I am intending to do a monthly thread here about Cirt's Scientology edits, because I would like to help them kick their nasty habit. Cirt, I don't say this in a mean way, but when you edit articles related to Scientology, it makes your fingers and breath smell like Scientology. And no one wants to kiss someone whose breath smells like Scientology.

Cirt managed to get into an edit war over reducing the overly long and repetitive lede to List of people who accepted Golden Raspberry Awards. When their opponent refused to be bullied, Cirt capitulated. There is currently a thread at ANI about Cirt's creation of an edit notice on the related Golden Raspberry Award. Edit notices are displayed when editing an article and can only be created by admins, so Cirt doing this while involved in a dispute looks like a typically petty abuse of admin rights. Scientology connection: Battlefield Earth, a movie based on the L Ron Hubbard book and starring a gaggle of Scientologists.

Cirt created Beyond the First Amendment. Scientology connection:To quote from WP's Operation Clambake article: In Beyond the First Amendment: The Politics of Free Speech and Pluralism, author Samuel Peter Nelson raises the question: "Why should a private actor (Church of Scientology) in the United States have the power to restrict the speech of a Dutch citizen publishing in the Netherlands whose speech is protected by Dutch law?"

I don't think it will be very long before an intervention is required.

Cirt removed a prod from Leipzig Human Rights Award, which appears to be a rather iffy award for actions against what the organization refers to as "human rights violations by the totalitarian Scientology". As the WP editor who added the proposed deletion template rightly notes, "notability appears to exist only within the walled garden of anti-Scientology activism". This article is almost 100% Cirt's work.

And what exactly is wrong with the sourcing on the Leipzig award? It seems comprehensive enough.

This thread topic amuses me. I feel like I should make a thread on the sad, sad stuff you do, DC.

I accept that there has been significant criticism relating to the sad, sad stuff I do. I will do my best to take this criticism on-board, and adjust my future actions accordingly. Thank you for your time.

Actually, I find the premise of this thread rather useful. If we accept the idea that sunlight is the best disinfectant, we may conduct an experiment to see whether Wikipedia can be disinfected.

I'm one of those people who doesn't care if Wikipedia has articles on things that are fairly obscure or only relevant within a limited scope. The problem with the anti-Scientology stuff isn't that it's obscure (and most of it is), it's that it's difficult to write about such topics in a neutral way that respects the privacy and personality rights of individuals who may be associated with those topics.

I was recruited aggressively by the anti-Scientologists when I was more active in Wikipedia. I routinely refused to do as they wanted because what they wanted wasn't consistent with Wikipedia's policies, as I then understood them.

Carb, you can certainly post regular threads about Cirt's bullshit. Because there's an endless supply of it.


And you are certainly welcome to post Carb's bullshit.
I don't think he generates as much as Cirt, though.

I see what you did there...

A new article from Cirt: The Best American Magazine Writing 2007. No mention of Scientology in the article, which is odd considering what Cirt refers to as "an investigative journalism article for Rolling Stone by Janet Reitman" is entitled "Inside Scientology".

There is also Net.wars (T-H-L-K-D), currently at DYK, as usual. The article doesn't mention Scientology, but it's a major part of the story.

Still, Wikipedians may well say, What is the problem with having someone create a well-written article on a book they like? Isn't that how everyone is operating?

Add to that the article Freedom of Expression (McLeod book), making three new articles in January on related sbject matter. So what is wrong with these articles, you ask? Taken in isolation, nothing. Looked at as part of the larger pattern of Cirt's editing, they are just more of the same anti-Scientology POV-pushing.

Each of the authors is actually strongly connected to Scientology, which is not surprising really since they are all writing about issues dealing with copyright and the internet. The CoS doesn't want people to be able to read its super secret documents, so they have been involved in several legal battles dealing with publication of those. Is this mentioned in any of the articles? Oddly, no. Do most articles about books, especially non-fiction books, have pictures of the authors? No, but these do.

Cirt has pledged to stay away from CoS-related editing, but these new articles exist on WP solely because of these authors' anti-CoS writing and Cirt's obsession.

Here's another two examples from this month.


1. Landmark Education

According to the New York Times, Terry Giles, the Chairman of Landmark Education (T-H-L-K-D), was recently appointed by a judge

The New York Times article says Giles managed to broker a peace deal between Dr. King's children, who had fallen out among themselves, adding that

A couple of weeks ago an IP added this info to the Landmark Education article. The edit was promptly reverted by Cirt as "vandalism".

The Scientology connection is that Landmark uses the intellectual property of Werner Erhard, who derived some of his EST methods from Scientology's communications course, and that Giles has also been Werner Erhard's lawyer.


2. Melton

Here Cirt argued the other day that a paper and book chapter by J. Gordon Melton is a biased and questionable source on Scientology.

• Melton is the author of "Melton's encyclopedia of American religions", a tome of 1386 pages published by Gale Cengage Learning, currently in its 8th edition.
• He is the author or editor of dozens of other academic books and reference works on religion.
• Melton writes the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Scientology.
• Melton's book on the Church of Scientology is required reading in dozens of university courses.
• Melton has been quoted hundreds of times as an expert on Scientology and other religious movements in the New York Times, by Associated Press (click on "Show more text" at the bottom of the page), USA Today, the Boston Globe etc. etc.

It's hard to find a more qualified source.

Cirt, on the other hand, cites the website of the International Cultic Studies Association in the discussion. They don't like Melton.

The ICSA is a privately funded anti-cult organisation which used to be known as the American Family Foundation.

Reformed EST and Hunger Project "cult" member Carol Giambalvo, mentioned in another thread on Cirt recently, is one of the ICSA's directors.

Cirt therefore argues, forcefully, that Melton is a biased and questionable source.

There is the Cirt and Wikipedia problem in a nutshell – according to Cirt, Wikipedia is supposed to follow the ICSA line. Most of the people on Wikipedia are clueless when it comes to assessing the real-world standing of a scholar vs. an anti-cult website. Nine times out of ten, an "admin" and "FA writer" like Cirt can pull the wool over their eyes.

The nutshell sounds about right. To be fair to the ICSA though, they have come quite a ways in credibility from their beginnings as the American Family Association, and their journal, Cultic Studies Review, is now indexed in academic databases like the ATLA Religion Database. That said, nothing published by the ICSA is in anyway, shape or form a credible source when it comes to criticizing well respected academics. As you say, however, most Wikipedians do not understand the differences between what is published by anti-cult groups and mainstream scholars when it comes to NRMs and cults. If Cirt had been operating in another area of interest, in the POV manner that he does, he would have been banned from Wikipedia a very long time ago.

Read the rest here.

No comment. In other January news, Jessica_Feshbach (T-H-L-K-D) made GA yesterday.

I wonder what editors at a publication like the Dictionary of International Biography would make of this article.

Already had the straight dope from here

Was disappointed to see the WP version has no Judaism vs. Scientology Cage Match cat tag. There is one, isn't there? Else, what as the point of this article, again? Somebody is awfully pissed off about something or other having to do with money and culture and money and ethnicity and religion and money and stocktrading and power and money.

The article had three AfDs: 1, 2, 3, the most recent one having been initiated by FloNight last October. I guess it's no surprise that Smeelgova/Cirt voted "Keep" at each of them.

Speaking of cage matches, there is another round of the TM cage match at AE, with Will Beback, DocJames and Cirt matched up against Littleolive oil.

Plus a keep vote in the last AfD from admin Panyd, whose Facebook page currently lists "Protesting Scientology" as one of her interests.

Wow, a three month block for arguing whether or not a Cochrane metaanalysis of TM deserves more or less weight in a lede??

I guess TM really is the new Scientology. Is it too late to nominate this one for a dick tag team event? We do have some of the Usual Suspects, I guess.

Hey, Future Perfect at Sunrise-- you're a DICK for your involvement in this, also.

Well, she might come by that honestly, as Scientology is hell on mental illness, since it's against drug treatment of any mental illness, no matter what. You can imagine how that works if the problem is bad and the person happens to find a drug that is good for them. Yeah there are some mentally ill people who no medication of any kind helps very much. But it takes experimentation to discover that, for any given person. You can't just take it as an article of faith for everybody. Scientologists do. Which is just one reason that Scientology is batshit insane. In the same loving way as Christian Science, no doubt, but crazy nevertheless.

Indeed. Tory Christman had the same problem; apparently, she was stuck at OT7 forever because she was expected to overcome her epilepsy just by dint of spiritual development. Unfortunately, wishful thinking can only take you so far.

I don't think that's right.

In my experience, Christian Scientists are nice, friendly lunatics who never harm anyone. I mean, who's ever heard of a Christian Scientist having to be de-culted? Who's ever even been asked to take a Christian Scientist personality test?

That's partly because the Christian Scientists have been around for nigh on 150 years and everyone is used to them by now -- old news. In their time, they were quite as controversial. Even today cult exit counsellors still feature them on their websites, so they probably get a few customers.

I was comparing the medical attitudes. No, Christian Scientists don't have E-meters. But they will pray over a member while an obvious face tumor gets larger and larger and larger and finally inoperable and then intolerable, all keeping the patient from doing to the hospital. Finally, when the face tumor is so large that it dips into the coffee when the victims drinks, and the victim finally gives up, the hospital they finally go to, is helpless to do much (an upper face amputation with some brain included? No).

But, when the victim finally seeks medical help, the Christian Scientists abandon their member for having lack of faith, so now the poor bastard has an untreatable disease and suddenly no social support EITHER. Yeah, they're sweeties, those Christian Scientists. Don't get me started.

The mind screw of someone brought up in Scientology is not a lot of fun, whether or not it's a cult in classic terms, emotionally crippling and afflicted with body phobias would appear to be the inheritance of CS children.

A.virosa

"Well Respected Academic" = source that supports my POV

The ICSA and its journal are as valid a forum for the presentation of academic difference, controvery and debate, as any other special interest humanities grouping. If one is going to play the Wikipedia game on the basis of its rules that 'academic controverisies and differences' should be given appropriate weighting, then reference to fora where those controverisies and differences' are rehearsed is necessary. I can't see why that wouldn't include the ICSA.

Of course Wikipedia rules mean nothing but if the absurdity of the notion of "Well Respected Academic" were allowed to operate unchecked - then Wikipedia humanities articles would be based entirely on single paradigm populism. Cirt may be playing against some of the rules, but she/he appears to be a symptom of Wikipedia's crass inability to accommodate multiple perspectives and critical approaches. My guess is that whatever Cirt's motivation, Wikipedia is slightly more truthful because of her/his participation, though whether the split infinitive of 'truth' represents anythying worthwhile is another question.

A.virosa

As Jagärdu pointed out earlier, the ICSA has become more mainstream in recent years; there was a rapprochement with mainstream scholarship a while ago, mostly due to the efforts of Eileen Barker (London School of Economics, INFORM), whom the AFF used to describe as a "cult apologist". In recent years, mainstream scholars from across the spectrum have attended ICSA conferences. It's reached the point where someone like Rick Ross actually rails against Giambalvo for having deserted her roots.

Cirt may well be a net positive; s/he's undoubtedly done some good work along with all the tendentious bullshit. But things are really out of hand when an editor argues that someone like Melton is not a reliable source and expects to get away with that. If someone is quoted as an expert by top media outlets, from Associated Press and New York Times to USA Today, has written seminal books that are standard required reading in university courses, held in thousands of libraries, and writes the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on the group in question, saying that they mustn't be cited as a reliable source in Wikipedia is just nonsense. It speaks volumes about that person's degree of opinionatedness, and their readiness to corrupt the Wikipedia process in the service of that opinion. It's not the first time either.

It's just like saying Wikipedia's articles on climate change should be based on the Real Climate blog, or its denialist counterpart, and that university press publications are unreliable because someone in one of these blogs said so.