Welcome!

Hello, California guy, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Enjoy your Wikipedian experience! Filmcom 23:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, California guy! I have noticed you are a Scientologist and you are starting to make edits to Scientology related articles on Wikipedia. I myself am a critic of Scientology, and I can discuss that more if you are interested, but mainly I am coming here to offer you some advice that might help your from becoming overly frustrated with Wikipedia.

You may have noticed that many of the edits you have created in the Scientology articles are almost instantly reverted after you make them. The reason for this is because the Scientology related articles are watched by LOTS of editors on Wikipedia and these articles are frequent objects of vandalization. These articles are also frequently used to present unsourced and biased information from both Scientologists and critics alike. So it is highly unlikely that any biased or non-neutral sounding arguments will be allowed into the article. Now I certainly would agree with you that these articles need to be improved. I've spent a lot of my time researching the topic, citing sources, and rewording the articles so that they present the information in a neutral tone, but there is tons of work left to be done. And we could use your help.

If you want your substantial rewrites and edits to be accepted into highly controversial and busy articles (like Scientology or Dianetics) it would be best if you'd explain your reasons for the changes on the talk page for the articles and try to develop a consensus to make the changes beforehand. You should also add sources to each unique claim that you make in the article, because at Wikipedia, we do not allow Original Research. You may KNOW that Dianetics is the greatist thing since sliced bread, and you may have witnessed thousands of people cured of cancer after doing some auditing, but on Wikipedia, your "Truth" and "what is true for you" are not valued. (And neither is what I perceive to be true) As counter-intuitive as it may sound, the basis for inclusion in Wikipedia is not "Truth", but rather the Wikipedia Policy: Verifiability.

And always remember that editing these articles is a process that involves multiple personalities with varying interests. There are lots of us now and many of us will expect that edits be done through consensus building. This process starts on the talk page of the various articles.

Thanks for sharing your time and energy with Wikipedia. Hopefully you can help improve the quality here. Vivaldi (talk) 04:20, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, glad to see another friendly face.

I have been trying to round up test data and other citable resources to help defend Dianetics in this hyper-critical venue. One side demands we have reputable citations for each sentence presenting Dianetics, while they do just the opposite and insert wild personal research by consensus or change the Wikipedia policies to support their view.

There are quite few new "encyclopedic" ideas here to learn. I think you will find that even reputable WP:V citations will be deleted without discussion all too often here. Very opinionated views and dark original research will be inserted with the support of a consensus that seems insane at times. If you know what "a Type III Watch" is, then you will know what it is like here. Spirit of Man 05:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dropping by to say hello and welcome, any input you make is welcome input. In the past, some people who know the subjects in the area of Dianetics and Scientology have been driven off by the persistant reversions and counter edits of "scientology critics". At present, I too seem to have roused those same people, they are at present attempting to have me "removed for a lengthy ban" though I don't expect that will happen. There are procedures by which we edit, politness to other editors being one of them. And there are procedures by which editors can edit. Some editors sometimes used edit summaries such as "rv POV" (reverted to an earlier version of the page for reasons the present one was excessivly Point of View). That is not exactly okay, per wikipedia policy, but as I'm able to understand the policies, does not exactly, by itself, prevent anyone from making such an edit nor making such an edit summary. Anyway, I get a fair number of those. lol. have fun. Terryeo 23:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your pattern of removing well-sourced information on phony pretexts that amount to nothing more than "I choose not to believe it" is growing irritating. Kindly desist. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]