Misplaced Pages

Talk:Dianetics

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Spidern (talk | contribs) at 03:38, 2 December 2008 (THE PERFECT MATRIMONY). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 03:38, 2 December 2008 by Spidern (talk | contribs) (THE PERFECT MATRIMONY)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Dianetics article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
Article policies
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs· FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13Auto-archiving period: 30 days 
The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.
Former good articleDianetics was one of the Philosophy and religion good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 19, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
May 17, 2006Good article nomineeListed
July 22, 2008Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article
This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconScientology High‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is supported by WikiProject Scientology, a collaborative effort to help develop and improve Misplaced Pages's coverage of Scientology. The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on Scientology-related topics. See WikiProject Scientology and Misplaced Pages:Contributing FAQ.ScientologyWikipedia:WikiProject ScientologyTemplate:WikiProject ScientologyScientology
HighThis article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconSkepticism
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism
???This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconAlternative medicine
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative medicine, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Alternative medicine related articles on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Alternative medicineWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative medicineTemplate:WikiProject Alternative medicineAlternative medicine

Please read before starting
Welcome to Misplaced Pages's Dianetics article.

Newcomers to Misplaced Pages and this article may find that it's easy to commit a faux pas. That's OK — everybody does it! You'll find a list of a few common ones you might try to avoid here.

A common objection made often by new arrivals is that the article presents Dianetics in an unsympathetic light and that criticism of Dianetics is too extensive or violates Misplaced Pages's Neutral Point of View policy WP:NPOV, while WP:NOR and WP:V require equal attention. The sections of the WP:NPOV that apply directly to this article are reasoning behind NPOV, the neutral point of view, NPOV: Pseudoscience, Misplaced Pages:Neutral_point_of_view#Religion, NPOV: Undue weight, and NPOV: Giving "equal validity", How to deal with Theories. The contributors to the article have done their best to adhere to these to the letter. Also, splitting the article into sub-articles is governed by the POV fork guidelines.

These policies have guided the shape and content of the article, and new arrivals are strongly encouraged to become familiar with them prior to raising objections on this page or adding content to the article. Other important policies guiding the article's content are No Original Research (WP:NOR) and Cite Your Sources (WP:CITE).

Tempers can and have flared here. All contributors are asked to please respect Misplaced Pages's policy No Personal Attacks (WP:NPA) and to abide by consensus (WP:CON).

This talk page is to discuss the text, photographs, format, grammar, etc of the article itself and not the inherent worth of Dianetics. See WP:NOT.

On the other hand, this talk page serves the purpose of discussion, toward arriving at consensus of viewpoints of editors as spelled out at WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR.

"Jargon"?

I am writing this to explain why I reverted this edit, posted with the edit summary "rm unencyclopedice jargon". These were the changes made in that edit:

Old New
... traumatic cellular recordings ... ... traumatic recordings ...
... called "engrams" ... ... called engrams ...
... the "reactive mind." ... the reactive mind.
... erase the engrams in the reactive mind and refile them as data in the analytical mind to achieve ... ... erase the engrams in the reactive mind to achieve ...

The first change does not have anything to do with jargon, because "cellular" in this context is not jargon. It means exactly what a reader would think it means, namely, that the recording which Dianeticists believe takes place when an "engram" is created is recording on a cellular level. Now, one can certainly question the accuracy of that statement; the engram (Dianetics) article says Hubbard at one point definitively stated the recording was cellular and then later repudiated that claim. One can certainly question the placement of this detail; the introduction may not be the place to discuss where these engrams are supposed to reside, especially if the answer is "first Hubbard claimed one thing and then he claimed another, so let's go through all the answers." But simply removing it altogether does not seem appropriate.

The second and third changes have to do with jargon, but they do not have anything to do with removing jargon; instead, they remove the stylistic indicators that "engrams" and "reactive mind" are jargon terms. Why would this even be desirable? They are jargon terms from the theories of Dianetics; it would only be a disservice to the reader to remove the quotes which mark them as such and incorrectly suggest that the reader could understand what "stored in the reactive mind" means by looking up "reactive" and "mind". I am sorely puzzled why an experienced editor (and now, a second) would claim that they were removing jargon when the jargon is still there, still unexplained.

The fourth change is much like the first; it has very little to do with jargon. Perhaps you could say that it is too much detail for the introduction, but that is not what was argued. Perhaps you could say that "refile" and "analytical mind" and even "data" are jargon terms, but the edit summary was "remove ... jargon", not "remove information which is expressed in the jargon of the subject".

If Cirt and GoodDamon are both convinced that the changes they both made needed to be made, I can only ask them to explain the rationale behind those changes. What was expressed in their edit summaries was not it. -- 65.78.13.238 (talk) 00:31, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Inappropriate categories: Category:Psychiatric treatments and Category:Alternative medicine

Both of these categories Category:Psychiatric treatments and Category:Alternative medicine are inappropriate. Dianetics is neither a "psychiatric treatment" nor "alternative medicine". Cirt (talk) 00:40, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

There is RS that dianetics is part of a treatment program, and it isn't part of modern EBM. The category is a navigational aid, not a label. 88.172.132.94 (talk) 07:01, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
The category is both. Dianetics may be "part of a treatment program", but it is not "psychiatric treatment" or "alternative medicine". Cirt (talk) 10:48, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
how about a 'category:alternative psychiatric treatments'?:) All I am concerned with is that the article shouldn't be placed directly in category:alternative medicine, which I'm tidying up. So please take a look at the subcategories listed here and see if you think it has anything to do with those or not. I'm trying to make the contents of the cat consist mainly only of links to the subcats, with hardly any articles placed directly in it, as instructed at the top of the page. Other than that I don't mind, I just want the alt med category pristine :) Maybe we do need an alt psych one.:) Sticky Parkin 15:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

As the header of this subsection states, neither Category:Psychiatric treatments nor Category:Alternative medicine are appropriate categories. I had removed them both, but apparently another user keeps adding one or the other back in. This should be discussed here on the talkpage first, with consensus reached one way or the other, before re-adding these inappropriate categories. Cirt (talk) 23:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes but how about a Category:Alternative psychiatric treatments, (if could be not in alt med, but a subcat of Category:Psychiatric treatments) which I think might be useful for a fair few articles? I don't know how long it was in Category:Alternative medicine, perhaps for a while- people only noticed it when I was trying to clear out that category for cleanup reasons:) I agree it doesn't quite seem to apply, and anyway if there it should be in one of the subcats. Sticky Parkin 00:05, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Debating about possible subcats is a good idea, I just don't think "Alternative psychiatric treatments" is appropriate. Cirt (talk) 00:22, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

THE PERFECT MATRIMONY

Spidern added a reference to the article that does not contain anything about Dianetics or related subjects. I removed it and any original research going along with it. Shrampes (talk) 00:09, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I did not add the reference. I simply moved the text as cited up to the lead (there was a definition in both the lead and a section of the page). I hadn't checked the citation so I wasn't aware of its content. Spidern 03:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Categories: