User talk:Dascott45

Getting out of "Newbiedom"
Hi Dascott45,

As Willondon, the guy who initiated the deletion of the first version of your User Page, just hinted here (click on "view history," then on his last edit at 15:06 (GMT/ UTC time), your first edition of your User Page was deleted simply because you didn't know that we generally don't put any external links on our User Pages. Also as Willondon hinted, major edits of an article are usually not a good idea for any articles by a single lone individual, without at least first trying to discuss such major edits with some of the other active editors of the article first.  Unfortunately, there seem to be some editors, clearly none of which have ever read ACIM, who routinely delete any material from the ACIM article from anyone who has seriously read the book, unless it is derogatory.  To me this situation seems to be against basic tenants of how one might have a truly informative and accurate article. Of course this is just my own, lone individual opinion. Willondon is actually a nice guy who didn't know your full good-faith-intent when he did that.

Thanks,

Silly-boy-three (talk) 23:29, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

ACIM article that was deleted
I reviewed some of the comments on my recent revision of the ACIM article and rewrote it to improve it. The new version has 59 footnotes to support key statements in the latest revision, which I will post later today. I borrowed some references from the existing article that were useful in mine and appreciate the author for researching and identifying them.David_A_Scott (talk) 19:35, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

January 2022
Your recent editing history at A Course in Miracles shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See the bold, revert, discuss cycle for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing&mdash;especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring&mdash;even if you do not violate the three-revert rule&mdash;should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:31, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

This is your only warning; if you use Wikipedia for soapboxing, promotion or advertising again, as you did at A Course in Miracles, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:35, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello Dascott45. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to A Course in Miracles, gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a category of conflict of interest (COI) editing that involves being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not, and is an especially serious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat search-engine optimization.

Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists. If the article does not exist, paid advocates are extremely strongly discouraged from attempting to write an article at all. At best, any proposed article creation should be submitted through the articles for creation process, rather than directly.

Regardless, if you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, broadly construed, you are  required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:Dascott45. The template Paid can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form:. If I am mistaken – you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits – please state that in response to this message. Otherwise, please provide the required disclosure. In either case, do not edit further until you answer this message. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:50, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, Dascott45. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on the page A Course in Miracles, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:


 * avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the request edit template);
 * disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Conflict of interest);
 * avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see Spam);
 * do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:49, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

ACIM article that was deleted
I am new to editing in Wikipedia and do not know how to use the Sandbox and many other tools. As an ACIM student and teacher, I want to give people as clear an understanding of it as possible in a short space. The existing article, in my opinion is very shallow and misses the Course's central messages. My purpose in submitting a revision was to remedy that problem. After giving it some thought, I realize that the sentence you quoted as a "soapbox" is in fact my opinion and therefore unsuitable for the article. I would be happy to revise it in this way: "Some authors view the Course as a channeled work." The first sentence of the final paragraph should be changed as well. In my submission it reads: "Some fundamentalist Christian groups and churches object to Jesus’s teachings in the Course because they disagree with closely held doctrines." I would change it to: "Some Christian groups and churches object to Course teachings that disagree with their beliefs." I would be happy to work with you and other editors to correct mistakes like these in my article, but do not know how to do this in a better way.David_A_Scott (talk) 16:45, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I expect you'll be disappointed in your quest. As a Wikipedia editor, your paramount goal is to make your edits stick. Even the most experienced and trusted of editors will rarely be able to completely rewrite an article without an opposing reaction. Articles are the product of a community of editors shaping an article's history, step by step.
 * I find most editor disappointment stems from a misunderstanding of what Wikipedia is. Read WP:Verifiability, not truth. As an encyclopedia, the goal is to distill what reliable secondary sources have said about an article's subject. Given that, your best bet is to observe others' edits for a while, to learn the culture, then improve other articles by making small, incremental improvements and observing the community's feedback. If you continue as a "single purpose account", it may become evident that your goals do not fully overlap with the goals of the Wikipedia community, and you will be unsuccessful and disappointed.  signed, Willondon (talk)  17:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

ACIM article that was deleted
Thank you. That is helpful.David_A_Scott (talk) 17:25, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * See emic and etic. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:19, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

ACIM article that was deleted
Interesting article. Clearly, I am writing from within the culture of the Course. But I am a social scientist as well, as a licensed psychotherapist with minor in philosophy. So my aim is to make the Course, as I understand and have experienced, as understandable as possible to people who have not experienced it. That can be difficult, given that people interpret words differently.David_A_Scott (talk) 18:42, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I won't discuss if ACIM is truthful or not, anyway it is a quite transparent attempt at newspeak. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:45, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Newspeak and my article about ACIM
You can see it that way as you wish. Jesus, in the Course, as I have experienced it, uses language in a different way to open our minds to a new way of thinking that is much broader and more inclusive. He differentiates in the first chapter, for instance, between knowledge and perception. Perceptions are based on the senses, one's culture and past learning. Knowledge, or truth, is not. Truth, in the Course, is what God created in the realm of spirit, and as such it does not change. Perception belongs to the realm of bodies, where nothing is constant for very long.

When I first encountered the Course, I was very skeptical and viewed it as just "another religion," which I had little use for. But doing its lessons brought me peace. I have found over the years that its principles work when I use them. They improve my mental health and my relationships. That makes them valid in my book. Some of the concepts that Jesus teaches in the Course clashed with my Christian background, which made them difficult to accept, so this is bound to happen with other people too. Clearly, the Course is not for everyone. But, then, neither is Christianity.David_A_Scott (talk) 19:18, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

ACIM article that was deleted
The Course in one of many paths to spiritual guidance, forgiveness, love, and healing. It is written in academic language, yet it is poetic, like Shakespeare’s sonnets, with many deeper levels of meaning. There are, of course, many other paths to this experience and the Course is not in competition with them. Rather, it is a gift from Jesus that speaks to certain people.

My article is an introduction to the thought system and history of the Course.David_A_Scott (talk) 23:21, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I can agree to a glossary of terms, provided other editors also agree (I'm not the only one who has a say). But I won't agree into rewriting the article into a propaganda piece for ACIM. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:01, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Glossary and related remarks
Okay. I get it. As an encyclopedia editor, you want the statements in any article to be verified by multiple reliable sources. My article, then, which relies on quotes and paraphrases from the Course itself, would be viewed as a book report, rather than something for Wikipedia. Thank you for helping me to understand this. I am done with the article for now.David_A_Scott (talk) 20:50, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Greetings. With respect it is increasingly obvious that you don't at present have anywhere near to an adequate understanding of how Wikipedia works and how articles are meant to be written. I suggest that you really need to take the time to study Wikipedia's policies and style principles before doing any more editing. Your editing so far, to be completely frank, is highly problematic in numerous ways regarding both policies and style. If you continue editing in the ways you have been so far then you will only be wasting your own time as well as that of other editors. Please reflect on this. Regards, Afterwriting (talk) 01:48, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Most recent submission
It has become clear to me after reading some of your pages about acceptable content that there has been considerable conflict in the past with articles about religious topics. My most recent submission meets the verifiability criteria that are mentioned by including numerous references to the Course itself, which is a published work. In that submission, I used second person pronouns like "you" and "your," because Jesus uses that language throughout the Course, while talking to the reader. I submitted it as an addition to your "A Course in Miracles" page, because the page lacks any Course content. Rather, it includes various author's views of or opinions about the Course, most of which are negative. In my view, this has created a highly slanted or biased Wikipedia page. So I attempted to balance it with ideas and quotes directly from the Course. If any of this makes sense within your guidelines, I would be happy to revise my submission so that it only uses third person language. It would also be necessary, however, to eliminate all the quotes, because Jesus uses second person pronouns.David_A_Scott (talk) 19:43, 25 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid you're really not getting it. If you've already followed the advice to observe others' edits (not just on the one article) and read up on the Wikipedia policies and guidelines, then do that more. The editing is still problematic. You say "it includes various author's views of or opinions about the Course", and as you've been told, that's what Wikipedia is supposed to do. "My most recent submission meets the verifiability criteria", no it doesn't. "by including numerous references to the Course itself", indicating that you have thoroughly failed to understand Wikipedia's view of primary sources (as spelled out in Primary, secondary and tertiary sources). The issue is not whether or not it is a published work. And unless you put in a lot of work to understand what Wikipedia is, and how it works, I stand by my prediction that you are bound to be disappointed and unsuccessful here. Sorry, but there it is.  signed, Willondon (talk)  20:12, 25 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I totally agree with Willondon. Despite all attempts to help them by other editors, there are sometimes editors who seem to be incapable of understanding how Wikipedia articles are meant to be written. Unfortunately you are showing all of the signs of being one of them. We all sometimes make editing mistakes, especially early on, but we need to learn from them and improve our editing. So far you haven't done this to any real extent. If you want to be a good editor then I suggest that you become much more attentive to the feedback you have been given. Regards, Afterwriting (talk) 00:07, 26 January 2022 (UTC)