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Evidence presented by {Terryeo}[edit]

First assertion: Editors understand the stated word differently

I edit with the intention of introducing the articles in the Dianetics and Scientology areas. These words are widely published, translated into many languages and are understood differently by various groups. For example, there is a net presense, xenu.net which is dedicated to making these subjects and their organizations not only wrong, but apparently hoping to destroy them. That site and other sites mis-present the information which comprises these subjects and present information about these subjects of an expose' newspaper type style. The most gentle way I could put it would be to say, "they misunderstand the concepts" which comprise these subjects. In misunderstanding, they mis-present the subjects. So how should Wikipedia present these subjects? As I read NPOV, Wikipedia should present the subject as the author and originator of the subjects intend them. Original source first, in this kind of situation. Then, after the subject is introduced so a reader can understand what the subject is about, then a reader is ready for and has a context for understanding controversy. Finally, tertiary sources, when available, can support any or all of the points of view. This lack of understanding the information which comprises a subject is, I believe, the problem which editors revolve around, this is the problem which led to this arbitration. Everyone edits in good faith, edits the subjects as they understand them. I provide a balancing force against other editors who get a lot of thier information from xenu.net and other "hostile to scientology" websites.Terryeo 02:30, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As an illustration of the good faith the editors perform, any or all of the editors will revert and have reverted vandalism from the article, whether it is vandalism that deletes a huge block of data and inserts "Tom Cruise is gay" or whether it is a one word vandalism. Both sides work toward a good article and both sides care for what they are producing.

There have been several instances of incivility and there have been instances of edit wars, or something close to edit wars. Usually at least some discussion takes place. Rather than attempt to use my statement's space to attack those who will probably expose every poor edit and talk page discussion I have done, I am going to spell out and illustrate the basic difficulty as well as I can. Certainly I have had personal attacks against me and certainly I have been somewhat less than perfectly civil on occassion. However, we are all big boys and girls and soon after such interchanges we editors, at least most of us, most of the time, are soon talking with each other again. These subjects are in the area of religion and the "mind," some difficulties should be expected. The core of the difficulty is, I believe, the subjects are understood differently by different people.

I don't try to create huge changes, nor am I a doctrinaire who seeks to eliminate points of view which are not my own. One change I have brought about is in the Fair Game article which originally stated, "Fair game is a status ..." [2] and because of my editing, explainations and verifications, today reads, "Fair Game was a status ..." That article also contains a verification of today's Church policy that applies to Fair Game. I am saying, I do not mean to largely change articles. I do mean to get these articles to present good, verified information. After the subject is introduced as the subject was meant by its author to be presented, then I am mostly finished.07:29, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Second assertion: The other guy's point of view

The problem of this request, however, is not the existence of several points of view, but a lack of understanding of the "other guy’s" point of view. The point of view which is controversial to the existence of Scientology is easy to identity, it almost always rouses the emotions and makes you feel strongly that something is very, very wrong. All of the editors who are posting this request against me are of that point of view. They do all present information about these subjects. But they do not present the subject which the article is about, instead they mainly present the controversy which the subject is about. None of them (my opinion) have presented the subjects of the named articles in an easy – for – the – reader – to – understand sort of way. I do not believe they can because they do not understand the subjects. Also, in some cases, they present misinformation about the subject. The problem is about understanding. The problem is that those editors do not understand the subjects, but think they understand the subjects. They do, without doubt, understand there is controversy about the subjects. A person will never understand these subjects by reading Xenu.net and Clambake.org. The problem is a lack of understanding. User:Spirit of Man spells it out pretty well about the Dianetics article. He states: "WP:SCN editors act to rewrite or delete edits supportive of the view, Dianetics and Scientology exist as legitimate subjects."

A number of editors actively prevent Spirit of Man (and myself) from presenting the subject as it was created, as it is practiced and as it is successfully disseminated today. They actively resist and prevent such information from entering the article. They refuse to communicate with me (and sometimes with Spirit of Man) and insist that anything I type is some kind of "clone statement" or they use other derogatory terms. And I am not talking about the whole of the Dianetics article reflecting only one point of view, I am talking about the actual prevention of what Dianetics is (a practice, action and activity), actually preventing it from getting into the article. To get one of the words, "action or activity or practice" into the introduction of the article at all took several months, it took a vast amount of effort by 3 editors who know the subject. Finally, after a great amount of effort the word got into the introduction of the article. What happened? Well, an opposing editor saw that "action / activity" is going to be in there someplace and they insist there be a disambiguation template which disperses a reader’s attention from the introduction. I am saying this, the "other side" is a very effective group of editors. When they are finally forced to have some actual information of what the article is actually about, then dispersion is used to prevent the meaning of the subject reaching to the reader. I am not trying to own any article. I am not trying to create a large part of an article. I am simply working toward having the articles present the subject they purport to be about. It might take a paragraph and it might take 3 paragraphs but it does not take a whole article to present the subject.Terryeo 07:42, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Third assertion: A small representation of the difficulties

These are recent reversions which are made with no disccussion whatsoever, reversions which both ignore a good deal of discusssion on the article's discussion page and ignore the points raised in those discussions.

Your links are not useful. They are to versions of the article rather than to diffs which show the changes made. Fred Bauder 13:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, you are so right. Here is what I should have posted to begin with:

The sequence is available thetan history

Fourth assertion: Personal Websites

I beg the arbitration committee's indulgence because this statement probably puts my assertion beyond 1000 words. I post because I think I can now state the divide which brought this situation to a Request for Arbitration and will be as brief as possible.

The main difference which separates the two “sides” revolves around what may be cited to fulfill Wikipedia Standards. ChrisO and the various editors who made statements in the Rfc which led to this Rfa cite personal websites freely to support their understanding of the subjects. WP:RS, and specifically, WP:RS#Personal websites as secondary sources contains our guideline. It states: Personal websites . . . may never be used as secondary sources.

An example of a personal website which drives this controversy is Xenu.net, [11], which also uses the internet address, Clambake.org [12]]. Both addresses point to the same page. At the bottom of that page it declares itself to be a personal website, stating:

Yesterday I made several edits and removed that website from two articles which had cited it as a secondary source. Before I did, I put my “why” on my user discussion page. Then in my edit summaries I specified the guideline by which I made the edits. ChrisO replied to my edits on my discussion page, stating:

Modemac, sensing a potential difficulty, warned ChrisO. [14]

After which ChrisO posted nothing more to my discussion page.

I therefore request the following.

Evidence presented by ChrisO, Raymond Hill and David Strauss[edit]

Copied from Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Terryeo, which is actually evidence submitted by many contributors (I submitted a few ones only). Raymond Hill 14:02, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Updated and summarised to reduce wordage overload! -- ChrisO 23:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I added my name because a number of the items below are my contributions. I'll try and add a separate, more personal statement if I have time. --Davidstrauss 01:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personal attacks and incivil conduct

Terryeo has repeatedly made personal attacks against a number of users:

[15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20]

Edit warring

Applicable policies & guidelines: Wikipedia:Three revert rule, Wikipedia:Ownership of articles, Wikipedia:Etiquette, Wikipedia:Writers' rules of engagement

An egregious demonstration of Terryeo's tendency to initiate drawn-out edit wars, seemingly just to make a point, is the disambiguation page Engram, and Terryeo's attempts to insert a dictionary definition copied from an external source and rearrange the entries to put Engram (Dianetics) first in order:

Terryeo persisted with these edits even after other editors in edit summaries ([25], [26], [27]) and talk page discussion ([28]) pointed him to pages (m:When should I link externally, Wikipedia:Disambiguation, WP:MOSDAB) which spelled out that the edits he was insisting on were unsupported by policy or even directly in contradiction to it.

POV editing

Applicable policies & guidelines: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Writers' rules of engagement

Violations of Wikipedia:Three revert rule

Applicable policies & guidelines: Wikipedia:Three revert rule, Wikipedia:Ownership of articles, Wikipedia:Etiquette, Wikipedia:Writers' rules of engagement

Terryeo repeatedly reverts articles against consensus in order to impose his own POV. He has already been blocked for violations of the 3RR but has continued regardless. On another user's talk page, he has stated that he will continue to revert articles but at a lower frequency: "I am re-doing the Dianetics article about once a day and staying under the 3 times a day thing". [36] This is clearly prohibited at WP:3RR#Intent of the policy.

See also diffs in sections below.

Removal of references for POV reasons

Applicable policies & guidelines: Wikipedia:Cite sources, Wikipedia:NPOV

Terryeo has also repeatedly deleted valid citations and references to external websites on the grounds that the material in question - which is not hosted anywhere on Wikipedia - is "unpublished, legally contentious" (in his personal POV) and should not be mentioned or linked to, even in extract form:

Another instance of Terryeo deleting valid references is to be found at Golden Era Productions; a particular statement was supported by a reference that gave not just the URL to an article from a major metropolitan newspaper that verified the statement, but a quote from the article itself spelling out just what evidence confirmed the claim. Terryeo removed the URL from inside the reference, moving it into an external links section he had just created, and in the same edit placed a ((fact)) template inside the reference, claiming "more appropriate placed the references and notes, citation needed about voting registration records" in his edit summary:

Another example:

And yet another:

And again:

And more:

Comment added by ChrisO: Terryeo appears to be arguing that anything hosted on a "personal website" should not be cited, even if it is actually sourced from a verifiable third party. In the example given above ([41]) he deleted an extract from a widely-published 1957 book on the grounds that it was on a "personal website". He has not asserted that the extract is in any way misquoted, inappropriate or otherwise not worth using. WP:RS clearly targets the use of the views of website owners as quotable facts, not third-party information quoted or provided on "personal websites".

Inappropriate removal of content from talk pages

Applicable policies & guidelines: Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines

Terryeo has repeatedly deleted content other than his from Talk:Dianetics. On 5 February I added a box to the top of Talk:Dianetics (see diff), taken almost unchanged from Talk:Intelligent design, which cited the applicable editing policies. My intention in doing this was to highlight the rules of engagement for the article and encourage the editors to think about whether their contributions met Wikipedia's requirements.

Instead, Terryeo repeatedly deleted the box on a variety of spurious grounds (several times giving no explanation in his editing comments). His stated grounds attracted incredulity from other editors (User:KillerChihuahua: "I am very surprised to hear that a notice to apply NPOV, NOR, and be sure to CITE is somehow POV per Terryeo. Dumbfounded might be more accurate, leaning in fact towards completely disbelieving"). This also provides another illustration of Terryeo's edit warring tactics and violations of the 3RR:

Disregard of consensus

Applicable policies & guidelines: Wikipedia:Consensus, Wikipedia:Wikiquette

Terryeo has repeatedly and wilfully disregarded the consensus of other editors, often with peculiar justifications (e.g. that the use of a disambiguation template constitutes original research or that it is "dispersive" (sic)):

This behaviour has continued since the initiation of the RfC and RfAr proceedings, illustrating Terryeo's unwillingness to moderate his conduct despite the strong censure that he has received from his peers. Recent diffs on Dianetics: [55] ("removed the top of page disambiguation. It is dispersive, there are no "other uses"), [56], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63]

Inappropriate deletion of content

The Thetan article provides an overview of this Scientology concept, with one-paragraph summaries of subsidiary articles covering the Body thetan and Operating Thetan concepts. Terryeo considers these summaries "redundant" and "dispersive" (sic) and has repeatedly deleted them against consensus, violating the 3RR in the process.

See "#Disregard of consensus" above for further examples (repeated removals of disambiguation links against consensus)

Evidence presented by Raymond Hill[edit]

Inapropriate deletion of content

Deceptively brandishing the WP:RS wikipedia policy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dianetics&diff=prev&oldid=49377859
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dianetics&diff=prev&oldid=49378060
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dianetics&diff=prev&oldid=49378556
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dianetics&diff=prev&oldid=49378861
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Space_opera_in_Scientology_doctrine&diff=prev&oldid=49379122
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientology&diff=prev&oldid=49379505
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientology&diff=prev&oldid=49379878
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientology&diff=prev&oldid=49380211
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientology&diff=prev&oldid=49380943
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientology&diff=prev&oldid=49381111

I believe he was deceptive in claiming the particular wikipedia policy, and purposefully intellectually dishonest, because:
1) he removed content from the article, not just the links where the referenced material could be found online.
2) he didn't bother removing many other sites which would fit his (flawed) interpretation of the wikipedia policy he brandished.

Personal attack

Accused another contributor of using racial slur (I couldn't find the basis of this serious accusation)

Evidence presented by Tony Sidaway, as clerk[edit]

xenu.net site disclaimer

The authorship of xenu.net is stated on the site's main page as follows:

DISCLAIMER: I, Andreas Heldal-Lund, am alone responsible for Operation Clambake. I speak only my own personal opinions. Critics of the Church of Scientology (CoS), including Wikipedia which is NPOV, are free to use images and text on this site that are made by me if proper credits are given. Pick up the stick! A special thanks goes to all contributors, credits are placed where due except when authors have request anonymity. Dianetics and Scientology are trademarks of the Religious Technology Centre (RTC). These pages and their author are not connected with CoS or RTC, or any others organization residing under their corporate umbrella. Operation Clambake is registered as a non-profit organisation in Norway, state reg.no.: 982 983 126

xenu.net contact information

The contact page for xenu.net contains the following statement about Operation Clambake:

Operation Clambake is registered as a non-profit organisation in Norway with myself as the only one in the organisation. State registration.no.: 982 983 126. For more information please read the Operation Clambake FAQ.

Emphasis mine.

xenu.net content

Notwithstanding Heldall-Lund's disclaimers, xenu.net contains many works by prominent independent critics of the Scientology church including the full text of an unauthorized biographer of L Ron Hubbard by former Sunday Times journalist, Russell Miller, and essay "The Hubbard is Bare", by anti-cult activist Jeff Jacobsen, an analysis by Martin Ottman of Hubbard's telex messages regarding the early years of the organisation's headquarters in Clearwater, Florida, a link to Chris Owen's critical essay "Ron the War Hero" on Hubbard's World War II service, and another link to an archive of documents concerning Scientology and the Hubbard family, obtained from court submissions in legal cases and Freedom of Information Act requests.

Evidence presented by Antaeus Feldspar[edit]

Terryeo practices double standards

Terryeo frequently castigates other editors for not meeting his standard of editing, and almost always includes the accusation that they are editing in bad faith and trying to "prevent Dianetics from being communicated." (See [64], for a single edit in which Terryeo makes at least four separate accusations that editors are "preventing the subject from being understood" and at least two accusations to specified people that they are doing so deliberately.)

However, it has become almost impossible to believe that Terryeo is acting in good faith, as he will then go ahead and violate the exact standards which he attacked others for 'violating'. There are numerous examples of this; however, I would simply like to examine one in detail, and that is regarding the issue of the cover image of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.

All printings of this book since 1967 have had the image of a volcano on the cover. It is regarded as common knowledge among those who have studied Scientology from a critical perspective (we shall see why it is regarded as common knowledge) that this volcano refers to the story of Xenu. However, Terryeo at first asserts that he believes this to be the "original research" of the editors who added it.

Terryeo says the volcano tie is "original research"

Terryeo indicates that a published source would satisfy him

In the same time frame, Terryeo indicates that he would not be trying to exclude any mention of this information if it came from a published source such as a newspaper.

Terryeo refuses to accept that there was ever court testimony about Xenu

We said that we would see why it is regarded as common knowledge that the volcano on the cover of Dianetics has to do with the Xenu story: that information was in fact volunteered in a court of law by Scientology's own witness: Warren McShane, at that time Deputy Inspector General for Legal Affairs for the Religious Technology Center, and thus one of Scientology's highest officials.

Terryeo, however, instead insists that "The CoS has made no public statement about Xenu"(12:43, 22 January 2006) and when informed differently, actually accuses the editor who tells him so of lying:

18:43, 23 January 2006 "You state, "testifying in court" but you don't say a word of what was testitifed. Why should anyone believe you? You don't provide any citation that it ever happened."

In response, Terryeo is provided with two excerpts from McShane's testimony: the first, at 20:55, 23 January 2006, showing that McShane did confirm the existence of Xenu in a court of law; the second, as Terryeo still denies the evidence, showing that McShane volunteered the connection between the Xenu story and the volcano image on the cover of Dianetics. (09:30, 29 January 2006)

Terryeo attempts to remove and minimize the published sources provided

Terryeo earlier indicated that a published source would satisfy him. They are provided for him:

Earlier, Terryeo specifically identified a newspaper as an example of a source that would satisfy him; now that Terryeo actually has the published sources he requested, however, he rewrites the article to portray them as individual anomalies:

At this point, Terryeo clearly knows that many critics share and state the belief that the volcano on the cover refers to the Xenu story, whether one is named and cited or a dozen. However, this is minor compared to the much more serious matter: Terryeo's claim that the link he removed from the article "doesn't mention anything about the volcano / cover scenario" is wholly false. Both articles explicitly mention the volcano/cover connection; and the article which Terryeo removed specifically states:

"Scientology's real dogma is that we are all suffering from the traumatic memories of aliens, called thetans, who were murdered on Earth millions of years ago by the evil overlord Xenu, who trapped them in a volcano and then blew them up with nuclear weapons (hence the volcano reference on the cover of Dianetics)."[65]

It is of course hard to credit that Terryeo could have made a good-faith effort to find a mention of the volcano/cover connection in the article and not found it, not when going to the article and searching on the term "volcano" takes you directly to that paragraph. It becomes simply impossible to believe when that paragraph is presented on the talk page solely for Terryeo's benefit (18:13, 28 January 2006) and Terryeo still continues the claim that it "doesn't mention [the cover of the book] at all"(22:03, 28 January 2006) when, very obviously, it does.

Terryeo rejects the published source because it is not Bridge Publications

Incredibly, having already received exactly the published sources that he said would satisfy him, Terryeo now rejects those same sources because they are from a source other than Scientology's publishing arm Bridge Publications:

08:55, 28 January 2006 "Who put the volcano on the cover? Well, Bridge Publications put the volcano on the cover. Do you have a source of information from Bridge Publications ? No, what you keep citing is rumors and stuff, implications and slander, information scraped from the alleys and not "unimpeachable sources" of information why the volcano is on the cover."

Terryeo inserts his own original research

After all the above, after Terryeo has been provided with no less than four sources for the volcano/cover connection, including the court testimony of one of Scientology's highest officials testifying as Scientology's own witness, Terryeo proceeds to deliberately commit the very acts that he falsely accused other editors of, inserting his own personal opinion and his own original research into the article:

Evidence presented by Zetawoof[edit]

Terryeo continues to misapply WP:RS in discussion of Scientology-related articles

Terryeo has remained active on some Scientology-related talk pages, including Narconon (a part of the Scientology article series). In the talk page, Terryeo continues to cite WP:RS as a reason for removing all "personal sites" cited as sources.

Evidence presented by {your user name}[edit]

First assertion

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion, for example, your first assertion might be "Jimmy Wales engages in edit warring". Here you would list specific edits to specific articles which show Jimmy Wales engaging in edit warring

Second assertion

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion, for example, your second assertion might be "Jimmy Wales makes personal attacks". Here you would list specific edits where Jimmy Wales made personal attacks.