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Surely cultsultant?!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH - get it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.111.131.88 (talk • contribs).

Undue weight?

The section on Jason Scott almost entirely based on Shupe and Darnell? AndroidCat (talk) 17:50, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Their account is closely based on court documents and under-oath testimony, court records cited are given on page 194 of their book. If there are other sources covering the details of the case, by all means let's add them; but as it stood, our coverage of the case was thin, given how notable it became. Jayen466 17:58, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
That book wasn't exactly a best-seller. I'm amazed that you found a copy. AndroidCat (talk) 10:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:Undue weight in a WP:BLP

Recent edits by Jayen466 (talk · contribs) to this article violate WP:Undue weight in a WP:BLP article. They also rely primarily on a biased source, Anson Shupe, who was an expert witness in the case against Ross himself, and assisted the Church of Scientology and its lead attorney Kendrick Moxon both during and after the case. This is a financial conflict of interest, and sources from this individual should be avoided, especially in this WP:BLP article. Cirt (talk) 18:01, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

See ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Rick_Ross_.28consultant.29. Jayen466 00:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Since there is now an article on the topic, the material here should be trimmed to a paragraph. See WP:SUMMARY. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
No, it should be trimmed to a good summary, which may require more than one paragraph. A good example: Sarah_Palin#Governor_of_Alaska or Sarah_Palin#Mayor_of_Wasilla ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Or Sarah Palin#Gas pipeline. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I disagree, Will. If this article has room for 12 paragraphs on Ross's alleged involvement in the Waco stand-off, it has room for a few more paragraphs on Ross's role in the Jason Scott case, as established in a court of law. And there were other defendants in that case, notably the Cult Awareness Network. It's not just a spin-off topic from this article. Jason Scott case is linked from Cult Awareness Network as well. I probably should have created a separate article for the case to begin with, and then added pertinent information here.
  • At any rate, it seems to me that prior to my additions here, this present article took more or less the line that the judge said the defendants took in the trial: the reason they were on trial was not because there had conceivably been anything wrong with their conduct, but because Moxon had a grudge against them. In the old version of this section, we spent more text on Moxon, in this article on Ross, than we did on what the judge and jury had to say about Ross. This entirely ignored both the jury's finding on Ross's conduct, which could hardly have been more condemnatory, and the judge's comments pointing out that the defendants were incapable of seeing anything wrong in what they had done. Jayen466 09:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Speaking of judge's comments, the judge expressed curiosity regarding "why there were no objections to Dr. Shupe's testimony" by CAN's attorneys. The judge stated, "[a]bout 90 percent of what I heard there [in Shupe's testimony] I would have sustained objections to" ("Scott v. Ross, et. al.," 1995b, 54; see "Scott v. Ross, et. al.," 1998, 3223-3224). AndroidCat (talk) 10:53, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • In light of comments on the AFD, and discussion at BLP/N, I've restored the Oct. 3 text to the Scott seciton. Now that we have a full-length article on the subject all we need here is a summary. I'd proposed a paragraph while Jossi said it might take more. The material I posted is five paragraphs long and was stable prior to the recent flurry of editing this month. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:02, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Jason Scott case -- criminal trial verdict "not guilty"

According to the court record and news reports Rick Ross was found "not guilty" in the criminal trial.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/deprogramming/deprogramming6.html

There was no "hung jury." In fact the jury deliberated for only two hours before returning a unanimous verdict.

This is an example of what's wrong with using a paid cult apologist like Anson Shupe and his co-author Scientology lawyer Kendrick Moxon as sources for this entry.

These men are not reliable or credible sources as can be seen by the false statement concerning the jury verdict.

Recent changes made to the Jason Scott case subsection reflect an effort to introduce bias to this Wikipedia entry by importing unreliable writings from specious sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.124.10.31 (talk • contribs)

Shupe source should not be used

Jayen466 (talk · contribs) used the Anson Shupe source to write that the criminal trial of Rick Ross (consultant) in the Jason Scott case resulted in a "hung jury" [1], [2]. This is a false statement. See this source (cited by Jayen466 himself for other info in the article and yet neglected in this instance) where it states: "On January 18, 1994, after just two hours of deliberations, a Greys Harbor jury acquitted Rick Ross of unlawful detainment." This is corroborated in other secondary sources as well:

  • Perkes, Kim Sue Lia (January 21, 1994). "Cult deprogrammer acquitted: Had been charged with unlawful imprisonment". The Arizona Republic. Nationally known cult deprogrammer Rick Ross of Phoenix has been acquitted of unlawful-imprisonment charges in Grays Harbor County Superior Court in Montesano, Washington. ... Ross also credited the eight-woman, four-man jury, which deliberated only two hours, for being able to see through the prosecution's attempts to paint him as a criminal. ... Jeff Ranes, Ross' attorney said several jury members hugged Ross after the verdict "and told him, 'We thought you did the right thing,' and, 'Keep up the good work.'

Again, Anson Shupe as a source is unreliable, and should not be used. Cirt (talk) 16:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Please take it to RS/N. Jayen466 20:34, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Rick Ross references

From my article db:

Some of these are already used in the article, and some are non-notable mentions of Ross. The ones covering legal trials should be useful for reducing dependence on Shupe and Darnell. AndroidCat (talk) 19:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of sourced content

Will, we cannot simply [remove any reference to the criticism Ross received from this part of the article, nor gloss over all the aspects that led the jury to award a judgment of this magnitude. These things are well documented and relevant to this BLP. There are many things that can be improved in this article, but this is actually one of the better-sourced sections. Jayen466 23:21, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

The version that was in this article prior to your latest edits was reasonably complete and stable. The matter is covered fully in a separate article. The AfD has discussed concerns with this article and the WP:BLP policy. I believe that until we agree on the new content the old, stable content should be retained. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:36, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
If I read the material correctly, Ross served 20 days in jail and paid damages of $5,000. Given how little punishment he received this material probably receives excess weight in this article. While it was very important to CAN, it's importance to Ross seems much less. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:49, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
As in the OJ Simpson case, there was a criminal trial as well as a civil suit, both relating to the same case, but with different outcomes. In the criminal trial, for unlawful imprisonment, Ross was acquitted, according to multiple sources, while his associates served 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to the lesser charge of coercion. In the civil suit, the punitive damages awarded against Ross were by far the largest, with 2.5 million awarded against Ross personally, as compared to 250,000 for each of his associates, and 1 million for CAN. Jayen466 00:08, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
So Ross was found not guilty of the main criminal charge, and settled for $5,000 in the civil case. In the end, this resulted in less punishment than he might have received for a second DUI. Considering those facts, this material seems overblown. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
The outcome of the civil suit is described here, by another scholar, stating that

"deprogrammer Rick Ross and Cult Awareness Network (CAN) were found guilty by jury trial of the abduction and involuntary deprogramming of Jason Scott, a Pentecostal convert to the Life Tabernacle Church, in U.S. District Court in Washington. The jury awarded compensatory and punitive damages to Mr. Scott in the amount of 4.9 million for violating his civil rights (Scott vs. Ross et al. 1995). In 1991, Scott was assaulted by Ross and his accomplices, wrestled to the ground, dragged to a nearby house, handcuffed, spirited away by his "rescuers" and thrown into the back of a van. Scott told jurors he was pinned down by his kidnappers, his ankles tied with a nylon strap, duct tape was wrapped around his face from ear to ear, and he was told to "stop praying and shut up". The court upheld the decision in an appeal by Ross and CAN, and the judge stated in his 15-page order that the defendants' "seeming incapability of appreciating the maliciousness of their conduct towards Mr. Scott" made the large award "necessary to enforce the jury's determination on the oppressiveness of the defendants' actions and deter similar conduct in future."

— The Politics of Religious Apostasy, David G. Bromley, Greenwood Publishing Group
Ross "settling" did not mean that the matter never went to trial. Ross and Scott settled some considerable time after the trial had run its course, and the jury had made its finding. Apart from that, the judgment, and the large amount of punitive damages awarded by the jury, had a lasting effect on the practice of deprogramming in general, in the U.S. – it stopped. It was in many ways a landmark case. I believe OJ Simpson never paid much of his civil suit damages either, for various reasons, and what he paid did not hurt him much; that does not mean that the jury's verdict against him is somehow so unimportant that we need not mention it in WP. Jayen466 01:52, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
I didn't say we shoulnd't mention the fines - just that the case should only be given appropriate weight, and that we should minimize duplication with the identical material in the article on the case. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I removed a paragraph of details that don't mention Ross. This is a biography of Rick Ross, not an article about the Jason Scott Case. Let's keep fopcused on the subject an dleave out off-topic material. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Will, you are mistaken, the paragraph you have now deleted twice does mention Ross, it mentions him twice, by name. The deleted text reads:

      Scott then endured five days of derogatory comments about himself, his beliefs, his girlfriend and his pastor.[24][26][22] On every visit to the bathroom, he was accompanied by at least two men.[24] After several days, Scott began to pretend that he had changed his mind, feigning tears and remorse, in the hope that this would in due course give him a chance to escape.[25][28][26] Scott's plan worked; Ross, pleased with the apparent success of the deprogramming, proposed that they all went out for a celebratory dinner. In the restaurant, Scott was allowed to go the men's room by himself; he ran out, crossed the street and contacted police, who arrested Ross and his companions.

    • Note that the person uttering the derogatory comments referred to in the first sentence was Ross, as for example mentioned in the appeal decision: "They abducted Scott and held him captive for five days, during which Ross "debated" Life Tabernacle's teachings with Scott." See [3], quotation marks around "debated" present in original. Further sources can be provided, if necessary. Kindly self-revert. Jayen466 05:06, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
      • We have an entire article on this topic. Let's avoid duplication and keep what's here short. I've asked you do summarize this material and you've refused. I did so myself and you reverted it. I trimmed a single paragraph and you reverted that too. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, you claimed the material you deleted "did not mention Ross", when in fact you were deleting, among other things, any reference to Ross's being arrested. Well, at any rate, I can live with not having the toilet sentence in there, though it should be clear to you that Ross determined the parameters of Scott's detainment, and he was certainly held responsible for them. But fine. Now, as for the last two sentences, all the references have disappeared. I would suggest reinserting them, to satisfy WP:V, and rewording as follows:

Scott then endured five days of derogatory comments about himself, his beliefs, his girlfriend and his pastor from Ross, before managing to escape and call the police, who arrested Ross.<ref name=Shupe180-184 /><ref name=Cockburn /><ref name=Haines /><ref name=Appeal /><ref name=ortega />

Would you be agreeable to that wording? Jayen466 05:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I imagine the section should be longer than that, but it's a move in the right direction. Let's try to keep the total to something reasonable, like 300 words. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 06:05, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Removal of dialog from a phantom tape-recorder is a step in the right direction. AndroidCat (talk) 06:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done, section shortened further; it is now considerably shorter than the Waco section (which also needs attention). Jayen466 12:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Paragraph is a bad joke

According to court documents and testimonies, including Scott's own under-oath testimony, Scott was handcuffed by the three men, gagged with duct tape, and had his ankles tied with rope.[1][2][3] He was driven to a seaside cottage, which had been prepared as a virtual prison.[1][2] Scott demanded that he be allowed to leave, and asked Ross whether he would try to make him change his religious beliefs.[1] Ross replied, "Yeah, that's what I'm paid to do."[1] Scott then threatened him with criminal prosecution, to which Ross responded with laughter: "You're not going anywhere and if you give me any problems I'm going to handcuff you to the bed frame and it's going to be more uncomfortable than the ride over here."[1] Scott then endured five days of of deprogramming before escaping. Ross was subsequently arrested.

It reads like extremely bad fanfic. Where is all that dialog from the characters coming from?

Yes, it's probably in the court transcripts, and I have absolutely no doubt that it's in Shupe, but it's not based on recordings or objective evidence. It's cut/paste bites from the court transcripts of personal versions of what they say they observed.

Can this either be trimmed back down to NPOV facts or can we perhaps spice it up a little? "Yeah, that's what I'm paid to do," he laughed maniacally, "Ha ha, ha ha!" AndroidCat (talk) 05:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me for editing this article, but it seemed meaningful to have an entry example that reflects what an actual encyclopedia entry might look like regarding the Jason Scott case, i.e. just the basic undisputed facts, rather than biased opinions and spin. Rick A. Ross (talk) 18:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Here is the subsection entry as I edited it.

The Jason Scott case

In January 1991, Ross attempted an involuntary deprogramming of Jason Scott, an 18-year-old member of a United Pentecostal Church in Bellevue, Washington.[22][23] Ross was hired by Scott's mother Katherine Tonkin, who was given his name by a local Cult Awareness Network (CAN) volunteer. The deprogramming was unsuccessful and Scott later called the police, who arrested Ross.[22][24][25]

In 1993, criminal charges were brought against Ross and two associates for unlawful imprisonment; the jury found Ross "not guilty" and he was acquitted of all charges.[26][22]

A civil suit was subsequently filed against Ross, his associates and CAN on behalf of Scott by Scientologist Kendrick Moxon.[25] The jury held the defendants liable for negligence and conspiracy to deprive Scott of his civil rights,[27][28][29] "[30][31][27][32] Jason Scott was awarded $875,000 in compensatory damages, with additional punitive damages of $2,500,000 against Ross, $1,000,000 against CAN, and $250,000 each against Ross' associates.[33][27]

The judgment drove CAN and Ross into bankruptcy.[30][34][35] In 1996, Scott reconciled with his mother, fired his lawyer Kendrick Moxon and settled with Ross for $5,000, and 200 hours of Ross' services.[36][25][37] Rick A. Ross (talk) 19:28, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe a jury's findings and the comments of John C. Coughenour, attested to and reproduced by several scholars, qualify as "spin". Jayen466 20:20, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
The Jason Scott section is way to long and includes unnecessary details. I agree with Ross in essence that it should be seriously trimmed.PelleSmith (talk) 02:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I have significantly trimmed down the section. Jayen please consider my edits carefully before simply reverting them. There really is no reason to include the type of detail and the amount of unsavory quotations in the original here in Ross' BLP. How does the new section look?PelleSmith (talk) 03:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
[4] PelleSmith, what you describe as "unsavoury quotations", and as "extraneous" in your edit summary, are
  1. a newspaper's reference to the right to practice one's religion "free from force, violence, threats, retaliation or intimidation", a right which the jury found was violated,
  2. a jury's finding that the tort of outrage had been committed,
  3. the judge's comments, reproduced by two scholars covering the case.
Personally, I cannot see that these are either "extraneous" or "unsavoury". Surely, any unsavouriness derived from the actions that were the subject of the trial?
Just as a small detail of fact, I believe Scott was gagged on the way to the beach house, not in the beach house. That we should put right.
Since I generally respect your opinions, I'll not push the point on including the other details you deleted; perhaps my radar is off here. But I would consider reinserting the judge's comments necessary if this article develops again the unfortunate tendency to imply that the entire trial was simply the result of "Scientology's vendetta", a line of reasoning which the judge took clear exception to, and which masks the basic civil rights issue that was at the heart of this case. Jayen466 08:22, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I think the details were excessive here. They are fine in the main entry. I understand that they are well sourced, but we have to be sensitive when dealing with a BLP. All we need in this entry is a brief explanation of what Ross was involved in and what came of it. As long as it is clear that they restrained him against his will and attempted to deprive him of his civil liberties - that the criminal trial resulted in acquittal and that the civil trial resulted in a huge judgment, then we've done our job here. I called them unsavory because they are a bit sensationalistic, even if accurate, and extraneous because they only add emotional effect. Anyway my edits aren't the end all be all either. I'm perfectly happy discussing them. Thanks for understanding.PelleSmith (talk) 11:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Poorly sourced statements

The article has a number of other problems. For example, –

  • In "Full-time private consultant and lecturer", the citation of the Intervention page on rickross.com, which seems to have been mined both for implied criticism and justification, represents the sort of primary source evaluation by editors that we should do without. As an alternative, I would suggest sources like this UK Guardian/Observer article, which also makes the point that involuntary deprogrammings are no longer practised (at least not with adults). It provides a fairly balanced and, IMO, fair assessment, as well as supplying interesting conceptual details, such as the definition of a "destructive cult" that Ross uses in his work, and an outline CV. The article could do with becoming a bit more high-brow.
  • Citations of the publicly posted CV on rickross.com are, I think, okay, where the facts are not contentious.
  • Much of the Waco section, on both sides of the argument, is unsourced or poorly sourced. Unsourced material should be removed. The citation of the "Flaming Websites" piece, rebutting criticism by Wessinger, is improper as per WP:SELFQUEST.
  • The citation of the "Rick Ross responds to critics" piece, rebutting criticism by Scientology, likewise falls foul of WP:SELFQUEST. The rebuttal should be deleted or replaced by an equivalent published by a third-part reliable source. On the other hand, I wouldn't be sorry to see the whole section, including the advertisement for the Scientology website, go as per WP:UNDUE. Then there is no need to source a rebuttal. To justify inclusion of the reference to the Scientology website there needs to be a demonstrable body of reliable sources discussing that website.
  • In the Criticism section, the sentence "Ross points out that Hadden himself sought funding from some NRMs including the Unification Church, as revealed by a confidential memo he sent to fellow academics sympathetic to NRMs dated 20 December 1989." is inadequately sourced. The cited source reproduces Hadden's memo, but makes no mention of "Ross pointing out ...". We need a secondary source for that claim.
  • Basically, the article is generally in desperate need of secondary sources – scholarly works, both pro (Singer e.g.) and con, and quality newspapers. Rick, if you can help with such sources that make the key points, please do mention them here. Jayen466 22:46, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
I have revised several sections of the article, and deleted some to and fro between supporters and detractors to hopefully arrive at something more encyclopedic. Please review. Jayen466 17:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Branch Davidians

Now the subsection on Waco has been edited to overwhelmingly reflect the POV of cult apologists, frequently recommended by Scientology, e.g. Stuart Wright, James Tabor, James Lewsis. Nancy Ammerman was featured in the Scientology-run "Freedom Magazine." Catherine Wessinger is likewise often called a cult apologist. This subsection is now biased by eswsentially a single POV and doesn't reflect any balance and/or the objective historical record regarding Waco. This is what happens when virtually an entire entry within Wikipedia becomes dominated by and the focus of largely a single editor with an agenda. Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

What follows is a condensed version of the Branch Davidian subsection before it became a POV as expressed by various cult apologists. Ammerman did submit a report to the Justice Dept. Other cult apologists did not and were not noteworthy, but rather represent a POV and are not NPOV. Nothing more than Ammerman should appear other than citing the official reports by the BATF, Justice, trial records, Congress and the Independent Danforth Report wherever specifically relevant.

Branch Davidian

The involvement of Ross before and during the standoff between Branch Davidians and Federal Law Enforcement agencies, at Waco, Texas has caused some controversy.

Ross deprogrammed Branch Davidian David Block in 1992, prior to the raid. That Davidian was later interviewed by the BATF, which also interviewed Ross. Ross says he deprogrammed another Davidian during the standoff, but this was not reported. He was also one source quoted in the Waco Tribune-Herald's series titled "Sinful Messiah" for which they interviewed over 100 people.

According to the FBI Ross approached them during the standoff and requested that he be interviewed, which he was. The Report to the Deputy Attorney General on the Events at Waco, Texas (February 28 to April 19, 1993) states that: 

   The FBI interviewed Ross only at Ross' request, and politely declined his unsolicited offers of assistance throughout the standoff. The FBI treated the information Ross supplied as it would any other unsolicited information received from the public: it evaluated the credibility of the information and treated it accordingly.[32]

Ross denies that this information is correct and states that he was contacted by FBI agent Bobby L. Siller on March 4, 1993 and later by several others which he also names.

Nancy Ammerman insisted the FBI relied too much on Ross, a view which is not shared by the other three experts reporting to the Justice department.[33]

Ammerman claims that the FBI interview transcripts on the Waco tragedy include the note that "[Ross] has a personal hatred for all religious cults" and would aid law enforcement in an attempt to "destroy a cult". Ross emphatically denies this.

Ross recounted his role regarding the Waco Davidian standoff in a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno[34] and responded to critics such as Ammerman in a statement published by the Washington Post.[35]

The above is historical rather than reading like an Opinion/Editorial piece composed and controlled by cult apologists. Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:13, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) requires us to represent "fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." As per WP:Sources and Wikipedia:RS#Scholarship, "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available". In other words, where scholars have expressed opinions, it is our job as editors to report these opinions fairly, in "proportion to the prominence of each".
Running a google scholar search for the search terms "Rick Ross" Waco Branch Davidians brings up (at the bottom of the page) "Key authors: N Ammerman - J Lewis - J Tabor - E Gallagher - S Wright". Those are the authors quoted in the section, and all of them express the same viewpoint. I have been unable to find a single dissenting scholarly opinion (if I have missed any, pls. advise). It might also be noted that some of these scholars have made more outspokenly critical comments that have not been quoted.
If these scholars are consistently considered reliable authors by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, University of California Press, University of Chicago Press, Encyclopedia Britannica and reputable academic publishers, then these are the authors Wikipedia should cite. Jayen466 21:57, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Please suggest other sources here to add alternative POVs. Jayen466 16:33, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Full-time private consultant and lecturer

The following paragraph is a POV:

"Ross' work, like that of others in his field, is based on Robert Jay Lifton's 1961 definition of a destructive group environment.[4] According to this definition, a destructive group is one that prescribes with whom group members should communicate; convinces them that they are a chosen people serving a higher purpose; creates an us-versus-them mentality, implying that the actions of the group are right, and those of outsiders wrong; encourages members to reveal their secrets and shed whatever hinders their complete merger with the group; convinces members that their belief system represents the "absolute truth"; creates an insider jargon of buzzwords and groupspeak, acting as a substitute for critical thought; reinterprets human experiences and emotions in terms of the group's doctrine; and emphasizes the idea that life within the group is valuable and good, and life outside the group is evil and pointless.[4]"

This is essentially a single journalist's interpretation or POV as expressed in a news article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick A. Ross (talk • contribs) 15:42, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Okeydoke, if it does not match your understanding, I'll take it out. Jayen466 16:16, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 Done The sentence that you're credited with rescuing people from harmful environments is likewise only sourced to the Observer article, which is a bit thin; do you have other sources that make that point? Jayen466 16:21, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Please go through all the other false and/or misleading statements that you have included wrongfully within this entry. I have taken the time to point out each one. It is time to edit them according to the facts and not your POV.Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


Jayen466 Conflict of Interest

Only one editor is now largely dominating this entry, evolving it from a supposed online encyclopedia entry into an opinion/editorial page. That editor, Jayen466 is a devotee of a controversial guru (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh/Osho), which represents a conflict of interest. The Ross Institute Internet Archives maintains a subsection with critical information about Osho, and Jayen466 has come here apparently to retaliate. Anyone looking through his edits can see the pattern of his bias and how he has subjectively transformed this entry. It is behavior like this that discredits Wikipedia regarding biographies and certain controversial subjects. If Wikipedia wants to be known as an objective source for reliable information some internal policing specifically dealing with editors like Jayen466 will have to be done.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:54, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Jason Scott case historical record without POV

The Jason Scott case entry currently in this Wikipedia subsection is filled with POV and absent important historical facts, all of which were included in press reports.

Rather than selectively editing in POV personal testimony and opinion, the entry should simply reflect the facts.

Here is how this entry did read before being dominated by an editor with an agenda

The Jason Scott case

In 1990, Ross and associates attempted an involuntary deprogramming of Jason Scott, then an 18-year-old member of the Life Tabernacle Church, affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International. Scott's mother, Katherine Tonkin, had been a member of the church, but had left due to concerns about church influence and control over members, and a relationship between an adult church member and one of her two minor sons, Jason's younger brothers. After leaving the church, Tonkin retained Ross to assist her in the deprogramming of her two minor sons. He successfully persuaded the two minors to leave the church.

In 1991, Tonkin again retained Ross to undertake an involuntary intervention concerning her son Jason, which was unsuccessful. Criminal charges of unlawful imprisonment were brought against Ross and two others. The charges filed were then dropped, but re-filed again two years later. The trial ended in acquittal for Ross in 1994.

In 1995, a civil suit was filed by Kendrick Moxon, a long-time member and counsel for the Church of Scientology on behalf of Jason Scott. The jury held Ross liable for conspiracy to deprive Scott of his civil rights regarding freedom of religion. The suit ended with Jason Scott being awarded $875,000 in compensatory damages and punitive damages in the amount of $1,000,000 against CAN, $2,500,000 against Ross, and $250,000 against each of Ross' two accomplices.[24][25]

The judgment drove CAN, which had already been weakened by the cost of defending over 50 previous lawsuits, (most of them similar and filed by Moxon) into bankruptcy.[26][27] Ross went into bankruptcy as well.

In December 1996 Jason Scott reconciled with his mother and then settled with Ross for $5,000 and 200 hours of Ross's services.[28] Scott dismissed Moxon who was replaced by Church of Scientology opponent Graham Berry as his lawyer.[29] Moxon, who had argued in the case that Ross and associates had hindered a competent adult's freedom to make his own religious decisions, unsuccessfully filed to rescind the settlement and appoint a guardian for Scott, whom he argued was "incapacitated." [30][31]

This is factual without POV. Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Fundamentalist Christian group specifically targeted Jews for conversion at Jewish nursing home

It is misleading to state under "Early Life" that "a Christian missionary group became active in the nursing home where [my] grandmother was a resident..."

It should instead state the fact that this was a fundamentalist Christian group that specifically targets Jews for conversion, which covertly infiltrated the paid professional staff of a Jewish nursing home where my grandmother was a resident.

Omitting the type of group, type of nursing home and that the group members had covertly assumed paid staff positions for the purpose of proselyting elderly residents is grossly misleading.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:16, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Deprogramming costs

At "Full-time private consultant and lecturer" the following false and/or misleading statement is made.

"As of 2004, Ross had handled more than 350 deprogramming cases, at a typical cost of $5,000..."

This does not reflect the fact that more than 80 interventions done during my time as a volunteer and later staff member for nonprofits were done without any fees or expenses charged. It also does not reflect that my fees have changed over the years. Initially, they were $350.00 per day, but over the past 22 years they have risen to $750.00 per day. This means that many interventions ran far less than the "$5,000" quoted, which is based upon my most recent fee schedule reported.

BTW--Why is it important to report a fee schedule within an encyclopedia bio/entry?Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Rick A. Ross Institute

Within this section the following is stated:

"which also advertises Ross's own services as an exit counselor and expert witness, and his professional fees. In IRS EZ-990 form of 2002, the Institute's income is given as below $25,000, which means it is not required to file an annual return with the IRS.[22]"

How exactly is this relevant?

In Wikipedia entries about nonprofits is such information typically included?

Is this therefore to be taken as an average and typical description? Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Waco and Cult Apologists

There is a great deal of information available through the Internet about the controversy surrounding cult apologists such as Nancy Ammerman, Catherine Wessinger, Stuart Wright, James Tabor and James Lewis.

These same "scholars" have repeatedly been criticized concerning the quality and/or bias of their work by others in academia.

James Lewis once defended the Japanese cult Aum, after the cult paid his expenses to visit them in Japan. This took place after the gas attack and was reported in the press.

Catherine Wessinger has defended Jim Jones and attempted to apologetically spin the mass suicide of Heaven's Gate members in 1997 as some sort of religious event somehow linked to Hinduism and neo-eastern religious beliefs.

Wright, Lewis and Tabor have all been recommended as "religious resources" by Scientology.

Ammerman was once featured in a full-page spread and lauded within "Freedom Magazine" a Scientology publication.

These scholars have a distinct and biased POV regarding Waco and cults generally and therefore should not be selectively quoted in an encyclopedia entry to support an editor's POV. Their comments are not even credible given the facts reported about Waco and much of what these academics say at best falls into the category of apology/spin or at times conspiracy theories.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Ross. Please suggest other reliable sources to use and also please suggest reliable scholarly sources that confirm you claim regarding the bias of the above mentioned scholars. If you need to you may wish to review our relevant policies and guidelines: WP:V and WP:RS.PelleSmith (talk) 22:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
There are articles from academic journals and papers written on this subject, i.e. about academics that apologize and spin for cult groups. Some of these articles, which were published in academic journals and through reliable mainstream news outlets, have been archived at the Ross Institute. See http://www.rickross.com/apologist.html Note the names cited within this attributed material, e.g.Rick A. Ross (talk) 16:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Established academics in printed journals are more WP:RS than selected excerpts on a web site. The phrase "apologist" has clear technical meanings within religious studies, and colloquial use is potentially problematic, especially when used as a synonym for "spin." I think it may be possible for you to make a positive contribution without violating WP:COI on this one, but it will involve hewing tightly to WP:NOR and WP:RS. Good luck. Rorybowman (talk) 17:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Mr. Ross, none of the material you just linked to is produced by scholars. It is almost exclusively written by you. A few news clipping are scattered here and there, but those don't support you accusation of bias. Please review the policies I linked to above. As Rory points out, scholarly publications are about as reliable as sources get by our standards. When you accuse a litany of scholars of being biased you'll have to produce verifiable evidence of this bias beyond your own opinion.PelleSmith (talk) 21:30, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
The archived information is attributed. They are from academic papers, mainstream news media and not written by me. The cult apologists quoted are biased and have been exposed by academics and the press. Here are some links.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist15.html An Academic publication discusses J. Gordon Melton who accompanied James Lewis on an all expenses paid by Aum trip to Japan, after the gas attack.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist7.html Washington Post article that quotes Lewis. Lewis said, "that the cult could not have produced the rare poison gas, sarin, used in both murder cases. He said the Americans had determined this from photos and documents provided by Aum." He also claimed "it was "outrageous" that some children had been removed by the police from an Aum dormitory where they were housed apart from their parents. He also said he was not familiar with details of how the children were treated at the cult. However as reported by the Washington Post "The children of Aum members have said they were permitted two meals a day and four hours of sleep a night. They did not go to school, were not permitted to contact friends or relatives who were not cult members and were not permitted to play outside because the cult's leader said his enemies were attacking the group with poison gas."

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist42.html

In 1995 "Religious Resources recommended by the Church of Scientology," which included the following scholars; David Bromley, James Lewis, James Tabor and Stuart Wright. All of these sholars are used to criticize me in the Waco Davidian section of this bio. They are not NPOV, but rather express a point of view favored by Scientology and other groups called "cults."

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/newcan/newcan6.html

The same names appear on Who the so-called "new CAN" recommends "for factual information on 'new religions'"

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist39.html

This is a academic paper published by Cults & Society : An Internet Journal, Vol 1, No.1/2001 examining the bias of certain religious scholars titled "Blind, or Just Don't Want to See?" Note in references that academic Benjamin Zablocki also questioned the bias of some academics in a paper titled, "The Blacklisting of a Concept. The Strange History of the Brainwashing Conjecture in the Sociology of Religion", Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, vol. 1, n. 1 (ottobre 1997), pp. 96-121 (p. 98). This article was published in October 1997. The second article, a continuation of the first, was published in April 1998 always in Nova Religio. A reply by D. Bromley, and Zablocki's reply to this, were also published. By Alberto Amitrani & Raffaella Di Marzio

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist17.html

These are some of the quotes attributed to Zablocki's paper published by Nova Religio.

Zablocki specifically stated, "With regard to finances, a major obstacle toward the sort of progress desired is the cloud of secrecy that surrounds the funding of research on NRMs. The sociology of religion can no longer avoid the unpleasant ethical question of how to deal with the large sums of money being pumped into the field by the religious groups being studied and, to a lesser extent, by their opponents. Whether in the form of subvention of research expenses, subvention of publications, opportunities to sponsor and attend conferences, or direct fees for services, this money is not insignificant, and its influence on research findings and positions taken on scholarly disputes is largely unknown...I know there will be great resistance to opening this can of worms, but I do not think there is any choice. This is an issue that is slowly but surely building toward a public scandal. It would be far better to deal with it ourselves within the discipline than to have others expose it. I am not implying that it is necessarily wrong to accept funding from interested parties, whether pro or anti, but I do think there needs to be some more public accounting of where the money is coming from and what safeguards have been taken to assure that this money is not interfering with scientific objectivity."

This conflict of interest and bias issue within academia regarding cults was also reported about Lingua Franca in an article written by Charlotte Allen in 1998 titled "Brainwashed! Scholars of Cults Accuse Each Other of Bad Faith." Zablocki and David Bromley are cited in essentially opposing camps.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist29.html

What has happened here in this bio under the Waco subsection is that one very biased group scholars, controversial for their positions regarding groups called "cults," is being quoted. Such highly biased and self-serving opinions should not be used in this bio. Instead, government reports, independent reports, news reports from the mainstream press citing facts and not opinions should be used.Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Ross there is a distinction between peer reviewed and adequately vetted scholarship and the opinions of more or less notable individuals (whether or not they are technically scholars) as well as neutral news reporting interpreted by you or any other Wikipedia editor. Here is a point by point response to your links in an effort to explain my original comment.
  • Apologia is not a scholarly journal, but an informational resource with a very public point of view. This is their self-description: Apologia's mission is primarily educational, to equip Christians in the 21st century to engage their culture with the claims of Jesus Christ — to present the Christian worldview as a viable option in the 21st century.
  • The Washington Post article, does not pass any judgment on Lewis. You can interpret his quotes however you want to, but it doesn't provide verification of a third party calling him biased.
  • Again your interpretation of what the meaning is of having being put on a list by the Church of Scientology is not verification of bias. Please read WP:V.
  • Yep, same goes for the new CAN list.
  • Cults and society is a publication of opinion, not scholarship, and includes this disclaimer -- The views expressed in Cults and Society are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal's or AFF's staff, advisors, or directors.
  • There is nothing in even this presentation of selected quotations from Zablocki that questions the reliability or establishes the bias of the a fore mentioned scholars. Zablocki very generally discusses a possibility of public scandal. Where does he say these scholars are unreliable in reporting about Waco or in otherwise reporting on persons such as yourself? Again, you are welcome to read into what Zablocki has written what you wish but here we call that kind of conjecture at best original research.
  • The last link also does not support the accusation of bias, it merely reports on a division between sociologists and (some) psychologists regarding brainwashing, a theory that the APA very publicly stepped away from itself.
Other than the cut and paste job of Zablocki's commentary, I don't see anything resembling scholarship here. There also appears not to be anything there that questions the reliability of the afore mentioned scholars as sources regarding Waco. Do you have any different reliable sources to use on Waco? Do you have actual scholarship that directly questions the reliability of the sources used so far? Thanks.PelleSmith (talk) 19:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
PelleSmith it is well known that these scholars are biased. For example, they express an extreme minority position about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. Their opinions about the cult and the standoff are not supported by either the Republican or Democratic Congressional Reports, the Independent Danforth Report, the Treasury Report or the Justice Report. In both the civil and criminal trials regarding the Waco Davidians it was concluded that David Koresh was ultimately responsible for the standoff and its end and that the Davidians and Koresh had acted criminally. This is the historical consensus outside of conspiracy theories.
Let's take a look at the opinions expressed by these scholars regarding the Branch Davidians and David Koresh and how I supposedly somehow affected the situation.
  • "Ross, acting as an informant for government agencies and media journalists, was instrumental in establishing an image of Koresh as a dangerous cult leader, using the generalized pattern of a destructive cult, and that Ross' activities, along with those of apostates, significantly shaped the viewpoints of government parties acting in the case."
I was not "an informant," and this effort to label me as such reflects the sharp bias of the source here. I was an expert consulted by the BATF, FBI and media regarding Waco.
Not one of the government reports previously cited or court trials ultimately upheld that Koresh was not "a dangerous cult leader" or that the Bracnh Davidians were not in fact "a destructive cult." This has been well-established historically. Again, the authors here not only reflect their extreme bias and ongoing effort to apologize for cults, but are barely historically coherent. The government's viewpoint was shaped by the facts on the ground. David Koresh had been tried for attempted murder in 1987, he abused children, had a large arsenal of weapons, fired upon federal officers and ultimately decided the fate of his followers.
Using the derogatory term "apostates" to describe former members of the Davidians who shared information with the authorities is once again a very telling reflection of extreme bias. It should be noted that no information supplied by so-called "apostates" was found to be false, for example from David Block, the Davidian I deprogrammed.
  • "the financial and ideological stakes anticult workers like Ross have in 'cultbusting'".
The same can be said for scholars that defend cults as paid expert witnesses or are funded by cults to do "research." Don't they also have "financial and ideological stakes"? This is nothing more than an ad hominem attack and has no place in an encyclopedia entry.
  • "the opinion that the authorities' confrontational approach that led to the Waco tragedy was undoubtedly exacerbated by the advice they received from Ross. He stated that Ross endorsed the view that the community in Waco was about to become another Jonestown, and was ready for mass suicide."
Again, no Congressional report, Justice Report, Treasury Report or court proceeding supports the opinion of George D. Chryssides. This is an extremely biased and minority opinion. Waco did in fact end in mass suicide much like Jonestown, as ordered by David Koresh. Ironically, when I was asked on national television how the standoff might end, my answer was that David Koresh might come out and make a book deal.
  • Nancy Ammerman's "criticism of the FBI for relying on Ross" was rebutted by other experts reporting to the Justice Department that stated the FBI did not rely upon on me excessively. This was previously cited before Jayen edited everything. Again, Ammerman expresses a POV not generally shared by other experts reporting to the Justice Report, nor is it supported by the historical facts.

Having such a collection of one-sided extremely biased opinions expressed within an encyclopedia entry by one group of scholars, often called "cult apologists, isn't a meaningful contribution, but rather an attempt to promote propaganda. This entry should be historical not hysterical without false accusations.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Ross. Where is the scholarship backing your various positions? I don't see any. I would suggest that this is because within the academy the group of scholars you call "cult apologists" are the experts on this topic. Within the culture of actual scholarship and academic study the various "expert" groups you mention are not recognized as experts at all. You claim that historical consensus agrees with the position that the most well published and well respected scholars on the Branch Davidians, Waco, and NRMs more generally are all biased, but you provide no reliable sourcing for that claim. The academic consensus clearly does not agree with you, or else you would be capable of producing some sources here. This sounds a bit like a Scientologist claiming that psychologists are a biased group when it comes to mental health issues. Calling recognized academic experts biased because they don't agree with you won't go far here towards credibility.PelleSmith (talk) 16:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
The question at issue here is not who was responsible for the standoff and its end (which is the sort of issue that the Danforth report dealt with). The question at issue is the quality of consultation and the resulting strategies employed by the authorities in the standoff.
Four panelists were commissioned by the government to review these strategies (Ammerman, Sullivan, Stone and Cancro). All four were critical of the strategies employed. At least three of them (I don't know what Cancro said on this topic) criticised the FBI for never consulting with a religious scholar familiar with the Branch Davidians' religious beliefs:
  • Ammerman is cited and linked in the article; she mentions Ross in some detail, especially in the addendum.
  • Sullivan's views are mentioned here along with Ammerman's.
  • Stone said, e.g.,

    "the FBI behavioral science experts had worked out a good psychological understanding of Koresh's psychopathology. They knew it would be a mistake to deal with him as though he were a con-man pretending to religious beliefs so that he could exploit his followers"; "It was a significant omission at Waco not to involve as a third-party negotiator/intermediary a person of religious stature familiar with the unconventional belief system of the Branch Davidians" and "one pattern that emerged from my understanding of Waco needs to be changed. The official investigation lists all kinds of experts who allegedly were consulted or who took it upon themselves to offer unsolicited advice. It is almost impossible to determine what all this adds up to. One of my fellow panelists believes - and I am convinced - that the FBI never actually consulted with a religious expert familiar with the unconventional beliefs of Branch Davidians."

What these three panelists said was that there was a need for a differentiated approach, based on an understanding of the religious ideas involved, rather than a generalised approach that begins and ends with "this is a destructive cult led by a dangerous cult leader". This is the same point that Tabor, Gallagher and Chryssides made, so they have plenty of company among the government's own appointed experts. Jayen466 04:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
The real question is has this subsection become so disconnected from reality that it is losing all credibility as an encyclopedia entry? Let's do a little reality testing.

There is a much wider consensus amongst historians, cult experts, mental health professionals, law enforcement, the press, government and independent investigations and the courts that (1) the Branch Davidians were a "destructive cult" (2) David Koresh was a deeply disturbed psychopath and criminal (3) Law enforcement was obliged to confront the cult due to its criminal conduct. (4) And that the ultimate blame for the standoff and its tragic end lies with David Koresh.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco341.html And academic speaks out about Waco

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco294.html And account of my work in the book "See No Evil" by journalist Tim Madigan.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco12.html expert psychiatrist UCLA professor comments about psychopath David Koresh

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco337.html psychiatrist that worked with Davidian Children describes their abuse,

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco319.html direct testimony of Waco Davidian children about life in the compound.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco4.html Davidian child recalls sexual molestation by Koresh before Congress.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco295.html cult experts Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman

The central complaint and criticism of this relatively small group of a few scholars is used to somehow indict my opinion shared with authorities, which described "Koresh as a dangerous cult leader" and the Branch Davidians as fitting "the generalized pattern of a destructive cult..." However, the evidence is overwhelming that David Koresh and the Davidians were in fact correctly described in the opinions I shared with authorities and the media. The scholars criticism then becomes moot. And at least experts reporting to the Justice Department, information included in this entry before recent editing, disputed Nancy Ammerman's claim that my input was relied upon too heavily.

The scholars cited in this subsection represent a fringe minority opinion concerning David Koresh and the Davidians and therefore are not credible for the purposes of an encyclopedia entry.

Again, one "scholar" quoted is James R. Lewis, who has already been completely discredited by his public comments concerning Aum, made after the cult attacked Tokyo's subway system.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist7.html

Lewis, who accepted an all expenses paid trip courtesy of Aum, attempted to completely exonerate the group of any wrongdoing. He was of course later proven to be completely wrong. Lewis is not a credible or reliable source for information about cults.

Instead, academics like Lewis, Shupe (who has been a paid expert for Scientology), David Bromley (who has worked with Shupe), Tabor and Wessinger, have been correctly called "cult apologists." And given the large amounts of money paid to academics like Shupe by groups called "cults" for expert testimony and others for "research," this makes the comment that my "financial and ideological stakes" somehow make me suspect appear biased. Such facts should be noted as they once were in the previous entry, before they weren edited out, leaving this Davidian subsection an unbalanced, biased POV.

When an encyclopedia entry drifts this far from reality it risks being seen as a less than a reliable resource for objective information, and instead becomes more of a repository for personal opinions and propaganda. Please edit and revise this subsection about Waco so it has some semblance of objective balance and credibility. Rick A. Ross (talk) 22:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Ross you have not produced reliable sources for us to use, instead you keep on linking to your own website and suggesting that we take your original research into account. "Cult apologist" is not a term used by scholars to describe other scholars. You say that there was consensus that Koresh was dangerous (which is true) but then you erect a straw man by insinuating that these supposed "cult apologists" have argued differently. These scholars have tried to unearth what went wrong, and how. One of the more commonly shared assessments by scholars across disciplines who have conducted research on this event, is that various law enforcement decisions were not based upon any reliable expertise--e.g. scholars who could unpack Koresh's novel theology and/or who understood the social dynamics of groups like his were not consulted, or at least not adequately. Instead self styled "cult experts" without any scholarly research experience or academic training in the study of religion, social movements, NRMs, etc. etc. were relied upon. Concurrently law enforcement was barraged by a growing sense of panic from various relatives of group members who had been lobbying the government for a long time. Some scholars suggest that this group started exaggerating claims regarding Koresh to get the adequate attention to their plight. In the end the issue is that Waco was handled poorly and the wrong sources of information contributed to this greatly. No one argues that Koresh was a sane man minding his own business until the evil government came by and messed his life up. I am going to ask you once again if you have reliable scholarly sources to use here other than the ones you don't like. If your position is that they don't exist because all the scholars writing about Waco are part of a cabal of "cult apologists" then I think this issue is settled. Regards.PelleSmith (talk) 23:20, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
PelleSmith please understand that this issue is not "settled" simply because you say so. I have repeatedly submitted fully attributed archived material regarding research, historical information and opposing expert opinion regarding the Waco Davidians and my role concerning the cult, which has all been very well documented. You have chosen to ignore this in order to maintain the current one-sided POV, which reflects your own personal POV as you have just outlined. You also demonstrate your bias regarding this entry by categorizing "self-styled 'cult experts'" as opposed to the "commonly shared assesments of scholars." Please understand that at the time of the Waco Davidian standoff I was the only cult expert that had first-hand experience with the group through both my intervention work and handling family complaints. None of the complaints from affected families reflected "panic," but were rather born out repeatedly by all the subsequent first-hand testimonies, investigations, treatment of the surviving children, physical evidence, court proceedings, news reports and of course the final outcome of Waco, which was a cult murder/suicide planned and ordered by David Koresh. The attempt of some scholars to spin legitimate family concerns as "panic" is again evidence of their effort to spin the situation for the purpose of cult apology and again serves to discredit those scholars. You say that "reliable expertise--e.g. scholars who could unpack Koresh's novel theology and/or who understood the social dynamics of groups like his were not consulted, or at least not adequately." However, as stated previously David Koresh was a psychopath, as assessed by mental health professionals, and his so-called "novel theology," which he changed almost daily was not consistent or grounded in conventional religious studies. The religious scholars complaining about Waco opine that if they were consulted more closely things would somehow have gone better. But this can easily be seen as a self-serving POV that promotes their own professional and personal interests. Again, there is no balance in this entry as there once was previously. I strongly suggest that you and Jayen466 edit the Waco entry to provide meaningful balance.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:51, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Please provide references to peer reviewed publications and/or books published by an academic press that can be used here and that represent the balance you seek -- please do not provide links to your website (if they are convenience links please refer to the original publication). What I know about Waco I have read in what we consider reliable sources, and all I am asking for is that you provide some of your own. Please also do not confuse my position with that of anybody else here. I have not edited that section nor do I intend to. My concern is with your accusation that a group of academics are "biased" regarding Waco - (including Nancy Ammerman, Catherine Wessinger, Stuart Wright, James Tabor and James Lewis). Is John R. Hall on this list too? He has an interesting essay on the cultural processes that he identifies as causal in escalating the situation into what it became (Hall, John R. (2002) "Mass Suicide and the Branch Davidians" In Cults, Religion and Violence. Cambridge University Press). I am not aware of scholarship that denies the validity of pre-siege concern or tries to "spin" such concern into panic or mass hysteria devoid of legitimate cause. I am aware of scholarship, like Hall's, that suggests that under the pressure of legitimate concern and in the absence of any real traction (after various failed attempts by law enforcement to find enough evidence to prosecute Koresh on various charges) various groups opposed to Koresh themselves started doing whatever it would take to get help. Hall rather specifically states that he believes the motivations of these people (ex-members, family members, law enforcement and others) were genuine and that he doesn't believe that anybody wished to precipitate violence. Nevertheless he identifies the process of cultural opposition as disastrous. Is he entirely correct? I don't know, and I've never conducted any research on this myself. But the problem we face here on Wikipedia is that Hall (and the group you call biased) have published their research in ways we consider reliable by our sourcing standards. In fact, given that they are notable scholars and that their work is published within academic standards, we regard this as the most reliable form of sourcing possible. This is why you need to provide other reliable sources to counterbalance this view. Maybe my readings on this are skewed. Then show me by providing sources other than your website. The reason I said the matter is settled, should you not be able to do so, isn't because I'm trying to be a pompous jerk, but because our basic editing standards dictate this. We require verification and not whatever it is any editor or group of editors claims to be the "truth."PelleSmith (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that none of the texts on your site that you linked to above rebuts the assessments of these scholars. Only two of the linked texts even mention you, and even those two don't go into any detail concerning your activity as a consultant. Jayen466 16:17, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that this relatively small group of scholars doesn't represent the established facts about Waco per the entry. You have edited out any balance and now use them to present your POV in an effort to bias this entry. Please understand that this type of biased editing is unacceptable and that your editing will be complained about officially to Wikiepedia and here. Per the previous entry Nancy Ammerman's and others that complained about my influence during Waco were refuted, by others reporting to the Justice Department.Rick A. Ross (talk) 17:16, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Please name the source here on this talk page and quote the passage concerned. Jayen466 18:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Already done repeatedly. Go back and look at the entries on this talk page. Also look at the way the Waco section read regarding Ammerman before you began cutting it up. Ammerman represented a minority opinion in the Justice Department Report. And likewise the scholars you quote have been repeatedly discredited by others and the historical facts. (1) By other experts (2) By the historical facts as established lateer through government reports, court proceedings, eyewitness testimony etc. etc. as I have repeatedly pointed out to you in some detail. What is it about these facts that you don't understand?Rick A. Ross (talk) 19:10, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Simply not true. Ammerman commented on you by name; Stone and Sullivan, in their reports, simply commented that no religious expert familiar with the group's beliefs had been consulted, and considered this a failing. Neither of them to my knowledge took issue with Ammerman's findings in their reports. Jayen466 19:41, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Read the entry subsection about Waco before you started editing it. It states, "Nancy Ammerman insisted they relied too much on Ross, a view which is not shared by the other three experts reporting to the Justice department." This should be included for balance, i.e. other experts reporting did not share her view.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
The other three panelists (I've found a few references to Cancro as well now) agreed with and echoed Ammerman's findings, but did not mention you by name. That is why they are not cited in this article. Ammerman reports for example that "Both of the psychiatrists who later offered reports to Justice and Treasury - Cancro and Stone - were highly critical of the assessments and strategies that resulted from failing to take the religious and social situation into account. The only experts in religion who were consulted lacked the kinds of expertise necessary for understanding the dynamics of an ostracized religious movement." Jayen466 14:23, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
You are parsing words in an effort to drag out and frustrate the editing process. Correct, the other three expert panelists did not concur with Ammerman that the FBI depended upon me too much. As you point out they put such little weight on that point that they did not even mention me by name. Ammerman alone made this observation, which was noted previously, but you have edited it out. Stop trying to withhold information and balance that was previously in this bio entry subsection.15:00, 4 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick A. Ross (talk • contribs)

(outdent) I've added a few words to make clear that Ammerman was one of four experts commissioned to write a report. Jayen466 16:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but that doesn't completely address the issue. None of the other experts shared Ammerman's concerns specifically about my work, or as you previously admitted even mentioned me as a problem. This fact needs to be included, i.e. Ammerman stood alone amongst the four experts in expressing specific concern about my work. 17:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick A. Ross (talk • contribs)

False statement at full-time private consultant and lecturer

"In 1986 Ross left the staff of the JFCS and BJE to become a full-time private consultant and deprogrammer.[8][4] As part of his work, he undertook a number of involuntary deprogramming interventions, at the request of parents whose children had joined a religious group.[8][4]"

This is a false statement. My work as noted within both the bio and news articles footnoted did and does not exclusively include only those affected by a "religious group," but rather a wide array of groups, e.g. political groups, UFO groups, multi-level marketing schemes, large group awareness training groups, hate groups, one-on-one abusive controlling relationships etc.Rick A. Ross (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done [5] (including the point made above that it was a Jewish nursing home).

Not done. Read the criticism of the edits again. They are still misleading. Rather than "whose children had joined a religious or otherwise controversial group." This is not coherent. It should read -- "whose children had joined controversial groups and movements," which is accurate. Regarding what happened at the Jewish nursing home that my grandmother lived in you are still misleading. It wasn't simply "a Christian missionary group" it was specifically a fundamentalist Christian group that targeted Jews for conversion. And it wasn't that they "became active in the Jewish nursing home." They specifically sought paid staff positions to covertly get in the nursing home and proselytize residents. It should read "Ross first became concerned about controversial groups and movements in 1982, when a fundamentalist Christian group that specifically targeted Jews for conversion, infiltrated the paid staff of the Jewish nursing home where his grandmother was a resident. He brought the matter to the attention of Jewish leaders and successfully campaigned to expose the group's activities within Arizona. He then began working as a volunteer, lecturer and researcher for a variety of Jewish organizations."Rick A. Ross (talk) 16:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
"controversial groups and movements" inserted, "infiltrated" as per Observer article. Jayen466 20:23, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
One more time: I cannot take dictation from you. We have to reflect what reliable sources have written. Please find a reliable, third-party source (not self-published, since you are making claims about third parties – see WP:SELFQUEST) that makes the above points about the missionary group concerned. The cited article does not. Failing a source, there is nothing further I can or will do. Jayen466 20:53, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
The facts can be easily found from news articles and official publication. The following links include news articles and the text of a brochure published by the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. They specifically report what type of group infiltrated Kivel Manor, which is the nursing home my grandmother was once a resident within during the early 1980s.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/jews_for_jesus/jews_for_jesus8.html The Republic Newspaper, Phoenix

http://www.rickross.com/reference/messianic/messianic8.html Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, brochure excerpt.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/jewish_prisoner/jewish_prisoner6.html Phoenix Jewish News

The Phoenix Jewish News reiterates my statement that a Christian missionary "infiltrated" the nursing home. Nothing contradicts this fact, which the writer reported.

The Republic article includes a quote by a Jewish Federation staffer. "I have been the recipient of numerous complaints over the last several months about proselytizing by these so-called Jewish-Christian organizations," Leonard said. "Evangelistic materials have been left at the Kivel Manor (a Jewish geriatric center), at several Jewish institutions, and sent through the mail to Jews.

The Jewish Federation brochure details exactly what the staffer means specifically by "so-called Jewish-Christian organizations," which are fundamentalist Christian groups that specifically target Jews for conversion. It states, "If you are a resident of Kivel, you might be expected to receive unsolicited mail from some groups seeking to proselytize… " Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:41, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Only one of these articles, the third, mentions a nursing home; from looking at it, the description there, specifically relating to the nursing home incident, does not go further than what we already have in the article. Material can probably found to source, as a separate issue from the nursing home incident, that you were concerned about Christian groups targeting Jews. I believe an earlier version of the article contained a quote of some writing of yours in that regard. Jayen466 01:38, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Again, your statement "a Christian missionary group" is misleading and inappropriate. This category would falsely include any an all Christian missionaries. The objection was to fundamentalist Christian missionary groups that target Jews specifically for conversion, which had come into the nursing home covertly by becoming paid staff with the hidden agenda of proselyting the residents. As noted by the Jewish Federation brochure and news reports, this also included unsolicited and unwanted mailings to Kivel Manor residents by the same type of groups. It is totally unfair and not accurate factually to generalize that "a Christian missionary group" was the problem. In fact, many Christians endorsed the Jewish Federation brochure disclaiming and/or denouncing such unethical proselytizing efforts (e.g. Roman Catholic Diocese, United Presbyterian Church, United Methodist Church, Episcopal Diocese),Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:45, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
It is not my statement, it's what The Observer wrote. Please understand that none of us can write these articles from private knowledge, or embellish them with such knowledge. Jayen466 16:02, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
You are attempting to play a game here, which is to use hand picked news articles excerpts very selectively for your own purposes. I have taken the time to come here and post personally under my own name to correct false or misleading statements. I have repeatedly given you ample factual documentation regarding what type of "Christian missionary group" drew the concerns of the Arizona Jewish community. At this point do you intend to ignore such factual information as published in first-hand accounts at the time of the incidents in question, in favor of an what a British journalist reported more generally years later? He evidently didn't detail what specific type of "Christian missionary" became active at Kivel Nursing Home. But I have given you the details per real time reports. Please correct this misleading statement you have picked and edit it correctly.Rick A. Ross (talk) 17:45, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I am not playing a game. Please name one reliable source that says that the Christian missionary group which infiltrated your mother's nursing home specifically targeted Jews, and I will include that information. If the source does not establish a clear link between the group concerned and your mother's nursing home, the info cannot go in. If it does, then there is no problem whatsoever. Jayen466 18:33, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
  • This source here states, "Ross says his interest in cults began in 1982 when the Jewish nursing home where his grandmother resided was infiltrated by members of a sect seeking to convert residents to Christianity." But that is essentially what we are saying now. I can add that they were seeking to convert residents, if that helps.
  • This article quotes you as saying, in an interview:

    DOOR: What got you started?
    ROSS: It involved my grandmother. She was a resident of a Jewish nursing home in Phoenix and the staff had been infiltrated by people involved with a controversial group called the Jewish Voice Broadcast, which was founded by an Assembly of God Minister by the name of Lewis Kaplan. It was styled after Jews for Jesus and essentially was a similar organization that targeted Jews for conversion to Pentecostalism.

We could use that as a source to provide further info on the organization. Jayen466 18:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That is not what your editing says. Make the necessary change so that the distinctions are there as previously pointed out. Stop dragging this on and on. You are deliberately including a misleading statement. The length of time it takes for you to admit a mistake and correct it is not the behavior of NPOV editor, but rather a person using Wikipedia to fulfill a personal agenda of harassment. Change "when a Christian missionary group infiltrated..." to "when a fundamentalist Christian group that specifically targeted Jews for conversion infiltrated..." This statement is supported by the reported facts.19:25, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

First of all, I missed the sentence where you pointed out that your grandmother's nursing home was called Kivel Manor. My apologies. However, even so,

  • The first source you posted says, ""Evangelistic materials have been left at the Kivel Manor (a Jewish geriatric center), at several Jewish institutions, and sent through the mail to Jews." This does not match the description you gave above about someone "covertly assuming paid staff positions for the purpose of proselytising elderly residents".
  • The second source you posted says, "If you are a resident of Kivel, you might be expected to receive unsolicited mail from some groups seeking to proselytize… " Again, this does not match the description of "infiltrating the staff", which is what the Observer article referred to.
  • The third source says, "when a Christian missionary "infiltrated" the Kivel Nursing Home and "harassed" his grandmother" which is pretty much the wording we have, i.e. "Christian missionary".

In addition,

  • The first source quotes you as saying that "An ordained fundamentalist minister who accepts the tenets of Christianity is not a Jew."
  • The second source says, "The connections between the Jewish Voice Broadcast and Fundamentalist and Charismatic churches is strong".
  • The third source quotes you as saying, "Christian fundamentalist ministers work zealously to convert Jews in the institutions."

Neither of these sources specifically says that the nursing home staff was infiltrated by fundamentalist Christians, which is what you want me to write. If I've missed it, then please have the patience and forbearance to quote the exact sentence here, and which document it is in. The current wording is adequately covered by the source cited, and by the third source cited by yourself, so there is no mistake here whatsoever. However, I'll use the above Door interview to make the section a bit more specific, based on what you said there. And try a bit of WP:AGF, it's kind of a house rule here. Cheers. Jayen466 20:08, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

 Done Updated as per the interview in The Door Magazine. Jayen466 20:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Jason Scott "gagged"?

Jason Scott was not "gagged." This a false statement. The definition of gagged is, "to restrict use of the mouth by inserting a gag." No such gag was ever inserted into Jason Scott's mouth. The objective facts such as the verdict, details of the damages awarded, final settlement, what lawyers represented Scott etc. is meaningful objective historical information. But not the interpretation of testimony and/or opinions expressed by individuals and witnesses.Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

These are from your own site. There are many other such references in news reports and scholarly books. Jayen466 18:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Both articles you offer as reference from the Ross Institute Web site archives read that this is an allegation not a fact. Again, Jason Scott was not by the previous definition "gagged." Please revise the text accordingly. And revise other false and/or misleading statements you have included.Rick A. Ross (talk) 13:53, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
The article says, "According to court testimony, Scott was tied up, gagged with duct tape, and then held in a seaside cottage". Are you saying that this was not part of the court testimony by Scott (and Rotroff)? The reference to "gagging" is widespread – I would say standard – in reliable sources commenting on the case. According to this article, the handcuffs, tape and straps used were submitted as evidence in the criminal case. Jayen466 15:06, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Again, no "gag" was submitted as evidence. And the criminal trial ended in "not guilty"--words you seem unwilling to include, even though they are part of the court record. Please remove the following--"gagged," the opinion expressed by some "jurors" as why they voted "not guilty" and the prosecutor's "surprise" that he lost the case. None of this has any business being in an encyclopedia entry.Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
As I said, references to "gagging (with duct tape)" in the case are nearly ubiquitous. Here is an example from Reuters. Jayen466 15:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I note that your own reproduction of that same Reuters article appears to have excised that reference. Jayen466 16:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Again, Jason Scott was not "gagged." CESNUR is a very biased source. CESNUR says "according to testimony," but testimony was contradicted. Please correct the false statement you posted to read accurately. If you want to make this coherent and factual my suggestion is to to change it to read "Scott was restrained and then moved to a seaside cottage rented by his mother, where the involuntary deprogramming took place." The rest is grossly misleading and/or false. Rick A. Ross (talk) 16:47, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
As I said, the CESNUR site quotes the Reuters article "Supreme Court Denies Appeal By Anti-Cult Group". It appears to quote the Reuters article in full, including the sentence "According to testimony at the trial, Scott was abducted by three men, bound, gagged and blindfolded, and held for five days". This sentence is part of the Reuters text. Your site, on the other hand, has cut sections of the Reuters text, including this sentence, without indicating the deletions. Apologetics Index, while deleting the same portions of the text, at least marked the deletions as such. Your site on the other hand creates the false impression that the complete Reuters text has been quoted. At least, that is how it would appear to me. Now, are you suggesting that Reuters are a biased source not worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia? Or are you suggesting that the deletions marked on the Apologetics Index site were deletions of nothing, that CESNUR fraudulently inserted extraneous text into the Reuters article that was not originally there, at precisely the points where Apologetics Index have inserted ellipses to indicate deletions, and that the version on your website, without the reference to gagging, is the only full and correct version of the Reuters text as it appeared at the time? Jayen466 18:07, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Only an original copy of the Reuters blurb would establish, which version is correct. But as pointed out earlier even the CESNUR version said "according to testimony." Testimony at trial was often contradicted by other testimony. There was no gag. If you are going to be a credible editor and not a polemicist just post the facts. Again, "Scott was restrained and then moved to a seaside cottage rented by his mother, where the involuntary deprogramming took place." BTW--Jason was never at any time without his family (mother, brothers)present. It was a luxury beach rental, his mother cooked for him, his brothers slept with him and he was well treated, i.e. according to family testimony. You see we could go on and on here. Do the right thing and cut the bias. Wikipedia should be better than that.Rick A. Ross (talk) 18:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Our article, too, says "According to court testimony", just like the Reuters text linked to above, this article, this one, this one, this book, and other reliable sources. I will not change the article based on your say-so. The circumstances -- handcuffing, gagging with duct tape, etc., are too well established in the sources covering the case. Jayen466 18:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
If your objection is to the specific word "gagging", we can look at changing the wording to say "placed duct tape over his mouth". Jayen466 19:03, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Here are some more sources:

In a criminal case in the state of Washington, deprogrammer Rick Ross and his associates had been referred to the mother of Jason Scott by the Cult Awareness Network. Scott, a member of a Pentecostal church, had been handcuffed, silenced with duct tape across his mouth, abducted, and forcibly held against his will for days in a failed attempt to destroy his beliefs.

— Odd Gods: New Religions and the Cult Controversy. Contributors: James R. Lewis - editor. Publisher: Prometheus Books. Place of Publication: Amherst, NY. Publication Year: 2001. Page Number: 92.

Second, there was no brutality. The two men hired by his mother seized him outside her house. He was restrained after becoming violent. He was handcuffed but never struck. After he bit one of them, they taped his mouth, and both the handcuffs and tape were removed after he was put in the van to go to the hotel where we held the deprogramming. Jason was not free to leave for five days, but at the end he told us he was going to leave the cult, and when we went out for dinner, he "escaped" - as he called it - instead of going to the bathroom. At that point, he was free to go at any time. This was the only case I have been involved in where I have seen security use handcuffs.

— Q & A Brainwashed – Rick Ross talks about deprogramming members of religious cults, Willamette Week/November 1, 1995, as hosted on rickross.com

The sentence now reads: "Scott was handcuffed, had duct tape placed over his mouth, and was then held in a seaside cottage where he was restrained and told he would only be released if he renounced his church." Jayen466 21:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

"taped his mouth" seems appropriateRick A. Ross (talk) 14:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I am glad we seem to have found agreement on one issue at least. Jayen466 16:18, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Jason Scott's "regious beliefs"?

Jason Scott was never "told he would only be released if he gave up his religious beliefs." This is a false statement. His mother Katherine Tonkin explicitly told her son that he would be free to go after allowing time for her concerns to be addressed and that he could ultimately believe whatever he wanted to believe. Ms. Tonkin's concerns centered upon the control and influence exerted over her son's life by her former pastor and church. This false statement is an example of why the interpretation of what was said or what happened should not be included in the subsection about Jason ScottRick A. Ross (talk) 15:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Of the three deprogrammings Ross subsequently performed for Tonkin, only Scott’s was problematic. Jason, after all, was already 18 at the time his mother hired Ross, and as he would later testify, on the morning that the three men assisting Ross grabbed Scott, handcuffed him, and forced him into a van, he yelled that they had no legal right to abduct him. What happened next would make for even more vivid testimony. When he continued to scream, his abductors slapped duct tape on his mouth. They held him down on the floor of the van, and drove him four hours away to a beach house on a deserted stretch of the Washington coast. For five days, Ross forced Scott to watch videos on religious cults and tried to get him to renounce the Life Tabernacle Church. Finally, he decided to tell Ross and his other captors what they wanted to hear. When the group went out to dinner, Scott bolted from the restaurant and immediately went to the police.

— American Lawyer, http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/Scien27.html

I've changed it to "told he would only be released if he renounced his church". That is also still an adequate summary of Shupe, p. 182. Jayen466 20:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

The news article does not match your editing. You state, "he was restrained and told he would only be released if he renounced his church." There was never any such statement made to Jason. He was told that he would be released when his mother was satisfied that her concerns had been addressed. The beach house was only rented for a few days and Jason knew that ultimately he would be free to make his own decision to either stay in or leave Life Tabernacle Church. An involuntary intervention was done only after Kathy Tonkin had tried and failed to meet with Jason privately to discuss her concerns in-depth. Repeatedly the pastor of Life Tabernacle Church refused to allow Jason to come home for a few days to talk things over with his mother. Instead, he was isolated and estranged from his family. The involuntary intervention provided the few days Kathy had sought and when those days were done Jason was free to go. He "escaped" during a dinner at a restaurant in town as reported, but at that point he was actually free to go at any time. Please correct the false statement you have made. Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
The Wikipedia WP:V policy puts this very bluntly: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true. If what you say has been published by a reliable source, please post the details of the source here. If it has not, it is immaterial. The assertion made in our text has been published. Many sources say that the aim of the deprogramming, according to testimony, was to change Scott's beliefs, to make him renounce his faith, or renounce his allegiance to his church. This, by the way, is not an unusual description of the aim of deprogramming. However, I'll change the text to "he would only be released once the "deprogramming" was completed". (This, in practical terms, meant according to Shupe that Scott had to renounce his church, but we can leave that to the reader.) Jayen466 01:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Some Scott case juror's opinion

Jayen has edited that "the jury acquitted Ross because 'prosecutors had not proved Ross participated in restraining Scott.'" This is a very selective quote that if you look at the footnoted article only expresses an opinion that may have been expressed by some jurors according to one press report. Each juror may have held a different opinion and reason regarding why he or she ultimately deciding upon the "not guilty" verdict, which is the only opinion that summarizes the entire jury's collective opinion. This quote should be deleted as a POV. What is historically relevant is the final opinion expressed by all the jurors in their published court verdict.Rick A. Ross (talk) 16:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

[6] Jayen466 18:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
The reference doesn't support your conclusion. It does not state that all the jurors came to a written finding as you states. It says, "Jurors in the case against Ross, in which he was accused of keeping Jason Scott for several days in 1991 against his will in a Grays Harbor house to dissuade him from his membership in Bellevue's Life Tabernacle Church, said prosecutors had not proved Ross participated in restraining Scott." How many "jurors"? What does the court record state? An honest NPOV edit would be -- Jurors found Ross "not guilty" and he was acquitted of all charges. And a prosecutor's biased opinion has no place in an encyclopedia entry. Please edit honestly and revise this.Rick A. Ross (talk) 13:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I revised it yesterday to bring it more in line with the cited source. You were right in that the "because" went beyond the source. As for the comments by the prosecutor, similar comments by him were reported elsewhere as well. I believe your defence in the case rested on your testimony that you had only been hired to deprogram Scott, and not to kidnap him, this being the job assigned to the three other Arizona men. While two of those who kidnapped Scott received a short jail sentence (the third, Rotroff, turned state's evidence), you yourself did not. If that is so, then your participation (or not) in the actual kidnapping and restraint was thus a vital feature of the case. Jayen466 14:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Now it's about what you "believe"? Please stop interjecting your beliefs, opinion and POV into this entry. The entry as it stands isn't accurate and is slanted to reflect a POV. The court record reflects that the jury stated unanimously that I was "not guilty" regarding any and all criminal charges and I was acquitted. What some jurors may have expressed as opinions about the decision making process they followed in no more relevant for the purposes of an encyclopedia entry than the comments of a disappointed prosecutor that lost his case. Just the facts please. It should read "The jury found Ross 'not guilty' and he was acquitted of all charges. Ross' associates plead guilty to coercion and were sentenced to 30 days in jail." These are facts without an interjected POVRick A. Ross (talk) 17:07, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
The jurors' comments were reported in a reliable source commenting on the outcome of the trial. Jayen466 18:20, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
The facts are simple. The jury found me "not guilty" and acquitted me of all charges. What some jurors opined or the losing prosecutor felt is not relevant to this entry. It appears that you are attempting to slant this subsection towards your beliefs and POV by selectively editing in such things. Please correct this as previously recommended.Rick A. Ross (talk) 18:35, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
If the newspaper report commenting on the outcome of the trial considered it a relevant detail to report, it is equally relevant here. The Seattle Times is an unbiased source, and we are merely reflecting what they reported. Jayen466 19:06, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I said "believe" because I did not have the source to hand, but was quoting from memory. I have found it again now; the Seattle Times reported that "His defense lawyer, Jeff Ranes, argued that Ross of Phoenix, Ariz., was hired to deprogram Scott but that others who restrained Scott were not under Ross's control." Jayen466 21:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
So in your editing policy you believe whatever one or two jurors reportedly said and the prosecutor's spin after losing his case important in this encyclopedia entry? On balance then the comments of losing counsel, outside legal experts and others might then be equally relevant after the conclusion of the Scott civil trial?Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:59, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
If they have been reported in reliable sources, yes indeed. Jayen466 01:41, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
OK. Then comments after the Jason Scott civil verdict reported by the media should be included. And you have now made that commitment. Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:04, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

BTW--Please go through the other issues such as my fees being falsely summarized as $5,000 per case, why the issue of annual expenditures of the Ross Institute is included and why the statement that I "advertise" is specifically included. Why are these things relevant specifically to an encyclopedia entry?Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That fee figure is sourced. It is given in The Observer article, which appears to have been written with considerable input by yourself. The annual income (not expenditure) figure has been in the article for some time; I don't know who added it, but it is sourced. The NXIVM case documentation mentions that 'Rick Ross runs nonprofit websites, www.rickross.com and www.cultnews.com, in connection with his work as a for-profit "cult de-programmer."' I think it is relevant that the site fulfils a dual purpose. [7] [8] I deleted Shupe's comment that the site is a "lone ranger entrepreneurial attempt to solicit customers" or some such wording, but I think it would be improper to remove all mention of the site also having a for-profit aspect to it, serving to bring you customers via the "Getting Help" section. Jayen466 15:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
You appear to pick and choose what comments you want to keep and which to delete per your POV, which reflects an agenda in your editing here. You have falsely stated, "As of 2004, Ross had handled more than 350 deprogramming cases, at a typical cost of $5,000." From 1982 to 1986 all my intervention work was done at no charge whatsoever to concerned families. I worked as a volunteer and later staffer for nonprofit Jewish agencies. This included about 80 interventions. Subsequently, my fees were $350.00 per day as reported by CBS News (1989), then gradually my rates raised over the coming years until they reached the current rate of $750.00. The Guardian article you cite doesn't reflect this. I am personally posting here in good faith to correct this error. Again, regarding what statements you have decided to pick to keep as you edit, why is it relevant to discuss the Ross Institute budget? Is this the rule for a Wikipedia entry about nonprofits? And is it also typical to discuss what paid services might be offered? Is this the rule at Wikipedia, or just something you have decided arbitrarily?Rick A. Ross (talk) 17:36, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
You make your living with these services; that is relevant to your bio. I understand what you are saying about rising prices. The $5000 price is, it seems, the price in today's money. It matches the current price you give on your website, so it is not exactly misleading. If you have other sources that document your deprogramming prices at some point in the past, please post them here and we'll include that information. Jayen466 18:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
We could perhaps say, "at a current price of $5000 each" and cite the fee page as a secondary source, along with the Observer article. Would that help? Jayen466 19:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
And if no other editor objects, I'll delete the reference to the RRI income per WP:UNDUE, as per Mr Ross's wish. It is cited to a primary source anyway. Jayen466 19:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, I object - not all that familiar with wp:undue but it seems relevant to keep it in. 66.81.242.151 (talk) 21:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your contribution. The sentence is gone already. But as per WP:PSTS we should not really go hunting for primary sources to include information that reliable secondary sources have seen no need to mention. If you find a secondary source that bothers to discuss this aspect there would be more of a rationale for including this info. Otherwise, I tend to agree with Rick that it is undue weight. (Allow me to agree with him once in a while. ;-) ). Cheers, Jayen466 21:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

OK Jayen. Now what about "which also advertises Ross's own for-profit services[19] as an exit counselor and expert witness, along with his professional fees." Please give me specific examples where this is a Wikipedia policy, i.e. other entries about nonprofits within Wikipedia that include such details. If this is a generally accepted detail often used within Wikipedia I would like to see proof. It comes across as little more than sniping, but maybe it's commonplace and a generally accepted detail often used within Wikipedia.Rick A. Ross (talk) 19:41, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


there's nothing wrong with the statement. if you think there's a wp policy or examples of other other articles that might help your agenda, may i humbly suggest you find them yourself? 66.81.242.151 (talk) 21:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the misleading statement about my $5,000 per case fees Jayen again seems to playing games here. There is no need to quote any price. Many cases were done for free. Many cases were done for far less than $5,000.19:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick A. Ross (talk • contribs)

The Observer article – which is not unsympathetic to you – saw it fit to mention this. Wikipedia is not censored. Note, too, that this is the page for yourself, as an individual, rather than the page for a nonprofit org. And as I said, there are WP:RS commentators out there like Shupe who use much sharper words to describe the commercial function of the site. I thought this was a neutral way of presenting the same information. Jayen466 20:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

How exactly do you propose to correct the misleading statement you edited into this bio portion?Rick A. Ross (talk) 22:08, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
How exactly is it misleading, or, more to the point, how exactly does it fail to reflect the cited sources? Jayen466 22:20, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Scott case prosecutor's opinion

In the Jason Scott Case subsection the criminal prosecutor's opinion is cited. It says, "The prosecutor expressed surprise at the verdict." Of course every prosecutor is unhappy when they lose, and they may make such a statement to spin the verdict in an attempt to mitigate a court defeat. This is a biased POV expressed by one side of the criminal case at its conclusion. Others were not surprised by the verdict. This sentence should be deleted. It isn't appropriate for an encyclopedia entry.Rick A. Ross (talk) 16:18, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

What can be done about such biased editing? I have sent complaints to Wikepedia officially, but it seems like anyone can come in and edit anonymously per their own POV this way.Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Press articles on rickross.com

A number of press articles, including ones covering legal cases that Mr Ross has been involved in, are sourced to unlicensed and unverified copies hosted on rickross.com. This is clearly inappropriate, for multiple reasons; the articles should be sourced independently. Jayen466 11:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The articles mentioned are archived within the Ross Institute Internet Archives, which is an educational nonprofit and an institutional member of the New Jersey Library Association. It is appropriate for articles archived there to be used as historical information for the purpose of this bio as they are used generally on a daily basis for historical reference by researchers. For example, Wikipedia often uses links to "The Internet Archives." Attempting to exclude historical documentation and reports on this basis is a rather transparent effort to block facts that would otherwide disprove Jayen466 POV.Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:20, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I have sourced the NXIVM section to a third-party source; the content is still essentially the same (pls review). It's just that if we are talking about a law case, an encyclopedia should not source its content to material hosted on the website of one of the parties in the case, especially since some of the material on rickross.com is edited, with unmarked deletions and extraneous commentary added. Jayen466 15:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
The Ross Institute Internet Archives is respected resource for information used by researchers. You seem willing to use CESNUR, which is quite a biased source. The Ross Institute has thousands of articles and documents reliably archived and attributed. They are almost always with very rare exception exactly as they were when originally published. If an article has been edited it is noted. You claimed that one article had been edited, but that claim remains unproven.Rick A. Ross (talk) 17:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Rich Ross is considered an expert in the field of cultic studies, and his site is considered a reliable resource for researchers. Many other cult-related articles on Wikipedia link to his site for this reason. Xanthius (talk) 17:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, that has been discussed several times before. The most recent RfC consensus on this talk page was that we should not link to the site, since it hosts copyrighted works without license and thus fails WP:EL#Restrictions_on_linking and Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking_to_copyrighted_works. (This is entirely independent of Rick Ross's standing or otherwise as an expert.) Jayen466 18:07, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
No such definitive finding that I can see. The Internet Archives is a source for many links. The Ross Institute Internet Archives is both an institutional member of a library association and an educational nonprofit. Again, Jayen is simply attempting to exclude factual archived material he doesn't want cited.Rick A. Ross (talk) 19:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
The material is not licensed, and some of it is for sale online by the rightful owners. As per WP:Copyright, the Internet Archive that we are allowed to quote (the Wayback Machine) is specifically defined as an archive which hosts "unmodified archived copies of webpages taken at various points in time". Your site does not fall under this description. See L.A._Times_v._Free_Republic, which concerned a case more like your site; the newspapers won that one, and the fair use rationale did not stand up in court.
Note also that the New Jersey Library Association is a corporation that offers memberships to any interested individuals and institutions against payment; being a paid-up member does not confer any official library status. Jayen466 20:36, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
The Internet Archive and the Ross Institute Internet Archive both archive news articles. Both are members of respected library associations. Both are nonprofit educational efforts. Based upon your definitions The Internet Archive would have no more or less right to "fair use." You are attempting to suppress information on the Internet that you don't want seen.22:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick A. Ross (talk • contribs)
The articles can be cited. As per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, the ref should make it clear that the version cited is the one hosted on rickross.com. However, they should not be linked, and best practice would be to independently confirm article content. Where the original publisher has the article up online, the original publisher should be linked. Jayen466 22:19, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

[de-indented] I have had occasion to locate news articles on various topics related to cults, and the anti-cult movement. In those cases where I have found articles elsewhere on-line of the same article, all have been properly attributed and faithfully reproduced on Rick Ross' website, although Jayen appears to be implying that the articles hosted there have been 'doctored'. Nevertheless, it would still be a valid source provided it is made clear whose website it came from, and perhaps pending a better source (if you have doubts about the fidelity of the re-hosted material). I would have no reason to suspect that the articles have been altered in any way based on my experience. Having said that, WP policies state that we must do our best to find links to the original publisher of news articles, but it says nowhere we must avoid linking to same. A string search of any phrase will often yield results the original. If it's no longer available except through or an archive, it would still not fall foul of WP:A and WP:V to cite a paper version. You just need to go to a library. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 03:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Quite. For clarification, there was a Reuters case mentioned above, where rickross.com seems to have unmarked deletions compared to the text given on cesnur.org, a scholarly site, and various other sites:
This is the first case of unmarked deletions I have noticed. However, let's have no illusions about the fact that rickross.com does quite often have POV commentary, additional "interesting info" or "corrections" inserted by the site owners. For example, here is an LA New Times article on Wayback, and the same article on rickross.com –
If you compare the two versions, you'll find that the version on rickross.com contains a fair number of POV-motivated edits to the text. The first ones of these I noticed were:
  • an Ohio woman who sued a cult-deprogramming organization named Wellspring, whose executive director also sat on the CAN board. (newtimesla.com)
  • an Ohio woman who sued a cult-[recovery rehabilitation retreat] named Wellspring, whose executive director also sat on the CAN board. (rickross.com)
(Note that Ross is – or was – associated with Wellspring, which often took in deprogrammees after deprogramming for further treatment; Jason Scott e.g. was supposed to go there after his deprogramming.)
  • "Jason Scott -- who had been kidnapped and deprogrammed from an evangelical Christian sect" (newtimesla.com)
  • "Jason Scott -- who had been kidnapped and deprogrammed from [a church affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International]" (rickross.com)
There are more scattered throughout the remainder of the text. So I definitely think linking to the wayback version is the thing to do. This is also the only option that complies with WP:COPYRIGHT, WP:EL#Restrictions_on_linking and Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking_to_copyrighted_works. Jayen466 06:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
rickross.com is clearly a self-published, POV site that breaks copyright. I've been astounded in the past when wikipedia editors (and admins) have defended it as WP:RS when quite clearly it is not. Jayen466's "findings" here are quite damning with regard to the reliability and POV even of non-commentary on rickross.com. Clearly it's Wikipedia community acceptance under WP:RS needs to be reviewed, and I'd suggest, revoked. --Insider201283 (talk) 08:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
For the record. There is no "community acceptance under WP:RS" of Ross' website as a source--if I'm wrong please link to this consensus. O course if people want to use it as a resource to find the original references that is fine.PelleSmith (talk) 12:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_11#Use_of_rickross.com_and_religionnewsblog.com_as_external_links.2Fconvenience_links for a long discussion. Mr Ross is himself admitting he edits some articles for "clarification" in a way that clearly denotes his POV. --Insider201283 (talk) 22:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Anyone going through an edited article archived at the Ross Institute Internet Archvies will note the use of brackets, notes, etc. which specifically denote any editing done. There are thousands of articles archived, and a very tiny fraction have ever been edited. Typically this is done for clarification (e.g. Wellspring doesn't do "deprogramming" but is instead a licensed mental health facility providing counseling for former cult members), regarding an error, editing out the name of a former cult member upon request, or an article may have been converted to a "fair use" news summary, typically at the request of a publisher. The overwhelming majority of articles have not been edited at all, which can be verified by comparing them to the original either online if available, or through a public library. Each article is almost always fully attributed.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

CESNUR is a very biased Web site that presents its own POV and is often used by Scientologists and cult apologists to spin whatever propaganda they wish to appear on the Net. The "scholars" that appear there are a relatively confined group, many of them have already been mentioned on this discussion page, such as Anson Shupe, Catherine Wessinger and others who often apologize for groups called "cults."

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/apologist/apologist16.html This is article that appeared in Holland about CESNUR.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

CESNUR is an academic site of mainstream sociologists of religion. You may not agree with them, but that is because a comfortable majority of social scientists in this field, writing for leading university presses, do not agree with you. As in all fields of science, we have to present the mainstream view as the mainstream view. Jayen466 14:30, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Your agreement with CESNUR is noted. Anyone that takes the time to go through the CESNUR Web site and objectively research the background of the organization and its contributors independently, won't come to the same self-serving conclusion that you have Jayen. You agree with CESNUR, no surprise there. They represent your point of view as someone sympathetic to cult groups such as Osho/Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, but CESNUR is not a "mainstream" point of view. For example, regarding the Waco Davidians and a number of other historical cult situations, they are on the fringe with a skewed view that is not reflected by the facts as recorded historically through a variety of more mainstream sources, e.g. mainstream media news outlets, government reports, court records. etc. Many scholars and noted experts strongly disagree with the cult apologists that post at CESNUR, which has been noted. Attempting to label CESNUR "mainstream" doesn't make them mainstream.Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:09, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
I did not say I agreed with them. But I draw attention to the fact that the people you malign – Shupe, Bromley, Barker, Wilson, Introvigne, Lewis, Richardson, Palmer, Wessinger, Ammerman, Melton, Tabor, Gallagher, Chryssides, etc., are leading scholars in this field, writing for top university presses, and that their views are in the majority in the field. Jayen466 15:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
What Jayen says about the academic "mainstream" is in fact true. Mr. Ross if you are going to continue claiming that these scholars are biased and represent a fringe POV you will need to produce reliably published material by other scholars that makes this case for you. When you make this claim based upon your own reading of history you engage in original research -- something we don't accept here. We require verification from reliable sources. I'm going to suggest for the last time that you look over our policies and guidelines, particularly WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR but also WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV. If want to be taken seriously here you need to work within the rules--that is a pretty fundamental and basic point. If you don't trust me, find some long term editors who are sympathetic to your POV and ask for guidance.PelleSmith (talk) 16:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
What Jayen says about academics is false. Many opposing viewpoints are expressed by well recognized experts and scholars in fields of psychology, psychiatry and sociology and they have strongly disagreed with the scholars/sources cited by Jayen466 and CESNUR. This includes such recognized experts as psychologist Paul Martin, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, authors Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, psychologist, professor and author Margaret Singer, psychiatrist and professor Jolly West, sociologists Janja Lalich and Stephen Kent and Richard Ofshe. Critics of these same cult apologists have included academics such as Professor Benjamin Zablocki at Rutgers and Benjamin Beit-Halami, Professor of Psychology at Haifa University and others. Introvigne and his CESNUR group do represent a point of view, but it is a contested/disputed point of view. You have chosen not to recognize this, nor have you recognized the facts about Waco which ultimately undercut the opinions of these apologists about the standoff making those opinions moot.Rick A. Ross (talk) 17:41, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Please provide references. We have references to the content you think is biased. Please provide references (not your various weblinks) to statements made by these scholars in which they claim the other scholars are biased or in which they present a completely different POV regarding Waco or any topic disputed on this talk page. I am aware of various disagreements between some of these scholars but many of those are not even pertinent to this discussion. For instance, the fact that some of the psychologists you now name take the minority position (not supported by the APA) regarding brainwashing does not make this disagreement relevant to Waco or other issues discussed here. It certainly does not make their POV mainstream. Either way you need to produce more than just names.PelleSmith (talk) 19:41, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
PelleSmith I don't know why you are here. But frankly given the ongoing exchange it seems that you really are not interested in objectively editing, but rather feeding into prolonged arguments based upon your POV. There is no official APA stated position regarding "brainwashing." The APA ultimately decided not to take an official stated position on that subject. Didn't you know that? I have demonstrated over and over again that the current version of the Waco subsection is nothing more than a polemical rant based upon the opinions of a few academics, some of whom have often been called "cult apologists." Their views aare not widely held by experts and/or founded upon historical facts. These opinions have no place in a legitimate encyclopedia entry without proper qualification and balance, which they previously had before Jayen466 edited it out. Is there something that I have stated that you don't understand? Please correct the problem as previously suggested with proper objective editingRick A. Ross (talk) 20:18, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
My problem is that you are not backing your assertions up with reliable sources. I am here because I take umbrage with your claim that certain sources are biased on Waco, but do not back this assertion up with scholarship that either takes a clearly different position or that calls said sources biased. I've asked you again and again to provide some sources. If you think Jayen is editing your entry from a biased POV then what you can do is to provide sources that balance this point of view. This is why I repeatedly point you to our guidelines and policies regarding sourcing and verification. I did not say that APA has officially taken a position against the brainwashing theory, but I did say that this theory is is "not supported by the APA". Which you admit yourself it is not. But that is rather beside the point. My point is that you can't just start naming names of various scholars who disagree in various ways with those you called biased as if that amounts to support of your claim of bias in specific areas. You have to provide sources (journal articles, books, etc.) that support your claims specifically. That's really all I've been trying to tell you all along ... while admitting that my own reading of actual sources isn't in agreement with your claims. Please do read the policies and guidelines regarding sourcing and verification. I'm done. Regards.PelleSmith (talk) 21:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

[unindent]Let's be clear on one thing: there is no monopoly on 'academia'. The CESNUR represents only those under the banner of the CENSUR, and does not represent academia any more than the Republican Party represents the views of the assembled politicians of United States. Its archives should equally be treated as a resource in the same way as Mr Ross' archives (and not a reference as already discussed above). That is all Mr Ross seems to be stating, without any further implications. On the issue of the "clarification" of text offered by Ross, I understand the concern and mistrust, but these examples cited do not strike me as altering the article in any way which can be considered "POV-motivated edits" as Jayen calls them: I don't think anybody can disagree that "an evangelical Christian sect" (newtimesla.com) is less clear and meaningful than "a church affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International" Ohconfucius (talk) 01:57, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

No one claims there is a "monopoly on academia". However, Mr. Ross continues to claim that a certain POV, which he identifies with CESNUR, is a fringe POV in academia, which I believe is in fact false. As I understand it the opposite is in fact true. I only ask for some sourced confirmation of his claim. I don't see any. The issue of convenience links is a seperate matter though I understand the confusion given the subheading this is under.PelleSmith (talk) 03:43, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
We can continue this discussion on which sites represent reliable sources suitable for citing and linking in a more suitable forum, if there is a need. Let's concentrate on article content here. As far as the NXIVM legal case is concerned, the content is now cited to a neutral source, so the matter is resolved, as far as I am concerned. Jayen466 16:03, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
It's irrelevant whether they clarifications are accurate or meaningful or not. rickross.com has been allowed on wikipedia primarily as a convenience link (and copyright violation) for media articles. Mr Ross himself has confirmed that he makes changes to those media articles, and to date he has done so without any notification on his site. That's simply not acceptable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Insider201283 (talk • contribs) 02:52, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Are you suggesting that they are acceptable if he explains and notifies readers of the changes to articles? As a suggestion to Mr Ross, I believe that there is scope for improvement to his archives. The original text should be cited verbatim; Footnotes and comments can be added below each article if any clarification is needed. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:18, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion self-published POV sites should never be used as a source, even if some of their content is otherwise OK. I think WP guidelines are clear about that, but a few folk (incl. wiki admins) sympathetic to Mr Ross's perspective on things have unfortunately let their judgement been clouded. --Insider201283 (talk) 03:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
The very idea that this is even an issue astounds me. The Ross site is a resource. If you find a relevant news piece on the Ross site then reference the original in the relevant entry, and don't link to his self-published site. What is the problem with doing that? We don't require the full content of sources to be available online.PelleSmith (talk) 03:47, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I absolutely agree. I think the emotional nature of the topic has tended to affect some folk's judgement. I actually ended up in a dispute with a well regarded admin who linked to Rick Ross's CV on the RR site as a source in a wikipedia article! I ended up letting it go as I would have had to take it to mediation and just not worth the effort. It's absolutely astounding that it's even considered.--Insider201283 (talk) 03:58, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Why opinions of cited "scholars" concerning Waco represent a historically discredited POV

James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher wrote in their book that I "was instrumental in establishing an image of Koresh as a dangerous cult leader, using the generalized pattern of a destructive cult."

It has been established historically that David Koresh was a "dangerous cult leader" and that the Davidians fit "the generalized pattern of a destructive cult." Therefore James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher's remarks about my consultation with the FBI and BATF is at best moot if not incoherent. I have already cited and linked the historical documentation based upon the established facts to demonstrate this. What is the point of including such a nonsensical statement? Do you mean to say that the opinion I expressed to the BATF and FBI that Koresh was a dangerous cult leader and that the Davidians fit the pattern of a destructive cult was wrong?

I was not an "an informant for government agencies and media journalists." I was consulted as a cult expert and acted professionally as a consultant not an "informant." This highly biased label is polemical and should not be included in an encyclopedia entry.

FYI--Tabor and Gallagher made money from the book they wrote as others did. They actually had "financial and ideological stakes." Yet, somehow this criticism is directed at me? This is a blatant self-serving view that has no place in any legitimate encyclopedia entry.

I never "endorsed the view that the community in Waco was about to become another Jonestown, and was ready for mass suicide." This is a false and unsupported statement. In fact when I appeared on a nationally televised talk show (Phil Donahue) I expressed the view when asked that Koresh would come out and might write a book. The fact that the Waco Davidian standoff did ultimately end in a mass suicide like Jonestown demonstrates that George D. Chryssides was wrong, if he believed that Koresh wasn't like Jim Jones, i.e.fit the profile of a "dangerous cult leader."

Chryssides, Wright, Wessinger etc. say that if "an academic adviser more familiar with the religious ideas preached at Waco might have led to a less tragic outcome." They seem to mean taht they should have been called. But that was a choice made by the government and not me. I didn't dictate who they consulted and I never held myself out as an expert concerning religion. My expertise is in cults and the dynamics of cults and in 1992-93 I had direct experience dealing professionally with the Waco Davidians, through a successful intervention and many family complaints. Considering how small and relatively unknown the group was at that time I was called in by the government. This didn't preclude that those same officials could call in others to consult with them also, which in fact they did do, by consulting with many, many people.

It should also be noted that objective history as established by government investigations, court proceedings and witnesses, has repeatedly proven that David Koresh's "religious ideas" changed constantly. Previous to and during the standoff specifically on a constant basis. This often depended upon what Koresh described as direct revelation from "God," e.g. "God told him not to come out." What he preached one day was often completely contradicted by what he said or did on the following day. And as psychiatrists observed he was a deeply disturbed and delusional psychopath. The religious studies scholars seem to ignore or overlook such well-established facts.Rick A. Ross (talk) 18:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Ross, I'm a little confused about how you wish Wikipedia to treat your involvement with FBI/BATF. Do you have reliable sources that present the view you propose above: 1) recognize you as someone with "expertise ... in cults and the dynamics of cults," 2) recognize your direct involvement with the FBI/BATF as an adviser and 3) do not criticize the FBI/BATF for relying on your advice? For the record the FBI, in their report referred to you as one of two "self-described cult experts," and claim that they "did not 'rely' on [you] for advice whatsoever during the standoff." They also claimed only to have interviewed you because you requested to be interviewed by them. Ammerman, who you claim is biased, presents yet another scenario in which they did rely on you. Neither of the two treat your advice in the terms you do. Again, the way to deal with this is by presenting reliable sources that verify your claims.PelleSmith (talk) 20:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
If you are confused go back and look at how the entry about Waco appeared before Jayen466 began editing it. There was balance regarding all of this with references, footnotes etc. The Treasury Report acknowledged officially my interview with the BATF and the interview with David Block, who is the young man I deprogrammed that subsequently left the Davidians. There is also my letter to Attonrney Geneeral Janet Reno copied to other government officials, which very specifically spells out the work I did with the FBI in some detail. You also might read the published pieceI wrote about Waco in response to cult apologists, which was run by the Washington Post. It should be noted that the FBI and the three other experts reporting to the Justice Department don't support Ammerman's account and/or her opinion regarding me at all. The FBI directly contradicts Ammerman's claim that they relied upon me, as you correctly point out, and the three other experts don't even mention me as a issue of concern worthy of noting in their reports. Plainly put, Ammerman had her own political agenda, which the other experts did not share. Instead, they just stuck to the facts, which they felt were important.Rick A. Ross (talk) 20:36, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5→Archive 10

RS/N thread opened

Mr Ross, you have stated several times on this talk page that you preferred the old content of the Branch Davidian section. A number of statements in the old version of this section came from self-published sources on your website. To see if it might be possible to accommodate your wish, and include this information, I have opened the question to wider debate on one of our noticeboards designed to address questions of this type. You can find the related thread by clicking on this link, and are invited to add your comments there. Jayen466 23:36, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Scientology and the NRM Scholars

See especially the paragraph beginning "NRM scholars have supported Scientology fronts at least since the 1980s." AndroidCat (talk) 03:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

What exactly do you suggest using that reference for? It doesn't mention Ross or any other content of this entry as far as I can see.PelleSmith (talk) 13:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
The reference denotes the controversy that has historically surrounded such scholars.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
My disagreement regarding said "controversy" notwithstanding, this entry is not about these scholars nor is it about Scientology. Again I ask how it relates to you and/or any of the content in this entry because none of it is mentioned in the reference. Regards.PelleSmith (talk) 21:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
For the last week or so, you've been asking Rick Ross for proper cites that back up his opinion that particular academic sources are biased or even have a conflict of interest. I supplied one, but it doesn't count because it doesn't specifically mention Rick Ross? *raises eyebrow* AndroidCat (talk) 03:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Is this for real? Are you serious? I've been asking for sources to back the position that these scholars are biased regarding either Mr. Ross or Waco. As I've repeatedly pointed out I see neither mentioned in this reference anywhere. The position taken by Beit-Hallahmi regarding these scholars and Scientology is a minority/fringe position, but once again that's not even the point because this entry is not about these scholars or about Scientology. Lets try this one last time before I blank this section. What does this have to do with Rick Ross (consultant), the entry which this talk page is used to discuss?PelleSmith (talk) 04:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Please try to remain WP:CIVIL. And your opinion regarding Beit-Hallahmi is OR. (I didn't see any disclamer on the Marburg Journal of Religion site.) Oh, and reconsider your threat to blank this section. AndroidCat (talk) 04:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Really my "opinion" of Beit-Hallahmi is OR? Then you can provide plenty of other sources that make these same claims no problem. Lets see them? You ask me to be civil. You are perpetuating a campaign to call into question the ethics of a large group of respected scholars. I think you need to consider more carefully your own claims before you start picking on my tone. You have also not explained what the reference has to do with the content of this entry, which is the only viable topic of discussion on this talk page. The "threat of blanking" in fact simply a suggestion to abide by wikipedia policy and convention. Regards.PelleSmith (talk) 04:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Background info on the academic standing of these scholars is available here for example – see the entries on Barker, Beit-Hallahmi, Bromley and others. Eugene V. Gallagher, one of the authors cited here, is on the board of the American Academy of Religion. Syllabus materials on the AAR website cite Bromley, Tabor, Gallagher and Chryssides as Required Reading. Those are the authors cited in our article. (Barker and Melton are in the syllabus list as well; so is the specific work by Tabor and Gallagher, Why Waco?, that is referenced in this article.) Jayen466 21:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The point regarding these scholars, which is a relatively small group, is that there is controversy surrounding the opinions they express about groups called "cults," which specifically includes the Waco Davidians. In their opinions expressed about me they criticize my use of descriptions such as "a dangerous cult leader" and "destructive cult" as applied to David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. (1) This is an attempt by these scholars to dismiss and/or denigrate such descriptions, which direclty calls into question their scholarship and objectivity. (2) Since David Koresh is recorded historically as "a dangerous cult leader" and the Davidians behavior historically fit "the generalized pattern of a destructive cult." These supposedly scholarly observations calls into question the bias, objectivity and historical grounding of these cited scholars. What is it they mean to say? That Koresh was not a "dangerous cult leader" and the Davidians were not a "destructive cult"? This contradiction between their opinions and history illustrates why these scholars are often dismissed as cult apologists. Presenting such opinions as somehow definitive regarding anything connected to Waco is ridiculous and has no place within an encyclopedia entry. Jayen466 may agree with these scholars, but the purpose of an encyclopedia is not propaganda, but rather facts. Jayen466 has recently attempted to parse out words around these quotes in an attempt to ameliorate them, but this again only serves to promote his opinions, which is inappropriate.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:50, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Serious remaining problems with this bio

There are some serious remaining problems with this Wikipedia bio, which have essentially been stonewalled by Jayen466 in an effort to maintain and perpetuate his POV.

Here are a few as follows:

1. The Jason Scott entry is misleading, distorted and needs to be focused on facts rather than opinions (see discussion).

2. The Waco section offers one set of opinions from a faction of often discredited academics frequently called "cult apologists" recommended and at times sponsored by groups called "cults" (e.g. Scientology). The opinions of these "scholars" is not consistent with the documented facts about Waco and is quite biased. Words like "informant" and "apostates" are evidence of this and are little more than name calling. This should have no place in a legitimate encyclopedia entry IMO (see discussion).

3. Sniping remarks at the Ross Institute subsection, i.e. "which also advertises Ross's own for-profit services[21] as an exit counselor and expert witness, along with his professional fees" are not relevant and should be cut. Unless this type of detailed disclosure is typical within Wikipedia nonprofit entries, which seems unlikely.

4. Since the issue of qualified expertise has been made an issue it should be mentioned, as it was previously, that I have been qualified and accepted as an expert witness about cults in 10 states in court proceedings officially, including United States Federal Court through a "Daubert hearing."

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/expert_witness/expert_witness7.html

This linked court document is from the official records in US Federal Court within California regarding my qualification and acceptance as an expert witness about cults (Daubert Hearing).

Conclusion: Jayen466 seems to pretty much run this bio now. His POV dominates the entry as anyone can see that looks through the edit history here. But due to an obvious conflict of interest (see discussion) is Jayen466 really an appropriate person to be running this enry? IMO this is an abuse of Wikiepedia by someone using this open source site to advance a personal and possibly even professional agenda.

If other editors will scrutinize the pattern and discussion of Jayen466 editing and re-editing you can readily see that he is not really that interested in facts or a NPOV. Instead, he plays editing games, politics and whatever else he can do to disingenuously parse the words within this entry in an effort to distort and/or obscure facts so as to mislead the public.Rick A. Ross (talk) 17:48, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The information regarding your work as en expert witness is present in both the lede and main body of the article, as it always has been. Jayen466 21:25, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
You have minimized the reference to my expert witness work. The bio before you edited it out included that I have been qualified and accepted in ten states. You cut and add per your agenda as previously mentioned. Anyone that looks back over the editing history of this Wikipedia entry can readily see that.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:50, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Here is the version dd. 3 October, prior to my edits. It states in the lede,

He has been accepted in various courts as an expert witness, interviewed and quoted by the media in the United States and other countries in relation to his expert knowledge in cults/cultic methodologies.

In the body, it states

Ross has lectured at University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago and University of Arizona[18] and has testified as an expert witness in thirteen states.

Here is the version of 8 November, before you posted your above comment. It states in the lede,

He has worked as an expert witness and an analyst for the media in cases relating to such groups.

In the body, it states,

Ross has lectured at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago and University of Arizona[18] and has testified as an expert witness in thirteen states.

Then as now, the articles states that you have testified as an expert witness in thirteen states, based on the data given in this source. Jayen466 16:52, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

As this article is on my watchlist, I have been distantly aware of the dispute surrounding the neutrality of this article. Although I have engaged on certain points as time has gone on, I have not read the disputed issues in depth. Today, I have gone and cleaned up the article with respect to the sources cited, and my familiarity with WP's policies, most importantly WP:BLP. I have tried to break down edits in order to be transparent, and have left fairly detailed edit summaries where appropriate. There were a number of issues, principally the inclusion of excessive tangential detail, and a tendency to give undue weight to only one side of certain arguments, however valid. If there are any issues wrt my edits, I will be happy to discuss them here. Ohconfucius (talk) 07:01, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Strong objection, talk to me

  • Jayen has reverted all my edits, including corrections of grammatical errors (for example, corrections of use of apostrophe after names ending in 's') except for Rick Ross' right of reply - even then Jayen couldn't resist injecting some bias before having second thoughts. Would xhe care to comment here in detail what the issues are before I revert the whole lot in a flash? Such reverts are down-right hostile, and I refuse to accept 'restored edit' as a legitimate grounds for nullifying several hours of my hard work, not to mention restoring the very obvious problematic issues that I pointed out. Ohconfucius (talk) 13:44, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
  • WP:BRD. There were a number of concerns:
  • The listing of scholars in the lede missed the main ones referred to in the relevant section (Tabor, Gallagher). I don't think it is worth listing all these names in the lede.
  • The use of the word "cultbuster" seemed a little out of place in the lede (too loose).
  • The cost of a deprogramming is referred to in the The Observer piece, which is quite sympathetic to Mr Ross. It is adequately sourced.
  • The RRI section was part of the CV timeline and I feel it should remain part of the bio, rather than being separated from the remainder of the bio timeline and moved to the end of the article.
  • The Jason Scott case, which was very notable and set a legal precedent, deserves a little more detail than was left after the edits of Ohconfucius (talk · contribs). It is not transparent to the reader why there should have been such a large judgment if we delete any mention of what happened beyond "Ross abducted Scott" and "Scott escaped and called the police". The facts are adequately sourced and attested in multiple reliable sources, including others not cited here.
  • The edits in the Branch Davidian section seemed to depart from the sources in some respects, notably the wording "had persuaded government parties that they were dealing with dangerous [sic] cult leader." Tabor and Gallagher do not express it in those terms. I felt doubtful whether these edits were based on consultation of the source (available in google books) or just on a rewrite of the existing material in the article. We can look at how best to summarize Tabor and Gallagher, if the present summary seems inadequate.
  • Also, it was agreed on RS/N not to quote Ammerman (a primary source) beyond the extent to which she is quoted in secondary sources (e.g. Tabor/Gallagher or Newport).
  • Other edits seemed fine and clearly added value; those were kept. Jayen466 15:55, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't mind all that much whether we use "Ross's" or "Ross'" as the form of the possessive case. I plumped for "Ross's" because that is the form used in one of the Seattle Times verbatims. Since we shouldn't change something like this in verbatim quotes, I thought it would be better to go along with the Seattle Times and use their form throughout the article. Jayen466 16:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

RESPONSE:

  1. If Tabor & Gallagher were the main ones, by all means insert them in the place of some of the others.
  2. I disagree that 'cultbuster' is loose used in that way. If it appeared without that which followed, then maybe. But the word is sourced and referred to in the same paragraph as the $5000 typical fee.
  3. If you insist on the $5000, there is even less reason why this word cultbuster should be removed. Although the fee is sourced, mention of average fees is always misleading because it may hide a pretty wide range; it is also information which dates easily, and really should be avoided unless it imparts significant biographical value.
  4. In the same way that the scott case was mentioned in one sentence in his career section, RRI can also. As the RRI is a separate legal person, it should be in a different section down the bottom.
  5. The Jason Scott case is indeed well documented - It has its very own article, which this section links to prominently. It arguably not necessary for biographical purposes to mention how the 'seaside cottage', for example, imparts any biographic value. The Landmark case was also a high profile case, but is distilled to 2 lines in this article. I am not suggesting the Scott case should be cut to this level, but I fear that there is undue weight here.
  6. I thought that it was once again undue weight to separately mention what A B and C said when there was a common thread (based on how your text laid it out). I am not in possession of all the source articles, but was trying to find that common thread to avoid saying "A said lorum ipsum, B said Lorum ipsum and C also said Lorum ipsum". What T&G said made no sense, so I removed it. That fact was clearly marked in the edit summary
  7. Other remarks:
  • I find your writing sometimes difficult to parse. Although you made clarification to what T&G said, it is still not in a style of English that a lay reader would easily grasp. "Nancy Ammerman... voiced criticism of the BATF and FBI for relying on Ross without taking these stakes into account." is cryptic and incomprehensible, so I clarified it from Ammerman's text. You chose to revert that too.
  • Grammatically, for possessive forms of nouns ending in s, there is no s after the apostrophe - so it's Ross' and not Ross's. I have long since stopped being amazed at the fact that many journalists have no clue in basic grammar.
  • I could not understand why you insist on separating 'early career' and 'Full-time private consultant and lecturer'. This breaks up the career in a rather contrived fashion as Ross was evidently a lecturer and consultant in his early career too.
  • I removed several redundancies and straightened a number of convoluted phrases, all of which you chose to revert. In "criminally charged with unlawful imprisonment", unlawful imprisonment is a criminal offense, so the use of "criminally" is redundant. In fact, as I said, the only bit you left intact was the right of reply of Ross in the Washington Post, which you originally had as a one-liner for reasons I cannot fathom.

I'll leave it for now. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)

  • Btw, Ohconfucius, I did not have second thoughts about the Washington Post quote. I took the text verbatim from this edit of yours: [9]. Then I saw that you had added some words later on: [10]. Realising that what I'd copied wasn't how you'd left it, I added the same words again: [11]. Cheers, Jayen466 16:59, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Re the apostrophe, Hart's Rules says typesetters should attach " 's " to monosyllabic names ending in "s" (except classical names like Mars and Venus) and gives "Hicks's" and "Jones's" as examples to follow. The Webster's Compact Writers Guide approves of both versions. Jayen466 17:07, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Re the separation of early career and career as a consultant: It's been like that for at least a year and makes some kind of sense to me. Ross was a staff member of various Jewish organisations before setting out as an independent consultant; it was in his latter role that he became internationally notable. Jayen466 17:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
  • As for average fees being misleading, I note that Mr Ross's current website gives this figure as a typical value, so we are not doing anything other than what the subject himself is doing on his site. I don't understand what should be contentious about this. The figure is in the public domain, and has been commented on in a sympathetic newspaper article.
  • Should the fee change over time, we can simply add "at an average cost given as $5000 in 2004" or use a more recent article for an updated figure. Jayen466 18:01, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I have done many interventions at no charge, and my fees began at $350.00 per day and are now $750 per day, a rate that has increased gradually over a period of 20 years.Rick A. Ross (talk) 14:58, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Are you aware of any reliable sources mentioning these points? Are any other editors? Jayen466 22:18, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Final Outcome of Scott case

Currently the entry says "In 1996 Scott reconciled with his mother, dismissed Moxon as his lawyer, and settled with Ross for $5,000, and 200 hours of Ross's services.[41][18][42]"

However, this only reflects part of what actually happened, unlike the previous entry that existed before Jayen466 began editing.

Scott also hired "Graham Berry, who is well-known for his role in litigation against the Church of Scientology" according to footnoted article "What's $2.995 Million Between Former Enemies?" (footnote 42)

Also, within another footnoted article (41) it is reported that "Scott's former attorney, Moxon, has filed emergency motions in two states alleging that Scott has been coerced by CAN supporters to switch attorneys and settle for far less money than he won in court. "He's really been abused by CAN and disgustingly abused by this guy Berry," Moxon said."

These motions, which would have declared Scott incompetent, were denied.

Both footnoted articles report about the Scientology effort to destroy the Cult Awareness Network through the Scott litigation. Scott himself confirms this in a segment on CBS "60 Minutes."

All of this was cut by Jayen466, which reflects his bias and effort to tilt the entry subsection per his POV.

Specifically, a CAN voluteer named Shirley Landa referred Kathy Tonkin to me, initially to help her minor children. Jayen466 simply says CAN, which was not involved, through its main offices in the Tonkin referral. This was specifically stated by CAN at trial and reported by the press.

The ironic twist of the Scott case ending is lost on Jayen466 and certainly not reflected in his editing, i.e. That Jason Scott largely settled his $3 million dollar judgment against me for more deprogramming time (200 hours), which was what he sued me for in the first place. And that after that settlement Kendrick Moxon went to court maintaining that Jason was under undue influence, unable to make sound decisions and needed someone appointed by the court to help him. But previously in his lawsuit Moxon maintained that Jason's mother was wrong for not respecting his choices and for seeing him as undue influence.Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:20, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

  • The further interaction between Moxon and Scott is covered in Jason Scott case, and actually may need looking at to ensure it accurately reflects sources.
  • I have reinstated that it was a CAN volunteer.
  • Berry, Scott's new lawyer (after he dismissed Moxon), was reported on Dec 19 1996, by the source given in footnote 42, to have said regarding the settlement between Mr Ross and Scott,

    The premature announcement of the settlement, Berry says, made Scott so angry he may ask Ross to renegotiate terms. Berry refused to say what services Ross would provide to Scott under the agreement. But, the lawyer said, it would be a mistake to assume that Scott's decision to make use of Ross' time was a vindication of Ross or his deprogramming methods.

    — Phoenix New Times
  • This being so, we cannot use this source to present it as such.
  • "vacant model home" (see below) implemented. Jayen466 17:38, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Early Life misleading

Under "Early Life" it reads, "In 1974 a court convicted Ross for the attempted burglary of a show house and sentenced him to probation.[4]" Most Americans have no idea what "a show house" is. This should read "a vacant model home."Rick A. Ross (talk) 15:23, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Seattle Judge's comments

"The judge commented that the defendants appeared unable to appreciate the maliciousness of their conduct towards Scott, preferring instead to see themselves as victims of a vendetta."

However, these comments later proved to be something of an embarrassment for that same judge.

In subsequent news reports (some footnoted here) it was disclosed that Scientology did use the Soctt case as a vehicle for its long-running vendetta against the Cult Awareness Network (CAN). As reported a Scientologist bought the CAN judgment. And a Scientologist then bought the name, logo, phone number, files etc. of CAN in the subsequent bankruptcy proceeding forced upon CAN by the judgment.

Kendrick Moxon specicially appeared before the same federal judge in Seattle requesting that the settlement made with me be set aside because Jason was essentially incompetent and therefore unable to make his own decisions without a conservator, which would be a lawyer provided by Moxon.

The federal judge in Seattle declined and rejected Moxon's legal effort as did the federal judge presiding over my bankruptcy in Phoenix.

Not including such information within the Jason Scott subsection distorts the actual historical significance of the Scott case per court records and numerous media reports, including CBS "60 Minutes."Rick A. Ross (talk) 18:41, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Graham Berry statement

"The premature announcement of the settlement, Berry says, made Scott so angry he may ask Ross to renegotiate terms. Berry refused to say what services Ross would provide to Scott under the agreement. But, the lawyer said, it would be a mistake to assume that Scott's decision to make use of Ross' time was a vindication of Ross or his deprogramming methods."

Berry's opinion is of little value here. The facts remain the same. The Jason Scott settlement was substantially for my services as a deprogrammer. At the time this represented two-thirds of the value of the settlement, as my fees were $50.00 per hour. This means the settlement was one-third in cash $5,000.00 and two-thirds in services $10,000.00.

Mr. Berry represented Jason Scott fairly briefly, but the settlement was finalized and never renegotiated in any way, shape or form, which is a matter of court record. In fact, the validity and finality of the judgment was officially recognized by two federal judges, one in Seattle and the other in Phoenix.

Jason Scott, according to the final settlement, valued my "methods" sufficiently to make my services the largest portion of the agreed upon final settlement.

Again, this is ironic, considering that it was my "services" as arranged and paid for by his mother, which became the basis for the Scott lawsuit as filed by Kendrick Moxon.Rick A. Ross (talk) 18:54, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

False statement about deprogramming

"With the Scott decision, the practice of deprogramming came to an almost complete halt in North America."

This is a false statement.

In fact, deprogramming continued unabated, though not the involuntary deprogramming of adults.

Voluntary deprogramming became repackaged/relabeled as "strategic intervention," "exit-counseling," "thought reform consultation" etc. and continues to this day.

Involuntary deprogramming continues with minor children, under the direct supervision of a legal guardian.

This statement seems to reflect the wishful thinking and bias of the source footnoted, but it is neither factual nor accurate.

I have done hundreds of deprogramming cases within the United States since the Scott decision. And many of these interventions were with minor children on an involuntary basis, but under the direct supervision of their legal guardian.

There have also been hi-profile sanctioned deprogrammings, such as the Winnifred Wright case and the Karen Robidoux case.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/attleboro/attleboro137.html

Karen Robidoux was deprogrammed while in jail and subsequently acquitted by a jury of charges concerning her son's death, due to cult mind control.

See http://www.rickross.com/reference/wright/wright14.html

A California judge officially approved a "deprogramming" in the Wright criminal case.

This false statement should be edited out.Rick A. Ross (talk) 19:17, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

POV tag

The "Jason Scott case" and the "Branch Davidians" subsections have undue negative weight, use multiple dubious sources with dubious statements, and need to be reworked and addressed for NPOV, especially in this WP:BLP article. Cirt (talk) 16:52, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Please pursue any apparent issues with sources at RS/N. Jayen466 17:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Also see above comments in above subsections on this page about troubling concerns in this article. Cirt (talk) 17:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the tag. As there is a whole article on the Jason Scott case, there really is no reason to expose material in such graphic detail and in such great length here in a person's biography. I tried to prune it back, but this (and a bunch of other stuff I thought improved the focus of the bio) was "boldly" reverted by Jayen, and I'm not getting involved in any edit warring here. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Ohconfucius, perhaps you could try trimming it back a bit, so I could see and discuss what you were getting at? Cirt (talk) 08:32, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
The "graphic detail" is detail that has been reported in many, many sources. Its factual accuracy is uncontested. Please discuss any proposed deletions here first. We have had the bold deletions of sourced and verifiable material, we have had the revert, so let's discuss what the concerns are before deleting sourced material again. Jayen466 10:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
We are discussing. I would like to see what idea Ohconfucius has in mind as far as trimming the POV pushing from the article. Cirt (talk) 10:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Well, then let us discuss what Ohconfucius would like to trim before he trims it. Is that a problem? Jayen466 10:22, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I already trimmed it, yet Jayen did an almost full revert whilst claiming a partial revert. This version to me seemed to be sufficiently concise, yet carries the essence of Ross' biography, yet Jayen said he thought the JS case deserved more weight. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I did an almost full revert to begin with and then went through your edits one by one, restoring another half dozen or so I agreed with. Jayen466 13:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

NPOV noticeboard

I've started a thread at NPOV/N -- I think we can do with some community input to get this right. Cheers, Jayen466 11:26, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Recent edits around the phrase "rescued many people from harmful situations"

This was the opinion of the Observer journalist, rather than a claim that Ross has made. I accept that editors might argue that it is only the opinion of one journalist, and thus should not be given WP:UNDUE weight, or that it should be attributed. However, I believe that there are other sources that have made the same assessment. Ideally, we should locate some of those and add them as references to this sentence to put it on a better footing. Jayen466 13:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Article major WP:Undue problems, especially for WP:BLP

An examination of this article reveals extreme WP:Undue problems, resulting from WP:NPOV, which is espcially problematic where WP:BLP is an issue.

For example, a few negative cases involving the living person subject of this article comprise 58.97% of the size of the text portion of this article (18,717/31,738 bytes).

Particularly egregious was that the The Jason Scott section alone comprised 31.1% of the article's text, despite the fact that it is entirely duplicative of an independent article covering Jason Scott case, and not tailored toward the specifics of Ross.

I have summarized the Jason Scott case material including a main link to the actual article discussing the case and keeping all sources ref'd elsewhere.

But much work needs to be done on the other remaining cases with articles elsewhere to address these Wikipedia policy violations.Mosedschurte (talk) 23:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Can I ask you to check your maths here? The article up to and including the four notable cases comprised 2229 readable words. Of those, the Jason Scott case accounted for 398. How do 398 words out of 2229 words equate to 31.1%?
Come to think of it, the Jason Scott case section is particularly well sourced, since many, many published works have commented on it. So I reckon you included the reference citations in your wordcount. That is inappropriate.
In addition, you have introduced an error by claiming that "Ross and two associates were charged with unlawful imprisonment and later acquitted". His two associates were not acquitted; they pled to a reduced charge of coercion and went to jail.
Let me add that we have been to the BLP/N noticeboard before; at the time, the Jason Scott case was spun out to a standalone article, which it clearly deserves. But given the prominence of the case, it needs to be treated in sufficient detail here to reflect published sources' preoccupation with it. Almost all the mentions that the subject of this article has in published literature, especially scholarly literature, relate to these two cases. I don't think their coverage here was excessive. Cheers, Jayen466 23:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Re "maths", it was text size, not "words." I merely copied the old edited text in an editor, taking out the sections for articles, references, external links and intro box. The total was 31,738 bytes. I then did the same with the sections on negative cases. These totalled 18,717. Then with the old Jason Scott section alone. It totalled 9,861 bytes alone of the article. And yes, references, which comprise text in the reference sections, are included.Mosedschurte (talk) 23:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome to check the word counts, as well as the coverage the first two cases have received in reliable sources. Precisely because this is a BLP, and the facts are of the nature they are, extensive citations are required. That this inflates the byte count of the sections is unavoidable, but this kind of citation effort speaks for the article, not against it. Jayen466 00:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I also just corrected the error of regarding acquittal.Mosedschurte (talk) 23:54, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the statement: But given the prominence of the case, it needs to be treated in sufficient detail here to reflect published sources' preoccupation with it. Published source "pre-occupation" with a subject is simply not the standard weight in a given article.

Of most importance to one of the defendants in the case, Ross, the subject of this article, is that he was forced into bankruptcy, settled with the plaintiff and has since renounced "coercive deprogramming", in part because of the Scott case. All of which are now in the article.

The rest is duplicative of the Jason Scott case article.Mosedschurte (talk) 23:57, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

"Published source "pre-occupation" with a subject is simply not the standard weight in a given article." I might agree with that statement if you were talking about tabloids commenting, say, on someone's plastic surgery. But here we are talking about scholars who accord these two cases an historic importance. These cases were of interest to a wider public, whose subsequent attitudes were to some extent influenced by them. So I cannot agree that we should write the article on the basis of what is "of importance to the subject". We do not apply this kind of reasoning to articles on other public figures. Cheers, Jayen466 00:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

No one is arguing the "interest" level of media regarding the cases generally against all of the defendants. This is why they have their own article, the Jason Scott case.

But this simply isn't the standard for weight in the article of one of the defendants in one of those cases, especially with WP:BLP and WP:Undue Weight and the material being entirely factually duplicative of content in an existing Wikipedia article on the topic.Mosedschurte (talk) 00:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I respect your opinion, but I do not share it. We do not generally gloss over facts reported in reliable sources where a person has been at the wrong end of a court decision. Jayen466 00:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

That inaccurate characterization was quite revealing. There is zero "glosing over", and I'm not really concerned with either side or right or wrong ends of court opinions.

Articles should just adhere to Wikipedia policies.Mosedschurte (talk) 01:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I am quite sure the article complied before, as well. Some examples of what I perceive as "glossing over":
  • The Jason Scott case section now states that "The complaint alleged that Scott was handcuffed" etc., as though there were any doubt that those things happened. There isn't, and it should simply be stated as a fact.
  • There is now no record at all of what Ross was actually found guilty of held liable for in the civil trial.
  • The settlement with Scott is now presented the way Mr Ross would like it to be presented, as a vindication of his approach, despite an explicit RS assertion from Scott's anti-Scientologist attorney – the one who replaced Moxon – that it should not be construed as such (the attorney refused to say what those services consisted of).
Besides you have managed to delete the major part of scholarly criticism in the Waco section, all of which was well-sourced, and have introduced material from primary sources, against uncontradicted advice given on RS/N when the appropriateness of the use of primary sources was brought up there. (The advice was, don't use them, stick to secondary sources.)
Your integration of the cases into the bio timeline, though, I think has merit.
Perhaps the way forward, given present status, is to have a Reception section again. We used to have a Criticism section (I deleted it, hoping to incorporate this material in the case descriptions themselves), and I think we now need something like this again. If you could look at the points I mentioned above, that would be great. Cheers, Jayen466 11:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

(1) This isn't an article on the Jason Scott case. That's here. This is an article on Rick Ross. The details of the Scott case are in the article on the Jason Scott case article.
(2) The reason it says "the complaint states" instead of "what Mr. Ross was actually found guilty of" is that the findings of fact accompanying the jury verdict do not specify details in any form at all, such as duct tape, even though there was uncontroverted evidence of such, though Ross argued he just watched. Rather, the Jury specified that Ross's negligence proximately caused damage to the plaintiff. Rather than dump all of these details, I left in the Complaint section. We can dump them altogether if you'd really like and just go with the actual verdict findings of fact, which are quite bland and legalistic. Given your prior edits, I would think you'd like it as it reads now, as it couly imply to some that the jury found the specifics of the Complaint to be true, which juries do not do (and one won't know unless one polls each jury member following a verdict what they actually thought re specifics).
(3) The settlement isn't presented "as Mr. Ross would like it presented," and such charges themselves border on violating Wikipedia policy. The article expresses no absolution by Scott of Ross's conduct, nor does it even go into Scott's feelings about Scientology, after Moxon solicited and litigated on behalf of Scott, afterwards. Rather the statement is presented as the following:
Scott then settled with Ross for $5,000 plus 200 hours of Ross's professional services.
Nor does it go into appeals on the matter as those and the rest of the details are covered extensively in the article on the Jason Scott case titled the Jason Scott case.
(4) First, the DOJ report has been published by several secondary sources such that its use does not contravene Wikipedia policy, and the report itself is also a secondary source reporting on the conduct of the Branch Davidians and the FBI. Accordingly, citation of such reports is commonplace even in Featured Articles and other articles on Wikipedia. In fact, a DOJ Report is cited on the article on the very topic at issue here, the Waco siege.
(5) Seven lines of the Rick Ross article are already devoted to criticism of Ross on the Waco incident alone, despite that Ross only provided unsolicited advice to the FBI, was not even retained as an expert and his advice was never relief upon. Mosedschurte (talk) 12:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

  • Re argument (2): You seem to be unaware that the sources we are citing include Ross's own account, which mentions that Scott was handcuffed, his mouth taped, etc. In other words, this is not just alleged, it was determined by two courts to be what happened, based on evidence and testimony, and it is confirmed by Ross himself in a RS. So let's please state the facts as facts. Jayen466 13:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Re the settlement, I said it is presented the way Mr Ross would like it presented because Mr Ross asked for it to be presented exactly like you have presented it now, above on this page. Jayen466 13:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Re argument (5), you are obviously unaware that Mr Ross himself has and continues to assert that the DoJ report is incorrect, that he was contacted by the FBI on several occasions, that his input was actively sought, and that the DoJ report is also contradicted by the addendum to Ammerman's report. If the relevant sections of the DoJ report relating to Ross have been published in a secondary source, please name it here; otherwise I am inclined to follow the advice received in RS/N, and stick strictly to secondary sources, excluding primary documents. Jayen466 13:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Please note that Mr Ross was found guilty liable not just of for negligence, but also conspiracy to deprive Scott of his civil liberties, and the tort of outrage. These are not small matters. Jayen466 14:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  • No one said the duct tape/abduction part didn't happen. Your prior statement that "Mr. Ross was actually found guilty of" doing so was incorrect because the verdict is not that specific regarding details of the case, even though some part of the evidence was uncontroverted.
  • Re " Re argument (5), you are obviously unaware that Mr Ross himself has and continues to assert that the DoJ report is incorrect ". I'm quite aware of what Mr. Ross claims. Mr. Ross obviously cannot dispute the report's conclusion regarding the lack of FBI reliance as he has no evidence regarding the Bureau's state of mind. Regarding Mr. Ross's disputes of the facts of the specific initiation of contact, this might be interesting if it is beyond contact as a fact witness regarding Branch Davidian events (there are obviously hundreds of people they contacted for that purpose) rather than as a cult expert. Also note that the report itself is an after-the-fact secondary source analyzing the conduct of many in the standoff, has also been cited by numerous other secondary sources (not that that matters) and is also not even cited here for the truth of the matter asserted, but rather the source and assertion itself, as is the case with nearly every citation to a government report in every Wikipedia article on a major topic involving government activity. See, e.g., Waco siege, 9-11, Jonestown. In fact, as with most such secondary source reportsc cited on Wikipedia, the report even further itself discussed the primary sources it used in its analysis, such as "Approximately 950 interviews were conducted, and tens of thousands of pages of documents and transcripts were read and analyzed."
  • Also note that Mr. Ross was not "found guilty" of any offenses regarding the the Scott case. The matter was a civil case, and he was acquitted of all criminal charges.Mosedschurte (talk) 15:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand why you say the civil case verdict was not "that specific". Ross was held liable for negligence, conspiracy to deprive Scott of his civil liberties, and the tort of outrage. The actual verdict pages are among the sources you deleted. For reference, they are here. There are six pages altogether. (These points are also mentioned in secondary sources.)
Use of primary sources is fine as long as secondary sources have cited the primary sources. Where they have done so, of course it makes sense to link the primary source as well, if it is online. What is dodgier is mining primary sources that have not been cited, as I am sure you know, and that was the point that was made on RS/N. (Penultimate archive, I think.) Jayen466 15:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  • You've been mixing the two legal issues:
(1) Mr. Ross wasn't "found guilty" of anything regarding the Scott case, because it was a civil case, and he was actually acquitted in the criminal case.
(2) The jury verdict didn't contain specific findings of fact, such as duct tape or abduction. Rather, it just broadly found him liable for the three causes of action. This is what I pointed out above and why I included a cite to the jury verdict in the article.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Re your quote regarding the Jury verdict: " For reference, they are". I'm actually the one who added it to this article today. That's why I can tell you they made no specific findings regarding the underlying facts, such as duct tape or abduction, even though there was uncontroverted evidence, in part, on such topics. This is why I had just left it to the Complaint alleged [specific facts], and then another sentence with the judgment, including the amount apportioned against Ross.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  • First, the DOJ report isn't a primary source. It is an after-the-fact secondary source analyzing the conduct of many in the standoff, has also been cited by numerous other secondary sources (not that that matters) and is also not even cited here for the truth of the matter asserted, but rather the source and assertion itself, as is the case with nearly every citation to a government report in every Wikipedia article on a major topic involving government activity. See, e.g., Waco siege, 9-11, Jonestown. In fact, as with most such secondary source reports cited on Wikipedia, the report even further itself discussed the primary sources it used in its analysis, such as "Approximately 950 interviews were conducted, and tens of thousands of pages of documents and transcripts were read and analyzed." Not that this matters for a secondary source, but the October 8, 1993 DOJ Waco report hasn't just been cited by Secondary Sources, but it is one of most cited reports in DOJ history, along with the subsequent Danforth Report. Not quite at 9-11 report levels, but likely not far behind. Mosedschurte (talk) 16:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I never said Ross was found "guilty of using duct tape." I said that the article now made no mention of what he was found guilty of. I did indeed not express myself correctly: I should have said "we say nothing about what he was held liable for". The thing with the duct tape is, no one contests that the duct tape was used. Multiple reliable sources refer to its use, and the use of handcuffs, as a factual occurrence, not an unsubstantiated allegation. Ross himself has admitted and described the use of handcuffs and tape in a published press interview. I think it is improper to call something that is an established and uncontested fact "an allegation", that's all. Jayen466 16:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The issue was with the prior statement that the jury found the specific facts (e.g., duct taping, etc.). However, I didn't have any problem with your edit (and didn't change it) saying the during the course of the attempted Scott deprogramming these occurred, citing sources saying so. There's no reason to think they did not.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Okeydoke. :-) Let me take this opportunity to say that upon reading the article today, I thought you had improved it in many respects. Still not sure if we don't need to reflect more scholarly criticism, because there is lots out there. Cheers, Jayen466 16:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The RS/N comment on the inappropriateness of using primary sources, and specifically of using the DoJ report, is here: [12]. It was made by a widely respected admin. Jayen466 16:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

That was regarding Rick Ross's letter to the DOJ, not the DOJ Report.
As stated, the DOJ report is an after-the-fact secondary source analyzing the conduct of many in the standoff, and is the sort of secondary source after the fact government analysis cited in nearly every Wikipedia article on a major topic involving government activity. See, e.g., Waco siege, 9-11, Jonestown. In fact, as with most such secondary source reports cited on Wikipedia, the report even further itself discussed the primary sources it used in its analysis, such as "Approximately 950 interviews were conducted, and tens of thousands of pages of documents and transcripts were read and analyzed." Mosedschurte (talk) 16:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Please re-read JzG's comment. He specifically refers to the DoJ report, as well as Ammerman's report. The question with citing that part of the DoJ report is, has it been cited in sources mentioning Ross. If it hasn't, we shouldn't. Last time I looked, I couldn't find any sources that had, except a self-published source. Jayen466 16:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is the complete exchange:

  1. "If the content is written from primary sources - DoJ or Ross - then we may be violating multiple policies (V, BLP, UNDUE etc.) so I would step back and describe how the issue is presented in independent sources."
  2. "I guess the same could be said to apply to Ammerman's report then, as it was also government-commissioned. Would it be best to cover this only to the extent its content is described in secondary literature?"
  3. "Yes. That is precisely what is meant by WP:NOR - we should not synthesise material from primary sources."

That is why I dropped the whole discussion about the level of Ross's involvement, because as far as I could see it was only discussed in primary sources. Jayen466 16:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You're misreading that conversation. The letter and DOJ's publication of it are primary sources.
But all government commissioned reports, including the DOJ and Ammerman's, are not uncitable primary sources. They are secondary after-the-fact factual analyses using primary sources (such as interviews and documents) that are not just cited, but repeatedly cited at length in Wikipedia articles involving large scale events. See, e.g., Waco siege, 9-11, Jonestown. As discussed, in fact, the DOJ report specifically discusses its analysis of primary sources "Approximately 950 interviews were conducted, and tens of thousands of pages of documents and transcripts were read and analyzed."
In addition, while there was no detailed discussion of the facts, Ammerman really didn't contradict the DOJ reports findings regarding the FBI on Ross specifically, she just emphasized different facts and made conclusions regarding the way that she thought Ross info should have been treated. She criticized the agencies for not seeing Ross as a potentially questionable source. Regarding the BATF, she merely stated that "Ross claimed" that he was "consulted by the BATF". She also just stated that he was "closely involved" with the BATF and FBI at various times, which the DOJ report did not contradict. In addition, she herself actually stated that Ross provided "strategic information" he'd gained from one witness (because of his prior interaction with the Davidians), which is acting as one of the hundreds of fact witnesses the FBI talked to during the crisis to gain information, not as a cult expert.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Just to be sure we are on the same page, here is the relevant Ammerman report. Is this the one you were referring to? Jayen466 16:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
You're misreading that conversation. I don't believe I am. You are welcome to check with JzG what he meant. He quite clearly said we should cite neither the DoJ report nor Ammerman beyond the level they were cited in secondary sources. Jayen466 16:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes. The one I quoted above.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, the conversation doesn't say government reports can't be cited because they are primary sources (nor would it, as they are not an nearly every Wikipedia article on a major events cites them). Regarding contradictions, Ammerman never states (nor could she) that the FBI relied on Ross's statements or that the FBI solicited Ross's cult expertise, which is different (both legally and substantively) than factual information. This is why the "Cult Expert" portion was broken out in a different section in the DOJ Report.Mosedschurte (talk) 17:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You say above,

"*Re your quote regarding the Jury verdict: " For reference, they are". I'm actually the one who added it to this article today."

This is getting slightly absurd. This is the article version dated 25 Nov 2008. The verdict pages were references no. 33, 35, 36 and 38. You deleted them in this edit. You then twice reverted an IP who was trying to reintroduce this material. ;-) Jayen466 16:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I twice reverted "an IP"' wholesale reverts of huge fixes and additions to the article.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
I also wasn't the last person to revert him. And, by the way, you attempted nearly the same mass revert at least once.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:48, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
The IP was trying to revert huge deletions. And no, it wasn't me, and I don't know who it was either. Jayen466 16:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
This was your edit summary: "(Undid revision 255953902 by 98.149.75.138 (talk) anomymous IP deleted huge sourced parts of article)" By performing that revert, you deleted about 5.5 KB of sourced material, including the verdict forms you now claim you were the first one to introduce into the article with this edit. And just for the record, I had asked you to discuss major revisions first with my one revert that I made – which is no more than common courtesy and what editors are asked to do at the top of this talk page – and instead you chose to edit-war. Jayen466 17:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
First, the edit included both additions, deletions and corrections.
Second, I wasn't the last editor to revert the anonymous IP's massive revert huge additions and changes. Cirt -- an administrator -- was the last to do so.Mosedschurte (talk) 17:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Sure. You were both edit-warring. And Cirt has his own history of blocks for edit-warring. It's nothing new. Jayen466 17:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Regarding "you were both", you were actually the first to go with the mass wholesale revert before even the anonmyous IP and Cirts undoing of his revert.
That is the normal and standard procedure as per WP:BRD. Someone makes a bold change, it is reverted, and then there is discussion. Jayen466 18:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Though this entire regurgitation of history seems pointless.Mosedschurte (talk) 17:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

For Reference - ANEW Board Complaint On Several Article Changes and Improvements on this article -> No vio

User:Jayen466 started an entry on "Edit Warring" at the Administrators Notice board regarding changes and additions to the article here. The result at the ANI board was no violation.

I didn't participate in the discussion (was away from the computer for several hours). I was a bit surprised at the complaint because User:Jayen466 gave an indication of agreeing with many of the changes and had also edited the article several times after they were made today before lodging an ANI board complaint about "Edit Warring", which certainly did not occur after his changes. In any event, the result appears correct and I would rather stick with discussing topics on this page. Mosedschurte (talk) 23:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

False or misleading statements that remain uncorrected

"Ross had handled more than 350 deprogramming cases in various countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Italy, with a typical cost of around $5,000 per case (in 2008 dollars)."

This remains a a very questionable entry in part. Many of the intervention cases I have handled historically were done without any charge whatsoever through 1986. Then my fees gradually raised from $350 to $750 per day until a current case might total about $5,000.00, including all related travel expenses. But what is this doing in a encyclopedia entry? Fees are not typically reported in Wikipedia per my recollection, but for some reason Jayen466 insists upon including this information.

"Ross's defence laywer argued that Ross 'was hired to deprogram Scott but that others who restrained Scott were not under Ross's control.'[31] The jury acquitted Ross; jurors said 'prosecutors had not proved Ross participated in restraining Scott.'[31][32] Ross's associates pled guilty to coercion and were sentenced to one-year jail terms, with all but 30 days suspended."

In this section Jayen466 hopes to minimize the "not guilty" verdict of the jury as much as possible. He wants readers to think that the security guards somehow took responsibility. However, the jury made it very clear after the verdict was read that they approved of the involuntary intervention, when they congratulated me and thanked me for doing my work. The jury only deliberated for two hours. Jayen466 hopes to minimize the weight of the criminal trial, while maximizing the weight of the civil trial per his POV. I was offered the possibility of a plea bargain, though my lawyer advised it would not be as lenient as what was offered to my co-defendants. I refused to consider any plea offer. This should be edited to reflect the facts. For example, offering a comment without context from my lawyer and what some jurors may have said outside of their verdict. My lawyer actually said much more than what is quoted, he argued the lesser of two evils defense, that the deprogramming was for Jason's welfare, that his mother was in charge, but never charged, etc. etc. Jayen466 is attempting to parse quotes per his POV.

"The judge commented that the defendants appeared unable to appreciate the maliciousness of their conduct towards Scott, preferring instead to see themselves as victims of a vendetta. Hence the substantial damages awarded seemed necessary in order to deter similar conduct in future."

This quote is grossly misleading. The judge was later proven wrong by the facts as reported about the trial, the subsequent CAN bankruptcy and the liquidation of CAN's assets. All done at the behest of Scientology lawyers. This was also substantiated by Jason Scott's statements that Scientology used him through the litigation to get CAN, which he stated publicly on CBS "60 Minutes." Numerous press reports reflect the same. And when Scientology lawyer Kendrick Moxon came before the same judge attempting to reverse the settlement by having Jason Scott declared incompetent, it was a final demonstration that the case was never about Jason's Scott's ability to act independently as far as Mr. Moxon was concerned, but rather about Scietology's needs and its agenda. The judge rebuffed Moxon, as did a federal judge in Arizona responsible for my bankruptcy. This quote should be deleted as it is neither relevant nor ultimately historically meaningful.

"Scott's new lawyer, Graham Berry, a noted opponent of Scientology, said however that "it would be a mistake to assume that Scott's decision to make use of Ross' time was a vindication of Ross or his deprogramming methods."

Again, Jayen466 attempts to minimize the impact of the settlement. It is also an almost incoherent remark. Jason Scott valued my time, otherwise he would not have made it such a large part of the settlement. Needless to say, it was a humiliating setback for Scientology, i.e. that Kendrick Moxon's former client fired him, criticized him and Scientology publicly, and sold a $3 million dollar judgment that Scientology had spent so much time and money to get for so little monetarily and for my deprogramming time, which was what Moxon had sued me over in the first place. Very ironic to say the least. Berry's opinion about the settlement should be deleted, and discussion of the court actions by Moxon to declare Scott incompetent and to void the settlement included.

"Nancy Ammerman, a professor of sociology of religion and one of four experts commissioned to author a report to the Justice and Treasury Departments on events in Waco, similarly voiced criticism of the BATF and FBI for relying on Ross without taking these stakes into account."

This statement should be followed by the fact that none of the three other experts said anything about me and therefore did not concur with Ammerman's assessment.

Other than this the Waco Davidian section reads like some fantasy. Jayen466 has chosen his favorite "scholars," as surrogates to express his POV, which is what a very small minority faction might feel about Koresh and the Davidians. In this revisionist version of history Koresh is somehow not a "stereotypical...dangerous cult leader" and the Waco Davidians didn't fit "the generalized pattern of a destructive cult." And any former members of the group that walked away due to well-documented abuses are somehow simply labeled and categorized as "apostates." Such editing makes this entry seem disconnected from reality. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate balance here is to add references about the conclusions reached through the many investigations, reports, court proceedings, and also the opinions expressed by mental health professionals about David Koresh and the Waco Davidians. This would place the matter within its authentic and objective historical context.

Again, it's still somewhat amazing how a Wikipedia bio can become so dominated by one editor.Rick Alan Ross (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

That's, especially in esoteric articles such as this one is, not so surprising. What is more surprising is that the article nevertheless is in your favor. There are a number of reasons for that, I believe, one of which is that people involved in new religious movements are habitually on the defense. I do not have such qualms, as I'm an agnostic scholar. I don't believe in silly things like Scientology, but neither do I believe that zealots like you are dispensing the truth. You have hegemony on your side, I have reason and academia in my corner, let's see, who convinces more people. Fossa?! 01:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
False and misleading statements should not appear in a bio per any objective academic standard. Unfortunately Wikipedia is a place where anyone with an ax to grind can become an anonymous editor. The above corrections remain valid.Rick Alan Ross (talk) 13:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Uhm, let's see: "This statement should be followed by the fact that none of the three other experts said anything about me and therefore did not concur with Ammerman's assessment." Someone says nothing and thereby disagrees with a colleagues' assessment? Where did you learn that logic? Demagoguery for Spin Doctors 101? Fossa?! 17:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Fossa, whoever you are, you are not here for any reasonable discussion of the facts or to be an objective editor. You are here for propaganda purposes and because you have an ax to grind. This type of participation here is an example of a continuing problem at Wikipedia. The historical facts are really very simple, no other expert besides Ammerman felt that my involvement was important enough to raise as an issue specifically within their report. No spin, just fact. Your posts here are more like someone flaming a message board than constructive conversation.Rick Alan Ross (talk) 13:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
That's pretty rich, I take it St. Ross does not have an ax to grind? "no other expert besides Ammerman felt that my involvement was important enough to raise as an issue specifically within their report": So what? This is not the article about the legal case, but about Rick A. Ross (and his involvement in the case). We have an opinion by a sociologist, and no opinion from any of the other board members. We have thus no way knowing their opinion other than mind reading. Since mind reading does not produce Wikipedia:Reliable sources, we do not write anything about their points of view. Fossa?! 21:49, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the other three experts also were sharply critical, as was Ammerman, of the (lack of) expertise brought in. The article has changed quite a lot; what do you think of the current status, Fossa? Jayen466 01:52, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

FBI involvement as per Ammerman

I've added the Ammerman version of events, to balance the DoJ account, and updated the lede to include a mention of the widespread scholarly criticism in this regard. I've also toned down the settlement in the lede; given the very clear statement in this source, I don't want it to sound like a glowing endorsement of Ross's methods when it wasn't. Cheers, Jayen466 00:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Apart from that, I think the article looks pretty good now, the rocky road notwithstanding. With any luck, and given a few weeks of stability, we might want to submit it for GA Review. Jayen466 00:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It is looking better, though there is still far too much undue weight given to criticisms over one case in which he was not even a physical participant. In fact, it borders on the ridiculous when compared to that in the Wikipedia articles of actual major actors at Waco, such as:
Janet Reno - who oversaw the government involvement, received massive national criticism from every format on the topic huge national criticism from every corner, and there is 1 line about Waco in Wikipedia article.
Jeff Jamar - headed up the entire operation on the ground, received criticism in numerous sources huge national criticism and there is not a single mention of the after-the-fact criticism in his Wikipedia article
Robert Ricks - supported Jamar, was the SAC before Jamar, received massive amounts of criticism and there is not one line of criticism in his Wikipedia article.
Here, Rick A. Ross, a cult "deprogrammer" who talked to the FBI and ATF a few times, was not an actor in the standoff and is not even mentioned in the Waco siege article, has several lines of criticism in his Wikipedia article.Mosedschurte (talk) 01:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Two of these articles are stubs though. And while this episode was a major factor in Ross's nationwide visibility, it wasn't in Reno's. Jayen466 01:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Just for fun: [13] [14] [15] Jayen466 01:30, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Re: And while this episode was a major factor in Ross's nationwide visibility, it wasn't in Reno's. I take it you didn't live in the United States in the 1990s. I'm not being critical, it's just that that statement sounds bizarre given that it was BY FAR the most widely covered incident in which Reno was mentioned and most reporting (dwarfing the Elian and Ruby Ridge incidents) in Reno's career.
Regarding the others being "stubs", they contain quite a bit of text on both major Waco siege figures, and somewhat humorously given the discussion, neither contain nearly the criticism of the Waco incident (despite orders of magnitude more criticism) than that of the article of cult deprogrammaer Rick A. Ross.
Also just for fun, and not that this matters at all for magnitude but: the google search without limiting it to "jeff", since he usually goes by Jeffrey.
For even more fun here's Reno's in the same searchMosedschurte (talk) 01:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I noticed earlier there was rather a lot on Reno and Waco in google books. Sounds like her article could do with expansion then. ;-) You're right, I am on the other side of the pond and didn't live then nor at any other time in the States. Even so, Reno's name was familiar to me as an Attorney General, and I didn't particularly associate the name with Waco. Perhaps it's a case of false memory. At any rate, I assume Attorney Generals have some kind of nationwide visibility even without an event like this one coming along, no? Cheers, Jayen466 02:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

AG's do, but that was the most visible item of her career. Also note that, before any talking to agents at Waco, Ross's deprogramming had already received media coverage, including an entire hour on national prime time TV program 48 hours (CBS).Mosedschurte (talk) 02:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

AFAIR a number of sources report that Ross had come to nationwide prominence through his role in the Waco siege. Here e.g., "Ross gained national attention last spring when he worked with the FBI during the siege of the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas." Btw, why do you say "Opposition to" and "opposed" the Branch Davidians? I think it would be more accurate to say something along the lines that he worked with the law enforcement agencies and the media, rather than opposed the Branch Davidians. Jayen466 03:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
He also deprogrammed a member apart from the media and government agencies, and given the secondary sources characterization of his efforts, "oppose" appears to be an accurate broader term for his general involvement. The specifics of that involvement are discussed in the sentences that follow, of course.Mosedschurte (talk) 03:17, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, Ross's efforts at Waco no doubt "gained national attention" -- he was on CBS (again) as an on-the-scene commentator, for one thing, though that was obviously not his own hour-long prime time special as he had in 1989.Mosedschurte (talk) 03:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but you know what these one-hour specials are like (or were then, at least). If you watched something on another channel, you'd miss it, and that was it. The Waco thing on the other hand went on for weeks, so presumably he was in lots of programs over a prolonged period of time, giving most viewers a chance to catch him somewhere along the line.
The "oppose" still doesn't work all that well for me. My impression was he only significantly "opposed" them once this situation arose, and then this "opposition" was in the form of media and agency input. Before then, the group was just one of many similar Christian groups out there, and not singled out for special attention. Jayen466 03:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
He had already independently deprogrammed a member before the standoff, and all of his actions and statements during the standoff (and after) appear to oppose the group (perhaps too vehemently if his critics are correct). Accordingly, "oppose" is an accurate blanket term for summary purposes.Mosedschurte (talk) 03:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but he opposes all such Bible-based groups, and others besides. It's his job! Jayen466 03:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure he opposes all such groups, but that's why the less specific word "oppose" was used for the Branch Davidians in summary of that section. The section addresses his general opposition (deprogramming, commentary, talks with agencies) to the Branch Davidians, not other groups.Mosedschurte (talk) 03:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

He is sometimes termed a "Bible-based cult" expert. Jayen466 03:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
The thing is, the Opposition to me sounds like "Him against the Branch Davidians". And that was not the symmetry of the situation. Jayen466 03:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Nowhere in the word opposition does it say, or even remotely imply, that Ross alone opposed the Branch Davidians.Mosedschurte (talk) 03:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Fine. Let's leave it. Perhaps you'll see tomorrow what I mean, or vice versa. Cheers, Jayen466 03:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: "Perhaps you'll see tomorrow what I mean, or vice versa". To what does that refer?Mosedschurte (talk) 03:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I only meant that sometimes when you sleep over something, it looks different the next day. For example, I now think this article is coming along fine; yesterday or even this morning I did not think so. I think you're writing it very well. I'll catch some sleep now, late over here, and I've been short of sleep of late. Cheers, Jayen466 03:57, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Gotcha. I'm on the US West coast, so it's only 8pm here.Mosedschurte (talk) 04:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Articles & Publications

The external links section needs to be reviewed for compliance with Wikipedia:External links. If there are links that can be used as references, use them to support text in the article. Otherwise, linking should be limited to one page on the subject's website. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Please stop moving Articles and Publications by the subject of the article into External Links.

This is a separate category of articles and publications by the subject of the article, as is included in numerous Wikipedia articles involving authors and others who publish material. That some or all are also contain external internet links does not mean that the category should be eliminated, nor is it ever on such Wikipedia articles.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:00, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

All these "articles" are published on the subject website, and the others that are not, are links that could be listed. EL sections are not a dumping ground for any sources that cannot be used in the article itself. As I can see that you don't seem to accept the use of ELs nd sources, I will ask for a third opinion as the first step in dispute resolution ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • As for the substance of the article, a separate list of "Publications" is standard in many articles when the subject is actually a writer. A category containing his publications is not only non-remarkable, but quite ubiquitous on Wikipedia, and clearly helpful to the reader.
I could probably generate a hundred examples -- though I certainly won't waste the time on such a silly slam dunk dispute such as this -- but the article I happen to have open in a browser right now at this moment actually has such a list, some of which includes links to external sources, here Paul_Foot.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Paul Foot' article and many other articles carry a "articles & publications" sections that are populated by articles that have been published by reputable publishers, and are not self published as it is the case here. I have asked for a 3rd opinion. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
First, I should hope this is not the case: I have asked for a 3rd opinion, as I have received no notice of any such dispute resolution about which I would purportedly be involved. Second, no discussion has occurred beforehand, as should occur before any WP:DR.
Third, you may want to look at the list again. Not all of those articles are "self-published".Mosedschurte (talk) 16:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
(1) See WP:3O; (2) In that list there articles all linked to Ross' site, and that site has already been deemed in different noticeboards not to be useful as Reliable sources, due to copyvios and other issues. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:23, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Some of the publications are clearly made first at other sources, like the Washington Post. Whether or not any link is contained to any website.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, WP:30Clearly states "Be sure to discuss the dispute on the talk page as the first step in the process before making a request here." Zero such discussion took place before you doing so.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:28, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
We did, and we are disagreeing. Be patient, someone will come and assist with this. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, no we didn't before you started the 3O.Mosedschurte (talk) 16:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

List of linked material

List of "articles and publications" and "external links" section

Articles and publications section
  1. http://www.cultnews.com/?p=2124 Why did Landmark Education leave France?], CultNews, [[2006-09-29
  2. http://www.rickross.com/reference/flanding/flanding24.html The Emergence of New Hybrid/Composite Groups and Counseling Approaches: A Study of Friends Landing, Report 1999
  3. http://www.rickross.com/reference/kabbalah/kabbalah27.html Has Madonna Joined a Cult?, Report 1997
  4. http://www.rickross.com/reference/fundamentalists/fund175.html The Missionary Threat], [http://www.publiceye.org/ifas/ Institute for First Amendment Studies, 1995
  5. http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco3.html What Happened at Waco, Washington Post, 1995-07-25
  6. http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco297.html Foreword to "See No Evil", 1993-04-25
  7. http://www.rickross.com/reference/youth/youth6.html Youth with a Mission, Report 1990
  8. http://www.rickross.com/reference/teen_challenge/teenchallenge1.html Proselytizing Report: "Teen Challenge", Religious Advisory Committee, Arizona Department of Corrections, 26 July 1984
  9. http://www.rickross.com/reference/fundamentalists/fund5.html Bigotry lurks in born-again Christian doctrine], The Arizona Republic, 6 November 1982
external links section
  • Rick A. Ross Institute
  1. http://www.rickross.com/ Rick A. Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements (website)
  2. http://www.rickross.com/cv.html Curriculum Vitae of Rick Ross
  • Media/news
  1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2004/dec/12/features.magazine137 Beyond Belief] The Observer, 2004-12-12
  2. http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1136838328818 Suits Against Anti-Cult Blogger Provide Test for Online Speech (Law.com)
  3. http://www.xenutv.com/cruise/factor.htm The O'Reilly Factor, Rick Ross appears as "expert on new religious movements", Bill O'Reilly, 31 May 2005.
  4. http://dogmafreeamerica.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=185224# Dogma Free America podcast interview with Rick Ross

≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:30, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I edited the articles and publications to take out the self-published material, so your list above is incorrect. Now it's all articles and books published by Ross elsewhere.
This is the sort of thing that would occur were you to follow Wikipedia policy and attempt discussion before 3O. Mosedschurte (talk) 17:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Articles and publications

  1. Madigan, Tim and Rick Ross, See No Evil, Summit Publishing Group - Legacy Books, May 1993 (see Foreword)
  2. Ross, Rick, What Happened at Waco, Washington Post, 1995-07-25
  3. Ross, Rick, The Missionary Threat, Institute for First Amendment Studies, 1995
  4. Ross, Rick, Proselytizing Report: "Teen Challenge", Religious Advisory Committee, Arizona Department of Corrections, 26 July 1984
  5. Ross, Rick, Bigotry lurks in born-again Christian doctrine, The Arizona Republic, November 6, 1982
Published the letter in the "Letters to the Editor" section, which are seldom used as sources as these do not pass editorial inspection and published as is. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Letters to the editor are actually often edited by the publisher, but that's beside the point: it's not self-published. The Post published it. In fact, they published Ross's rather long response to the article about him.17:42, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • If you're referring to the republication as being a copyright violation, then that's another strike on the self-publication issue. Whether or not the link links to a page that is just a copyright violation goes to whether the link itself -- NOT THE CITATION -- should be included. Different matter, of course, that has nothing to do with self-publication (copyvio would just strike the link inside the cite)Mosedschurte (talk) 17:29, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Strike the link then. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't know that the link is a copyright violation. But that's a separate matter (and doesn't go to the cite, but the link).Mosedschurte (talk) 17:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Rick A. Ross Institute

  1. Rick A. Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements (website)
  2. Curriculum Vitae of Rick Ross
Common practice is to provide one link to the official site of the subject of an article. I would keep the first one. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:22, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Media/news

  1. Beyond Belief, The Observer, 2004-12-12
  2. Suits Against Anti-Cult Blogger Provide Test for Online Speech (Law.com)
  3. The O'Reilly Factor, Rick Ross appears as "expert on new religious movements", Bill O'Reilly, 31 May 2005.
  4. Dogma Free America podcast interview with Rick Ross

Mosedschurte (talk) 17:04, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

These are OK, withe the exception of (4) which is a blog. As for (3) it may be a copyvio, but I am not sure. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Four is an interview of Ross by Dogma Free America. Check the interview link on the right. Whether three is a "copyvio", of course, goes to the link's inclusion, not the citation.Mosedschurte (talk) 17:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Dogma Free America is a blog. See WP:RS ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it's not. It's a radio show. The link to the interview is on a page you think is a blog, but whether or not the page is, the interview of Ross most certainly is not a blog.Mosedschurte (talk) 17:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Are you sure? Seems to be a podcaster, not a radio station. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I think it's internet radio (podcast), and may be rebroadcast somewhere (many are), but that's beside the point regarding whether the external material itself is an interview, not a blog.Mosedschurte (talk) 17:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Nah... it does not pass the WP:RS threshold, a podcaster is the same as a blogger. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Not in WP:RS, and it wouldn't matter anyway because it's an interview.Mosedschurte (talk) 18:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Is there any reason to doubt that it is actually Ross being interviewed? If not, it doesn't matter where the interview is published. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Really? So, are you arguing that Podcasts can be now used in BLPs? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
We allow (and almost require) linking to blogs written by the subject, so why wouldn't we allow podcasted interviews of the subject? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:39, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm. I will start a thread at WT:RS as I think this is an issue that goes beyond this specific article. IMO, an interview in a blog is not much different than an interview in a podcast. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Blogs_vs_Podcasts ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree they're not much different, and that both should be allowed. The important difference is between audio interviews and written interviews. Anybody could sit down and create an exchange and claim it to be an interview. It would be far more difficult to stage a faked audio interview, so that there is a presumption of reliability in an audio interview that doesn't exist in a printed interview. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, this link is being used as an external link, not a source. Different guidelines apply. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:04, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. See Wikipedia:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided, point 11. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I haven't listened to the interview. Is he making any significant statements about third parties? Jayen466 20:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It's quite easy to stage a faked audio interview, simply by finding someone with a voice that sounds similar to the purported interviewee. Since a self-published audio blog/podcast/etc has little reliability of its own (unless published by the interviewee himself), the only means by which we could verify the alleged interview would involve audio analysis whereby we would perform a qualitative and spectral comparison between the voice in the supposed interview and a known voice sample of the alleged interviewee, attempt to find any abrupt cut-outs which might indicate the splicing together of audio clips in a misleading fashion, etc. Because we would be performing our own determination of whether the purported interviewee's voice was authentic, and not relying on the representations of the source (the blog in which the audio interview was published), such audio analysis would constitute original research. Even if acceptable for articles concerning video games, or similar non-critical purposes where there would be little incentive to fabricate an audio interview out of whole cloth, the use of third-party audio blogs as sources should especially be avoided for the purpose of making controversial claims concerning living persons, where the temptations to fabricate an audio interview for the purpose of defamation are high, and the damage done to the subject of the controversial claims by the inclusion of bogus information from a faked audio interview may be considerable. Indeed, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources and Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Using_the_subject_as_a_self-published_source expressly prohibit the contemplated use of third-party audio blogs in biographies of living persons. John254 20:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Folks seem to be cross posting the same material here and WPT:RSN. To repeat myself too, I'd ask John254 to provide evidence of a problem with faked audio interviews. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I have responded at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Blogs_vs_Podcasts. John254 02:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I specifically recall the interview in question. I did the interview.Rick Alan Ross (talk) 15:15, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

That's great. Now, when we can accept edits made on Wikipedia by the subject of the article as reliable sources, we can include the interview in the article. Oh, wait, Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources states that "Articles and posts on Wikipedia, or other websites that mirror Wikipedia content, may not be used as sources", perhaps because this isn't original-research-pedia. John254 15:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, the rule per Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources that "Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons" is here just as much to protect you from defamation by the Church of Scientology as it is to protect anyone else. For instance, if David Miscavige published claims about you on his own website, would you really want such material to be included in your biography, his biography, or anywhere else on Wikipedia? John254 16:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
For esample, sources now cited for "Reading" such as CESNUR, which is run by a man very closely associated with groups called "cults" and frequent cult employee J. Gordon Melton, whose writings are included about the "anti-cult movement." These sources act as surrogates for cults and are little more than sock puppets.Rick Alan Ross (talk) 17:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I have removed the link to the CESNUR website. If there are any other inappropriate claims, sources, or external links, those can be removed as well. In general, however, this article appears to be based on reliable sources such as newspaper articles and books by mainstream publishers -- it's not like we're using Scientologists' audio blogs. John254 18:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with Melton or the guy who runs CESNUR – unlike Ross, their works form part of university curricula – but the paper in question was unpublished, and did say "Do not quote without permission" etc. at the top. So I agree with the removal. Jayen466 20:58, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Here are some recent news/media links;

http://www.wsaw.com/secretsinshawano/headlines/19083509.html CBS News Wisconsin http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2008-12-16-voa39.cfm Voice of America

Rick Alan Ross (talk) 17:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. These two are now added. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:23, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference Shupe180-184 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Cockburn was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bromley was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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