Talk:Scientology

Pee Review by Anton199

Humour:	7	Hello, Jaygo! I am glad that you wrote your first article and I would like to help you about it! My general comments are: you said that you would replace the link to "Scientologists" with your article after it is being reviewed but you have done it already. Well, it is fine, but I think it would be cool if you insert the link to "Scientologists" in the "See also" section. You also said that the links in that section did not lead anywhere (which would not be very appropraite for the main space article, which it currently is) but I did not find any. This is just what I did not really understand. Now, concerning the article, I have stated your main problems in the "Concept" part of the review. Here, I will look at the problems in different sections. I personally found the introduction very funny and do not have any suggestions here. I think that you developed your ideas well and, after reading this, I think that you have also told what the concept of the article was, however I found out later that it is actually more complicated than that. *I think that "History" is very long and there you often have "storytelling" which might not be very relevant to the article (for example, what Xenu did: after "History" you mention "Xenophobia" once and say that it is related to Scientology but the connection is not obvious: yes, you said that Scientologists want to free Thetans, but why is it related to Xenu? "Practices" is good but is not fully developed. For example, you have a nice joke about people almost not reading books but the number 50,000 is pointless, as it could be 60,000 or 30,000 instead and the humour would not change. "Persecution" returns to randomness several times (such as "beat the crap out of by the Junior High School bully") which is not very good but later on the section becomes funny and clever (although not extremely connected to Scientology). In the next part, you explained that Tom Cruise could be considered the proponent of the religion, as he "threatened to throw those who claim Xenu is a mere myth in the nearest volcano". I personally do not know whether it is true in any way or just random, as I have not heard of this threat. "See Also" has only one link, although you say "See something for more details" in several parts of the article. I think it would be better to move all these see alsos from the article to this section.
Concept:	8	After reading your article, I think that your concept is to make it look as if the Scientology was something completely different from what it is exactly (at least, it is so in the "History" section). This might work but I would advice you to make your article look like something objective (which all the articles in encyclopedias pretend to be), although you do not have to be objective, if you get what I mean. Try to write as if you are summing up different (and opposite) points of view but, in fact, tell the same thing as you do right now. The problem with the current article is that, for instance, I found the introduction brilliant but after you simply state something without even trying to prove it. For example, do you have any particular reason to say that Scientologists want to free the Thetans from the MEST? If you do, than you can mention it in a funny way. If you don't, than why do you say this? And finally, the last but not the least, sometimes in the article, you pretend that Scientology is a kind of a dangerous religion (you say that people doing it are dangerous) but sometimes you simply state that "Scientologists are people who bought at least one book" (although my quote is not exact).
Prose and formatting:	7	Here, you still need to work a bit, although it seems that your writing is very good. But I advice to proofread your work to eliminate any inequalities and mistakes (I found several errors, such as "this referred to" in the introduction, "to earth" instead of "to the Earth", points instead of commas in big numbers) and to have a steady and not very complicated sentences (they are too long, sometimes). Other aspects that need to be worked on are: Encyclopediness: although your article is almost fully such, words written in capital letters can be replaced with the words in italic or bald (HE => he or he (''he'' or '''he'''); same with "EVER!!"). And also, words such as "random guy" does not look very well in an article. Formatting: for example, the last template spoils the end of the article, maybe because you do not have a gap between it and the last section, maybe because the last image is too big and too close. These are only several examples, but it will be good if you try to avoid all these problems in all the sections of your page.
Images:	7	You have three images and, after looking at all of them, I have the impression that you chose them in a way not to make the article funnier but merely to illustrate, although I, personally, liked the first and the third one. For example, you took the first image to show how Elrond Hubbard looked and the caption has humour. However, it does not show why the image is funny, therefore it is not very connected to the illustration. To explain it even better, your image maybe illustrates some joke from your article but this joke is a separate one from the one in the caption. You can take a closer look at the picture itself and state what is funny about it in a very serious manner? The choice of the last images seemed to me a bit random. As you say that Scientologists are very dangerous, I can explain what is funny about your third picture, but what about the "Dancing with the stars" one? Does it have a strong connection with your text, strong enough for the reader to understand that it really is increasing its humour and not just simply standing there? Concerning the way you built your article, the middle part lacks any illustrations whereas the last one has two. Considering the fact that the part without images is very long, it would be good to put some there.
Miscellaneous:	7.3	Your average score
Final Score:	36.3	I enjoyed reading your article and think that it had very good ideas. But, when I reviewed it, I took a closer look and worked out my scores according to what I found. Thus, they in no way mean what the reader's impression would be after reading your work but only whether you still have something that you can improve and how much. So, if you think that the grade is low, that does not mean that the article is bad. I think that the most important thing for you to concentrate on is the relevance of everything you say. And I put all the details in the review. I wish you all the best with your work and hope that it will get featured!
Reviewer:	Anton (talk) 17:12, July 30, 2013 (UTC)

Hi Anton,

Thank you very much for your review which is highly appreciated and I will - hopefully in the near future - develop the article based on your criticism which is mostly fair. In particular, as I am not a native English speaker, a proofreading is indeed highly needed, and I will shortly be asking for help in this regard.

However, there are a few points in "humour" and "concept" where I think you miss the real world reference. Of course, if you missed them there is also a risk that others might, too. Therefore these observations are also welcome. But ok, here are my comments and explanations to some of your observations and questions:

1) You say that the article has "storytelling" which might not be very relevant to the article and that I "simply state something without even trying to prove it" (for example, what Xenu did and that "Scientologists want to free Thetans from the MEST, but why is it related to Xenu".

Well, these are in fact - according to Wikipedia - the actual beliefs of the Church of Scientology ("C of S"), its "creation myth". These beliefs are in themselves so non-sensical that it would not be fruitful to try to parody (it is a case of "You can't even make this s... up"). The joke instead is that - having defined the subject as "study of science", (and the C of S actually claims that this is what they do, you can check out their introduction videos on youtube) and describing its history as a scientific revolution, I am - yes, without proof - replacing the big bang theory of "conventional science" with the creation myth of the real C of S, and refer interested readers to the Space Opera article, which as far as I can tell is mostly not parody but is almost identical to the Wikipedia one, I think for the same reason.

2) In "practices", I agree it could be developed further. However, the figures "8 million" and "50,000" are not random, and thus not "pointless": According to Wikipedia, C of S actually claims to have 8 million believers, however, critics actually have proposed that this figure would have to include anyone who bought - not a book but - the book "Scientology" by Hubbard or followed one of their courses, and that instead at most 50,000 are actual active members of the church. Frankly, I am surprised this joke did not work.

3) Persecution: This is not randomness nor unrelated: Scientologists actually claim that they are being persecuted, the main reason being that the C of S is not in all countries being afforded the same tax breaks as other religious organisations and this has been the subject of IRS scrutiny ultimately recognizing them as a religion and court cases trying to define religious "beliefs". (The only deliberate randomness is the reference to Antonin Scalia having been in any way involved, I have no idea what he would think). In fact, several notable Scientologists (and non-scientologist concerned about it) have written a letter to the German Chancellor and compared Germany's refusal to recognize the C of S as a religion and thus entitled to tax breaks in Germany to - I kid you not - the treatment of Jews in the 1930's-40's. The joke is to reverse their wish as being recognized as a "religious belief" to that instead - being objective scientists - they want to not to be labelled as a "religious belief". The purpose of the introduction is to link the made up definition - "study of science" to this: I am not sure why you think the ""two real examples + a parody punchline"-technique does not work as a link?

4) The Tom Cruise, Xenu and Xenophobia-reference: You are right, I don't think Tom Cruise ever threatened anyone (that I know of). It was a reference to a quote found on the page Xenophobia (not by me) where the joke was a mix-up between fear of "Xenu" (= the "evil one" in Scientology's "creation myth"), being confused with "Xenophobia", racism. I expanded on that joke on the Xenophobia page (including further mix-ups with "Xena", the warrior princes, etc.). I was actually unsure how well it would work, as it requires you to click on "Xenophobia", and your comments make me think it did not, so I will try to think of something more clever.

5) Pictures: I agree that, ideally, the article should have more, but identifying potential copyright issues is a nightmare. With regards to your specific issues raised:

You are right that the picture of Hubbard (which is an actual picture of him) is not funny in itself. However I strongly disagree with you, that it has to be: The joke here is context-based and refers to the text: Hubbard actually published "Dianetics", a self-help system, which I then confuse with "Callanetics", an exercise system. The caption then ties the picture to the text. I thought it would work, and frankly I am surprised you say it did not.

The Travolta/Diana picture, you have a point: The relation is of course that Travolta is a scientologist, and the fact he is "Dancing with a Star" made me able to make a further reference to Kirstie Alley, former host of "Dancing with the Stars", another scientologist. Then tying it together with the Tom Cruise reference. As mentioned above, I was not sure how well the Tom Cruise thing would work, and as these picture more or less rests on this working, your comments make me think it does not, so I will consider another way forward.

I am considering to delete the Luke Perry picture, which in itself has no relation whatsoever (and as you rightly point out, it messes up the formatting). The joke is a reference to the article about Luke Perry on this site. The article theorizes he is a scientologist without any real world connection other than the "two guys making random stuff up on ask.com" who actually exist: The only reason I have not included a link, which I think would be hilarious, is that my understanding is that linking to external sites is not allowed, but please let me know if I have misunderstood that.

Again, thanks for your review, which is really appreciated (though for the above reason, I did feel that the concept and humour deserved a bit higher rating). Jaygo (talk) 17:08, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

Jaygo, thank you for understanding that, whenever a reader has a problem getting a joke, it might be a problem for the author to solve. A general solution is to gently include additional background for readers who aren't in-the-know. Anton famously isn't a native English speaker either; but for that reason, may be an especially good test subject for your writing. Spıke Ѧ 17:14 1-Aug-13

Jaygo, now I see that a lot of things I said were wrong. And thank you for spending a great amount of your time writing all this text! I really appreciate and it. Unfortunately, I am afraid I cannot change the review itself, only the scores but I will soon give you some suggestions based on what you said. Well done and I see that you work even harder and your article is even better than I thought (and I swear I had a very good opinion about it before). Anton (talk) 17:51, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

By the way, have I suddenly became a test subject? Anton (talk) 17:52, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

If those wires going into your arm begin to chafe, we can adjust them. Spıke Ѧ 19:43 1-Aug-13

No, no, its perfectly fine, I was not looking for you to change the review which I think is fair. And as mentioned by both me and Spike, when a reference is missed by the reader, it may need additional work by the author, and as I mentioned some of them, I suspected, do. I look forward to any further suggestions from you or anyone else who wants to chip in. Whether you are a test subject, I don't know, but you are always more than welcome to be. CheersJaygo (talk) 18:29, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

I still changed the scores and crossed out the parts which are wrong. The rest can serve as suggestions and I can give you more if you want. Anton (talk) 19:47, August 1, 2013 (UTC)

Then I thank you all the more. Just one question, though: is there a particular reason you did not cross out "persecution", do you still think it is random, after my explanation? Cheers Jaygo

I am not sure whether I understood your section well. I have to reread it. A part of your signature has disappeared as well as the time of your post. If you are one hundred percent sure that you put four tildes than there is probably a technical problem. Anton (talk) 16:21, August 2, 2013 (UTC)

Yep. I had to work on the UnSignpost this week (<advertising>by the way, you can subscribe to it here</advertising>), finished my work on it only today and my first (or second) action after that was to look at your Scientology. I deleted the persecution part of my review because my comments there are also irrelevant. I wish you a merry Christmas end of summer and I hope that you keep on going with your nice work! Anton (talk) 12:19, August 10, 2013 (UTC)

Hilariously wrong

Spoof web site, obviously, but a copy-and-paste from the crime syndicate. Mildly amusing. 23.240.227.79 18:44, 28 September 2022 (UTC)