User talk:Vivaldi/Archive 2

First Baptist Church of Hammond
You have been temporarily blocked for violation of the three-revert rule. Please feel free to return after the block expires, but also please make an effort to discuss your changes further in the future. . I suggest that rather than edit-warring you try the steps listed in WP:DR. Just zis Guy you know? 08:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Each of the changes I made and the reasons for them are fully hashed out on the talk page and in the edit summaries. Vivaldi (talk) 15:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I want to point out that I didn't believe that I had violated 3RR when I made my last revert to that article. I will trust JzG here and admit that it probably did happen and it was not appropriate and a violation of policy.  I will do a better job of making sure that I don't do this again in the future. Vivaldi (talk) 03:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Not that any of the rest of us have ever gone past 3RR, have a good one, Vivaldi. Terryeo 23:16, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Personal Attack. your notification
Your statement: "Your intent is to try to fool people " is a personal attack. It appears at and is directed at me. Please read No_personal_attacks, it spells out how to make comments on discussion pages, what a personal attack is and how to avoid getting involved with personal attacks. This is your first instance in some weeks and I'm therefore, giving you the benifit of the doubt rather than resorting to WP:PAIN. Please stop the personal attacks, Vivaldi. Terryeo 00:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Terryeo. You intent is to try to fool people.  It isn't a personal attack, it is a statement of fact.  You engage in willful deceit to further your POV.  Vivaldi (talk) 01:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
 * eeek, I just saw this. I do not mean to fool people. Well, I have tried to fool someone, perhaps 3 or 4 times in my life.  But that is very rare.  What have I said that leads you to think that? Terryeo 23:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe you intend for readers of Wikipedia to think that the U.S. Navy has either endorsed or believes that the information provided by the Church of Scientology is correct. Just because the U.S. Navy has reproduced a document does not mean that they endorse that document.   If you want to include the information that the U.S Navy has reproduced a document that it was provided then state that, but don't try to pretent that the U.S. Navy created or endorses a document that it was given to explain a religion which it has no basis to evaluate -- especially since they reproduced the document in its entirety -- with no changes to it at all.  I believe it is highly deceptive to readers to present a document that is written by someone other than the U.S. Navy as some sort of official Navy evaluation of a religion is quite deceptive.  Vivaldi (talk) 05:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Your RfC
You are invited to your rfc, follow the link: Requests for comment/Vivaldi. Arbusto 01:12, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I hope you attract some good editors to the Jack Hyles related articles. Vivaldi (talk) 01:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Giving you a chance to apologize and revert your false statement
Your recent edit, I mean revert, removed press criticism liking Hyles to Jim Jones. Yet, your edit summary claimed, "Version by Arbustoo is not as good. Why would you take out the fact that the Chief of Police Detectives said there was no investigation Arbustoo? Isn't that important?" However, my version notes "Capt. Bill Conner was quoted in the Tribune saying that, "There is no investigation of the First Baptist Church of Hammond or Jack Hyles".

Thus, I can conclude you lied in your edit summary accusing me of vanadalism to remove material or you made a mistake. Arbusto 11:41, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't play stupid Arbustoo. You removed the man's position as Chief of Police detectives from the article.  You did so because you find it inconvenient to your own biased view and your desire to defame Hyles and FCBH at all costs, no matter what the evidence shows.  Both the FBI and the head of the police said that Hyles was not under investigation in regards to the unfounded allegations.  So why is it part of an encyclopedia article?  Vivaldi (talk) 19:20, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It clearly still says "Capt. Bill Conner was quoted in the Tribune saying that, "There is no investigation of the First Baptist Church of Hammond or Jack Hyles" = a direct quote (not his "boss" as you put earlier). I ask again why did you remove the news report comparing Hyles to Jim Jones WITHOUT ANY EXPLANATION or MENTION! Arbusto 01:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Capt. Bill Conner is the guys boss. He's the Chief of Police detectives.  You removed that information because it conflicts with your wish to defame Jack Hyles at any cost.  You frame every sentence and every edit in such a way as to   make your defamatory statements seem like they are widely held beliefs, when it couldn't be further from the truth.  A couple of do-nothings made unproven accusations against Hyles.  The FBI and Chief of Police both said there was no evidence for their claims, yet you still wish to include these claims in an encyclopedia article.  Vivaldi (talk) 02:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I ask again why did you remove the news report comparing Hyles to Jim Jones WITHOUT ANY EXPLANATION or MENTION! Comparing Jim Jones with Hyles is pure tabloid journalism.  It is a sensational statement that doesn't even belong in a reputable newspaper, let alone an encyclopedia.  Hyles spent 50 years leading churches.  He never advised anyone to commit suicide or to follow him to a 3rd world country.   And more importantly, you left out the explanation that Hyles gave for the out-of-context events that were reported on.   You have a terrible habit of added only 1/2 of every story.  There are at least 4 people that have condemned your behaviour to you on talk pages, but yet you continue to make edits that put Hyles in the worst light possible.  That is blantantly unfair and inappropriate for an encyclopedia.   Vivaldi (talk) 02:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Merging preying from the pulpit
Could you please make a suggested version of your intended merger? I might be in favor of a merger if I could see what that would look like. JoshuaZ 02:53, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes. I will take a look at this.  For the most part, most of the article as it existed before the AfD has already been merged into the FBCH article, the Jack Hyles article, and the Hyles-Anderson College article.  However, I will see what we can do to get this done better. Vivaldi (talk) 03:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, I think it is important to note that 8 out 10 people that commented on the Preying from the Pulpit AfD suggested that we either delete the article outright or merge its content with FBCH. I'm not quite sure what parts in particular needed to be merged at that point, since it appeared that nearly all of the content of Preying from the Pulpit was already in the FBCH article at that time. Vivaldi (talk) 03:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * What do you think, in general, about the concept of making a specific Wikipedia article for a specific news story that appears on the local news somewhere? And I'm not talking about using it as a reference, I'm mean specifically making an article about it.  This seems like a patently unwise thing to start engaging in to me. Vivaldi (talk) 03:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * JoshuaZ says, Could you please make a suggested version of your intended merger? I might be in favor of a merger if I could see what that would look like. My response, I have now merged Preying from the Pulpit with the First Baptist Church of Hammond article. What do you think? Vivaldi (talk) 04:36, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you and ..
Thank you and good. Here is a clarification of the most recent Gross Editing Error: Talk:Volunteer_Ministers and thank you Terryeo 04:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC) In that article a link needs to be removed because it is acting as a secondary source of information, but is an unpublished essey, appearing on a personal website.Terryeo 05:06, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that personal comments by Chris Owen that appear on self-published web sites are probably not appropriate to be used as sources for an encyclopedia article. However, at first glance, it doesn't appear that the VM article uses any of Owen's comments as sources for material in the article.  It looks like we again have the situation where Hubbard's words are being cited but a convenience link is placed to the material on Owen's website.  Now this is an entirely different matter, as you have discovered recently.  Do you dispute that the quotes on Owen's web page are actual copies of Hubbard's own writings?  Do you assert that Owen has misquoted Hubbard or that these quotes are not real or non-existent? Vivaldi (talk) 05:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The concept of "casualty contact" is directly linked to Chris Owen's personal essay. If you will read the bottem line of that essay you find Chris Owen draws his own, pesonal conclustion of what "casualty contact" means to him, personally.  Then, after Chris Owen's own, personal understanding of "casualty contact" (and no one else's, just Chris Owen's), after that is presented to the reader, then more information about "Casualty Contact" is presented.  Chris Owen's essey is used to introduce the reader to the meaning of the term, "casualty contact".  In this manner Chris Owen information is being used as a secondary source of information.  If the reader exactly follows the flow of information to the little number which links to Chris Owen's essay, the reader first has his nose rubbed in "casualty contact".  Then, if he links and reads Chris Owen's personal essay and arrives back at the artcle, ready to read on, now that he understands what is meant by "casualty contact" then the reader has exactly fulfilled "secondary source of information on a personal website".  Am I missing something ? Terryeo 07:36, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Can we leave the article itself as it is and change the source to Hubbard's own words that describe what a "casualty contact" means and remove the link to Owen's website? Are there any of Chris Owen's own words that are used in the article as a basis for any of the claims in the article?  If so, then I would agree with you.  Those claims should probably not be in the article because Chris Owen appears to be only a self-published critic that does not have an editorial or fact-checking team behind him.  Vivaldi (talk) 16:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The Chris Owen personal essay is cited immediately after a brand-new term, Casualty Contact, so a reader expects to learn what the term means. The reader goes to the article which says these things:

Isn't Chris Owen Clever? He writes so cleverly that you feel you have read Hubbard's own words and understood Hubbard's own meaning? But you have read Chris Owen's personal opinion of the meaning of "casualty contact". Do you see the difference? Terryeo 07:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * "The Casualty Contact (By Chris Owen)
 * Hubbard's ideas, as outlined in the documents quoted above, are .. reminiscent of a con artist or a heartless exploiter.
 * This, evidently, is the true context of "Casualty Contact".


 * That's perfectly fine for an external link to be self-published. The problem is if the material that Owen wrote is being used as a source for claims in the article.  I think we should change the sources for all claims made in the article to Verifiable sources -- I'm assuming each of the quotes on Owen's page are in fact the words of L. Ron Hubbard.  I don't feel like spending the time to verify that right now, but feel free to point out if my assumption is incorrect. I would hope that someone else would verify the quotes from Hubbard are legit and use those quotes as sources for the claims about Hubbard rather than referencing Owen's page, which is a conglomeration of quotes (and a little unique analysis) that may have been strung together from out-of-context statements.  Vivaldi (talk) 16:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

At no point may a personal essey be used in any article. Unless it is published. Not if contains 10 quotes, by Hubbard, not if it contains 1000 quotes by Hubbard, not if it contains the word of god emblazoned on stone. No personal essey is a published essey until the New York Times or a publishing house publishes that essey, no matter how many quotes it contains. It is a personal essey which is unpublished to the public. If that essey exists in Chris Owen's hand it is unpublished. If that essey exists on a personal website it is unpublished. If the New York Times publishes it, then we could use it in a Wikipedia Article and not before. Terryeo 07:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * At no point may a personal essey be used in any article. Well, that is not exactly true.  There are notable exceptions to the policy of WP:V and all guidelines can have exceptions made when the circumstances warrant it and consensus demands it.  Also, the question again is what exactly is being used a source?  Are any of the claims in the article derived from Chris Owens's words or are they all derived from the words of L. Ron Hubbard?  If all the claims in the article are sourced directly to Hubbard and we only use Owen's site as an external link or a convenient repository for viewing Hubbard's works that are verifiable elsewhere, then it is acceptable.  If you can show me where Owen's own personal statements or analysis have been interjected into the article then I will happily argue for removing those statements.  Vivaldi (talk) 16:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Another article does require a citation which should replace and only slightly modify a short paragraph in an article. That is spelled out at Talk:Study_Tech and I have provided a citation there. Terryeo 05:06, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I changed a few words around there. See if that is better.  Vivaldi (talk) 05:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your help. At least the concept of that barriers to study exits, is presented. Terryeo 07:28, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Your welcome. You write "At least"; Is there any other verifiable information that you would like me to add to the Study Tech article?  Vivaldi (talk) 16:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is. At the end of the second paragraph of Study Tech would you add this reference, please. because that will present the official study tech first in the list of references and is appropriate to the statements in the article.  If that is done then the first exterior link (which is that link) can be deleted.  Thank you and is an outside point of view needed in an article, elsewhere? Terryeo 00:22, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I made the change that you requested to Study Tech. I'm not quite sure you are referring to with this, "is an outside point of view needed in an article, elsewhere?" -- but I'll keep it in mind in the future.  Take care. Vivaldi (talk) 04:39, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

RfC
Sorry I just noticed the message you put on my talk page (I guess it got lost in a string of edits to my talk page). Having looked over the page, I did participate in discussions there much less than I remembered doing, your point is therefore accurate. I suggest a temporary removal of the RfC and a discussion on the relevant talk pages to see what we can hammer out maybe? JoshuaZ 01:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that it would be appropriate. An RfC is supposed to have evidence and endorsements from two people that tried and failed to resolve the issues.  I don't believe those requirements were met.  Vivaldi (talk) 15:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * N.B. I moved the RfC/Vivaldi to the section meant for RfCs awaiting two users that certified the basis for the dispute. Since it has been over 48 hours since it was created and only one user has certified the basis for the dispute, it should be deleted.  Vivaldi (talk) 16:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * BTW -- If anything an RfC could be made against Arbustoo since there are now at least 3 people that have tried and failed to resolve the dispute with him that he repeatedly and excessively inserts innuendo and insinuation into encyclopedia articles. Encyclopedia articles are not rumor mills.  Encylopedia articles about a college with 1700 students should not include paragraphs explaining that 2 former non-notable students of the college were charged with theft, which Arbustoo has repeatedly reinserted into the article, see this.  That is unprecedented and unencyclopedic to include this type of "information" in an article about a college.


 * Also, I would love to see further input by editors and admins on the talk pages of the articles themselves. From my viewpoint I am removing the work of a known vandal on a mission of defamation.  My viewpoint is supported by at least two other people that have commented on the talk pages that Arbustoo is making ill-advised and biased edits.  If you truly do support the edits that Arbustoo has made, then I would like for you to discuss that on the articles talk pages -- because the first time I ever discovered that Arbustoo had anyone that approved of his edits or even agreed with Arbustoo at all was on the RfC page. Vivaldi (talk) 16:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

RfC decert response
I hadn't seen that when I did the revert, but even so, I think it is inappropriate for you to decertify your own RFC. I suggest you ask JoshuaZ to revert me, with my blessings. :) Ehheh 16:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it is more inappropriate that it is listed as certified, when one of the parties that originally did the certifying has stated that the RfC should be deleted. Vivaldi (talk) 00:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I would also point out that has been inappropriately editing the response section to this RfC and Arbustoo even added an entirely new section to the RfC so that he would have both the first and last words.  I have removed Arbustoo's comments from my section and I moved his added section to the discussion page where it belongs. Vivaldi (talk) 00:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I also removed the endorsement of, since this user is a proven sockpuppet of the indefinitely banned and as an indefinitely banned user, AI (or Nikitchenko) is not eligible to participate or endorse an RfC. Vivaldi (talk) 00:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Peter Breggin
I remembered him from a context where he seemed to be talking sense. Dr Zak 13:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, his article needs attention, too, and so does the link from Methylphenidate to his own entry. Dr Zak 13:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Editing pattern and POV campaigning
Since your user-conduct RFC I've been looking over your contributions to the project and I'm seeing a disturbing pattern. Your edit history looks like a campaign to rid wikipedia of anything you consider to be casting a critical light on Christianity. How about you consider contributing to articles instead of working only to delete/merge/or whitewash them? Doing so would remove this could from your activities. FeloniousMonk 15:44, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * "Since your user-conduct RFC I've been looking over your contributions to the project and I'm seeing a disturbing pattern." Since my user-conduct RfC was deleted by one of the original endorsers, I have made a number of contributions and valuable additions to Wikipedia, including to Narconon, Fair Game (Scientology), World Literacy Crusade (which I created), Study Tech, and I even expanded the article about Robert Sumner (the man who criticizes Hyles: see my additions here), I also added a listing of the books that Hyles has written to his article: see here I'm not quite sure what "disturbing pattern" you are referring to -- so perhaps you can enlighten me.  I want to improve Wikipedia and make it a valuable resource and a valuable tool.  I believe that if we follow the policies of WP:NPOV and WP:V when we are writing -- it vastly improves Wikipedia.  I fully intend to follow these policies and to continue to make quality improvements to Wikipedia.


 * "Your edit history looks like a campaign to rid wikipedia of anything you consider to be casting a critical light on Christianity."  Your statement is completely wrong. I am not a Christian.  I have no interest at all in Christianity as a religion or as a particular field of interest on Wikipedia.  In fact, truth-be-told, I have particular aversion and distaste to people that make their living by selling religion.  However, I do not let my distaste for religion-sellers, or my particular aversion to evangelical and fundamentalists religion sellers, affect my editing of this encyclopedia.  My distaste and bias against religion-sellers does not keep me from writing neutral language encyclopedia articles about them. I am only editing the Jack-Hyles-related articles because they were brought to my attention by someone who was demonstrating how poorly some articles on Wikipedia were written.  I did not have any interest in the Hyles-related articles at all until I discovered that they were written in a manner in which Jack Hyles is cast in the absolute worst light possible.  I want the story about Ballenger's molestation to be in the article about Hyles and the FBCH article.  I want appropriate and relevant and verifiable information about Hyles, FCBH, and HAC to be present in the articles. However, as editors we must make sure that we are not turning the articles into a tabloid or sensationalist gossip rag. Vivaldi (talk) 18:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * "How about you consider contributing to articles instead of working only to delete/merge/or whitewash them?". Your statement verges on being uncivil.  Firstly, 8 out of 10 people that commented on the AfD suggested that we should remove this article.  Secondly, in the thousands of edits that I have made here I have only "campaigned" to remove one article.  That is Preying from the Pulpit (and 8 out of 10 people agreed with my "campaign").  I have also participated in a discussion on the Sollog page to delete or move that page to the "bad jokes" pages, but I didn't create an RfD yet.  I have also made a number of contributions, improvements, and additions to Wikipedia, some of which I have described above.  I am not "whitewashing" anything -- I'm presenting the relevant and appropriate amounts of criticism in the appropriate articles.  There is not a single example on Wikipedia where a news story has been seperated from its topic of discussion and made into its own encyclopedia article.  It is unprecedented.   I want to include the relevant criticisms of topics into the articles, and I would be very opposed to someone that wanted to remove the story about A.V. Ballenger from First Baptist Church of Hammond article.  But I am very much opposed to editors like  that have dug up numerous sensationalized newspaper stories and then proceed to only take the most insidious and most defaming quotes that he can find in those sources and include ONLY those quotes into the articles.  It is terrible editing on his part and makes for an article that is noticably biased even to a complete outsider -- such as myself.  Like I have stated before, I am not a Christian at all, and I particular doen't like people like Hyles (although I don't think he is the worst of the lot), but I do know it when I see that an article is written poorly and with excessive bias to a particular point-of-view.  Arbustoo's agenda was clear to spot from the beginning: defame Hyles and his Church and the College at all cost and do not include anything at all that is positive.  Arbustoo didn't even go into the history or background of Hyles.  His biography of Hyles would look something like a long tale of adultery, sex, blood, guns, and child molestation.  It is completely innappropriate.  I will campaign to improve the quality of Wikipedia.  I will do what I can to ensure that I and others follow the policies of WP:V and WP:NPOV.  I encourage other editors to participate in this process. Vivaldi (talk) 18:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That's an unfortunate sort of response. Regardless of what your personal beliefs and motives are, there's little or no support for your efforts and methods on certain pages yet you insist on forcing the issues. Considering this response and your unwillingness to accede to the community's comments, I've reinstated your user conduct RFC, Requests for comment/Vivaldi, and certified the basis for the dispute. You may want to consider what is said by others there. FeloniousMonk 19:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * So you made one comment which I responded to, and now that means you have "tried and failed to resolve the dispute"?  What have I done since you left your comment that has demonstrated that I am not editing properly or listening to the consensus viewpoint? Vivaldi (talk) 01:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * there's little or no support for your efforts and methods on certain pages yet you insist on forcing the issues. That is unfair.  There is certainly support for my positions on the talk pages of the articles involved.  In fact, there appears to be much more support for my positions in those articles than support for .  Vivaldi (talk) 01:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Considering this response and your unwillingness to accede to the community's comments, I've reinstated your user conduct RFC, What are you talking about?  I am willing to accede to the community's comments.  When we had an AfD to delete Preying from the Pulpit, 8 out of 10 editors said that the article should go.  Insisting that the article should stay is insisting on the minority viewpoint.   As I said in the merge discussion at Preying on the Pulpit, I am willing to listen to the viewpoints of other editors before I make any changes.  In fact I encourage more editors to participate in the discussion.  How can you suggest that discussing these issues on talk pages gives you basis for a dispute for an RfC?  I haven't made any changes to any articles at all.  Am I not even allowed to discuss the issues?  Vivaldi (talk) 01:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Reverts
Sorry if I left that impresion (not wanting to discuss the issue)...I got tied up with real-life stuff and never got back to the article. &#0149;Jim 62 sch&#0149; 08:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your response, but hopefully you can understand why an editor that has made numerous improvements to an article and then provides a detailed explanation for each change, gets suddenly reverted with a "get consensus" edit summary. Wikipedia does not require that every improvement to articles "get consensus" on the talk page before they are made and for articles that have had little discussion at all, it hardly makes sense that an editor would come along and think that making changes would be controversial or taboo.   Is there any of my edits that you are willing to accept in the article?  Can you at least accept that it is smarter to name the references with tags and reuse them in the article so that we don't get duplicate listings in the reference section?  Can you at least accept that using "ref" tags is better than leaving an unspecified outside link at the end of the claim?   In order to develop consensus and negotiate, I must have some basis for negotiating and some understanding of what your specific objections are.  Vivaldi (talk) 16:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Any chance of discussing with you?
Is the difficulty with the Scientology articles in regard to reliable sources? Is it that you simply don't trust anything the Church publishes? I notice several of your reversions would be the sort of thing an editor would do if all of the information which the Church publishes were accepted by everyone but the Church itself as being outright lies. That is why I ask if we can get into some kind of communication. Perhaps you could define the area and perhaps I could find you links whose information you would trust, maybe? Terryeo 10:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Terryeo, sure we can discuss. If you can source information to the Church of Scientology's own published works or to L. Ron Hubbard's own published works, then I have no problem with having that information in the article.  To me, it isn't about whether Scientology is telling the truth or lying.  All we need to do is say, "This is what CoS says...."  It's not up to Wikipedia editors to evaluate truth on our own.  We just need to make sure the information is verifiable.  The problem we have in some of these articles is that people may believe that you are adding irrelevant or confusing or redundant information from "your side" just to minimize the importance of the criticism, rather than a genuine need to provide more information about your side.  Vivaldi (talk) 16:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not particularly sure what recent reversions that I made that got rid of information that CoS published, so perhaps you can point me to specific edits that I made that you find disagreement with? Vivaldi (talk) 16:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not suggesting you did but replying to the doubt you express here, to which I replied there. I might be misunderstanding what you say.  J. Gordon Melton, a noted scholar, "millions of adherents"600,000 in 1997 Number of people taking their first service.  6 million individuals receive magazines from the Church, granted they might not all consider themselves to be Scientologists, but still..
 * (32000 organizations in 154 countries in 2002).
 * If a person does accept that the Church makes valid statements about itself, then, answers to common questions including "fair game" and others. Thank you for discussing. Terryeo 17:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I would like to know how J. Gordon Melton determined the number of adherents and what he meant when he said that Scientology had millions of adherents. People define an adherent to a religion different ways, but the most commonly accepted method of determining whether a person is an adherent is by asking them if they are an adherent and tallying up the number of responses.  Adding up the number of folks that are on mailing lists or adding up the number of folks that have ever purchased a book or course from 1952 on...is an invalid method of determining the number of adherents.  And even though I do believe that Melton is a cult-apologist, I respect that he is a noted scholar in the field of religion -- I'm not convinced he is accepted as scholar in the field of statistics or math.  The people that performed the analysis of adherents to religion in the U.S. performed a statistical analysis on the data to show that ~55,000 people in the U.S. currently profess Scientology as their religion.  I suspect that Milton got his "millions of adherents" figure directly from the Church of Scientology without performing any detailed analysis of how they came up with their numbers.  Vivaldi (talk) 19:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * If a person does accept that the Church makes valid statements about itself... Like I said before, I don't think it matters whether we accept that the Church makes valid statements about itself.  We need merely say, "CoS says this about Fair Game" and provide a citation to a verifiable source.  Whether the statements it makes about Fair Game are true or not, the reader can decide for themselves.  It's not up to Wikipedia editors or articles to determine the actual truth behind the statements.   So, in the end, yes I believe that we can use Scientology as a source of information about itself as long as we source the claims properly.  I'm not sure if I am spinning my wheels here or not.  Do you understand what I am getting at?  Vivaldi (talk) 19:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

3RR warning
Please read WP:3RR. KillerChihuahua?!? 20:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I am aware of the policy of 3RR. I don't believe I have violated it, have I? Vivaldi (talk) 20:21, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Nope, just wanted to make sure you were aware, so you didn't unknowingly run afoul of the rule. It happens - people don't know about it, and keep reverting in innocence. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

A page you created
Hi, please do not list the names of people using IP addresses, as that's an invasion on their privacy and against Wikipedia policy. Thanks! --JoanneB 21:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)