Category talk:Researchers of new religious movements and cults

move instead?

 * would it not be easier to instead move the page Category:Cult researchers to here? Yours, Smeelgova 20:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC).
 * We did it, working together! Phew, that was fast.  Yours, Smeelgova 20:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC).

Minimum qualifications of a "researcher"
I can't find any discussion of criteria to be considered a "researcher" for this category. Would any cult member who thinks he has valuable information be considered a "researcher"? What about a cult critic with no background in research methods who published only one study with serious methodological flaws? What about an ex-cult member (or exit counsellor) who has never carried out a study with scientific controls? It might be a good idea to propose some guidelines. In the academic world, a researcher normally has training during a Ph.D. program in research methods. Such topics are not easily studied without pitfalls and errors; IMO studying this area is more difficult than most social science topics, which in turn pose more problems than most natural science questions. - Do c  t  orW  23:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Good point. Somewhere there was a discussion about this and it didn't make it to the page. If I recall, the key criteria was that they had published research in a peer-reviewed journal on cults, or a related topic. You might add something like that to the category page. Antonrojo 03:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a very sensible criterion. Perhaps we should wait a few days for further discussion, then add it on the category page. - Do c  t  orW  06:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Main article and category reorganization
I'm not a fan of this category because the notion of a "researcher" is too subjective, perhaps even meaningless ... especially when self-proclaimed experts who work in the "anti-cult" industry for profit without any academic qualifications are listed along with scholars holding PhD's who have conducted empirical research by way of accepted methodologies and ethics protocols. That said the main entry for this category is almost empty. My suggestion would be to break it out into more meaningful categories under an umbrella category and only include notable researchers with verifiable credentials. So subcategories would be "Sociologists researching ...," "Psychologists researching ...," etc. I'm not sure where all the self proclaimed experts (Hassan, Ross, etc.) will fall but that is another problem to solve. Suggestions?PelleSmith (talk) 15:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Why the move?
Why was the category moved from Researchers of cults and new religious movements to this one? Zambelo ; talk 20:09, 28 August 2014 (UTC)