Talk:La Luz del Mundo/Archive 6

FAC To-do list
It would be great to get this article to Featured Article status, or at least Good Article status. I have created a To-do list of what I believe needs to be done to improve the article: Would anyone like to add anything to this list? Any comments or objections?  Ajax F¡ore talk 23:39, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Copy editing
 * 2) A request has been placed at Guild of Copyeditors
 * 3) Peer-review
 * 4) A request has been placed at WP:PR
 * 5) Incorporate sources from "Further Reading" section into the article
 * 6) Note: All of the info in De la Torre's works in the Further Reading section is repeated in her book, thus no incorporation is needed
 * 7) Address neutrality concerns in the Discrimination section, see the relevant discussion
 * 8) My proposal is to move some parts of this section into the rest of the article, and create a new section with what is left
 * 9) Use shortened footnotes, see Help:Shortened footnotes
 * 10) I have been doing this using the Sfn template
 * 11) Summary style, mainly in Controversy section
 * 12) It was decided that the Controversy section should be shrunk down while incorporating all points of view:
 * 13) Erdely and ICM
 * 14) La Luz del Mundo and sympathizers
 * 15) Academics asking for religious tolerance
 * 16) I also suggest renaming the section to something like LLDM vs ICM, since most of the section deals with LLDM's battle with ICM in the Mexican media. The ICM website itself lists the controversy as "La Luz del Mundo vs. Erdely and the ICM".
 * 17) Quotes
 * 18) I am not sure whether the quotes used in the article are necessary, since most are easily found online
 * 19) Linking
 * 20) More links could be added for better integration with the Wikipedia project
 * 21) Perhaps add/replace images
 * 22) More images can be found at Commons:Category:La Luz del Mundo Church
 * 23) I was unable to find images of either of La Luz del Mundo's two leaders
 * 24) More information
 * 25) Perhaps some current events or main holidays/celebrations
 * I like the proyect Ajaxfiore. Good work. I have only one objection and one contribution. The outline on point 6.2 does not seem representative enough and it could be misleading. We have found now that in 1997-1998  scholars Dr. Sylvia Marcos, Dr. Paloma Escalante and Dr. Elio Masferrer did research on the sexual abuse accusations against Samuel Joaquin Flores and validated the quality of the primary sources. They published articles on the subject from that time onwards to 2004 in books, doctoral dissertations and peer-reviewed, indexed journals. They also raised concerns about human rights conditions in La Luz del Mundo, especially for women. Papers were presented also at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting.  I have found at least three more scholars, which would put the number at six. I think that three is already significant.  I am waiting to finish reading their articles to comment on their pertinence but the more I look into it, the less it looks like this controversy was restricted to Erdely or the ICM.  I suggest the following changes to point 6.2 outline.


 * 1) 	Erdely and ICM
 * 2) 	La Luz del Mundo and sympathizers
 * 3) 	La Luz del Mundo and critical scholars
 * 4) 	Academics asking for religious tolerance
 * 5) 	Academics asking for investigations on Human Rights abuses in LLDM 162.211.179.244 (talk) 11:50, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
 * There is a discussion regarding this matter at Talk:La_Luz_del_Mundo; let's keep the discussion there. The consensus is that those sources do not meet weight and reliability requirements for inclusion.  Ajax F¡ore talk 16:02, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Removed text
The area around the temple is known as La Hermosa Provincia (the beautiful province) and is inhabited almost exclusively by church members. In several other communities in Mexico the congregants strive to live close to each other and around the temple, leading to small neighborhoods of church members.
 * From "Bible"; sentence fragment:"In light of the letters and talks made by the Apostle of God."
 * From "Role of Women"; off-topic for this section:"These prayers are seen as a religious activity equal to all other activities."
 * From Hermosa Provincia Temple: off-topic waffle per WP:COATRACK:

Religion specialist Bernardo Barranco said the controversy between La Luz del Mundo and Erdely's Instituto Cristiano de México seemed like a religious war "that was very well exploited by the media in their fierce struggle for ratings." According to Barranco, there were many doubts about the sexual accusations and the academic character of Erdely's group. Due to a lack of information and a rigorous treatment of the case, it was the media that judged the permissibility of the religious organization. This, according to Barranco, "creates a precedent that is downright dangerous, because the media are the least qualified to do it."
 * From Sexual abuse accusations against leader; seems to be mostly off-topic and doesn't seem to belong in this article; maybe it should go in Instituto Cristiano de México:

Catholic prelate Girolamo Prigione demanded that truth be sought without making false accusations since "it is very easy to falsely accuse, slander, or defame", which Prigione believes is also a crime.

Journalist Gastón Pardo said that the Instituto Cristiano de México is a sect that in 1997 launched a smear campaign in the media against various religious leaders, trying to discredit them with the systematic use of defamation and slander.

Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 23:57, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

The First Name of This Church's Apostle and Current Director is Missing in Key Sentences
Spanish naming customs place the first or given name(s) first, followed by the paternal family name and the maternal family name at last.

The church's current Director is Samuel Joaquín Flores. Samuel is his first name, Joaquín is the paternal last name and Flores is the maternal last name.

In many parts, the article omits his first name (Samuel), and identifies him only as "Joaquín Flores". That happens even in key sentences like this:

"The head of the church is Joaquín Flores, who holds both the spiritual authority as Apostle and Servant of God and the organizational authority as General Director of the Church."

If read as a separate section, it can easily be interpreted that the Director is a person named Joaquin with a paternal last name Flores. It is confusing.

Joaquin is a very common first name in Spanish. Much more common than used as a last name.

The editors of the article can improve it by using the full legal name "Samuel Joaquín Flores", that includes the first name, and using very sparingly, if at all, the shortened and awkward construction "Joaquín Flores". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.53.157.171 (talk) 10:01, 2 December 2013 (UTC)


 * MOS:NAMES does support that usage when a last name would clash with a title or the like. The examples given there were Lord and Moses. Do other editors feel that the last name is misinterpretable? —C.Fred (talk) 17:27, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I have tried to address the problem by using only the maternal surnames and adding a note a the top of the article for clarification. Further input is welcome.  Ajaxfiore talk 01:36, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Wording
RidjalA has tried putting a negative spin on the controversy section. I would like to discuss RidjalA's recent edits. RidjalA claims that In every occasion the source refers to them as "former members". The word "victims" is only used twice in the three page article, and in both cases the word is used within indirect quotations. If we are to follow the source, we should use "former members", or "dissidents" to paraphrase. Moreover, the word "victims" would violate BLP as it would indicate the accused is guilty, while policies state that a person accused of a crime is "presumed innocent until proven guilty and convicted by a court of law". I should note that RidjalA itself used the word "dissidents" as opposed to "victims" in this edit. The controversies mentioned in the article all began in the late 1990s, yet RidjalA prefers to use an unnecessarily pithy title saying simply "Controversy". It would be best to include a time-frame for the controversial events. The recent edits tacitly imply that the Joaquin family has been amassing wealth from church members, while the article states that it is all funded at private expense. The article should not be concerned with how the family chooses to live and spend their private earnings. The sources RidjalA keeps introducing were kept out by consensus. Ajaxfiore (talk) 17:36, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Use of the word Victims
 * "The source refers to them as "victims", not dissidents."
 * "The source (LA TIMES) states that there were "several attacks", and refers to the victims as "victims". To call them dissidents would be hypothetical, since the accusers might have still belonged to the Church at the time of their accusations."
 * Timing
 * Wealth
 * Sources

Re:
Please lets be civil; this is about the LLDM page, and not about me. So please lets proceed to discuss the content while keeping the mentioning of any editors' names to a minimum.

I don't disagree that the term "Dissidents" was used earlier in the source. What I am saying is that the source uses "victim" only for those people who were attacked. It is not used in any way on Wikipedia to lay blame on anyone. It is used to make the distinction from those who were simply dissidents, to those were attacked. The source makes no mention that these victims were dissidents. It would be hypothetical in fact if we were to say that those whom were attacked were dissidents, since the attacked may have still belonged to the church (how are we sure that they weren't just relatives of dissidents?). So I would suggest that the safest way to go about it is to keep things as they are sourced.
 * Use of the word "Victim"
 * "Authorities are investigating the attack and several others that have been reported. But judicial authorities say the victims haven't been fully cooperative." LA Times

Your argument is false. The source talks precisely about how the Joaquin Flores family lives in luxury as a result of the money collected from his followers, and that is grounds for it being in the controversy section.
 * Wealth
 * "Federal tax records show the nonprofit has accumulated upwards of $1 million since 2004. Much of this money comes from church collections taken weekly and annually from the faithful in Texas, Castillo said." Todd Bensman

If we intend to turn this into a fully comprehensive page about LLDM, then brushing the controversies surrounding this sect under the carpet would be a grave disservice to readers. As with the Catholic Church controversies, if the media reports them and independent case studies corroborate with those reports, then there is no valid reason to discredit their work. The same applies to LLDM (especially Jorge Erdely and Lourdes Arguelles' work). ~Best, RidjalA (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:57, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Sources


 * Again, the word victim lays blame on the accused violating BLP. You are identifying the victims prematurely, for all we know the Joaquins could be victims of a defamation campaign. I have replaced "dissidents" with "former members" per LA Times.
 * Read the sentence again and note the word nonprofit. As the article clearly states, the property was divided into a nonprofit and a private section. The article also states that the family does not live there.
 * The controversy section is already comprehensive and makes up a substantial portion of the article. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of every minute controversy surrounding a religious group. If you want to include a source that was deemed unreliable by consensus, the burden of proof falls on you. Ajaxfiore (talk) 22:48, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Samuel Joaquín Flores
He died today. ComputerJA ( ☎  •  ✎  ) 17:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Heads up
I will be actively editing this article for the next month or so. I hope to bring it up to Featured Article status. I will combine and rewrite the Controversy and Discrimination sections as the stories contained therein can be interpreted as controversy or discrimination depending on where you stand. It will be up to the reader to decide. Per WP:UNDUE, the Silver Wolf section will be removed. Any help is greatly appreciated. Ajaxfiore (talk) 05:08, 24 December 2014 (UTC)