Talk:Scientology/Archive 13

message: I think I'm guilty of deleting that first ref to Atack's book... sorry.  I wonder whether the folks who write wikipedia code could come up with an automated way to keep that from happening, by either sending out an alert when a ref that has dependent refs is about to be cut, or, even better, by migrating the full ref to the next place it appears in the article.  Seeing as how Wikipedia seems to be going reference-happy, I'm sure this sort of problem will come up often.  BTfromLA 17:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, it'd be great if they'd do that...  but I'm still waiting for them to implement sub-references, so that if you have a fact sourced to page 50 of a book, and another sourced to page 75 of the same book, you could write it as "blah blah blah Book Title, Author, Et Cetera. and bluh bluh bluh" and the two refs would be rendered as "Book Title, Author, Et Cetera. p. 50" and "Book Title, Author, Et Cetera. p. 75", respectively.  Right now I try to put the page numbers in comments after the reference so that when that capability is implemented, a little simple editing will insert all the page number specifiers. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sorry for inadvertantly cutting a needed ref 

message: The purpose of putting a footnote into an article is to provide substance to a statement.  For example, should an article state something like, "Cakes are sweet"[1], then the footnote would be expected to point to a source of information which talked about the sweetness of cakes, or how honey is sometimes used in place of sugar to create a sweet cake, etc.  In this article, in the third paragraph, we have the statement, Church spokespeople attest that Hubbard's teachings (called "Technology" or "Tech" in Scientology terminology) have saved them from a plethora of problems and complaints.[2][3] and the two footnotes [2] and [3], do not support the statement.  Instead, the two footnotes directly contradict the statment.  In the case of the cake, the footnotes would be pointing to an article about how sour cakes are. I would say that this link (which has personal attests by a variety of people) would fulfill that statement and should replace those two footnotes. Terryeo 09:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The link you suggest is not a reliable secondary source. We would have to reword the statement to make it primary sourcable (sp?) to use your suggestion. --Davidstrauss 15:48, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The link I suggested is to the organization which promotes and publishes the information which this article is about.  That makes it a primary source of information. Which makes it useable information in this article. Terryeo 23:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You are in fact absolutely right. The linked refs had nothing to do with the statement given and in fact one was just a duplicate of the other. I've used your ref, which is primary and fits the statement give. Thanks. Chris Cunningham 09:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree that a footnote should support the statement it follows. I'm staying out of editing this article because I'm pretty new to it and it has a RICH history of debate/compromise, but I did want to weigh in. Vpoko 18:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The purpose of Footnotes 

message: I've started really shifting things around to reduce duplication. There are bits of business and religion scattered all over the place, they need to be consolidated. Once that's done it'll be much easier to assess the relative length of sections.
I'm thinking of cutting out many of the sub-headings in the beliefs section. if there's a whole article for it, beliefs don't really need more than a mention each. Chris Cunningham 10:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoa!!!  You mean, this isn't an easy article to do??  Whoever would have thought??  -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I dare say I've accomplished more in the last ten hours than most contributors recently, so are you planning on helping or just being conservative and obstinate? Chris Cunningham 21:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Since you took it upon yourself to give the article a massive overhaul, I think most regular watchers of this article (including myself) are sitting back and letting you do your thing, waiting to see the result. I also think that Anteaus has already done much helping, and may believe that you are fixing things that were not broken, just because you can. The old version wasn't perfect, to be sure, but it was arrived at by a consensus of not one, not a couple, not a few, but many editors. Myself, I'll give you benefit of the doubt for now and wait until you've finished before I critique your work. wikipediatrix 16:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Many editors - 1.  heh Terryeo 21:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Terryeo, would you be good enough to translate your cryptic comment into English?  BTfromLA 21:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, wait: I think I get it: many editors minus one, right?  I didn't read the hypen as a "minus" sign.  BTfromLA 21:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm waiting, for the moment (unlike Terryeo). AndroidCat 21:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you for your personal attention. Happy Ho Ho's. Terryeo 21:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heavy lifting 

message: The article says: "The Catholic Church has refused to recognise Scientology weddings as valid."  What does that mean?  I have never heard of the Catholic Church refusing to recognise weddings done under other authorities than itself.  Quite the opposite.  Does this mean that if a person married in a Scientology wedding were to leave his/her partner he/she would count as a single person in the eyes of the Catholic Church and could be remarried? Steve Dufour 04:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. It needs a citation. --Davidstrauss 17:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Roman Catholic rules for weddings and divorce annullment are complex, especially when other religions are involved. It definitely needs a cite, preferably from someone authoritative rather than a blurb in a gossip paper. AndroidCat 18:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Weddings in most countries are a legal contract.  Often the ceremony is done by religious sanction, even by religions themselves.  A marriage in one country is, usually, recognized as being valid in another country.  For the most antagonistic person it might be possible that a marriage in Sweden by a Scientology minister is not recognized in Iran (nothing but Islam), or something like that.  But that wouldn't be common. Terryeo 21:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I will take the sentence out until some more information is provided.  Steve Dufour 04:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Scientology weddings?

message: By all means, cite the newspaper.  But follow WP:V to do it.  That is a single newspaper article making that statement.  Balanced against that are 40 million words over a period of 50 years which say otherwise.  By all means, cite the newspaper.  But it should not be the introductory sentence.  The cite would be better used in the Church of Scientology philosophy because it mentions several practitioners of the Church. Scientology isn't beliefs, guys.  It has never been beliefs.  You simply can not find in the text which comprises it, anything about beliefs. Terryeo 19:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well then, since a religion is, by definition, a set of beliefs, you have, intentionally or not, made the case that Scientology is not a religion, nor can it be a "religious philosophy". And since the Church of Scientology adds nothing to the Standard Tech to differentiate it, it cannot be a religion either. Q.E.D...... wikipediatrix 19:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  This article's title is "Scientology", as compared to another article's title, the "Church of Scientology".  One subject matter is a body of written, spoken and flimed works, the other article is about the organization which delivers, disseminates, oversees that body of information.  This article, therefore, should be about the subject matter. Perhaps it should be titled, Scientology (philosophy), but whatever its title, of what use is it, if it is going to parallel, step for step, point for point, the Church of Scientology article?  When presenting religion, present beliefs.  When presenting philosophy, present information.  Buddhism too could be treated in this same manner because it too presents itself as a philosophy and as a religion.   When Hubbard first introduced the term to the public he stated, a study of knowledge and defined that it would intrude into religion by the subjects which it studies.  The subject matter includes the spiritual nature of man, but it does not talk about beleifs it talks about knowledge.  It says you can know something about emotion and it calls that the Tone scale.  It says you can know something about study and it calls that Study tech.  It says you can know something about the people who refuse to understand that man tries to help his follow man, and that is called Suppressive person technology.  Terryeo 20:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Terryeo, religions offer a set of claims about humankind's relationship to the cosmos.  These claims are accepted by those that follow the religion.  They are beliefs.  However, the sacred texts of few if any religions actually say "here come the beliefs."  That doesn't matter.  Please understand this--it is a problem that comes up over and over again in your comments here: Hubbard doesn't get to characterize his own work on Wikipedia.  Just as a novelist who has control over every word she writes doesn't have any control over the way her work is categorized, assessed and placed in history by historians, neither does Hubbard get to control what others will say about his writing.  The fact that he never wrote about Scientology being gnostic doesn't mean that it has nothing to do with gnosticism. Your arguments about "present information" reveal a serious misunderstanding of what an encyclopedia does. BTfromLA 21:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You have evaluated and stated in regards to my personal understanding.  This is not the platform to make such a statement. Should you wish to take up such a personal issue, an article's discussion page is not the place to do it.  Do you understand, User:BTfromLA? Terryeo 11:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If somebody presents an argument based on false premises, it is appropriate to say as much.  When a particular editor repeats the same error persistently, it is also appropriate to point that out.  The talk page, in other words, is exactly the place to hash out our "personal understanding" of how an encyclopedia article should be written.  Terryeo, you are sidestepping what I've written by trying to characterize it as personal.  It isn't personal--it's about the point of view from which this article, and all Wikipedia articles, are to be written.  Why not respond to my analogy about the novelist?  BTfromLA 16:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I did not respond to your analogy about the novelist because your statement included your personal evaluation and criticsm, Your arguments about "present information" reveal a serious misunderstanding.   It is that which I responded to because unless we are able to communicate to each other, we can not communicate about the novelist.  Your stated evaluation would not allow you to communicate with me (since I misunderstand, and seriously) and as the criticized party who, according to your statement doesn't understand anyway, I am not going to attempt to hammer my communication through your understanding when you are certain that I have no understanding to speak from. I assume good faith, I assume the next person understands as well as I do. Terryeo 20:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, your comments seem to be based on a misunderstanding.  Did I not make myself clear? Good faith does not mean that everybody interprets things competently, or even that all competent interpretations agree.  BTfromLA 22:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I say an encyclopedia presents information to the reader.  You evaluated my statement and told me that I had a serious misunderstanding.  Then you expect me to talk about some other issue. Since I begin the communication cycle, and since it is my originiation that an encyclopedia present a reader with information as its primary action, I don't feel any discussion could possibly be fruitful if you consider my origination is mis-reasoned (though you say, misunderstood). How can we proceed ?Terryeo 23:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Terryeo, the issue I asked you to address is the exact one I raised as the site of your "misunderstanding." And please don't try to suggest that I'm saying that an encyclopedia shouldn't present information: I'm saying that you are promoting an inaccurate view of the way information is presented in an encyclopedia, that is, the point of view from which it is presented.  If you won't respond to the substance of my comments, than I don't see the point of proceeding.  BTfromLA 03:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The issue I think you are raising is something like, "Hubbard has no say in how his work is evaluated?" So, when Hubbard says, "there are three barriers to study" and Touretzky evaluates and restates, "there are three principles to study", then of course Hubbard's words are to be ignored so that Touretzky can present his evaluation and build his opinion which he presents as being valid, thus denying that Hubbard's study tech could be of any use to anyone because Hubbard didn't mean to say, "three barriers" but meant to say "three principles" (according to Touretzky)?  Yeah, if that is what you are saying that I am doing, then you are right about that.  It irritates me that the actual information is never presented in favor of evaluations which mis-present the actual information. Irriates me because it denies giving the reading public the opportunity to evaluate the information for themselves.  I would have the actual information presented before the (what I think of as) beanbrained evaluations, thus giving the reading public an opportunity to evaluate for themselves.  That was the beauty of the first real encyclopedia.  Terryeo 04:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: As I said before the fact the Scientology has been compared to Gnosticism is interesting, but putting it as the third word in the article seems a little over the top.  Steve Dufour 04:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Would you please put an ending quote mark after your first: "Scientology, (because it is unclear whether you are saying the whole phrase comes from Advance! issue 93 or what).  I can not know if you are quoting from Church writings to support your statements or are quoting a quote which states (from Advance!) that the Church says the Church is gnostic. Terryeo 23:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The best way to ensure that your contribution isn't edited out as POV is not to relentlessly spam it with reference after reference. I've removed the recent spamming; the first ref has been moved into its own independent ref where it can be judged in its entirety. Chris Cunningham 08:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You removed valid references from the article. That is against policy. --Davidstrauss 03:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Please don't pull cites willy-nilly. The whole reason why so much citation is necessary is because some editors have been pushing very hard to have cites for every proposition. It seems a little overblown, true, but these articles have attracted some, ah, rather interesting and detail-oriented editors. heh. Extanto 18:30, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  Unfortunately, as is often the case, Davidstrauss, this page degredates into discussion about the validity of a piece of information.  The threshold for inclusion is 'verifiability' says WP:V.  There is a source (one newspaper article) which has stated its opinion.  Good. Now let us compare that one source against other published words and present to our reading public what is most commonly published, ok?  But thank you for enlightening us all about the reasoning you use, letting us all know how the newspaper article's presentation so exactly aligns with your own, personal thinking. Terryeo 11:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you had read the references before Cunningham removed them, you would see that many sources back up the statement I added. --Davidstrauss 03:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Well duh, it is false information anyway.  A single newspaper ran a single article which said that.  Including it in an appropriate manner is the issue here.  Using A Sun article that says aliens are coming to earth as a headline doesn't make sense and using one newspaper article's opinion for the introduction doesn't make sense. Terryeo 15:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Lack of inclusion in a list somewhere is not a good source for removing that classification. In fact, it's not a source for anything but classifying the things it actually lists. --Davidstrauss 03:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  gnosticism 

message: I continue to learn more about editing in wikipedia.  I can see that we have to be cautious about "Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position" in this article.  This is a violation of one of the main principles of wikipedia - No Original Research.
Case in point: the recently deleted concept that the "Barley Formula" is potentially unsafe is a clear violation of that standard.  The writer took the published "Barley Formula contains sweeteners" plus "sweeteners can cause infant botulism" and synthesized "The Barley Formula is potentially dangerous".  This statement constitutes original research and is not admissable unless first validated in a peer-reviewed publication.--Justanother 16:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position 

message: Due to lots of anonymous vandalism in the last 48 hours (including some from dynamic IP's), I've requested semi-protection for the article. Vpoko 20:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The page has been semiprotected, hopefully that should reduce the reverts. Vpoko 02:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested semi-protection