Wikiscanner: Scientology

After much deliberating, I chose to look into the Church of Scientology for my Wikiscanner report.

Employees working for the Church of Scientology have made about 170 edits to various Wikipedia pages from 2004 to 2007.  For the most part, these employees, probably made up of mostly Sea Orgs, have added Scientology-related links to these articles.  Scientologists are anti-psychiatry and have edited many Wikipedia articles for psychiatric disorders commonly treated with drugs such as: bipolar disorder, depression, generalized anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD, and dyslexia to name a few.  They edit these articles to include a link to the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) website to provide alternatives to using medication and standard psychiatric procedures.  The CCHR “investigates and exposes psychiatric violations of human rights” and was co-founded in part by the Church of Scientology itself.  Scientologists are anti-psychiatry, but those who are anti-psychiatry are not necessarily Scientologists.

The Sea Orgs also make a point to insert major Scientology-related events in Wikipedia year articles.  For example, in 1954, L. Ron Hubbard issued the Creed of the Church of Scientology.  In 1993, the IRS granted full tax exemption and religious recognition in the U.S. to all Church of Scientology Churches and affiliated organizations.  Hm. Is this wise?

The most interesting edit I found occurred in the Wikipedia article for Church of Scientology.  The edit claims to have “removed hearsay” and “added some links.”  However, I think it was more so a NPOV issue, or even, in their best interest to make themselves sound better.  Within this article, the edit was made to the Scientology Volunteer Ministers section.  Originally stating that:

Over the past several years, it has become a common practice for the organization to send ‘teams’ of ‘Volunteer Ministers’ to the scenes of major, headline-grabbing disasters in order to provide assistance with relief efforts. According to critics, most of these relief efforts consist of passing out copies of a pamphlet authored by L. Ron Hubbard entitled “The Way To Happiness,” and by engaging in a method of calming panicked or injured individuals known in Scientology as a touch assist.

The words in red were deleted and the words in green were replaced with the much kinder, “Though they provide a number of different services, critics suggest…”

Additionally, the edit goes on to a paragraph about Scientology Volunteer Minister roles in the aftermath of September 11.  The article orginially states:

An E-mail confirmed to be from a Sea Org ‘Lieutenant’ brags of a deliberate plan to prevent the grief-stricken from receiving counseling from non-Scientology sources. “Due to some brilliant maneuvering by some simply genius Sea Org Members we tied up the majority of the psychs who were attempting to get to families yesterday in Q&A, bullbait and wrangling. … The survivors don’t know it but they need the Scientologists with LRH’s tech to be here right now.” http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/20010911-tragedy/

Although this is not the most articulate article written, it provides a website and quotes.  Both of which were taken out, and re-worked by Scientology workers.  The new text they provided was, “An E-mail reportedly from a Sea Org ‘Lieutenant’ brags of a deliberate plan to prevent the grief-stricken from receiving counseling from non-Scientology sources.”  This has all since been taken down and reformatted on the page now – but, it seems to me that the writer may have an agenda of his/her own.

One final note:  The Sea Orgs also added their Volunteer Ministers program link to articles for major disasters like Hurricane Katrina, 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, Cyclone Larry, and September 11 to name a few.  Does this follow the Wikipedia guidelines of what Wikipedia is not?

UPDATE…

As I was reading individual blogs from our Social Media class on the Wikiscanner report, I noticed that Alicia also examined Scientology on her blog.  She caught something quite interesting on Wikiscanner that I had overlooked.  Alicia found that the workers at the Church of Scientology edited the Wikipedia article on Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (the Columbine High School shooters) to include a report of a “therapeutic amount” of Luvox (an anti-depressant) found in Eric Harris during an autopsy.  I agree with Alicia that “this was clearly edited to support their belief that anti-depressants cause suicidal thoughts and violence amongst its users.”

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For the first portion of my Wikipedia report, we were asked to write a new page or substantially edit an existing page.  The majority of my work was on creating a page on Town Class (sailboat) with the username bostonsro.  Growing up near the ocean in Massachusetts, I was around boats all the time.  My dad has a Town Class sailboat and I thought it would be beneficial for his Town Class organization to have a Wikipedia page about the boat.  I did run into problems attaching an image to my article.  I would love to include this line drawing of a Town Class sailboat. Can anyone help me out?

Additionally, I made Wikipedia edits to:  One-design, and Indoor Cycling.