Talk:L. Ron Hubbard

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LRON goes to jail

Why is his criminal history so overlooked? I'm fairly certain that is important to know, and the reason I was curious to visit his page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.210.51.222 (talk) 06:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think he ever served any time. Sure he was arrested for writing a bad check, but if I remember correctly he paid a fine. Then there was the thing in France, but he just never went there again. Anynobody 02:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

He did briefly over a civil case from the Hubbard Dianetics Foundation of Wichita bankruptcy dispute with Don Purcell. Bare-Faced Messiah p.210-211. It was only an arrest and hours at most before he was bailed, and he later made restitution and was discharged. As for France, I don't know if they ever tried to extradite Hubbard, but that possibility, the IRS investigation and the initial charges in the Operation Snow White case in Canada were good reasons to keep his whereabouts unknown. AndroidCat (talk) 04:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

sounds important to me 71.72.82.183 (talk) 23:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

POV problem in article?

Sorry for busting in someone elses comment,but i do not know how to start a new post.Anyway it seems to me that there is obviously a POV problem on this article.Read for yourselves. Quote He was attended by "Commodore's Messengers," teenage girls dressed in white hot pants who waited on him hand and foot, fixing his shower and dressing him and even catching the ash from his cigarettes.[10] He had frequent screaming tantrums and instituted brutal punishments such as incarceration in the ship's filthy chain-locker for days or weeks at a time and "overboarding," in which errant crew members were blindfolded, bound and thrown overboard, dropping up to 40 ft. into the cold sea,[10] hoping not to hit the side of the ship with its sharp barnacles on the way down.[10][79] Some of these punishments, such as imprisonment in the chain-locker, were applied to children as well as to adults.[10] A letter Hubbard wrote to his third wife, Mary Sue, when he was in Las Palmas around 1967: "I’m drinking lots of rum and popping pinks and greys..."[80] The author of an unauthorized Hubbard biography also says that "John McMasters told me that on the flagship Apollo in the late sixties he witnessed Hubbard's drug supply. 'It was the largest drug chest I had ever seen. He had everything!'".[80] This was confirmed by Gerald Armstrong through Virginia Downsborough who said in 1967 he returned to Las Palmas totally debilitated from drugs.[81] “ We found him a hotel in Las Palmas and the next day I went back to see if he was all right, because he did not seem to be too well. When I went in to his room, there were drugs of all kinds everywhere. He seemed to be taking about sixty thousand different pills. I was appalled, particularly after listening to all his tirades against drugs and the medical profession. There was something very wrong with him... My main concern was to try and get him off all the pills he was on and persuade him that there was still plenty for him to do. ”

"He was existing almost totally on a diet of drugs. For three weeks Hubbard was bedridden, while she weaned him off his habit."[10] His drug use appears to pre-date the 1967 accounts.[82] A letter written by Hubbard to his ex-wife was given special attention in the Church of Scientology v. Armstrong case,

   I do love you, even if I used to be an opium addict.

   – L. Ron Hubbard

Unquote.Once again,I apologize for jumping into someone elses comment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.125.129.58 (talk) 15:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Reply: No problem on busting into someone else's comments. For future reference, you can start a new section by going to the bottom and typing ==(Name of new section)== to create a new header at the bottom, then put your comments below that.

Anyway, on to the meat of your comment... POV is a tricky question with controversial topics. The best we can do is go by what Wikipedia calls reliable sources. We state what the reliable sources say, without adding any opinions of our own. But unfortunately, this will frequently result in questions like yours in topics related to Scientology, because the reliable sources themselves are overwhelmingly negative. In order to remain POV-neutral ourselves, we have to be dispassionate ourselves, but if the reliable sources paint a negative picture, it would be POV-pushing to discard the reliable sources in an attempt to make the article more positive. Similarly, on subjects where the reliable sources are overwhelmingly positive, it would be POV-pushing to try to make the article more negative.

The content you're objecting to is supported by proper citations, and reflects what the reliable sources say, so I'm afraid it's not POV-pushing to include it... rather, it would be POV-pushing to exclude it. I hope this answers your concerns. --GoodDamon 18:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok.I get the point,but I was concerned with what sounded like a whole lot of negative comments.Ill check the sources to see if they are valid,just in case. 79.125.128.169 (talk) 11:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. Sources should always be checked for accuracy and validity. --GoodDamon 21:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

 Ok, I checked the sources in question,and they seem to be valid.Well,that's it,question answered.Silvery Swirls (talk) 17:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Featured Article?

Does anyone else think this is up to Featured Article standard? I just read it for the first time, and I think it's pretty close. I have to say it seems remarkably neutral for an article on such a controversial figure. The only problems I think it would have with the Featured Article Criteria are 'Stability' - inevitably, it attracts a fair amount of vandalism - and being well-illustrated, as there are only three images on the whole page. I don't know what can be done about the stability issue, but surely the latter is pretty easy to fix? I hope more images can be found, because if they can, I believe this could easily be promoted to Featured Article status. Terraxos (talk) 17:17, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

That Fishman doc

Please see OT VIII. The authenticity of that document is strongly doubted even among critics. As far as I know, no high-level ex-members (who have confirmed other advanced material in the Fishman docs) have confirmed that they've ever seen that one. Just because the court has a copy of the document that Fishman submitted to it, that is no proof that it is an authentic document from Scientology. The CoS lawyers did try to claim copyright, but afterwards said this was a mistake. (This one time, I'm inclined believe them since they're well known for snapping at anything without reading it too carefully.) AndroidCat (talk) 14:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I had been under the impression that only the OT VIII section of the Fishman affidavit was seriously disputed, because other ex-members reported seeing versions of OT VIII that were completely different, but that the remainder of the document had been confirmed by other ex-members. --FOo (talk) 17:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

That "Jesus was a pedophile" bulletin is part of the disputed OT VIII section. AndroidCat (talk) 18:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, okay. --FOo (talk) 08:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Nothing about family?

What about his homosexual son? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.166.28 (talk) 04:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Primary sources

It would be best to avoid usage of primary sources and self-referential sources, in describing the history of an organization specifically from those sources. Better to rely on secondary, WP:RS/WP:V sources. Cirt (talk) 21:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You mean avoid using CoS primary sources right? Not court papers/etc. Anynobody 02:26, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. It would be silly to rely heavily on sources that end in scientology.org or the like - we wouldn't want chunks of this article to begin to look similar to Scientology websites or Church of Scientology-affiliated accounts of their organization and their prominent individuals. Best to stick to secondary, WP:RS/WP:V sources as much as possible. Cirt (talk) 03:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, they are only WP:RS for what the Church of Scientology says. We would have to frame each block of imported text with a qualifier that this is their view or opinion. AndroidCat (talk) 05:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Cirt (talk) 05:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that's rational, bearing in mind that some use of CoS sources is necessary only to report their major assertions about him discussed in secondary sources. However CoS information which has not been in a relevant secondary source is probably unacceptable. Anynobody 07:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)