Talk:Jason Scott case

The unanimous verdict

The unanimous verdict of the jury in the criminal trial for Ross was "not guilty."

The court record and numerous news reports such as the Phoenix New Times demonstrates this.

Anson Shupe and Kendrick Moxon are not reliable sources and should not be used per the policies of Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.124.10.31 (talk • contribs)

Anson Shupe, expert witness

Since the focus of this article is the Jason Scott case(s), not Rick Ross, there is certainly reason to cover Anson Shupe's role as an expert witness for the prosecution. (Although, not as a coat-rack to hang criticism unrelated to the cases.) AndroidCat (talk) 19:39, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

As well, in the civil court case, he was an expert witness as a sociologist, specializing in New Religious Movements. In reporting on the trials, he is not (as far as I know) an expert in legal matters, and shouldn't have any preferential treatment as a reference. AndroidCat (talk) 06:12, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Shupe is a very influential scholar in this field. According to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, for example,

Bromley and Anson Shupe have become the primary social science interpreters of [the anti-cult movement] in a series of books and articles.

Having said that, there are dozens, if not hundreds of books covering this case. While Shupe and Darnell show up top of the list, I agree that the other ones should be evaluated as well. There is also lots in google scholar. Jayen466 12:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. An entry by Thomas Robbins on David Bromley and Anson Shupe, referencing books by David Bromley, Anson Shupe and Thomas Robbins. Obviously the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society has slacker rules than Wikipedia about horn-tooting. Regardless, he's not a legal expert, and we should be careful not to assign too much weight to experts when they're outside of their field. AndroidCat (talk) 14:10, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Come on AndroidCat, Stephen A. Kent says the same about Shupe's standing, and you know it. And Shupe was an expert witness at that trial. Jayen466 15:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Anson Shupe is an expert on New Religious Movements. Anson Shupe is not an expert on the law and legal cases. Do you acknowledge the difference? AndroidCat (talk) 19:52, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Shupe is an acknowledged expert on the anti-cult movement, and as such is well qualified to comment on key legal cases in this field. If you want a legal expert, Kendrick Moxon is your man -- he is a Dr. jur. We can use one of the papers where he was a co-author, if you like. Jayen466 20:15, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

No, Moxon immediately fails WP:RS by not being a third party—which is also a concern about Shupe. AndroidCat (talk) 03:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

If you have sources authored by other legal experts commenting on the nicer points of the case, by all means let's use them. I'm not aware of any right now. Jayen466 20:21, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

There is "Deadly Cults" by Snow, an anti-cult writer with law enforcement experience. Snow refers to Scott allegedly being held "handcuffed and gagged for five days". Is that correct? I always thought the cuffs were used for transport only. Jayen466 20:51, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

This dude, Bullis, has all the right qualifications -- degrees in sociology, law, and theology. But he does get a basic fact wrong, asserting that the sons joined the church against the will of their mother. Jayen466 20:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Dialogue

AndroidCat, how do you propose we give this dialogue then? I thought we can only give it either verbatim, as quoted personal speech, or summarised, as indirect speech. Do you have any other ideas? Jayen466 12:28, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Meta-issue: Court documents and reliable sourcing

Please see the topic for discussion at Talk:Scientology#Meta-issue: Court documents and reliable sourcing. Thank you. AndroidCat (talk) 23:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Verbatium quote

page 26. So. Is it a quote, is it a copyvio, or can it be dissected as loaded language? AndroidCat (talk) 05:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't a verbatim quote. These are the differences between the wordings:

• The jury, apparently moved by the details of what had been a very physical kidnapping and deprogramming attempt, awarded ... (what we had)
• "The jury, apparently horrified by the details of what had been a very physical kidnapping and deprogramming attempt", awarded ... (what you changed it to)
• The jury, apparently quite horrified at the details of what was a very physical kidnapping and deprogramming, awarded ... (source wording)

I suggest if we need quotation marks, we should put them around "a very physical kidnapping and deprogramming". Instead of "horrified by" or "moved by", perhaps "having learnt" or "apparently struck by" would do? Or how about "The jury, apparently struck by the very physical nature of the abduction and deprogramming attempt, awarded ..." I am open to other suggestions. As for "loaded language", note that this is not a tabloid source; both the book's editor and the author of the quoted section in it are top scholars, writing for a respected academic publisher. I am sure they would argue that they were merely describing the jury's apparent state of mind, and the details of the abduction as given in court testimony. Jayen466 13:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

As for WP:C, this says, "Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia. However, it would still be unethical (but not illegal) to do so without citing the original as a reference. See plagiarism and fair use for discussions of how much reformulation is necessary in a general context." I could not find anything definite under plagiarism and fair use to indicate how much reformulation is necessary; I thought as long as there weren't more than four or five words in succession taken verbatim from a source, i.e. as long as it was clear that there had been no copy-and-pasting of whole intact sentences, we were okay. If you are aware of a policy page that gives more detailed guidance in this regard, please let me know, so I can read up on it. Cheers, Jayen466 13:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• I've started a thread at the WP:C talk page to get some more input. Jayen466 13:48, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Reworded based on input received there. Jayen466 15:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Gallgaher et al.

Here some further publications describing the demise of CAN as marking the end of an era in North America:

• Jeffrey Kaplan, Heléne Lööw, The Cultic Milieu
• Phillip Charles Lucas, Thomas Robbins, New Religious Movements in the Twenty-first Century
• Jeffrey Kaplan, "The Fall of the Wall" (Nova Religio)
• Shupe speaks of "countermovement collapse"
• Paula Nesbitt, Religion and Social Policy
• Lewis has it as the Defeat of Anticultism in the Courts. Along with the U.S. courts' decision to no longer accept testimony based on the 1970s brainwashing hypothesis, it's widely seen as a watershed. Jayen466 18:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

"Nontraditional religions" vs "cults"

Replaced the word "cults" in the second paragraph with "nontraditional religions" because that phrasing is a more neutral point of view Ema Zee (talk) 19:54, 12 March 2013 (UTC)