Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 01:33, 23 January 2008.

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The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power

check links LuciferMorgan (talk 04:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Self nomination. This article was nominated for deletion back in May 2007, when it was much shorter. The article cites (42) sources, and utilizes one fair use image with a fair use rationale on the image page, and two free-use images from Wikimedia Commons, products of the Supreme Court of the United States. It recently went through a Peer Review where I received many good constructive comments and feedback, and I implemented several changes to the article from helpful suggestions. The article has been reviewed and passed as a Good Article, and the GA reviewer suggested that it be nominated as a Featured Article Candidate, due to its current level of quality. I now submit this article as a potential Featured Article. Thank you. Cirt (talk) 03:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC).

• Comment Impressively well-written. Truly impressive.
  It seems a bit POV'd towards "anti-scientology" (perhaps?)- I suggest Renaming "pre-publication" the section called "research for the article", and creating "post-publication" and taking out litigation from the section called "Church of Scientology's response", in other words, at this point it is badly organized. -
  --Keerllston 11:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• I would keep the section titled "Research for the article". It's to the point and much better than pre-publication, which entails research for the article.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 11:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• CommentsSupport Overall this is a fantastic article about an interesting cover story. I enjoyed reading it and have only minor comments. I'm sure you will be able to easily fix them.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 11:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• • He stated that he was investigated by Church of Scientology attorneys and private investigators while researching the TIME article, and investigators contacted his friends and family as well. This might read easier if it stated he was "investigated by attorneys and private investigators of the Church of Scientology" or "affiliated with the Church of Scientology" or "working for the Church of Scientology".
  • The article itself dealt with L. Ron Hubbard and the development of Scientology, its various controversies over the years and history of litigation, conflict with psychiatry and the IRS, the suicide of a Scientologist, its status as a religion, and its business dealings. This sentence is a little difficult to read towards the end. Perhaps it could be reworded and a colon added before the list?
  • He later came to learn that the Church of Scientology's head private investigator was orchestrating his investigation. This sentence could be improved. The head private investigator would obviously orchestrate his investigation, but I know what you mean to say. Maybe this sentence could be more informative as well.
  • See WP:MOSQUOTE and WP:PUNC - Punctuation goes outside of the quotation mark for incomplete sentences. You often do this "threaten, harass and discredit him." and this "front groups and financial scams,".
  • Is it known why Noah Lottick jumped from a hotel tenth floor window? Was it related to Scientology and if so, how?
  • Koppel asked Miscavige what specifically had upset him about the TIME article, and Miscavige called Richard Behar: "a hater." why not just ...Miscavige called Richard Behar "a hater" without the colon? You do this several times afterwards I note, so maybe this is an acceptable style?
  • In "A publisher cannot accept a court prohibiting distribution of a serious journalistic piece..The court order violates freedom of speech and freedom of the press." you should probably use […] after a serious journalistic piece.. instead of those two ..s.
  • Insane Therapy characterized the piece as a "highly critical article" on Scientology." Could you maybe elaborate and improve this sentence with a better quote? It's clear to the reader by now that this is a highly critical article so perhaps they have a little more to say?
  • In the Legacy section you should name the Herald reporter, so to avoid confusing with the reporter Richard Behar.
  • Also in 2005, an article in Salon cited the Church of Scientology's litigation and private investigations of Time Warner and other media sources that criticized Scientology, and posed the question if these tactics had succeeded in decreasing the amount of investigative journalism pieces on Scientology in the press. A slight rewording might be needed here.
  • in a piece on Anderson Cooper 360 entitled: "Inside Scientology." wrong verb. it's titled not entitled. A common grammar trap [1]. As well the colon is unnecessary and the period should be outside the quotation marks.

So very enjoyable and this article seems like it's well on its way to being featured.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 11:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Addressing points from above

• Done.-- Took out "Litigation" from "Church of Scientology's response", and made it its own subsection, per suggestion from Dwarf Kirlston (talk · contribs), above. Cirt (talk) 12:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- This might read easier if it stated he was "investigated by attorneys and private investigators of the Church of Scientology" or "affiliated with the Church of Scientology" -- Implemented this change. Cirt (talk) 12:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- Perhaps it could be reworded and a colon added before the list? -- Implemented this change. Cirt (talk) 12:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
• He later came to learn that the Church of Scientology's head private investigator was orchestrating his investigation. -- Not sure how to reword this, I think it is significant to mention, and it is paraphrased from similar wording in a secondary source. (With citation given.) Cirt (talk) 13:01, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
  • Maybe elaborate a little. The problem with this sentence is, one expects a head private investigator to be orchestrating the investigation he's in charge of, otherwise he's not really the head private investigator. Perhaps you are trying to convey that the investigation was so big that there was in fact a head investigator orchestrating underling investigators. Which shows organization behind what is obviously not a simple investigation into the reporter's life. So you see this should be clarified to explain exactly what you mean.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 23:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I changed the wording of this sentence, incorporating some of the ideas you put forth here. Cirt (talk) 23:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
      • Excellent.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 08:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
        • Done.-- Great. Thanks for the suggestion, this reads better now. Cirt (talk) 18:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- WP:MOSQUOTE/WP:PUNC - Fixed a couple instances of this, I also see that BillDeanCarter (talk · contribs) has fixed some of these as well, thank you. Will continue to address this as it comes up. Cirt (talk) 13:08, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
• Is it known why Noah Lottick jumped from a hotel tenth floor window? -- It is not known specifically why, though his parents believe one thing, and Church of Scientology statements from Mike Rinder have said another. But I think, and others have stated that might be too much detail for this article. For more information on that, see Scientology controversy. Cirt (talk) 13:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
  • I would mention briefly the circumstances, and do a (See Noah Lottick) or something. It's pretty important, and the sentence weasles you into thinking that Scientology was behind the suicide possibly. And considering the cover story goes into the details of Lottick's suicide it is not too much detail. I'd say basically what you said just above in the article, and direct people to the other article for more details. The other thing is, what is the cover story's position on Lottick's suicide? There's something about "an atrocity tale" further down but I'd have to read the cover story to actually know. So say Behar thought this, the family thought that, and Scientology thought this. See here for more.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 23:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Good points. I will make your suggested changes and then note it here. Cirt (talk) 23:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
      • DIFF - How's that look? I tried to implement the wording/suggestions you mentioned. Cirt (talk) 23:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
        • It still needs some work. Noah Lottick was a Russian studies student who had taken a series of Scientology courses; he died after jumping from a hotel tenth floor window.[12] Initially, his father had thought that Scientology was similar to Dale Carnegie's techniques. However, after his ordeal, Dr. Lottick now believes that the organization is a "school for psychopaths".[13] Mike Rinder, the head of the Church of Scientology's Office of Special Affairs and a Church spokesman, stated "I think Ed Lottick should look in the mirror...I think Ed Lottick made his son's life intolerable."[12] (See Noah Lottick.) I would place a sentence right after "tenth floor window" that says something like "The blame for Lottick's suicide was placed on both parties... or either side blamed the other... with Scientology saying 'I think Ed Lottick made his son's life intolerable.' while the father called the organization a 'school for psychopaths'." I would also place See Lottick earlier and not at the end of the paragraph. Maybe even add the article POV on this matter. Obviously you want to be brief but the matter is of some importance to the article so presenting a NPOV on the matter is important. Basically, no one knows why Lottick killed himself, right?, and you simply want to state why each party (and I guess there are three: Scientology, Lottick's father, and the cover story) thinks Lottick killed himself because in fact they are quite opinionated about it.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 08:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
          • If you read the actual secondary sources, to my knowledge (though I will recheck this), none of the various parties involved actually comes out and directly puts the blame/onus on another specific party, but rather expresses misgivings about particular events. It would be both POV and WP:OR of us to characterize their statements as such. Therefore, not sure what else to do at this point with that. I will try to incorporate some of your suggestions, but without a secondary source that says: "Lottick's father put the blame for his son's death on X, while the Church of Scientology put the blame for his death on Y" - I don't think should draw those conclusions ourselves from the sources. Cirt (talk) 14:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC).
            • Just say something like that. While none of the parties assigned blame, they expressed misgivings... I mean basically the suicide might have had nothing to do with Scientology and they are kind of being smeared by association with Lottick's suicide. Anyways, before you left a gap of knowledge that made one wonder, but if you phrased it another way then people will understand that Lottick's suicide just got dragged into something else entirely, and there was no final blame made.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 15:06, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

DIFF - Does this look a little better? And as for Behar's position in the article, again, without secondary sources from some interview with Behar or something like that, I'd rather not draw inferences about what may think Behar's position is on the issue. Cirt (talk) 15:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC).

I added a sentence verbatim as suggested by BillDeanCarter (talk · contribs), and I think it reads a bit better now, thanks. Cirt (talk) 17:45, 15 December 2007 (UTC).

I did an additional copyedit and for me it's fine now.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for all of your help with the article and for your support. Cirt (talk) 18:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC).

• Done.-- why not just ...Miscavige called Richard Behar "a hater" without the colon? -- Implemented this change. If there are other places where the colon use is not appropriate, I will remove it there. Cirt (talk) 13:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- you should probably use […] after a serious journalistic piece.. instead of those two ..s. -- I changed this to three ... instead of the weird use of two, but I don't think the brackets are needed here? Cirt (talk) 13:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- Could you maybe elaborate and improve this sentence with a better quote? -- Expanded on this with a longer quote from the same source. Cirt (talk) 13:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- In the Legacy section you should name the Herald reporter, so to avoid confusing with the reporter Richard Behar. -- Implemented this change. Cirt (talk) 13:27, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- A slight rewording might be needed here. -- Split up this long sentence into two sentences, should read better now. Cirt (talk) 13:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- it's titled not entitled. A common grammar trap. As well the colon is unnecessary and the period should be outside the quotation marks. -- Fixed these minor issues as well, will continue to address any other points if brought up. Thank you both for your positive feedback on the article and helpful points, it looks a bit better now. Cirt (talk) 13:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC).

• Follow-up to Comment

I said pre-publication section and post-publication sections would help in terms of organization. it seems pretty obvious to me that Church of Scientology's response, Litigation, Awards, and Legacy sections all would fit very well into Post-Publication - or "Reception" or similar.

"Contents" - or Synopsis?- usage of contents was disagreed with on another article by Maria - I think it was "The World Without us"

--Kiyarrllston 23:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• Done.- Changed "Contents" to "Synopsis". Cirt (talk) 23:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.- Added a "Post-Publication" section. I put "Church of Scientology's response", "Litigation", and "Awards" into that section, but I think the other sections deal with stuff that comes a bit later in the chronology, and should have their own sections. Cirt (talk) 00:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC).

Oppose—1a; needs a copy-edit throughout. Here are mere samples from the top.

• Remove "also" from the second sentence. There's another idle "also" in Para 2. Better audit this word throughout the article (it weakens the flow when redundant).
• "He stated that he was investigated by attorneys and private investigators affiliated with the Church of Scientology while researching the TIME article, and investigators contacted his friends and family as well." Is the last point your own, or his? If the latter, insert another "that".
• Remove unnecessary colon after "including".
• "Richard Behar received multiple awards in honor of"—"multiple" should be "many", I guess. Can't we have a number? Or just "received awards in honor ... including"
• "stating that the article was over the top"—the last expression is too loose and informal for this register (it's OK in a quote, though).
• "atrocity tale."—read MOS on logical punctuation in quotations; check every quote that starts within a Wikipedia sentence.
• Ungainly repetitions, such as "Behar stated that ..." Tony (talk) 14:26, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Response to comment

Thanks for actually providing some specific examples to address along with your "oppose" comment. I will do my best to work on them, as you can see from above in the FAC I have addressed points from others already and their suggestions have helped to improve the article further. I'll note each point below as I address it. Cirt (talk) 17:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC).

• Done.-- Addressed one point - Removed some "also" mentions as suggested above, and a few others throughout the article. Cirt (talk) 20:13, 28 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- "He stated that he was investigated by attorneys and private investigators affiliated with the Church of Scientology while researching the TIME article, and investigators contacted his friends and family as well." Is the last point your own, or his? If the latter, insert another "that". -- Added "that". Cirt (talk) 20:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- Remove unnecessary colon after "including". -- Removed colon. Cirt (talk) 20:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- "Richard Behar received multiple awards in honor of"—"multiple" should be "many", I guess. Can't we have a number? Or just "received awards in honor ... including" -- Removed the word "multiple". Cirt (talk) 20:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- "stating that the article was over the top"—the last expression is too loose and informal for this register (it's OK in a quote, though). -- Removed phrasing "over the top". Cirt (talk) 20:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- "atrocity tale."—read MOS on logical punctuation in quotations; check every quote that starts within a Wikipedia sentence. -- Removed quotes. Cirt (talk) 20:24, 28 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- Ungainly repetitions, such as "Behar stated that ..." -- I checked, and there were only two instances of "Behar stated that ...". I wouldn't call that "ungainly", but I did change the wording on the second instance. Cirt (talk) 20:28, 28 December 2007 (UTC).

• Oppose for now. The article needs a good copyedit. I did a little bit of work on it, but I think it needs some massaging by a better writer than I. The article does appear to have an appropriate amount of detail, and the references section looks good overall, but I found a few WP:MOS issues that need to be fixed. If you can fix those, I'll change to a neutral; with a good copyedit I will be able to support.
  • After the first time the article mentions a person, subsequent references to them should be by surname. The article sometimes refers to "Behar" and sometimes to "Richard Behar". I've fixed some of these but not all.
  • Why is there a note for (See Noah Lottick) when there could just be a wikilink on his name?
  • Per WP sourcing guidelines, you need a citation directly after each quotation, even if this means that citations will be repeated for several sentences in a row. In the section Church of Scientology's response there are several sentences with direct quotes that are not cited.
  • After the first reference to US$, use only $.
  • Please see WP:DASH. Instead of using --, use & mdash;
  • I removed just about all of the colons in the article, as they did not seem to be used properly.
  • Many, many sentences in the article read "So and so stated that...." Can you try to work on some of these to vary them a little? That will make the article read better.
  • I think the chronology table should be incoporated into one of the previous sections, as it is just an illustration of what is already in the prose.
  • The See Also section can be removed - neither of those links appear to have much bearing on the article.
  • In the references, please wikilink all full dates so that people's date preferences will work.

Good luck! Karanacs (talk) 05:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Response to Karanacs points

Thanks for these specific pointers. I will do my best to address them, and make a note of it here, below. Cirt (talk) 05:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC).

• Done.- After the first time the article mentions a person, subsequent references to them should be by surname. The article sometimes refers to "Behar" and sometimes to "Richard Behar". I've fixed some of these but not all. -- I fixed the rest of these. Cirt (talk) 05:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.- Why is there a note for (See Noah Lottick) when there could just be a wikilink on his name? - I fixed this, as suggested. Cirt (talk) 05:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.- Per WP sourcing guidelines, you need a citation directly after each quotation, even if this means that citations will be repeated for several sentences in a row. In the section Church of Scientology's response there are several sentences with direct quotes that are not cited. - Fixed this, added cites to the end of these sentences. Cirt (talk) 05:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.- After the first reference to US$, use only $. - As per the suggestion, fixed this. Cirt (talk) 05:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.- Please see WP:DASH. Instead of using --, use & mdash; - Fixed these instances. Cirt (talk) 06:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.- I think the chronology table should be incoporated into one of the previous sections, as it is just an illustration of what is already in the prose. - Removed the chronology table. Cirt (talk) 06:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.-- Removed the See also section. Cirt (talk) 05:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC).
• Done.- In the references, please wikilink all full dates so that people's date preferences will work. - As recommended above, I went through and wikilinked full dates in the citations. Cirt (talk) 06:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC).
  • Many, many sentences in the article read "So and so stated that...." Can you try to work on some of these to vary them a little? That will make the article read better. -- Yes, I will work on copy-editing a bit more, in-line with this particular suggestion. Cirt (talk) 16:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC).
    • Done.- I removed a bunch of these instances of this particular phrasing, and changed the wording in other instances, in order to increase variation in the wording, as suggested above by Karanacs (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 10:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC).
      • Karanacs (talk · contribs) is also in the midst of doing some minor useful copyediting to the article, good improvements. Cirt (talk) 03:14, 3 January 2008 (UTC).
• Support. Cirt has done a lot of work, and the article reads much better. I think it meets the FA criteria now - thanks for being so responsive! Karanacs (talk) 03:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Resolved stuff from JayHenry

• I think this is really marvelously done but have a few questions and thoughts that may be of help.
  • In final sentence of Research for the article I'm not sure what exactly "pre-production development" is. Does this just mean that they agreed to provide Behar with information?
  • In Synopsis, the sentence "Behar wrote of the expensive costs involved in participation in the Church of Scientology, and what he referred to as 'front groups and financial scams', and harassment of critics" seems to consist of themes moving in several different directions. One regarding members, one regarding critics and one regarding whoever was being financially scammed. Or is it members being financially scammed? I think splitting this up into a few distinct sentences with a little more clarification would help.
  • In Church response, I was unsure if "taking out four color, full-page ads in USA Today in May and June 1991" meant four ads that were in color or four color ads. If it's the latter, I think it's better to just leave the "four" off to avoid confusion.
  • "David Miscavige gave what he told Ted Koppel was his first interview on Scientology" if we know it was his first interview on Scientology let's make this more direct. If we have reason to doubt that it was a first interview it's not that significant and we could just say "gave a lengthy interview to Ted Koppel" or something.
  • In Litigation, second grad, "one question was a ... reference to Scientology teachings." Reference isn't quite right here. Maybe something like, "the question was prompted by"?
  • "In a countersuit, Behar brought up..." is it known what became of his countersuit?
  • By 1996 Time had spent 3.7 million (wow). Since it carried on an additional five years, did they ever update that figure? If not, no worries.
  • In Analysis should we mention Healy's first name on first reference?
  • For both Healy and Silk, I wonder if it would help to provide context on these authors? Outside of getting their books published are they known for their opinions or knowledge about the area?
  • Also for Insane Therapy, a short explanation of what, who the author is, would be helpful.
• I randomly checked citations and they all seem to be carefully cited. Although some repetition is present, it's of the utmost importance in an article that deals with allegations about lots of living people to assure that everything is meticulously attributed, so in my opinion the repetition of "Behar said" and "according to x" are necessary. It's quite well done in my opinion. I picked over it quite a bit with copy editing, you may want to review to ensure I didn't inadvertently reduce introduce errors. Hopefully some of the edits caught a thing or two;) All in all, excellent work! --JayHenry (talk) 05:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Support --JayHenry (talk) 04:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Response to latest above Review

Thanks for these points. I will take a look, and address them here, below. As for your latest copy-editing, I will double-check but so far things look good. Cirt (talk) 05:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC).

• Done.- Removed "pre-production development" phrase. Not needed to understand that sentence, as it's already in the section on "Research for the article". Cirt (talk) 07:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC).
• In Synopsis, the sentence "Behar wrote of the expensive costs involved in participation in the Church of Scientology, and what he referred to as 'front groups and financial scams', and harassment of critics" seems to consist of themes moving in several different directions. One regarding members, one regarding critics and one regarding whoever was being financially scammed. Or is it members being financially scammed? I think splitting this up into a few distinct sentences with a little more clarification would help. -- I would agree that it would be useful to expand on this information, but it is a "Synopsis" section after all, and I've gotten comments and feedback from others that it might be best to keep that section shorter, as opposed to a tendency to expand on the themes discussed. Cirt (talk) 07:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC).
  • Okay, I understand not wanting to add much length to the synopsis. But it's still not clear to me who is the victim of the financial scams, so I think it would be good to at least clarify that. --JayHenry (talk) 04:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
• Done.- Removed "four" in "four color" ads, as suggested by the above review. Cirt (talk) 07:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC).
• Done.- "David Miscavige gave what he told Ted Koppel was his first interview on Scientology" if we know it was his first interview on Scientology let's make this more direct. If we have reason to doubt that it was a first interview it's not that significant and we could just say "gave a lengthy interview to Ted Koppel" or something. - Removed "what he told" from the sentence about David Miscavige's first interview. Cirt (talk) 07:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC).
• Done.- In Litigation, second grad, "one question was a ... reference to Scientology teachings." Reference isn't quite right here. Maybe something like, "the question was prompted by"? -- Replaced with "the question was prompted by" - as per exact wording/suggestion from reviewer. Cirt (talk) 07:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC).
• "In a countersuit, Behar brought up..." is it known what became of his countersuit? -- I have looked through the (41) sources currently present in the article and haven't found additional info on this particular countersuit. However, I will recheck those sources, and see if I can't find info on that in other sources. However, I do not think that this is something that should hold back FA status, as that section primarily deals with the litigation with the Church of Scientology as a plaintiff. Cirt (talk) 07:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC).
  • I agree it shouldn't hold back the FAC. But if the information is available it's quite relevant to the article. If it's not available, nothing we can do about that! --JayHenry (talk) 04:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
• By 1996 Time had spent 3.7 million (wow). Since it carried on an additional five years, did they ever update that figure? If not, no worries. -- Same response as previous, haven't yet found info on the final amount that TIME spent on the litigation as of 2001, but I'll keep looking. Cirt (talk) 07:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC).
• Done.- In Analysis should we mention Healy's first name on first reference? -- Good point. Added Healy's first name to this sentence. Cirt (talk) 07:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC).
• For both Healy and Silk, I wonder if it would help to provide context on these authors? Outside of getting their books published are they known for their opinions or knowledge about the area? Also for Insane Therapy, a short explanation of what, who the author is, would be helpful. -- Again, I think this might be straying a bit off-topic. I don't want to get too tangential with explanations of authors that wrote about the issue, that might tend to expand parts of the article a bit too much with information that doesn't specifically actually have to do with Behar's piece. Cirt (talk) 07:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC).
  • Well, I think in each case a single sentence could provide the needed context. But if you'd rather not do that it's a minor point and I'm more than happy to trust your judgment. Great work on this article! (Have changed to support above.) --JayHenry (talk) 04:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: The docket image and the petition image look bad because they contain JPEG encoding artifacts. I'd suggest removing them from the article and moving the link to the Wikisource library to that section. Papa November (talk) 12:34, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Response: How about if instead of removing the images, I just get someone to help with cleaning up the JPEG encoding artifacts? Cirt (talk) 21:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC).
    • Done., PNG images are now used in the article instead. Cirt (talk) 14:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC).
      • The PNG versions on Commons still had compression artifacts. I've replaced one, and I'll fix the other shortly. The issue I have is that the images still aren't particularly useful: the text is too small to read and the typesetting isn't pretty enough for it to make a nice illustration. I don't really object to them being in the article - I just think there could be something better. A boxed link to the wikisource information would provide an attractive link to a very useful resource on the subject. Another possible attractive image would be the front cover of US Reports vol 534 which contained the text in question. Papa November (talk) 15:23, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
        • The recommendations you bring up will be addressed shortly, but surely these are not sticking points that should hold up the FAC? Cirt (talk) 15:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC).
        • There already is a link to the Wikisource page, in the External links section, as appropriate. Cirt (talk) 15:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC).
          • Sure, it's just a comment - not an "oppose". The wikisource link is at the bottom of the article. I thought it may look better in the relevant section about the lawsuit. I've also finished cleaning up the PNG images. Papa November (talk) 15:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
            • Thanks for cleaning up the PNG images, and for clarifying that your point was a comment, and not an oppose. Also, please see this comment from the GA Reviewer, Kane5187 (talk · contribs), on the images in the article: Kudos to whatever creative mind thought to scan the official judicial entries/documents and use them. So the GA Reviewer thought the image use was appropriate. And as for the link to Wikisource, I wouldn't mind moving it - but I think that putting the links to the sister projects in the WP:EL section is actually more the norm here. Cirt (talk) 15:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC).
• Comment: The second, short paragraph under "Synopsis" seems heavily POV in that it's irrelevant to a summary of the article's contents. I see how it functions as a sort of summary of Behar's argument posited in the article, but I don't see any connection to the article as a whole. In that regard, it seems like it's there to buttress his (and the article's) opinions, i.e., to reinforce a POV that his opinions are fact. I like its inclusion intuitively, though, and feel like deleting it wholesale isn't the solution I'm looking for. I'd just like to see it linked in a bit better so I'm not under the impression that it's there to give credence to Behar's claims. Dylan (talk) 19:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

  Do you possibly mean the third paragraph? With the quote from Cynthia Kisser? --JayHenry (talk) 21:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

  Thanks for the comment, Dylan, any specific points on how to go about implementing your suggestion? Cirt (talk) 23:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC).

  I'm incredibly dumb -- sorry, I for some reason didn't realize that that quote came from the article. In my first reading of it, I just thought it was an outside commentator commenting on the same issues. Now that I realize it's a quote from the article, I have no objection on POV. Dylan (talk) 22:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• So, Support. This article was very well-witten when I read it a few months ago, and I think it is still very, very solid and worthy of FA status. As I mentioned in GA, the images are sparse, but understandably so as this is a difficult subject to illustrate. The PD court document images are a nice touch -- some other possible candidates would be free images of Behar, or any of the names involved in the article, if they're available. Dylan (talk) 22:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the support, and thanks for your positive feedback on the existing images in the articles. I like your idea on suggestions of possibilities of other free-use images in the article such as for individuals mentioned, but that may take a while and be more of a longer term project. Cirt (talk) 22:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC).

Support by Moni3 I finally read this article yesterday. I remember reading the story when it came out in Time, and it was definitely helped form my opinion of Scientology. Excellent article - made me surf for related information for an hour after I read it. That's what a featured article should do - make someone so interested in the topic that they can't get enough. Good job. --Moni3 (talk) 14:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• Please note that graphics, including coloured ticks and crosses, are discouraged in the instructions for this process.Tony (talk) 13:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Please fix the final punctuation in quotes, which should go after the closing marks where the quote starts within a WP sentence. It's inconsistent in the article. Tony (talk) 13:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Graphics of "Done." removed, sorry, didn't see that - that must be a new addition/note to the FAC process. Cirt (talk) 14:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Per most recent comment by Tony1 (talk · contribs), I went through and fixed the quote punctuation, as he suggested. Cirt (talk) 15:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.