Talk:Landmark Worldwide

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Nwlaw63 (talk | contribs) at 18:00, 19 December 2023 (→‎Unexplained blanking of entire 'Concepts' section: Reply). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Clean-up of various recent edits

Litigation section

I am not really convinced that there is any merit to including this section at all - surely any business that has been operating for several decades is likely to have been involved in a handful of lawsuits? Why is this significant enough to include in the article? In any event there were definitely smears and insinuations in this section that are non-encyclopedic in tone. I have edited the first sentence to be less clumsy and convoluted. I have removed the reference to the non-fact that Margaret Singer 'would not comment...'. I have clarified the wording regarding Rick Ross' statements so that it is clear that these are claims and opinions, rather than having them appear to be stating established facts. Also removed the weasel word 'purportedly'.

History section

The opening paragraph recently added was problematic for several reasons. For one thing it deals with events prior to the formation of Landmark, but more importantly it contains much speculation and editorialising, as well as assertions for which the cited sources do not provide clear links to any primary information. I have condensed the relevant points.


If editors do not agree with these changes, please discuss here rather than resorting to edit-warring. Thank youo DaveApter (talk) 16:16, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The litigation section has already been discussed above, and the consensus was against you.
The references which talk about history are sources describing Landmark, and are therefore part of its history. ---Avatar317(talk) 23:16, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@DaveApter: You have spent 18, almost 19, years here defending the topic of this article. Can you please stop now? Please move on. Please stop using Wikipedia to defend or promote Landmark. Please stop it. Don't even respond to this message. This is a giant waste of your time. Please just go do something more useful and fun. I don't want to waste my time defending NPOV against people who are willing to spend decades on something this unimportant. How can we believe that it is not a cult when people spend decades defending it against any and all criticism no matter how tame or justified? Polygnotus (talk) 02:36, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please try to remain civil, and cut out the personal attacks. To put your insinuations into perspective, I should point out that - prior to the onslaught on this article over the past month or so - I have made about three dozen edits to the article in the previous eight years, out of a total of about 400 edits on the article in that period. Conversely, over that eight year period I have made over 500 edits on a wide variety of other subjects, many of them substantial good-quality contributions DaveApter (talk) 16:20, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your tactic of repeatedly falsely accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being incivil and personally attacking you is getting old fast. I haven't looked into your edits to other articles and I do not want to. But I did spend some time looking into the history of this article and how it got to the point it is at. If it is true that you have made good edits on other articles then it would be time for a topicban. Polygnotus (talk) 23:28, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like Polygnotus has been uncivil, and DaveApter is being personally attacked. Nwlaw63 (talk) 20:43, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dave Apter - where does your knowledge about Landmark come from?

@DaveApter: I notice in the old edits (where most of the article was COMPLETELY unsourced) that you have often added LOTS of information (many times very specific, with percentages) about Landmark (all unsourced, but the majority of the article was that way, so I'm not complaining about that.)

Where/how did you get all this information/knowledge about Landmark? ---Avatar317(talk) 00:49, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised that you need to ask that question, since I have been completely transparent in stating on several occasions that I'm a former customer of Landmark's (along with two or three million other people). I did the Landmark Forum over twenty years ago, followed by a few other courses and found them valuable. I don't know what specific information you are referring to, so I can't comment on that, but I would imagine it would have been things that were in the public domain somewhere. Unless you are talking about content which is in the article today, this hardly seems relevant. DaveApter (talk) 15:48, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
People seem to think that carefully dancing around COI questions is a genius tactic. We don't have to rehash all that. It has been discussed many times.
In reality it does not matter if you work there or if you are a shareholder or if you are Werner Erhard or his gardener. Denying or openly declaring that you have a COI changes nothing.
COI means that you have two interests: one is the topic of an article (in this case Landmark) and another is editing Wikipedia.
The conflict between those interest arises from the inability to accept that Wikipedia articles contain criticism if reliable sources contain criticism. This makes editing collaboratively impossible and turns every discussion in a WP:CPUSH and if that fails sealioning and WP:IDHT. I do not care if you break the ToS. Please just let us try to fix the damage caused. Go do something more fun. Go on a walk. Feed the squirrels. Ignore us. Forget Wikipedia exists. Move on. 18.77 years will soon be 19. I ordered "Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of Est" from Amazon. Polygnotus (talk) 14:41, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Elmmapleoakpine

@Elmmapleoakpine: repeatedly made an edit 1 & 2 that moved criticism to its own section at the bottom.

The edit summary that was used was: "restoring a reverted edit that addressed WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Article_structure".

This is the place to get consensus for that edit.

I do not think mentioning the accusations that Landmark is or was a cult is UNDUE because those have been mentioned in pretty much all reliable sources that mention Landmark. Polygnotus (talk) 01:33, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That is not what my edit addressed. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 02:19, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean? I am referring to your edit summaries. Polygnotus (talk) 02:26, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I do think the section header is really clunky. "Cult-ish accusations and litigation". But creating a criticism section is an obvious violation of NPOV (hiding all criticism in one section near the bottom is the opposite of NPOV). Changing the section header to "Criticism and litigation" may be less clunky; but its not perfect. Is "Accusations of being a cult" better? Polygnotus (talk) 01:38, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This topic belongs in the reception section not the history. Moving it back to where it and calling it Criticism and Litigation avoids violating NPOV/Article Structure as stated here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Article_structure. My doing so was expressly following that policy Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 02:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know why you claim that Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Article_structure is a reason to make the edit you did. Can you please explain why you think that section is a justification for the edit you've made? It literally says: "Try to achieve a more neutral text by folding debates into the narrative" which is the opposite of what you are trying to do. Thank you, Polygnotus (talk) 02:23, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you say it does not belong in the History section, do you mean there are still accusations being made and there is still ongoing litigation? Polygnotus (talk) 02:27, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Elmmapleoakpine: What do you think of "Accusations of being a cult" as a section header? The accusations and litigation are part of Landmarks history (right? or are there more recent accusations?). Polygnotus (talk) 01:40, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First, I apologize for the clunky section header name; I think of Wikipedia as a work-in-progress and I often can't come up with the best section header names (fully descriptive yet concise for a table of contents) so I name it the best I can think of. That's why the section was first named "Litigation" and was its own section, as the article was getting built/improved. I'd be fine with "Accusations of being a cult" or something else as well.
Second, from the sources I have seen so far, the litigation is now historical but the descriptions where the reputation among everyday people that its graduates and the program is cult-ISH/cult-like still persist. (2017 and 2019 sources talk about cult perception as current.)
Third, while the "Reception" section might make sense as a good location for the cult-allegations, the "History" section probably makes better sense for the Litigation, so it could be split up, but I don't know whether that's the better option, because the reason for the litigation would be confusing without the allegation "introduction". ---Avatar317(talk) 22:58, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unexplained blanking of entire 'Concepts' section

This entire section was blanked without discussion or explanation on 7th November by a 'drive-by' editor with no previous (or subsequent) history of editing this page [1]. When it was restored four days after that, it was again deleted within one hour by Avatar317 [2].

That section is clearly relevant and adequately sourced. It has been in the article for over eight years without any suggestion here that it ought to be removed. In the course of recent civil discussions above Grayfell suggested that it needed some stylistic improvements, and I agreed and indicated that I would make some attempts at doing so, but there was no suggestion of removing it entirely. I suggest that it should be restored, unless anyone can provide a compelling reason otherwise. DaveApter (talk) 16:01, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That section was poorly written in my opinion, and if anything there is necessary for this article, it would be much better to start-over from scratch so that it could be explained in a more neutral fashion. It would need far more than just stylistic improvements, but yes, it would also need stylistic improvements. The over-use of the phrase "Landmark suggests" to describe extremely basic concepts was not doing this article any favors. The use of jargonization via the term "new possibilities" is a red flag, also. Grayfell (talk) 21:03, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree with Grayfell that a total re-write of the piece may well be the way to go. The article is a mess, largely as a result of its history as an uneasy compromise from the battle between two factions with widely varied viewpoints on the subject. It is also handicapped by the fact that most of the "sources" are lifestyle and opinion pieces rather than factual reporting. Also many of them are written from a sensationalist and biased perspective, and rarely give clear indications of the primary sources on which they are based. DaveApter (talk) 09:51, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Polygnotus that you shouldn't be editing this article AT ALL, based on your history and comments like the one you just made: "most of the "sources" are lifestyle and opinion pieces rather than factual reporting. Also many of them are written from a sensationalist and biased perspective, and rarely give clear indications of the primary sources on which they are based." - So any source that doesn't give Landmark glowing positive reviews seems biased to you? If you edit this article directly, (not the Talk page) I will support Polygnotus's suggestion for a topic ban, I feel that whether or not you believe that you have a COI, you are behaving like you do.
Without the sources you criticize, we'd have ZERO sources for this article. There are some mentions in academic papers about Religions and New Religious movements, and books about similar subjects, but no other sources that I have seen.
I challenge you, post sources here that YOU see as "acceptable" for use in this article. ---Avatar317(talk) 20:41, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think DaveApter is merely paraphrasing something from the Administrator’s findings at the conclusion of the 2014 Arbitration agreement, which would indicate exercising caution when using these kinds of sources [3]: ‘‘As discussed by editors providing evidence in this arbitration case, rigorous academic sources for the topic are few and far between, meaning claims more often rest on weaker sources or claims from the organization in question.’’Nwlaw63 (talk) 18:00, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That section also duplicated SOME (but not all) of the content in the "Landmark Forum" section. Since pretty much ALL sources I've read so far talk about the concepts used in the FORUM rather than ALL of Landmark's classes, my preference and intention is to look at the sources for that removed section and add any useful content from those sources into the Forum section.
I also agree with Grayfell.
Also, having looked into the history of this article, it does really appear that this article was written WP:BACKWARDS, whereby almost nothing in the article was sourced and over time "sources" were added. This generally leads to a very poor representation/summary of what those sources intended to say.
As an improvement, after I have finished reading and summarizing more sources into the Forum section, it may make sense to have a sub-section of that section for the Concepts, which now start as "Various ideas are proposed for consideration and explored during the course. These include: " ---Avatar317(talk) 23:32, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps a "methodology" section would be better than a "concepts" section? Polygnotus (talk) 04:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Use of quotes in reference templates.

Regarding this edit, Template:r doesn't appear to support including multiple quotes for a single reference. To demonstrate this, one of the removed quotes had the word "displace", but this word is not found in on that version of the page via a word-search. In effect, these quotes were hidden in the code of the article, but were not displayed to readers. For obvious reasons, this is not a practical approach. For quotes which do display, it appears that many of these quotes are unnecessarily long for the cited content. It's good to make sure each source supports the attached statement, but the length of these quotes makes both editing and reading the article more difficult, so if a more succinct approach can be found, that would be helpful. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 06:54, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve been away from Wikipedia for a while. Part of what is drawing me back is the current activity on this article. This use of quotes is reminiscent of a number of years ago when the article was placed under discretionary sanctions following an attempt to turn it into an attack piece led at the time by the disgraced Admin, Cirt [4]. Nwlaw63 (talk) 17:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This problem is something that I've had and not found a good solution to. The quotes I included which you deleted are visible to the reader on mouse-over of the page number of the quote (for webpages, that is the small "1" (page one) which appears after the reference number. Try it, you have to get the mouse position just right for the quote to display.
I use this R template with DIFFERENT quotes than the ones included in the normal reference "quote=" parameter (which as you show with "displace" are listed in the reference section) because I often edit on contentious topics (like this article) and feel that quotes help other editors to easily see specifically which statements in the reference most support that statement in the article, and so readers can have some confidence that the references are being reasonably summarized/paraphrased. Sometimes I have used lengthy quotes (and seemingly unrelated quotes) in the "quote=" section because the same source is used for several unrelated statements, as a way around this issue, if I'm only using the source for two or three statements.
The other idea I had is that we could put the quotes in a comment, so they would be visible to editors, but less cumbersome for readers.
If you have a better suggestion on how to have only the quote appropriate to the specific statement display, withOUT duplicating the reference (and thereby hiding how many times the reference is used, and making it appear that the article has more references than it has) I'd love to hear it. Thanks! ---Avatar317(talk) 22:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For me, mouse-over does not show these quotes. Instead, it again shows the reference itself and any quotes in the main ref template. Perhaps this varies by browser or some other setting, but this information should be consistent for all viewers, so the issue is the same either way. I do not think hiding these quotes in a wiki-comment is appropriate. If these quotes are important enough to be included, they need to be visible to regular readers, not merely experienced editors.
I appreciate the use of quotes, as it does make things clearer, but there is a very substantial trade-off with such a large volume of added material. Perhaps it's obvious, but I don't think these specific quotes are vitally important, otherwise I would not have removed them. Quotes can sometimes, but not always, prevent confusion or disagreement. Quotes are also a great convenience, (especially for non FUTON sources) but they are only strictly necessary in exceptional circumstances. If a source needs so much interpretation and editorial guidance that it only makes sense with a specific, lengthy quote, it starts to introduce WP:OR issues.
With that said, I believe switching to Template:Harvard citation would resolve this, as each individual citation can contain a quote and page number in a 'Citations' section while also linking to a shared reference in a separate 'references' section. The article does use some Harv refs, but not consistently, and switching would be a time commitment and would also make future editing slightly more difficult and significantly more intimidating to newer editors.
If you strongly feel this is necessary, feel free to revert my edit and use that as a starting point for this change. Grayfell (talk) 23:45, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll use the harvnb or harvtxt to try to improve this situation. Thanks for that suggestion. I'm still planning to do much more reading of sources and work on this article, (I figure I'm barely half way through, probably a couple months more of work) so I'll switch to the Harvard style and fix and trim the existing ones in the process.
I feel that quotes help resolve disputes when new editors read a statement they feel is non-neutral and modify it without looking at what the source says; quotes allow another editor unknowledgeable in the subject to easily determine whether the statement represents the source (as well as editors like me who may have written the statement but forgot where in the source it says that, or specifically what it says). That said, easily findable facts like total yearly revenue probably don't need quotes, so I'll try to reduce the amount of quotage. Thanks for the help and explanations. ---Avatar317(talk) 01:46, 16 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Landmark_Worldwide&oldid=1190760055"