Talk:L. Ron Hubbard/Archive 3

message: "received a promotion to Lieutenant Commander in June 1947 (a promotion Hubbard never received and hence never accepted, and his subsequent (honest) biographical material refers to his final rank as Lieutenant), and resigned his commission in 1950."
Really confusing. Can someone who knows what that means rewrite that sentence?
:It doesn't read very well, does it? (You can tell it's been hacked around a bit...) I'll see what I can do to fix it. -- ChrisO 20:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For such an information there needs to be some verifiability.  How about going with whatever the cited link says is true, else delete. Terryeo 08:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Confusing Passage

message: Can be found here.  Also other details which shed interesting light on the subject:
In view of your general service classification and since reference (c) [the Report of Medical Survey] found you physically qualified for limited shore duty only, you are not considered physically qualified for promotion and the authority for your appointment to the rank of Lieutenant Commander under the terms of reference (d) [Alnav 317-45] has terminated.
By endorsement to reference (c) this Bureau modified the recommendations of the Board of Medical Survey and the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, and you are to be released from active duty since your services are not required in your limited capacity.
Therefore, no action will be taken to effect your promotion prior to your release from active duty.
(Source: Air mail letter to Hubbard from BuNavPers, October 19, 1945)
-- Antaeus Feldspar 16:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  citation for the 1947 promotion to Lt. Cmdr 

message: "Hubbard is also a featured character in the novel The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont, scheduled to be published by Simon & Schuster in May 2006."  This is the author's first novel and it hasn't even come out yet; I smell self-promotion and I definitely don't think it should go above the table of contents. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:57, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  I can't see how it merits any mention whatever.  BTfromLA 23:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed too, but isn't that a great title for a book? -- ChrisO 23:26, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril 

message: I remember reading this very article a few weeks ago and there being reference to Hubbard spending some time on a ship with young boys. I cannot remember exactly what, but there is no specific reference to it anymore. Can anyone remember what it said?
:It was probably a quickly-reverted piece of vandalism; this article tends to have a number of regular vandals who come in and try to slip in unacceptable edits of one sort or another.  Since they tend to have favorite "themes", it's probably the same vandal who made this edit.  -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Recent' changes 

message: The parody section towards the end features a bunch of assumed parodies of l. ron hubbard but i wonder how many of them are just parodies of religious sects/scams in general instead of scientology specific, scientology wasn't the only one and wasn't the first. Can anyone clearify/source on them? --62.251.90.73 13:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of them seem to be pretty specifically based on Scientology.  Either there is a clear L. Ron Hubbard parody, or parody of his name; or else (as in Bowfinger) it's pretty obvious - a science fiction cult that has celebrity centers seems pretty clearly a Scientology parody. john k 17:49, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Parodies

message: There seems to be a bit of confusion, or maybe just poorly-constructed passages, about when Dianetics was written and published. The first mention seems to indicate he wrote it in 1950... and that it was then published in 1949. And then later, when it's talking about the "E-meter", it mentions a Dianetics enthusiast inventing it in "the 1940s". -RannXXV 02:32, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dianetics confusion 

message: I changed this little bit slightly. It originally said it was exaggerated, but I see no evidence of this and edited accordingly. If it was meant to relate to the differentiation in how the souls were thawed out (I can't believe I just wrote that), then that isn't an exaggeration it is a mistake (I don't know which is right- atomic bomb or volcano). —This unsigned comment was added by DarkSideOfTheSpoon (talk • contribs) .
:I think you misread it slightly.  It didn't say the SP version of the Xenu story was exaggerated, but that a viewer who didn't know the Xenu story might think that what they were seeing was an exaggeration.  This is why the caption, which is rather similar to Dave Barry's famous catchphrase "I swear I am not making this up", necessary precisely because so much of his humor comes from when he does make stuff up.  Anyways, I've rewritten it so that it's hopefully clearer why South Park thought they needed a caption. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:45, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, now I get what you mean. My bad. It is very clear now though. Good stuff. DarkSideOfTheSpoon 03:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "This is what Scientologists actually believe" 

message: "of the controversial Church of Scientology"
Any religion (or cult, sect, political party) can be "controversial" for a number of people, so why use this word for the CoS in particular? I don't think this word adds useful information to the article. People interested in learning what Scientology (or the CoS) is can follow the link and read, in the relevant article, what controversies exist about this topic. Apokrif 14:56, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Other groups may have some controversy, but CoS has waded in it for the 53 years of its existence. It's a rare newspaper article that doesn't say something like "the controversial church" as if it was part of the name. I think it's an accurate reflection of the general view and not just "a number of people". AndroidCat 15:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  So we should say, for instance, "the CoS about which, according to this study, N% of newspaper articles say it's controversial". Most people think the CoS is a cult, that's not a reason to write in WP "the Scientology, which is a cult". Apokrif 17:22, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text:  Calling them "controversial" is actually providing some benefit of the doubt to Scientology, since it contains the implication that there are two sides. No one refers to, say, Al-Qaeda as "controversial", because it goes without saying that almost everyone in the free world opposes them. wikipediatrix 15:53, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Apokrif, you're correct that anyone can follow the link and read about the Church of Scientology and discover that it's highly controversial.  However, not everyone will.  When I'm working on an article, I try to always keep in mind that the reader could stop reading after any sentence; therefore I want to make sure that if they stop reading after N sentences, those N sentences have given them the most important information they can get in N sentences.  What's "important" in this context?  Well, since we've presumed that the reader is going to stop before they get all the information we have on the topic, the most important thing we can do is give them a framework for any further information they get on the subject.  In this case, the "controversial" alerts the reader that there are probably some very different viewpoints out there on the subject, and that if they hear something about the subject, it should be interpreted as not necessarily "the truth" about the subject, but rather, someone's side of the story. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  IMHO this holds for (almost) every subject, so I think "controversial" (without some additional info) is one of the Wikipedia:Words to avoid. I opened a topic at Wikipedia talk:Words_to_avoid#"Controversial":_vague_and_useless. Apokrif 17:22, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, but if you think every religion/cult/sect/political party has a level of controversy anywhere near that of Scientology, I'm afraid you're either not well-acquainted with the subject or not prepared to see it clearly. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Few topics are so deeply embedded in controversy as the Church of Scientology.  While a responsible article should ultimately be more explicit about the nature of the controversy (the fact that a large percentage of the church's self-representation is judged by most third-party observers as misleading or outright false), using the word "controversial" to flag the contentious nature of this topic seems entirely appropriate. The fact that one can find controversy within virtually any field of discussion does not mean that everything is equally controversial.  The CoS, like "intelligent design," is an outstanding example of a controversial subject. BTfromLA 20:24, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally I don't much like the "controversial" tag; it has the connotation of "controversial" = "bad". -- ChrisO 16:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say that's an unavoidable effect of the fact that for every issue we could describe as "controversial", some people would argue that it's good and some would argue that it's bad.  If something isn't controversial, that implies that everyone is agreed on whether it's good or bad.  Will some people read into the word "controversial" a judgement that is not actually denoted by the word, reading "controversial" as "bad"?  Yes, unfortunately it's so -- but I've no doubt that the absence of "controversial" will lead readers to mistakenly think that whatever is so described is mainstream and free of controversy. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yup. That's the nature of controversy. We wouldn't call Hitler "controversial", because he has almost no defenders. - Jmabel | Talk 18:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of "controversial" 

message: Olberon, at the very least, it is still a matter of opinion and controversy whether Hubbard founded the Church himself, or whether others did. Sure, official Scientology sources say that others did, but there are other sources which state that these people were actually employed by Hubbard to set it up for him. If you persist in pushing the Church's "Hubbard didn't found it" party line, I'll have to gather up the many sources which contradict this assertion, and then an entire paragraph about it will further clog up these articles. Furthermore, the Church can't keep its own position straight on the matter: I just found several official Church sites that refer to Hubbard as its founder. Let it go. wikipediatrix 20:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hubbard founding the Church 

message: There is a contradiction in the article about whether or not an autopsy was performed. 
"They were blocked by the San Luis Obispo County medical examiner, whose autopsy revealed high levels of a drug called hydroxyzine..."
"Several issues surrounding Hubbard's death and disposition of his estate are also subjects of controversy — a swift cremation with no autopsy; the destruction of coroner's photographs; coroner's evidence of the drug Vistaril present in Hubbard's blood..."
The first statement says that an autopsy was performed and the second statement says the coroner found evidence of Vistaril, which suggests that at least some type of examination was performed. -- Kjkolb 17:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A quick scan of sources seems to indicate that there was an examination of the body, and blood tests (which revealed the Vistaril) but no autopsy.  I suspect someone simply didn't know that not every examination of a body by a coroner is called an "autopsy". -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Autopsy Contradiction 

message: I have edited this to include the information of her retraction.
[User:Nuview|Nuview]] 10:20, 8 Aug 2006 (PST)
:I think you mean "edited this to completely remove anything except her retraction". -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Antaeus is correct--this is a very disingenous representation of your edit.  A notable moment in Hubbard's bio is the fact that he was was the subject of sensational headlines about his personal life in relation to that divorce--the fact of his bigamy, so far as I know, has never been contested, and the charges of torture and kidnapping were in the news, regardless of their ultimate merit.  They deserve a brief mention in the article, and I have restored them.  BTfromLA 17:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Wow, cool idea ! Did she buy her own Arizon ranch or anything like that? no, wait, don't give any personal details. Terryeo 21:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The POV on the Sara Northrup entry

message: I'm sure we've all seen Elron's black & white deathbed photo, but I think it should be included in the article, preferably alongside the info about his strokes and Vistaril use.  I say this because Scientology promotes Hubbard as a "perfect being" with supernatural powers who could cure all physical and mental illnesses.  Furthermore, they claim he did not die per se, but rather voluntarily "dropped the body" to continue his research in the spirit realm (or what have you).  This photo, along with the coroner's report, expresses a decidedly different view of his end. Roland Deschain 08:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The trouble is finding any photo of Hubbard that has a documented usable copyright permission or public domain status. Like the Happy Birthday song, just because everyone uses it, it doesn't mean that someone doesn't own it. In Wiki's case, "nod and a wink" permission isn't enough. AndroidCat 12:10, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a "deathbed photo". It's a picture of Hubbard from a TV documentary in 1973 (and as such, it might be usable under fair use provisions). The pic appears in Stewart Lamont's book "Religion, Inc." It shows an interesting point in Hubbard's physical deterioration - he developed a large swelling on his forehead (you can see it a few cm above the bridge of his nose), which he later had surgically removed. -- ChrisO 14:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deathbed Photo 

message: I once heard that there was a library or a lecture room in the Moscow University that was named after L. Ron Hubbard.
Does anyone know whether this is true? If it is true, does it still have that name?
Thanks. --Amir E. Aharoni 13:20, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's true enough. See : "The University has renamed its Library of Journalism the “L. Ron Hubbard Reading Room”. At the entrance, the traditional bust of Lenin has been replaced by one of Hubbard. The room is decked out with photographs of the former cult leader and houses a collection of his Scientology books." No idea if this is still the case, though. -- ChrisO 13:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moscow State University - Hubbard room? 

message: please review the sections "early life" and "military career" - i noted the following discrepancy (20 Oct 06):
Early Life:
"He served in the Navy until 1946, reaching the rank of Lieutenant-Commander in 1934."
Military Career:
"In June 1947 the Navy attempted to promote him to Lieutenant Commander, but Hubbard appears not to have learned of this and so never accepted it; consequently he remained a Lieutenant. He resigned his commission in 1950." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Elrond116 (talk • contribs) .
:I don't see a discrepancy. Take a closer look. AndroidCat 02:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm looking, and - either he became a Lt Cmdr in 1934, or he nearly did in 1947. Can't be both. Could it be the 1934 should be a promotion to just Lieutenant? --Jamoche 18:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 1934 is his dad. --Justanother 18:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military Career