Talk:L. Ron Hubbard/Archive 9

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Fraternity at GW?

My friends and I had noticed last Friday or Saturday that the section on his education said Hubbard was a Kappa Sigma, but I can't seem to find this note in either the page itself or the old pages. I suppose that it's not true. Could anyone help me out here?

170.140.74.251 (talk) 05:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

NOR in Fictionalized depictions in media

On Apr. 28, reading about the Harold Shea fantasy series, I was struck by a connection that had not been remarked on [emphasis added]:

1. Harold_Shea#The_original_series: ... L. Ron Hubbard's misuse of their hero in his novella The Case of the Friendly Corpse (1941). (De Camp would finally address the latter issue in "Sir Harold and the Gnome King".)
2. Harold_Shea#The_second_series: The impulse for the continuation [i.e., creating a second series-- thnidu] appears to have been de Camp's desire to tie up the main loose end from the original series, in which Walter Bayard had been left stranded in the world of Irish myth, and to resolve the unaddressed complication introduced by Hubbard. Both of these goals were accomplished in "Sir Harold and the Gnome King" (1990).
3. Sir_Harold_and_the_Gnome_King#Plot_summary: The Oz he encounters is greatly changed from the land of which Baum had written, the enchantment that had kept its inhabitants ageless having been broken through a misuse of magic by a dabbler in spells named Dranol Drabbo some years prior.

"Dranol" is an anagram of "Ronald", Hubbard's middle name, and "Drabbo" spelled backwards is "Obbard", very close to "Hubbard" (but maybe -- this is a guess -- different enough to avoid a libel suit). I added two comments:

1. Sir_Harold_and_the_Gnome_King#Plot_summary, in parentheses right after sentence#3 above: (This name is apparently an allusion to L. Ron Hubbard and his "borrowing" of the Shea character. "Dranol" is an anagram of Hubbard's middle name, "Ronald", and "Drabbo" spelled backwards is "Obbard".)
2. L._Ron_Hubbard#Fictionalized_depictions_in_media, a new bullet item: Hubbard appears in L. Sprague de Camp's fantasy novella "Sir Harold and the Gnome King" as "Dranol Drabbo", a dabbler in spells whose misuse of magic had broken the enchantment that had kept the inhabitants of Oz ageless.

At 02:44, 28 April 2008, Gwernol deleted my addition #2 with the comment

• (Without a indepenent, published source to tell us this depiction is Hubbard, it is just original research by you)

and with a message to my talk page

• Please do not add content without citing reliable sources, as you did to L. Ron Hubbard. Before making potentially controversial edits, it is recommended that you discuss them first on the article's talk page. If you are familiar with Wikipedia:Citing sources please take this opportunity to add references to the article. Contact me if you need assistance adding references. Thank you. Gwernol

OK, here it is on the talk page. How should I document it?

Thnidu (talk) 19:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

To document it, find a independent, published source that draws these conclusions. You can then cite that source. Anything else would count as original research. So, for example, if there was a newspaper article in the New York Times saying "the character of Dranol Drabbo in De Camp's book is an obvious satire of L. Ron Hubbard", then you could include that specific fact and cite the NYT article to support it. If you don't have reliable sources of this sort, you cannot introduce these conclusions into a Wikipedia article. Thanks, Gwernol 19:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

How obvious does it have to be? (Sorry; not meaning to sound sarcastic, but I don't know how else to ask this question.) If the character were named "El-Nor Drabbuh" -- "L." + "Ron" backward + "Hubbard" backward -- would it still require somebody else to notice it in print before it could be pointed to here? Or would it be acceptable if I said "apparently" or "possibly" and repeated the reasoning? Thnidu (talk) 02:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

As interesting as your observations are, everything on wikipedia needs to be verifiable, and your own work constitutes Original research, so it is a no-go area. Sorry! -Toon⁰⁵ 21:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hubbard's racism towards asians

So yeah, what the hell happened to that scan of his handwritten diary exerp, the one where he talks about how "China has too many gooks" or something like that. Where the hell did it go? --Ragemanchoo (talk) 08:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, first of all, please use less inflammatory language, there's no need for it. Second, I would guess that if there used to be an image here that isn't any more, it was probably deleted for a variety of reasons, most likely copyright infringement. If you'll have a look through the Page History at the time you saw the image, there'll probably be an explanation. You might want to take a look at wikipedia's Image use policy.

If you can find some reliable sources for what it is you're referring to, then add the information into a relevant section and cite it. Thanks! -Toon⁰⁵ 17:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

FIRST OF ALL.. I was only quoting what Hubbard had written. DO NOT TAKE IT OUT OF CONTEXT. --Ragemanchoo (talk) 02:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I was referring to "what the hell..." and "Where the hell did it go". Please just ask, there's no need to be so hostile. Also don't shout, it isn't a good way to get people to help you. People here aren't going to put up with abuse. -Toon⁰⁵ 20:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Infobox image

Replaced non-free, fair use image in the infobox with a free use image from Wikimedia Commons. Clearly, when a free use alternative image is available for use and is already on Wikimedia Commons, a fair use image should not be used. Cirt (talk) 00:01, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I uploaded the free pic today...but I'm still a touch skeptical if that one sufficently depicts the subject's appearance. Are there editors watching who can review this? --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 00:18, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll put the FU image up for deletion to see if I can gather opinions that way. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 00:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "Blue Sky" :
  • {{cite book | last = Atack | first = Jon | authorlink = Jon Atack | year = 1990 | url = http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/atack/index.html | title = A Piece of Blue Sky | publisher = Carol Publishing Group | location = New York, NY|id = ISBN 0-8184-0499-X}}
  • {{cite book | last = Atack | first = Jon | authorlink = Jon Atack | year = 1990 | title = A Piece of Blue Sky | publisher = Carol Publishing Group | location = New York, NY | id = ISBN 0-8184-0499-X}}
  • pp. 213-214
  • Interview with Virginia Downsborough, Santa Barbara, October 1986,[http://www.religio.de/books/atack/contents.htm ''A Piece of Blue Sky''] copyright (c) 1990 by [[Jon Atack]], p. 171

DumZiBoT (talk) 03:57, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Minor edit

Can someone please change the phrase "Blackfoot Indian medicine man" to "Blackfoot medicine man" or "Native American Blackfoot medicine man"? Referring to Native Americans as "Indians" is both incorrect and ignorant. 172.132.84.4 (talk) 04:29, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with changing that is that it's a quotation from Scientology's page, and we can only quote the incorrect and ignorance as it exists without change. (archived here) (As least with question of Blackfoot vs. Blackfeet, there are differing sources for either.) AndroidCat (talk) 07:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

How is it incorrect and ignorant, Native Americans are Indians, just a different kind. It no different than birds found in america and birds found in england. Ones not a bird and the others a fraunt? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tourettes1993 (talk • contribs) 18:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Indians are from India. Indigenous peoples of the Americas were mis-named "Indians" by early European settlers, but that old moniker is largely falling out of favor due to being horrendously wrong. The Americas aren't now and never were a part of India. --GoodDamon 20:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, it can't be too horrible terrible wrong as I recently visited the National Museum of the American Indian and (American) Indian seemed a pretty accepted usage there. Words change and adopt different meanings and I think "Indian" has pretty well come to have the additional meaning of "Native American" without any pejorative sense. Though I do think the PC movement is gradually overcoming that. --Justallofthem (talk) 21:52, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

It's in transition. For a long time, no one (at least, no one white) cared that the term "Indian" -- like "Eskimo" -- was incorrect and insulting. So right now, "Native American Indian" is used in some places, and we still have the Bureau of Indian Affairs. But it's changing, and I think that's probably a good thing, PC or not. Also, this is way off topic. :) --GoodDamon 22:59, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

How come no one asks the "Indian" what WE think?? I am Cherokee, and I see no problem being an Indian, Native American, Native American Indian, Aboriginal American, Original American, Indiginous American, Indiginous Native American, ad nauseum. I also see no problem using "Indian" logos in a non pejorative sense. I worked at Univ of N. Dakota and took pride in the Fighting Sioux logo. So you "white guys" that want to be PC for feel good reasons need to back off a bit and ask the Indians what they think. MSgtUSAFret MSgtUSAFret (talk) 20:38, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

EAGLE SCOUT

I agree that there is no profoundness to being an Eagle Scout at 13. I was born in March, 1949, and made Eagle in Feb, 1962, 1 month shy of my 13th birthday. MSgtUSAFretMSgtUSAFret (talk) 21:52, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing about Engrams in the article

• Engram (Dianetics), [1] quotation: "REACTIVE MIND: THE VILLAIN

Unlike the analytical mind, which gets its data from standard banks, the reactive mind bases its computations on data recorded in moments of unconsciousness. It is this mind that records the painful cause of unconsciousness and stores it in the form of a mental picture called 'engram'—a complete recording of every perception present in a moment of unconsciousness, wherein each perception equals every other perception. The reactive mind then throws the engram back to the organism in any situation where the elements are similar to those found in the engram. In fact, according to Hubbard, the act of being born itself is so traumatic that it creates an engram."

Maybe also that I have not looked carefully enough.

Austerlitz -- 88.75.65.44 (talk) 12:05, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

editsemiprotected

{{editsemiprotected}} Please add that L R Hubbard was a science fiction in the opening introduction —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lacelotte (talk • contribs)

It's mentioned already, apparently someone fulfilled this request. I've deactivated the editprotected template. ~ mazca ^{t | c} 13:20, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

height = net worth?

L. Ron Hubbard's "height" is listed as 200 million dollars. when i tried to edit this, I noticed that this number is actually his "networth". this seems like a problem with wikipedia's coding. Net worth is being displayed as "height" on every famous person's page (try Bill Gates or Steve Jobs). I apologize, because this comment is about a flaw with wikipedia in general, not this article specifically, but it does apply to this article, and i can't find anywhere else to post this. please help me find the appropriate place, if you know where it is.--Jmjanzen (talk) 20:58, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

There was a small error in the infobox template this article (and most other famous-person articles) use, it's now been fixed [2]. Thanks for bringing it up - just so you know, the Help Desk is a good place to bring widespread problems like this up in the future, as it's likely someone will notice and fix it quickly. ~ mazca ^{t | c} 13:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

POV problems

In 1978, as part of a case against three French Scientologists, Hubbard was convicted of "making fraudulent promises" and given a four year prison sentence and a 35,000₣ fine by a French court.[93] Hubbard was not in the country at the time of the trial, and didn't retain legal assistance. The case was subsequently appealed by one of the other convicts in 1980. During this appeal, the court indicated that all those who had been convicted could be pardoned, if they filed their own appeals against the original ruling. A second defendant did in 1981, and the fraud charges were canceled by judgment on November 9, 1981. Hubbard himself never took any action, and the fine was never enforced.[94][95]

This text seems to carefully dance all over POV, OR, and {{fact}}. AndroidCat (talk) 08:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

How so? Trials in absentia happen. --FOo (talk) 09:28, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to link in absentia, to emphasize that it is hardly unknown for a person to be put on trial for their crimes even when they decline to attend that trial. -- 65.78.13.238 (talk) 23:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

By that, I mean that I don't think that the court ever indicated that Hubbard could have been pardoned if he appealed. I believe the court felt that most of the French Scientologists were merely agents of the parent organization, where the real responsibility was. In other words, Hubbard. Also "as part of a case against three French Scientologists, Hubbard was convicted" makes it sound like Hubbard was hit by some wild stray conviction. "as a result of a case against the Church of Scientology in France, Hubbard and three French Scientologists were convicted." AndroidCat (talk) 01:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough. How could Hubbard be convicted if the trial was "against three French Scientologists," which would mean that he wasn't even a defendant? That would make no sense. Unless I'm merely demonstrating my ignorance of fine points of French jurisprudence, you're quite right -- that's pretty absurd. --FOo (talk) 05:42, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Providing requested citations

{{editsemiprotected}}

Please replace the {{fact}} tag after the sentence "However he would claim to have accomplished much more than that in the decades which followed." with the following citation: <ref name="MBTR" /> The sentence in question is referring to what Hubbard claimed to have accomplished in his military service, and the citation in question does indeed spell out:

During his purportedly illustrious military career, Hubbard claimed to have been awarded at least 21 medals and decorations. But records state that he actually earned four during his Naval service: the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal, which was given to all wartime servicemen.

One of the medals to which Hubbard staked claim was the Purple Heart, bestowed upon wounded servicemen. Hubbard maintained that he was "crippled" and "blinded" in the war.

Also, please replace the {{fact}} tag after the Hubbard quote "I do love you, even if I used to be an opium addict." with a citation to L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman, where it can be found on page 54. -- 65.78.13.238 (talk) 04:45, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done, thanks for the citations. ~ mazca ^t|c 11:06, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Redundancy with "L. Ron"

The "Parents and early life" section seems to mention Hubbard's full name to often. Why isn't his full name, "L. Ron Hubbard," simply shortened to "Hubbard" more often? Danny (talk) 22:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Some fact/grammar problems in the article

"It determined that Hubbard had disregarded orders, admonished him by letter to include in his records and transferred him to other duties."

Looks like someone missed a word.

"In all he had one promotion and six decorations to show for his service."

Six decorations? I believe the actual count is four. -- 65.78.13.238 (talk) 14:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Checking the revision history shows that Anyeverybody (talk · contribs) was the one who instituted both changes. -- 65.78.13.238 (talk) 21:49, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I changed the number of decorations since the source did indeed say four. Fresheneesz (talk) 09:58, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I also fixed up the other commplaint. Feel free to be bold and edit yourself next time. Fresheneesz (talk) 10:03, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Er... if you had an account... Fresheneesz (talk) 10:03, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Please add category

{{editsemiprotected}} Please add the category tag [[Category:Founders of religions]]. Someone may mistakenly believe that this article should not be in that category, because Category:L. Ron Hubbard is already there; however, Wikipedia:Categorization and subcategories#Topic articles clearly says "If [a] topic article and [a] similarly named category come to be placed in the same parent category, the fact that the article is a member of this subcategory is not a reason for it to be excluded from the parent category." -- 65.78.13.238 (talk) 22:56, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

... The categorization problems are out of hand. Apparently, someone (incorrectly) removed L. Ron Hubbard from Category:Scientology because Category:L. Ron Hubbard is already in Category:Scientology. Except that back in November 2006, someone (incorrectly) decided that Category:L. Ron Hubbard should be removed from Category:Scientology on the theory that that categorization only applied to Hubbard's own article and not to the category. So for almost two years now, not only could you not follow a link directly from Category:Scientology to L. Ron Hubbard, you couldn't even follow a link from Category:Scientology to Category:L. Ron Hubbard and from there follow a link to L. Ron Hubbard. -- 65.78.13.238 (talk) 23:19, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done, now re-added to Category:Founders of religions. Thanks for your help with this categorisation problem, if you run into any more that you need a hand with do let me know. ~ mazca ^t|c 17:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Bibliography?

The Writing Career section says "A selection of Hubbard's best-known titles are below; a bibliography of Hubbard's more popular work is available in a separate article." You'd think this would be a good spot for a link to said article, but I can't even find evidence such a thing exists, apart from the Scientology bibliography, which doesn't include any of his science fiction writing. This should either be removed or (preferably) a bibliography article should be made to which this sentence is linked. 65.110.174.71 (talk) 20:35, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Arrest Record

Is there a reason there is none of his criminal activites or records mentioned in his page? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.122.147.28 (talk) 16:32, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Ronald DeWolf/L.R. Hubbard Jr. Affidavit

I believe that a new or more reliable source should be used for the Affidavit Ronald DeWolf supposedly sworn in. When a person goes to the linked website, it turns up that the website was reported as an "attack site". Until this has been acknowledged, I will continue to believe the allegations described in the Penthouse interview and the contents of this Affidavit: http://www.lermanet.com/cos/rondewolf.htm.

74.215.248.16 (talk) 22:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You appear to be following this rule - "Scientologists lie, Scientology critics tell the truth". You are welcome to believe that but realize please that is a totally POV stance. Someone from the Scientology side with an equally inflexible POV would say the exact opposite. There is only one way out of that morass and that is to stick to secondary sources and simply present views that have been presented in reliable secondary sources, which, incidentally, is exactly what Wikipedia is "supposed" to do. --Justallofthem (talk) 15:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that, but I notice there is no date on that document. Cirt (talk) 22:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt, that case number indicates the case was opened in 1979 so that likely predates the Penthouse interview and certainly the retraction. --Justallofthem (talk) 15:24, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done. Removed. Cirt (talk) 22:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

It has been re-added by User:Misou. Rather than revert again, I want to point out here that the citation is nothing more than a PDF hosted at a free webhosting site, and probably does not qualify as a reliable source. I will not revert again, but urge Misou to self-revert, or I will take this immediately to WP:RS/N. --GoodDamon 00:07, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I question the verifiability of this primary source, and this should be removed. Cirt (talk) 01:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. This is a WP:PRIMARY source, so it needs a secondary one or some easy way to verify it. Misou, as the user who re-added it after it was -- in my opinion properly -- removed from the article, do you have a reputable news or scholar source for it? Frankly, I'm having trouble finding any evidence of DeWolf's retraction except at sites run by the Church of Scientology. A PDF at a free hosting website really doesn't cut it. --GoodDamon 03:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

(left) The retraction affy is also available on the scientologymyths.info site (here), which is not listed as a malware site. However, the core problem remains - do we believe POV sites when they claim to host true copies of court documents. Are those alleged true copies reliable sources? I think that we agree that they are not. Therefore the affy on the Lerma site holds no more water that the affy on the scimyths site. Agreed? --Justallofthem (talk) 15:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

scientologymyths.info is run by the same organization that runs the www.freewebtown.com/luana/rondewolf-july87.pdf site, and neither should be linked to or used. Cirt (talk) 16:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Justanother, while in general I agree, things get a little more iffy if you're talking about scholarly sources. Scientologymyths.info certainly doesn't qualify as a scholarly source, it's a primary source. But with Lerma, it's an entirely different question. Does his research, and the generally high regard news media and his peers grant it, qualify him as a scholarly source? I frankly don't know, but it's not nearly as cut and dry as trimming out primary sources. Primary sources are easier to define than scholarly secondary sources. --GoodDamon 17:00, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If ever the affidavit is included as a valid reference, I think it should also be clarified that Jr. also reached a settlement regarding his claim against his father's estate with the Church of Scientology before Bent Corydon's book came out (1987.) --Raymond Hill (talk) 17:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

There was pressure to settle on several fronts:

• "Son of Church Founder Is Sued by Stepmother". AP. New York Times. 1984-10-24. Retrieved 2008-12-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

As well, I believe that there are two Ron DeWolf affidavits signed at different times, so it would be important to match the affidavits with the statements they're supposed to be refuting. AndroidCat (talk) 21:36, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Warning

Note: scientologymyths.info is run by the same organization that runs www.freewebtown.com/luana/rondewolf-july87.pdf (affiliation: Church of Scientology) and both links should not be used/trusted for any sort of reliable info. Cirt (talk) 16:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Warning - Cirt is making unsubstantiated claims about the Scientologymyths.info site. Unsubstantiated claims "should not be used/trusted for any sort of reliable info". Cirt has made a number of unsubstantiated claims about this site so as to undermine its credibility and has spammed his "warning" across multiple talk pages. As far as I am aware, Cirt has never done anything like this with a site critical of Scientology; this is clearly POV-motivated. I ask Cirt to back his claims up or remove the "warning". He has stated the following about the Scientologymyths site:

1. written by certain individuals from within the Church of Scientology tasked for certain specific purposes (diff)
2. scientologymyths site is run by the same organization that runs the religiousfreedomwatch attack site. (diff)
3. scientologymyths.info is run by the same organization (diff) Organization?

Cirt has ignored my previous requests to source those sort of statements and instead has spammed this unsubstantiated "warning" on (at least) the below talk pages:

• Talk:Free Zone (Scientology)
• Talk:Scientology and sex
• Talk:L. Ron Hubbard

Scientologymyths does not present itself as an official voice of the Church, please see here:

"I am a Scientologist, working, and I use my spare time to run this blog and the website scientologymyths.info. I live in Los Angeles, California/USA."

Cirt, why are you trying to tar her more that you would tar Clambake, Lerma, or any of the analogous critic sites. Are you going to post "WARNING" for those sites, too? If not then your "warning" is uncalled-for and should be removed. --Justallofthem (talk) 21:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

This is not a matter of comparing one set of sites with another, simply alerting editors to propaganda/spam, or as it is more commonly known, "Sporgery". Cirt (talk) 21:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment

Both of these sites are affiliated with the same organization, Church of Scientology, and neither should be used anywhere on Wikipedia. Thanks. Cirt (talk) 21:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

You continue to make an unsupported allegation. The owner of the site represents herself as a Scientologist, not the Church of Scientology. You present no proof to suppose otherwise. PS please upcoming WP:AE post related to your recent editing. --Justallofthem (talk) 21:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure it's unsubstantiated? I was under the impression that the Church of Scientology enforced its copyrights pretty strictly, and seriously doubt a site with a name like "scientologymyths.info" would exist without falling under their auspices. In any event, the website's author is not a recognized scholarly source for anything, so the point is kind of moot. --GoodDamon 22:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

www.scientologymyths.info

In any event, if www.scientologymyths.info were an official website of the Church of Scientology, it could be used in limited circumstances as a self-published source. But if it is a personal website of an individual in an amateur capacity and not regarded as either an official or reliable source, it should not be used as a source. Cirt (talk) 00:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Meta-issue: Court documents and reliable sourcing

Please see the topic for discussion at Talk:Scientology#Meta-issue: Court documents and reliable sourcing. Thank you. --Justallofthem (talk) 23:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Does the claim LRH is a novelist require citation?

AndroidCat recently asked for a citation for the description of Hubbard as a novelist. This strikes me as going a bit too far. Surely, anyone who publishes several novels is a novelist. Just as surely, there are plenty of sources which call some of Hubbard's books "novels". I don't think that concluding he is therefore a novelist is OR. Comments? Phiwum (talk) 19:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Definitely, since there have been long-running edit and reversion fights over how to describe Hubbard's non-Scientology writing career. A novelist isn't just someone who writes a few books (unless you use the plainest denotation from an online "dictionary"). As well, most of Hubbard's writing output wasn't in book format, but mainly short stories, novellas and serials, and later reformatted into book form by Bridge Publications/Galaxy Press—self-publishing on a grand scale. If Hubbard was a novelist, then some RS described him as such and there's only UNDUE to contend with. AndroidCat (talk) 06:41, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

How about "American writer" or "author"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.159.194.10 (talk) 22:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I found and added the citation. Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 21:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

To 171.159.194.10: "Writer" or "author" is certainly acceptable to me (though I have no qualms with calling him a novelist either). To Paranormal Skeptic: I couldn't see the relevance of that citation, entertaining as it was. Phiwum (talk) 21:38, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Paragraph 3 : "Hubbard might be better described as a pulp science-fiction writer". Sorry, not novelist, but "writer".Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 00:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Why not use something similar to the Stephen King lead in? L. Ron Hubbard was an American author of (insert genres). Ukvilly (talk) 14:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Would that still require a citation (Which I think is silly to begin with)? But that lead in sounds good to me.Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 15:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

NPD

Has he ever been diagnosed with Nacissistic Personality Disorder? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.228.193.41 (talk) 14:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Intro is confusing.

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American writer who devised a self-help technique called Dianetics and philosophy known as Scientology, out of which grew a large organization later identifying itself as a religion, the Church of Scientology. (It almost makes it seem as if the religion is the Church of Scientology, which is the organization. I have no clue on how to reword this because I am unsure of the original editor's intent.) Ukvilly (talk) 04:43, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

How's that? :) Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 13:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Death

His death is barely mentioned. Surely this important event in his life is worth a line or two. How did he die? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.8.119 (talk) 01:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Hubbard by his friends

Worth quoting? "Friends vary widely in estimates of what makes Ronald run. To some he is an earnest, honest, sincere guy. To others he is the greatest con man of the century. Still others regard him as basically sincere, with just a touch of the charlatan, and now a tragic victim of his own psychoses." Gardner, Martin (1957). Fads and Fallacies: in the name of science (Second ed.). Dover Publications. p. 263. ISBN 0-486-20394-8. MartinPoulter (talk) 17:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Page numbers?

The two sources cited here do not provide page numbers. Can anyone provide them? Although Official Scientology biographies present him as "larger than life" figure with numerous accomplishments,[citation needed] sources which are not connected with Scientology often give a contradictory accounts.[4][5] ←Spidern→ 17:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Additionally, does anyone have access to either of these sources? Are they to be considered reliable, considering that Hubbard himself wrote for the magazine (possibly in this case as well)?

• The Pilot, July 1934 issue, about Hubbard
• The Sportsman Pilot, articles of L. Ron Hubbard, Issue January 1932, Issue May 1933, Issue October 1933

←Spidern→ 22:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Hubbard's parents

Harry Hubbard had been born Henry August Wilson in Fayette, Iowa, but had been orphaned as an infant and adopted by the Hubbards, a farming family from Fredericksburg, Iowa; and so the founder of the Roycrofters -- Elbert Hubbard, a Rosicrucian and the author of A Message to Garcia -- would become L. Ron Hubbard's uncle. Harry Hubbard had joined the United States Navy in 1904, leaving the service in 1908. Harry Hubbard re-enlisted in 1917 when the United States declared war on Germany, and served in the Navy until 1946, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Commander in 1934. Ledora was a feminist who had trained to become a high school teacher and married Harry in 1909.

Since this paragraph about Hubbard's parents is only tangentially related, I don't think that it is necessary to include this on the article dedicated to L. Ron Hubbard's biography. ←Spidern→ 17:18, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Cherry-picked quotes

Cherry picking quotes and presenting them with little context is discouraged. I have removed the following from the text:

During his visit to China at the age of seventeen, he made diary entries such as: "As a Chinaman can not live up to a thing, he always drags it down." and "They smell of all the baths they didnt [sic] take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here." Similarly, Hubbard described the Tibetan Buddhist temples as "miserably cold and very shabby . . . The people worshiping have voices like bull-frogs and beat a drum and play a brass horn to accompany their singing (?)" and called them "very odd and heathenish". Hubbard expressed support for creating townships in South Africa: "Having viewed slum clearance projects in most major cities of the world may I state that you have conceived and created in the Johannesburg townships what is probably the most impressive and adequate resettlement activity in existence."

←Spidern→ 17:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Secondary sources have already decided that these quotes are notable enough to illuminate Hubbard's character, and this speaks directly to his own intended presentation as a humanitarian. I agree that there could be more context. Arguably the Johannesburg ref is too obscure. Would it help to have some more context from Bare-Faced Messiah? MartinPoulter (talk) 13:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not objecting to all direct quotes, I just tend to have a problem when they're used selectively like this. My preference is generally to paraphrase the quotes. I suppose if you can provide better context, then give it a shot. ←Spidern→ 14:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

We clearly have different points of view on the use of quotes, and it may well be my relative lack of familiarity with Wikipedia style. My argument would be that in particularly controversial topics like this, where every sentence is going to be challenged, it's safer and more fair to have verbatim quotes, if we have them from the secondary source. These have to fit into the flow of the article so that it's truly an encyclopedia article and not a quotefarm, have to be short enough to convey a point and so on. They would also have to add something above and beyond indirect speech. I'd paraphrase "Popeye said "I love spinach" " to "Popeye said that he loves spinach," but when someone is accused of using racial slurs, then the form of words matters and it's only fair to them to quote the exact words they're supposed to have used rather than forcing it into a "that". MartinPoulter (talk) 20:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Moving, how much detail?

Hubbard's family moved numerous times while his father was in the Navy. Should we list all of the locations that they moved to? ←Spidern→ 06:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your removal of the specific locations: it's enough to say that he moved a lot. The list of locations is not mentioned in lots of sources, and even so they do not illuminate the man or his career. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Problems of vagueness with lead

"Hubbard was a controversial public figure during his lifetime." Is that controversial like Gandhi? Madonna? Lawrence of Arabia? This conveys almost no information: it could be said about almost any sufficiently notable figure. We have sources to say (something like) that his admirers saw him as a philosopher and humanitarian whose maverick scientific discoveries paved the way for the salvation of the planet, but his detractors called him the greatest con man of the 20th Century and a pathological liar who faked his credentials. We do a disservice to all parties with hyper-vague language. "Many details presented by Hubbard of his life and knowledge are disputed by the media." - His military record is "the media"? Court judgments are "the media"? If Walter Mitty had been real, would his Wikipedia article have this sentence in? "Although Official Scientology biographies present him as "larger than life" figure with numerous accomplishments," What is being quoted here? Again, so vague that it could be said of just about any highly notable figure. Not what we want if the point of the article is to inform the reader about L. Ron Hubbard. "sources which are not connected with Scientology often give a contradictory accounts." - contradicting what? The most natural reading is that they contradict each other, implying that Scientology's account of Hubbard is consistent while other accounts are not. There's no basis for this. Let's base the lead, like the rest of the article, on what is said about the article's subject in published secondary sources. MartinPoulter (talk) 16:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. We need to stick to definitive statements made in secondary sources. ←Spidern→ 16:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at these sources, perhaps we could use them? [3] [4] [5] [6] ←Spidern→ 16:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I like the way the lead is going in recent edits. It's not so much a matter of adding extra refs (thanks though, Spidern) as summarising the refs we already have. As an example of what I'm talking about, here's a quote from the Journal of the American Academy of Religion:

"Portrayed in his own writings as a rugged explorer, world traveler, and nuclear physicist, equally accomplished as a philosopher, artist, poet, and photographer, Hubbard has also been described by his critics as a liar, a charlatan, and a madman. Although much of his own autobiographical statements have since proven to be fictitious (Miller 1987: 1; Wallis 1976: 21), Hubbard claimed to have traveled the world as a young man, visiting a wide array of gurus and spiritual leaders in the Orient and then to have enjoyed a heroic naval career in World War II."

Urban, Hugh B. (June 2006). "Fair Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 74 (2). Oxford University Press: 356–389. doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfj084.

MartinPoulter (talk) 16:27, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

"Fictionalized depictions in media"

I think this section is fairly weak, and triva-esque. We should probably either integrate the material into other sections, or remove it altogether. What do other people think? ←Spidern→ 16:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

My choice would be to change the title to "Legacy" or something similar and add other material. I note that the New York Amsterdam News ran an article entitled "Leadership award" on May 17, 1997, after Hubbard's death, saying Hubbard won the NAACP Outstanding Leadership Award. Things like that could be added to that section as well. John Carter (talk) 20:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I favour removing it altogether (but then I'm not generally keen on "in popular culture" sections). I don't see what a leadership award has to do with fictional depictions, but if it's real, put it in. MartinPoulter (talk) 16:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Edward Longstreet Bodin

I wonder if anyone can find any sources regarding Bodin's possible influence on Hubbard and/or Scientology or vice-versa. I found this interesting in relation to Xenu: "why don't we drop some atom bombs into the deepest volcano on Earth, just to see if there are any devils inside of the old globe." Upper Purgatory (1955) by Edward Longstreet Bodin, page 17. Шизомби (talk) 16:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

FBI Files Link to Smoking Gun is woefully inadequate

The Smoking Gun page only links a handful of pages.

For 2826 pages between 1943 and 1993 from the Scientology/Hubbard files, please add the following link:

http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Scientology:_2%2C826_pages_of_L._Ron_Hubbard%27s_FBI_Files%2C_1943-1993

Please add this to the Scientology-related pages elsewhere here as well, as I'm sure they are ALL locked down.

156.99.40.14 (talk) 18:52, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Early Writing, etc...

In reference to the end of the second to last paragraph in this section stating "Many of the Dianetics practices folded within a year of establishment and Hubbard abandoned the Foundation, denouncing a number of his former associates to the FBI as communists.[50][51]", this needs amended to add a new sentence stating: "In an Airgram from FBI Comms to the Legal Attache in Havana, Cuba, dated April 27, 1951, concerning the interview with Hubbard in reference to his calling all of his wife's friends and associates commies, said: 'Agent conducting interview considered Hubbard to be a mental case.'. Apparently, this interview took place when Hubbard appeared in person on March 1, 1951 at the FBI office.".

Source: FBI files obtained from the wikileaks collection

  Quotation: pdf file 5 in the wikileaks set on p. 51
    Date of Quotation: ibid, p. 155

 156.99.40.14 (talk) 22:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

156.99.40.14 (talk) 19:12, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Again in reference to a long psychotic rant Hubbard himself wrote to the FBI on July 11, 1955, again seeing reds under his bed, the letter was internally notated "make 'appears mental' card"

On the next page of the document, Belmont continues: "In the past, letters from L. Ron Hubbard who operates the Academy of Scientology, have not been acknowledged because of his possible mental instability and rambling and incoherent nature of his letters."

Source: wikileaks set, pdf 5, pp. 159-160, in letter from A. H. Belmont to L. V. Boar_man (Boardman?) dated October 11, 1957.

156.99.40.14 (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Factual incorrectnes in first sentence

"was an American science fiction writer who devised a set of self-help systems called Dianetics and Scientology."

1)Hubbard was not just a sci fi writer, he wrote in many other genres. 2)Dianetics is not a self help system. It requires the participation of trained technicians. Saying that it is a self help system is like saying that Chiropractics is a self help system.Truthtell (talk) 05:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello there, Truthtell. As you will see, both claims are readily verifiable:

1)

2)

Do you disagree with the validity of any of these sources? ←Spidern→ 07:16, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Isaac Asimov wrote in more genres than any other author, including comedy, Shakespeare, and The Bible and is still usually labeled as a "sci-fi author" since he is best-known for his SF. Darkpoet (talk) 05:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Blackfoot vs. Blackfeet

This article incorrectly references the Blackfoot Nation as the "Blackfeet".

There is no such a tribe as the Blackfeet. Please reference the article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfoot and correct the L Ron Hubbard article accordingly.

In short, we are sick and tired of being called Blackfeet. Plain and simple the name of our people in English is Blackfoot.

Also since there is a quote that uses a misspelling it maybe a little difficult to edit.

Here is how it should read:

In 1985, Scientologists claimed that members of Blackfoot Nation, Montana, commemorated "the seventieth anniversary of [L. Ron Hubbard] becoming a blood brother of the Blackfeet (sic) Nation. Tree Manyfeathers in a ceremony re-established L. Ron Hubbard as a blood brother to the Blackfeet (sic) Tribe."[91] Blackfoot historian Hugh Dempsey has commented that the act of blood brotherhood was "never done among the Blackfoot", and Blackfoot Nation officials have disavowed attempts to "re-establish" Hubbard as a "blood brother" of the Blackfoot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.94.161.208 (talk) 19:57, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Best

Evan Running Deer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.94.161.208 (talk) 19:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate that there is some disagreement about the use of the terms Blackfoot and Blackfeet. However, the current articles on WP state that Blackfeet and Blackfeet Nation are specific to a group of Montana peoples of the Blackfoot confederacy. The sources and discussion on those pages indicate that this is the official terminology. If there is a problem with the use of Blackfeet, the issue should be addressed at the main articles rather than here. As you have stated, the references in this article use Blackfeet (indicating the specific Montana group) and, as such, should remain unchanged. Any change would first require some overall discussion and change at the Blackfeet and Blackfeet Nation articles. Regards. — CactusWriter | ^needles 16:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Fictionalized depictions in media

Frank Zappa, in his 1979 rock opera, as the Central Scrutinizer in "Scrutinizer Postlude" (song 9 on disc 1) states that Joe "goes out... and pays a lot of money to L. Ron Hoover... at the First Church of Appliantology!". This is an obvious parody to L. Ron Hubbard and the church of scientology.Dilasluis (talk) 02:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That information already appears in the Scientology in popular culture article (and is directed there from this article by the "see also" link). Miscellaneous trivia is discouraged in WP biographies (see WP:TRIVIA and is best handled in the other article. In fact, the couple of items in that section should also be removed, leaving only the appropriate link. — CactusWriter | ^needles 14:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

{{editsemiprotected}} (Edit rejected for reason given above. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 20:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)) It is impossible to verify the Eagle scout at youngest age claim, should we remove it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.157.10 (talk) 09:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

There's no need to remove it. The youngest eagle scout claim has been made in various biographies. The article states it was reported (with a reference) and that the claim is reportedly unverifiable by BSA records (with another reference). This isn't controversial. — CactusWriter | ^needles 12:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Official website

I dispute that lronhubbard.org is L. Ron Hubbard's official web site. Hubbard died in 1986, so uncontroversially there isn't a web site whose creation he supervised or approved. The site is created by certain of his followers, and we on Wikipedia are not in a position to judge whether Hubbard would approve of it, or whether it is faithful to his legacy. Compare putting one particular church's site about Jesus as the "official page" of Jesus Christ, or the modern Chinese government's site about Chairman Mao as his official site. The .org belongs in the external links section at the bottom, with a suitable label, but inclusion in the fact box at the top is misleading. MartinPoulter (talk) 21:32, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree. JN466 21:52, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Writer of science fiction?

I've been disturbed by this part for a long time now. Hubbard wrote far more than just science fiction, and considering that he did also establish his own philosophical and spiritual system, should this not be reflected? Compare other biographical articles, such as Aleister Crowley and Ayn Rand and numerous others, which put the way this article has been handled to shame.

I suggest changing the introduction to reflect the facts, namely that:

"Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author and philosopher who devised a self-help system called Dianetics ..."

That is far more balanced than the current introduction, which is horribly biased by singling the man out as nothing more than a writer (not even author) of science fiction (what about all the westerns, adventures, detective stories, etc)? Laval (talk) 01:56, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Ayn Rand is no model to follow here, believe me I know. See WP:RANDARB and the practically unending talk page debates as to whether she should be called a philosopher at all. I think she should, but I also think Hubbard shouldn't, barring significant third party sources describing him as such. TallNapoleon (talk) 03:24, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

He was primarily famous as a science-fiction writer and later created Dianetics and then Scientology. This is how he is often described (see prior Talk). For comparison, Isaac Asimov wrote in many fiction and non-fiction genres, but the lead of his Wikipedia article mentions the genres he was famous for, "best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books".

As for "philosopher", that sounds bizarre to me. What philosophy books use Hubbard as a source? In what secondary literature is he described as a philosopher?

If there is an WP:NPOV issue here, then what references illustrate the POV that is being missed out? MartinPoulter (talk) 17:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

What would distinguish LRH from any other genre author with a world view? Having a POV in one's writing does not a philosopher make. Austinmayor (talk) 17:37, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

How about: "LRH was a prolific America author best known for creating Scientology and an extensive catalog of genre fiction."? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.198.139.254 (talk) 08:11, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Hatchet Job

I'd like to see this POV article stubbed and rewritten. Undue weight has been given to books and articles written by this man's enemies. There's paragraph after paragraph about his military career, his marriages, and what other (hostile) people thought of him. It is not very encyclopedic, nor is it relevant to his claim to fame. S. M. Sullivan (talk) 06:36, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Stubbing an article on someone as notable as L Ron Hubbard isn't going to fly at all, I'm afraid. The best thing to do is probably a section by section rewrite. Alternatively a sandbox could be helpful. TallNapoleon (talk) 06:59, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

The first 4 paragraphs are fine IMO. The third paragraph in the Early Life section should go. It contrasts church biographies with critic Jon Atack, and brings up the lack of mention of Old Mayo from Hubbard's diaries. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It's a 'he said, she said' situation that lends no real insight into Hubbard. I'd like to just delete that paragraph.S. M. Sullivan (talk) 09:11, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Another thing that concerns me is the use of Thomas Streissguth's 'Charismatic Cult Leaders' as a source. Streissguth claims that Hubbard suffered from depression and once checked himself into a psychiatric hospital. I could not find any corroboration elsewhere of this possibly imaginary event. Furthermore Streissguth's publisher, Oliver Press, publishes only childrens' books intended for grades 5 and up.

http://www.oliverpress.com/pages/cl.html http://www.oliverpress.com/

Is a childrens' book that describes Anabaptists and Mormons as cultists, and inserts an uncorroborated derogatory incident into the story, to be considered reliable?S. M. Sullivan (talk) 09:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Stubbing such an extensively-sourced article would count as vandalism, it's pretty clear. By all means try for more piecemeal improvement.

You haven't made a case why a WP page about a famous historic individual should omit information about his military career or his marriages, both being relevant to his professional career (he is supposed to have used Dianetics to cure his war wounds, and wrote a book on how to have a happy marriage). To exclude such biographical information from a biographical article... well, I don't even see an argument.

As for the claim of undue weight, I've stated before in this talk that there should be more about the special status of Hubbard in the eyes of his followers, given the planetary significance of what he claimed to have invented and discovered. I'm not sure on a form of words, but by all means help out.

For the Old Mayo paragraph: a better case is needed for removal. Arguably the last sentence, making as you say a point from absence of evidence, can be dropped.

As for Streissguth, if you think there is an issue here, maybe it should be taken to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard? It just takes a minute to confirm that Hubbard did indeed claim to suffer from depression and did ask the Veteran's Administration for psychiatric help. I don't know about the psychiatric hospital claim, but at the moment it's a published source versus your say-so.

A problem here seems to be that you are judging whether to include points on whether or not they are "derogatory" rather on whether reflect the way Hubbard is written about in reliable sources.MartinPoulter (talk) 17:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Martin, on page 67 of Streissguth's childrens' book, "Charismatic Cult leaders", the claim is made that Hubbard once checked himself into a psychiatric hospital.

http://books.google.com/books?id=w5J0SjdaoTEC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=Streissguth%2BL.+Ron+Hubbard&source=bl&ots=i086vQJSeP&sig=6MubUpdcYGOt4KgCpHQ7bFCOEqY&hl=en&ei=6cQkSuTyH430tAP36d2fBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA67,M1

The claim is now repeated in the wikipedia LRH article with Streissguth's book as the source. The book doesn't even have a bibliography, so we've no way to tell what Streissguth's sources were. It's unlikely that he was privy to data about Hubbard that no other writer has had. I have seen the Hubbard letter that was sent to the VA asking for help; but there's no verifiable published evidence that Hubbard ever received psychiatric help, either in or out of a hospital.S. M. Sullivan (talk) 06:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I've replied here. Basically I agree that it should be removed. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll just repeat what I wrote on the RS noticeboard. SMS, I think you might have a misconception about books like the Profiles series. Books written for "grades 5 and up" only means the language has been simplified -- it does not mean they are unreliable. Books written in simple English can certainly be reliable when sourced. (That's the entire concept behind Simple English Wikipedia). Your link also shows the book does have a bibliography section on pages 153-156 -- and Streissguth's first source in Charismatic Cult Leaders is John Atack's book. However, I would prefer to see the original sources cited in controversial situations like this -- and if the claims are not supported by any of those original sourced materials - then they ought to be removed or altered. — CactusWriter | ^needles 08:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

See here. The sources that Streissguth used were the books by John Atack and Russell Miller. In those books, the incident they refer to concerns only the 1947 letter to the VA, which is mentioned further down in that section. I am removing the sentence about Hubbard checking into a psychiatric hospital as well as the Streissguth reference. — CactusWriter | ^needles 22:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your action. I think what happened here is that Streissguth either misread or over-interpreted the 1947 appeal to the VA for a psychiatric evaluation, or he misinterpreted Hubbard's 1945 stay in Oak Knoll Naval Hospital as being an admission to a psychiatric hospital. Either way, it's not a claim that has any support in the principal literature. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for handling this, ChrisO and CactusWriter. S. M. Sullivan (talk) 04:46, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Prophet Section?

I know this is a controversial idea, but why doesn't Hubbard's page have a section about his prophet status? While I realize that others don't necessarily recognize (yet) that Hubbard was the oracle of the 20th century, it seems odd that Isaiah, Muhammad, and other alleged prophets have their prophet-status described in detail while the entry on Hubbard is conspicuously silent about it. I really think that reflects religious bigotry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.80.22.95 (talk) 12:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

As I say above, I would like to see more about the status of Hubbard in the eyes of Scientology, although I'd tread warily on the "prophet" status since 1) Hubbard's revelations seem to be about the present and distant past, not so much future (the narrow sense of prophecy). 2) Hubbard's knowledge is not supposed to have been revealed to him by a higher power but discovered in his personal "research" in a way that at least initially claimed to be "scientific". This may conflict depending on the exact definition of prophet. What sources were you thinking of using? MartinPoulter (talk) 13:34, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The Church never makes the assertion that he is a "prophet", and I can't find a single WP:RS to support such a section. At best, a philosopher section. Hardly qualifies as a prophet since he wasn't prophecying, merely philosophizing. Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 13:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

So neither "philosopher" and "prophet" belong in the article, then. Hubbard never had recognised qualifications in philosophy, never held posts in it, is not taught in philsophy courses. If merely writing non-fiction is philosophising, then we are philosophising right now in this discussion. Accusations of "religious bigotry" don't help improve the article, and I can't even tell whether the anonymous user is complaining of bigotry for or against Hubbard. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:32, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

True. Until enough WP:RS exist to make it a major facet of his life, neither belong. Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 14:47, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Because he did not foretell the future, LRH was no prophet. And his "philosophy" was on par with Stan Lee's "with great power comes great responsibility" -- witty perhaps, but not serious philosophy. Austinmayor (talk) 17:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Removing Neutrality tag

Is it fair to say the neutrality tag at the top of the page can be removed? I've not seen any discussion on here since the tag was placed in reference to it being there? Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 12:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The editor who place the tag made only one comment on the talk page. Others responded to his comment but he never returned to the discussion. Any discussion he wanted to have appears to be finished, so I am removing the tag. — CactusWriter | ^needles 15:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks CactusWriter- there seems to have been some scattershot tagging of Scientology-related articles since the arbitration. MartinPoulter (talk) 18:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Cactuswriter, I made six comments, not one. And I just deleted the Streissguth cites again as they appear to have crept back into the article even after it was agreed that they came from an unreliable source and should be deleted.S. M. Sullivan (talk) 06:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

S M Sullivan, are you claiming to be editor who placed that tag, i.e. Laval? Are Laval and S M Sullivan the same person?

We only have to scroll up a little bit to see that the claim that the book isn't an RS didn't achieve consensus, and was based on an incorrect claim that the book lacked a bibliography. There was agreement on the specific issue of the mental hospital claim. There's a case for using the Atack and Miller books as proximal sources if the Streissguth book is based on them, but it could still be included as a Further Reading link. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I am not Laval, I did express disgust over the POV issues in the article, though. If Streissguth is making things up and has no information other than what he gleans from Miller and Atack, that's reason to exclude him as not WP:RS.S. M. Sullivan (talk) 06:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

As discussed previously, your assertion that the Streissguth book was not reliable because it was a "children's book" that "doesn't even have a bibliography" proved to be incorrect. However, it was found that Streissguth had misinterpreted Miller and Atack on the issue of the psychiatric hospital -- and that was changed. I agree with Martin Poulter that the Streissguth references could be replaced with citations from Atack or Miller, because those are Streissguth's original sources. And his book can be left simply as further reading material. Your removal of Streissguth's name from the cites was not helpful because it only broke the reference templates -- and so your edit was reverted. Replacing them with the better original sources is the proper course. — CactusWriter | ^needles 08:06, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

University years (civil engineering)

That part of the article needs attention. Miller he says he was at there for two years, not two semesters, but dropped out without starting the third year; as for his grades, Miller has quite a lot of detail, saying at the end of the second semester he got

"an A for physical education, B for English, C for mechanical engineering, D for general chemistry and Fs for German and calculus. His overall grade for the year was D average, a result which gave no pleasure at all to his parents. They were convinced that he could do better."

As for the end of the second year, Miller says:

"When Ron returned home from the Caribbean, he discovered that his grades for his second year at George Washington University were disastrous: a B for English, but D in calculus and electrical and magnetic physics, and an F for molecular and atomic physics. He was perhaps not surprised and as his expectation of graduating was fast receding he could see no point in wasting a third year studying a subject in which he had no interest. When he adjudged the moment to be appropriate, he announced to his parents that he had had enough of civil engineering and did not intend to return to university."

I don't think we need that level of detail, but it is clear that his grades were not uniformly bad. Miller also explains that he spent quite a lot of time gliding and writing for the Hatchet – basically, he just did not apply himself to his studies, putting all his time into his hobbies instead. JN466 21:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I actually think with a bit of rework, what you just wrote would be good :) Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 21:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay. :) Note that according to Miller he didn't leave university in 1931, but in 1932 – after his return from his Caribbean journey. JN466 21:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and rewrote the university section to reflect his two years at George Washington -- including his grades and mention of his extracurricular activities. I sourced it to the Miller quotes from above. — CactusWriter | ^needles 09:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Well done both of you. That paragraph is looking much more encyclopedic. MartinPoulter (talk) 13:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality

I have put the tag back up. Nobody even bothered to leave a message on my talk about that, but at any rate, I am not going to back down on this. The introduction is clearly skewed and biased, as I have pointed out before. There has been an ArbCom concerning Scientology articles and this is the time to clear these articles of bias, starting with this one. Look at Ayn Rand, Aleister Crowley, and myriad others. Then compare with this one. Anyone who claims this article is not biased clearly has some sort of problem with Scientology itself which conflicts with WP:NPOV. The introduction must be fixed, i.e. Hubbard was an author and philosopher, rather than a "science fiction author who devised ... etc etc" Laval (talk) 14:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I believe my edits reflect a more NPOV motivation than previous versions. Hubbard was obviously and clearly an author and philosopher who founded a religion. What is complicated about that? Laval (talk) 14:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This is my version: Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author and philosopher who developed a self-help system called Dianetics, which was first published in 1950. Over the next three decades, Hubbard developed his self-help ideas into a wide-ranging set of doctrines and rituals as part of a new religion he called Scientology. Laval (talk) 14:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I just changed it back to science fiction author. You would be hard pressed to find a reliable source stating he is a philosopher. However, sci-fi autho is supported by a multitude of sources. Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 14:28, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Plenty of sources, from reliable religious scholars can be found to verify this. If you and your friends are going to keep this up, we are going to need another ArbCom. Laval (talk) 14:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Please keep in mind the bold, revert, discuss cycle. I cited the sci-fi author source. I disagree with the philosopher categorization. So, it is on you to provide a citation supporting the philosopher categorization. As for you and your friends keeping this up, please also bear in mind assuming good faith. We're here to right a sourced encyclopedia. Not a he said/she said book. So, if it's easy to find plenty of religious scholars referring to him as a philosopher, please add them to the claim of him being a philosopher. Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 14:45, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

L Ron Hubbard was definitely a science fiction author. And unless you can show me substantial third-party sources referring to him as a philosopher (as is the case with Rand) then he's not one. Period. TallNapoleon (talk) 15:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC) (unindent) And, this discussion was already covered above: Talk:L._Ron_Hubbard#Prophet_Section.3F

Agreed. Hubbard has clearly been most identified as a writer of science fiction. And, as stated in the previous discussion, he held no credentials in philosophy, is not discussed in philosophy scholarship, and does not appear to be cited as a philosopher by reliable independent sources. It is actually the correct application of neutrality and no original research guidelines here which prevents labeling Hubbard as a philosopher. — CactusWriter | ^needles 21:47, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree. It's worth looking at how other general reference works describe Hubbard. For instance, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions describes him as an "American science-fiction writer and founder of Scientology." The Chambers Biographical Dictionary calls him a "US science-fiction writer and founder of the Church of Scientology". The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia calls him a "US science fiction and fantasy writer, founder in 1954 of Scientology." The Crystal Reference Encyclopedia calls him a "Science-fiction writer and cult leader". And so on. The descriptions are actually all pretty similar; notably, though, they do not call Hubbard a philosopher. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with ChrisO (talk · contribs). Reference works and WP:RS/WP:V secondary sources describe L. Ron Hubbard as a "science fiction writer". Cirt (talk) 22:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Poking my head in for a moment... It's also important to note WP:WEIGHT here. While there might be a few non-Scientology sources out there that label Hubbard a philosopher, the vast, overwhelming majority of them describe him as a science fiction writer. (Not saying that's a bad thing; I'm one myself.) If an overwhelming majority of biographical sources make note first and foremost of his fiction career, it's not our jobs to second-guess them and disregard the weight they establish for that part of his life. --GoodDamon 23:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Lets see what the British obituaries said:

• "Mr L Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer and founder of the often controversial Church of Scientology died on January 25 at his ranch in California at the age of 74" - "Obituary of Mr L Ron Hubbard, founder of Church of Scientology". The Times. Times Newspapers. January 29, 1986.

• "In 1949 a moderately successful pulp science fiction writer called L Ron Hubbard, gave a lecture in which he said: 'Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million, the best way would be to start a religion.' A year later he was well on his may. Now, more than three decades and several hundred million dollars later, the founder of Scientology has died, aged 74." - Reed, Christopher (January 29, 1986). "The man who fell to earth with a bump / Obituary of L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology". The Guardian. Guardian Newspapers.

MartinPoulter (talk) 12:13, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Not just British obituaries:

• "L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer whose often-battled Church of Scientology has grown to at least 2 million members during its three decades, has died at age 74" Anderson, Dennis (January 28, 1986). "Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard dies". The Evening Independent. p. 1. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help) (This seems to have been an Associated Press story that ran in lots of other US papers) MartinPoulter (talk) 20:37, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Ref for this article

The following article:

• {{cite journal|title=Towards a Science of the Nuclear Mind: Science-Fiction Origins of Dianetics |first=Albert I. |last=Berger |journal=Science Fiction Studies |volume=16 |issue=2 |date=July 1989 |pages=123-144 |publisher=SF-TH, DePauw University}}

is available through JSTOR and seems highly relevant to the L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics and Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health articles. MartinPoulter (talk) 13:25, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

References

The band 'Tool' makes a reference to L Ron Hubbard in their song Ænima from their album of the same name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Minigilani (talk • contribs) 00:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Military career of L. Ron Hubbard

Military career of L. Ron Hubbard has recently achieved good article status and is now being considered for featured article status. Input from editors would be very welcome. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Military career of L. Ron Hubbard/archive1. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Add to Category:American philosophers

See [7], and note his reputation as the founder of the philosophical doctrines of scientology.Scientologist Perspective (talk) 04:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

There is already consensus that he shouldn't be described as a philosopher, and the source you point to is not a reliable source. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Prev. banned from UK

He is listed under 'Individuals previously banned or refused entry' on the page 'List of individuals banned from entering the United Kingdom'. Anyone else think this is notable and should be included? Also, the heading 'Legal issues and life on the high seas'? Seriously? That should be changed. --Scythre (talk) 12:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The ban was covered widely in UK broadsheet media, so the notability seems undeniable. There are a few relevant sentences (with refs) in the Scientology in the United Kingdom#Foreign_entry_ban_and_legal_challenges article. Maybe copy them in? MartinPoulter (talk) 12:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Shall do, into what section though? I would do, but I can't edit the page as I'm new; somebody else want to do it? --Scythre (talk) 13:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Second Paragraph in Intro...

Would it be better to put it in the Early Life section, or perhaps the Personal Life section? It would probably fit better there (though with a bit different wording). I'm not saying I dispute the paragraph, it's just that it doesn't seem to fit there. What do you guys think? 98.198.83.12 (talk) 14:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, the introduction needs to be expanded rather than diluted. At present, the intro doesn't adequately summarize the article per our guidelines at WP:LEDE. — CactusWriter | ^needles 08:02, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Terrible article.

This is a horribly written article. My main critisism would be to point out that there are far too many little paragraphs; this article reads like a list, and is unlike almost any other biography I have encountered in WP. I stumbled across it (after purposefully avoiding it - and any other Dianetics related material) after following a bluelink from the article about Wikileaks. I was more interested in Scientology's legal representation than any other thing related to the church. Curiousity got the better of me. One bluelink follows another - you know how it goes - and they led me here. Phew. I might take a crack at re-writing this thing, using only the material included. My goal would be to make no omissions, or additions to the actual information that is here. A prose edit, you might call it. I welcome your input, in this space, before I should proceed. Hamster Sandwich (talk) 23:07, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, the entire article really needs to be rewritten from scratch. But any improvements you can make would be welcome, I'm sure. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:30, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that years of numerous small individual revisions have left the article with that typical piece-meal biography-by-committee tone. Although it isn't a "terrible article", it isn't a good one. Fortunately, the article is now well-sourced -- which was a problem not too long ago. A thorough rewrite is needed to provide cohesiveness and a solid "through line". It you want to take a shot, than have at it. It would be nice to aim at returning this to GA status, but as ChrisO says, any improvement would be welcome. — CactusWriter | ^needles 07:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Is 'life on the high seas' vandalism? it doesnt seem entirely appropriate to me...79.65.222.207 (talk) 22:57, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

..Why use this picture?

Someone find a more relevant picture, maybe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.137.248.46 (talk) 18:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Judging by the tenacity with which scientologists protect their material, including anything related to hubbard it will likely be difficult to find a photo of the man in the public domain. Vinithehat (talk) 12:12, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

It's beautiful. 128.125.19.239 (talk) 04:34, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Sourced info removed by Richard-of-Earth

The account Richard-of-Earth (talk · contribs) removed sourced info from this article, claiming in an edit summary that the ref did not support the info [8]. Here is the cite and quote from the source:

To close, I would like to cite one last passage from one of Hubbard's bulletins, in which he describes his own future re-incarnation on this earth. The secrets of his teaching have been entrusted to his loyal students, who are commissioned with preserving them until Hubbard's eventual return to this world, at a time when he will assume a more explicitly political role than he has in this life:

I will return not as a religious leader but a political one. That happens to be the requisite beingness for the task at hand...So there you have it. The secret that I have kept close to my chest all these years. Now you too are part of this secret and I no longer have to shoulder the burden alone...With this briefing I entrust to each of you the responsibility for this material until such time as I am able to return...The handful of secret societies throughout history that have caught on to this game have long since fallen by the wayside or been taken over and become instruments of the very menace they were set up to combat.

• Urban, Hugh B. (June 2006). "Fair Game: Secrecy, Security, and the Church of Scientology in Cold War America". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 74 (2). Oxford University Press: 356–389. doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfj084. ISSN 1477-4585.

The ref clearly supports the info. Please do not remove it again - especially under a false edit summary. Cirt (talk) 10:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I just looked at it again and I found it at the end. My mistake and my apologies. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:51, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Cirt (talk) 08:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Hubbard holding the world record as "most translated author"-a lie?

Aside from the fact that the only links provided backing this fact up are from scientology sites-all the details are exactly the same as author Sidney Sheldon, who is in reality the one holding the Guinness World Record for most Translated author. Sheldon's page on the Biography channel website There are so many other sources besides Sheldon's own site claiming he has the title. I really think this should be looked into, any other man/organization would have been slammed for stealing another's achievements and trying to pose them as their own. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inkxy (talk • contribs) 18:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Midi-chlorian count?

what was his midi-chlorian count? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.88.136.78 (talk) 16:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Off the scale, clearly. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Posthumous adaptations by other authors are not credited as such

I found it odd that the last two entries in the list of "novels" were reportedly published more than a decade after Hubbard's death. It turns out both are works by other authors, based on Hubbard's short story and screenplay, respectively:

• Ai! Pedrito! When Intelligence Goes Wrong — Kevin J. Anderson
• A Very Strange Trip — Dave Wolverton

I think these should be either credited as adaptations, or (preferably, in my opinion) removed from the list, as they are not his novels. I didn't want to just whack them without discussing here first. Does anyone else have an opinion about removal/editing of these? CosineKitty (talk) 22:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep, marked as adaptations If an author's work is adapted to other forms, like a movie or a video game, it would be mentioned on the author's page.--Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. Perhaps there should be a separate section for adapted works, at least? I think it would be more concise and direct than leaving them under the "Novels" section with parenthetical remarks. CosineKitty (talk) 15:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure. Perhaps "Adaptations not otherwise published". So that wouldn't include adaptations of works already listed like Battlefield Earth.--Richard-of-Earth (talk) 16:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I just called it "Adaptations by other authors". The word "authors" implies some kind of written work. I'm sure we can fix it if it gets to be a problem. CosineKitty (talk) 02:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

THE BET

I do not have the research or sources aviable but I have heard, Hubbard made a bet with a man in a bar that he could start a religion and have people follow him. It is said that he believed all followers of religion where suckers and he would prove it.

It would be interesting if someone could find the story I speak of here and and this to the page. 24.101.172.61 (talk) 01:21, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I found this page, which might be an interesting place to start. See the bibliography at the end of the page. A cursory reading appears to make it probably true, but hearsay nonetheless. I think attribution would have to be qualified as such, in order to be fair. CosineKitty (talk) 02:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up: they claim the bar-bet with Heinlein is false, but conclude based on multiple witnesses that he did say something about starting a religion being a good way to make a lot of money. CosineKitty (talk) 02:12, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Poorly parsed from source

"The Times reported in 2009 that British diplomats exposed Hubbard as "a fraud" in the 1970s.[9]"

What the hell does that mean? Was he a "fraud" for passing off orange chicken for tangerine chicken? for coming up with a religion called scientology? for awarding himself a fraudulent degree? for a combination of things? REMOVE this sentence or correct it. Thank you, An OTO member (talk) 22:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Reference [9], (see here for your convenience) does address what is meant for anybody who cares to look it up. This reference is re-used and explained later in the article. In my experience with Wikipedia, most articles try to keep the lede short, and expand upon it later in the article, which is exactly the case here. CosineKitty (talk) 23:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

And so the article appears to have two different readings of this source. Please, Hubbard was not exposed as a "fraud", but his degree was exposed as a "fraud" with some involvement on Hubbard's part in the whole process. There is so little context given in the lede, that if you can't get it right in a single sentence then don't mention it. You read that Hubbard was exposed as a "fraud" and you think it means his entire work was exposed as a "fraud", which would be a huge story. Of course, this is what one expects from Wikipedia, isn't it? Some of the worst readers on the planet must reside here. An OTO member (talk) 21:07, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

No one has any idea what I'm talking about, do they? I guess I could make comparisons with other figures, such as Barack Obama or even your dearest Jimbo Wales, but what's the point. This is probably only one of many mistakes in this article. An OTO member (talk) 21:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Please go ahead and change the sentence, rather than throwing out general insults. Note that the author of the 9th August edit you're talking about hasn't contributed much else (at least in the last 100 edits I looked at). Thanks in advance,MartinPoulter (talk) 22:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Believe you me, I have tried. I'm able to edit other articles but not this one, which is baffling. An OTO member (talk) 00:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is semi-protected due to it being vandalized too often by unestablished and anonymous users. (Hover mouse over the padlock icon at the top of the article.) After a while of editing unprotected articles, the system will allow you to edit these articles too. OK, I have thought more about your critique of the sentence in the lead, and I am inclined to agree. The lede should contain a summary of overarching importance, and I think this sentence probably doesn't belong there, at least in its current state. I'm inclined to delete the sentence, but leave the reference and the second sentence that uses it [9-b]. I do think your tone put me off too, but I have to admit your point is valid. Please consider that others here aren't your enemy, and we can be persuaded. CosineKitty (talk) 03:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Well thank you for agreeing with me. I didn't expect that. The Times article seems to be better covered in the body anyways. I like your solution. An OTO member (talk) 20:12, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

← [reset indent] I went ahead and removed the sentence in question from the lede. What was Note [9] has now been auto-renumbered as [46], but it is identical in content. The details of the degree-mill PhD remain intact. I think this edit removes a possible appearance of bias from the lede, without censoring anything of substance from the article overall. CosineKitty (talk) 03:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

incorrecy info

scinetology was founded in california world book says it nice article (Zeno28 (talk) 00:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC))

New reason behind Scientology

I've heard a story a few times before that Isaac Asimov actually made a bet with L. Ron Hubbard that he could't start his own religion - and thus we now have Scientology, has anyone else heard this or can they back this up, thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.33.167.143 (talk) 10:30, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

There was no bet, but a number of individuals involved in the U.S. science fiction scene of the late 1940's -- including Harlan Ellison -- have recounted that they heard Hubbard make a statement similar to "The way to make real money would be to found a religion" on what must have been several different occasions... AnonMoos (talk) 03:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

What Wikipedia has is at Scientology_controversies#L._Ron_Hubbard_and_starting_a_religion_for_money, which should probably be mentioned in this article. AnonMoos (talk) 09:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Change Grey's to Gray's Anatomy and update reference

There is a quoted reference in the main article that incorrectly spells Gray and thus refernces the TV show by mistake.

Rhino bucket (talk) 14:34, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

So there is. I've corrected it. Good spot! – Toon 14:47, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Russia bans writings by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard

• Rose, Scott (April 21, 2010). "Scientology Writings Banned as Extremist". The Moscow Times. www.themoscowtimes.com. Retrieved April 21, 2010.
• "Russia bans books by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard". EuropeNews. europenews.dk. April 21, 2010. Retrieved April 21, 2010.
• "Russia Bans Scientology Writings on Basis of Extremism". The Other Russia. www.theotherrussia.org. April 21, 2010. Retrieved April 21, 2010.

Sources, for info to add to this article. -- Cirt (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

External links to Scientology's own websites

Just an info: most of the Scientology's own websites, linked here, are WOT-rated RED as spamming, phishing and attacking websites. How safe and reliable is an article, linking readers to such potential online threads? regards--Bylot (talk) 11:21, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

In this case, I do think the self-published sources fit. But, if you can find other references, feel free to replace them. Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 16:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The Dangerous Dimension

Amazon has recently issued The Dangerous Dimension for the Kindle. According to Amazon, this novel was written by L. Ron Hubbard. However, I did not see this novel on the list of L. Ron Hubbard's writings.

Is the novel actually written by L. Ron Hubbard? If so, shouldn't it be added to the article? --Fredrik Coulter (talk) 20:51, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Never mind. It's listed as a short story. --Fredrik Coulter (talk) 20:53, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Alma Mater

Why is George Washington University listed when he never received a degree? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.123.4.230 (talk) 18:26, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The broad definition of alma mater is a college which one has either attended or graduated from. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 23:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Need better source on Eagle Scout

If Eagle Scouts didn't exist at the time Hubbard was 13 years old, then why do they claim he earned Eagle at that age? Also, scientology.org is hardly a reliable source on something that should be confirmed by Boy Scouts of America, and not Scientologists, who have no authority on the history of the BSoA. 173.58.246.143 (talk) 18:03, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Picture

Since Hubbard is best known for his writing and Scientology, shouldn't the intro photo be of that time period? His military career lasted only 2-3 years of his life and was not particularly notable. Ashmoo (talk) 14:09, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it would be nice if there was a better photograph of Hubbard. However, Wikipedia has a strict image use policy, so we can't use any photograph we want. Wikimedia Commons has four freely licensed images of the man, two of which are about to be deleted due to copyright issues. If a good freely-licensed image of L. Ron is located, it may replace current lead image. Hubbard's military career is certainly notable, there is an article about it. Karppinen (talk) 10:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Disputed info about injuries

Disputed info about L. Ron Hubbard's injuries should not be presented simply as if it were fact [9]. -- Cirt (talk) 07:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

L Ron Hubbard's "Narconon"

Not mentioned in the article written is Mr. Hubbard's development of drug treatment centers of which I was a participant in 2005. if you want to read it there is /was a site called "Stop Narconon" --Nylablue (talk) 08:07, 12 November 2010 (UTC)Nylablue

138 Novels between 1933 and 1938???

The current edit on his L. Ron Hubbard's bio page says he wrote 138 novels between 1933 and 1938. I find that very unlikely, especially given his young age at the time (early to mid-twenties) and his lack of time and funds. Even if he did have the time and money, it is physically impossible to produce that much work in such a short period of time, at least without the help of an army of ghostwriters! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.60.46.202 (talk) 22:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Stuff to archive

Direct links to R. Lon Hubbard official website by the COS so that web.archive.org can get the content:

• http://www.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://www.lronhubbard.org/home.html - English
• http://br.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://br.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Brazilian Portuguese
• http://de.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://de.lronhubbard.org/home.html - German
• http://dk.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://dk.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Danish
• http://es.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://es.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Castillian Spanish
• http://fr.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://fr.lronhubbard.org/home.html - French
• http://gr.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://gr.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Greek
• http://hu.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://hu.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Hungarian
• http://il.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://il.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Hebrew
• http://il.lronhubbard.org/zh/main.swf
• http://il.lronhubbard.org/zh/home.html - Chinese
• http://it.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://it.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Italian
• http://jp.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://jp.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Japanese
• http://mx.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://mx.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Mexican Spanish
• http://nl.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://nl.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Dutch
• http://no.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://no.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Norwegian
• http://ru.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://ru.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Russian
• http://se.lronhubbard.org/main.swf
• http://se.lronhubbard.org/home.html - Swedish

WhisperToMe (talk) 02:54, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

As almost every bit of information in Margaret Grubb article is directly related to relationship between her and L. Ron Hubbard, I suspect that Grubb is not notable enough to deserve an article of her own. I propose that Margaret Grubb be merged into L. Ron Hubbard#Personal life. Karppinen (talk) 19:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

• There seems to be to much sourced information to merge into this article. So a separate article seems more appropriate. --Rob (talk) 19:22, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I doubt it. Adolf Hitler's health had more sourced information (than Grubb article) before it was merged to Adolf Hitler. Karppinen (talk) 19:38, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose, the Margaret Grubb article is extremely well-sourced and has enough material and is noteworthy and should stand on its own as a separate and independent article. -- Cirt (talk) 23:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, for the record, as I think this is moot now due to the creation of a new version of this article (see below.) Helatrobus (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

New version

To mark the 100th anniversary of L. Ron Hubbard's birth (due on March 13th, 2011), I've completely rewritten this article to resolve a number of problems including poor sourcing, choppy writing, a lack of neutrality and omitting a lot of important detail. I hope that this can be taken forward by other editors to good or even featured article status. If you have any comments about this new version, please leave them below. Helatrobus (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Someone has inserted the word "supposed" into the quotation of Mikael Rothstein. Does this word appear in the original book? --Codex01 (talk) 08:48, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

No. I've removed this addition. Helatrobus (talk) 21:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

• Scanning the article, this looks like a fine effort indeed. --JN466 00:13, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Re:Miller reference

I've taken your response into consideration yet I feel that the overwhelming quantity of references to "Bare-faced Messiah" within the article do not provide readers a "fair and proportional" view into the life of L. Ron Hubbard, as mandated by Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Here is an example:

In the last paragraph before the bibliography section we find a factoid about Miller's book: "The book was well-received by reviewers - Frenschkowski describes it as "the most important critical biography of Hubbard" This also lacks NPOV, because here we fail to address Frenschkowski's doubts about Miller's book. In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare-faced_Messiah, we find the following:

-(Marco Frenschkowski) added that Miller's book had "definitely exposed some inflated statements about Hubbard's early achievements," but that the Church of Scientology had been able to counter a number of the points made by Miller: "Hubbard's assertions about his military career in WWII, e.g., have been much nearer to the truth than Miller is trying to show.

-Sociologist J. Gordon Melton has stated that along with Stewart Lamont's Religion Inc., Miller's book is "by far the best" among the books published by Scientology critics, though he notes that the Church of Scientology has "prepared statements on each indicating factual errors and omissions."[25] According to Melton, Miller's book is compromised by its author's lack of access to documents charting the early history of the church.[25]

To provide a more balanced perspective of the book, I suggest that we add the following to the last paragraph before the bibliography seciton, referencing the Bare-faced Messiah Wikipedia page: "Frenschowski added however, that the Church of Scientology had been able to counter a number of the posts made by Miller: "Hubbard's assertions about his military career in WWII, e.g., have been much nearer to the truth than Miller is trying to show." Sociologist J. Gordon Melton also stated that Miller's book is compromised by its authors lack of access to documents charting the early history of the church."

Many thanks. I look forward to feedback and response.NestleNW911 (talk) 00:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I've made the summary of Frenschkowski more accurate. I'm not putting Melton, Nature and all the other the reviews of the book into this section: that's why there's a separate article. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:59, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

A valid point; thanks, NestleNW911. --JN466 17:42, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I have just re-edited the article to reduce the word count substantially, so have had to take out this material. I think it was somewhat unnecessary of me to include commentary on the pros and cons of Miller's book (which raises the question of why just that book?). I've therefore taken out all "perspectives" on the book, as its individual pros and cons are not really relevant to an overview of biographies in general. If readers want to find out more about it, the linked article on it provides extra detail. Helatrobus (talk) 04:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks - MartinPoulter and JN466. I've reviewed the change and it is fair and sound.

Additionally, in light of the coming L. Ron Hubbard centennial celebration, I propose adding a short segment about it. The West Valley City Council in Utah approved a proclamation declaring March 13 as L. Ron Hubbard Centennial Day. Details here: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/51206472-78/proclamation-hubbard-proclamations-march.html.csp.

The celebration is from 12-14 March 2011 in Clearwater and the week after in every Church and Mission in the world. The article covers this as "a celebration marking the day is planned for next month." (March)

I propose the following edit; I am proposing a new separate category because I have not found an existing one that would be appropriate for the new information contained here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NestleNW911 (talk • contribs)

Observations

I've made some notes as I read the article:

• The Origins of Dianetics section begins with "After resolving the situation with Parsons..." This phrase is very vague and should be deleted or elaborated on. Preferably elaborated on. I would love to know what that means and hope someone can explain. Did Hubbard and Parsons reconcile? Addressed
• In the following sentence, should "He supported himself for a while with short-term odd jobs..." read "He supported himself and Sara for a while with short-term odd jobs"? Addressed
• "Odd jobs" sounds like sweeping people's driveways or similar. If that's the kind of work he was doing that's fine but if not, I think you could delete "odd." Addressed
• The sentence continues with "...before traveling to New York City to resume his fiction writing..." but the next sentence has him in North Hollywood. It seems a little sudden.
• The "charge of petty theft" is intriguing and I'd like to know what he stole, and from whom, if that was recorded.
• The Joseph Winter the article links to was 6 years old at the time of the events described. Addressed
• "Hubbard collaborated with Campbell and Winter collaborated to refine his techniques..." seems clumsy and I'm not quite sure what is meant. Addressed
• "The Church of Scientology has denied that Hubbard said and..." There's a word missing. Addressed
• "The FBI had a lengthy file on him and regarded him as 'a mental case'." This is cited to Miller p. 181. Earlier, you said "The FBI did not take Hubbard seriously and annotated his correspondence with the comment: 'Appears mental'" citing Methvin p.16. If they're both using the same primary source, it is clear "mental" is the assessment of one FBI officer, and to say the FBI regarded him as mental is an exaggeration. Addressed [10]
• "...though not his first son Nibs, who had defected from Scientology in late 1959." The last we heard of Nibs, he was a toddler in the custody of his mother. It's a bit jarring mentioning his defection without having touched on his involvement with either his father or the organisation. If elaboration would add too much text, you could delete this phrase without losing anything, in my opinion. Addressed
• In the next section, Life in hiding, the words "attacks on psychiatrists" is too ambiguous. "Attacks" can mean "harassment," but it can also mean physical assault. Unless you mean to imply physical assault, then "harassment" may be a better choice of term. Addressed

--Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:40, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

This is very much appreciated. I've made some minor changes straight away. The other points will require me to check sources which I don't have right here. but can access in the next couple of days. MartinPoulter (talk) 20:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I think these are addressed now by changes to the article, apart from the petty theft, about which Miller writes, "Ron never mentioned the incident to his friends and the court files were destroyed in 1955, so it will never be known precisely what he had done wrong." MartinPoulter (talk) 11:31, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks Martin. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 16:54, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Science fiction writers' opinion of LRH

Here are some quotes from L. Sprague de Camp's Science-Fiction Handbook (1953; New York: Hermitage House) that may be useful.

"La Fayette Ronald Hubbard ... is a tall red-haired adventurer with the appearance of a Pan who has been doing himself a bit too well on the ambrosia. A man of overpowering personal charm ... He was established as a writer of general pulp fiction, especially western and sea stories, when he burst into science fiction in 1938. From then until 1942 he sold many stories under the names "L. Ron Hubbard", "Rene Lafayette", and "Kurt von Rachen", mostly to Astounding and Unknown. His best-known stories from this period are the forceful novel Final Blackout, a forecast of World War II, and several rollicking adventure-fantasy novels in Unknown, notably the Arabian-Nights extravaganzas Slaves of Sleep and The Ultimate Adventure ....

"Hubbard's stories fall into two groups: light humorous adventure-tales, zestful and amusing though carelessly thrown together, and more serious stories wherein the hero is a lonely leader, a solitary natural aristocrat who has to kick the unappreciative clods around for their own good. It is easy to surmise whom Hubbard has in mind in his portrayal of this character. Hubbard's point of view, like those of Eddison and Fowler Wright, is so markedly aristocratic that he has been accused of Fascist leanings.

"After a moderately distinguished career as an officer in the Naval Reserve during the war, Hubbard resumed the writing of science fiction, contributing some rather good stories to Astounding about an immortal interplanetary physician, Doc Methuselah, who flies about the galaxy stopping plagues and toppling tyrants".

I will post more opinions of Hubbard's work from his peers in the sf world if I can find anything else that looks useful. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

This source is definitely worth mentioning. I assume it's this book? A page number for the above would be welcome. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:48, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

It's from pages 93–94 of the first edition. Mike Christie (talk – library) 14:59, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Another source, Isaac Asimov's In Memory Yet Green, positions Hubbard in the pantheon of sf writers in 1941: Asimov lists Heinlein and van Vogt as the leading names, and adds "such scarcely lesser names as Hubbard, de Camp, del Rey and Sturgeon". Page 296 of the first edition; 1979; Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-13679-X. Also, on p. 413, Asimov describes an evening attended by the Heinleins, de Camps, and Williamsons, where Hubbard was "the star of the evening", tellings stories and singing and captivating all at the party. Asimov comments that despite Hubbard's later fame he remembers him "only for that evening". Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

There's also quite a bit in Damon Knight's In Search of Wonder; I will post some of that this evening. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I am confused what the releavance of this is to the article? The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 18:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Because 90% of the external opinion in it is scientology-related, even though Hubbard first rose to fame for very different reasons. Circéus (talk) 19:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok sure I follow now, I suggest you work a way to include it with out excessive quotes and what not bt i agree his Sci-fi and pulp work should be included The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 20:07, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Having given more thought I think it is a great idea to include it. We had more on his Sci-fi work but most of the sources didn't stand up to scrutiny so such things were useful. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:43, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

There's a little more background on Martin's and my talk pages; I offered help with any sf-related sources and he suggested some material like this might be useful. Got to go out for the evening; I will add something from Knight when I get back. Mike Christie (talk – library) 22:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I see that the Asimov source is used in the article; I hadn't read it (I was just trying to help with sources) so I apologize for the duplication. Here's some material from Damon Knight. This is from In Search of Wonder; my copy is 0-911682-15-5, November 1974 printing of the March 1967 second edition, from Advent: Publishers, Inc., in Chicago. First edition was 1956. The material in question is reprinted from book reviews Knight published in the early 1950s. In many cases I have the original magazines and can dig out the original citations if it is necessary to do so -- it might be useful since otherwise the publication date of the book makes it sound like an assessment made much later in Hubbard's career than is actually the case. From pp. 37-40:

"Hubbard was the typus of a now-vanishing tribe of pulp-writers: like Tom Roan, who made occasional appearances in editorial offices wearing a ten-gallon hat and swearing like a muleskinner; like Norvell Page, who affected an opera cloak and a Mephistophelean goatee, Hubbard lived what he wrote. Big, swaggering and red-haired (like many of his heroes); sailor, explorer, adventurer; a man among men and a devil with the ladies, he cut a swath across the science-fantasy world the likes of which has never been seen again.

"In 1950, as the world knows, he catapulted to best-sellerdom and nationwide notoriety; a year later, trailing a cloud of lawsuits, he disappeared into the limbo of the Middle West, where at last report he remains.

"He leaves behind an undiminished throng of admirers, a few friends and, I think, a rather larger number of enemies; a growing body of legend; and upwards of ten short novels, most of them originally published in the early forties."

Knight goes on to provide a two page review of Fear and Typewriter in the Sky. Of the latter, Knight says "The problem is a tough one, and Hubbard does not so much solve it as slide around it: the story-within-a-story winds up with a pointless final scene involving Mike and the heroine ... This weakness is more than compensated for by the ending of the story itself—three immortal lines: "Up there— God? In a dirty bathrobe?" Knight's opinion of Fear is that it's "a good story that might have been a great one. Parts of it are magnificently written; a few passages [he quotes one] are pure dream-logic and dream poetry; as good as anything in Carroll. Others are dull or irrelevant, and large sections are unforgivably bad. The same is true of Typewriter in the Sky—and, indeed, of nearly all Hubbard's work." Knight summarizes by saying:

"He wrote, we are are told, on an electric typewriter, because no manually powered one could keep up with him. In [Fear and Typewriter in the Sky] and elsewhere, there is ample proof that Hubbard had an exquisite word sense, when he wanted to use it; and equally ample proof that he seldom bothered.

"These two stories—particularly the second [Fear]— are monuments to a prodigal talent, prodigally wasted."

I also found an aside by James Blish in a review from the 1950s that refers to Hubbard as a "sloppy writer"; that's probably too short to be useful, but I can cite it if needed. Mike Christie (talk – library) 15:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Mike for this research: I'll take a detailed look at what to include later on. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, interesting research. Thanks, Mike. It's refreshing to have some sources that are untainted by the Scientology controversy. --JN466 17:51, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Robert Heinlein's Authorized Biography is finally in print (the first volume at least, "Learning Curve | 1907 - 1948", William H. Patterson, Tom Doherty Associates, 2010), and it contains some remarks about Hubbard from Heinlein's papers and letters. The party mentioned by Asimov is described and Heinlein's memory is similar: Hubbard was the star. Eventually (after letting him live in his house for a while) Heinlein decided that Hubbard was unreliable in money matters and otherwise; there's an undercurrent of ill-will running through his later mentions of Hubbard, but this was also at the time that Heinlein's marriage to Leslyn was breaking up because of her drinking and general craziness, as well as Heinlein having health problems, so he was generally feeling down. Also of interest is that Heinlein, a graduate of the Naval Academy, considered Hubbard a war hero, saying that he kept returning to combat after being severely wounded, which is surely at variance with Hubbard's official record. How much of this is attributable to what Heinlein was told by Hubbard himself and might be fictitious is not dealt with in the book. Wastrel Way (talk) 15:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Another observation

I think the definition is problematic. Hubbard is known as a founder of scientology not primarily as a fiction writer. I don't think there is a tradition for defining people through their original occupation, but through the one that lead them to fame. We don't write about Hitler that he was a "painter turned politician". I think in this case it gives a non-neutral feeling to the definition and the rest of the article will inevitably be read in this light. I am sure you probably discussed this, but I wanted to let you know that I (with no ties to scientology) think you made the wrong decision and that it makes wikipedia look bad .·Maunus·ƛ· 00:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying that highlighting he was a science fiction writer could make it seem like he made up Scientology as well, and we should hide/muffle that fact? L. Ron established a career making up things, his first career is very notable and very relevant to his later works, Hitler however did nothing significant with his painting. 118.93.77.175 (talk) 01:10, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Well they say he could paint an entire apartment in a day. I mean that the wording "turned" establishes one as his primary identity and the other as a development of secondary importance. Without knowing it I would assume that followers of scientotolgy do not see his role as founder of their religions as secondary. A more apt comparison may be tht we don't describe Jesus as a "Nazarene carpenter turned messiah" or Mohammed as "a merchant turned prophet" or Jpseph Smith a "farmer turned apostle". All founders of religion were something before they became religion founders. Saying that his identity as writer is principal and as founder secondary amounts to a value judgment about his religious role.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:24, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it's following a simple and logical chronological order of his life - he was a writer of fiction for years and it would be inappropriate to completely omit this when it is what the majority of the article is focused on. The lede is a summary of the article and it would be strange to omit his profession (unless we're going to call founding a religion a profession). I understand your analogies, but (ignoring personal beliefs towards these figures for the sake of this conversation) none of their earlier professions would have earned them any rapport. Scientology should not be given undue weight here - L Ron. Hubbard is a real person in the contemporary world with a well documented life, as opposed to Jesus for example who is... a historical figure shall we say. Mentioning and focusing on his profession may be more inappropriate on the Scientology article, but this is an article on his life, not the religion he founded. I don't think that Scientologists have any issues with his profession either, or it wouldn't be in the lede anyway ;). 118.93.77.175 (talk) 01:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Can you supprt my change of the "turned" to an "and"? or should we wait some more comments to decide which is preferable?·Maunus·ƛ· 02:07, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I got got caught up in an edit conflict, but I was going to say basically the same thing the anon did. There is no implication of importance in the manner you're stating which I can see. Its merely presented chronologically. Hubbard was well known and successful as a sci fi writer while Hitler was never a serious success, and Jesus was just a local carpenter. AaronY (talk) 02:21, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Addressed I support Maunus' change. More neutral. More encyclopedic. Less tabloid. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:11, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

One could argue that it is less neutral, because it implies that the two events are not closely related. More encyclopedic in what way? By distorting the facts? You'd be hard pressed to say the phrasing "x turned y" is tabloid. I don't support the change, or your hazy rationale for it. 06:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Anthonyhcole that the use of and shows that there were two distinct sides to Hubbard: he was a writer and the creator of a religion. His last books shows he was both, not turned from one to the other. Nasnema  Chat  07:33, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I speak only for myself but I first knew Hubbard as a science fiction writer. His books were regularly in my line of sight on the shelves of the local bookshop. Parrot of Doom 11:21, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Seconded. I've always viewed him primarily as an author. His history as the founder of scientology was not something I ever considered until a couple years ago. Resolute 22:34, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Eagle Scout: Citation Needed

This page has as a category "Eagle Scouts" but there is no citation supporting that. Guy Macon (talk) 10:59, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

It was moved into the early life article. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 20:04, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

L. Ron Hubbard Centennial Celebration

March 13, 2011 marks the 100th year of L. Ron Hubbard’s birth and the L. Ron Hubbard Centennial Celebration. On Feb 22, 2011 The City Council of West Valley City, Utah approved a proclamation declaring March 13 as L. Ron Hubbard Centennial Day. The proclamation will be sent to Tampa, Florida, where a celebration marking the day is planned in March.

Awaiting feedback and response. Many thanks.NestleNW911 (talk) 00:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't favor including this material. The centennial celebration is an ephemeral event and a proclamation by an obscure city in Utah does not strike me as being particularly notable. I have just substantially reduced the length of the article, so I think we should avoid adding new material unless it is absolutely essential. Helatrobus (talk) 04:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Helatrobus. There are city proclamations about all sorts of things all the time. Including them in the article does not illuminate or inform about the subject. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Helatrobus, Thank you for your comment. I favor the inclusion of this material and disagree that a Centennial is ephemeral. Hubbard's legacy is kept alive by an international movement decades after his death and a city declares L. Ron Hubbard Day. This is notable, especially in a BLP article. Your argument could be used to remove almost anything in the article, including reference to Hubbard's military career. NestleNW911 (talk) 01:08, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Nestle, I agree with you that it is a remakable achievement to international movement following your teaching a hundred years after one's death. However this instance of this procolomation seems unrelated to the Biography on Hubbard though does involve Hubbard legacy. If there is something notable occurs at the Event in Tampa than a sentence in CoS article might be warranted. The city makes this sound like routine event for this type of procolomation thus I cant really see whether its all that important. The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 01:24, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Um, it's twenty-five years after his death, not a hundred... -- megA (talk) 10:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Just to add my two cents, I don't think it warrants inclusion in this article, for the reasons given by Helatrobus and Martin above. Mike Christie (talk – library) 02:01, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Two more cents, also agreeing with Helatrobus and MartinPoulter. BTfromLA (talk) 03:59, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:51, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Likewise agree with Helatrobus and MartinPoulter. Yorkist (talk) 15:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Please don't read too much into the Utah city's action. Somebody presented a petition; the council voted on it and then moved on to real business. Many such meaningless petitions are routinely approved out here, for fear of offending some group or other.Raymondwinn (talk) 20:27, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Racist diary entry image

"They smell of all the baths they didn't take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here." There used to be a photo of this diary entry page, in LRH's own hand, in the article. What happened to that? --98.232.180.170 (talk) 04:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Some Issues: NPOV

This new version of the LRH Wikipedia Page has some issues in NPOV, as I've observed. Here are a few I've noticed:

1) A large part of the article is based on Russell Miller’s “Bare-faced Messiah”, published more than 20 years ago. Should we trust this resource? His research was assisted by Gerry Armstrong – a “disaffected former employee” of Scientology (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare-faced_Messiah). This gives the article an obvious bias, and we cannot be sure this “research “ is factual.

2) This paragraph alone is reflective of the lack of NPOV of this article and seems like a snippet from a tabloid, apart from the fact that the veracity of this story is not proven. Again it is based on Miller’s book. It is lengthy and unnecessarily detailed; it violates WP: Undue Weight.

“After seeing Qingdao he wrote: "A Chinaman can not live up to a thing, he always drags it down." He characterized the sights of Beijing as "rubberneck stations" for tourists and described the palaces of the Forbidden City as "very trashy-looking" and "not worth mentioning". He visited a section of the Great Wall of China near Beijing, which did impress him,[44] but his overall conclusion of the Chinese was very negative: "They smell of all the baths they didn't take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here."[45]”

Thank you for reading. I look forward to your feedback -- all in the effort of making articles in WikiProject Scientology more NPOV.NestleNW911 (talk) 01:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Miller's book can be trusted as it is a Reliable Source according to Wikipedia policy, and in fact an excellent example of one. It is not a first-hand account by Armstrong. Miller made the judgement of what to write and his publisher decided what to publish. Armstrong's role seems to have been to provide documents which Miller used alongside other documents and interviews. Miller is a reputable investigative journalist and the book contains hundreds of end-notes. To say that this reliable source introduces an "obvious bias" to the article seems very far-fetched.

A phrase like "his overall conclusion of the Chinese was very negative" does not smell tabloid to me. It rather seems like a neutral reporting of a person's statements. The quotes are backed by a reliable source as discussed above. The Church of Scientology has endorsed them as genuine quotes from Hubbard. A court case arose out of the publication of the book in which the Church claimed copyright protection for Hubbard's unpublished writings. Sources for this are given in the link that you cite, especially the Oregon Law Review link. Note that the authenticity of the quotes was not contested: the Scientologists claimed the quotes were genuine and that Miller was not allowed to use them because they were previously unpublished.

Hubbard made many more comments about China than have been included in the article. The paragraph is a succinct summary, just as it should be. For example, it does not include "When it comes to the Yellow races overrunning the world, you may laugh [...] The Chinese have neither the foresight or endurance to overrun any white country in any way except by intermarriage. One American marine could stand off a great many yellowmen without much effort." or his other comments about Chinese landmarks. A reproduction of Hubbard's words about Chinese people is important to understanding his character: this came up in the legal argument (again, the source is the Oregon Law Review).

I invite you to consult again the policies you've cited, as I don't think they apply to this article in the way you suggest. Thanks for your comments, MartinPoulter (talk) 16:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's an analogy to make it clearer: when the New York Times or the Guardian writes about the war in Afghanistan, they often use documents sourced from Wikileaks. Those documents may well have been leaked by a disaffected insider with a grievance against his or her employer, but that in itself doesn't mean those newspaper articles aren't reliable sources for Wikipedia, or are somehow biased. One reason is that the disaffected employee is merely providing source documents, not their own opinions. Another reason is that the article will be written by a qualified journalist who will consider the document alongside other research before deciding what conclusions to draw. The secondary sources (newspaper articles) that result are particularly good examples of reliable sources, because they are informed by primary source documents. This is an exact analogy with the Miller book. MartinPoulter (talk) 13:11, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The two most cited references document the subject in a way that is not particularly neutral. Both Miller's book and Atack's take viewpoints that are deliberately biased against the subject. Hence it seems that writing this article based primarily on these two books makes it difficult to provide a balanced viewpoint. It seems like much of the controversy surrounding the subject in this article should have its own section labeled "controversy", rather than having it show up throughout. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flizvoz (talk • contribs) 03:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

While Miller and Atack's books are certainly critical of Hubbard, it is unfair to describe them as "deliberately biased against the subject." The large majority of accounts of Hubbard's life by reputable journalists (and, more rarely, scholars), over decades, across continents and associated with a wide array of publishers and publications, have determined that objective facts that emerge from their research--as well as the preponderance of first-person testimonials by people not representing the Church--very often flatly contradict the self-representations offered by Hubbard and the Church. If numerous credible independent researchers arrive at the same conclusion, that does not imply that they are "deliberately biased." Quite the opposite. -- BTfromLA (talk) 04:14, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

A bigger issue with the article is that much of the historical account is phrased in such a way as to emphasise sometimes minor descriptive differences in accounts of Hubbard's life - as such it resembles more a point-by-point rebuttal of Church of Scientology accounts than historical narrative. For example the article amusingly contrasts the Church of Scientology's florid descriptions of Hubbard's Chinese travels with the casual racism in his diaries (given more weight than many millions of other words he's written...), rather than observing he visited certain locations in China (not in dispute) and left with a very unfavourable impression of the local people (not in dispute) before calling into question how much Eastern philosophy he might actually have absorbed in that period. It's probably worth noting his diaries used racial epithets and despite Church of Scientology claims left no record of any forays into the Manchurian foothills, but without such emphasis.I'm somewhat reluctant to dive in and substantially rewrite something so meticulously researched and written but compare my "neutral" redraft of his time in Puerto Rico with the phrasing of the corresponding paragraphs of the article:

After leaving university Hubbard traveled to Puerto Rico in November 1932, initially forming part of the Red Cross relief effort following the devastating San Ciprian hurricane[cite]. Hubbard recorded that he spent much of his time in Puerto Rico prospecting unsuccessfully for gold, which the Church of Scientology claims resulted in "the first complete mineraleogical survey of Puerto Rico under United States jurisdiction"[cite]. Hubbard appears to have accompanied a surveyor for a Washington D.C. firm called West Indies Minerals Incorporated in an investigation of a small property near Luqillo[cite] towards the end of his stay, but his unofficial biographer Russell Miller found the United States Geological Survey had no records of any wider survey[cite].

The Church of Scientology also suggests Hubbard carried out "much ethnological work amongst the interior villages and native hillsmen"[cite], but Hubbard himself regarded his time in Puerto Rico as "a failure" due to an inability to find gold [original Hubbard quote]Dtellett (talk) 17:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Leader or Charlatan?

I have changed the term "religious leader" in the first paragraph to "religious charlatan" to reflect a known fact. Hubbard, and other Scientology figures, were convicted of fraud in 1978 by a French court of law; therefore, referring to him as a charlatan is neither opinion nor speculation, but a matter of public record. This information is readily accessible on the web; but if challenged, I will supply references. Jbmweb1 (talk) 20:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC) jbmweb1

I think the current article (your edit was reverted) does a pretty good job of allowing a reader to become informed and form their own assessment, without the need for editorial commentary. I agree that it is frustrating that such people are taken seriously, but I fully support the WP:NPOV text that does great credit to Wikipedia in general, and the editors who produced the text in particular. Johnuniq (talk) 01:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism

There has been an unusual amount of vandalism on this page recently, reverted both by admins and the "Cluebot." I propose that the page be "semi-protected" to prevent further vandalism. I believe that this is a better solution than repetitively reverting them. The David Miscavige page, for example, has been semi-protected because of the same reasons. Thoughts? NestleNW911 (talk) 22:47, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

If warranted (I haven't checked), semi protection should be requested at WP:RFPP. Johnuniq (talk) 01:58, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I checked the history and there hasn't been an inordinate amount of vandalism since protection expired (following the March 13th main page listing). Less than one act every couple of days is fairly light for controversial subjects, unfortunately, -- and not considered heavy enough for automatic protection. However, I also noticed there hasn't been any positive edits from IPs or non-autoconfirmed accounts as of late, so if vandal activity picks up appreciably, I would agree to extending semi-protection. In the meantime, the article is heavily watchlisted. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 19:57, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Errors in Wikipedia article L. Ron Hubbard

Dear Wikipedia Editors:

I am the Gerry Armstrong referred to in your article about L. Ron Hubbard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard

I am writing to ask you to correct some factual errors about me in this article.

Your article states:

Shannon's findings were acquired by Gerry Armstrong, a Scientologist who had been appointed Hubbard's official archivist.[317] He had been given the job of assembling documents relating to Hubbard's life for the purpose of helping Omar V. Garrison, a non-Scientologist who had written two books sympathetic to Scientology, to write an official biography. However, the documents that he uncovered convinced both Armstrong and Garrison that Hubbard had systematically misrepresented his life. Garrison refused to write a "puff piece" and declared that he would not "repeat all the falsehoods they [the Church of Scientology] had perpetuated over the years." He wrote a "warts and all" biography while Armstrong quit Scientology, taking five boxes of papers with him. The Church of Scientology and Mary Sue Hubbard sued for the return of the documents while settling out of court with Garrison, requiring him to turn over the nearly completed manuscript of the biography.[318] In October 1984 Judge Paul G. Breckenridge ruled in Armstrong's favor, saying:

The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile. At the same time it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating and inspiring his adherents. He has been referred to during the trial as a "genius", a "revered person", a man who was "viewed by his followers in awe". Obviously, he is and has been a very complex person and that complexity is further reflected in his alter ego, the Church of Scientology.[319]

Please also see your article “Church of Scientology of California v. Gerald Armstrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology_v._Gerald_Armstrong

The best source for the facts relating to the events described in your paragraph quoted above is the decision in the Scientology v. Armstrong case, Los Angeles Superior Court No. C 420153, from which the language of Judge Breckenridge was taken. Your note 319 for your L. Ron Hubbard article is that decision, although the date is wrong. The memorandum of intended decision was signed June 20, 1984, filed June 22, 1984, and made the judgment in the case August 10, 1984. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/ga/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/breckenridge-decision1.pdf I don’t know where your “October 1984” date comes from.

1. It’s not quite accurate to say that I “had been given the job of assembling documents relating to Hubbard's life for the purpose of helping Omar V. Garrison […] to write an official biography.”

I petitioned Hubbard on January 8, 1980 “to be posted to handle research for [his] biography and related projects,” which would include collecting and preserving Hubbard materials from around the world, and “liaison with the Biographer for documentation and data.” http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/historical/petition-1980-01-08.pdf

From the Breckenridge decision:

On January 8, 1980, Defendant Armstrong wrote a petition to Hubbard requesting his permission to perform the research for a biography to be done about his life. The petition states that Defendant Armstrong had located the subject materials and lists of a number of activities he wished to perform in connection with the biography research.

Hubbard approved the petition, and Defendant Armstrong became the L. Ron Hubbard Personal Relations Officer Researcher (PPRO Res).

Although I mentioned Garrison in my petition to Hubbard, it was only as a possible future biographer, whose writing my research and archiving would help. Hubbard approved my petition within a few days. But Garrison hadn’t been approached because the discovered documents weren’t known about, and he wasn’t contracted until October 30, 1980.

That particular passage is easy enough to rewrite accurately using the relevant language from my petition to Hubbard and the Breckenridge decision/judgment. You also link to the appellate decision affirming Breckenridge. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/ga/wp-content/uploads/1991/07/283calrptr917.pdf

2. It’s wrong to say that Garrision “wrote a "warts and all" biography while Armstrong quit Scientology, taking five boxes of papers with him. The Church of Scientology and Mary Sue Hubbard sued for the return of the documents…”

When I left the Sea Org and Scientology, December 12, 1981, I took no boxes of papers with me, or any papers with me, for the return of which, or not, Scientology and Ms. Hubbard sued me.

It appears that you have obtained this information from an article “Writer tells of Hubbard's 'faked past'” by George-Wayne Shelor in the Clearwater Sun, May 10, 1984. http://www.xenu-directory.net/news/library-item.php?iid=1885 See your note 318.

The date of the Shelor article is important. Scientology and Ms. Hubbard had rested their case against me on May 9, 1984, which Shelor mentions. He also reported in the article about Omar Garrison’s deposition testimony, taken some time earlier in the case, being read into the record, which was May 9, 1984. See the trial transcript at http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/2505.php

Shelor writes in this article:

The sect and Mrs. Hubbard are suing Armstrong for the return of five boxes of documents, pictures and letters in the custody of the Los Angeles county clerk pending the outcome of the trial.

Armstrong, a Scientologist for 11 years, took the documents when, as appointed archivist, he discovered they proved Hubbard had misrepresented himself over the years by fictionalizing his personal background, military exploits and educational achievements.

It is true that Scientology and Ms. Hubbard were suing me concerning five boxes of documents that were in the custody of the clerk of the court. It is not true, however, that I took these documents when I discovered they proved Hubbard had misrepresented himself.

I discovered that Hubbard’s documents proved he misrepresented himself bit by bit over my time as his authorized personal biography researcher in 1980 and 1981. I continued to discover this from his documents after leaving, and still discover this. The subject five boxes of documents, however, I was given by, and took from, Omar Garrison some months after I left the Sea Org and Scientology.

Following the plaintiffs resting in my 1984 LA Superior Court trial, my attorneys and I put on my defense, which lasted until June 5, 1984. The admissibility of exhibits was argued and decided through June 7. Closing arguments were June 8. Judge Breckenridge signed his decision, as noted above, on June 20.

Judge Breckenridge, who had heard the defense case after the plaintiffs rested, stated in his decision about my taking of the subject documents:

The court has found the facts essentially as set forth in defendant’s trial brief, which as modified, is attached as an appendix to this memorandum. In addition the court finds that while working for L.R. Hubbard (hereinafter referred to as LRH), the defendant also had an informal employer-employee relationship with plaintiff Church, but had permission and authority from plaintiffs and LRH to provide Omar Garrison with every document or object that was made available to Mr. Garrison, and further, had permission from Omar Garrison to take and deliver to his attorneys the documents and materials which were subsequently delivered to them and thenceforth into the custody of the County Clerk.

[…]

The documents were all together in Omar Garrison’s possession.

[…]

From his extensive knowledge of the covert and intelligence operations carried out by the Church of Scientology of California against its enemies (suppressive persons), Defendant Armstrong became terrified and feared that his life and the life of his wife were in danger, and he also feared he would be the target of costly and harassing lawsuits.

In addition, Mr. Garrison became afraid for the security of the documents and believed that the intelligence network of the Church of Scientology would break and enter his home to retrieve them. Thus, Defendant Armstrong made copies of certain documents for Mr. Garrison and maintained them in a separate location.

It was thereafter, in the summer of 1982, that Defendant Armstrong asked Mr. Garrison for copies of documents to use in his defense and sent the documents to his attorneys, Michael Flynn and Contos & Bunch.

Please also refer to A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack, which you link to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Piece_of_Blue_Sky http://www.xenu.net/archive/books/apobs/bs8-1.htm

Of all the court cases, two stand out. Their verdicts came down within a month of each other: one in Los Angeles, the other in London. The first, and perhaps the most revealing to date, was the case brought by the Scientologists against Gerald Armstrong. Armstrong had joined the Sea Org in 1971. Over the years he held various positions close to Hubbard. During the trial he gave detailed testimony of these periods, and of his time in the Rehabilitation Project Force. His accounts highlighted the extreme duress of life in the Sea Org.

Armstrong saved over twenty boxes of Hubbard letters, diaries and photographs from the shredder at Gilman Hot Springs. On January 8, 1980, he wrote to Hubbard asking permission to collect material for a biography. A few years earlier Hubbard had lamented that no biography could be written because his personal documents had been stolen, and the great Conspiracy against him would by now have altered all public records.

Far from being stolen by the Russians in the early 1950s, as Hubbard had claimed, his personal archive had quite remarkably been preserved. When the Hubbards left Washington for Saint Hill, in spring 1959, the boxes had been put into storage, where they stayed until the late 1970s. Somehow they had been shipped to La Quinta, and thence to Gilman. Armstrong was excited by the discovery, as it would no longer be necessary to rely on the supposedly corrupted government records, with Hubbard's personal documents in hand.

Hubbard approved Armstrong's request only days before he went into deep hiding. Armstrong was titled "L. Ron Hubbard Personal Public Relations Office Researcher," and he collected over half a million pages of material by the end of 1981.

Omar Garrison, who had already written two books favorable to Scientology, was contracted to write the biography in October 1980, and the Archives were made available to him. Armstrong became Garrison's research assistant, copying tens of thousands of the most relevant documents for Garrison's use.

In his judgment in the Scientologists' case against Armstrong, Judge Breckenridge explained the gradual erosion of Armstrong's faith in Hubbard:

During 1980 Defendant Armstrong remained convinced of Hubbard's honesty and integrity and believed that the representations he had made about himself in various publications were truthful. Defendant Armstrong was devoted to Hubbard and was convinced that any information which he discovered to be unflattering of Hubbard or contradictory to what Hubbard has said about himself, was a lie being spread by Hubbard's enemies. Even when Defendant Armstrong located documents in Hubbard's Archives which indicated that representations made by Hubbard and the Organization were untrue, Defendant Armstrong would find some means to "explain away" the contradictory information.

Slowly, however, throughout 1981, Defendant Armstrong began to see that Hubbard and the Organization had continuously lied about Hubbard's past, his credentials, and his accomplishments.

Armstrong began a campaign to correct the numerous misrepresentations, but met with considerable resistance. In November 1981, he was ordered back to Gilman from Los Angeles. He was told by senior Church official Norman Starkey that he was to be Security-checked. There was no desire to correct Hubbard's biography. To this day, Scientology Orgs sell books which contain the very biographies which Armstrong had proved false; Hubbard's Mission into Time is the worst example of many.

On November 25, 1981, Armstrong wrote to Commodore's Messenger Cirrus Slevin:

If we present inaccuracies, hyperbole or downright lies as fact or truth, it doesn't matter what slant we give them, if disproved the man will look, to outsiders at least, like a charlatan. This is what I'm trying to prevent and what I've been working on the past year and a half.

A few weeks later, Armstrong decided to leave the Church. Before leaving, he worked desperately hard to ensure that Omar Garrison had all of the documents necessary for an honest biography. After leaving, he maintained contact with the Biography Project, even helping to find documents in the Archives when the new Archivist was unable to do so, for two months following his departure. Judge Breckenridge's opinion continues:

On February 18, 1982, the Church of Scientology International issued a "Suppressive Person Declare Gerry Armstrong," which is an official Scientology document issued against individuals who are considered enemies of the Organization . . .

Defendant Armstrong was unaware of said Suppressive Person Declare until April of 1982. At that time a revised Declare was issued on April 22, 1982. Said Declare charged Defendant Armstrong with eighteen different "Crimes and High Crimes and Suppressive Acts Against the Church." The charges included theft, juggling accounts, obtaining loans on [sic] money under false pretenses, promulgating false information about the Church, its founder, and members, and other untruthful allegations designed to make Defendant Armstrong an appropriate subject of the Scientology "Fair Game Doctrine." Said Doctrine allows any suppressive person to be "tricked, cheated, lied to, sued, or destroyed."

. . . from his extensive knowledge of the covert and intelligence operations carried out by the Church of Scientology of California against its enemies (suppressive persons), Defendant Armstrong became terrified and feared that his life and the life of his wife were in danger, and he also feared he would be the target of costly and harassing lawsuits. In addition, Mr. Garrison became afraid for the security of the documents and believed that the intelligence network of the Church of Scientology would break and enter his home to retrieve them. Thus Defendant Armstrong made copies of certain documents for Mr. Garrison and maintained them in a separate location.

Armstrong, with Garrison's permission, made copies of about 10,000 pages of these documents, and deposited them with attorneys for safe keeping. Michael Flynn was one of these attorneys. On August 2, 1982, the Church of Scientology of California filed suit against Gerald Armstrong for Conversion (a form of theft); breach of fiduciary duty (breach of trust); and breach of confidence. Mary Sue Hubbard joined the suit against Armstrong as an "intervenor," and added a charge of "Invasion of Privacy" to the suit. Judge Breckenridge's opinion continues:

After the within suit was filed . . . Defendant Armstrong was the subject of harassment, including being followed and surveilled by individuals who admitted employment by Plaintiff; being assaulted by one of these individuals; being struck bodily by a car driven by one of these individuals; having two attempts made by said individuals apparently to involve Defendant Armstrong in a freeway automobile accident; having said individuals come onto Defendant Armstrong's property, spy in his windows, create disturbances, and upset his neighbors. During trial when it appeared that Howard Schomer (a former Scientologist) might be called as a defense witness, the Church engaged in a somewhat sophisticated effort to suppress his testimony.

After hearing four weeks of testimony, and deliberating for two weeks, Judge Breckenridge ruled that Gerald Armstrong was entitled to judgment and costs. The preceding quotations come from a fifteen-page appendix to the opinion. The main body of the decision is one of the most forceful statements ever made against the Church of Scientology. Of the Founder and his Church, Judge Breckenridge wrote:

In addition to violating and abusing its own members' civil rights, the organization over the years with its "Fair Game" doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in the Church whom it perceives as enemies. The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH.

The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background, and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile.

At the same time it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating, and inspiring his adherents. He has been referred to during the trial as a "genius," a "revered person," a man who was "viewed by his followers in awe." Obviously, he is and has been a very complex person, and that complexity is further reflected in his alter ego, the Church of Scientology. Notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, this court is satisfied that LRH runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore's Messengers. He has, of course, chosen to go into "seclusion," but he maintains contact and control through the top messengers. Seclusion has its light and dark side too. It adds to his mystique, and yet shields him from accountability and subpoena or service of summons.

LRH's wife, Mary Sue Hubbard is also a plaintiff herein. On the one hand she certainly appeared to be a pathetic individual. She was forced from her post as Controller, convicted and imprisoned as a felon, and deserted by her husband. On the other hand her credibility leaves much to be desired. She struck the familiar pose of not seeing, hearing, or knowing any evil. Yet she was the head of the Guardian Office for years and among other things, authored the infamous order "GO [Guardian's Order] 121669" which directed culling of supposedly confidential P.C. [Preclear] files/folders for the purposes of internal security. In her testimony she expressed the feelings that defendant by delivering the documents, writings, letters to his attorneys, subjected her to mental rape .... The court is satisfied that he [Armstrong] did not unreasonably intrude upon Mrs. Hubbard's privacy under the circumstances. . . . It is, of course, rather ironic that the person who authorized G.O. order 121669 should complain about an invasion of privacy. The practice of culling supposedly confidential "P.C. folders or files" to obtain information for purposes of intimidation and/or harassment is repugnant and outrageous. The Guardian's Office, which plaintiff headed, was no respector of anyone's civil rights, particularly that of privacy.

The documents involved in the case were extensive. They included copies of letters from Hubbard to his father, to his first two wives, and to the children of his first marriage. They also included Hubbard's teenage diaries, his Boy Scout records, poems, and the manuscript of an unpublished book called Positive Mental Therapy. Also included were Hubbard's letters to Mary Sue Hubbard over the years, where he said exactly what he was doing while researching the "Technology" of Scientology. For example, there are letters sent from North Africa in late 1966, to Mary Sue at Saint Hill, which give details of the drugs Hubbard was taking to "research" the most secret of Scientology's levels, OT3.

During the course of the trial, the judge heard testimony from Armstrong; his wife Jocelyn; Laurel Sullivan, who had been Armstrong's senior on the Biography Project; the proposed author Omar Garrison; Hubbard's nurse Kima Douglas (who left Hubbard in January 1980); and former Author Services Incorporated Treasury Secretary Howard Schomer.

Omar Garrison, who had been commissioned to write the biography, had this to say of the documentation Armstrong provided:

The inconsistencies were implicit in various documents which Mr. Armstrong provided me with respect to Mr. Hubbard's curriculum vitae, with respect to his Navy career, with respect to almost every aspect of his life. These undeniable and documented facts did not coincide with the official published biography that the church had promulgated.

Garrison intended to complete the biography, and continued with this work through 1982. In June 1983, he agreed to a settlement with the Church. The Church wanted to be absolutely sure that the manuscript wasn't made public. Garrison reluctantly agreed. He too had been followed by private detectives, "bumper to bumper." However, Garrison retained copies of documents from the Hubbard archives to ensure the church's good behavior.

Jocelyn Armstrong testified that she had worked on a project where Mission Holders were to sign backdated contracts, Board minutes and resignations.

Kima Douglas was Hubbard's personal Medical Officer from 1975 until her departure on January 16, 1980. From 1977, she was with Hubbard on a daily basis. She was also the head of no less than fourteen Scientology corporations, and had written undated resignations from each. Among these was the Religious Research Foundation, which was used to channel monies from the Flagship, and later the Flag Land Base, into non-Church accounts controlled by Hubbard.

Douglas testified that she was with Hubbard when he approved Armstrong's request to collect material for a biography. She had also been present when Hubbard had ordered that supposedly confidential counselling folders should be "culled" for admissions of crimes, and anti-social or immoral actions, for future use. Douglas admitted that she had seen Hubbard display "irrational and abusive" behavior, to the extent of striking someone. She also revealed the extent of Hubbard's ill health throughout the years she served him.

The myth of L. Ron Hubbard was badly fractured. It seemed that his mesmeric hold over Scientologists, whether Church members or Independents, was slipping. The trance could only be maintained through a stubborn refusal to consider the material now available.

The Judgment in the Armstrong case was filed on June 22, 1984, just as Justice Latey was preparing to hear a child custody case in London.

I know the story is long and complex, and I’m aware of your need to reduce every story. But this can be done and still be accurate, and I am certain that you have editors who can do this with ease and brains to spare.

I only discovered the passage in your L. Ron Hubbard article that I’m writing about because the passage just appeared on this blog: http://everyoneisamoon.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/%E2%80%9Cif-you-want-to-make-a-little-money-write-a-book-if-you-want-to-make-a-lot-of-money-create-a-religion-%E2%80%9D/

Now that I know about this passage, I would like to get the important error in it – about me taking Hubbard’s documents when I left his organization – corrected as soon as possible.

Wikipedia, I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell you, is genius with a heart, and a great gift to mankind that I use and depend on. Thank you, everyone.

If you have any questions, or for any reason, feel free to contact me.

Sincerely, Gerry Armstrong ThatGerryArmstrong (talk) 22:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed edit

How's this:

Shannon's findings were acquired by Gerry Armstrong, a Scientologist who, in January 1980, had been appointed Hubbard's official archivist. When Omar Garrison, a non-Scientologist who had written two books sympathetic to Scientology, was contracted to write the Hubbard biography in October of that year, Armstrong became his research assistant. However, the documents that Armstrong uncovered convinced both men that Hubbard had systematically misrepresented his life. Garrison refused to write a "puff piece," declaring that he would not "repeat all the falsehoods they [the Church of Scientology] had perpetuated over the years," and wrote a "warts and all" biography. The Church of Scientology and Mary Sue Hubbard sued Armstrong for the return of documents while settling out of court with Garrison, requiring him to turn over the nearly completed manuscript of the biography. In October 1984 Judge Paul G. Breckenridge ruled in Armstrong's favor, saying:

--Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:02, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

The issue is we need to find reliable secondary sources that say just that, Chris did a good job adding backing everything up with secondary sourcing making everything meet WP:V and WP:RS. Not opposed to correcting the issue but we need to stick with WP:V. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 04:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I completely concur. I don't think anything I've written above contradicts the existing paragraph, except the dates, which seem to be confirmed by the sources Gerry mentioned, so we can probably use the existing sources... unless Gerry can point us to better secondary sources. Mainly, I'm just trying to make sure I've understood Gerry's criticism correctly. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:29, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

De-listing this page from WikiProject Buddhism

Based on talk HERE (DIFF) at WikiProject Buddhism, I altered this talk page to DELIST (remove) the L. Ron Hubbard article from WikiProject Buddhism (DIFF). Then User:ResidentAnthropologist reverted my changes, asking for an explanation, which I now provide. Please consider these arguments carefully, so that delisting may proceed, unless a better solution is found.

• THE PROBLEM: As you can see by reading the above-discussion at WikiProject Buddhism, the Buddhism members noted that 1) there is only an extremely tenuous connection of L. Ron Hubbard with Buddhism, not something that clearly warrants his being listed under that project; 2) the downside of listing him there is that an automated BOT will come along and list this article as a "featured" article on Buddhism, linking it through the Portal:Buddhism, which seems extremely misleading, since all other "featured" Buddhism articles are actually about topics that are clearly Buddhist. Indeed, linking this page from the Buddhism page seems an unacceptable and misleading provision of publicity to Hubbard and Scientology; 3) Since it's unclear how to prevent the Bot from listing this article if it is classed within Project Buddhism, the simplest solution, which received support at Project Buddhism, was to de-list the article from Project Buddhism.

If anyone editing this page wants to advocate for continued listing under Project Buddhism, please explain not only why you think that is necessary and valid (given the extreme tenuousness of the connection), but also how you propose to solve the confusion generated by Automated Bots inappropriately linking this article alongside articles that are truly about Buddhism. Thank you -- Presearch (talk) 23:03, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

• Let me get this straight, you are concerned that linking it to the Buddhism portal because "publicity to Hubbard and Scientology?" What publicity does it give them? Though I disagree with that statement and is use as reason for removing I am willing to agree that L. Ron Hubbard probably never did more than read a few encyclopedia articles on the topic. While Scientology the religion could arguably be within the scope of Buddhism project.. I doubt its prophet can be reasonably put it in it. My concern was lack of communication before removal of it. I do not object to it being removed on the scope issue. rThe Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 23:16, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The Buddhism Portal receives several thousand views per month and is linked by more than a thousand pages. If the Hubbard article is not really about Buddhism then listing it on the portal would indeed be giving Hubbard inappropriate publicity. Similarly, putting a big picture of the Buddha on the page for Jesus, or vice versa, would also be inappropriate publicity. I think in any of these hypothetical or real situations there are likely to be people who would be motivated to fix the corresponding inappropriate situation. Thanks for your support. Best -- Presearch (talk) 23:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

If members of the Wikiproject:Buddhism have reached a consensus to remove their project tag from this article, than that is fine. In general, project tags are placed on article talk pages only for the benefit of that project's members -- not as an overall classification system of Wikipedia. As stated at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide: A WikiProject's members have the exclusive right to define the scope of their project, which includes defining an article as being outside the scope of the project. If someone has a problem with a Wikiproject's actions, they can join the project and raise the issue for discussion with its membership -- or they can open a discussion with the WikiProject Council. I don't see a problem with the Wikiproject:Buddhism removing their tag here. They have decided that the connection is tenuous. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 15:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, good, thanks for the helpful clarification in light of the Wikiproject "Guide". Sounds like one way or another, everyone is arriving at the same conclusion, so I've gone ahead and redone the delisting. Best to all -- Presearch (talk) 16:13, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

War record summary in intro =

A brief scan of the intro shows me this: "He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, commanding vessels, such as the USS YP-422, in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans." Which is uncited... and it Sounds considerably different than this: ". He briefly commanded two anti-submarine vessels, the USS YP-422 and USS PC-815, in coastal waters off Massachusetts, Oregon and California in 1942 and 1943 respectively. He was removed from command of both vessels and rated by his superiors as being unsuitable for independent duties and "lacking in the essential qualities of judgment, leadership and cooperation" Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_L._Ron_Hubbard .. is there a way to reorganize the summary to line up with the info a little more clearly? 69.245.72.101 (talk) 17:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Edit

Although L. Ron Hubbard is primarily known as a religious leader and a science fiction author, he was also one of America's youngest Eagle Scouts. This is not give adequate attention in the article. To address this omission, and to move towards more NPOV in the article, I propose the following be added at the end of the 2nd paragraph:

"He became one of America’s youngest Eagle Scouts, receiving the award in 1923 just before his 13th birthday and is listed as one of the list of famous Eagle Scouts."

And at the end of the paragraph ending with "Scientology biographies describe this encounter as giving Hubbard training in a particular scientific approach to the mind, which he found unsatisfying," I propose to add:

"It was in Washington, DC that L. Ron Hubbard was award his Eagle Scout citation in 1923 before his 13th Birthday, making him one of America's youngest Eagle Scouts."

The following references support this data: http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Famous_Eagle_Scouts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Eagle_Scouts http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/septemberweb-only/54.0.html http://www.southerndigest.com/2.5410/l-ron-hubbard-exhibit-visits-su-campus-1.1172757 http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Intermediate-Eater-Bean-recipes-advance-to-the-1084267.php

Thanks.NestleNW911 (talk) 21:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Filled in a small information gap about L. Ron Hubbard being in the Marine Corp. It is mentioned in length here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_L._Ron_Hubbard#Montana_Army_National_Guard_and_US_Marine_Corps_Reserve

Thanks.NestleNW911 (talk) 21:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

With no response, I went ahead and made the above edit.NestleNW911 (talk) 20:59, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Eagle scouts info looks good as long as we keep it in the right place and in flow with the article. Marine info shouldn't be highlighted in the into as much as the history, it was marine reserves btw and with all respect, it doesn't appear to be much of an accomplishment compared to other things, so shouldn't be so focused on in intro.. just keep it in perspective. Well done bringing more info to the article though! :) 69.245.72.101 (talk) 06:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

One consideration, I read an article that no one kept official records of the age at which scouts become eagle scouts so there would be no way of knowing who was the youngest but it would be fair to say that he was young (just not accurate to say he was definitively the youngest as no one could possibly know that). 69.245.72.101 (talk) 06:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello,

Appreciate your gracious response to this. I did want to fill in the small information gap, since the information about his time in the Marine reserves is included in a related Wikipedia article - the military career of L. Ron Hubbard. As far as the Eagle's scouts information goes, I have backed up this information with strong references, complying with WP:RS and promoting WP:NPOV. Adding more of Hubbard's accomplishments balances the perspective of the article.NestleNW911 (talk) 21:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I've read the references you've listed. They all quote the Scientology claim that he was the youngest. Very well cited btw. The problem is that they are all citing the scientology claim. There is no original source to demonstrate who was the youngest, who was the second youngest, third, etc. Boy Scouts of America in fact did not keep records indicating that. So what this all comes back to is an award letter that everyone cites that demonstrates he was young when he became an Eagle Scout. No matter if president of the United States was quoted as saying "L Ron claims to be the younges Eagle Scout" it doesn't make that claim fact, see where I'm going? Because we don't have any records indicating that he was in fact the youngest... it's speculation. He may have been! I mean he was young, but perhaps lots of other folks were too, we have no way of verifying the truth of that fact. And neither did Hubbard, making the claim unverifiable. Keep it coming though! :) We'll work together to make this a better verified & informative article! 69.245.72.101 (talk) 21:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I've have removed the word alleged at the point that says the he is the youngest eagle scout; it is confirmed that L. Ron Hubbard did receive an eagle scout citation, what is being debated about is whether he is the youngest or not, because it is hard to verify this information. I have put the information in proper perspective. Also FYI, additional resources: http://www.enotes.com/topic/List_of_Eagle_Scouts_(Boy_Scouts_of_America) and L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman?, Bent Corydon, Ronald DeWolf, Book Cover, 1987 edition, Lyle Stuart, Inc.

This is the exact text from the Corydon reference: "By the time he was twelve years old, young L. Ron Hubbard had already read a large number of the world's greatest classics and his interest in philosophy and religion was born. Not that the explorer in him had been stilled. Far from it. A Montana newspaper of the period reported thusly on one of Helena's newest high school students: Ronald Hubbard has the distinction of being the only boy in the country to secure an Eagle Scout badge at the age of twelve years. He was a Boy Scout in Washington, D.C., before coming to Helena. In Washington, D.C., he had also become a close friend of President Coolidge's son, Calvin Jr. whose early death accelerated L. Ron Hubbard's interest in the mind and spirit of man."

Thanks.NestleNW911 (talk) 23:24, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Nestle, your comments here are very disturbing. I thought your quote from the Corydon book seemed out of character for that book, and that your citation of the "book cover" was odd, so I pulled my copy of the book off the shelf to see for myself. My copy is the 1987 hardcover edition (the authors' credits are Bent Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., published by Lyle Stuart). There is no such text as you quote on the cover or dust jacket. But your quote does appear on page 220, in a chapter entitled "Hubbard's PR Biographies Exposed." It is taken from a quoted passage introduced by the authors as "an excerpt from one of several short biographies circulating among Scientologists as promotional handouts or introductions to Hubbard's books during the sixties and seventies." The authors describe these writings as "containing numerous bogus claims." In other words, the quoted material is explicitly presented by the authors as an example of the Church of Scientology's false promotional claims about Hubbard's life within a chapter about Hubbard's pattern of lying about his past; you are lifting the quoted "bogus claims" out of context to make it seem as if they were truthful accounts about Hubbard written by the authors of the book! I don't know how to interpret this as anything other than flat-out intellectual dishonesty on your part. It has become very difficult to maintain an assumption that you are editing in good faith. -- BTfromLA (talk) 15:52, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with BTfromLA. Nestle, I have corrected your addition. The Eagle Scout rank came in 1924 (not 1923) after his 13th birthday (not before) -- even Scientology promotional websites state this. Also, the only source for the "youngest eagle scout" is Hubbard's diaries and statements -- there are no substantiating independent sources. Additionally, I have removed all the references you have added as improper -- Wikipedia does not accept these as reliable: a Wiki [11], self-promotional website [12], factual error in promotional material [13], wrongly attributed references as stated by BT above, and Wikipedia does not reference itself [14]. Given the wealth of well-sourced material on Hubbard, it isn't difficult to find appropriate sources. Please read Wikipedia's guidelines about reliable sources before adding further sourcing. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 17:26, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Conflicting Accounts

I've noticed in this Bio that there seem to be two accounts of L Rons life that don't seem to mesh well. The promotional version put out by the church and the version cobbled together by news stories, documents and interviews. For instance the church claims that he was a barnstorming pilot but records demonstrate he never even held a license. How do we handle that? Where we know that one side might be exaggerating for self-promotional reasons but news reports are contradictory... Do we still present both views even though one's objective and one seems to be less that reliable? 69.245.72.101 (talk) 15:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, 69.245…IP address, but honestly don't see the rhetorical sense of changing "one account" to "church promotional materials." This is a sharp veering away from WP:NPOV -- labeling church information as promotion, thus implying a singular point of view that is no way encyclopedic. It doesn't provide new information either.

Additionally, I would also like to move that this page be semi-protected. There has been consistent vandalism on this page, frequent and often of a deeply malicious nature. I believe it would be in everyone's best interest to semi-protect a Wikipedia page of a such a figure as L. Ron Hubbard. Thoughts?NestleNW911 (talk) 23:21, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Please don't semi-block. That would mean I couldn't edit. Also, I meant no offense with the wording "promotional material" I thought that was neutral. If I said "propaganda" or something that would be inappropriate, but all churches and organizations have self-promoting materials on their own sites. It should be noted that news sources are different than that. Is there a more neutral wording that you would like that indicates the info is not entirely accurate historically but is the perspective of the church non-the-less? That sounds too wordy. 69.245.72.101 (talk) 07:07, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Also, the main issue was that Scientology asserted something contrary to the public record. In your last edit you removed the fact that it was a Scientology claim for the weasel wording "some sources". Would you please change that back to reflect that this is only the belief of the church? Thank you for your accuracy. 69.245.72.101 (talk) 07:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, and fair enough 69.245. Going back to your original point, I think your view that the two perspectives presented are incredibly conflicting (dare I say polarized?) is incredibly accurate. What complicates this point even further is that much of the "mainstream" media reporting on the Church of Scientology is skewed toward the negative. A few practices we might want to utilize on this page going forward might be:

- Limit the content included from overly critical references.

- Limit overly positive/negative quotations used to reinforce overly positive/negative viewpoints.

- Ensure that controversial topics always include both sides viewpoint and are kept as simple as possible.

Do you have any other suggestions on how we should proceed for best practices on this page? I agree with you that this is a VERY important topic. NestleNW911 (talk) 22:21, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Atack and Miller Bias in BLP

69.245...'s discussion got me thinking. Taking the "Conflicting Accounts" conversation one step further, I went ahead and analyzed the references used in this Wikipedia page and was able to discover the following:

There are a total of 433 citations. Of these citations, a total of 192 are from Atack (60 from "A Piece of Blue Sky") and Miller (132 from "Bare-Faced Messiah"). These 192 citations comprise 44.3% of the citations on the article with 13% of these coming from Atack, which is a known critic of Scientology. One could argue that Miller is, at the very LEAST, not a fan of Scientology.

What is missing from 69.245...'s perspective is that, though many detest the idea of including any Scientology sources, these "critical" perspectives (due to favorable media attention and acceptability within the Wikipedia community) have become overwhelming on this page and actually demonstrates considerable lack of NPOV and, in effect, bias.

I think it is imperative that we address the over reliance of this BLP on Atack and Miller in this article in order to better adhere to Wikipedia WP:NPOV policy. I would love for this discussion to be a starting point for such an effort. NestleNW911 (talk) 22:28, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:REDFLAG, if an organization claims someone became (say) their president in 1990 (and there is no reason to doubt that account), the source would be reliable, but if an organization says their president was a "barnstorming pilot" yet there is no other supporting material, the source would not be reliable. Rather than speculate about hypothetical bias, it would be better to identify material in the article (or not in the article) which should be rectified. Johnuniq (talk) 01:33, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your perspective Johnuniq. My apologies for being general. I have a number of examples in this article where, I believe, bias in interjected and I plan on providing those specifics. However, I do not believe that we are at that point yet, and I am meaning to have a broader discussion about two sources, of "questionable" reliability per WP: RS.

Per WP: RS, "The word 'source' as used on Wikipedia has three related meanings: the piece of work itself (the article, book), the creator of the work (the writer, journalist), and the publisher of the work (for example The New York Times, Cambridge University Press, etc.). All three can affect reliability... The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication."

If we are talking about an individual who is decidedly against Scientology, i.e. Atack, this limits his reliability according to these standards and, unfortunately, Atack is a MAJOR source on this article. You could make a similar argument about Miller. More than this, Miller was published by Michael Joseph Ltd, which, by Penguin’s own admission, is Popular FICTION: http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/aboutus/aboutpenguin_publishingstructure.html. Atack’s book was published by Lyle Stuart Inc. and, per the Washington Post, publishing “…controversial titles that most publishing houses refused to touch.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/27/AR2006062701683.html. These two publishers do NOT meet WP: Policy on Reliable Sources.

As far as the piece of work itself, in Miller’s book, you have 8 interviews and a number of sources that are decidedly negative. In fact, in many cases, the information pulled from these 8 interviews are incredibly damning to the article. In fact, Atack’s manuscript (basis for his book) is one of the sources for Miller. Many of the sources listed in the bibliography for both of these books contain titles containing “sect”, “cult” and other negatively skewed titles. In all three cases, these sources fall short according to WP standards, and yet they comprised 44% of the references for this article. Again I ask: “How do you mitigate bias on a Wikipedia article when you have two sources dominate, which are decidedly slanted against the subject of the article?NestleNW911 (talk) 22:58, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

This talk page is not the place for a generic conversation regarding a hypothetical situation (that a source may be biased and that as a consequence something about the article may be biased). Regarding whether a source is suitable if the source has expressed negative views about the subject, the answer is given by WP:DUE: if the material is due, then it is fine; otherwise, not. For example, we don't rule out text based on scientific sources in Creationism on the basis that the source has expressed negative views on the subject. Johnuniq (talk) 02:07, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

NestleNW911, you are making absurd suggestions here: Miller was published in the US by Henry Holt, a thoroughly respectable publisher, as was that British subsidiary of the Penguin imprint in the UK. The fact that a publisher of biography also publishes fiction does not undermine the seriousness of the biography; it is standard practice for publishers to offer a variety of books. Journalists and scholars widely consider Miller's book the best biography of Hubbard to date (you can go to the WP page about the book to see various reviews, comments and awards). As I'm sure you know, there are many additional sources of unflattering biographical details about Hubbard, including extensive reportage in the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, Saint Petersburg Times, CBS' 60 Minutes, the BBC, etc., as well as a few pronouncements from sitting judges. Some of these are listed as sources for this article, and you can go through them to verify many of the claims attributed to Miller, if you'd like to add to the citations. The fact is that the overwhelming consensus among reliable sources is that Hubbard (and his organization) lied about many details of his life. This has been reported and confirmed time and again by many different sources. To my knowledge, no responsible third party investigator has found the CoS version of Hubbard's life and accomplishments to be other than laced with distortion, unverifiable assertions and outright falsehoods. Reporting this fact is not a sign of unfair bias, quite the contrary. Please limit your suggestions to specific improvements to the article, not broad assertions about bias. -- BTfromLA (talk) 05:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Johnuniq – more than fair. And yes, I get that reliable information is more important than neutrality. Per WP: UNDUE, “Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all.” What I’m meaning to get at, and I believe the point that 69.245. makes quite well in the above topic, is that when it comes to LRH (and Scientology articles in general), the "minority" viewpoint appears to be the Church of Scientology! I think this makes LRH and Scientology a really unique case. In fact, I’m not sure if I can think of any individuals or organizations in such a situation. So, again, I do think this needs to be discussed because it is not a hypothetical situation, it is a current reality for these articles on Wikipedia.

BTfromLA – thank you for chiming in on this thread. You know I respect your opinion and believe you to be relatively fair in your interpretation of Wiki pages. Miller and Atack have been instrumental sources for a number of subsequent books, articles, etc. and seem to have framed much of the more “controversial” content. I continue to debate the reliability of these sources but understand that the Wiki community usurps my opinions. Of course I will default to such a lead.

Though I think your suggestions have merit, I also believe my perspective is far from “absurd”. It seems that what is needed is specific examples for you to better understand my perspective. Would this talk page be the best place to do this, as I have a number of examples, or would there be a more appropriate place? Thanks for your help in improving this Wikipedia page. NestleNW911 (talk) 19:35, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no neutral source when it comes to LRH. I personally think Miller and Atacks are not perfect and majority of what they are cited for is uncontroversial facts. I can dispute the bias of the books but they are for the most part reliable sources for the facts they are cited for. I there is material here differed from Scientology accounts and most time we have laid out both sides from CoS and Miller/Atack. In a perfect world we would not cite Miller and Atack but as long as publishing on CoS remains problematic We do not have much choice. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 20:09, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Nestle, I don't mean to be harsh, but when you imply that sources are unreliable because their publisher also published works of fiction, that is absurd. (And ironic, given Hubbard's career.) Again, I suggest that your efforts here will be more productive if you offer specific suggestions for improving the article, based on passages from the existing article, rather than elaborating on your perspective. Our goal as WP editors should be to put our personal beliefs aside and focus on presenting a clear, accurate and neutrally presented account of the subject, based on the published record. Right? -- BTfromLA (talk) 20:52, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Nestle has offered in the statement below to do just that. I agree vague WP:IDONTLIKE statement and vague hypotheticals problems are not conducive to fixing anything. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 16:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The Resident Anthropologist – I think you are onto something incredibly important. Miller and Atack are not perfect but in lieu of “better” sources, they are among the few we have.

Saying this, I think it becomes important to provide contextually relevant quotations when taking from these sources. To preface such sources with the actual source when possible and provide a context for the reader when a given fact is disputed. There are examples in the LRH page where this is not followed and I plan on providing these instances.

Other times in the page, Miller or Atack is sourced with the negative portion of the citation presented, occasionally out-of-context. As BTfromLA said, regardless of our personal opinion, our goal as Editors on Wikipedia is to provide, “…a clear, accurate and neutrally presented account of the subject, based on the published record.”

This is my objective as well, even if my frame is different.

(BTW BTfromLA, forgive me for the delay in presenting specific edits but I’m really trying to establish a foundation prior to suggesting or making edits on the page.) Cheers, NestleNW911 (talk) 23:28, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a fruitful avenue for discussion. I look forward to discussing those points if there are problems. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 16:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

ResidentAnthropologist, I am a bit mystified by your responses to Nestle's comment; I don't really see how Nestle's statement addresses specifics about the article at all, nor am I clear what "those points" that you look forward to discussing are. Indeed, I can't figure why an editor would ever need to "establish a foundation" before suggesting specific editorial changes. Also, please read my recent post in the "Proposed Edit" thread. Given the evidence there, I'm afraid that Nestle is an extremely dubious source about placing quotes in context. If you can help me understand your POV here, I'd appreciate it. -- BTfromLA (talk) 16:43, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I was referring the second paragraph "There are examples in the LRH page where this is not followed and I plan on providing these instances." I think thats a fruitful line of discussion rather than vague hypotheticals problems. If Nestle can provide the list problems with sourcing than that must be discussed. As for my POV, I seek the most neutral biography possible, same you do. I worked very hard to look at every reference I had access to at FA while reviewing the article for problems. So I take it a bit personally if there are indeed problems. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 18:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

First off, I'd like to address BTfromLA's question about my need to "establish a foundation" before suggesting edits. L. Ron Hubbard is a highly controversial subject both within the Wikipedia community and without, and it is a challenge to achieve consensus on most edits. Thus, establishing a common ground between editors is necessary to communicate clearly about proposed edits.

About the Corydon reference -- that was an honest misstep. I will exercise due diligence next time and make sure that my sources are quoted and cited correctly.

---

Hello, Resident Anthropologist. thank you for your diligence on this matter, and your willingness to discuss these issues.

Having said this, I'd like to cite a few points I have found in the article that we can initially discuss. These are general problems in the article, and I've included an example for each:

1) Instance where Atack or Miller is cited but the intended meaning of the information is not exactly reflected in the source, thus possibly being "original research"

Text: Along the way, Hubbard sought to establish a safe haven in "a friendly little country where Scientology would be allowed to prosper," as Miller puts it. The fleet stayed at Corfu for several months in 1968–69. Hubbard renamed the ships after Greek gods—the Royal Scotman was rechristened Apollo—and he praised the recently established military dictatorship. 

I was unable to find this citation supported by Miller in my research. Can someone confirm this? There is no mention that Hubbard actually praised the recently established military dictatorship.

2) Instance where there is a need to preface sources with actual source to provide a context for the reader:

Text: Between October and December 1928 a number of naval families, including Hubbard's, traveled from Guam to China aboard the USS Gold Star. The ship stopped at Manila in the Philippines before traveling on to Qingdao (Tsingtao) in China. Hubbard and his parents made a side trip to Beijing before sailing on to Shanghai and Hong Kong, from where they returned to Guam. Scientology accounts present a different version of events, saying that Hubbard "made his way deep into Manchuria's Western Hills and beyond—to break bread with Mongolian bandits, share campfires with Siberian shamans and befriend the last in the line of magicians from the court of Kublai Khan."

However, Hubbard did not record these events in his diary. He remained unimpressed with China and the Chinese, writing: "A Chinaman can not live up to a thing, he always drags it down." He characterized the sights of Beijing as "rubberneck stations" for tourists and described the palaces of the Forbidden City as "very trashy-looking" and "not worth mentioning". He was impressed by theGreat Wall of China near Beijing but concluded of the Chinese: "They smell of all the baths they didn't take. The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here." Back on Guam, Hubbard spent much of his time writing dozens of short stories and essays and failed the Naval Academy entrance examination. In September 1929 Hubbard was enrolled at the Swavely Preparatory School in Manassas, Virginia, to prepare him for a second attempt at the examination.[34] 

Possibly reframe this section based on NPOV to: Conflicting accounts describe Hubbard’s time between October and December 1928. Miller accounts that a number of naval families, including Hubbard's, traveling from Guam to China aboard the USS Gold Star. Apparently, the ship stopped at Manila in the Philippines before traveling on to Qingdao (Tsingtao) in China, and Hubbard and his parents made a side trip to Beijing before sailing on to Shanghai and Hong Kong, from where they returned to Guam. On the other hand, Scientology accounts say that Hubbard "made his way deep into Manchuria's Western Hills and beyond—to break bread with Mongolian bandits, share campfires with Siberian shamans and befriend the last in the line of magicians from the court of Kublai Khan." (source: http://www.lronhubbard.org/biography/early-years/asia-and-the-south-pacific.html) According to Miller, Hubbard remained unimpressed with China and the Chinese at this time. Yet, he was impressed by the Great Wall of China near Beijing.

Back on Guam, Hubbard spent much of his time writing dozens of short stories and essays[36]. and failed the Naval Academy entrance examination. In September 1929 Hubbard was enrolled at the Swavely Preparatory School in Manassas, Virginia, to prepare him for a second attempt at the examination. However, he was ruled out of consideration due to his near-sightedness.[38] He was instead sent to Woodward School for Boys in Washington, D.C. to qualify for admission to George Washington University. He successfully graduated from the school in June 1930 and entered the university the following September.

3) Instance where Miller or Atack is sourced with the negative portion of the citation is presented, occasionally out-of-context:

Text: We tried not to think too hard about his behavior. It was not rational much of the time, but to even consider such a thing was a discreditable thought and you couldn't allow yourself to have a discreditable thought. One of the questions in a sec[curity] check was, "Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about LRH?" and you could get into very serious trouble if you had. So you tried hard not to.

The above focuses on what is negatively sourced from the citation. I petition to include more of the actual citation to frame the section to be more accurate and neutral:

“We tried not to think too hard about his behavior. It was not rational much of the time, but to even consider such a thing was a discreditable thought and you couldn't allow yourself to have a discreditable thought. One of the questions in a sec[curity] check was, "Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about LRH?" and you could get into very serious trouble if you had. So you tried hard not to. ” At time I thought, this is an anomaly, but he is also a genius and has done so much for mankind that I was in awe of, so it was like these other things in apparent contradiction, but who am I to judge? If he has faults they are minuscule compared to his other deeds.”

These are only some of the examples I've found, and would love to collaborate with you in starting to implement these. Thank you.NestleNW911 (talk) 23:33, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Response to Nestle's suggestions: 1. It's there, Miller, Chapter 17, p 290-291, Hubbard praises the Greek government and their new constitution in a newspaper interview. 2. My solution to this is to omit all of the fine-grained details of Hubbard's childhood travels, and I have done so. The article suffers from excessive, convoluted detail, even when there are dedicated sub-pages to elaborate on each section, as in this case. Please take a look at my edit. If others agree, I think this streamlined approach could enhance the entire article. 3. More monkey-business with sources from NestleNW911! Nestle wants to add "more of the actual citation," failing to mention that he (she?) has switched sources! Instead of quoting from Miller's book as the article does, he drops in stuff from Miller's interview transcripts, published only on the web (so far as I know), and potentially subject to challenges re: reliability. And he presents this as if he is quoting from Miller's book. In any case, that the additional bit from the transcript seems ungrammatical and adds no meaningful context, unless we want to wander off into the story of David Mayo's personal beliefs about Hubbard, how he was loyal and later became disillusioned. I can't see how that will help the article, which is already overly digressive. Though this shenanigan is minor compared to the grossly misleading Corydon quote, Nestle's pattern of editing behavior here remains disturbing--he has consistently put forward inappropriate (and often flatly misleading) claims and citations, his errors have been patiently explained to him by multiple editors, and yet he shows no sign of changing his behavior. Given that this "actual citation" bit came as part of the same post where Nestle pledged that "I will exercise due diligence next time and make sure that my sources are quoted and cited correctly..." I can only conclude that Nestle is unwilling to adhere to basic standards of honesty and good faith. How can we work with that? -- BTfromLA (talk) 22:07, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

BTfromLA easy with your suggestions, if I have made a misstep, allow us to correct it – together. Your tone is unbecoming of the partnership we have formed to this point, and I hope to keep our working relationship moving forward.

Regarding #1 – If your response is, “it is in there” either I have an improper source or this is clear evidence of your own editing bias. In the source I found (according to your information), here is what is listed:

“Q. Mr Hubbard, as the international personality that you are, are you following the new situation in Greece and what do you think of the work of the present National Government?

“A. The government is the mirror of the people. Where I go and wherever the students go, the people continually say how safe they feel. The decision to form a company to establish its headquarter offices here shows our confidence in Greece.'

“Q. I have been told, Mr Hubbard, that you have read the whole of the new Greek Constitution from beginning to end. If that's true, what do you think of it?'

“A. Yes, I've read it with much interest. The rights of man have been given great care in it. I have studied many constitutions, from the times of unwritten laws which various tribes have followed, and the present constitution represents the most brilliant tradition of Greek democracy. Out of all the modern constitutions the new Greek Constitution is the best ...'

“Hubbard's interpretation of the ruling military junta as a democracy was somewhat at odds with international opinion, but the interviewer failed to take issue with it.”

To say that Hubbard “praised the military dictatorship” is positioning this passage in a most unflattering light – one I would argue is negatively biased. A more appropriate way to say this would be to give more accurate information from the source above e.g. “expressed his confidence in the Greek government”.

Regarding #2 – I think the “Early Life” section is great. The writing reads much more like a newspaper and, as a result, comes across much more neutral. Thank you for making this change. Good work.

Regarding #3 – Miller is sourced for the current copy of David Mayo on the LRH Page:

“We tried not to think too hard about his behavior. It was not rational much of the time, but to even consider such a thing was a discreditable thought and you couldn't allow yourself to have a discreditable thought. One of the questions in a sec[curity] check was, "Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about LRH?" and you could get into very serious trouble if you had. So you tried hard not to.[241]"'

That all exists on the Page currently. I pulled the below from Miller’s interview with David Mayo:

“We tried not to think about his behaviour because it wasn't rational, but to even consider it wasn't rational would have been a discreditable thought about LRH and you couldn't allow yourself that. The Jo'burg Sec Check - one of misdeeds on it was, "Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about LRH?", and you could get into very serious trouble if you had. So you tried hard not to."'

“At time I thought, this is an anomaly, but he is also a genius and has done so much for mankind that I was in awe of, so it was like these other things in apparent contradiction, but who am I to judge? If he has faults they are minuscule compared to his other deeds."'

From what I can tell, no reliable online source exists for Bare-Faced Messiah so we would need a hardcopy to verify if the interviews, especially the interview with David Mayo, is included in the book. It is true, I found this citation on the Internet. However, in no way did I mean to present this information in a dubious manner as BTfromLA suggests. In fact, I did not even list a page number for my citation, let alone "switch[ed] sources" per BTfromLA. The interview was in Miller's book according to what I could find in a scanned .pdf. If someone can confirm that the interviews are or are not in the book, I think this will settle the dispute in a mature manner. NestleNW911 (talk) 19:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

NestleNW911, I have read both of your recent comments and it appears that you are confused about Wikipedia's guideline on what is or isn't original research. In #1 (far above), you state: Instance where Atack or Miller is cited but the intended meaning of the information is not exactly reflected in the source, thus possibly being "original research" Miller is the researcher of the primary material. He is considered the reliable source and his conclusions about the primary material is what is cited -- not the primary material. What Wikipedia guidelines on 'no original research' disallows is you or any Wikipedia editor to make their own interpretations of primary material. That is what you appear to be attempting. For example:

In your Regarding #1, you only quote a single primary source lifted from Miller. Yet the citation is for Miller's conclusions about that source along with his other research. The relevant quote is:

the Commodore began to look upon the island and the Greek people with particular favour, even to the extent of granting an interview to Ephimeris ton Idisseon, one of Corfu's daily newspapers, on the subject of the recent coup d'état in Greece by a clique of military officers known as the 'Colonels'.

The interviewer's obsequiousness was only surpassed by Hubbard's obvious desire to ingratiate himself, as fawning answer followed fawning question:

and

Hubbard's interpretation of the ruling military junta as a democracy was somewhat at odds with international opinion, but the interviewer failed to take issue with it.

By the time the Avon River joined the flagship in Corfu, Hubbard was so enamoured with Greece that he decided to change the names of all his ships in honour of his new hosts.

In this case, I agree the word "praised" might be too strong. IMO, "expressed support for" or "ingratiat[d] himself with" would be better.

In regards to your point #3, once again you are offering primary sources and making your own interpretation. Please look at the actual cited source (i.e. the researcher's conclusions), in this case Miller, and present your arguments based upon those. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 23:18, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Just as a response to the conversation in general... is it possible that the most reliable information is not flattering? Does including information from those sources in a neutral manner endanger the NPOV of the perspective of the article? I don't think so. Also, Nestle, just because these sources have mostly negative things to say about LRH, to try to make the article nicer to him by adding sources that are more favorable, even when those sources have demonstrated to represent historical fact unreliably could be interpreted as POV pushing, even when your goal is balance. The key is what do the reliable sources have to say on the subject and how can we be neutral in synthesizing their views without neutralizing their views. 69.245.65.89 (talk) 23:45, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Nestle, you seem to be asserting that I've presented "clear evidence" of "editing bias"; please enlighten me about the nature of this bias and whether you are accusing me of inappropriately biased editing. As far as I can tell, my "biased" gesture consisted of supplying you with the citation that you specifically asked for. You asked, "I was unable to find this citation supported by Miller. Can someone confirm this?" If you were well aware of that passage in Miller that describes Hubbard's comments about the Greek junta and their constitution and were trying to make a different point about the wording of the passage, that isn't apparent in your original post. (By the way, if you doubt that they are being fairly described as a military dictatorship, please do a little research into "the Colonels.")

As to Bare-Faced Messiah, I don't have a hard copy handy as I did with the Corydon book, but there are at least three online versions of the book, authorized by Miller. The pdf version you cited is not a scanned version of the book, but a pdf formatted version of the web site that reprints the book plus supplementary materials, as prepared by Chris Owen with Miller's approval (it says as much in the introduction by Chris Owen). It is also clear from internal evidence in those web versions (plus this plain-text transcription of the book) what the published book included (the numbered chapters and index), and what was added by Owen as supplementary material, including reviews of the book, accounts of Scientology's attempts to suppress the book, and those raw interview transcripts. Whether those web-only transcripts count as a useable source for Wikipedia purposes is an open question--maybe they are--but they are not part of the traditionally published book. --BTfromLA (talk) 18:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

In doing my best to respond to each of you:

1) CactusWriter -- you bring up an interesting point. To make sure I understand, you are saying that since Miller wrote the quoted section that is currently cited in the section, my attempt to provide a “fuller” encapsulation of Miller’s interview with Mayo does not reflect an accurate perspective of Miller (since Miller himself did not include this part of the interview in his book). Therefore, my attempts are construed as original research since this view “serves to advance a position not advanced by the sources”. Do I understand your view? If so, I must apologize profusely. I did not connect these dots prior to this post and will work to avoid such WP:OR moving forward. As far as my point #1, did you have a recommendation?

2) 69.245.65.89 looks like you called out “overly positive” POV editing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/69.245.65.89) in some of your prior edits. Your point is interesting and I hope you create a profile to stick around Wikipedia a bit longer.

To respond, in no way do I think that this Wikipedia Page will EVER be favorable to L. Ron Hubbard. As you said, my goal is balance. However, given “balance” ‘s subjectivity on a topic like this, maintaining WP:OR, WP: V and WP:NPOV is highly time-consuming and prone to error. Maintaining a Wiki agreed upon communal perspective of “balance” on LRH should remain a continuing challenge for us all despite our own views as individual editors.

3) BTfromLA -- I was taking issue with your confidence in asserting that “praised the military dictatorship” was “...in there” i.e. in Miller. That phrase in nowhere to be found in Miller and inferring that Hubbard “praised” a “military dictatorship” is, as CactusWriter said, “too strong”. As we are reflecting what Miller cited in his book, it is important that we do not add our own interpretation to his writings per CactusWriter’s point re: WP:OR, which I am coming to better understand (I think).

Thank you for the plain-text version of the book. I found the one I previously linked to and had not noticed that the supplementary materials were separate. My mistake and apologies. I think your point about the interviews is relevant though, and is one for the community. Do we consider these interview transcripts usable? It is a fair question. Based on the website I found the interview on, I would say that such a source would not be considered reliable. If we can find them on a more reputable website, they might be usable for my point #3.

4) To all -- Despite all of this, BTfromLA actually made an incredibly fair edit in the “Early Life” of LRH. If the entire article could present information in such a straightforward manner without over-indulgence in overly pro or con (usually the latter in this article) quotations or citations, there would be no place for objection. NestleNW911 (talk) 19:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Bibliography

There is a scholarly bibliography here that may help inform discussion: [15]; it comments on both Atack and Miller. --JN466 17:18, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Interesting topic JN466. To your point, here's a citation directly from the scholarly article:

"Russell Miller, Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard, New York 1987. London 1988. The most important critical biography of Hubbard. Like Haack's and Corydon's books it is extremely polemical and very much tries to pull Hubbard to pieces who is seen as a dangerous megalomanic and notorious liar (especially when talking about himself). Miller has definitely exposed some inflated statements about Hubbard's early achievements, as they are represented e. g. in the preface to Mission into Time. On the other side the Church of Scientology has been able to disprove some of Millers assumptions. Hubbard's assertions about his military career in WWII, e.g., have been much nearer to the truth than Miller is trying to show, as can be seen from his naval records that have been made public during the processes following the publication of Bare-Faced Messiah (a complete set of the relevant documents is part of my collection). The Church of Scientology has also been able to verify Hubbard's statements about "Comander Thompson", the source of his early acquaintance with Freudian psychoanalysis. Joseph "Snake" Thompson (1874-1943) was Commander in the US Navy Medical Corps; his personal relation with Freud is documented by a letter written by Freud and addressed to him (in the Library of Congress, Washington. Copy in my possession). This material so far is not part of any bibliography of Hubbard."

"A topic of special interest has been for many years Hubbard's short-lived acquaintance with the nuclear physicist John ("Jack") Whiteside Parsons (1914-1952) who was also a devotee of the founder of modern neo-pagan "magick", Aleister Crowley. In the winter of 1945/1946 Hubbard lived in Parson's house in Pasadena, CA and took part in Parson's magical experiments to produce a "moonchild". This connection has been a subject of much speculation, especially in the books of Brent Corydon, Miller and Friedrich-Wilhelm Haack. A better discussion can be found in Jon Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky (see below). Nevertheless it remains quite obvious that Hubbard did not take much inspiration from Crowley and Parsons..."

Might help the discussion here. Any thoughts?NestleNW911 (talk) 21:51, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Approaching the article's problems

If others agree with Nestle (and myself) that the more concise and straightforward style in the "early life" section is a good model for the article as a whole, allow me to make a couple of suggestions that can at least get us talking about how to follow through on that (and it won't just be me following through--I'm not going to be able to do much of the work on this article). In my opinion, the article as it stands is virtually unreadable because of excessive length, frequent and sometimes convoluted digression into minor details and way too much back-and-forth over disputed claims about Hubbard from the Church of Scientology. I suggest that we consider the following as a way out of this mess: 1. Establish dedicated pages for detailed treatment of various chapters of Hubbard's life that people have more to say about than comfortably fits here: his early days, his military record, history of the Dianetics and Scientology movements, etc. Most of these already exist. This should allow us to be concise and make judgments about which details are truly of major import to his biography as a whole, allowing the other material to be moved to the more specialized article. This step alone could cut the article length in half. 2. Create a section devoted to the history of conflicting claims about Hubbard's life and works. Dubious claims made by and about Hubbard are certainly an important feature of his bio that should be addressed, but perhaps we can locate most of that discussion in one part of the article, allowing the rest of the article to describe the outline of what is known about Hubbard without wandering off into endless examples to bolster one pov or another. 3. As far as I can tell, virtually every third party researcher who has looked into Hubbard's claims about his life and Scientology's claims about Hubbard's life have found that Hubbard and Scientology consistently engage(d) in wild exaggerations, distortions and outright fabrications. If we can agree that this is the case--that the CoS accounts do not constitute a reliable source--we can completely dispense with Scientology accounts as sources, except as they figure in the section about them. While Scientologists may at first blush be loathe to accept this, please give it a second thought: I believe it will actually result in articles that are more even handed and much less laden with unflattering details. This was the approach I took in the early life section--just omit all the stories about Hubbard's exploits that subsequent research have found to be dubious or false, and present a clear outline of the remaining facts. (And try to avoid the temptation--which is frequent in the case of Hubbard--of dropping in colorful or sensational details for their own sake.) In the great majority of cases, we can lay out the facts of Hubbard's life with minimal embellishment, while making it easy for readers who want to pursue further details, official church accounts, critical investigations, etc., to access those. What do y'all think? --BTfromLA (talk) 20:56, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree on all points:

• • 1)Featured article by definition are more comprehensive (FAC: 1:B) thus tend to be longer. It is within the boundaries of acceptable length as it is48th longest Featured article by length. I have also reverted up of his early life because it failed to follow Wikipedia:Summary style
  • 2) Though this article is not about living person WP:BLPSTYLE gives helpful advice to writing a neutral biography. One of those areas is says "Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints; the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation and section headings are broadly neutral. Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association, and 'biased' or malicious content." (all emphasis mine). This is why we do not have a section devoted to discrepancies but them into the over all account of his life.
  • 3) The Church of Scientology as a MythologizedHagiographic account of L Ron Hubbard's life. Unlike with Jesus, Mohamed, or Laozi have detailed documentation of most of his life. Thus as our Policy NPOV policy on Religion states "Wikipedia articles on history and religion draw from a religion's sacred texts as well as from modern archaeological, historical, and scientific sources." In this case we are able to tell a well detailed account of his life with substantial critical commentary. This article is an extremely critical take on his life where nearly the embellishment called out. As Nestle has noted 433 citations. Of these citations, a total of 192 are from those well researched biographies you mentioned. The rest are Independent secondary sources from newspapers, magazines, books, and Scholarly works. The fact is writing a Biography of L. Ron Hubbard without CoS account of his life would be like writing about Moses without the Book of Exodus it can't be done. It is also worth noting very few citations are actually from the Church of Scientology most of those are for uncontentious material. The other portion has some sort of rebuttal or dispute of the CoS account. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 23:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, ResidentAnthropologist, though I am a bit puzzled by it. I do not disagree with any of the principals you cite, nor does what I am proposing violate any of them as far as I can see.

1. Length: more comprehensive does not mean exhaustive. Nor does it mean that we abandon all consideration of the structure, pace and overall focus of the writing. We could include 6,000 words picking over contradictory accounts of Hubbard's family vacations when he was a teen. Perhaps you think that's a good idea. To me, that seems like a complete abandonment of our editorial responsibility: to present a readable account of the key aspects of the subjects life, with clearly marked paths to further information. We are not (are we?) trying to provide a book-length (or multi-volume) bio in one article. The format of wikipedia, with links to other articles and websites built into the texts, allows for a sort of exhaustive treatment that goes beyond what usually appears in print. There's no need to pack every argument about every bit of minutia into one indigestible article.

2. I honestly don't understand your objection. I have no disagreement with the principals you outline, nor do I think my suggestion of framing the "mythological" accounts of Hubbard's life as a subject stands in contradiction to that. I make these suggestions is because I'm trying to find a path toward a version of the article "presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone." What I see as the problem now is that in this subject in particular, any concise, neutral paragraph is prone to accumulating a near-infinity of he-said, she-said digressions and qualifications and counterexamples, leading to confusion and virtual unreadability. I'm proposing that we consider whether there is a better way to structure the piece, in the interest of clarity and relevance. I don't understand why you want to foreclose this discussion before it starts.

3. Again, I don't understand your objection, and I think you are misinterpreting my suggestion. I certainly do not suggest we purge all mention of the CoS accounts of Hubbard. Here's what I wrote: "Dubious claims made by and about Hubbard are certainly an important feature of his bio that should be addressed, but perhaps we can locate most of that discussion in one part of the article, allowing the rest of the article to describe the outline of what is known about Hubbard without wandering off into endless examples to bolster one pov or another."

My concern here is to improve the quality of the article's writing from the point of view of an interested reader--not to whitewash it or... what? Really, I don't recognize what bad outcome you imagine I'm promoting. -- BTfromLA (talk) 00:17, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

BTfromLA -- I agree with your point about the article: "There's no need to pack every argument about every bit of minutia into one indigestible article." Personally, I'm willing to give you a shot and am curious to see how you adhere to your aforementioned objectives.NestleNW911 (talk) 19:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I see the viability of both sides made by BTfromLA and Resident Anthropologist. With the interest of making the article better for the wikipedia community and wikipedia readers, I've thought about your differing perspectives and here's where we might be able to find common ground:

I agree with BTfromLA that the article should be considerably shortened. The article is long and unreadable, and it would be a service to the community to make the information more digestible. Apart from this, based on WP: UNDUE WEIGHT, the disproportionate attention given to the trivial details is evident. As BTfromLA said, "There's no need to pack every argument about every bit of minutia into one indigestible article." However, for the sake of upholding WP:NPOV, I believe that Resident Anthropologist is right in saying that "the fact is writing a Biography of L. Ron Hubbard without CoS account of his life would be like writing about Moses without the Book of Exodus it can't be done." It would provide readers a fair perspective of LRH to see the church accounts juxtaposed to alternate accounts, in a much more clear way than if it was concentrated in one section.

I am looking forward to having a consensus on this; then we can move forward to citing actual examples and making progress in bettering this page.NestleNW911 (talk) 00:43, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Nestle, with some of your edit proposals, trying to "balance" the article away from "trivial" facts constitutions a POV push towards the positive, especially when you are using sources from the CoS which are known to be positive but factually inaccurate. We should not try to make a subject NPOV, rather we should maintain a NPOV ourselves when accurately presenting the POV of the notable and reliable sources. I know that's like asking a Christian to be neutral when editing Jesus but wiki often uses things like Hitler as an example of how to be neutral. We do not push his article to reflect how bad or evil he was, even though consensus says the dude's going to hell. But we remain neutral while allowing the perspective of the reliable sources to be synthesized. In your case, it's unfortunate that Scientology documentation and reporting has shown itself to be an unreliable source and for a person who really likes L Ron, you've got very few avenues of finding reliable notable sources that speak positively of him... and that's just the reality of the situation. Please don't take it personally. But also, if your strong faith in the person of L Ron prevents you from being able to present the information neutrally, consider editing an article you are less attached to. BTW, thank you for communicating so civilly. It's a breath of fresh air and a credit to your character. :) 69.245.65.89 (talk) 14:51, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

69.245.65.89 -- Thank you for your compliment about my communication style. And I completely agree with you that this page should model the neutrality of Hitler's page. Hitler was one of the most notable figures in history and yet his page is written in a concise manner and does not even feature on the longest [[16]].

This is why I believe BTfromLA's point regarding brevity is imperative for L Ron Hubbard. If we write the page in a style more similar to this (newspaper-orientation), we allow for little dispute. We cite the sources but don't belabor such points with lengthy quotations that are not directly from the figure himself. This is what the Hitler page does well, and I think this is a great model for this page. NestleNW911 (talk) 20:36, 22 August 2011 (UTC)