this -- I did read this article when it came out, back when I was in high school, and I seem to recall that it began with Behar offering some disclosure about himself, including something he had been arrested for when he was younger (minor drug possession, maybe?). He did this because he said that if he didn't, Scientology would, after the article came out. I remember finding that an extremely interesting move at the time, as a way to sort of jujitsu-counter Scientology's tactics. Am I misremembering? Would it be worth mentioning in the article? --Jfruh (talk) 17:07, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, you are thinking of a different article, written by Mark Ebner. -- Cirt (talk) 17:28, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, got it, the article is titled "Do You Want to Buy a Bridge?", written by Mark Ebner. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 20:15, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First two sentences

The article, although published by two courageous magazines, was primarily the work of one courageous man. To credit the article first to Time, and only in the second sentence, to it's author is unencycloppedic and just plain rude. Amandajm (talk) 22:39, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No objections to your change. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 22:42, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What it stated were

[1] - this change is inappropriate. It needs to be made clear that this is what the Scientology organization claimed were "falsehoods" in the article, NOT actual "falsehoods". They sued all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, but their claims were not confirmed. -- Cirt (talk) 12:18, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I assumed the language was redundant. After all, if a public relations campaign focuses on falsehoods (true or not), it is implied that the public relations campaign said they were falsehoods. Adding the extra "what it said were" isn't very neutral. It's almost like "alleged". I'll change "falsehoods" to "issues". MutantPlatypus (talk) 14:43, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay the "address issues" change makes it a little bit better. :) -- Cirt (talk) 20:08, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikilinking

Let us please not wikilink every single word in this article. Thanks, -- Cirt (talk) 12:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of the words I wikilinked were appropriate. MutantPlatypus (talk) 14:40, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, why don't you think Executive Director should be wikilinked? It's pretty relevant to know what an Executive Director is, and its not surrounded by tons of other wikilinks. MutantPlatypus (talk) 15:10, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Executive Director" does not appear in this article. The other words are very very very minor and simply not appropriate for wikilinking. -- Cirt (talk) 19:40, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see -- "Executive Editor" is a redirect to Editor in chief. I piped that link. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 20:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My bad! I did, indeed, mean executive editor. Thank you, sir. Or madam. MutantPlatypus (talk) 22:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's a topos?

In one of the quotes, the speaker uses the word "topos". Since (I now realize) it's against the manual of style to add wikilinks inside of quotes, I'm seeking consensus here. What do you think? Topos is a rather abstruse lexeme, I feel it deserves a wikilink. MutantPlatypus (talk) 15:00, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. It is very easy for others to find this term themselves. Let us avoid wikilinking within quoted text, please. Thanks, -- Cirt (talk) 19:40, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]