Talk:Landmark Education/Archive02

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page (Archive 2) covers approximately the dates between 17 November 2005 and 16 August 2006.

Archive 1 covers approximately the dates January 2004 to 16 November 2005.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.

Please add new archivals to Talk:Landmark Education/Archive03. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. Kat'n'Yarn 16:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

(Note: Topic "Psychotic Episodes associated with est" by L K Tucker, 25 February 2006, already located on this archive was moved to a chronological position in the archive below.)

This is a controversial topic, which may be under dispute.
Please read this talk page and discuss substantial changes here before making them.
Make sure you supply full citations when adding information to highly controversial articles.

Contents

Edits in violation of NPOV and Citation of Sources policies

I have moved this comment to the end of the article to preserve the chronological sequence of the discussion.DaveApter 10:49, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

reorganization, part 2

I've reorganized the sections that remained (sourced comments that were supportive or critical of landmark). I've split the text into two main sections: views supportive of LE and views critical of LE, and tried to split each piece into useful subsections. FuelWagon 15:45, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe, as we evolve to the final article, you should A) interleave rather than B) bifurcate the SUPPORTIVE and CRITICAL viewpoints on a base-by-case basis, then try to quantify the number of people holding each position. The 94% to 95% customer satisfaction quotes should be used to rebut criticism. The bifurcated structure, I assert, as we move towards quantification, will give undue weight to the critical views. Nevertheless, the time is not yet ripe for movement from bifurcated to interleaved. On the other point, I was just joking about LE preventing crime. Sm1969 21:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
interleaving might be better. I wanted to cut out all the unsourced claims, especially the particularly biased ones that called Landmark a cult, since that's the sort of stuff that gets people sued. I invite anyone with sourced criticism from notable sources to insert something in encyclopedic fashion. Once it forms up, interleaving the related stuff may be the better approach. I figure first things first, though. FuelWagon 21:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Margaret Singer, a Professor at UC Berkeley did mention LE in her book "Cults in Our Midst". LE sued and she issued a statement that she never held LE to be a cult. I don't know if you want this stuff in the historical record. LE also sued Cynthia Kisser for the same allegation and won a retraction. There have also been lawsuits in the Netherlands where LE won retractions. In the Netherlands, those stating LE was a cult could not come up with a single definition of a cult that LE met. Does this go in for historical record? Sm1969 21:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

as a result of this, subsequent printings of CULTS IN OUR MIDST have no reference to Landmark. *Ria777*
That's correct. This lawsuit was the end of the use of the word "cult" in a derogative sense for LE. Timestamps are done by typing four tildes. Sm1969 00:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, it's factual, it reports who said what and when. It also reports how LE responded, and what the final outcome was. Brief mention could be made, a paragraph per lawsuit (a couple sentences per paragraph), and when its all in the article, we can see if "undue weight" has occurred and adjust if needed. The other thing is that if people heard somewhere else that Singer called LE a cult, it's good for wikipedia to have a quick summary of what really happened. FuelWagon 21:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Here are some URLs re Margaret Singer and cults:

http://home.swbell.net/danchase/art.htm http://www.landmarkeducation.com/uploaded_files/694/msing.pdf Sm1969 03:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

remaining points of controversy needing sources

(pasted from above) several significant points of controversy are not addressed in the present article which were moved off into the Talk page below: 1) psychological consequences versus post hoc reasoning, 2) is LE religous or not, 3) does it cause favorable results or not for customers, 4) are assistants volunteering for a for-profit being exploited or not, 5) the whole cult or not controversy (which should be separated into all the points and testimony so rendered), 6) brainwashing or powerful customer value, 7) Werner Erhard: still an influence or not.

I've broken these up into subsections below for easier discussion. please insert relevant discussions into the sections below. FuelWagon 01:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

psychological consequences versus post hoc reasoning

The two legal cases cited in the article (Stephanie Ney) where the jury ruled in LE's favor and the Appeals court found that she could not show proximate physical causality and Been versus Weed with LE as a cross-defendent are the two main references for assertions of adverse psychological effects. Martin Lell in his book about Brainwashing could also be included in this context with Art Schreiber's rebuttal (that Martin Lell did not say he was brainwashed).

http://www.landmarkeducation.com/uploaded_files/24/LFIF-06.pdf You could quote item 6. verbatim beginning with "From time to time,"

Well, that's an interesting little factoid. 1/1000th of a percent? they say there is no correlation, has anyone actually done a study? Does anyone claim a correlation? what's the percentage of suicide/bodily harm for the average american off the street? Any psychologists or therapists who support a linkage or deny a linkage? FuelWagon 04:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Here is the suicide rate in the US in 2001 (CDC 2004) at 30,622 people. LE's disclaimer says "suicide or other dangerous behaviour" and that it is less than 1/1000 of one percent. In other words, "less than 10 people per million" for suicide or other dangerous behaviour.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm

The CIA shows the US population to be 295 million for a July 2005 estimate. https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html

So, the rate of "suicide or other dangerous behaviour" is less than the suicide rate in the US in general. Sm1969 05:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050106_odds_of_dying.html Here are the lifetime odds of dying from heart disease: 1 in 5, cancer: 1 in 7, car accident 1 in 100, bee sting or snake bite: 1 in 100,000.

None of the two court cases ever held LE liable for adverse psychological effects in 850,000 customers since 1991.

I would also include a link to Post Hoc reasoning on Wikipedia for the rebuttal.

Here is a good quote from Mark Kamin (LE's spokesperson):

http://www.rickross.com/reference/landmark/landmark35.html Mark Kamin, Landmark's fast-talking PR head, has as many questions as I do when he calls from Houston. He's tape-recording our conversation. What of those who've reported breakdowns after participating in the Forum? Kamin says they're lying, out to make a buck. "You know there are people who say, 'You hit me from behind in your car,' even though they stopped in the middle of the freeway."

is LE religous or not

The main proponents of the interpretation that LE is antirelogious are ApologeticsIndex and its cited reference The Watchman Fellowship (www.watchman.org)

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/l30.html

I can't actually find any statements at the apologetics site that says Landmark Education is anti-religion. FuelWagon 04:03, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
If you do a Google search on Landmark Education, Apologetics Index comes up in the top five which is why I believe it should be addressed:
Resources on Religious Cults and Sects - Landmark Education
Links to articles and sites generally critical of the movement.
www.apologeticsindex.org/l30.html - 38k - Cached - Similar pages
You can add a note that the web page itself is misleading with respect to its Google title in that it offers no statements about religion or offers no source or whatever accurately portrays its position. LE is clearly responding to something with all of these clergy testimonials. Sm1969 04:45, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
OK, it can be addressed, but since it doesn't actually say that LE is anti religion, we can't say that it says that, you know? That's basically the whole point of reporting the views of sources, of NPOV. FuelWagon 04:53, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Fine, we don't say ApologeticsIndex says it is anti-religion. I would prefer just the Google title be put in "as is" for the search "landmark education" since it clearly intimates it (Religious Cults and Sects - Landmark Education) and they reference the Watchman.org site which now has no detectable reference to LE. Sm1969 05:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Also, a search on watchman.org found no occurrences of the phrase "landmark education". Do you have a direct link to an article from them that mentions Landmark? FuelWagon 04:08, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Here is not a direct link, but a quote from http://skepdic.com/landmark.html

Paul Derengowski, formerly of the Christian cult-watch group Watchman.org, thinks that Landmark "has theological implications." Since the training seems to emphasize that one's past and current beliefs are hindering self-growth, it is easy to see why defenders of traditional religions would fear such programs as Landmark Forum. In effect, to those who are members of traditional faiths, programs such as Landmark are saying: your religion is a hindrance to becoming your true self.

Here is a supporter from Hare Krishna: http://www.vnn.org/world/9801/02-1450/index.html

LE responded by having actual customers who are members of the clergy from various religions. First a general statement: http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=26&mid=658

Is Landmark's education in the same family or genre as religion or therapy? The content, techniques, procedures, and delivery of The Landmark Forum have been carefully examined by dozens of psychiatrists, psychologists, clergy members, and other professionals. They have concluded that Landmark's programs are not psychological, cult-like, religious, or sociological in nature. In fact, many of these professionals, following their research, fully endorsed Landmark and its programs. See expert opinions or independent research.

Here are the specific statements:

Father Gregg Banaga http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=22&mid=11020&bottom=3057&siteObjectID=566

Father Eamonn O'Conner http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=22&mid=11020&bottom=37&siteObjectID=493

Sister Iris Clarke http://www.ilovepossibility.info/landmark_forum_21.htm

Father Gerry O'Rourke http://www.landmarkeducation.com/uploaded_files/694/GERRY-~1.PDF

Father Basil Pennington http://www.landmarkeducation.com/uploaded_files/694/BASIL-~1.PDF

Bishop Otis Charles, Episcopal Church http://www.landmarkeducation.com/uploaded_files/694/BISHOP~1.PDF

Rabbi Arnold Mark Belzer http://www.landmarkeducation.com/uploaded_files/694/Belzer.pdf

Sister Miriam Quinn, O.P. http://www.landmarkeducation.com/uploaded_files/694/SISTER~1.PDF

Also, from Time Magazine: Time Magazine (The Best of Est?) http://www.wernererhard.com/wernererhardtimemagazine.htm "Rabbi Yisroel Persky said he "remains unfazed by what he calls the Forum's common-sense concepts cloaked in esoteric packaging." (He did not say it offended his religion.)

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/register.cgi/tablet-00286 Article from The Tablet (an International Catholic Weekly, requiring free registration)

The only point where my Christianity tripped up was at a session where we were asked to consider the statement, "Life is empty and meaningless". My faith made me reject the statement, but others found it liberating. I asked Angelo, a Catholic, how he understood it. "I say things dramatically in the Forum to get people to think", he said. "I cannot discover what God truly has planned for me until I let go of all the meaning I have put in place, especially as a child and young adult." Several Catholic priests and religious sisters have endorsed Landmark. The Trappist monk Basil Pennington has praised the Forum for bringing about a "full human enlivenment" which make people "more lively" in the practice of whatever faith they have.

I know of zero instances where A) a member of the clergy did the Landmark Forum and B) said it offended their religion. The examples here are Judaism and Christianity.

I've added a short section titled "religious worldview" that attempts to list both sides of the story. since the apologetics site doesn't actually come out and say Landmark is anti-religion, I simply say that they maintain a page on landmark. Feel free to update as needed. FuelWagon 20:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

does it cause favorable results or not for customers

Here is the main attributed adverse assertion I know of: http://skepdic.com/landmark.html It is predictable that many participants in self-growth programs will attribute their sense of improvement to the programs they've taken, but much of their reasoning may be post hoc. Furthermore, their sense of improvement might not be matched by improved behavior. Just because they feel they've benefited doesn't mean they have. Research has shown that the feelings of having benefited greatly from participation in an LGAT do not correspond to beneficial changes in behavior (Michael Langone, "Large Group Awareness Training Programs," Cult Observer, v. 15, n. 1, 1998).

Here are some of the positive assertions: An overview of the independent studies: http://www.landmarkeducation.com/menu.jsp?top=25&mid=264&bottom=700

http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=21&mid=80&bottom=116&siteObjectID=150 Among the results reported by participants: One-third experienced a significant increase (of 25% or more) in their incomes after completing The Landmark Forum. Of that group, 94% said The Landmark Forum directly contributed to the increase. Seven out of 10 people said they worried less about money and became more effective in managing their finances after completing Landmark's programs. Participants found they were working fewer hours, suggesting they achieved greater balance in their lives.

http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=21&mid=80&bottom=116&siteObjectID=157 Conclusion The set of interventions in the organization produced impressive measurable results: • Safety performance improved 50% • Key benchmark costs were reduced 15-20% • Return on capital increased by 50% • Raw steel produced per employee rose 20%

Here is the one from the International Society for Performance Improvement (not on LE's web site): http://www.ispi.org/services/gotResults/2005/Landmark_Education_GotResults.pdf

I've added a new section titled ==Results, post hoc or caused==. Please modify as you see fit. FuelWagon 22:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

are assistants volunteering for a for-profit being exploited or not

Here is some quantitative data on the number of people who assist at LE per year (11,900):

http://www.ilovepossibility.info/leap.htm

LE's POV on the Assisting Program: http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=22&mid=175&bottom=239&siteObjectID=243

The French stuff is critical (where the voluntary assisting program was judged illegal by the French labor ministry). I don't have a reference for that, and it is probably in French.

the whole cult or not controversy

(which should be separated into all the points and testimony so rendered),

brainwashing or powerful customer value

http://www.landmarkeducation.com/uploaded_files/694/Fowler.pdf In my opinoion, "brain washing", "mind control" or "thought reform" are very dubious concepts. There is little evidence to support that they ever take place except in situations in which extreme coercive pressure is put on a vulnerable person in circumstances of isolation, deprivation, and mistreatment such as a prisoner of war situation. The relatively brief encounters in a pleasant environment that characterize the Landmark Forum program could never effect such extreme and unwanted changes in personality and behaviour as those attributed to the various forms of "mind control".

In my opinion, the Landmark Forum does not place individuals at risk of any form of "mind control" "brainwashing" or "through control."

In my opinion, the Landmark Forum is not a cult or anything like a cult, and I do not see how any reasonable person could say that it is.

Raymond D. Fowler, Ph.D. November 30, 1999 (Past President of the American Psychological Association, speaking on his own behalf)

I thought I'd be brainwashed. But how wrong could I be... http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1106927,00.html

http://www.rickross.com/reference/landmark/landmark43.html Kamin [Landmark Education's Director of Media Relations] goes on to explain: "People don't understand what our programs are. Our programs make a difference, they're powerful. When somebody goes to something that lasts a weekend and they come back saying, 'Wow, this really made a difference in my life,' they are going to be met with a certain amount of skepticism. So somebody who is ill-informed and hasn't done their research will go, 'That must be X, Y or Z.' I think it's pretty obvious why those things happen."

unless someone notable says that Landmark "brainwashes" its customers, I don't see a need to include this. If it isn't disputed, it's sort of redundant. Are there any sources that say landmark "brainwashes" people? FuelWagon 22:01, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
It is indeed disputed. As an example, Johanne Bratbo, former President of the Danish Association of Psychologists, having studied Landmark and their methods for quite some time has stated "If I am to compare [the Forum] to something, then my thoughts go to methods of torture rather than therapeutic work. They seek to break down one's personality in order to reshape it. I was shocked by the degree of manipulation and misuse of psychological methods of influence that characterise the Landmark course. It would be absolutely unacceptable if professionally trained psychologists, psychiatrists or other therapists were to do what Landmark does. It lies completely outside the boundaries of the acceptable." She also states that a psychologist cannot possibly support activities such as the Forum; doing so would "violate all fundamental ethical principles". (http://www.tv4.se/bredband/categories.aspx?treeid=2001&pid=1592&more=1 (25:50 and 32:15 into the programme, respectively) - translation is my own).
Naturally, Landmark have sought to refute Bratbos findings. At the time, their Danish legal counsel, Morten Riise-Knudsen, was quoted as saying that "We do not believe that Johanne Bratbo is as idealistic as she claims. [She] wants to have control over education such as the Landmark courses, and that's why she reacts." (http://www.religion.dk/tema/tema:fid=100000047:aid=808 - translation once again my own)
Thus, at the very least we have two former Presidents of national psychological associations taking opposite standpoints, which I believe warrants a discussion on the theme. If no-one objects, I would like to post Bratbo's criticism on the page as a contrast to Fowler's endorsement.
--jla 08:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, there are sources that assert "brainwashing" (and "thought reform" and "mind control").

http://www.metroactive.com/landmark/landmark1-9827.html For me, it's almost impossible to observe The Forum's methods without the word "brainwashing" flashing across my intellectual radar screen every 15 seconds or so. Landmark refers inquiries in this department to a letter by Forum graduate Edward Lowell, a New Jersey psychiatrist who states in no uncertain terms that Landmark does not use brainwashing techniques.

There are more such articles on Rick Ross' web site that assert "thought reform" and "mind control" and "brainwashing." Martin Lell also made that assertion in his book (The Landmark Forum: Protocoll of a Brainwashing) to which Art Schreiber gave his rebuttal.

A handful of customers of Landmark Education have publicly alleged that their experience of Landmark has led to mental illness. (See Das Forum: Protokoll einer Gehirnwäsche: Der Psycho-Konzern Landmark Education [The Forum: Account of a Brainwashing: The Psycho-Outfit Landmark Education] by Martin Lell, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, 1997, ISBN 3423360216 - a work which Landmark Education attempted to have suppressed at its first publication).

Rebuttal: This rebuttal has two parts: 1) Mr. Lell in specific (parts "a" and "b" below [1] quoted from Art Schreiber, general counsel of Landmark Education) and 2) the assertion of causality in general. (a) Landmark Education did not bring legal action to stop the publication of the book. Rather, Landmark Education's action for injunction was to eliminate the use of the word "brainwashing" in the sub-title of the book since such statement was totally false and defamatory. At the Hearing, the Court decided that the term "brainwashing" was a matter of opinion, which I consider to be a highly questionable result. The Court therefore denied Landmark's request for an injunction and the book was allowed to be published with the full sub-title. Landmark Education never intended to stop the publication of the contents of the book. (b) Mr. Lell was not "brainwashed". As the record at the Hearing indicated, following completion of The Landmark Forum Mr. Lell did not see a doctor; was not hospitalized; did not seek or obtain medication; and was not diagnosed by a medical professional as being brainwashed or having any mental problem. In fact, Mr. Lell did not even say he was brainwashed; apparently his parents, after his speaking with them following The Landmark Forum, stated they thought "he sounded like someone who was brainwashed". Given Mr. Lell was not in fact brainwashed, Landmark Education brought its action to seek the injunction against the use of such word in the sub-title of the book.

Okey dokey, I'll take a look at this later and see if I can come up with a NPOV paragraph. FuelWagon 23:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

here's a draft:

After taking the Landmark Forum, one customer, Martin Lell, wrote a book titled Das Forum: Protokoll einer Gehirnwäsche: Der Psycho-Konzern Landmark Education [The Forum: Account of a Brainwashing: The Psycho-Outfit Landmark Education], Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, 1997, ISBN 3423360216. Landmark sued to have the word "brainwashing" removed from the sub-title. During the hearing, Lell stated that following completion of The Landmark Forum, he did not see a doctor, was not hospitalized, did not seek or obtain medication, and was not diagnosed by a medical professional as being brainwashed or having any mental problem. The court decided that "brainwashing" was a matter of opinion and allowed the sub-title to remain.

Traci Hukill, a reporter for Metroactive, participated in the Landmark Forum and wrote [1]

For me, it's almost impossible to observe The Forum's methods without the word "brainwashing" flashing across my intellectual radar screen every 15 seconds or so. Landmark refers inquiries in this department to a letter by Forum graduate Edward Lowell, a New Jersey psychiatrist who states in no uncertain terms that Landmark does not use brainwashing techniques.

Raymond Fowler, a psychologist, was requested by Landmark Education to evaluate the effectiveness, safety, and appropriateness of the procedures in the Landmark Forum in 1999. Fowler reported [2]

I saw nothing in the Landmark Forum I attended to suggest that it would be harmful to any participant. ... the Landmark Forum is nothing like psychotherapy ... has none of the characteristics typical of a cult ... does not place individuals at risk of any form of “mind control” “brainwashing” or “thought control.”

thoughts? FuelWagon 18:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, actually, there were some other pieces already existing in the current "brainwashing" section, so I attempted to roll the changes into the actual article alongside the stuff that was already there. FuelWagon 18:31, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Werner Erhard: still an influence or not

http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=26&mid=658

What is Landmark Education's relationship with Werner Erhard? For 15 years, Landmark Education has developed leading edge programs in the area of personal training & development, and Landmark's programs are based on research and ideas originally developed by Werner Erhard. Landmark respects and appreciates the enormous contribution of Mr. Erhard's ideas. Mr. Erhard has no financial interest, ownership, or management role in Landmark Education.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/landmark/landmark79.html Kamin says that Erhard has nothing to do with the organisation now and that his "technology" has been developed and modified by Landmark staff. Kamin denies that Erhard receives any income from Landmark, but he confirms that Erhard's younger brother Harry is Landmark's CEO.

Here is the only sourced assertion I know of asserting otherwise: http://www.wernererhard.com/wernererhardtimemagazine.htm Landmark alumnus Walter Plywaski, a Colorado electronics engineer who took on the company after his daughter ran up a $3,000 tab on courses, thinks Erhard is still pulling the strings. Says he: "Erhard is like the Cheshire Cat. He has gone away, but the smile is there, hanging over everything."

(There are no tests one could perform to determine whether the smile of a Cheshire Cat is hanging over everything, but people at LE do smile a lot. :) )

how about something like this:
Some critics state that Werner Erhard is still "pulling the strings" at Landmark Education [3]. Werner's younger brother is Landmark Education's current CEO. Landmark Education states that its programs are based on ideas originally developed by Erhard, but that Erhard has no financial interest, ownership, or management role in Landmark Education. [4] And in Stephanie Ney v. Landmark Education Corporation [5], the courts determined that Landmark Education Corporation did not have successor liability to Werner Erhard & Associates, the corporation whose assets Landmark Education purchased.

Yes, I think you could add the date next to each. The Time article is from 1997 or 1998.

that reports the various pov's about the topic. FuelWagon 04:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I've added it to the article. Update as you see fit. FuelWagon 04:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Whether Erhard is considered a direct influence today or not, he as well as EST should be included in the article (or at least a link should be included in the bottom of the article) because, after all, Landmark is an offshoot of EST.

Not to mention that this article seems more like a "coverup" of the various negative aspects of EST/Landmark by its followers. I think a little more effort could be taken to neutralize this article. If you have to counter the negative arguments, then the "positive" arguments ought to be countered as well.

"Coverup"

Or, in another interpretation, the negative arguments are, for the most part, spin and spending even as much print space as we have hopelessly skews the article to the negative.

On Werner: There is no cover-up about this either. I can remeber a time in Landamrk where people were unsure of talking about Werner and were unsure of how to reference it so as a matter of practical policy he was not brought up. This ended up causing confusion amongst those people who never met the guy and knew nothing about him. That time is over- Werner is now openly talked about. Harry, his brother, will even mention conversations he had with him and on occassion Werner will visit Landamrk leader trainings. It is a normal, friendly relationship consistent with the fact that he founded a lot of the distinctions the current technology of Landamrk is based on.

I have no idea what the fiscal relationship is between Werner and LE but I know it is none of our business and there is no conspiracy about it either. Do you know the cleaner down the street's fiscal relationship with his brother who founded the clenaing shop twenty years ago? No? Oh my god- it must be a conspiracy!!

Sorry for the sarcasm- I think all this stuff about Werner is much ado about nothing. The only problem is he was a dramatic figure who was in the news a lot and a lot of things were said about him. Some of those things turned out to be baseless- like the tax fraud accusations and the abusing his daughters things (although I agree with whoever said that there is something wrong in a family when people are even willing to be coerced by money or fame to make accusations like that!). Some turned out to be true (he did leave his wife and run away from his family to California with another woman, he did make good money for the licenses on the WE&A technology). Some are still unresolved: I have no idea if Scientology really has a "black list" and put him on it (although what happened to him around 1990 has all the earmarks of a smear campaign).

Overall- just another human being. Not the messiah, not a cult leader, just a really smart, flawed guy who was committed to something and really started something interesting, powerful, and wih a potential to make a big difference in the world, yet still racked by the flaws, concerns , and issues all human institutions are saddled with. I think we can safely slack off on the drama about it.

- Alex Jackl 15:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Course Content / Derivation (Philosophy, P.T. Barnum et al)

This is another area of controversy about LE. Here is part of LE's POV:

An eight-page article in the March 2001 edition of the journal Contemporary Philosophy hosted at the University of Colorado at Boulder and co-authored by Professor Steven McCarl and by Landmark Education Business Development CEO Steve Zaffron discusses philosophy and the Landmark Forum under the title "The Promise of Philosophy and the Landmark Forum". (Readers interested in a detailed discussion from Landmark Education's point of view can read this article - one of the few written articles discussing course content of Landmark Education (aside from the course syllabus - one of Landmark Education's marketing documents.)

http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=26&mid=654 Educational Methodology Landmark Education's methodology and the results it has produced make Landmark a leader and innovator in the field of training and development. Landmark's technology is drawn from a rich tradition of thinking and research that spans a number of disciplines, from philosophy to linguistics to Zen. Based on a methodology and ideas originally developed by Werner Erhard, Landmark has evolved its unique educational methodology through years of continuous research and development.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4819050-102285,00.html Over the next three days, we are educated in a mix of philosophies, psychology and religious theories, illustrated by readings from books, plays and one detailed description of the entire plot of Citizen Kane. Including the ending. The theories expounded cherry pick ideas from existential philosophy and motivational psychology. They take in aspects of Maxwell Maltz's psycho-cybernetics, Zen Buddhism, Alan Watts and Freud. Shadows of Abraham Maslow, Hinduism, Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale and P.T. Barnum flit over the proceedings.

Adverse POV: (Heidegger for Fun and Profit, 1990) http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/gottlieb.htm One main idea behind the Forum is a thesis that is often thought to be Heidegger's, though it in fact owes more to his pupil, Hans-Georg Gadamer. Mr. Gadamer's idea is that people derive their identities from stories they tell about themselves. The Forum's aim is to expose these stories by inducing existentialist anxiety, and then to enable people to construct more empowering stories, which transform them. Sounds easy. It certainly empowers Forum adepts to adopt a great deal of jargon and go off in search of more people to transform. ... Those who take the Forum phenomenon seriously might see it as an attempt to overthrow the democracy of reason: you cannot debate the Forum, you just start talking its language or you don't. It is replete with the ironies of most minor cults: to open up the possibilities in your own life, you have to be intellectually bombarded by somebody else; to free yourself from the categories of everyday language, you have to be imprisoned in a new jargon that few other people speak.

So, this is about the topic of "jargon", really, isn't it? Or are people disputing existentialism's validity? I can't quite tell. FuelWagon 07:44, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

major reorg

I think all the sourced information for and against is now in the article (or at least a majority of it is.) so I did a reorganization of the article to re-interleave the various POV's by topic. So now, a topic like "results" will contain critical views about results as well as favorable views. I think this reads better. FuelWagon 20:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Pedant17 edit of 20 November 2005, 02:39 in violation of policies

Hi Pedant17,

User FuelWagon is an administrator and has been working with us on eliminating unsourced claims, and where controversy exists, sourcing the various PRO/CON and other claims to exactly who said them.

Several facets of your most recent edit (by differencing against the previous version) are in direct violation of this:

1) This article provides detailed discussion - from Landmark Education's point of view - one of the few written articles which takes the course content of Landmark Education seriously ... [This is completely unsourced.]

2) The statement about Singer being financially exhausted. LE never pursued the case to a financial judgement; she retracted at the time of the deposition. [This is completely unsourced.]

3) Other horror-tales... [Google Groups are not valid sources for Wikipedia.]

4) The ApologeticsIndex was under the theme "religion" and we were focusing solely on evidence pertaining to religion in that section. [This is vandalistic structural destruction.]

5) The "Sources" section content you introduced most likely will have to go under the Wiki article for "est" and it will have to be attributed there.

6) The claims regarding hypnotism and the remarks thereunder are completely unsourced.

7) The notation that LE "responds to allegations ... by tangentially asserting that many clergy have attended the Landmark Forum". All of the content in that section is directly sourced and was completely within NPOV guidelines. With Father Banaga, for example, you can even go to Adamson University and see that he is, in fact, the President of Adamson University.

8) The conversion of "Management" to "Prominent Landmarkers" borders on vandalism.

You have done several such large "bad faith" edits in the past: A) 11:37, 12 October 2005 Pedant17 B) 12:28, 21 September 2005 Pedant17 C) 11:53, 3 September 2005 Pedant17 D) 09:37, 2 August 2005 Pedant17

We are trying to source all claims at this point and write the PRO and CON attributing the statement to who actually said it, which must be referenced (journal article, LE statement, LE web site, court case, case study), not a Google group. The remedy for unreferenced claims is to move them to the Talk page or strike them. The large edits that you do that manifest the infractions indicated above will be reverted outright. While I am a supporter of LE, I went out and found the adverse statements and sourced them. FuelWagon (a Wikipedia administrator or respected participant) wrote the actual text that was reintroduced into the article. Some of your edit I agree with and there are still unsourced statements in the article and we will remove them. There are statements favorable to LE that are unsourced that we will either source or remove. There is analogous adverse commentary that we will also remove where it is unsourced. What you did tonight and have done numerous times in the past is intolerable and will be reverted outright. Sm1969 06:18, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Sm1969
Good to meet another NPOV warrior. I've done a fair bit of NPOVization over the years, especially in Wikipedia, but have yet to learn good tricks like instant wholesale reversion, the detection of vandalism, or how to accuse my fellow-editors of bad faith.
The "instant wholesale reversion" arose from a mindset of mine as someone who does a lot of computer programming for a living.
Let's distinguish between computer programs and Wikipedia-articles. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Fine. I was just answering your question as to how I learned the good trick of "instant wholesale reversion." Sm1969 07:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I'll respond to this tonight. I have a lot of work to do today. Sm1969 15:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The detection of vandalism came when you suddenly rearranged a section that was completely within NPOV.

I don't regard any of this article as "completely within NPOV". It needs a lot of editing to achieve neutrality. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
There are now several sections that are within NPOV. They give the LE POV and the sources/evidence and the give the CRITIC POV with its reference sources. The sections I assert to be completely within NPOV guideliness are: 1) Theological Implications and 2) Everything from "Lawsuits against Landmark Education" all the way to the end. The section "Cult-like" "brainwashing" and "hypnotism" are also completely within POV. You might argue that undue weight has been given to LE or whatever, but that is not an NPOV violation.

The accusation of bad faith came from a notion in contract law that you knew what you were doing was in violation of NPOV.

I do react to POV sometimes with counter-POV, and consider myself rebuked accordingly. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
You are supposed to counter POV with POV--that's NPOV! The counter-POV must only be a *significant* point of view.

Here is my background in specific: 1) I have done just about every LE program available since 1993; 2) I have assisted a lot over the years (but not a lot currently in the center); 3) I agree with some of the criticism to various degrees and it definitely needs to be included; 4) My educational background also includes an MBA in Marketing/Information Systems design, which includes a survey of law courses (tort law, contract law, tax law, etc.) [I will use the tort law stuff to address your point #2], 5) as well as a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and Linguistics, specifically German; I read and write German fluently, and I have read much of the German documents and provided corrections/refutations to your posts in the past regarding the Berlin Senate report. From German, I can take good guesses at Dutch, Danish and Swedish, particularly when assisted with the automated translators on the Internet. DaveApter and I have asked for your background re LE a few times now so that we have a common frame of reference as to what constitutes evidence and how conclusions are being drawn. I reside in California. With that in mind:

REQUEST-1: What that information above, what is your specific background with LE?
I edit Wikipedia. I don't see any atttractions in a "common frame of reference". Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
One thing that would surely help for you, then, is to understand tort/defamation law.
Now, we are going to look at the specific points in your post to see why I assert they are in violation of NPOV.
Re your point 2 above: I suspect you've read more into my comment than I actually wrote.

Here is a diff of the edit you made which I assert broke NPOV: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Landmark_Education&diff=28797825&oldid=28697908

AFTER PEDANT17's EDIT Landmark Education sued Margaret Singer, a UC Berkeley professor and author of Cults in Our Midst (published in 1995) for defamation. Singer mentioned Landmark Education in her book but did not make it clear if she labelled Landmark Education as a cult or not. Following the litigation, a financially-exhausted Singer posted a retraction stating that she did not intend to call Landmark a cult, and that nor did she consider it a cult. [6]

BEFORE PEDANT17's EDIT Landmark Education sued Margaret Singer, a UC Berkeley professor and author of Cults in Our Midst (published in 1995) for defamation. Singer mentioned Landmark Education in her book but wasn't clear if she was calling Landmark Education a cult or not. Singer posted a retraction stating that she did not intend to call Landmark a cult nor did she consider it a cult. [22]

You made a really small change adding "financially-exhausted Singer" implying that her motive for retracting was that she did not have the money to defend herself. There are numerous articles that I can refer to in the press that imply Landmark Education, as this big, bad organization goes around quashing criticism with the threat of lawsuits. It's quite stereotypical to think, "A big corporation is using its money to step on the little guy." The reality is quite simple: She, as a UC Berkeley Professor and recognized expert (in academia) in the field of cults could have easily gotten pro bono legal representation IF her position were defensible. What is not in this Wikipedia article right now is a prior case Landmark Education filed in 1994 (I think) against SELF Magazine (Conde Nast Publications) in which Landmark Education established through a defamation lawsuit against SELF that the use of the word "cult" is A) a question of fact that can be proven TRUE or FALSE (a question of triable fact) and B) derogatory. She would have faced the jury which would have decided the question and her reputation would have been shattered.

I've not seen this explanation of Singer's actions. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
This case (Self Magazine, Conde Nast) is in the court documents for the New Jersey case against Rick Ross. This established that the term "cult" itself is a "triable question of fact capable of being proven true or false." Under the definition used, LE would have proven it false. Margaret Singer, despite invitations by LE, never did the Forum. Sm1969 07:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The Margaret Singer retraction was a ***HUGE*** deal to Landmark Education. Without that, anyone in the press or in books could have called Landmark Education a cult. That was the DEATH PENALTY to the use of the written word "cult" in written publications (the Internet excepted, in certain situations) and the DEATH PENALTY to spoken word "Cult" (the tort of slander) in the United States. Go back and read the Margaret Singer retraction in that context. http://www.landmarkeducation.com/uploaded_files/694/msing.pdf

I know you meant this to be a trivial little thing, but it is not. A Wikipedia reader would need to understand A) the difference between an opinion which is free speech and B) an assertion of fact, which, if proven false, and then defamatory, is the basis for a lawsuit. Why Rick Ross can allow people to get away with this on his Internet message boards is another story. That case is being litigated now, but a key decision was made in another court that will allow people to do virtually anything on Rick Ross' boards:
Donato v. Moldow: New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division has held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunized the proprietor of an online message board from liability for allegedly defamatory content posted by third-parties, despite the exercise of editorial control in the selection and editing of the messages. http://techlawadvisor.com/caselaw/2005/02/communications-decency-act-nj.html
Margaret Singer may herself have stated that this was because of lack of money, and if someone can find that statement, it needs to be sourced. If it is sourced, I will write Landmark Education to express its opinion that she retracted not because of money, but because her reputation would have been destroyed. Landmark Education itself settled for $0 stating that it only wanted retraction. (I can source that quote somewhere.)
My understanding of tort law is one reason I asked your background, because you have also used things in WikiPedia like, "Cautious commentators prefer 'cult-like' instead of 'cult.'" That would also be defamation. The context of the use of the word "cult" will always be definitive; it is not the word per se. For example, you can say, "Landmark Education is becoming a cult brand with so many people tens of thousands of people registering into LE's programs." (CEO Harry Rosenberg might thank you in that case.) If you told Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, that Apple is a cult, he would say "thank you."
Indirect quotation definitive? I suspect not. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
REQUEST-2: With that in mind, do you acknowledge that your adding "financially-strapped Margaret Singer" breaks NPOV and in a VERY SERIOUS way? This is a "yes" or "no" question, but feel free to add a textual explanation.
No and no. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Let me correct that. It does not break NPOV. It does add UNSOURCED statements. If you can find that she or some notable critic actually said that, you can certainly add the source. In that case, I would definitely ask LE to express LE POV. Most lawyers looking at the facts, I think, would agree with my logic, but that's beside the point. We are only to report on who said or did what and let the reader be the jury. Sm1969 07:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree that we could improve attribution patterns. But I find deleting all unattributed material disturbing: if we applied this rigorously, then little of Wikipedia's content would remain - even in the "Landmark Education" article, which currently crawls with unattributed opinion. But said article provides a good example for cleaning up, especially given the wealth of material available.
I agree with you, we would wipe out Wikipedia if we struck all unattributed material. For example, there is adverse unattributed material regarding the French Labor ministry banning the donated labor. I know that statement to be factually correct, but I don't know where to find the French source and how we handle the issue in Wikipedia. I have never struck it for that reason.
REQUEST-3: We agree that there is PRO and CON material re LE that is accurate (but unsourced) and inaccurate concoctions that sound nice. What we need to agree on is a procedure for ADDING and STRIKING material, and that is taking things to the Talk page. Will you use the Talk page on an ongoing basis, rather than doing a once-every-three-weeks edit that does multiple NPOV violations? This is a yes/no question, but feel free to add a textual explanation.
Sometimes the use of the Talk page may prove appropriate. Often editing the main page incrementally keeps issues together and prominent. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Well, we need to go on a case-by-case basis, sentence-by-sentence basis. I know that you have read a lot about Landmark Education over the years. I myself have committed a couple of sins, such as my enumerated speculation as to why LE did not pursue the Elle Magazine lawsuit. Certain aspects of the NPOV policy I did not, myself, understand.
Re your point 3 above: Usenet seems like a better source for exemplifying controversy than (say) the Landmark Education site, a marketing tool. I note that other references to Usenet remain.
No, discussion groups are specifically banned as sources because anyone can make up anything with no accountability. Rather, newspaper articles, journals, web sites of institutions and the entity being focused on (Landmark Education in this case), court case documents--precisely the things where people's identies are A) verifiable and B) people are publically subjecting themselves to the risk of defamation. LE's marketing documents are LE's POV. The good news for you is that you can find Newspaper articles with adverse POV all over the place regarding LE. You simply need to look and we will source them. (We will get to the issue of undue weight.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
Here's the exact line regarding Usenet, "Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, or messages left on blogs, are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources."
The fact that someone has a certain opinion in Usenet is fine, but for a valid source, you must find a journalist's article with the same argument and evidence. (Otherwise it would violate the "no original research" limitation."


REQUEST-4: Do you agree that newsgroups in particular and Usenet is specific is barred for this very reason? This is a yes/no question, but feel free to add a textual explanation.

No. Who banned newsgroups, and where? Newsgroups exist, and express generic opinions, which may prove very relevant, as in this case. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Re your point 4 above: the structure of the article can and will change with bold editing.

REQUEST-5: If you do the "bold" editing, it should not break NPOV. Things that are sourced must remain. Things that are not sourced must be brought to the Talk page and those with opposing views time to find sources to substantiate. The word "bold" can all too easily break NPOV.

I prefer bold to timid editing. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but bold must be: 1) with valid primary or secondary sources, 2) it must express the facts/opinions of the valid sources in their language and in their contexts, and 3) where diverse points of view are significant, all of them must be included. Sm1969 07:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Re your point 5 above: some sources relate to est, others (such as the Chilean material edited out of my latest version) more directly to Landmark Education.
I am not sure about that. We do need a "threshhold of materiality test" for what goes in about "Landmark Education." You can say that Werner Erhard took two Scientology courses back in the 1960's, on the "Werner Erhard" page, and you can find something to substantiate it. To mention the word Scientology regarding LE, nearly 40 years later, in just about any context, but specifically the ones that you have done, is totally inappropriate for LE. It's like writing an article about America for the people in Arab countries who have no experience of us and starting off with a long conversation about slavery in the US because the US Constitution counts slaves as 3/5 of a person. We will also have the issue of UNDUE weight for a POV to be mentioned to be discussed on the Talk page. This is yet another reason I asked above about your experience re LE. I'm clear you have years of information.
Comparing "Landmark Education" with a country seems inappropriate. We could compare it with a set of ideas, in which case (say) detecting influences of Old-Testament ideas in Mormonism or influences of Hegel in Stalinism seem quite appropriate.Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
REQUEST-6: Do you acknowledge for the various reasons above that you have done multiple edits that A) are not substantiated by valid source and B) did break things that were substantiated by valid source, C) established or asserted causality where no valid source has done and do you promise, going forward, to avoid these problematic edits?
I have made, regardless of interpretations above, some edits with insufficient attribution. I have not deliberately "broken" or removed sources. I have enriched and expect to continue to enrich Wikipedia with facts, style, NPOV and reference to POV. - The tightly-controlled approach may wash in a "Landmark Education" center, but it does not gel with the spirit of Wikipedia. Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I think LE has a worse reputation in your listening than in the general public. You have put sarcasm in like "LE tangentially asserts" or that Margaret Singer was "financially strapped" or that "cautious commentators prefer cult-like." This stuff is your own opinion--neither LE POV nor attributed to some journalist as critical POV. Sm1969 07:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
It pleases me that you find some of my edits useful: no doubt we shall see these incorporated progressively into the article.
I don't have a problem with LE being smacked around; we just need to play by the rules. Maybe the LE article will end up like the Microsoft Wikipedia article where there is a whole web page dedicated to criticism. Sm1969 07:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT-2: You can represent the opposing council well and can keep me honest. I like to think I am honest with myself, but we all do. By far the most damaging evidence against LE if you wanted to portray LE as evil is what has happened in France. Of course, it is in French, and few of us have all the facts or the contexts or the contexts of how the given words would be used by the French.


Pedant17 07:22, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Sm1969 10:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Pedant17 01:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Further comments

Hi Pedant17

I don't know what to make of your contributions to this article. You repeatedly claim to be trying to restore a NPOV, but all your edits are written from an extreme anti-Landmark POV. Much of what you write is simply your own opinion and has no place in an encyclopedia. Much else is other unauthorative unsourced opinion. How recently have you reviewed the NPOV policy to see what it actually says? Also the policies relating to 'Citation of Sources' and 'Words to Avoid'? DaveApter 11:16, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

clarification

Just to clarify one thing, I'm not an admin. I happen to be extremely familiar with NPOV policy and highly controversial wikipedia articles. I haven't combed through the edit by Pendant, but it contained some minor tweaks that I would agree with, as well as containing some major rewrites that I would say breaks NPOV. The minor tweaks were some rare insertions of attribution, such that a sentence would be changed from "The Forum provides blah" to "Landmark Education states that the Forum provides blah." For the most part, it seemed clear to me that it was Landmark Education that was the source, but I don't have a problem with making the reference more direct.

Ok, it was originally the edits, especially those of Pedant17, that, I believe, had DaveApter go looking for outside assistance. Sometimes Pedant17 adds things which are consistent with NPOV, but very frequently, as in the edits I referred to, they are A) unsourced, B) his personal opinions (and, yes, others do hold those opinions as well, but that is not the point), C) twisting of statements that are, in fact, sourced.

We still have many more controversial points to add about LE. The stuff that we put in the archive is all stuff people (journalists mostly) have written about LE (both pro/con), so we will have to source it and get it in there. I thinking about this, I think the final article structure should evolve to something that reflects two major controversies: 1) What is it (education or something else, a long list of items to consider) and 2) what does it cause (favorable results per the studies, nothing per certain criticism or "psychological damage" as has also been asserted in rare cases). Sm1969 16:46, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

heidigger

So, I read the heidigger for fun and profit article, and I'm not sure how relevant it is. Most of the article is criticizing heidigger for being a nazi and completely un-understandable. The tail end mentions some folks who used Heidigger to get rich, the last couple paragraphs talk about how Werner Erhardt used Heidigger to create EST, and how it is completely un-understandable. The last paragraph or so then says that EST became the forum in 1990. Generally, I don't like articles that go out of their way to satisfy Godwin's law, and whether Heidigger was a nazi or not seems quite irrelevant to whether or not Landmark is good or bad. It seems to be a wildly loose application of "guilt by someone else's association". Landmark came from Est, est came from heidigger, heidigger was a nazi, tehrefore landmark is a nazi, or at least very bad. I'm not sure how to include this in the article without introducing a wildly biased view. thoughts? FuelWagon 15:11, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The article certainly does not appear to be a 'notable source' even on the subject of Heidigger, much less on Erhard or Landmark. I think the influence of Heidigger is exaggerated anyway - a short quotation from his work is given to illustrate a point in the Communication Course, but he is only one of dozens of thinkers who are quoted somewhere or other in Landmark courses, as well as many dozens more who have had some influence on the underlying ideas. DaveApter 17:02, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I've added a short paragraph to the section under cult, brainwashing, etc, since that seems to be the closest section to talk about content. thoughts? FuelWagon 20:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

featured article?

I think the article is in pretty good shape as far as making sure all claims and criticisms are sourced. I was thinking that maybe we could review the requirements for qualifying for Featured Article status, make sure the article meets those requirements, and then when we think it is ready, nominate the article for Featured Article status. When the Terri Schiavo article was nominated, they wanted all the URL's in footnote format. I'm not sure if that's a hard requirement or not, but it's one thing to look into. I think the content is in good shape, we just may need to do some formatting stuff, and then it would be ready for nomination. Any thoughts? Anyone more familiar with Featured Article requirements? FuelWagon 18:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I think there is a lot more content to go and adding of some pictures before we go for Featured Article status. There is still much controversy from the old archives that we did not put into the current article. We need to go back and source the claims. For content, I would also like to add quantitative participation data and revenue data over time, which we have a available. Numerous pictures could be added. Sm1969 22:26, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I deleted most of the unsourced claims because they seemed to be too generic to find a source. If you want to find a source for stuff, go for it. As for quantitative participation/revenue data, I'm not sure what the point would be. As for pictures, what would you get a picture of? a bunch of people in a room? One thing that I did notice is that there are a lot of statements about what Landmark "is" that do not have sources or URL's. Where did this information come from? When the article states "Landmark says its programs are blah", where did this come from. I'd like to see URL's to the stuff that is already in the article. FuelWagon 16:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Adding tables

How do we add tables to an article?

I would like to add tables for the following:

A) annual revenue and cumulative participation data points B) customer lawsuits (3) (party, issue, resolution) C) outbound lawsuits and retractions

maybe also: D) levels of causality (from highest to lowest) 1) scientific study (rigourously monitored, placebo controlled, double-blind clinical trials) 2) case studies 3) jury findings 4) surveys (non-causal) 5) journalist articles

I really don't think tables are needed for this sort of thing. I think tables are generally discouraged on wikipedia, and I'd personally only use them for reporting raw data in some managable form. I don't see a lot of raw data in the article. I don't get what "annual revenue" will add to the article, but we could probably report the latest (2005) data. I don't think we need to show every year since it founded. There ahven't been enough lawsuits to put in a table, unless there are more lawsuits that arent' mentioned in the article yet. The rest of it, I think, is best presented in narative form, rather than table form. But that's just me. FuelWagon 16:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

We don't yet have a lot of raw data, but we can add probably about five "cumulative participation data points" and "five revenue data points." What these numbers point out, more than anything else, is that the company is growing, despite all its critics.

I would like to have the lawsuits occur in some sort of context, since you would not report lawsuits for the average company. With 850,000 cumulative participants, the rate of KNOWN lawsuits for course operations is 1 in every 425,000. (There may be more we don't know about, but I think not since I have done a lot of reading.) (The sexual harrassment lawsuit was not related to the course itself.)

A few pictures I would add: one of the Landmark Forum from the press kit: 1) http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=26&mid=659&bottom=1787

2) Sister Iris Clarke as a participant in Landmark Education's Assisting Program http://www.ilovepossibility.info/image/landmark_manila/10710.jpg

(We have not yet covered the Assisting Program as a point of controversy.)

3) A GIF graph of the participation data points that we have. Sm1969 16:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

" What these numbers point out, more than anything else, is that the company is growing, despite all its critics." The only problem is that this begins to get into "original research". If the article presents growth in response to landmark criticism, but landmark doesn't actually say something like "see, we're growing even though they criticize us", then for the article to do that is original research. As for lawsuits, I think it is irrelevant to compare lawsuits against landmark with lawsuits by customers of other companies against those other companies. The point is that there is notable critcism against landmark (right or wrong, it doesn't matter, only that there is critcism), and the lawsuits serve as objective, sources for that criticism. As for photos, wikipedia can't use any photo that is not GNU-FDL, this is a new wikipedia policy. So we'd have to get permission from landmark to license their photo under the GNU-FDL. And a gif of participation data points seems irrelevant to me. we can report the latest numbers, in a narative form, but I see no reason to show year-to-year data, which will require yearly updating, and doesn't show much to the reader. FuelWagon 18:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
RESPONSES
1) That is precisely what CEO said, which is in response to criticsm (from the Time Magazine article): Since 1991, approximately 300,000 mostly professional and well-educated seekers have taken the introductory Forum (an estimated 700,000 took Erhard-era seminars). Revenues, which had been averaging $34 million annually, hit $48 million in 1997, with profits approaching 4%. Landmark is becoming a global brand name, with 42 offices in 11 countries, including a well-appointed San Francisco headquarters. Says Rosenberg: "If we were doing a bad job, we wouldn't have the growth that we have." http://www.wernererhard.com/wernererhardtimemagazine.htm The GIF of participation data points is supporting evidence for Rosenberg's statement.
The context of that quote is not necessarily in response to accuastions that Landmark is a cult or whatever, it simply says "If we were doing a bad job", where "bad job" could simply mean bad business model or whatever. I wouldn't feel comfortable seeing this getting twisted to be a response to accuastions of being a cult. And growth is not proof or disproof that something is a cult. In fact, some could argue that growth is proof that it's a cult, acquiring new members using it's cult-like ways. Please reconsider using a growth chart in the article. I see it as irrelevant cheerleading. FuelWagon 19:50, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
The context of the quote is not the "cult" accusation, but rather all of the controversy surrounding Landmark Education (from the "est" barf bag catchers to the price of the courses to the turning participants into recruiters). Veritably everything, at some level, has been criticized by the media. The Rosenberg quote is in response to the controversy in general, which is why I think cumulative participation data showing the growth is absolutely valid.
Here is a full paragraph of controversy from the Time Magazine article:
Critics say Landmark is an elaborate marketing game that relies heavily on volunteers. Says Tom Johnson, an "exit counselor" often summoned by concerned parents to tend to alumni: "They tire your brain; they make you vulnerable." Says critic Liz Sumerlin: "The participants end up becoming recruiters. That's the whole purpose." Psychiatrists who speak on Landmark's behalf dispute these claims. But Sumerlin says a 1993 Forum turned her fiance (now her ex) into a robot. She organized an anti-Landmark hot line and publications clearinghouse. Landmark officials made sounds to sue her.
OK, but if you read the first three paragraphs from this page, there is nothing prior to the Rosenberg quote that is any sort of criticism against landmark. The quote doesn't appear to be in response to criticism of "cult"ness or whatever. It is purely a business struggle-to-success story up until that point. and that's the context that the quote occurs in. FuelWagon 22:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, if you read the article linearly, I can see your interpretation. If you read it holistically, with all the criticism both in the article and in sources elsewhere, Rosenberg is clearly responding to the criticism in general. I don't think anyone has ever held that LE had a bad business model. Indeed, the article itself notes towards the end that "it is one of the greatest success stories in mass marketing."
I can't edit an article about any topic on wikipedia based on "holistic" readings of source material. I see a graph of participation to be reaching. I'd support reporting how many participants they had in the most recent year that the information is available. Adding a graph to "prove" something that no source actually attempts to prove is original research. And I don't see it as useful to a reader. From a logical point of view, it is a non-sequitor or post-hoc or argument-ad-populum or argument-ad-money (I forget the actual term for that last one, but basically, its an argument based on the false notion that successful business is "legitimate" business). Whether or not Landmark is a cult or brainwashing or whatever is independent of how much money they make. In fact, one could argue that a lot of business proves its a cult. The point being that either way, a lot of customers is irrelevant to any charges against landmark about it being a cult or whatever. FuelWagon 23:16, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
The existence of many customers is (in Rosenberg's opinion) an argument for the acceptance of the organization. It's much easier to pin a pejorative label like "cult" on an organization or levy other criticism when few have participated and can provide evidence against such an accusation. I think the reader should draw their own inferences from the numbers. The "holistic" reading is not an attempt to be disingenuous. The author of the article just put it together this way. The Rosenberg quote comes right after the adverse remarks about est and before the paragraph on criticism at the end. Your original take on it was regarding LE being a successful business or not, but that is clearly not what Rosenberg is responding to, for at the end as I quoted above, even the critic notes "it is one of the greatest success stories in mass marketing." In short, no critics have claimed that it is not a successful business. (Better said, you will find zero sourced statements worthy of Wikipedia wherein someone asserts LE is not a successful business.) Rather, they have claimed it is a scam (or a cult or brainwashing or psychologically abusive, and yes, for Wikipedia, we must get exact quotes and sources). In short, I see Rosenberg's participation data point and remarks about growth as response to general criticism--both in the article in the preceding paragraph regarding est and at the end of the article (exit counselors, converting participants to recruiters, tiring the minds of the participants)--and to LE in general. LE's web site even has a paragraph about the controversy. I would rather that participation data points be entered into evidence in the context I assert Rosenberg intended them, and, from there, let the reader evaluate the evidence. Sm1969 23:57, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Then cite the latest participation figures. A table of growth over the years and trying to tie it into Rosenberg's statement and justifying his comment as a response to "general criticism" is too many leaps of logic that it qualifies as original research. You're not getting this from the sources other than through your own "holistic" reading of the material. There is no basis to make this graph-quote-general criticism connection that you're trying to make. do you have a URL for recent (2005 or so) participation numbers? FuelWagon 00:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok, on second thought, I'm not sure I would include participation data points under the Rosenberg quote, but they might well go at the top under the factual section. LE continually releases these into the press. There are two URLs, one for LE's customers in general and one for the Landmark Forum. The general customer counts include (my assumption) participation in the business seminars through LEBD (Landmark Educaiton Business Development).

http://www.landmarkeducation.com/menu.jsp?top=21&mid=80&bottom=124 (More than 800,000 have taken the Landmark Forum.) http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=26&mid=654&bottom=665 (To date, over 850,000 people have participated in Landmark's programs.)

Also, we do have a quote about participation in the SELP: Landmark Education designed the Self Expression and Leadership Program, where participants are empowered to provide leadership in their communities and to create projects that make a difference. To date, over 30,000 community projects have been created from participants in this course. (Same page as last URL.)

2) The lawsuits would not be included at all in most companies in a Wikipedia article. I just wanted to give some idea of the relative frequency with which they occur (for course operations: approximately 1 in 425,000). General Counsel Art Schreiber noted that it was 1 in 350,000 back in 1997 (of whenever it was). (We have a sourced URL for that.)
The frequency is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if companies normally get sued once a month and landmark only got sued once a year. The point is that NPOV policy says to report various points of views of notable sources, and court cases qualify as notable sources in some respects, so we report them. We can also report Landmark's response to a lawsuit or to lawsuits in general if that can be verified. But charting lawsuits and comparing them with other companies is not relevant that I can see. FuelWagon 19:50, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Landmark Education itself noted (by General Counsel Art Schreiber) that only one in 350,000 had filed a lawsuit (Stephanie Ney), so LE's noting of the frequency is, from their perspective, quite valid. The Wikipedia article for Microsoft notes that "Many companies have sued Microsoft over allegations of stolen intellectual property and anticompetitive business practices, and many of these cases have been decided against Microsoft. However, the cases often drag on for years due to appeals and delays initiated by Microsoft, so that by the time a verdict is delivered, the case has long since become irrelevant and the targeted company is no longer a viable competitor."
In the Microsoft Wikipedia article, the writers simply use the word "many." LE's POV in response to legal criticisms clearly uses the frequency of the legal claims as shown in the Art Schreiber quote.
Do you have a URL to the quote? If it is relevant, I can see putting it in narative form into the article. I don't see it justifying revamping the article into tabular form. FuelWagon 22:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
http://www.stelling.nl/landmark/schreib2.htm

Here is the quote: It is inaccurate to state that former Forum participants pressed charges against Landmark Education because of psychological consequences they suffered from The Landmark Forum. Out of more than 350,000 people who have participated in The Landmark Forum around the world, there has been only 1 person who filed a lawsuit. While the article describes the claims in that lawsuit, the writer failed to inform your readers that there was a trial in that lawsuit and after reviewing all of the evidence, the United States District Court rejected Mrs. Ney's claims and ruled that The Forum did not cause her emotional problems. The Court issued its decision in favor of Landmark Education and The Forum and such decision was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals..

This seems to be a bit of a stretch as well. I suppose we can add a quote in the "customer lawsuits" section from Landmark saying out of N customers, they've had only 1 lawsuit. But that shoudl be a short sentence/paragraph at the end of that section. FuelWagon 23:16, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I added a Schreiber quote. [7]. FuelWagon 23:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
3) I will seek LE's permission to make the photo licensed under GNU-FDL.
Cool. There are certain requirements that wikipedia needs to be met to use a photo in wikipedia. I'll see if I can find the page. FuelWagon 19:50, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Try Wikipedia:Image copyright tags FuelWagon 19:56, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
and Wikipedia:Image description page FuelWagon 19:59, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I have requested permission to use the picture from LE. I await their response. Sm1969 00:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Criteria for Links

What criteria are there for including "links" in the "links" section at the bottom of the article? Some links are to sites that have defamatory and discredited allegations. Others are to personal web sites. Can any of these be struck?

sorry for the delayed response. been busy. try Wikipedia:External links. FuelWagon 17:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Move to Werner Erhard page re Stephanie Ney

I believe this is correct, but it was a default judgement because Werner did not appear. When there was a trial, the courts found no physical causality to the program in which she participated (which is the relevant issue for the LE article). You can move this to the Werner Erhard page though and mark it as a default judgement for failure to appear. (On the contrary, in the Stephanie Ney case the court ordered Werner Erhard to pay more that $500,000 in damages for "mental injuries" (Pressman, 1993: 262).)

So very NPOV

This article is so clearly NPOV, with a large portion having been written and/or conveniently edited by someone who is clearly affiliated with Landmark. A lot of it sounds more like an advertisement or justification than an encyclopedia worthy entry

What specifically are you objecting to? Much of what is here today went through an process of getting outside assistance from someone with no affiliation with LE and a very large section of it has now been sourced. NPOV is, perhaps, not what you think it is. NPOV, per the Wikipedia definition, is citing all sources of significant opinion and attributing them. We have sourced Landmark Education's opinion and the opposing opinions in many instances. If you can find better articulations of the opposing opinions, so long as they have a certain level of frequency, you should update them (with referenceable sources). Sm1969 10:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Assertion of rare opinion

I looked at this, too, and decided against including it. The reason to include it is that it is an opposing point of view, both within NPOV guideliness and substantiated. However, if you followed the full Been versus Weed cross defedent Landmark Education case, you will see that Weed's own lawyer (Dr. Grundy) at the sanity hearing testified that the cause was a mental defect (not Landmark Education or the Landmark Advanced Course). Thus, at a civil trial, Weed would have his own lawyer's testimony from the sanity hearing be used against him. The fact that his own laywer and that of the US government would be used against Weed, along with zero instances of 250,000+ customers of the Advanced Course having similar instances make this a theory of such little import that it does not belong in an encyclopedia. If Weed's civil case attorney (Gaylon Hayes) were willing to take the case on contingency, he would simply move ahead. Landmark could always force depositions from around the world--the court would force a trial if it thought it necessary.

        In Dr. Grundy's opinion, Weed's brief psychotic disorder was caused by a mental defect. 
        The exact nature of the defect, however, is unknown.  (Id. at 29, 32)  Dr. Grundy 
        testified that none of the tests he relied upon could predict whether Weed will 
        experience another onset of symptoms.  (Id. at 35)  He also testified that, 
        according to the DSM-IV, recurrence of a brief psychotic disorder is rare.

In this newspaper article, the lawyer for the letter carrier's family says that he withdrew the case (in June 2005) because he plans to refile no more than a year later, adding that Landmark was forcing him to depose witnesses from around the world.

If Gaylon Hayes does, in fact, refile, then I would add that as pending litigation.

Comments re Pedant's latest edit...

Ok, here we go again. Some of the stuff you put in is probably legitimate.

Not sure what you mean by "here we go again", but that "Ok" sounds good. Pedant17 08:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

1) I think the sections you marked "need references" are generally, truly in need of references. There I agree with you.

You seem to have abadoned your former policy of ripping out all such deficiently-referenced material. Leaving such opinions in place - even though the remnants seem to me fairly biased - keeps matters together and accessible. Pedant17 08:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
No, I have left in unsubstantiated things against LE that I know to be true, such as the French prohibition of donated labor which was unsourced. I left it even without sourcing. That's good faith.

2) You appear to be sourcing most items now which is really good.

3) Sourcing is just the beginning.

As a matter of policy, Wikipedia distinguishes three levels (I'll have to find a URL to the official policy page): A) Majority opinions B) Minority, but significant opinions C) Insignificant opinions, which do not belong in an encyclopedia.

I would appreciate an URL pointing to this policy. Pedant17 08:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Here is one of the URL's on "undue weight" in the NPOV policy itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
From Jimbo Wales, September 2003, on the mailing list:
If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.


The operative tests mainly involve 1) testability in some sense and 2) the ease of finding prominent supporters. Your edits are so large I can't stand editing them in one shot. I recently obtained the Pressman book from some wholesaler. It was purchased from the Ramsey County library (wherever that is) by the wholesaler and then sold to me by Amazon. The book undoubtedly had a very low number of copies printed, even with such an inflammatory title.


I understand that Pressman's book went through two editions. As one of the few published books covering the origins of Landmark in some detail, it has appeared in the Wikipedia article for many months now. Pedant17 08:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Then you look at the sources. Again, stuff regarding est belongs on the "est" page.

The difference (if any or if significant) between est and WE&A and Landmark remains a matter of much debate in itself: inevitably overlap and repetition will occur. Pedant17 08:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


Trying to pin two courses on Scientology that Werner did pre-1970 is an insignificant opinion, I assert, for you probably would have grave difficulty finding say three items distinctly and derivationally unique to Scientology and Landmark Education.

See the details of the links (more than "two courses") documented by Pressman and referenced in my recent edits. Pedant17 08:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Make small edits and we'll discuss on a case by case basis regarding their frequency, testability and sourcing. Sm1969

The topic deserves thorough editing. I have no objection to small additions to the Talk page. Pedant17 08:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
This despite another case which did establish (via lawsuit) legal succession from Werner Erhard & Associates to Landmark Education (Pressman, 1993: 261 - 262). I'm looking at 261-262 of Pressman and don't see anything that ties LE as a legal successor. Are you talking about the lease agreement? That was pinned back on Erhard, not LE. You can certainly put this on the "Werner Erhard" web page, but not LE.

Stephanie Ney -- Default judgement; move to Werner Erhard

However, in the Stephanie Ney case the court did order Werner Erhard (in absentia) in a default judgement to pay more that $500,000 in damages for "mental injuries" (Pressman, 1993: 262).)

Again, had Werner Erhard contested this, he would have won. Even your Pressman book notes this. Instead, Werner left the country. You can certainly put this on the Werner Erhard page, but even there you should not that the jury finding of fact was against the "intentional infliction of emotional distress" (the legal tort for mental injuries).

I missed any inference from "my" Pressman that Erhard would have "won". And I've not seen a source for the legal detail apart from what appears in Pressman's book. The finding that participation in a Forum course resulted in a judgement to pay more than half a million US dollars for "mental injuries" seems worthy of note on a page to which Landmark Forum re-directs. - Pedant17 01:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Eileen Barker quote redacted; prior to LE

This also pre-dates Landmark. You can put it on the Werner Erhard web page, but the term "cult" has been found to be "subject to concrete meaning in the field of psychology and, as such, is a triable question of fact, capable of being proven true or false." The 1989 source does not mention Landmark Education because it pre-dates LE. Sm1969 15:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Eileen Barker, emeritus sociologist of religion at the London School of Economic, makes a relevant point on the popular versus the technical conception of what might constitute a cult. Discussing Landmark Education's est predecessor and writing just before the transition to Landmark Education, she mentions "... movements which do not fall under the definition of religion used by the Institute [for the study of American Religion], but which are sometimes called 'cults'. Examples would be est, Primal Therapy or Rebirthing." (Barker, 1989: 149)

Indeed, this quote pre-dates (barely) the formal establishment of what we know today as "Landmark Education", as I suspect my text nakes clear. But I included it less because of the fact that it happened to refer to est than because it gave a succinct account of how popular parlance interprets certain phenomena as cultic. The assertion that in some jurisdiction the term "cult" has aquired special characteristics does not preclude or supplant sociological discussion or common usage. An encyclopedia need not restrict itself to one point of view. - Pedant17 01:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
In this instance, use of the word "cult" is, I am asserting, a violation of Wikipedia policies. When I wrote above that the term "cult" is subject to concrete meaning in the field of psychology, and, as such, is a triable question of fact, I am saying it is not a point of view in other words, but an assertion of fact. This is so for America and for the Netherlands. I suspect it would also be so for other common law countries, but that would have to be tested on a case by case basis. I can see I am going to need to bring in some of the court documents from the case against Rick Ross that make these points.
If we tried to label something a "cult", I can see that your legal reservations might have some merit. But we merely assert that in 1989 Barker stated that some people sometimes called some things "cults". Does the Netherlands have retroactive laws about burning books? - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Good, there does need to be a "past controversy" section and we can show the evolution of the "cult" discourse to its legal repudiation where things stand now, at least in the US and the Netherlands. Barker predates LE and only mentions est, so Barker, in-specific should go to the est page if you really want to put her there.
Barker provides a relatively timeless quote on the use of the pejorative word "cult" in popular speech. Popular speech both predates and post-dates specific legal determinations in courts, and largely (for some reason) ignores such rulings. Consideration of such usage appears ongoingly highly relevant to discussion as to whether and why people label something (like Landmark Education) a "cult". - Pedant17 00:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Samways and Lell sources

I am moving to disqualify both of these sources. Neither one is obtainable--neither the Lell book nor the Samways book--either from the publisher or the aftermarket. I looked on the web site of Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag and could not even find Lell, his book or the ISBN number. The is the same for Samways. You (Pedant) have intentionally qouted things out of context before. Samways further states that she has not done the Landmark Forum.

Wikipedia quotes out-of-print sources from the 19th century at times. The difficulty of obtaining printed works does not disqualify them as sources. The vagaries of publishing may work at cross-purposes to the chronicling of encyclopedic facts.
I have clapped eyes on two separate copies of Samways this week. Have you tried tracking the work in Australia itself?
Where do I go on the web to track things in Australia? I'll purchase it if I can. Are you in Australia, out of curiosity? You are an interesting character, Pedant17.
try http://www.biblio.com/details.php?dcx=50676576&src=frg (I've not visited Australia for many years.) - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I purchased the Samways book for about $30 US. It'll be here in two weeks or less.
They cancelled my order for the Samways book saying that they could not locate it!


As for Lell's book, you'll find it at http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3423360216/qid=1137756046/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/028-0975038-9195714
Well, it's 31.50 euros, almost $40 US or $75 Australian, when the original book was only about 15 DM (when they still had DM in Germany) which would have been around $10 US. That's a 400% appreciation in 7 years. I think this is because of the rarity of finding the book.
You had to get in early... Perhaps the publication effectively removed the need for its own re-publications.
I guess I will get this one as well.
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/tg/detail/offer-listing/-/3423360216/used/ref=sdp_used_b/302-1366299-9121656
Even the sellers on this thing note that it is a "rarity" and no longer available by the publisher. I am moving again to strike this as a reference because: 1) of its rarity, 2) it is in German, 3) the author's self-contradiction and lack of experience in this field and 4) "brainwashing" has been held to be a triable question of fact in the US. This source has too many problems!
1. Rarity of itself does _not_ disqualify a source.
2. The English language Wikipedia prefers a source in the English language to sources in a foreign language. But the Wikipedia Verifiability policy allows for and gives guidelines in handling foreign-language sources in the absence of an English-language equivalent. I know of no English-language equivalent to Lell: a published, extended account of a blow-by-blow Landmark Education Forum and its perceived consequences. Until such a work appears, Lell seems a valuable source.
3.1 Self-contradiction - even if proven - need not disqualify an author: opinions may change over time. If a real self-contradiction does exist, we can highlight it.
3.2 Authorial "lack of experience in this field" (what field?) need not preclude a publisher issuing a work or an encyclopedia referencing it. Observation and research in secondary manifestations both have great importance in analyzing many fields. Lell's first-hand account suggests that he had as much direct experience of the Landmark Forum as any other participant in a single weekend.


4. The use of the term "brainwashing" in a German-language work published outside the United States of America does not preclude discussion of that work or that concept in Wikipedia simply because of some United States legal decision. To suppress such discussion or such references might smack of an Anglo-American bias - or worse. An international encyclopedia such as Wikipedia would do well to overcome such bias rather than editing out the mere mention of such a point of view.
We would need to put in, at a minimum, that "brainwashing" is a question of triable fact capable of being proven true or false. I believe simply that "brainwashing" in the true psychological definition of the word is a class III opinion.
In summary, I see no insuperable problems in referencing and quoting the Lell book pending the publication of a more suitable English-language tome expressing similar points-of-view. Meanwhile we can show boldness in confronting perceived problems. - Pedant17 00:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
My copy, a second edition, has the ISBN 3-423-36021-6 . You might appreciate one of the reviews:
Ich habe am Landmark Forum teilgenommen. Nichts, aber auch rein gar nichts an dem Seminar hat mit Gehirnwäsche zu tun. Dank der Einsichten, die mir durch meine Kursteilnahme ermöglicht wurden, habe ich meine Ehe retten können, meine Beziehung zu meiner Familie verbessert und meine (ohnehin gute) Karriere ausgebaut.
Martin Lell ist anscheinend ein krankhafter Neurotiker, der offensichtlich in psychatrische Behandlung gehört, wenn ihn so eine lehrreiche und zugleich amüsante Erfahrung wie das Forum dermaßen aus der Bahn werfen kann. Dieses Buch ist Geldverschwendung. Wer Fragen zum Forum hat, kann mich gerne kontaktieren.
That particular reviewer shows a rare talent for ignoring the book's contents and attacking its author.
I do not accept that I have intentionally quoted things out of context before. Even if I had, do you have a point?
Yes, I can't verify what you say, so I don't know how to challenge it from the source itself, e.g., the $500k verdict against Werner Erhard for emotional distress. You fail to mention that that is the Ney case, which, went it actually went to trial, was decided by the jury in favor of Landmark Education/Ronald Zeller, both on the emotional distress claim and on the lack of successor liability to LE from WE&A. In other words, Werner Erhard only lost the case by default judgement. Had he contested the suit and done nothing other than contest the suit, he would have won. You left that out and a reader would have made the conclusion that the jury would have found Werner Erhard guilty of emotional distress, and that got stuck in there only to smear LE (in my interpretation).
I certainly gained the impression that the jury implicated Erhard in Ney's emotional distress. I have seen no referenced source which suggests anything else, or that suggests that Erhard's attendance would have necessarily changed anything. Could one regard a half-million dollar award as substantial? - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Pressman states, "A jury than ruled that the Forum leader who conducted Ney's session was not responsible for inflicting emotional distress. But Erhard himself was not off the hook. Because Erhard had never responded to the suit, the judge entered a "default judgement" against him, but waited for the case to finish before announcing Werner Erhard's liability. Werner Erhard was then ordered to pay more than $500,000 in damages for the mental injuries suffered by Stephanie Ney."
A "default judgement" is precisely that: you are served with papers but do not respond to them. You lose by default. Had Werner merely filed a response, he would have had the same jury verdict the jury actually found in the Stephanie Ney case. It was all the same case. Can we definitely put this one behind us now? 69.107.11.58 16:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Thankyou for your attempt to explain the technical term "default judgement". - Pedant17 00:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
You state that "Samways further states that she has not done the Landmark Forum." I have not seen a sourced statement to this effect. But if Samways has made such a statement, it would not surprise me. The journalistic, clinical and academic study of the broad range of phenomena that Samways addresses can certainly profit from detached observation of consequences - Landmark-supporters' oft-repeated emphasis on "actually doing the Landmark Forum" notwithstanding.
- Pedant17 01:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
One of the generalizations I will make about critics of LE--they fairly consistently have a financial self-interest in making the criticism where that is not the case for the supporters. They state things in the most sensational terms and even that sensationalism only gives them a fleeting moment. (Outrageous Betrayal; Protocoll of a Brainwashing; etc.)
I would not agree with your characterization of critics or of supporters here. My use of the word "profit' above carried to my mind no financial implications. - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Martin Lell and brainwashing: self-contradiction

As noted in the hearing, Martin Lell himself did not say that he was brainwashed (or take any actions such as seeking help). For this "expert" to then say that (and conveniently omit that he contradicts himself about brainwashing) makes this an insignficant opinion. Sm1969 15:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

In the introduction to Lell's book, the writer and Diplompsychologin Bärbel Schwertfeger states:

The basic principle of the Forum rests on the three-step model: breaking down, changing, and fixing. This model, with which people can be made compliant step by step, was described by Eduard Schein as early as 1971 in his book Coercive Persuasion. Schein had intensively investigated the brainwashing programs in China in the 50s... It is fascinating how well Martin Lell succeeds in describing the process of his [own] brainwashing. (Lell, 1997: 10 - 11)
Nobody has provided, as far as I've noticed, a reference for the court hearing on the Lell book here. I do not recall having seen any evidence that Martin Lell "did not say that he was brainwashed". The unsourced (and presumably translated) quote from the court case simply records that:
..following completion of The Landmark Forum, he did not see a doctor, was not hospitalized, did not seek or obtain medication, and was not diagnosed by a medical professional as being brainwashed or having any mental problem.
Here's URL from Art Schreiber: http://www.stelling.nl/landmark/schreib1.htm

(a) Landmark Education did not bring legal action to stop the publication of the book. Rather, Landmark Education's action for injunction was to eliminate the use of the word "brainwashing" in the sub-title of the book since such statement was totally false and defamatory. At the Hearing, the Court decided that the term "brainwashing" was a matter of opinion, which I consider to be a highly questionable result. The Court therefore denied Landmark's request for an injunction and the book was allowed to be published with the full sub-title. Landmark Education never intended to stop the publication of the contents of the book.

(1) Mr. Lell was not "brainwashed". As the record at the Hearing indicated, following completion of The Landmark Forum Mr. Lell did not see a doctor; was not hospitalized; did not seek or obtain medication; and was not diagnosed by a medical professional as being brainwashed or having any mental problem. In fact, Mr. Lell did not even say he was brainwashed; apparently his parents, after his speaking with them following The Landmark Forum, stated they thought "he sounded like someone who was brainwashed". Given Mr. Lell was not in fact brainwashed, Landmark Education brought its action to seek the injunction against the use of such word in the sub-title of the book.

(c) In an interview on June 15, 1997 on SWF TV in Germany, Mr. Lell stated that Landmark Education and The Landmark Forum were not a sect or psycho-group and Landmark Education has no connection to Scientology. Sm1969 09:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The fact that Schreiber states that Lell omitted to claim the term "brainwash" does NOT necessarily imply that no brainwashing took place. Schreiber gives here no definitive evidence of non-brainwashing - he merely asserts. - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Schreiber (at the hearing, not the SWF interview) says that Lell did not say he was brainwashed. (It's lack of a statement to the positive, rather than a direct contradiction, but it's strong evidence nonetheless.)
I have responded in a separate section below under the rubric "The alleged non-brainwashing of Martin Lell"
Lell's own published account gives a more nuanced picture: a blunt summary such as "brainwashing" might well seem out of character. His book provides details of how his family nursed him back to a more normal state. Please give verifiable details if Lell "contradicted himself" on the subject of brainwashing.
Shown above. Sm1969 09:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Refuted above. - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
If Lell, plus his mother, plus Bärbel Schwertfeger, plus their common publisher had hatched a conspiracy, their terminology might align better. But they each give their own viewpoint in their own language. I see no contradiction - merely differng points of emphasis.
Even if we were to find contradictions between the accounts and summaries of the parties, in what way would that putative fact make the separate opinion of Bärbel Schwertfeger "insignificant'?

- Pedant17 01:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a matter of the number of supporters overall that assert "brainwashing" that will distinguish class I from class II from class III, and with "brainwashing" we also have the defamation issue.
dtv published the allegations despite a court case to suppress the sub-title: the successful publication makes them significant and quotable. - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Good, put that in the German article on LE. Even the Germans have not done that (last I looked). I'll have to post the Ross court documents which show the line of cases wherein "brainwashing" is a triable question of fact. The proportion of supporters for this "brainwashing" is likely "class III" and not "class II." After that is the defamation issue.

Move to strike rest of Singer's comments

http://www.whyaretheydead.net/misc/Factnet/SINGER.TXT

      Her [Margaret Singer's] credentials,
      however, have been discredited by her own profession: The
      American Psychological Association found her work to lack
      scientific merit.  Several courts have forbidden Singer to
      testify as an "expert witness" because, as one court stated,
      "her coercive persuasion theory did not represent a
      meaningful scientific concept." United States vs Steven
      Fishman.

            The APA formally dismissed Singer's ideas in the 1980s
      after she and her AFF associates had formed a task force
      within the APA on "deceptive and indirect methods of
      persuasion and control".  This task force submitted its
      report to the Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for
      Psychology of the APA.

            The task force's report was rejected by the Board in
      May of 1987.  The APA stated that "In general, the report
      lacks the scientific rigor and evenhanded critical approach
      needed for APA imprimatur." The APA Board, which consulted
      two independent experts in arriving at their conclusion,
      warned the task force members not to imply that the APA in
      any way supported the positions they had put forward.

            Singer is an advisory board member of Cult Awareness
      Network (CAN) and American Family Foundation (AFF), both of
      which rely on her theories to cover their attacks on new
      religions with a veneer of "science." But the overwhelming
      majority of experts and scholars have also found Singer's
      "brainwashing" ideas to be wholly unscientific.  They share
      the view of Professor Harvey Cox, Professor of Divinity at
      Harvard University, that "The term 'brainwashing' has no
      respectable standing in scientific or psychiatric circles,
      and is used almost entirely to describe a process by which
      somebody has arrived at convictions that I do not agree
      with." (John T.  Biermans: The Odyssey of New Religions
      Today).

            Prior to its rejection of Singer's report, the APA had
      already endorsed a position contrary to Singer's "coercive
      persuasion" theory in an amicus brief before the California
      Supreme Court in Molko v. Holy Spirit Association (the
      Unification Church).


This is what I am striking because we now have two data points: 1) Singer's retraction, 2) Singer's repudiation by her own profession and 3) Landmark Education's settling for no money. Clearly, Landmark just wanted to prove a point. Her position is of such a minority that it does not belong in an encyclopedia.

Scioscia (2000) reports:

Singer says she never called it a cult in her book, but simply mentioned it as a controversial New Age training course. In resolution of the suit, Singer gave a sworn statement that the organization is not a cult or sect. She says this doesn't mean she supports Landmark.
"I do not endorse them -- never have," she says. Singer, who is in her 70s, says she can't comment on whether Landmark uses coercive persuasion because "the SOBs have already sued me once."
"I'm afraid to tell you what I really think about them because I'm not covered by any lawyers like I was when I wrote my book."
Singer will say, however, that she would not recommend the group to anyone.
Here we enter into the cult vs non-cult debate of last century - a notable event in itself. See for background Opposition to cults and new religious movements, and note the place of Singer in that context. Singer's very prominence encouraged her political opponents to belittle her, and Landmark Education itself considered her an opponent worth discrediting. Hence her presence in the Landmark Education article and the presence there too of discussion as to what she actually wrote in her book. If Landmark Education considered Singer worth suing and her "retraction" worth quoting, the principles of NPOV alone would justify sourcing Singer's own comments on the matter. More than that, Singer herself had a profile and a reputation which made her non-insignificant and worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. She, like Eileen Barker, has her own article (Margaret Singer) - unlike many other commentators quoted in the Landmark Education article, such as Raymond Fowler, Dan Yankelovich, Steven McCarl and Charles Denison. That in itself suggests that we can accord her views a certain amount of weight in determining whether to quote them.
Her presence in the LE article is because of the suit against her, because she mentioned LE in her book and because she retracted and is (as in the Rick Ross case) now quoted as evidence *against* those who assert that LE is a cult. Now we turn to the question how much of Singer's views do we include? From there, we look at the class I versus class II distinction for how much of her opinions we include (NPOV - undue weight). I'll grant you that we probably should include something that says she does not endorse LE, but the inflammatory SOB comment should be redacted. Fowler as 12-year president of the APA should have his own article. Yankelovich should also have his own article; he's famous in his field. Sm1969 09:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Singer's presence in the Landmark Education article stems from her status as a commentator on cults. Hence the case brought against her by Landmark Education, despite the vagueness of her reference to Landmark Education in Cults in our midst. All else depends on her advocacy. - Perhaps Yankelovich should have his own article in Wikipedia: but despite Wikipedians producing over 900,000 articles so far, nobody has bothered to include him yet. - I suspect that 12 years as APA President, on its own, hardly makes Fowler significant in Wikipedia terms - unless he has other claims to notability. - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
In particular I have an interest in the argument that rejection by her own profession (as per Mark Pope) makes Singer unquoteworthy. The concept of a "profession" (whatever that word means) legislating someone into obscurity seems quite strange to me. Singer worked in psychology and became an advocate of those oppposing cults, an author and a social commentator. What "profession" has jurisdiction over her statements? In what sphere of activity did she attain most prominence?
Suppose, just for a moment, that we do assume that Singer counts primarily as a psychologist, and further suppose that the APA has some sort of right to censure its members' views. The argument then goes:
A professional body has a right to censure views held by a member.
Singer held membership if the APA.
The APA censured some of Singer's views.
Therefore Singer represented a minority within the APA.
Therefore Wikipedia should not include Singer's psychological views
I think I would invoke the Wikipedia NPOV distinction separating viewpoints into three categories: I) majority, II) minority and III) insignificant. The fact that the court rejected her "coercive persuasion" theory based on her peers in psychology rejecting it would be my basis for putting it in the category III (insignificant opinion). The profession is psychology (as she was an adjunct professor of psychology and discredited by the majority of her peers in the APA (American Psychological Association). Sm1969 09:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Courts (shoulkd) have no jurisdiction over academic theories, even majority theories. Rejection of a theory by a governing body of one "profession" does not neccesarily kill a theory either, or even make it less acceptable in wider circles. Any attempt to smear Singer's views as "insignificant" would have (at the least) to review and assess the relevant publications not only in psychology, but in psychotherapy, new religious movements, and "'cult'-watching". - Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
It's not just academic theories. Wikipedia has a policy against defamation. Courts have held that "cult" is a triable quesiton of fact capable of being proven true or false. That's why we don't use that

word. I'll probably need to post the Rick Ross court documents which have an extensive discussion on "cult."

We don't wantonly characterize movements as cults - true. But we can (and should) record that others have categorized certain movements as cults, discussed them as cults and examined their characteristics in the light of the concept of a "cult", and perhaps even concluded that they exhibit "cultishness". Wikipedia policy appropriately warns against overuse of the word "cult", but it cannot make an encyclopedia unencyclopedic by banning the use of the word "cult" in such discussions of recorded opinion. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_that_should_not_be_used_in_wikipedia_articles#Cult.2C_sect

says: "don't say "X is a cult", say "so and so has called X a 'cult' because...". - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


Let's apply this paradigm to a more clear-cut, recognized profession:
A professional body has the right to censure views held by a member.
Martin Luther held membership of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church censured some of Luther's views.
Therefore Luther represented a minority within the Roman Catholic Church.
Therefore Wikipedia should not include Luther's religious views.
This is precisely the issue. When Luther first posted his views (1515 or whenever it was), it was class III, then it moved to class II and then to class I (arguably or nearly so). Things can also go the other direction (such as the common sense notion that the earth is flat), from I to II to III.
Note though how the general acceptance of Luther's views differs from the acceptance of his views by "professional" bodies. The Roman Catholic Chuch long continued to regard Lutheranism as unacceptable within its own professional ambit. Lutherans eventually founded their own "professional" networks to aid in the validation of their own views. One cannot neccessarily equate ruling by a single "professional" body with overall acceptibility of a point of view as "mainstream" or "minority". - Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
If, hypothetically, we were writing an article about the flatness of the earth in the 15th century, then we would write about the believed dangers of going over the edge. At some point, the notion of a round earth would be worthy of mentioning and would eventually become a class I view. Sm1969 09:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I submit the article Flat Earth. It covers various historical phases, and rightly so, as encyclopedic information. In the same way, Singer's credibility may wax and wane, but Wikipedia can put her stated views (and those opposing them) in their historical contexts.
Yes, but this whole article is a historical account of what is now a minority position and every reader knows that. If you would like to create a "past controversy on LE" article and put that elsewhere, you are analogously welcome to do that. 69.107.11.58 17:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia POV policy might frown on such a case of content forking -- in any case the main article would need to summarize and cross-reference any such secondary article. - Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Or let's try a fictional variation:
A professional body has the right to censure views held by a member.
Hilary Clinton held membership of the legal profession.
The legal profession may censure some of Hilary Clinton's views.
In that case, Hilary Clinton would represent a minority within the legal profession.
Therefore Wikipedia would have to suppress Hilary Clinton's views - at least on matters of law, if not on matters of politics (if we can separate the two...)
It's a matter of both the number of adherents and Jimbo's operative test. However, if we are writing an encyclopedia article about Hilary Clinton herself, then we do have to quote her views, just as we use LE marketing material for LE's POV on matters. Furthermore, if Hilary Clinton is such an insignificant figure, then we have to omit her from the encyclopedia entirely, and there is significant discussion about what articles should be struck from Wikipedia. Sm1969 09:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I suspect the number of "adherents" or supporters has little relevance compared with the proportions. - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, proportions are the issue, though I think if you were to ask Jimbo that certain individuals are of such strength in their viewpoints that they (and maybe a few others) would change things quickly. For example, Einstein had this power in later in his life where he had a good track record of thinking outside the box because numerous prior predictions were subsequently confirmed by experiment.
Given the problems of this approach - determining the scope of "professional" jurisdiction, the boundaries of "professional" membership, the questionable sizes of majorities and minorities in the political in-fighting of "professional" bodies, and the leap to applying various "professional" judgements to Wikipedia - I do not believe that Wikipedia should adopt a blanket policy of suppressing the views of those censured by professional bodies. Or does such a policy exist?
It's a function of the number of supporters (sourced and quantified if we can) and the testability of claims. The policies on defamation (e.g., cult) and original research may also come into play. We have to argue it out on a case-by-case basis. Sm1969 09:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Have you a policy link on the matter of "number of supporters"? I submit that we can test very little of the Landmark Education article. Policies on commercialism seem a lot more important in this matter. - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
We can test a few things: the frequency and results of lawsuits, the number of customers, the customer surveys, the absence of certain things with respect to the cumulative number of customers, etc. 69.107.11.58 17:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
1. The frequency (and results) of lawsuits, while sometimes well-documented and occasionally of interest in themselves, do not necessarily give any good guide to opinions or to public acceptance.
2. The number of customers damns Landmark Education with very slow growth and meager acceptance.
Not at all. There are many businesses with fewer than 150,000 customers per year.
Such businesses may not have expressed global ambitions and may lack the characteristics of spreading like a religion rather than like (say) a retailer. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
3. The customer surveys as quoted by Landmark Education remain of very dubious merit in the absence of full disclosure of methodology.
Maybe, but it's also clear that most customers are happy with the services.
Landmark Education generates some initial enthusiasm, sure. The customer surveys do not show whether that enthusiasm lasts. The statistics of the numbers of people taking Landmark Education courses suggest that the enthusiasm does not always translate into growth. Given the lack of full disclosure about the methodology of the customer surveys, those surveys might appear at variance with actual impacts. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
4. "Absence of certain things" provides a very poor argument for an assertion of support.
- Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
You also suggest (without providing references) that Landmark Education settled in its case against Singer "for no money". Please explain why this detail in any way invalidates the importance of Singer's stated views.
- Pedant17 01:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Because Landmark Education's suit was purely on academic terms. There is a quote from LE somewhere that says "our [LE's] intention was always to educate Margaret Singer who chose not to do the Landmark Forum." If LE were some bad organization out to get her, they would have insisted on financial penalties. You yourself put in the "financial strapped" quote about Margaret Singer a while ago which I attacked as a conclusion. Sm1969 09:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Landmark Education's intention has no bearing that I can see on the importance of Singer's views. Despite the result of the court case, she evidently continued to harbor doubts about Landmark Education. That counters Landmark Education's POV, which would otherwise skew the issue. - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
We can certainly add her POV that she did not endorse LE, but you should probably also add the notes that her opinion on "coercive persuasion" were Class III or Class II at best.

Re Scientology

Investigations into the background in which Landmark Education originated have documented links at that stage to Scientology (Pressman, 1993: 25-31).

Even here, most of the 25-31 is about Hubbard and Erhard. Can you name three practices from Scientology that are adopted from Scientology into Landmark Education anywhere that are unique to Scientology? That's why I assert this is a rare opinion, not worthy of an encyclopedia. Sm1969 16:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

You state that most of Pressman's pages 25 to 31 relate to Hubbard and Erhard. Do you suggest that this in some way invalidates the point made about connections between Landmark Education's background and the Church of Scientology? - It would not take a lot of " original research" to highlight influences (language, practices, ideas, attitudes) from Scientology on est and its successors. - Pedant17 01:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I do suggest that it invalidates the conclusions about LE and Scientology; we would have to find "Wikipedia-worthy" notable sources (journal articles, books, court cases) that show us what these similarities are and how they directly stem from Scientology. It would have to be at a class II or class I level (defined above according to Wikipedia policy). Now, name them and show me that they are not from: Mind Dynamics, Eric Hoffer, Heidegger, Zen (Alan Watts), cognitive neuroscience, linguistics or whatever else?
You will need to explain in a lot more detail why you regard Pressman's book as not "Wikipedia-worthy". - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
It's not the Wikipedia-worthiness of the book, but both 1) nothing that he asserts came from Scientology into LE and secondarily 2) the proportion of supporters. Then if we got such adopted items, people would have to show that they came from Scientology and not elsewhere and that they exist in LE at some time since 1991. Yes, I am saying it would take a lot of original research to make these conclusions and that is not a Class I or Class II point of view. Since you have been studying this for so many years, tell me some of them? You can definitely put some of this on the Werner Erhard page, and maybe est (but even there it should have counterpoints).
If you do not contest the Wikipedia-worthiness of Pressman's book, and since he provides detailed accounts of the background of Landmark and est's long-standing relationship with Scientology, I see no objection to the cautiously-worded statement on Scientology, which flags that link and avoids pro tem the need for your extensive prescription of an original research program. The link to Scientology appears a lot better established than putative links to Socrates or Hoffer. - Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Pressman's book is probably Wikipedia-worthy, but there is little in there on Landmark Education. Again, name the three things from Scientology that uniquely showed up in Landmark Education and show me how I can rule out something else as being the source of these three items? You have studied LE for several years, so it should be easy for you to name them.
We both appear to accept Pressman's views as Wikipedia-worthy. I see no advantage at this juncture of getting side-tracked into Wikipedia-unworthy "original research". - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Redacting intentional inflammatory remarks lacking counterpoint

===============================

I took this out, because, though referenced, Rick Ross fails to post Landmark Education's response to the complaint, even though he has access to it. David Grill was not prosecuted for any crime and if he were, Rick Ross surely would have included the prosecution's statements and convictions. "with a foreign object and anally." (text of complaint)

Your point that "with a foreign object and anally" is inflammatory is fair enough. However, I replace the link to the complaint. While I do not know all of Landmark's responses were to the complaint, I do know one, and it is spelled out in the article: Landmark settled. Sm1969 07:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC) There can be many reasons for settling, all of which center on return on investment, i.e., that LE does not want to take the expense (or risk of a trial).


I don't see why a lack of criminal prosecution is a persuasive reason to take down the link. The Dallas County District Attorney can have many reasons for not prosecuting a crime - only one of which is that the crime did not happen.

The whole article is rather tangential because it does not concern itself with course operations. In no other article on a comparable company of X employees with Y revenue and Z customers would we have a legal case on sexual harrassment. LE really only got pulled in on this for lacking a sexual harrassment policy at the time. All the other cases are about defamation or about alleged adverse effects of the courses themselves, all of which are fairly unique to LE. 07:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, Tracy Neff and her lawyer both subjected themseleves to possible civil liability if this complaint were untrue.

That's disingenuous at best. If every complaint were true, there would be no need for a trial. It would have to be wholly frivolous. Sm1969 07:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, her lawyer subjected herself to disbarment and loss of her livelihood if the complaint were untrue. See malicious prosecution. These facts, and the fact that Landmark settled instead of fought the complaint are strong indicators of reliability. This warrants placing a link to the complaint.

I disagree with that on two grounds: 1) the tangential nature of the case within the scope of all the other cases discussed herein and 2) settling can simply be for return on investment (lack of desire to go through the expenses of litigation).

Moreover, there is no harm to the neutrality of the article in placing a link. The text of the article remains completely neutral. The text states Neff alleged sexual assault, and that Landmark settled. This is undeniably true. Those who follow the link know that they are leaving a neutral encyclopedia and going to a primary source from a non-netural party. They are free to weigh the credibility of that source, using their own judgment. Requiring a link to a specific response by Landmark when none is available needlessy denies readers access to relevant information. More importantly, it insults their intelligence.

I will, however, search for a specific response and post it if found.

I would only move to strike it on grounds that it is not relevant to A) the defamation cases or B) the alleged effects of the courses. For example, would you report on a breach of contract case LE was involved in? How about if an employee ran a stoplight? How do you decide which LE cases are reported on? Sm1969 07:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I would include any lawsuits against Landmark that tend to support the claims of its detractors. The problem many Landmark detractors (and there are many such people) see with Landmark is that its higher-ups abuse lower level members. The allegations of this lawsuit are consistent with that view. It is significant that a lawsuit was required before Landmark adopted a policy to prevent sexual harrassment. An organization that does not abuse its members might never had such a lawsuit or might have such a policy before a lawsuit. Please don't misunderstand: I do not think one settled lawsuit is conclusive proof an organization is actually abusive to its members. It does point in that direction though.
I don't think it is common public discourse (journal articles, magazine articles) about higher ups abusing the lower level employees. It might be in alt.fan.landmark, but that is not a valid source for an encyclopedia. I think you need to compare against many companies and the history of sexual harrassment lawsuits in the United States if you are to compare Landmark Education versus any other company, particularly for 1997 (the year of the allegations). Had LE had the sexual harrassment policy in place, they would (could) not have been sued for what happened off-premises. Sm1969
Really, descriptions of Landmark by people with first hand knowledge of it is not a valid source of information? It is not common public discourse that Landmark abuses people? Why again is Landmark controversial then? I'm sorry, but it seems you are setting up the rules to exclude negative information about Landmark rather than setting up the rules to adequately present both sides of the controversy.
Which sources of "first hand knowledge" are you using? How are you defining "abuse" such that it is testable? Of the 850,000 customers, there are zero verdicts that affirm that conclusion. Please read the NPOV guidelines and the citations of sources. I have criticized Pedant17 for his criticisms of est (its practices) and trying to tie them to Landmark Education. The Wikipedia citations of sources policies specifically bar newsgroups as sources of information. I have left in things that are negative about LE on a case-by-case basis, such as the French prohibition of donated labor, which, though not sourced, I know to be accurate. To answer your question, Landmark is controversial for a number of reasons: A) some of the marketing practices (extensive reliance on word of mouth), B) the existence of lawsuits asserting adverse effects of the courses, C) the extensive use of donated labor, including the French prohibition of such labor, D) Werner Erhard (his reputation and history), E) the philosophical assertions and somewhat its derivation. If you look at those things, they are more frequently cited about Landmark Education in journalist articles. Use of the word "abuse" per se is not something I have seen that frequently. More specifically, we got on to this "abuse" discussion from your statement that the "higher ups abuse the lower level employees" which is a very definite statement. I'm not sure how many employees LE has these days (500 to 1,000 I'd guess), but I am unaware of really any journal articles or Wikipedia-compliant sources that say those 500 to 1,000 people are "abused."
The best statistical data we have with any third-party verification is that 94% find it to be well worth the time and money.
Look at those articles criticizing extensive use of volunteer labor. Is the real concern there volunteer labor per se, or how the volunteer laborers are treated? Compare Landmark to Habitat for Humanity. Habitat religiously indoctrinates an extensive groups of volunteers to do back breaking labor without controversy. How is that Landmark, an ostensibly secular organization, can be so controversial when all it does is have volunteers do white collar work common to most Americans? A fair answer to that question will show why the Neff lawsuit is salient to common criticisms of Landmark.
Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit, 501c3. What is really unique about LE is that the donated labor is for a FOR PROFIT non-public corporation. The "for profit" nature for it is really unique. The work they are doing is also selling, in good part, Landmark Education's courses to other people. Those two items are my initial reaction to your question, and both of them are totally unique to LE.
Also, your comment that Landmark could not have been sued if it had a sexual harasment policy seems very misleading to me. You make it sound like Landmark, but for a minor technicality of not having a sexual harassment policy, could not have been sued for an off-premisies incident. The lack of a sexual harrassment policy is not a sufficient reason to hold a company liable for the sexual assault of its employees. The company must have acted so negligently in supervising its employee that if fell below the standard of care any reasoanble employer would have provided. If it were shown at trial that Landmark had no reason to expect Grill would sexually assault Neff, it could not be held liable for his alleged sexual assault, even if it had no sexual harrasment policy. See Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998) (holding that "proof that an employer had promulgated an antiharassment policy with complaint procedure is not necessary in every instance as a matter of law" to raise a defense to a sexual harrassment suit).
That's right, but the lack of it seriously harmed them. The suit does not allege who, at Landmark, was aware of Grill's alleged conduct. LE is a distributed organization, so Grill's manager was hundreds if not thousands of miles away. The "who was aware at Landmark" is a triable question of fact and very relevant to LE's liability. The lack of the policy exacerbates things. There are no further allegations of anything else like this (both civil and, in fact, criminal) in nature in its 15 year history.
We're still back to the larger context for this complaint: a) sexual harrassment/assault in this company versus others and b) sexual harrassment as evidence of mistreatment of volunteers. I think b) is your complaint/context and a) is mine. Are we in agreement that our contexts differ? Sm1969 06:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Your attempt to minimize the wrong Landmark allegedly committed to be the failure to put a piece of paper entitled "Sexual Harassment Policy" in a drawer falls flat. The allegations are much more serious.
It is both the piece of paper and the putting into practice that piece of paper, not just the piece of paper, which, by itself, gives little protection. Landmark has done both (paper and practice) quite rigorously and ongoingly since 1997 to a degree far more exemplary than just about any other company I know of. Sm1969 06:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
The validity of your 94% figure is a debate for another day.
It sure is, but it is some of the rare large-scale quantitative data we have. Sm1969 06:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

=========

I revised the entry to make it clear what is being quoted. The quotes are accurate, and in context.

This is not inflammatory in that it accurately reflects the complaint. The purpose here is to reflect complaints against Landmark.

The fact that the alleged circumstances were, as the plaintiff herself indicates, outrageous is not a reason to shield the public from the fact that Landmark was sued for its alleged negligence leading to this allegedly outrageous result.

And I took it out again, on the grounds that this degree of prurient detail doesn;t enhance the article, especially since it's only an allegation and was never formally corroborated by a conviction. In my view it violates this provision of the NPOV policy:
* Sensationalism, which is bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary. This includes the practice whereby exceptional news may be overemphasized, distorted or fabricated...

DaveApter 10:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Landmark Education <-> Werner Erhard on the web

This is a rather obscure bit of research. It is substantiated, but probably not meeting the thresshold requirements of NPOV (rare opinions that are of such insignificance that they do not belong in an encyclopedia). For now, the only part I will redact is the conclusion (which is definitely original research) that some critics use the web site registrations to question the relationship between LE and Werner Erhard. I may redact more later on the grounds above.

Rick Ross Suit

The current description of the Rick Ross suit only tells Landmark's side of the story. Also, it contains too much trivial information. It tells us when Landmark moved to dismiss its suit and also when that motion succeeded. Further, it has a lot of legal jargon. Therefore, I propose the following revision (with links to be inserted later). I welcome any suggestions for improving it before I post it.


"In June 2004, Landmark Education filed a $1 million lawsuit against the Rick A. Ross Institute, claiming that comments on an online bulletin board falsely disparaged Landmark Education. According to Landmark’s expert witness, forensic linguist Dr. Gerald McMenamin, Rick Ross authored many of the disparaging statements that were presented as anonymous third-party postings.

In December 2005, after a New Jersey court decided that online bulletin board operators cannot be liable for third-party postings (Donato v. Moldow), Landmark Education withdrew its suit against the Rick Ross Institute. Landmark Education claims it withdrew the suit because the Donato decision barred its suit. (Landmark Press Release)

Noting that the Donato decision only affected a small portion of its suit, Rick Ross claims Landmark Education withdrew the suit because it feared further discovery of its own records. Rick Ross claims that Landmark’s motivation for the suit was to discover the names of anonymous posters and then sue them. (Rick Ross Press Release)."

I should actually post the complaint and the response of Rick Ross along with the Schreiber declaration. Landmark had seven causes of action, most of which centered on showing the message boards were factually false and defamatory. The rest of the case was showing why (Rick Ross' own financial gain); his message boards and visitor comments, through, were the most egregious and durative. The Donato decision goes further and immunized the defendant even if the defendant harbored actual malice against the plaintiff (as in Donato versus Moldow). In his initial defense, Rick Ross did not assert the Communications Decency Act 230. After Donato, he did. I think that point needs to be mentioned. Thus, there are four key phases in the case: A) filing, B) Donato and amedment of the defense and C) request to withdraw and D) successful withdrawal. Sm1969 06:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Further significance of Donato is that the defendent could not be held liable even with actual malice and editing the messages and selecting which messages to post. Thus, many assert that Rick Ross suppresses rebuttals and favorable comments to LE. Indeed, LE would have had no cause of action had he not suppressed rebuttals. The significance of Donato is that it extended the immunity under CDA 230 immunity beyond just pass through to a scenario where the owner had full control over content. That needs to be said somehow.
I would be very interested to see the complaint and response. I see why more should be said about Rick Ross suppressing posts. I will try to think of a concise way to say this.

Ney Lawsuit

The article formerly stated a jury had found Landmark did not cause Ney's injuries. None of the cited references supports this. Moreover, the appeals court decision says the emotional injury claim was dismissed on summary judgment. Summary judgment means a judge dismissed a claim without giving it to the jury. Thus, not only is the article's former claim not supported by any authority, the appeals court decision is directly contrary.

The URL below, infringed from the Washington Post, clearly shows there was a jury trial. All the evidence from the jury trial indicates that the findings of fact with respect to whatever torts were alleged were in favor of Ron Zeller/Landmark. Somewhere, there were triable questions of fact as the trial lasted three days.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~anco/mental/randr/robhow.htm

The article also formerly stated that the appeals court affirmed a finding that Landmark did not cause Ney's injuries. That is also misleading. Here is the appellate court's discussion of causation:

Although none of Ney's “physical” symptoms have been disputed, they cannot overcome Virginia's test for negligent infliction of emotional distress. Moreover, to the extent that Ney's argument is that the Forum, as a “psychotherapy” exercise, caused her injury through medical malpractice, the argument is undeveloped. While Ney has characterized her complaint as stating a cause of action for “effectively practicing psychotherapy without credentials or training,” she nowhere has demonstrated how the claim should be considered. To the extent that her claim for “professional negligence” is legitimate, it only concerns the standard of care. Causation has not yet been shown and Ney still may not recover because her injuries are not cognizable under Virginia law. Similarly, although perhaps her participation in the Forum might have led in part to her psychotic reaction, even if that nexus had been established, Ney did not produce sufficient proof to recover under Virginia law.

The only interpretation I can see that makes sense is that the court of appeals found (1) Ney had not shown Landmark's "professional negligence" had caused her injuries, but (2) her participation in the Forum "might have led in part" to her psychotic reaction. The previous language that the appeals court found the Landmark Forum as an absolute matter did not cause Ney's injuries is inconsistent with the court's own language.

The absolute matter is too strong, you are right, but we have to let the jury decide the facts. There was prior language in this case that the basis for the law in Virginia (as in most states) requires proof of some physical causality because fraudulent claims can be difficult to detect to recover under emotional distress. That got edited out through Wikipedia and, in my opinion, should be reinserted.

I have not been able to verify the accuracy of Landmark's statement that the district court found no causation, but I have left that in.

The finding is merely upholding the trial court's findings of fact through the jury and giving its explanation for why the law is that way that it is (legislative intent and rationale).
On the other topic, did you find LE's response to Neff's complaint (or was it settled before response)?
I am still working on Neff.
"Physical causality . . . should be reinserted." I have in there that the appeals court affirmed because Virginia law requires physical harm. In my view, I don't think I minimized anything important. Perhaps you should add whatever you think is missing, because I don't see what is.
The Jury - From the appellate opinion, it appears there was a jury trial on whether Landmark had successor liability for the default judgment against Erhard and W.E. and Associaates, which ended with a directed verdict. This explains why there was a jury trial, but no resolution by the jury on whether the Forum caused emotional distress.
This is clearly not the only question that went to the jury if you look at the Washington Post article. Sm1969 16:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
"The finding is merely upholding the trial court's findings of fact through the jury." I am sure this is not the explanation. A summary judgment order, by definition, means the judge did not give the issue to the jury. I find it extremely unlikely the 4th Circuit used the term summary judgment incorrectly. If the appellate court was upholding the trial court's finding of fact (of lack of causation) through the jury, as you suggest, its opinion would have mentioned that the jury, through a special interoggatory (it is not standard practice for a jury to make specific findings like lack of causation), found lack of causation, and then reviewed the jury's finding for the sufficiency of the evidence. It did not do this.
Here's the quote from the Washington Post. It's clear that the triable questions for the jury were beyond just successor liability. Sm1969
Three days after attending the Forum, according to testimony, Ney suffered a breakdown and was committed to a psychiatric institute in Montgomery County. She was held there for two weeks, at times heavily drugged and strapped to a bed to prevent her from harming herself.
Ney's testimony came on the first day of trial in her $ 2 million civil suit against Landmark Education Corp., which sponsored the Forum, and Ron Zeller, the man who led her weekend session in September 1989.
Ney alleges that Landmark, based in San Francisco with 21 offices scattered across the United States, recklessly employed sophisticated psychological techniques that it knew could endanger the well-being of its participants, in part because group leaders had no training.
You are right the Washington Post reported the jury heard testimony that you wouldn't expect in a successor liability trial. It might have come in just for background purposes to explain the default judgment (I admit this is speculation). For whatever reason the jury heard this evidence, the fact remains that no source says the jury decided there was a lack of causation. At best, we can say the jury heard evidence that Landmark caused Ney's problems, but it remains unclear if the jury decided Ney's claims were legitimate.
I think now it is clear: default judgement (pre-trail for a "no show"), summary judgement (pre-trail for an imbalance of evidence), directed verdict (post-trial, but before going to the jury). I think the judge in the trial court allowed Stephanie Ney's claims to be made, but, before giving it to the jury, decided that she showed no physical event causing her emotional injuries (which would be necessary to recover under Virginia law and that of many other states). Some things were resolved at each level, but it does not appear that the jury ever had to speak a verdict on anything; successor liability became a moot issue. If so, this is even MORE FAVORABLE to LE than when we started. Sm1969 02:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, the 4th Circuit opinion states that some claims were dismissed on the pleadings, some on summary judgment, and some on a directed verdict. Because the opinion specifically distinguished between various procedural postures, it is more unlikely still the 4th Circuit used the term summary judgment incorrectly than it would be if it had not used terms for different procedural postures.
So there are two points here: (1) There is still no source that says a jury found no causation. (2) The appellate opinion specifically says the issue did not go to jury.
Again, see above, LE's case was so strong the judge decided it and the appeals court upheld that decision! That comports well with 800,000+ customers and zero such verdicts!
In my view, the current language is balanced. We have Landmark's claim that the district court (not the jury, incidentally) found lack of cuasation, and we have the Fourth Circuit view that causation was possible.
Causation, by its very definition in Virginia law (and most other states in this context) means physical causation first. No one has ever shown that or even made that claim (notwithstanding Neff in a completely different context). Given that we have now had 800,000+ customers of the Landmark Forum, it is very misleading to say that causation (in the physical sense) is possible. Sm1969 06:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that we can not say the Fourth Circuit said Landmark may have caused Ney any physical injuries. The post does not say that. It says Landmark may have caused Ney's psychotic reaction. I don't think, as currently written, the article implies otherwise. If you disagree, I suggest you insert language saying the Fourth Circuit did not believe Landmark caused Ney any physical injuries. I would not object to that.
So may have all of the intervening events caused her psychotic reaction, and that is what LE argued.
In my opinion, veritably everything about this case is favorable to LE. Sm1969 02:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: Neff

All I can find about the case is the Phoenix New Times article. We could use that source to add in something like "Neff's lawyer said the settlement compensated her for her injuries. Art Schreiber, general counsel for Landmark, says the settlement was not substantial." Would you be happy with this? Schreiber's comment that the award was not substantial is about as close as you can get to saying Landmark thought the suit was frivilous without actually saying it. Article

You know my position on Neff. There is nothing unique to LE about it and the case should only be mentioned tangentially.

You said:

Some things were resolved at each level, but it does not appear that the jury ever had to speak a verdict on anything; successor liability became a moot issue. If so, this is even MORE FAVORABLE to LE than when we started. Sm1969 02:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the jury never had to speak to anything. If you think what we know now is more favorable than when we started, I am happy for you.

You said:

So may have all of the intervening events caused her psychotic reaction, and that is what LE argued.

I agree. As the quoted text from the court of appeals said, to paraphrase, the Forum may have caused in part her psychotic reaction.

You said:

In my opinion, veritably everything about this case is favorable to LE.

Just about - except for the 4th Circuit saying the Forum might have caused a psychotic reaction. ODB

I struck the sentence on successor liabilty. In this part of the article, the only pertinent part of the case is whether Landmark caused a psychotic reaction. That is why the suit is included in this list. The successor liability is related only to the default judgment, which isn't otherwise discussed.

Successor liability is relevant to the Werner Erhard discussion. That part, quite rightly, talks about the successor liability aspect of the Ney case. There is no need to repeat it here. ODB

Further comments on Pedant17's repeated revisions

Time and again you have come back to this article and made the same or similar sets of widespread edits. Although claiming that your edits restore a NPOV, I would say that they consistently have a thrust and an intention of portraying Landmark in the worst possible light, often using subtly disparaging sentence constructions and drawing in questionable factual assertions and marginal opinions from many dubious sources.

One small example of your persistent attempts to compromise the neutrality of the article is your repeated re-naming of the section 'Generally Critical Opinions of Landmark Education' to 'Varied Opinions of Landmark Education'. Why would you want to do that, except to mislead readers into thinking that a set of references which are in fact consistently negative (and in most cases anonymous, ill-informed, unsourced, and/or deliberately malicious) might represent a broad spectrum of opinion?

Leaving aside any inflammatory or ad hominempoints: the section sometimes labelled "Generally Critical Opinions" contains links to trenchant defenses of Landmark Education as well as links to doubters and detractors and links to sites which attempt, however vainly, to provide room for balanced or mixed views. A previous schema which divided sources into three - pro, anti and mixed - seemed to difficult to maintain consistently. - Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Your edits are focussed on making the maximum exposure of every incident, rumour or opinion which casts Landmark in a bad light, and casting doubt on any statement which supports it. Although you claim to have made some sort of extented study of Landmark Education, you have repeatedly refused invitations on this discussion page to share the nature of your experiences, or declare your own opinions on the subject. You have never claimed to have actually taken any of Landmark's courses, and nothing you say suggests that you have any first-hand experience of them. Clearly you have read widely, but you show a strong disposition to take all negative sources at face value whilst holding instinctive reservations about anything supportive, however respected the source.

The impression that you seem to be keen for the article to convey is that there is serious doubt on the question of whether Landmark courses deliver useful results, and significant evidence that various forms of harm or exploitation occur. Both of these opinons are in fact held by some commentators, and it is therefore appropriate to report the fact. However the coverage already given to these minority views is vastly out of proportion to the number of people holding them, their credentials, and the quality of the research done to support them.

The opinion surveys that have been carried out conclude that well over 90% of participants report dramatic tangible improvements in their lives resulting from Landmark's courses and satisfaction with the content, the conduct and the value. I have no hesitation in taking these figures as genuine and representative because they concur entirely with my own subjective assessments of the response of customers to courses that I have taken, or attended as a guest, or assisted on. You however, want to insert qualifying phrases which cast doubt on the reliability of these surveys - but without giving any indication of what your own estimates might be, or what is your evidence for believing the surveys to be flawed.

In other words the opinions break down as follows: Out of around 850,000 customers, there are probably about 800,000 who are highly satisfied; on the other hand there are about half a dozen who have publicly and accountably gone on the record claiming to have been damaged in some way (and in none of those cases has the accusation been upheld). To add to that there perhaps are a few hundred dissatisfied customers complaining (usually anonymously) on internet message boards (quite frequently admitting, apparently with pride, that they did not do the course in full, or did not do the assignments, or did not keep the promises they made as a condition of their participation). Then there are a few hundred more who have not done any courses but turn out critical reviews based on hearsay, or on an adverse reaction to an acquaintance who did do one. And finally there are the "cult experts", none of whom have bothered to find out at first hand what actually goes on, but are quite happy to hand out their defamatory "expert opinions" on the basis of hearsay and speculation, or to give widespead publicity to selectively gathered slanderous allegations by others whilst hiding behind disclaimers.

Finally there is the extended coverage given to the Neff case above and in the article. Why is this relevant for inclusion at all? If any other company which had been in business for over 14 years, had had 850,000 customers, and had employed over 6,000 staff members over the years, had one single instance where a customer or employee had accused a manager of sexual assault (and one not even substantiated by a conviction), would that merit inclusion in an encyclopedia entry on the company? The only point of including it is if the accusation is being made that LE condones such behaviour, or at least is cavalier in respect of it. Is anyone seriously making any such sugggestion? DaveApter 13:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Well said! I feel we are going around in circles with Pedant17 on this. Sm1969 16:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I am the person who has been making changes recently, mostly to stuff about lawsuits. I am not Pedant 17. If the some of your criticism relates to me, I want to make clear that Pedant is not responsible for the recent changes. I will sign all future discussions as "ODB" to prevent further confusion.
I agree we are going around on circles with Neff - so at least we have some common ground! I want to emphasize two things about Neff: (1) the lawsuit does allege Landmark was at least "cavalier" (i.e. "negligent") about sexual assault - so yes, that accusation is being made; (2) sexual harassment suits may not be all that relevant to an entry about a company that manufactures paper clips, but it is relevant to an entry about a company "dramatic tangible improvements" in over 90% of its customers in areas like personal and business relationships - if the Landmark tech worked, it should have been able to avoid that suit.
You can have dramatic improvement without it being 100%. Neff is unique in that she is 1 in 800,000+ to make these allegations. The "if the LE tech worked, it should have been able to avoid that suit" argument is seriously specious! I think user DaveApter is not faulting you for Pedant. DaveApter and I have both dealt with Pedant for a long time now. Every three weeks or so, he comes through and makes serious edits that frequently violate many policies and then we spend a lot of time cleaning it up. Sm1969 04:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
[BTW - Three sentences hardly seems like "extended coverage" to me.]
I personally agree with use of the "Generally Critical Opinions of Landmark" heading. I urge Pedant to accept it.
I disagree with a suggestion that the tone of this article (as a general matter) is subtly skewed against Landmark. I think it is the oppossite. I express no opinion on Pedant's changes specificaly because I don't know what Pedant wrote or whether anything egrigious by him has been taken out.
You criticize Pedant in describing the surveys as follows: "You however, want to insert qualifying phrases which cast doubt on the reliability of these surveys - but without giving any indication of what your own estimates might be, or what is your evidence for believing the surveys to be flawed."
If you are referring to the qualifications to the DYG study, I couldn't disagree with you more. All of those missing details are highly relevant to assessing the reliability and validity of that study. In fact, without those details (and many others not mentioned) it impossible to objectively evaluate the conclusions of that survey. Without those details, all we can do is take Landmark at its word that this study is valid. Those qualifications points that out and quite rightly. Moreover (to directly answer your criticism), whenever a survey does not publicly report these details, it is severly flawed. (Also, you do not need to come up with independent estimates to show that a survey is flawed. Pointing out serious defects (like failure to disclose methodology) will do).
I do not agree with you that it is a majority (or at the very least a significant majority) view that Landmark delivers the results it promises. For example, are there any studies published in a peer-reviewed journal that say this? There are none (please correct me if I am wrong). Sadly, most the information we have about Landmark comes either from Landmark itself (including studies commissioned by Landmark), devoted Landmark followers, "cult experts" and those with an axe to grind agaisnt Landmark. All of those sources can be very dubious. I wish there were more authorative sources that said either Landmark has it right or the cult experts have it right right, but there are not. That is what we have to work with. Because of the lack of much neutral authority in this area, in my view, both sides have to be represented fairly equally. --- ODB
That's sort of correct, except that the "cult experts" keep getting successfully sued for defamation, or like Rick Ross, find sneaky ways out of it. The notion that there aren't rigorously monitored, placebo controlled, double blind clinical trials, peer-reviewed in respected journals as a basis for asserting for LE that all the information is of equal weight is wrong. Some of the asserted benefits (e.g., restoring relationships, not making the world wrong, etc.) are hard to measure. How, for example, would you quantify the benefit of Rick Ross not disposing of $17,500 in debt to his own elderly mother in bankruptcy if he had gotten a better relationship with his mother? Such studies are very costly to produce and the metrics difficult to come up with. I think the detractors (number, proportion) are much, much, much smaller than the number of supporters. It's easy to give undue weight to the detractors, and many of them have some serious problems as sources (self-contradiction, retractions for defamation, immediate financial self-interest, etc.). Sm1969 04:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with much of what you say. I do want to clarify that I don't think all individual pieces of information should get equal weight. For instance, I think the DYG study has more value than a single anonymous webpage, though both are dubious in my view. I do think, though, that the aggregate of those anonymous webpages, cult experts, negative newspaper articles etc., do show that a significant portion of people view Landmark negatively. ---ODB

And response to 'ODB'

Hi, and thanks for your contribution to the debate. BTW, have you read the NPOV policy carefully?

Yes, I have.
I appreciate this thoughtful and considered discussion. DA

You say: I do not agree with you that it is a majority (or at the very least a significant majority) view that Landmark delivers the results it promises.

You are of course welcome to your opinion. Do you mind sharing with us the data on which you based it?
Personal friendship with Forum graduates, internet research.
As regards the internet, we are all aware of the pitfalls. As a matter of interest, did you seek out personal sites from supporters, such as http://www.ilovepossibility.info/, or http://www.teamleadership.org/, plus the others on the link pages of those sites? These do report many tangible, measurable results achieved by individual participants. DA
As regards the "personal friendships", I take it these were of the "raving zealot" variety? Fortunately I was spared that, and I don't like it. I don't think it's nearly as common as is generally assumed, or as it was 5 or 10 years ago (Whe was your experience?). I do know that it is not what the leaders of LE are committed to, and that there are substantial elements in the training of leaders and assistants to discourage it - but still some way to go! DA

Sadly, most the information we have about Landmark comes either from Landmark itself...

I would agree that a healthy scepticism is appropriate, but that doesn't mean that it would be rational to dismiss this source of information out of hand.

...(including studies commissioned by Landmark)...

Are you seriously making the accusation that a reputable social scientist such as Daniel Yankelovich is likely to produced a bunch of cooked-up conlusions skewed to meet the wishes of those who commissioned the survey? If so, on what grounds (and would you be kind enough to say so explicitly)? If not, what is your point?
To some, extent, yes, I do think it was produced to meet wished of those who commissioned it. I doubt (or at least have very little reason to believe) Yankelovich did something as egrigious as falsify data. I do think, though, that the conclusions he reports, on their face, are not very helpful in evaluating Landmark. For instance, he says "nearly every participant reports unexpected benefits." That's great, but if you are doing real social science, you are going to use something else other than self-reporting of a vague category to confirm effectiveness. You could compare personal income before and after attending a forum to income of a control group, for example. That is one reason I think it is not a great study.
On the other hand the Harris survey reported "One-third experienced a significant increase (of 25% or more) in their incomes after completing The Landmark Forum. Of that group, 94% said The Landmark Forum directly contributed to the increase." DA
Another reason is that it does not report its methodology. If it had great methodology, you would expect Landmark to publicly report it so no one could seriously deny what a great study it is. Landmark hasn't done that. The lack of reporting is a strong reason to believe the methodology ain't that great.
I don't know what the convention is for a commercial opinion survey - I don't get the impression that methodologies are usually disclosed? Obviously it would be a different matter if it were a PhD thesis. For my own part I have no doubt about the broad accuracy because it co-incides with my personal observations. I have been at about a dozen Sunday night segments of the Landmark Forum and it's possible to get a pretty good sense of how people feel: 90-95% are clearly delighted, 5-10% are 'sort of ok about it' and 0-4 individuals are seriously pissed off in some way (plus typically 0-2 will have left at some time in the weekend). Around 90% go on to do at least one more course, which they presumably wouldn't if they thought it was all rubbish.

..., devoted Landmark followers,...

So can we clarify your point here: if someone does a Landmark course, gets benefit from it, and says so publicly, they become by defintion a 'devoted follower' so their testimony can be discounted?
In my mind, the typical "devoted follower" is someone who has taken a lot of courses and spends a lot, and I mean a lot, of time singing Landmark's praises in public. I am very suspicious of those kinds of people because I fear that kind of person has been sucked in by the some of the more coercive aspects of Landmark. Obviously, I realize you would disagree with that archetype.
Actually I completely take your point - but I'd say that the Landmark grads that fit that profile are a very small minority (but of course they do stir up a disproportionate amount of comment and antagonism). In my experience there is a wide spectrum of responses to participating in Landmark courses. Also, many grads are initially very enthusiastic, and then moderate their approach after getting a few adverse reactions. DA
And how do we quantify and reflect the opinions of such "cooled" graduates? You characterize them as "many", and I suspect that you have assessed them accurately... But I would speculate that this group does not produce many - if any - written quotable material reflecting their overall experience... - Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
In my view, the people who only take one course and praise Landmark are not as suspect as "devoted followers." I'm sure Landmark geniunely made those people feel better about themselves, at least temporarily. But, sometimes, they go on to say Landmark has made my life 100 times better in all aspects and it will last forever. That is something I don't find credible. The "post hoc" study gives one reason why.

... "cult experts" and those with an axe to grind agaisnt Landmark.

At least we are in agreement on these sources being dubious!

I do think, though, that the aggregate of those anonymous webpages, cult experts, negative newspaper articles etc., do show that a significant portion of people view Landmark negatively. ---ODB

Again you are welcome to your opinion. Mine is that your conclusion does not follow from the premises. In the first place what do you mean by 'significant'? and in the second place 'portion' of which people? Those living on the planet? .. or those who have done the Landmark Forum? ...or those that have not done it but have picked up some gossip or innuendo about it?
That is a very incisive question. Here is what I think is one the main problems that will lead to endless debate about what the "majority view" about Landmark is: most of the netural people on the planet have never heard of our spoken of Landmark; most of the speech in favor of Landmark is done by people who are highly partisan "devoted followers"; most of the speech done by those against Landmark think those who speak in favor of Landmark are, loosely speaking, "brainwashed." So the neutral people have almost nothing to say, leaving us with the partisans. Unless we fall for the fallacy that finding the "majority view" is just requires counting the number of heads holding each position, we are going to pick the "majority view" as the most credible side betweeen the partisans. How do we do that? Well, there is no easy answer. Again, there are not many neutral sources to go to, and the sources we do have each accuse each other of bad faith. In the context of the current state of literature about Landmark, picking what is the majority view is the same as picking which side you believe is personally correct in the face of a dearth of neutral resources.
That is my initial reaction. I think I can be more eloquent after thinking about it more.
Thanks for that - there is a considerable insight there. What I would say is that there is a major asymmetry between the partisans on the respective side: those on the 'pro' side base their position on actual experience, whereas those on the 'anti' side are basing it on hearsay and supposition. What would count as a 'neutral' source? DA
Detractors level some very serious allegations: that it is a "cult", that it "uses brainwashing", that it causes "mental instability", that someone is making a fortune out of it etc. etc. Yet when you get down to tying these down to specifics and looking for evidence, there is none. As I said above, out of 850,000 customers there have been four identifiable claims of mental damage. Even if these had been upheld, it would be less than 0.0005%, and they weren't so that makes it 0%. Now turning to the forums and discussion groups - suppose we take all of the people posting gripes, and assume that they are all genuine, and all distinct individuals (dubious assumptions, but still...), what is the upper bound? I'd say it was stretching it to number that at more than a few thousand, or under 1% of Landmark's number of customers. Is 1% a "significant portion"?
I am very skeptical about using the low number of lawsuits filed to conclude Landmark does not cause harm. First, the legal system in the United States is really not set up to deal with the harm, I believe Landmark, does. For the vast majority of customers, in my view, Landmark is $500 poorly spent on a program that harms emotionally significantly, but very subtly. The tort systems is good at car accidents, baseball bats to the head and other definite physical injuries with definite dollar losses in the thousand to boot. It just doesn't do "subtle." In fact, in many (most? almost all?) states it doesn't even do serious emotional harm. E.g. Ney in Virginia. The low number of lawsuits is a reflection on how poorly equipped the legal system is to deal with Landmark's harms, not a reflection on a lack of any harms.
Second, Landmark has been known to use secret settlement agreements. I'm sure there are a significant number of disputes that go under the radar.
Third, Landmark has required arbitration for a long time now. That discourages suits as well.
Two responses here - firstly about the use of lawsuits as a benchmark, and secondly about the value of the program:
The point about lawsuits is this: that they are at least a situation where the remarks are a matter of record, it is known who said them, that they said them under oath and there was an opportunity for them to be cross-examined. None of that applies to most of the critcism of Landmark on the internet, or by 'cult experts' or by sensationalist journalists. Let's assume that there are further cases 'under the radar': instead of four there are how many? forty? four hundred? four thousand? Would any of these be a significant portion of 850,000 (mostly very satisfied) customers? Another point is that not a single one of these lawsuits resulted in a judgement against Landmark Education. If there were any truth whatsoever in the charges leveled by Landmark's critics, surely it would have been possible to substantiate them? DA
Regarding your point about the value: I don't get it. You have an opinion that Landmark harms people (based presumably on your experience with a handful of friends, plus some internet research). If that were true, surely it would be irrelevant how much the courses cost? If (for the sake of the argument) on the other hand, the Landmark Forum really did deliver the kind of results that are claimed, would $500 not be cheap at the price? DA
If I believed, as some people claim, Landmark instantly turned a high proportion of healthy people into raving lunatics, your critique would be stronger. I don't though. I think Landmark is harmful enough that everyone should stay away from it. I don't think its harmful enough, to enough people, to catch the attention of the courts, or even much of the media - especially, as of late, with Scientology taking a lot of the heat.
Furthermore, it strikes me as extremely implausible that the operation would continue to grow, and more people would take their courses year on year, and recommend them to their friends if there was any truth in what the detractors were saying. DaveApter 12:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
In my view, it grows because it takes a while for people to see it is a harmful group. Some see it as soon as their friend calls them at 12:30 at night speaking jargon, some see when they get the hard sell at the graduation, some see it after one forum, etc. It grows with those people late to catch on. ODB
The problem is that "harmful" is completely an interpretation in this context and not subject to any test whatsoever. If you can't test it, neither can a judge or jury. The claims go through arbitration as has been required for several years now in the US. I do think the policy that people be mentally well is there for a reason. Someone who has bipolar disorder or is in therapy is not appropriate to be considering the kinds of questions considered in Landmark Education. It grows because people keep recommending it in higher numbers, and there are many customers who have participated over a decade now with LE. Given some of the things happening in the world today, challenging conventional thinking is a wonderful idea. Sm

Been v. Weed

Does anybody know what the resolution of the Been v. Weed, Landmark case was? Rick ross has the complaint. The current article cites to a related criminal case. But nothing says how the suit against Landmark ended.

I assume from the testimony in the criminal case + the lack of anything on Rick Ross claiming a victory, that the case went nowhere for the plaintiffs. But I have no source.

There were four phases: 1) criminal case in which Weed was found insane, 2) civil case against Been versus Weed, Been versus LE, Weed versus LE, 3) sanity hearings for Weed in which both the lawyer for Weed and the US Government agreed that LE was not responsible, 4A) Been withdraws all claims. 4B) Weed withdraws all claims against LE. What's out there now reports the truth and the gist of the case. Sm1969 05:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Changes

I struck the reason why the United States had jurisdiction. I don't think it is of general interest.

I added "in a related criminal case," because the former language confusingly, at least to me, suggested the expert testified in the civil case.

I struck the part of the quote saying "very rare possibilities." It is a poor phrase that hurts the flow of the article. I also don't think it adds much. The quote is there to show that Landmark was ruled out, not that some "very rare possibilities" were the cause. That said, I would not object to reverting this phrase if someone feels strongly about it. -- ODB

I reverted most of this because you did not object. I also clarified the distinction between the criminal (first) and civil (second) cases.

The alleged non-brainwashing of Martin Lell

The exchange appears above in the section entitled "Samways and Lell sources":

The fact that Schreiber states that Lell omitted to claim the term "brainwash" does NOT necessarily imply that no brainwashing took place. Schreiber gives here no definitive evidence of non-brainwashing - he merely asserts. - Pedant17 12:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Schreiber (at the hearing, not the SWF interview) says that Lell did not say he was brainwashed. (It's lack of a statement to the positive, rather than a direct contradiction, but it's strong evidence nonetheless.)
Lell writes a book entitled "The Forum: Protocoll of a Brainwashing" (as a participant). LE then brings a suit on grounds of defamation asserting that "brainwashing" is an assertion of fact (not a constitutionally protected right of free expression). As part of a libel case to prove it false, LE has to ask Lell what basis he has for trying to include "brainwashing" in the subtitle of the book. Lell then neither says he was brainwashed or gives any examples of common phenomena one would expect from bona fide brainwashing, like seeking medical attention. It's evidence of contradiction that he both answers in the negative and gives no evidence to support his position. Sm1969 01:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Do we know who put "brainwashing" in the title of Lell's book: Lell or his publishers? - On what grounds do you suggest that Lell gives no evidence to support his (assumed) position? - Does German law or German medical practice prescribe a set of tests for brainwashing such that Lell (or his parents) failed to do what you might expect in such a situation? (If Landmark Education has a set of guidelines on how to react when someone suspects that they or someone else may have suffered brainwashing, please let us know...) - Lell wrote a book containing his account of events. We (and the court) can and could take Lell's statements in the book at least as seriously as his non-statements in the courtroom. - Unless you have access to a full transcript of the court hearing, showing what Lell said and what he did not say, this heaping of lack of evidence on non-statements proves nothing. -Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the US courts have found that brainwashing also consitutes a triable question of capable of being proven true or false, and that generally accepted definitions within the field of psychology provide the operative tests. Schreiber tried to extend the US law to Germany and the question was seen differently there. It's very likely that LE does have a court transcript. You can get the court documents from the Rick Ross case to see about "cult" and "brainwashing" both being valids grounds for a defamation lawsuit. Sm1969 02:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Once again: we can (and should) discuss substantive allegations of brainwashing by third parties without fear of the courts of any jurisdiction - provided we do not in our turn make independent allegations of brainwashing. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
The Lell case proves one thing as a matter of history: Landmark Education failed to dissociate its name from an aspersion of brainwashing. Whatever Art Schreiber or other apologists for Landmark Education may say subsequently in justification as associated with a defeated party, however contorted the (lack of) logic of such statements, however reliant on non-reported non-statements of non-admission, seems unconvincing in the light of the verdict. - Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I suggest we use US law for resolving this issue. If you would like, we can put in Lell's account, but then I would add a relevant section of the US court findings re defamation.
We do not have the task of resolving any issue by any sort of legal system. An official policy for the English Wikipedia states: "Wikipedia is not a system of law."

We can note decisions of US courts where appropriate, and of Lithuanian courts also, on an equal basis. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Can someone please explain how a lack of positive assertion qualifies as strong evidence?

The argument appears to go like this:

  • Lell did not say that he had become brainwashed.
  • Therefore Lell did not become brainwashed.
This "brainwashing" answer "no" was clearly in response to questions in court and the reason LE was in court was to prove the use of the word "brainwashing" in the subtitel of the book to be false.

The extended argument of this process appears to proceed something like this:

  • Lell did not say that he had become brainwashed.
  • If someone does not make a statement, then the opposite of that statement represents the truth
  • Therefore: Lell did not become brainwashed.

How would this pattern work in practice? Try this example:

  • Colonel Bokassa did not say that the army planned to execute a coup.
  • If someone does not make a statement, then the opposite of that statement represents the truth
  • Therefore: the army did not plan to execute a coup.

Far from providing a stong argument, such a pattern of thought apparently gives almost no argument at all. Rather:

  • Lell did not say that he had become brainwashed.
  • Therefore, we can derive no conclusion about Lell's brainwashing from his non-statement.
The foregoing is complete nonsense.
You appear to agree with some of the foregoing, so which parts to you reagrd as "complete nonsense"? - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Obviously Lell's non-claim to have been brainwashed proves nothing either way. The whole context for this discussion is that his book has been quoted as an "authorative source" for the allegation that Landmark brainwashes people.
The sub-title of the book implies that Landmark Education practises brainwashing, and the foreword of the book (written by Baerbel Schwertfeger) characterizes Lell's experience as brainwashing. Thus the publisher and a commentator have made published allegations - whether or not Martin Lell himself expressed a view on the precise terminology. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
A significant amount of space in the main article is given to discussion of the "controversy" that Landmark uses brainwashing techniques - an allegation that would be very serious if there were any substance to it. However, on scrutiny it turns out that the only "significant sources" that can be provided to back up the allegation are:
1. an offhand remark in a rather sloppily-written article in Metroactive magazine, and
Never underestimate the value of an off-hand remark as expressive of the Zeitgeist or of broadly acceptable public opinion (what Landmark Education "acknoledges" as the public "conversation" about Landmark Education). - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
2. the subtitle of an obscure, out of print book written in German, and which the author refused to endorse when cross-examined under oath.
make that the subtitle of a book of its time and place, published by a reputable firm, and backed by expert opinion in its foreword. Do we know whether the German court ever even asked Martin Lell for his opinion on the mattrer of brainwashing? Can we really say that he "refused" to address the issue? - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand we have attributable assertions by several named prominent psychiatrists and clerics that Landmark's techniques bear no resemblance whatsoever to brainwashing, even assuming that the term has any clear specific meaning at all.
We have personal testimonial soundbites from various participants and observers. Personal testimonies do not equate to formal and/or in-depth studies, and have very little evidential weight on their own. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Please do not waste any more space on this discussion page beefing about this non-issue. If you can find any real authorative sources, please cite them.DaveApter 13:29, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
The issue of alleged brainwashing stands as a substantive one in the discussion of Landmark Education. We would shirk our obligations as editors of an encyclopedia if we did not address it thoroughly. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

If a legal process failed to draw out of Lell a definitive statement that he had or had not suffered brainwahing, we have no quotable evidence from this source as to Lell's own opinion on the matter. Thus we have to fall back on other evidence, separate from Lell's (presumed) opinion.

We have the obvious inference.

In these circumstances, we could evaluate others' opinions:

  • Art Schreiber's opinions (potentially biased, apparently illogical if following the argument outlined above)
  • Lell's parents' opinions (potentially biased, vague)
  • The opinion of an average reader of Lell's book (limited as to background knowledge)
  • Schwertfeger's opinions (independent, potentially based on a psychological approach)
We could also just dismiss this whole issue as it is 1 in 800,000. A few others have made similar statements, but, on the whole, I would say they are class III points of view. We have given them more attention than they deserve. Sm1969 01:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

- Pedant17 00:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Further responses to Pedant17

It is clear that your own point of view is that Landmark Education is in some way harmful and worthy of criticism ( although you have repeatedly declined invitations to indicate your own experiences and evidence leading to your adopting this view). You have made repeated attempts to have this point of view represented disproportionately in this Wikipedia article.

You have repeatedly introduced phrasings intended to cast doubt upon any statements or evidence which casts LE in any kind of positive light, while going to great lengths to include and emphasise references critical of it, however marginal or dubious they may be.

The case made by critics is that one or more of the following opinions applies to LE:

  • that it produces bad consequences for a significant proportion of participants
  • that it fails to produce the claimed benefits reliably
  • that it is in some sense fraudulent.

This is the slant that you are repeatedly trying to introduce into the article.

However, when we examine these claims in detail, they turn out to be totally unsubstantiated. For one thing, the actual number of cases where specific allegations of harm resulting from paritcipation in Landmark programs are on the record is infinitesimal as a proportion of number of customers. That is even assuming that the allegations are regarded as justified. But my second point is that wherever there has been any rigorous examination of the claim, it has not been proven.

The repeated references to 'brainwashing' and 'cult' are also dishonest and misleading. Some commentators have used these terms in a loose colloquial sense, and critics repeatedly attempt to confuse the loose casual usage with the specific factual use of the terms, which - if true - would be a very serious accusation.

As far as 'brainwashing' is concerned, it is not clear that it has any specific clear meaning except in a context where someone is being seriously maltreated while being held against their will, eg at a facility such as Guantanamo Bay or a Prison Camp. Clearly nothing like that applies to a Landmark Seminar.

As far as the 'cult' conversation is concerned, the word used in a meaningful sense implies that an organisation shows most of the following characteristics:

  • it has a charismatic leader, often though to be infallible or divinely graced
  • it has a set of doctrines that followers are required to believe unquestioningly
  • it encourages its followers to adopt specific life-styles, habits, practices, clothing, or diets
  • it encourages its followers to break with family and friends, and may suggest that they live communally
  • it takes a substantial portion of their income and assets

None of those apply to LE: There is no single leader, it is run by a board of directors who are elected annually by the shareholders, who are also the staff members; It has no specific beliefs, only various propositions which customers are encouraged to 'try out, and see whether they are useful'; It encourages and empowers customers to seek out and create a life-style which suits them; It encourages customers to be in communication with their friends and families, and to strengthen their relationships with them; It solicits no money or other dues, apart from the (extremely cheap - typically £2.50 per hour, and often much less) tuition fees for whatever courses an individual chooses to register into.

If you want to air your prejudices to a group who share them, I suggest you conribute to one of the many unmoderated discussion groups, not on Wikipedia. Thank you. DaveApter 12:46, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dave - Thanks for your incisive and timely critique and advice. - Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Majority opinions and minority opinions

Sm1969 suggests using "the Wikipedia NPOV distinction separating viewpoints into three categories: I) majority, II) minority and III) insignificant."

I suggest that Landmark-boosters express a relatively insignificant minority opinion. the vast majority of the world's population has never heard of Landmark Education. Even the Landmark Education movement gives itself until the year 2020 to spread its gospel to the last unenlightened human. The unknowing constitute the majority.

The words "gospel" and "unenlightened" are yours, and not part of any position taken by Landmark Education.
Correct. My words have much more weight than any self-interested statement of Landmark Education. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
If you believe that Landmark Education claims, or predicts, or aims that by the year 2020 everyone on the planet will have done the Landmark Forum, then you are labouring under a misapprehension. DaveApter 17:03, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
No doubt it will please you learn that I labor under no such misapprehension. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

What of the so-called "graduates" of Landmark Education? Various estimates of the number of Landmark Education "graduates" exist.

The Landmark Education article estimates the number of Landmark Forum "graduates" at 80,000 per annum (years of coverage not specified), with a total of about 800,000 since 1991 (year of grand total not given).

A quote from Charlotte Faltermeyer's 1998 article in Time magazine, as reproduced (without an attributed date) in the wernererhard.com website gives a figure of 300,000 since 1991.

The Internet Archive site presents some historical snapshots from Landmark Education's website:

Landmark Education's web-site as of 10 May 2000 linked to a Time magazine page of March 16, 1998, (Volume 151, number 10) where an article by Charlotte Faltermeyer estimated 300,000 graduates since 1991, and referred to Landmark Education's 42 offices in 11 countries.

Landmark Education's web-site as of 28 November 2002, in excerpting Charlotte Faltermeyer's Time magazine article of March 1998, claimed approximately 600,000 "seekers" as having taken the Landmark Forum since 1991, and referred to Landmark Education's 60 offices in 21 countries ("[u]pdated to reflect current 2001 numbers").

Landmark Education's web-site as of 29 July 2003, in excerpting Charlotte Faltermeyer's Time magazine article of March 1998, claimed approximately 600,000 "seekers" as having taken the Landmark Forum since 1991, and referred to Landmark Education's 60 offices in 24 countries ("[u]pdated to reflect current 2002 numbers").

Landmark Education's web-site as of 10 June 2004, in excerpting Charlotte Faltermeyer's Time magazine article of March 1998, claimed approximately 600,000 "seekers" as having taken the Landmark Forum since 1991, and referred to Landmark Education's 58 offices in 26 countries ("[u]pdated to reflect current 2003 numbers").

Landmark Education's web-site as of 1 April 2005, in excerpting Charlotte Faltermeyer's Time magazine article of March 1998, claimed approximately 725,000 Landmark Forum attendees since 1991, and 58 offices in 26 countries.

Landmark Education's web-site as of 7 February 2006, in excerpting Charlotte Faltermeyer's Time magazine article of March 1998, claimed approximately 758,000 "seekers" as having taken the Landmark Forum since 1991, and referred to Landmark Education's 58 offices in 26 countries ("[u]pdated to reflect current 2004 numbers").

Note that growth as reported here appears somewhat erratic and slowing. Note also that Landmark Education has a reputation for keeping detailed "enrolment" statistics.

Whatever the accurate figures, whatever Faltermeyer's actual estimates, consider the growth-rate, taking the most optimistic figues and rounding up generously:

If (say) a million "graduates", strongly encouraged to enrol others, enrol (say) 100,000 new Forum-attenders in one year (we disregard repeat attendees for this exercise) we get a growth rate of 10%. Apply this, very optimistically, from 1998:

Year Graduates + New = Total
1998 1,000,000 100,000 1,100,000
1999 1,100,000 110,000 1,210,000
2000 1,210,000 121,000 1,331,000
2001 1,331,000 133,100 1,464,100
2002 1,464,100 146,410 1,610,510
2003 1,610,510 161,051 1,771,561
2004 1,771,561 177,156 1,948,717
2005 1,948,717 194,872 2,143,589
2006 2,143,589 214,359 2,357,948
2007 2,357,948 235,795 2,593,742
2008 2,593,742 259,374 2,853,117
2009 2,853,117 285,312 3,138,428
2010 3,138,428 313,843 3,452,271
2011 3,452,271 345,227 3,797,498
2012 3,797,498 379,750 4,177,248
2013 4,177,248 417,725 4,594,973
2014 4,594,973 459,497 5,054,470
2015 5,054,470 505,447 5,559,917
2016 5,559,917 555,992 6,115,909
2017 6,115,909 611,591 6,727,500
2018 6,727,500 672,750 7,400,250
2019 7,400,250 740,025 8,140,275
2020 8,140,275 814,027 8,954,302

The estimated population of the Earth may reach 8.2 billion by 2020...

Landmark Education, on the basis of such figures, will fail to meet its growth targets and will remain, in terms of the number of its graduates, a relative minority for many years to come. I have not seen any figures to suggest a consistently faster growth rate.

It's correct that LE will remain, on a global basis, unheard of for years to come.

Consider accordingly the way in which Landmark Education spreads its message. A 10% growth rate (with no allowance for drop outs or deaths) needs just every tenth Landmark Education graduate to enrol one person per year successfully - or an average of one enrolment per graduate every ten years. But Landmark Education vigorously encourages a much higher rate of proselytization, and anecdotal accounts and personal experience suggest that some (many) graduates attempt to enrol more than one person every ten years. I suggest that significant numbers of people - almost certainly more than the proportion who eventually become graduates - hear and reject (or hear and ignore) the Landmark Education enrolment approach. Such people have experience of Landmark Education - in the shape of the friend or colleague who attempted to "enrol" them. Such people may research or investigate the nature of Landmark Education to some degree. But nevertheless, such people subsequently dismiss the attempt at "enrolment" and/or reject the idea that they will benefit (or benefit sufficiently) from participating in Landmark Education.

Can we skip the idiotic and derisive "gospel" and "proselytization" and other non-sense?
Evidently the technical/metaphorical terms used here have found resonance! - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems reasonable to surmise that in the matter of Landmark Education, its methods and its product, we could summarize the majority opinion as "Never heard of it"; a significant minority opinion as "No thanks, I have no interest"; and a less significant minority opinion as "Wonderful: it changed my life". Accordingly, skeptical reactions to and assessments of the Landmark Education's sales pitch and reputation have at least as much validity as enthusiastic endorsements do.

That's close to correct, but the context is wrong. You don't consider the whole world population, but the total population as those who hold some opinion of LE. In total, there are four classes:
A) never heard of it
B) heard of it and declined
C) heard of it, did it and found it useful
D) heard of it, did it and didn't like it
Class A we totally ignore. The number of people who have heard of Landmark Education is now the total universe for our writing of the encyclopedia. I'll also agree with you that "heard of it and declined" is a larger proportion than heard of and accepted and did the Landmark Forum. A high percentage of enrollees is probably around 30% for any guest event. Now, we get down those who have actually done it and we survey their points of view. I think the 94% (or whatever it is from the survey) is dead-on.
Remember: surveys which do not disclose their methodology in full have no validity. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
It's a very high percentage of customers who are delighted with LE's services. So, on a typical year, let's say the numbers break down this way:
class A: 6,500,000,000 (6.5 billion who have never heard of LE)
class B: 160,000 (those who hear about LE on an annual basis and say no)
class C: 76,000 (those who hear about LE, do the Landmark Forum and say it is valuable)
class D: 4,000 (those who hear about LE, do the Landmark Forum, and don't like it)
Again, class A we totally ignore. We could write about "class B" and even report it, but there is no dominant discourse for why someone heard about Landmark Education/the Landmark Forum and chose not to do it. "Thanks, I'm not interested," is about all we could say. For those that do it, we have the class C. versus class D. distinction, and class C. is clearly in the majority with class D. in the minority. Class D. is certainly enough to be reported and we should report it fairly, but you keep wanting to pull in the most extreme positions and overweight them with respect to class C, and that is what I am objecting to. The most extreme class D sources all have serious problems with them as we have pointed out numerous times. Sm1969 03:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Your class A has little relevance except in the assessment of Landmark Education's stated global ambitions. Your classes B and D intermingle inextricably, and overwhelm in their numbedrs (speculative though they appear) those in your class C. Though B and D do not speak with one voice, we can deal with a range of their opinions. Even your class C does not speak with one voice, yet we attempt to accomodate their various points of view. - That leaves us with the task of determining the boundaries of what you refer to as "the most extreme class D sources". - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

- Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

After re-reading the NPOV policy, I believe that both the pro and con views on Landmark are both "significant minority" views. According to Jimbo Wales, if a view is in the majority, "it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts" (NPOV). I am not aware of anything in commonly accepted reference texts written about Landmark.
If a view is of a "significant minority," "it should be easy to name prominent adherents" (NPOV). It appears to me this the highest level of public discourse about Landmark, either pro or con.
I disagree with some Pedant's specific claims, but I agree with his bottom line: "skeptical reactions to and assessments of [] Landmark Education's sales pitch and reputation have at least as much validity as enthusiastic endorsements do." The NPOV policy requires the article to reflect this with a thorough explanation of anti-Landmark views. --ODB
I agree with you. If you want to report "class B" versus "class C/D" (see above) you would need to find out the dominant discourses about why people choose not to do the Landmark Forum, but not much is said in this domain about LE and that rejection ratio is probably not much higher than for any new business.
To which domain do you refer? - In the claimed absence of "dominant discourses", can we exclude any discourses? - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
New credit card offers, for example, have a much lower acceptance rate.

We have had Erhardism for about 40 years, and Landmark Education for over 15 years. Comparisons with new credit-card offers or with "any new business" seem inappropriate for a long-standing NRM. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I think references to LE as an NRM are extremely rare, and if you insist in pulling them in, I will bring the total of religous people (mainly Catholic) in to bring it to around 20. I know of no source that calls LE and NRM. Sm1969 06:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


Most of the articles written about LE are about Landmark Forum experiences as is the survey data. LE does not publish surveys about why people choose not to do its courses--no business does. Accordingly, if we are to report on the class C versus class D discourses, class C is a high majority. I have no objection to reporting about class D, but let's just be reasonable about it. Sm1969 03:11, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


A few requests

Firstly, pedant17 and ODB, will you please try to be more concise?

The risk of misunderstanding encourages precision rather than concision. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Secondly, will you confine your postings to ones which move the debate forward, and aim to reach a consensus on what can be put into the main article, rather than just having a general rant?

I have no interest in moving any sort of debate forward (whatever that means). I have an interest in improving the article Landmark Education. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
The joys of semantics know no bounds. Sm1969 06:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Is this lengthy section about what are appropriate sources for the article, or is it speculation on what the results of an opinion poll on Landmark might be?DaveApter 17:03, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I presume you refer to the section on "Majority Opinions and minority opinions"? - Sm1969 and I have attempted to define classes of opinion in order to assess whether given opinions have sufficient "mainstream" currency for inclusion in the article Landmark Education. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Most of them have merit for inclusion; it is just the ratio, and, from there, the context of comparing LE against any other company. Sm1969 06:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


We are trying to rebut the notion that the stuff coming out of the Landmark P.R. department is the majority view on the subject. This is important to the entire article. ODB
The "LE PR" department is LE's point of view. If you write a Wikipedia-conformant article about LE, their PR department is the best source of finding their point of view. Sm1969 06:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, I don't agree with your characterisation that the article comprises 'stuff coming out of the Landmark PR department.

ODB does not characterize the article Landmark Education as comprising 'stuff coming out of the Landmark PR department', but suggests that a notion exists that "the stuff coming out of the Landmark P.R. department is the majority view on the subject"... - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Neither I nor any other editors that I am aware of have any relationship with Landmark Education other than as a (fairly) satisfied customer. The main re-structuring of the article last November was accomplished by a respected Wikipedian (FuelWagon), who - as far as I know - has no connection with LE at all.

As a fellow-Wikipedian I feel deeply for User:FuelWagon, but we can nevertheless continue to improve the article Landmark Education.

The references in support of what I regard as a majority view are all matters of public record, and do not generally originate from Landmark sources.

I disagreee. Much of the article bears a striking resemblecne to Landmark's website.

Secondly, I don't see anything in the foregoing section from Pedant17 that sheds any real light on what majority opinions might be.

It's not definitive, but it sheds some light.
One could summarize the majority opinion as "skepticism" - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Skepticism from people who have not done it and generally enthusiasm from those who have. Sm1969 06:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The fact that a slightly larger proportion of people who are offered the opportunity to register into the Landmark Forum decline than accept gives no insight into what their opinion is on the so-called 'controversies'. By far the most common reasons given for declining is 'don't have the time' or 'don't have the money', which is usually a polite way of saying that they are not sufficiently convinced that the benefits to them would be worth the investment. It certainly doesn't mean that they go along with any of the hysterical ravings about cults, brainwashing, psychosis, etc. (most companies would be delighted with anything like a 30% conversion rate by the way).

The figures suggest that many more people reject than accept the idea of taking part in Landmark Education courses . This suggests skepticism. - The analysis of possible reasons for not participating appears speculative. - I have encountered very few sources which contain "hysterical ravings about cults, brainwashing, psychosis, etc". Please give references! - A 30% conversion rate, if verified, would indeed delight a company: would it suffice for a new religious movement with global ambitions such as Landmark Education? - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
It does give some insight. People give polite reasons to decline when they are creeped out by something.

Almost half of the article is given over to discussion of the so-called controversies. How much more do you want?

Landmark Education formerly featured on its website a section interestingly entitled "PAST HISTORY AND CONTROVERSY REGARDING LANDMARK EDUCATION". The mere existence of such a web-page recognised the significance of controversial views in the public perception of Landmark Education and in Landmark Education's own self-image. It may help to explain (though not to excuse) why we have tolerated the 'Controversy' section in the Wikipedia Landmark Education article, despite recommendations to the contrary.
Well, we do agree on one thing--there should be a section on "media controversy." I think you know LE's POV.
I don't know that I agree with that at all. But perhaps such a section could prove useful as a temporary working storage area for material pending integration into the article. - Pedant17
Note that the Wikipedia style guide on things to avoid frowns on having "Controversy" sections at all, saying:

Separating all the controversial aspects of a topic into a single section results in a very tortured form of writing, especially a back-and-forth dialogue between "proponents" and "opponents". It also creates a hierarchy of fact - the main passage is "true" and "undisputed", whereas the rest are "controversial" and therefore more likely to be false, an implication that may often be inappropriate. Since many of the topics in an encyclopedia will inevitably encounter controversy, editors should attempt to write in a manner that folds debates into the narrative rather than "distilling" them out into separate sections that ignore each other. From Wikipedia:Neutral point of view: Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization -- for instance, refuting opposing views as one goes along makes them look a lot worse than collecting them in an opinions-of-opponents section. We should, instead, write articles with the tone that all positions presented are at least plausible, bearing in mind the important qualification about extreme minority views. Present all significant, competing views sympathetically. We can write with the attitude that such-and-such is a reasonable idea, except that, in the view of some detractors, the supporters of said view overlooked such-and-such details.

All of the numerous significant controversies associated with Landmark Education deserve a place in the Landmark Education article. Artificially limiting or excluding such controversies would make the article less encyclopedic. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Note that the official NPOV policy of Wikipedia suggests:

"When any dispute arises as to what the article should say, or what is true, we must not adopt an adversarial stance; we must do our best to step back and ask ourselves, "How can this dispute be fairly characterized?" This has to be asked repeatedly as each new controversial point is stated. It is not our job to edit Wikipedia so that it reflects our own idiosyncratic views and then defend those edits against all-comers; it is our job to work together, mainly adding or improving content, but also, when necessary, coming to a compromise about how a controversy should be described, so that it is fair to all sides."

Agreed. Sm1969 06:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I would emphasize the official NPOV policy's use of the phrase "mainly adding or improving content" and of the phrase "fair to all sides" (emphasis added). - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no evidence that the number of people holding those opinions is anything other than tiny in proportion to the total number of Landmark customers. There is no evidence that any more than a very small proportion of the customers are at all dissatisfied by the benefits they get from the courses. If you have any evidence from reliable, verifiable, respected sources, why don't you produce it, and if you haven't, what is all this about?

The statistics suggest that more people hald skeptical than "satisfied" views on Landmark Education. Wikipedians should (and do) provide public ducumented evidence of of such skepticism. - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
They are skeptical for non-customers and satisfied for customers. Sm1969 06:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


There is alread evidence of this in the article. As more evidence is found, it will be posted. Incidentally, I think the prevalance Landmark jargon in this article is a bigger problem than the Landmark POV. I invite others to fix it, as I am extremely weary of the hostility to any changes on this page.
Please give a list of what you regard as "Landmark jargon" in the article, and I will either re-phrase it or explain it. DaveApter 20:23, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Jargon

Provisional list of Landmark Education jargon:
Several of these are not used differently than in normal speech - I have marked them with ****. If you think any of these have a specialised Landmark usage, please indicate why. DaveApter 18:10, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
  • blame ****
  • breakthrough - not greatly different from normal usage - an instantaneous shift in understanding or facility; as depicted colloquially by "the penny dropped", "an 'ah-ha' moment", "the lightbulb came on", "a Eureka experience". DA
  • coach ****
  • communication ****
  • complete - used in two senses: a) roughly as in normal discourse, to do something in its entirety; and b) a specialised sense of coming to terms with events or interactions in the past such that they no longer limit what the individual sees as possible for them now and in the future. Typically this may involve (for example) apologising to someone, telling them that one no longer blames them for something, owning up to something, or asking someone for forgiveness. DA
  • create ****
  • decision - used to differentiate from "choice": a "choice" is a free exercise of conscious will, whereas the term "decision" is used to refer to selection made on the basis of past experiences. DA
  • dialog ****
  • difference - as in "making a difference" ie causing a result which goes beyond (sometimes way beyond) what would have been predictable based on past experience. DA
  • distinction - the grasp of an idea at a deeper and yet more practical level than the merely conceptual. For example, one might say that someone who can describe and explain balance has "balance" as a concept, whereas at the moment one learns to ride a bicycle, one "gets" balance as a distinction. DA
  • enrollment - very different from everyday usage: nothing to do with getting anyone to join anything or do anything; rather 'causing a new "possibility" to be present to another such that they are inspired'. DA
  • experience ****
  • Forum - the title of Landmark's principle course, although it is a forum in the sense of a gathering of people where understanding is generated from the comments and conversations of all pariticipants. DA
  • get - The sudden, instantaneous, profound grasping of a "distinction" (see above) - not really greatly different from everyday usage as in, for example, "getting the joke", or in art appreciation "getting" Cubism, or in science "getting" Relativity. DA
  • inquiry ****
  • integrity - not hugely different from everyday usage: being whole and complete, being truthful and honest, doing what you said you would do when you said you would do it. It is treated as an issue of workability, rather than good or bad, right or wrong. Landmark Education claims that Integrity is at the foundation of its work.
  • investigation ****
  • invitation ****
  • leader ****
  • life ****
  • possible - whereas in everyday speech we use "possible" to refer to something which does not exist, and may not even exist in the future, within Landmark discourses a "possibility" is an idea freely created which exists in the present and provides a context in which new opportunities for action arise. DA
  • power - in the sense of personal effectiveness: what one says, comes to pass.
  • promise - much as in everyday speech, except that an essential element is a time given, by when the promised action will have been performed. DA
  • registering - performing an action which is a commitment to a future course of action (eg filling in an application form and paying a deposit); often used in the context of registering into a Landmark program, but by no means limited to that. DA
  • relationship ****
  • responsibility - a willingness to declare that one is the cause of one's situation and results in life, rather than circumstances, excuses or reasons. DA
  • results ****
  • technology - a set of conversational structures which reliably cause breakthroughs to be achieved.
  • transformation - the creation of a space in which "possibilities" (in the above sense) can be created. DA
  • value ****
  • wisdom ****
They might deserve a separate article ... - Pedant17 04:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't see the evidence that more than a tiny minority hold opinions that Landmark is "harmful"; where is it? DaveApter 20:23, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

You, ODB, in your paragraph above stated that you believe Landmark to be 'harmful', but you haven't given any indication of actual harm that you believe to have been caused. Would you mbe kind enough to do that, with your estimates of the relative frequency that such things happen, and your evidence for reaching that conclusion? DaveApter 16:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

See above.
It honestly feels like we are going around in circles on this stuff. Sm1969 05:08, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Psychotic Episodes Associated With est

Although there was little information at the time of the suits filed there is a basis to assign blame for the psychotic episodes but est is not completely to blame.

The manner in which the Large Group Training Sessions are held allows the creation of "special circumstances" creating a critical level of exposure from Visual Subliminal Distraction.

The phenomenon was discovered when it caused mental breaks for knowledge workers using the first movable close-spaced office workstations. The Cubicle solved the problem by 1968.

Those who experienced mental breaks would have been previously exposed so that intense exposure during the training session pushed them over the edge.

The same mental breaks happen when Qi Gong or Kundalini Yoga users perform too many sessions in a compact time frame.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/QiGong_Psychotic_Reaction_Diversion.htm

http://visionandpsychosis.net/Kundalini_Yoga_Psychotic_Episode.htm

A longer discussion is on these site pages.

Subliminal Accidental Operant Conditioning is suggested as the acting force in the training seminars.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/EST_Werner_Erhard.htm

They have also happened on polar scientific expeditions, Belgium 1898, and Russian space missions, Soyuz 21.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/Astronauts_Insanity.htm

The phenomenon can be demonstrated with a simple psychology experiment, habituation of the notice you take of movement in peripheral vision.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/a_demonstration_you_can_do.htm

L K Tucker 68.223.107.250 05:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Results section

The results section, and the subsection called Post Hoc do not really seem to contain any content. Maybe there are some results, maybe not, and a researcher has said, hey, who knows? Is this useful to the reader? 22:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Reversion of Pedant17's 19th March edits

A few of the edits you made are ok, but mostly it's the same old nonsense - dragging in anything you can find from obscure, dubious and minority sources to discredit Landmark Education, plus attempts to smear points made legitimately, and mangling the style of the article with unnecessary sub-clauses and qualifying phrases.

Thank you. Perhaps you missed the agreement reached on this talk page on the status of what you term "obscure, dubious and minority sources". If you dislike individual points, debate them rather than reverting wholesale. If you find some sources obscure, dubious and minoritarian, supplement them with objectively better preferred cites. - Pedant17 08:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Please make small edits one at a time, and that will make it easier to do so.

The main reason I reverted it outright is that you have flagrantly ignored the notice at the top of this page requesting that this talk page is used to establish consensus before making major edits, and you also ignored the request made to you within this page to make small changes to the article at any one time. If you made one or two amendments to the article at a time, it would be far easier for editors to reach a consensus on the merits of the point you are making.

Perhaps you missed the extensive debates on this talk page which led to my restoring several individual passages into the article. I have added very little new material, and do not see that it justifies your outright reversion. Would you care to explain in more detail? - Pedant17 08:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
se below DA

Even on this discussion page, you only repeat the same old allegations over and again, without coming up with any supporting facts.

Perhaps you missed the sourcing and deductions I and others have added to both the talk page and the article page. - Pedant17 08:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
No, I read them very carefully.
You will accordingly have noted the support for the statements. - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The principle charges levelled at Landmark are that it is in some way harmful to at least a portion of the participants.

You have expressed this particular point-of-view previously. I don't necessarily agree with your identification of "the principle charges", but in any case, what specifically does this have to do with my contributions? - Pedant17 08:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

If there were any truth in that (even if it only applied to a minority of say 10% of customers, and only a small proportion of those came forward), it would be easy to find thousands of specific cases which could be verified. But nobody can come up with any such examples. The reason is very simple - they don't exist.

Your concern with "customers" hardly relates to the thrust of my recent edits, and remains quite peripheral to much of the discourse about Landmark Education. - Pedant17 08:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
So please tell us - what is the "thrust" of your recent edits, and what in your opinion is the essence of the "non-peripheral discourse" about LE? DA
Each of my edits speaks for itself: you may observe various "thrusts". Likewise, discourse about Landmark Education takes various forms and addresses various topics. I see no need to narrow ourselves to "essences". - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

A considerable amount of space in the article is given over to the so-called controversies that it is a "cult", or uses "brainwashing" techniques, despite the fact that the most cursory investigation reveals that there is no factual basis for these suggestions, and no authoratitive source who has observed the procedings at first hand who is prepared to state that there is.

You have made clear your predilection for first-hand observation of "proceedings", a narrow approach which has little in common with most of the material I have recently added. No doubt you will applaud the beginnings of moves to de-controversialise the article. - Pedant17 08:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, perhaps it is just an irrational personal preference, but I do give more weight to observations by people who know what they are talking about than those who don't. DaveApter 10:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

You also repeatedly re-insert references to Scientology, despite your having been asked above to list similarities and being unable to do so. I know nothing of Scientology, apart from what I have learned by reading the Wikipedia article on it, but the account there describes something which bears no resemblance to any of Landmark's procedures. DaveApter 15:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Therefore this dichotomy gives you the right, without further investigation, to delete the cited comments that I have added on the matter? - Pedant17 08:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
All you did is claim that there are 'documented links' in a source which is generally inaccessable, not even what the links are claimed to be, still less whether there is any substance in the assertion (which all the available evidence indicates that there is not). DA
Yes: attribution of opinion works by such summaries. I have given references for anyone to follow up if they wish. Do you know of a more accessible published work which covers the ground that Pressman discusses? - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
So can we get this straight? - your edit to the article was not intended to make a claim that documented links to Scientology actually exist, only to report that Pressman expressed an opinion that there were such links? DaveApter 10:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments on specific edits

Taken as a whole, your recent onslaught on the article violates neutrality and due weight policies.

Your continued use of out-of-print and hard to find books (as a principal source of references)is dubious for several reasons. Firstly, it negates a principal point of having references (so that other people can verify for themselves that the source exists and that it does say/imply what is summarised in the article; also so that they can get a sense for themselves of the quality of the research and the reasoning). Secondly, because any work which fails to command enough interest to maintain its availability has questionable status as an "authoratitive source".

Books have much weight, and we haven't burned them all yet. Yet I included in my latest edit many online references, including several to Landmark Education pages. - I have not found the books which I cite difficult to find: have you had difficulty in tracing them? - Your point about works "maintaining availability" might suggest that Landmark Education in general has failed to sustain the interest of publishers and of the public, and supports the idea that general opinion has dismissed the whole Landmark-Education thing as a temporary fad of last century, just like so many others, and of no individual interest. Do publishers still put out works on phrenology, for example? If not, where should we look for "authorititive sources"? - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
They go out of print because they need to take such extreme positions to go into print and then they are gone, as happened with Pressman, Lell and Samways. However, the statistics confirm that Landmark Education is growing despite these temporary interjections. We can verify the statistics by going to LE's web site and seeing how many Forums, for example, are scheduled. Thus, my conclusion regarding the temporary nature of the books (loss of interest in the books versus loss of interest in LE) is better substantiated in verifiable evidence. Sm1969 08:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

To turn to specific parts of your edit:

  • in the "scope and claimed benefits" section - violations of neutrality and due weight, dupliclation of points made elsewhere in the article.
I made no changes to this section in my latest edit. - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

These were the edits to which I was referring:

  • (and trenchant alternative views on outcomes)
That phrase occurs in the "Operations" section, not in the "scope and claimed benefits" section.- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
My apologies for inadvertantly referring to the wrong section (for each of these three).DaveApter 09:18, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Which of the list of alleged crimes ("violations of neutrality and due weight, dupliclation of points made elsewhere in the article") does this phrase relate to? - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- violation of neutrality -see the comment below in your 'general opinions' section. DaveApter 17:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
  • For counter-examples and refutations, see the debunking of the the surveys quoted below, and compare personal accounts published by less supportive persons.
That sentence occurs in the "Operations" section, not in the "scope and claimed benefits" section.- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Which of the list of alleged crimes ("violations of neutrality and due weight, dupliclation of points made elsewhere in the article") does this sentence relate to? - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Investigations into the background in which Landmark Education originated have documented links at that stage to Scientology thought and practices (Pressman, 1993: 25-31). DaveApter 11:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
That sentence occurs in the "Operations" section, not in the "scope and claimed benefits" section. It cites an approved and knowledgable source as making certain claims, no less, no more. As a mere report of published material it cannot violate neutrality. Does it duplicate any other discussion of the background of Landmark Education? -- I have not encountered the principle of "due weight" in my examinations of Wikipedia policies and recommendations: please demonstrate to me, quoting Wikipedia documentation, how a violation of "due weight' might occur. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


Well "approved and knowledgable source" may be your opinion, but it is not everyone's. for example one reviewer on Amazon summed up their reaction to Pressman and his book:

I found the book disappointing. Pressman has clearly only told one side of a complex story, and his subjective, sensationalist style serves only to make the intelligent reader wonder what the other side of the story is. The author clearly started his "research" with the fixed outcome (i.e. "Erhard is a bad guy") in mind, and one strongly suspects that he was very selective in those he interviewed and spoke to. I know from personal experience that some of the key information in his book is simply incorrect. Several hundreds of thousands of people around the world clearly benefited from Erhard's extraordinary work - and anyone, however sceptical, must admit that it can best be described as extraordinary. In summary, Pressman appears to be a typical journalist of the cheaper variety: never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Another wrote:

I would not waste time with this unless you enjoy fiction or you love living in a world with a bogeyman around every corner.

"Courses" section - unmerited stylistic mangling which adds nothing to the value of the article. Also inaccurate - the est training does not provide a qualification for registering into Landmark graduate courses.

Check the preconditions for the "Miracles" course, for example - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
The only currently listed offering is the 'Causing the Miraculous' seminar - the precondition for that is having completed at least one other seminar series, the precondition for having done that seminar series being completion of the Landmark Forum. DaveApter 11:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • New "operational statistics" section - lenghty, tedious irrelevant, and what is the point you are trying to make?
I attempted to provide a precise, careful reflection of the wording and numbers published (principally) by Landmark Education itself. If one believes statements made by Landmark Education, one could regard these figures as "facts" about the history of the Landmark Forum. Even if one regards Landmark Education as a business, figures relating to growth may interest readers. - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
  • "Courses" section - unmerited stylistic mangling which adds nothing to the value of the article.
I attempted to give greater precision and more details which expand the scope of the article. - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
  • New "qua education" section - vague, waffling disparaging non-encyclopedic opinionising.
To the best of my knowledge, I provided true statements, relevant to Landmark Education's self-characterization as something to do with "education", and not out of place in an article with "Education" in its title. If I have made errors, please correct them: my statements appear in eminently refutable form. - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
  • New "Naming" section - lengthy, tedious and irrelevant - What understanding does this add?
I wrote very little of this section myself, and inserted only the [citation needed] tag and the title in my latest edit. But I would defend the section as of historical interest, especially given the plethora of names and name changes associated with Werner Erhard and his associated foundations. The title clarifies and defines the pre-existing content. - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The "Jargon" section - inaccurate: 'breakthrough' in Landmark terms has no connection with military usage.

... yet the military sense provides a standard, if not the most common, usage in "ordinary English"... - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't know where you got that idea from; nothing connected with the military immediately comes to mind for me, and my dictionary defines breakthrough as "any new discovery, development or success which increases progress." DaveApter 17:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
  • "Brainwashing" section - the quote from the forward to Lell's book is not by any standards an 'authoratitive source', and is in any case factually inaccurate as a description of the Landmark Forum.
The quote accurately reflects, I believe, the views of the writer, a trained psychologist and practising investigative journalist. I realise that I still need to provide the original German quotation as well as the translated version. - Lell's book provides one of the very few published detailed accounts of the Landmark Forum, and thus appears relevant. Can you point me to an equivalent or "better" published book? - Factual accuracy or inaccuracy does not come into the matter here: the expressed opinion simply addresses the topic under discussion. Perhaps you disagree with the opinion. In that case, find and quote a refuting statement of equal or better merit on the topic. - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Your ammendments to the "controversies" section give undue weight to marginal material, much of which is hearsay or speculation. DaveApter 11:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I find your characterization or "marginal ,,, hearsay ... speculation" a little too vague to respond to. Why not restore my objectionable amendments and edit/debate them in detail? - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
For example your addition "..., making the conclusion a considered evaluation rather than a mere report of personal experience." is an entirely speculative comment (as indeed was the anonymously quoted judgement which it referred to ("Might lead to personality disorders. You might become a zealot for the Forum or addicted to it by registering for more") - Neither remark is based on any factual or measurable information. It is also hearsay in that it is simply a report of what some (unknown and unverified) person is reported to have said.
For example, the quotation you inserted: "The basic principle of the Forum rests on the three-step model: breaking down, changing, and fixing. This model, with which people can be made compliant step by step, was described by Eduard Schein as early as 1971 in his book Coercive Persuasion. Schein had intensively investigated the brainwashing programs in China in the 50s.." is marginal, in that there is no consensus of agreement that any such model accurately describes the conduct of the Landmark Forum. There is no conceivable connection with procedures in Communist China in the 1950s, and the book referred to was published 20 years before Landmark Education was founded (and written even before the est training was launched). DaveApter 17:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

A flurry of reversions

My edits of 19 March had their basis, for the most part, in intensive discussions on the Talk page (specially with User:Sm1969), and reflect the agreed outcomes of those discussions. Since I submitted my edits, DaveApter has reverted them twice: on the first occasion claiming that appropriate discussion had not taken place, and on the second occasion asking for Talk-page responses which I had already provided a couple of hours prior.

Total reversions also took place at the hands of 71.146.178.51, a suspected sock-puppet who provided no explanation or justification; and of 66.243.153.70, who alleged but did not justify "bad faith".

I begin to suspect a case of revert-vandalism, suitable for bringing before the relevant Wikipediauthorities.

- Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't see your "intensive discussions" as reaching any kind of agreement - it seemed to me that you were simply "talking past" the points that Sm19 was making, rather than engaging with them.

I can provide some textual examples of the kind of agreement we reached. With regard to sources, Sm1969 wrote 'Pressman's book is probably Wikipedia-worthy'. - Pedant17 01:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
In discussing majority and minority views, Sm1969 wrote: 'I'll also agree with you that "heard of it and declined" is a larger proportion than heard of and accepted and did the Landmark Forum.' - Pedant17 01:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
ODB wrote:' I disagree with some Pedant's specific claims, but I agree with his bottom line: "skeptical reactions to and assessments of [] Landmark Education's sales pitch and reputation have at least as much validity as enthusiastic endorsements do." The NPOV policy requires the article to reflect this with a thorough explanation of anti-Landmark views. --ODB' - and Sm1969 endorsed this: 'I agree with you.' (He then attempted to impose some further conditions relating to "dominant discourses' which he never justified, despite questioning.) - Pedant17 01:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Sm1969 summed up how we might treat the (overall) minority vews: 'Accordingly, if we are to report on the class C [satisfied customers] versus class D [dissatisfied customers] discourses, class C is a high majority. I have no objection to reporting about class D, but let's just be reasonable about it. Sm1969 03:11, 8 February 2006 (UTC)'. My own contention that Sm1969's Class D coalesces with his Class B [declined to participate despite acquantance tith Landmark Education] remains uncontroverted. - Pedant17 01:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The point has been made many times that making edits incrementally would help in refining the article, yet you persist in returning at 3-4 week intervals and making wholesale revisions.

People have made the point that smaller edits suit them. But we also face the frequent Wikipedian injunction encouraging bold editing - see for example notes on boldness, reversions and consensus. Bulk reversion seems like the ultimate contradiction of the advocacy of tiny edits. - Pedant17 01:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

My comments and questions are intended to move us towards a consensus, but your responses seem to me to be more in the nature of cheap jibes and clever debating points rather than an honest attempt to engage with the discussion.

Your comments on my style ('unmerited stylistic mangling which adds nothing to the value of the article', for example) do not suggest a consensual approach. Your comments on my content ('lenghty, tedious irrelevant', for example) do not suggest a consensual approach. Your questions on motivation (' and what is the point you are trying to make?', for example) steer us away from the written text in the direction of potentially unending ranting. Vague generalities like "cheap jibes and clever debating points rather than an honest attempt to engage with the discussion" do not help us resolve individual issues of wording and structure. - Pedant17 01:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

My commitment is to having this article be an accurate impartial concise account of an organisation which is plainly of interest to a significant number of Wikipedia readers and editors. My observations of your contributions to it leave me with the impression that your intention is to use the article as a soapbox for anti-Landmark propaganda - possibly due to failure to recognise your own point-of-view in the matter, rather than any deliberate intention to violate wikipedia's policies.

Your "commitment" and your impression of my alleged intention remain irrelevant to the interests of Wikipedia, which focus on adding to and enriching the encyclopedia, regardless of personal disagreements, and overcoming the multiplicity of different points of view. - Pedant17 01:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
My understanding that the "interests of Wikipedia" were served by having accurate, well-written articles. My comments on this page are in support of that objective. DaveApter 10:01, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Your expressed preference for a "concise" article on Landmark Education worries me considerably. One of Wikipedia's advantages lies in its lack of constriction: we do not have to write to fit into a set number of volumes, but can expand to treat subjects encyclopedically (fully)... I can see the virtues of having a concise introductory paragraph, for example, but the grandiose claims of Landmark Education LLC and the considerable literature on Landmarkers -- their history and development and current state and activities -- seem to me, potentially, to call for an article (or for a group of articles) of much more depth and variety than we have achieved so far. I counsel expansion rather than conciseness, and commend the addition of the start of a Jargon vocabulary as a case in point. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand what I mean by concise - I did not mean "arbitrary restriction to a particular size" (although there are Wikipedia policies and guidelines on the matter). What I was objecting to was your extending the length without additional information content (and often with an adverse effect on readability and understandability). DaveApter 10:01, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Within the next 24 hours I will post to this page a summary of points on which I expect we can agree, and points on which we may differ, with a view to moving towards consensus on the question of what should be added to, or subtracted from, the article to improve its quality. DaveApter 20:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I look forward to your comments, and regret that you did not participate more fully in the previous debates which have already reached considerable consensus. - Pedant17 01:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Well actually I've made about 14 contributions to the debate on this page in the last couple of months, and many more observations that I might have made were already expressed by Sm1969. I don't see any evidence that you've taken on board any of the points that either of us have made, as you just keep going back to the article and putting in the same dubiuos material over and over again. DaveApter 09:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your fine contributions. I should admit that during the process of hammering out agreements with Sm1969 (as exemplified above) I regarded them as generic irrelevant complaints from the sidelines rather than as substantive assistance in the resolution of specific points which encouraged me to continue to edit and expand the Landmark Education article. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
In the light of the discussions with Sm1969 I have omitted some parts formerly in the article, and modified others. Imagine then my surprise when repeated bulk reversions of my careful edits occurred. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I've looked over some of this article.
I trust you will take the opportunity to look over all of it -- provided fellow-editors leave at least some of my latest edits unreverted. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
While I think the Pressman book is marginally Wikipedia-worthy, it really does not deal with Landmark Education, the book itself having been written in 1993, the first year of Landmark Education's existence.
Pressman published originally with St Martin's Press in August 1993, though I see on amazon.com that Random House also published an edition in April 1995; Landmark Education emerged as such in early 1991, so Landmark Education had had at least two years of existence prior to Pressman's first edition, and four years before the subsequent one. - Pressman's title itself makes it clear that he concentrates on Rosenberg/Erhard (rather than on Landmark Education or other later phenomena). That said, one can hardly claim that Pressman's book "really does not deal with Landmark Education". Landmark Education features, even without star billing. Pressman recounts its origins, initial set up, and inheritance of the est baggage. Whatever you regard the book as dealing with, it deals with Landmark Education as well, and indeed provides one of the most thorough accounts I know of Landmark Education's genesis. - Note coincidentally that some books may even gain fame and notoriety for what they state about things other than their main subject. Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene took genes as its central topic. But many people to this day remember the work for a single appended chapter which speculated on what Dawkins named "memes". - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Particularly egregious is the conclusion that Landmark Education has documented links to Scientology.
Pressman documents the links between Erhard/est and Scientology: he has a whole chapter which concentrates on this topic, as well as several other passages. The "conclusion" I have inserted into the Landmark Education article states this in the form: "Investigations into the background in which Landmark Education originated have documented links at that stage to Scientology thought and practices (Pressman, 1993: 25-31)." To state this link in terms of Landmark Education having "documented links to Scientology" distorts what I have written. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I have asked numerous times, since you assert you have studied Landmark Education for so long, to identify three practices or characteristics of Landmark Education that uniquely came from Scientology and not somewhere else. You (Pedant17) have never answered that question.
And I have declined to get sidetracked onto "original research" for your random number of practices or characteristics at this stage. Right now, such practices or characteristics have little direct relevance to the discussion on Pressman's published statements on the background. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The Pressman "link" to Scientology for LE should be struck.
The Pressman cite on Scientology's links with the founder of est has interest and relevance to the stated topic: the origins of Landmark Education thinking and views. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Numerous edits that you have made in the past--and we can truly recall 10 of them with no work--are in total violation of policies.
What do you mean by "we", Your Majesty? -- You have made similar claims before - do you have some particular point to make in repeating them at this point in the discussion? (I question your use of "truly" and "total", by the way.) - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
In the last four months, or so, we have elevated the level of discourse to include referencing sources.
Haven't we done well? -- Shame about the narrow POV state of much of the article, though. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Another article reference that I have a problem with is the Eileen Barker article on New Religous Movements, which also has zero references to Landmark Education.
See the section "Barker on NRMs" below. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Landmark Education is not "est" -- in order for anyone to truly make that comparison, you would have to have someone (a credible source) do both programs and then make the comparison. If you did get that comparison, it would probably be favorable, since, obviously, the person chose to do both programs. I don't really know of any newspaper articles or journalist articles that compare the two in anything other than from an organization-observer perspective (not a customer), and these perspectives often compare the inane: the rigidity of the training and the bathroom breaks which no longer exist, or they note the long hours in both.
See the section "est and Landmark Education" below. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The "brainwashing" nonsense you keep bringing in,
To which alleged "nonsense" do you refer? Please identify any alleged nonsense so that we may discuss its merits in detail before determining whether we should edit it so that it makes sense. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
but we are now over 850,000 customers and really, maybe, five (5) people saying that it does brainwash people;
It worries me to hear an identification like "we are ... customers". I trust your degree of self-alignment to Landmark Education customers (a minority in our analysis of opinionated parties) does not affect the neutrality of your edits and comments. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
A search using google.com and the keywords "brainwashing" and "landmark" returns over 91,000 links. That doesn't necessarily imply that more than five (5) people say that Landmark Education practises brainwashing. But it does indicate a certain level of public perception that sometimes associates the two terms "landmark" and "brainwashing". -- Do you think it appropriate to ignore that perception in a Wikipedia article on Landmark Education? - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
every time someone says that, they have a connected financial motive and have been discredited otherwise, usually through the court system.
Even if you can provide evidence for the very bold claim of universal finacial motivation, we can note that some people applaud financial motives (and some people even applaud some of the results.of financial motives). - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Even if you can provide evidence for the very bold claim of universal discreditation (does that cover all anonymous commentators, by the way?), it proves very little. Analogously, one could suggest that the vast majority of the population of the world believes in papal infallibility -- on the grounds that we haven't seen very many Inquisition trials in the last 20 years. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Your "debunking" of the surveys is unattributed POV and your own analysis. You can say that the survey methodology was not disclosed, but adding the term "debunking" violates the attribution policy. You also have the reputations of these large marketing research companies (Yankelovich and Harris).
See the "Reputations and surveys" section below. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I think the Class-A/B/C/D distinction is relevant. Class-A (never heard of LE), Class-B (heard and declined), Class-C (did and liked) and Class-D (did and disliked) is relevant for accurate reporting of the points of view. Not much is said about why people choose not to do the Landmark Forum, but Class-C reflects consistent favorable surprise and is a high majority over class D. In other words, the majority POV should reflect that people who chose to do the Landmark Forum were surprised and liked it. You want to conflate Class-B and Class-D and cause the readers researching LE to be mislead to believe that, if, for example, they did the Landmark Forum, they would not like it (or feel that it produces results); that's misleading.
See the section "Class distinctions" below. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what more to say for now, but I am sure we will continue contributing as we have been going at it for over a year now. Sm1969 08:27, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
If you don't know what more to say, you could occupy yourself with restoring some of the deletions made from the article over the last year, and which now deserve restoration in the light of our discussions here. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Landmark Education "qua" education changes

Made some POV changes to the "Landmark Education "qua" education" section (entertaining title by the way). Clearly some axe grinding going on so I just kept the basic content as I felt it wasn't illegitemate and just made it a little more balanced. It is still a little inflammatory but is better now. Pedant: I will take a look at your past few revisions and comment in a few days. Alex Jackl 13:46, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Alex. The section could do with some additions too: on coaching, for example. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

On books going out of print

The suggestion from Sm1969 that books "go out of print because they need to take such extreme positions to go into print and then they are gone, as happened with Pressman, Lell and Samways" provides a possibility, but an unconvincing one.

It may seem tempting to conclude that such works as W W Bartley's Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of EST or Jane Self's 60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard: How America's Top Rated Television Show Was Used in an Attempt to Destroy a Man Who Was Making A Difference have gone out of print because of someone taking some extreme positions. But other possibilities exist. Publishers may misread the (potential) market. Subject-matter (such as Erhard and his spin-offs) may go out of fashion or simply lose prominence. Published works may achieve their authors' crusading purposes. Better or more modern books and ideas may eclipse the old ones. Just to identify a few alternative possibilities.

One interesting situation relating to the marketing of books occurs when people with influence attempt to distort the flow of printed matter by manipulating publication and/or distribution. We've seen how Landmark Education, for example, failed to prevent the publication of Martin Lell's book with its inflammatory subtitle translating to "Account of a Brainwashing: The Psycho-Outfit Landmark Education". Another case of potential attempted distortion of book distribution emerges with the statement from the "new" Cult Awareness Network (CAN):

"h. CAN also understands that Landmark would prefer that CAN not sell at all copies of a biography of Werner Hans Erhard by Steven Pressman entitled OUTRAGEOUS BETRAYAL (St. Martin's Press 1993) (the "Pressman Book"). CAN has not previously considered whether, after its emergence from bankruptcy, CAN would consider it appropriate to sell copies of the Pressman Book at all, for any purpose. In the interests of settling a dispute and in deference to Landmark's preference, however, CAN now agrees not to sell the Pressman Book for at least five years after CAN emerges from bankruptcy."

Just a couple of examples of a form of incipient would-be censorship to place alongside the 2004 attempt by Landmark Education to claim damages from the Rick Ross Institute relating to the Institute's web-site materials relating to Landmark Education.

A last (but not least) possibility that might prove a factor in some books going out of print: in recent years this Internet thing has influenced the book market. People with important messages that they wish to communicate may set up a web-site or a blog where once they might have published (or re-published) a pamphlet or a book. The online self-publishing phenomenon makes "publishing" cheaper and easier than in the past. it also makes books relatively more precious than on-line content, since books have more likely profited from the selectivity of a publisher, from the advice of an editor and from the warnings of lawyers.

The implication that books which go out of print "are gone" exaggerates the situation. Apart from second-hand book establishments, libraries ( particulary serious libraries and libraries of record) collect and preserve books quite assiduously. I recommend libraries.

Books, in short, -- even out-of-print books -- continue to have relevance for reference and research purposes, and may well survive better than much of the contemporary electronic ephemera. The fact that some (many, even most) books go out of print eventually does not necessarily reflect on their accuracy or their authority or their importance.

- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

On statistics and trends in popularity

Sm1969 has noted that in contradistinction to books going out of print:

the statistics confirm that Landmark Education is growing despite these temporary interjections. We can verify the statistics by going to LE's web site and seeing how many Forums, for example, are scheduled. Thus, my conclusion regarding the temporary nature of the books (loss of interest in the books versus loss of interest in LE) is better substantiated in verifiable evidence.

I see some problems with this argument as expressed.

Scheduled Landmark Forums may not provide a good indicator of growth/decline in the popularity even of Landmark Education courses. Even if scheduled manifestations of the Landmark Forum always take place as scheduled, we do not know how many people attend each one. Even if we had a reliable average figure of numbers attending, we do not know how many repeating attendees lurk behind the numbers. Even if we could learn what proportion of attendees provide fresh blood at the Landmark-Forum level we gain little insight into growth/decline of Landmark Education's numerous other course offerings from Landmark Forum figures alone. And even if we obtained clean figures for this, there would remain, at all levels, the issue of attendees dropping out.

Overall then, necessarily fuzzy estimates of growth/decline of interest in Landmark Education do not compare compatibly with growth/decline of interest in books, where we can expect publishers (at least) to have accurate records of the numbers of volumes printed, the numbers sold and the numbers pulped.

Note too that electronic publishing may have recently impacted on the book trade, distorting the perceived popularity of ideas as measured by volumes printed.

Moreover, the correlation between popularity of books and popularity of Landmark Education appears questionable. The two products have somewhat different markets, very different marking methods, and widely divergent influences affecting their sustainability and profitability. No necessary linkage or correlation exists.Such "verifiable evidence" as we have substantiates nothing overall. Landmark Education enrolments have grown, but over the same period the price of a barrel of crude oil has grown more in relative terms. So what?

- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Prerequisites for taking part in Landmark Education courses

DaveApter detects an inaccuracy in the claim that est training sometimes suffices as a prerequisite for taking part in Landmark Education courses, and points out that "the est training does not provide a qualification for registering into Landmark graduate courses."

That formulation appears to match current Landmark Education policy for "Landmark graduate courses". But the text as I last edited it did not confine itself narrowly to current policy nor to "graduate" courses, specifically stating:

Landmark Education currently regards doing the Landmark Forum (or in some cases the predecessor est training) as a pre-requisite for registering into any other Landmark course, with the possible current exception of Landmark Education Business Development offerings."

Without having set up an experiment to test whether non-graduates can purchase the Landmark Education courses available on CD: ("Relationships: Love, Intimacy, & Freedom" and "Causing the Miraculous"), I would point out that the Landmark Education website advertises, (under a separate rubric from the "Graduate Programs") "The Landmark Family Coaching Session": "Open to the public, this program... ". The page for "The Family Coaching Session" itself says:

"This program is available to anyone over the age of 18, as well as people under 18 who are graduates of The Landmark Forum. This single-evening session is conducted from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Prerequisite: None"

The Landmark Education website also touts the offerings of its fully-owned subsiary, "Landmark Education Business Development" (LEBD). I detect no mention of specified prerequisites for LEBD courses on the LEBD webpages.

DaveApter also points out that Landmark Education's 'Causing the Miraculous" seminar has an implied prerequisite that participants have "completed" the Landmark forum. Well, surprise, surprise: Landmark Education has changed the rules! I remember how, at the time when Landmark Education introduced this seminar, the publicity made a special pitch to encourage est graduates (as opposed to the other target audience, Landmark Forum graduates) to attend.

This may exemplify an overall pattern. When Landmark Education first began offerring seminars and courses in 1991, it recognised veterans of est and of Werner Erhard and Associates (WE&A) courses as having fulfilled requirements for embarking on the non-Forum courses as appropriate. To have started the credentialling process from scratch immediately whould have interrupted the flow in the ongoing series of courses that Landmark Education wanted to sell to its pre-approved repeat-custom clientele.

Later, one might reasonably surmise, Landmark Education would want to milk its graduate body further by encouraging its members to re-qualify for "higher" courses under new rules. Thus the situation with "Graduate courses" and their prerequisite conditions today.

My formulation of the situation in my last edit, "Landmark Education currently regards... " glossed over but covered these details. The bald statement that replaced my text: "Completing the Landmark Forum is a pre-requisite for registering into any other Landmark Education course" disregards the historic facts and over-simplifies the present policy of Landmark Education.

- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Much Ado About Nothing

I don't mean this in a bad way - but given all the more substantive issues we are dealing with is not this topic really much ado about nothing and angels dancing on heads of pins? I mean 99% of the time it is true that the Landmark Forum is a pre-requisite for Landamrk's courses. Introductions (obviously) and some Family courses not withstanding it is primarily and for all practical purposes a truism. So- who cares? I don't mind if we softwen the statement to add "with osme expections" or some such but I don't think it matters.

Historically I think the Landmark leadership struggled with how to include the people who participated in the Forum before Landmark and even those that did est. Not that is all sufficiently in the past that I don't believe it really comes up any more. Now, it comes down to "requiring Landamrk Forum " or Not. est is pretty much out of the picture. - Alex Jackl 04:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Operational statistics section

DaveApter regards the contributed "Operational Statistics" section as "lenghty, tedious irrelevant" and has removed the section as "spurious".

I repeat my previous and so-far unrefuted comment on the matter: "I attempted to provide a precise, careful reflection of the wording and numbers published (principally) by Landmark Education itself. If one believes statements made by Landmark Education, one could regard these figures as "facts" about the history of the Landmark Forum. Even if one regards Landmark Education as a business, figures relating to growth may interest readers. - Pedant17 13:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)"

The allegedly "spurious" facts and wording in the section come largely from web-pages published by Landmark Education, and paint a picture of company growth. Such statistics seem relevant to a Wikipedia article discussing an self-described "business". I do not know of more accurate published statistics: if found we should add them.

Note that the availability of well-established statistics cannot help but ground what might otherwise become more speculative discussion on Landmark Education's growth and significance in its chosen market.

- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that accurate and authoratitive statistics would be helpful. I removed your paragraph because it was lengthy and repetitions, and failed to provide a lot in the way of reliable information. It was impossible to avoid the impression that your main intention was to mischievously flag up the fact that LE is clearly a bit sloppy in updating the statistics on that web page (having shown a figure of 600,000 three years running. On other occasions you have tried to promote the opinion that interest in LE's courses is declining, whereas they are clearly still attracting substantial numbers. DaveApter 14:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Barker on NRMs

Sm1969 states: "Another article reference that I have a problem with is the Eileen Barker article on New Religous Movements, which also has zero references to Landmark Education."

I presume that the expressed "problem" relates to the reference to Barker's book, New Religious Movements. That book, written by a prominent scholar who has expressed skepticism on the matter of cults, nevertheless offers an explanation as to why people accuse certain movements of brainwashing. Given that the popular perception of Landmark Education frequently associates it with brainwashing, Barker's insights seem useful and relevant to a discussioin of Landmark Education, and especially so in a discussion of Landmark Education's alleged brainwashing. As it so happens, Barker's comments tend to question rather than to endorse the notion that groups such as Landmark Education actually may practise brainwashing.

Barker's book appeared in 1989, just before Landmark Education emerged as the successor-owner of the intellectual property, the telephone-lists and the practices of est and of Werber Erhard and Associates. Excluding Barker's work from consideration of brainwashing in the late 20th century on the grounds of timing would resemble discussing a new development in genetic engineering without the freedom to reference Darwin, or banning discussion of Von Neumann's publications in a consideration of Java programming.

- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

A quick response

This argument does assume a twice-removed causal link if you don't accept the initial premise that Landmark is brainwashing (which I by the way find little to no evidence for). Better for people interetsted in concepts and subtleties around brainwashing to go somewhere else than this article. There is enough mention in the article of certian people thoughts on Landamrk being associated with brainwashing that any more would begin bending POV balance far too much (In My Opinion) Alex Jackl 04:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

est and Landmark Education

Sm1969 makes the intriguing suggestion that "Landmark Education is not "est".

On a certain superficial level, this suggestion appears accurate: differently-named courses presented by differently-named enities at different times may have changed/developed/transformed.

But equally -- and perhaps even at a more fundamental level -- est gave rise to Landmark Education, and Landmark Education inherits and reflects est.

If at some point in time Landmark Education repudiated est and all its works, forms, methods and practices, let's hear about it. In the meantime, we can assume some sort of connection between est and Landmark Education, between Werner Erhard and Associates and Landmark Education LLC, and between the est training and the Landmark Forum.

In light of this I set up a "Est and Landmark Education" section in the "History" section of the Landmark Education article as a likely spot for discussion of the inheritances and the differences connecting and contrasting the two phenomemena. I take the view that part of history involves coming to terms with the past and making a distinction between past and present. Our very discussion of this topic (est and Landmark Education) reflects the importance and widespread perception of some sort of connection, which a serious encyclopedic treatment of Landmark Education needs to address. ( However, I see that a subsequent edit has eviscerated the "History" section and removed my contributions as expressing "extreme minority opinion".)

Sm1969 goes on to suggest that in comparing est and Landmark Education "in order for anyone to truly make that comparison, you would have to have someone (a credible source) do both programs and then make the comparison."

I disagree on the necessity for such an approach: indeed, a comparison using this method would provide very little useful data. Any study based on a person (or even multiple people), however "credible", "do[ing] both programs" would fall into the trap of what I think of as the experience fallacy. Psychologists know that we cannot rely on reports of experience. Lawyers, though they have to deal with the personal experiences of their clients, also know how unreliably their reports can reflect actual events. Physical scientists trust calibrated equipment rather than their own impressions. Even parapsychologists have started to learn that what their subjects report counts for very little. But marketers of Landmark Education have yet to learn the perils of relying on the personal account.

If we wish to compare est and Landmark Education (and I believe we must do so in order to gain some understanding of many aspects of the Landmark Education story and phenomenon), we can more profitably employ better forms of evidence: slightly more subtle (but more reliable) indirect methods. The insights of published researchers such as Barker and Pressman provide one valid place from which to start.

Again, while I agreed with you that Pressman's book is marginally Wikipedia worthy, very, very little of it concerns Landmark Education. For an encyclopedia, you could compare customer experiences of est and Landmark Education (if you could show that they are somehow representative) or take the viewpoint of an external observer of both organizations, and then, again, show that that opinion is somehow representative; finally, you would have to come up with weightings of both opinions. 71.146.141.40 20:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

What makes a good comparison?

To be totally frank I usually disagree with you, Pedant- not on everything but on a lot. It seems like you have some axe to grind. Please no insult- I am only expressing my opinion and perception. I could be wrong.

In this case, though, I think you raise an interesting question: How do you compare two things that by their nature are experential and do not come with pre-ordained specific measures.

I have done the Landmark Forum and not done the est training. Frankly, everything I know about the est Training is from est graduates accounts, newspaper and magazine articles, and books. I think I would be a bad judge for comparing the est training with the current Landmark Forum. Partly because a lot of the people who have told stories about the Landmark Forum- including published accounts- are so off the mark. Because of this I need to assume at least as bad an accuracy drift in the published accounts on the est Training. Therefore - who knows?

I think you are totally worng as well about there being any advantage to not having been at one. That is how Cold Fusion happened. Enough people believed what they heard without trying it themselves- once peopel started trying it - the story unraveled. Same deal here. I have no repsect for anyone who claims to be able to analyze the Landmark Forum with ANY depth who hasn't studied it directly. That is just good rigor in an investigation or a study.

Anecdotal and second hand accounts do not good science or good reporting make although both have to make do occassionally when they need to.

My advice: Don't listen to people spouting off about something they have not studied in detail. If they have studied the socisaological phenomenon by interviewing people who have done it and want to talk about that GREAT- but all you are doing is polling people 's opinions then. It is one level of depth and does not compare with direct study.

SOoo... that being said I think a section on est and Landmark might be useful but it is such ancient history it should be a small section. Landamrk does not at all by the way deny it is connected hisotrically with the est Training. Werner Erhardt is clearly the originator of a lot of the initial "technology" Landmark started with and many of Landamrk's original founding memebers working with Erhard in WE&A and est. There are no dark secrets in that at all.

- Alex Jackl 02:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Reputations and surveys

Sm1969 states: Your "debunking" of the surveys is unattributed POV and your own analysis. You can say that the survey methodology was not disclosed, but adding the term "debunking" violates the attribution policy. You also have the reputations of these large marketing research companies (Yankelovich and Harris).

I accept that my use of the word "debunking" slightly overstated my case.

I did not previously realise that I had "the reputations of these large marketing research companies (Yankelovich and Harris)".

I have nothing against Harris Interactive doing surveys and know nothing of the reputation of that organization. But surveys of participants have inherent problems (self-reporting, organizational taint...), and the fact that Landmark Education's website does not disclose details of the methodology of the survey makes the results of this Harris Interactive survey very questionable.

The case against the DYG survey has more sinister overtones. The Landmark Education website touts a "Full Survey" but fails to provide methodology details (once again). That does not necessarity reflect on DYG or on Daniel Yankelovich, it simply demonstrates Landmark Education's apparent inability to pass on meaningful information -- as promised in the phrase "Full Survey" -- in this respect. I do wonder, though, at the accuracy of Landmark Education's apprent implication that "Internationally recognized social scientist, Daniel Yankelovich surveyed more than 1300 people" in person. Note too that Yankelovich personally endorses Landmark Education in his book The Magic of Dialog (2001, pages 143 - 144). Does this expressed published opinion have any potential bearing on the independence and the impartiality of the administration and interpretation of the DYG survey? Landmark Education, while praising Yankelovich, does not even give us the date of that survey, let alone any precautions taken against any perceivable bias.

- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Generally, the job of the encyclopedia is just to define the positions and not comment on them or editorialize them. You should be faithful to the context. 71.146.141.40 20:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


Marketing vs. Legal Court DOcuments

I, for fun, went to a few sites of organizations that do training of any kind (Harvard, Meta Group, Deloitte, etc.) SOme of them site surveys and polls and what not but they do not have a brief with the full statistcial breakdown and methodology details. You are applying a lens innapropriate to the subject matter. There is no "hidden secrets" about these surveys- just as Harvard's web site (well- as far as I know) has no hidden secrets about it. This is an educational company. If you have some "evidence" of wrong-doing - GREAT! Let's see your proof. Lack of methodology documentation by non-scientists and non-lawyers is hardly damning evidence. Let's compare apples to apples, please. Otherwise these revisions will take FOREVER to sort out with NPOV. It is these kinds of assertions that make people react negatively to your revisions Pedant- they don't seem neutral- they seem bent on promulgating some point of view you have fostered about Landmark Education.

Believe me, Pedant, I have seen these guys at work and they are flawed. They are a human institution with all that impluies- but they are no more flawed than any other. I also respect you diligence and your committment to stick to your guns. I don't want the pro-Landamrk people to squash anything you are saying because you have said somethings worthy of consideration. However, from my standpoint you are evincing extremely ANTI-Landmark biases in your revisions and that will keep prompting strong counter -revisions to keep the page balanced.

Eventually we will need to call in a third-party moderator again and that will probably not go in your favor. SO- let's focus on the issues of susbstance - not dissecting the pre-requisites of courses for legalistic exceptions or the lack of scientific methodology attribution on an educational company's website.

Class distinctions

Sm1969 states: "I think the Class-A/B/C/D distinction is relevant. Class-A (never heard of LE), Class-B (heard and declined), Class-C (did and liked) and Class-D (did and disliked) is relevant for accurate reporting of the points of view. Not much is said about why people choose not to do the Landmark Forum, but Class-C reflects consistent favorable surprise and is a high majority over class D. In other words, the majority POV should reflect that people who chose to do the Landmark Forum were surprised and liked it. You want to conflate Class-B and Class-D and cause the readers researching LE to be mislead to believe that, if, for example, they did the Landmark Forum, they would not like it (or feel that it produces results); that's misleading."

Would that we could divide up the world so consistently and neatly! But we cannot..

The characteristic of "surprise" has not appeared before in this particular typology. Unless we can find evidence for it, I propose to quietly drop this sort of speculation about "surprise" as a factor for subdividing the universe.

We do not have any reliable statistics that would confirm the assertion that [did and liked] outnumbers [did and disliked]. And here I feel moved to point out that the original definition of "Class C" read: "heard of it, did it and found it useful". This shifting from "found Landmark Education useful" to "liked" won't help to keep our debate on track. It also introduces an emotional element which may make the discussion even more anarchic.

But our real problem lies in distinguishing [noted and declined] from [did and rejected]. We cannot reliably make this distinction. Many commentators simply fail to mention whether or not they took part in a Landmark Education activity. And even when they say or imply that they did, we cannot always know how to classify them. The journalists who infiltrate the Landmark Forum may or may not participate fully as individuals, but some at least retain some shreds of journalistic detachment and live to report the tale. Likewise observing psychologists and anthropologists and sociologists may find it hard to put aside their specialized training and learned insights, even if they wish to do so.

Since we cannot reliably distinguish [noted and declined] from [did and disliked], we must perforce often conflate the two.

We may even have a small group (which we could call "Class Z") - those who have not participated, but who nevertheless find evidence of something to approve of (purely your opinion that this is a "small group" - I don't know what data you base this on DA). But the large majority of those with an opinion on Landmark Education fall higgledy-piggledy into a class of disapprovers (again, just your personal opinion - and again without any reliable supporting data DA): whether or not they participated fully to the bitter end, whether they walked out of an "Introduction" or a "Guest Evening" or a "Landmark Forum" (From my own observations, I estimate that around 1% walk out of a Landmark Forum, and perhaps 2-3% from guest events), whether or not they rapidly or gradually determined to stay well away from any such activities.

The foregoing simply reminds us that participation (or non-participation) has very little to do with what we want to measure here -- we want to measure views on Landmark Education, with the aim of establishing majority views and significant minority views, not as an end in itself, but so that we can reflect all of those those views in our Wikipedia articles.

In summary, any views questioning of the merits of Landmark Education form an overall majority. Any views which accept that Landmark Education has some good and worthwhile features form a minority, though possibly a significant minority.

That's simply your opinion. Both statements seem highly questionable to me. There are hundreds of thousands of people who think that Landmark Education is great, and I'd guess many more who think it has "some good and worthwhile features". I don't see any evidence that there are anything like that number "questioning the merits" (whatever that means).DaveApter 14:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

As for the stated concern about misleading people into a particular belief or attitude or expectation, that sounds like a marketing concern. Wikipedia does not have a mission of carrying out marketing or advertising on behalf of Landmark Education - rather it aims to report facts - including the fact that many people hold such-and-such opinions.

All of that is agreed. Neither does Wikipedia have a mission of disseminating and lending credibility to propaganda, either in favour or against. DaveApter 10:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

If we DO wish to forestall any misleading of potential customers, we can best do this by reporting ALL opinions about Landmark Education, regardless of our fascinating calculations of what constitutes minority, majority or extreme minority status.That would leave the potential customers with the ability to do their own research and to make up their own minds. This provides an excellent argument for accepting and recording all views on the matter. Wikipedia, after all, aims for encyclopedic coverage.

The issue of whether the Landmark Forum produces results receives probably its best expression in the work of Fisher et al (Fisher, J D; Silver, R C; Chinsky, J M; Goff, B and Klar, Y: Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training: A Longitudinal Study of Psychosocial Effects Springer-Verlag, 1990, ISBN 0387973206), whose rigorous study came to the definitive conclusion that participating in a proto-Forum had minimal effects on participants.

Actually that is not an accurate summary of their conclusions: what they actually said was that it "had minimal effects on participants' self-perception". A very different matter from concluding that it produced no results.DaveApter 14:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

All other studies/surveys known to me rely on self-reported experiences, and even apart from their apparent methodological deficiencies, we know that anecdotal testimonials of personal experience have minimal weight in the evaluation of a claim. - Pedant17

Well I don't know about that; if the "claim" is that a course enables people to produce accomplishments which would have seemed impossible before they did the course, what evidence could there be apart from "anecdotal testimonials of personal experience"?
For example, just looking at one of the referenced sites ([[8]]), we find accounts of people:
  • getting a group of friends to do a parachute jump and raise £3,300 for charity
  • tracking down a birth mother and father, reconciling them with her adoptive parents, and setting up a support group for adoptees,
  • setting up a yoga project in Rikers Island prison, NY,
  • setting up a musicians' self publishing website,
  • dramatically expanding a sports marketing business,
  • leaving an onerous job and starting a business,
  • starting a rock band,
  • set up a support scheme for children in care,
  • qualified as a hostage and crisis negotiator, and resolved two life-threatening incidents,
  • entering a highboard diving competition and winning a medal
etc, etc
and in an hour or so of following links you can easily find hundreds of examples.
Of course you can always argue that none of this proves anything - they might all have done it anyway and be kidding themselves that it's anything to do with Landmark. But is that really a rational conclusion? DaveApter 15:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

How do we figure this out?

Now this is more interesting. Let me summarize:

- All(or the ones mentioned anyway) the surveys or studies done with actual graduates have demonstrated that either it produced positive results or has "minimal effects".

- You think the ones with the positive results had poor methodology because you don't know what most of their methodology was and don't agree with their conclusion.

Great- that is extremely positive for Landmark. Why do you think that is negative? Studies on the positive or negative impact (a relativistic, self-perceptual value judgement anyway - as you point out) are automatically EXTREMELY soft science and hard to make measurable.

I think a broad, new study of a group of particpants over the course of a year would be VERY interesting. I would love to see the metrics they would use to define success given the promises of the Landmark Forum. Who is going to fund that kind of extensive study? I am not. Landmark is already pretty happy with the success of the studies thay have funded. Pedant?

Until we find a funding source to do one, this is all smoke and mirrors. The negative value judgements are primarily third hand accounts- non-researchers talking about people they knew who did it(not entirely- just most). The studies we have are neutral to positive about the Landmark Forum.

There are published works and each of those must be evaluated but most of those are also just second-hand accounts of personal testimony- which you assert is not meaningful. That wipes out 95% of negative literature about the Landamrk Forum in one fell swoop.

I am not trying to be bad here- but come on. The thing I like about this topic is it is susbstantive and worth discussing. There just isn't any case I see for any revisions based on it...

Schwertfeger on est and Landmark Education

The text:

"In her foreword to Lell's book on Landmark Education (Lell, 1997, page 8), the psychologist Baerbel Schwertfeger quotes a book from the early 1980s (with a foreword by Werner Erhard) as stating that est (Landmark Education's predecessor orgaization) "is Scientology without the hocus-pocus".

has disappeared from the article with the comment "Reference is on est, not LE".

Schwertfeger wrote her comments in the preface to a book on Landmark Education. Her mention of est she evidently considered relevant to Landmark Education in this context. As Landmark Education has undoubted links with est -- not least the purchase of its intellectual property via Werner Erhard and Associates, Schwertfeger's comment merits inclusion in a discussion of the philosophical origins of Landmark Education's activities. (We need citations for the people who have compared Landmark Education ideas to those of "Heidegger, Richard Rorty, Sartre, Fernando Flores [...] Westernized and popularized Zen ... Socrates [and] Wittgenstein" as well...) - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Prominent Landmark Education figures

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Landmark_Education&diff=44789706&oldid=44789664 Changing this heading in the article to "Management" implies that the Landmark Forum leaders that it discusses count as managers. It also precludes the inclusion of historical figures, prominent in Landmark Education, who no longer rank (or never ranked) as "Management". They too deserve a place in this hall of infamy. - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Who did you have in mind?

I am really curious....

- Alex Jackl 05:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Management Cleanup

In the "Management" article, there appeared to be a sort of random collection of people; some of whom appeared to hold positions of management and others who did not. I researched other major companies to see what their articles said about their management persons/structure and found very little (please see: Tony Robbins, The Learning Company, Target Corporation, and Wal-Mart). At most, I discovered a list of Wal-Mart board members and a link to a very brief biography of the company's CEO. Even Tony Robbins article gave only a minimal description of Mr. Robbins personal life. While the heads of a company are pertinent and important to an informational article about a company—the slew of disjointed employees is not, and calls into question the NPOV of that article. I’ve removed all names from the management page with the exception of the CEO of Landmark Education, Harry Rosenberg, and the CEO of Landmark Education Business Development, Steve Zaffron. Blondie0309 16:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

  • The heading has been changed back to the model proposed by Pedant17, see above "Prominent Landmark Education figures". With the language currently used, it is made clear to the reader the importance and relevance of the related references.Smeelgova 19:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

POV on out-of-print-books

DaveApter has changed the text:

(This book has gone out of print, like all printed books dealing specifically with Landmark Education, and the publisher's web-site no longer notes Lell as one of their current authors.)

to read:

(This book is out of print, and the publisher's web-site no longer notes Lell as one of their current authors.)

with the comment: "remoed marginal minority opinion".

I know of no evidence that makes the legitimate comment on books going out of print a "marginal minority opinion". I await evidence of facts or definitive refutation before accpting this undue POV highlighting of out-of-printedness.The Lell book, as THE published book on Landmark Education, has particular resonance for our Landmark Education article. Have other books specifically devoted to Landmark Education ever even appeared in print, let alone remained in print? - Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

"General opinions" heading

Other editors have transformed "Various opinions on Landmark Education" into "Generally unfavorable opinions on Landmark Education".

Let me repeat what I stated in a previous discussion:

the section sometimes labelled "Generally Critical Opinions" contains links to trenchant defenses of Landmark Education as well as links to doubters and detractors and links to sites which attempt, however vainly, to provide room for balanced or mixed views. A previous schema which divided sources into three - pro, anti and mixed - seemed to difficult to maintain consistently. - Pedant17 00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I've seen nobody coming forward with further discussion of the points I raised; accordingly, we should NOT -- without further discussion of the issue -- change this section-header to use a misleading title such as "Generally unfavorable..." -- Pedant17 03:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Well yes you did say that, but is there any truth in it? I'd previously made my comments on your misleading re-naming of this section, and it gets tedious just going back and forth making the same points. There are 13 links in that section. Ten of them are implacably and deliberately hostile to Landmark (and generally inaccurate, but that's a matter for people to investigate and evaluate for themselves). The remaining three (the alt/fan/landmark newgroup and the two versions of rantsandraves) may contain an occasional post by a supporter, but are 95% dominated by critics. It's just another example of your deliberately trying to skew the article. DaveApter 08:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

A Summary

There doesn't seem to be much of a meeting of minds here. And the same points keep getting made ad nauseam. Can we just pause to take stock of the situation?

What facts on this subject can we be sure of?

1) Tens of thousands of people from dozens of countries do the Landmark Forum every year, and tens of thousands also do other courses offered by Landmark Education. The majority of those who do the Landmark Forum do at least one other Landmark Course.

2) The majority of those who do it report that they got worthwhile results, that it represented good value for money, and was well worth the time spent.

3) A large proportion of those who do Landmark courses recommend them to their friends, family and colleagues.

4) Some people who did the Landmark Forum subsequently said that they didn't like it and/or didn't get useful results.

5) Some acquaintances of people who did Landmark courses don't like the apparent effects.

6) Some acquaintances of people who did Landmark courses do like the apparent effects.

7) Some people have formed an opinion that Landmark courses are harmful in some way, at least for some participants.

8) Some journalists have written articles critical of Landmark Education.

9) Some journalists have written articles giving a substantially positive account of Landmark Education.

10) Some people have from time to time given the opinion that Landmark Education is a cult.

11) Landmark Education has none of the characteristics that define a cult.

12) Some people have from time to time given the opinion that Landmark Education uses "brainwashing" techniques.

In order to give "due weight" to the differing opinions above, we need to have some idea of the numbers of people who hold them, and what is the basis for their opinion, and what is the expertise and reputation of the people who express them.

Regarding (2), the only specific sources we have are the surveys quoted in the article. Pedant and ODB want to have these disregarded entirely because of a lack of detail on the methodology, but they give no evidence whatsoever for any alternative estimates, still less any sources for such. Anyone can get a feel for the spectrum of reactions to the Landmark Forum by going along to any Tuesday evening session. What is invariably observed is over 90% entirely satisfied with what they have just been through. In my experience typically 0, 1 or 2 people (out of 150-200) leave during the course, and 0, 1 or 2 are complaining at the end.

Regarding (4), the only evidence is the complaints on various bulletin boards and discussion forums and on sites maintained by implacable critics. Most are anonymous so we have no way of evaluating the authority and reliability of the writer. Even if we take all at face value, and assume that all are distinct individuals, the total number is an infinitesimal proportion of the numbers who have done the Landmark Forum. Many of these openly admit that they didn't do the assignments and/or didn't keep the promises they made at the start of the course, so perhaps it's not surprising they didn't experience any benefits.

Regarding (5) and (6), reaction of acquaintances, there appears to be no objective data, but it clearly isn't universal that acquaintances are spooked by the effects of Landmark courses. My estimate is that more find their friends to be more energetic, honest, reliable and/or empathic etc. than complain about them becoming "obsessed" or "weird" etc.

Regarding (7), harmful effects, the number of identifiable alleged cases in support of this is insignificant in relation to the number of landmark Customers (less than 0.001%), and in none of them is a clear-cut link established anyway.

Regarding (8) and (9), journalistic appraisal, there seem to me to be at least as many items giving an essentially positive account, and the proportion seems to be much higher in the "serious" rather than "sensationalist" part of the press spectrum. It's up to individuals to review the sources and come to their own conclusions.

Regarding (10), "cult" allegations, the only identifiable accusers are a handful of self-appointed "cult experts". Clearly they have a vested interest in scaremongering, and a vested interest in refusing to own up to misjudgements. Furthermore none of them have observed Landmark courses themselves, nor do they show any convincing evidence of accurate knowledge of Landmark's methodology. On every occasion where they have had to either justify or retract the accusation, they have chosen to retract. Yet they continue to maintain the stance they have explicitly disavowed, eg by selectively publishing hostile anonymous opinions on their websites whilst asserting a lack of accountability for the same.

Regarding (12), the "brainwashing" debate, the only sources that Pedant has managed to come up with are an offhand comment in an article in a lifestyle and gossip magazine, and one book that never made it into the English language writtten by one disgruntled customer 13 years ago and long out of print. The author has no credentials in the field and could not confirm when cross-examined under oath that he had been brainwashed anyway. Does this really count as a 'notable source'? On the other had we have attributable opinions by eminent psychiatrists and religious leaders that there is no resemblance to brainwashing. Does this really justify the best part of a screenful in the article dealing with this topic?

In short, although the article notes that "Landmark Education and its methods evoke considerable controversy, with passionate opinions held both by supporters and by detractors," it turns out that a search for notable sources for the detractors' position fails to come up with much. It is almost impossible to find credible authorities citing actual facts or reliable evidence to back up the criticisms levelled. Against this background, the article already gives considerable space to airing their views. Pedant's edits invariably have the impact in total of emphasising negative opinions and undermining supportive views.

Pedant17 clearly reveals a strong anti-Landmark POV in his comments on this page. Of course he is perfectly entitled to that. What he is not entitled to do is make repeated attempts to hijack this article to propagandize his own viewpoint. DaveApter 13:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Well said, I would be happy to have a moderator come in and look at some of Pedant's prior edits and their deliberately sarcasm to show the insignificant minority positions he is overweighting. Pedant, for whatever reason, it might be time for you to forgive Landmark Education. 71.146.141.40 20:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

My Recent Changes

1. I made a series of changes that I consider corrections against POV attacks on the site.

2. There is an LGAT page. It is currently appropriately referenced that some consider Landmark to be an LGAT. All the rest is fine material for someone to put up on the LGAT page. Just to make it easier for someone to do this I added an explicit reference to the LGAT page for anyone interested.

3. People should sign in if they are going to make edits. I am not interested in debating with an IP address.

4. At least half of the "References" where not appropriate to this page - they were about Cults, LGATs and other things. I considered just renaming the section "Unfavorable Landamrk Education References" but then decided that that was just catering to a POV attack on what is supposed to be a NPOV article so I took it out. There is a cult page and there is an LGAT page. I think the poster of that section should feel free to go to work on those pages OR OR

5. Recommend some references here on the Talk page and let's get some agreement that they represent the subject in a NPOV way and then let's post them.

6. I am happy to discuss any of these changes- I am too busy and don't have time for a soapbox. However, I will maintain the integrity of the pages I am watching or call in a moderator if the attacks get to be too much.

- Alex Jackl 00:35, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Artlicle seems biased in favor of Landmark

Rading this article I find a subtle bias in favour of Landmark. I dont have an oppion either way on Landmark I just think the article should be more neutral.

Bias: Negative or Positive?

I believe this article is trapped in that form of debate centered around false duality. Do people think an article on banana trees should have 50% stuff negative about banana trees and 50% positive about banana trees? No- you put in the facts about banana trees. Now if there is some dissention on the subject of banana trees you would want to reference that but the majority of the article would be facts and generally understood knowledge about the topic of banana trees written mostly by experts on banana trees.

In this case, there are a few people out there with radical and deeply-held negative opinions about Landmark Education. At the risk of generalizing, they keep trying to shift the POV of the article to be about talking about their beliefs or defending Landmark about those beliefs. It has been demonstrated on these pages that this is a SIGNIFICANT minority belief and we have had to pull in moderators at least twice to pull these revisionists back.

Some of the points they add, I believe, are worthy of comment and some are just blatant negative spin. I think the current article is still too heavily shifted in the direction of the unfavorable POV, but Wikipedia is about the "commons" right? They have a right to their opinions so there is a fairly extensive section about some of those minority concerns.

Any more emphaiss than already exists there would inaccurately represent the facts of the article. In My Opinion.

SO, hopefully we are coming to an understanding with Pedant17 (a person with some of those opinions, but at least talking and presenting their case) and have stabilized things. Those that change the content and don't even register themselves as who they are... mostly we will just reverse those as vandalism.

I read the article and I find it more neutral than in early revisions but still slanted to the negative. *shrug* Thank God we are all different- the world would be so boring!

- Alex Jackl 01:31, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favor of a NPOV article as well. I think there needs to be more content actually speaking about Landmark Education and less about the controversies surrounding it. While it is noteworthy to mention some of the controversies, they should be relevant to the overall article. At the moment, some of the controversies barely seem related to the content present in the rest of the article.

Some minor changes

In reviewing the entire page. I found a few things that I cleaned up- there was an old request for citation that had the citation added but the request was still there. There were a few sections where a lot of extra verbiage was put in to, perhaps, make it sound legal or in doubt or something, which verbiage I removed. :-)

For instance, in the scope section I removed the plethora of various ways it was written to imply this is "just" what Landmark says. Saying it once at the begining is enough. Everyone gets that is Landmark's position. If you ask for the charter or scope of a company it is obviously their "stated" scope and is obviously what they "maintain". Saying it over and over agian just clutters the article.

I also took out a incorrect change to the page which changed the reference to limited Liability Corporation [LLC] to [LEC] . This was just an error of someone not reading carefully enough before changing the article.

As always, feel free to contact me with questions or concerns.

- Alex Jackl 05:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

reversion of Hdroute's edits

I removed these (again) because they violate several of Wikipedia's policies, most especially the NPOV and citation of sources.

Judging from these edits and others you have made on other topics, you don't seem to have grasped the nature of Wikipedia - it is not a discussion board for posting up your personal opinions and observations. The statements should be in the realm of facts, not opinions or value judgements, and the published sources where these facts can be verified should be provided.

Furthermore, several of the points you inserted are already discussed elsewhere in the article. DaveApter 11:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Why is "hypnosis" & "martial arts" in the "See Also" section

I was reading through this artical and was following the links.

I could not see any reason why "hypnosis" & "martial arts" were included in the see also section.

martial arts just through me. In my limited understanding of Landmark Education they are not related in any way to martial arts.

Followup

I agree. I am going to weed out the non-directly related "See Also"s or at least categorize them clearly. This is a site about Landmark Education NOT Werner Erhard or EST. ALthough Werner Erhard and EST have a place in the history leading up to Landmark Education it is FAR TOO OVER EMPHASIZED in this article. I am not going to try to solve the bigger problem- but I will clean up the "See Also" section.

Hopefully we will not have to involve the Wikipedia's administrators involved in this. If this keeps up we will propbably need to do that again. Managing POV is critical with a site that has as much contraversy attached to it.

Alex Jackl 14:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Financial Matters re: Werner

I think almost all the financial stuff about Werner Erhardt and EST and WEA is ancient history- all pre-Landmark.

In speaking with the user Smeelgova he said that

"these issues are not ancient history, considering Werner Erhard is getting a payout of a $15 million dollar licensing fee, plus 50% of pre-tax profit from Landmark, and the likelihood that the license to Landmark will revert back to him in under 3 years. (At least from the research that I have read so far.)"

I am getting documentation for this right now. But I am clear that some of this is innaccurate and some of it is outdated.

Outdated

My understanding is that about 3 - 5 years ago Landmark bought out the $15 million dollar ( I don't know the exact figure by the way- I am using Smeelgovas as a reference so we are talking about the same thing) licensing agreement and now owns all of the technology outright. My understanding is that the licensing agreement that was bought out those years ago was the sum total of the existing fiscal relationship with Werner Erhardt.

Innaccurate

He definitely is not getting 50% of the pre-tax profit so you should check your sources because that is wildly inaccurate. I know you are referencing Pressman's book (terrible reference by the way since he wrote it as a hack job it isn't likely to be full of NPOV data! :-)) and an article I haven't read from some paper called the the "Metro" from 1998. We should probably see if we could reference some public documents rather than what these two authors thought (not withstanding the fact that Pressman's information is 14 years old!)

  • Citation is from a reputable source, and is certainly relevant to the section:

Metroactive is a Northern California meta-site specializing in arts and entertainment information and featuring content from three of the San Francisco Bay Area's leading publications: Metro, Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper; Metro Santa Cruz; and the North Bay Bohemian. Both Metroactive and Metro's weeklies have won national awards for writing, editing and design. website, Metroactive

Alex notes: The citation is relevant to the section- its accuracy is all that is in question. I have located the article thanks to Smeelgova's assistance. Here is the URL: Landmark Article in Metro I have contacted the author to see if she has any notes on her sources. She does not cite any in the article and she herself is not an expert- she is a reporter who attended a Forum and talked to some people and then wrote the piece for the Metro. Her assertions on the finances are not attributed so it will be hard to find out where she got them from unless she can find her records that go back that long.

Alex Jackl 20:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Back to Smeelgova: Quite frankly, Landmark Education's parent organization was founded by Werner Erhard, and there should be a small yet significant piece on him present on this article's page.Smeelgova 16:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Uncertain

I have heard that Werner Erhardt occassionally will do a conference or consult but have never seen that personally. I will see if I can get some official or unofficial stance on that.

I will look for documentation on these matters because unlike the WEA and EST finincials and goings on I think Werner Erhardt's financial ties to the organization has some relevance to this article. (Not too large, but it deserves a treatment).


Alex Jackl 14:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Metro article

  • I am very uncomfortabble with this quote. Just because this reporter said it doesn't make it true. She did not attribute it to any source and I have been looking and can't find any validation of her assertion. I think it is a total disservice to put bold financial assertions into an encyclopedia article when we are almsot certain that they ar eblatentloy false and they DIRECTLU contradict what the entity the article is about says is true.

Because of that I am going to reverse this change. I will try to soften my source note a little but i think it needs to stay or we need to take the assertion out.

This frustrating because any idiot can say anyhting about anything and if a reporter reports that unattributed we should put it into an encyclopedia article? I don't think so. But I agree we can't just remove the reference so I thought my source note was a good compromise. I am looking for contradictory source documentation that is meaningful. I have read her other articles- this woman was by no means an expert and this was a one shot assignment for her.

Let's talk about this more. I will put a kinder, gentler version of my warning on the article site.Alex Jackl 23:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

    • One can certainly understand your being uncomfortable with this citation. However, it is most inappropriate to put caveats like this in front of citations. Simply allow the reader to follow the citation through to the original article and make their own judgements. As stated above, the Metro news source is indeed reputable and has won several national awards for their journalism.
    • If we allowed caveats to go in front of every citation that we did not necessarily agree with on Wikipedia, then there would simply be no room or memory for the articles themselves.Smeelgova 23:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


What is this page for???

The problem with including things that we are almsot certian is untrue and there is dispute about is that it misleads the reader and diminishes WIkipedia's repiutation as a source of accurate information.

I have this page as one of the pages I have volunteered to look over and keep vandal-free. it is a constant struggle with this because of the contraversersy and strong opinion on all sides.

We had gotten to a point where the page had stabilized and we were making slow gradiual changes with discussions about it here. Let's not have to pull in the Wikipedia NPOV police again. In both cases it was decided that the anti-Landmark contingent was vandalizing and we did a massive change over. Let's not do that again.

To perform a sanity check I have been checking other web sites about organizations and corproations. 1) Some of them do need POV checks becasue they ar eoften blatant marketing for thwir company. 2) Not SINGLE ONE I FOUND DEDICATES THE PERCENTAGE OF ITS ARTICLE TO NAY-SAYERS AND CRITICS AS THIS ONE DOES. 3) IF THIS ARTICLE HAD TO GO THROUGH A pov SHIFT IT WOULD BE PUSHED TO THE MORE POSITIVE ABOUT LANDMARK. 4)Let's stop the revising and start discussion streams on the talk page and when we reach consesnus we will then move content on the page. It will slow things down but- what's the hurry. This article states the facts and gives a thorough overview of Landmark Education and it s critics view points. 5) This is an article about Landamrk Education NOT Werener Erhardt or EST or WEA. Let's stick to that there ar emore than enough reference to that- people get it. There is a connection.

Thanks! Trying to avoid calling in the cops!

Alex Jackl 00:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

  • The information restored RE: Margaret Singer has been established on this page prior to my previous edits, and the source from the Phoenix News Times is reputable and cited properly.
  • The legal article from the NEW JERSEY LAW JOURNAL is reputable, and though not a primary source legal document, definitely relevant to the Legal Links section.
  • I think we have come to a reasonable compromise on the "caveat" section in the Erhard Financial Information section.
  • This article as of now is relatively balanced, and yet I couldn't see how the "NPOV Police" would deem that it is too positive or negatively biased. All of the information on the page as of now is relevant, though there is probably superfluous information regarding the various courses and vocabulary that is simply filler. That is a point for a different discussion.
  • On behalf of other historical past editors of this article I resent the "vandalism" innuendo. We are simply trying to show a certain degree of transparency with regard to the controversial history of this organization.Smeelgova 02:03, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

This all boils down to point three: "relative balance". There is not a "certain degree of transparency" - there is an excess of content not about the core topic of the article. This article is NOT about Werner Erhardt, EST, or WEA. It is also not about cults. Now, it is contingent on us to mention the contraversies but the percentage of content in this article on those topics compared to the core topic is very high compared to other sites. I am not a "pro-Landmark fanatic" but I am struggling to pare down what seems to me to be heavily editorial content that is driven by an anti-LE bias. I want to be responsible about "seems" but that position has been validated twice now when we pulled in uninvolved Wikipedia editors to intervene.

This is an article about Landmark Education - the fact that you think data about the vocabulary and courses- data DIRECTLY relevant to the topic might be superfluous is a good indicator of where you are looking.

In point one: Singer's comments after the fact are all besides the point. If we listed the sour grapes of everyone who lost a court battle in every legal battle listed in Wikipedia it would fill volumes. The bottom line is when she was under oath she told a different story. I appreciate you feel there is more to the story but that section is about legal challenges. Let's keep it to that.

In point two: It isn't a legal document. Don't put it into the legal document section. I am not saying don't put it in the article. It is a fine and valid reference - just not a legal document.

In point three: I agree

In point four: Balance is the key. We all have different points of balance - as long as we keep our eye on balance this will all work out. We just need to keep our eye out for people not interested in improving the article but interested in inserting a particular POV. Using this as a kind of bulletin board.

In point five: I apologize if I insulted anyone by inferring they were vandals. I am just committed that we keep improving the article and not get swept up in POV wars.

Thanks!

Alex Jackl 03:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

  • You had stated previously that before this new round of edits, the article was beginning to look neutral. The Margaret Singer piece was actually in the article before you began making edits to it.
  • Perhaps superfluous was not the right word, but we could easily fill up triple the current article's content with just Landmark Education jargon. I thought it deserved a separate location at the least.
  • It is true that the above mentioned piece from the NEW JERSEY LAW JOURNAL is not a "legal document". I have revised the heading to be more appropriate to other legal related items. This is clearly written in a reputable manner and should not be in the "unfavorable" section.
  • Thank you for the apology RE: I apologize if I insulted anyone by inferring they were vandals.Smeelgova 03:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Erhard, Financial Ties to Landmark

  • I have found another source for the financial info RE: Werner Erhard (see main page changes). I have removed the "SOURCE NOTE" before the first citation, because it now appears that the second citation explains the developments post 1998 and through to 2001. It is interesting to note that it appears that we were both partially correct: financial ties and potential ownership arrangements existed through til 2001, at which point it appears Erhard was bought out and now only consults for the organization.Smeelgova 06:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
These references don't justify writing those figures into the article as though they were established facts. I don't see that either of these sources really carries very much weight. Neither writer gives any indication of where they gathered the information. The only people who know the facts of the matter are Werner Erhard and a handful of senior executives at Landmark Education, so any assertions by others are likely to be pure speculation or conjecture. It seems to me highly implausible that the Forum leaders would have agreed to pay him anything of the order of a million dollars a year, bearing in mind that they themselves work 90-110 hour weeks in return for a modest professional salary which is a tiny fraction of that. DaveApter 17:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Please see discussion above RE: previously discussed consensus on this subsection. Information is sourced in blockquoted citation format from reputable sources, and brings information full circle as of 2001Smeelgova 05:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment Insert

I believe this is a tricky piece - things have changed. We now have more accurate data and if data exists we should stick totally to authoratative sources. I have stated before that journalist's opinions that are not backed up by primary sources are "guy in a bar" kind of references. If the person speaking doesn't attribute and has no expertise in the subject they should not be in an encyclopedia. I am in agreement that false data or speculative data not be included. However we don't want to get too crazy about. Alex Jackl 14:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


You don't seem to have grasped the point that wikipedia is supposed to be a repositiory of facts, not conjectures. That something is claimed in a newspaper article does not make it a fact. Wikipedia defines a 'primary source' as follows (see [9]):
A primary source is a document or person providing direct evidence of a certain state of affairs; in other words, a source very close to the situation you are writing about. The term most often refers to a document produced by a participant in an event or an observer of that event. It could be an official report, an original letter, a media account by a journalist who actually observed the event, or an autobiography.
Clearly neither of these articles is this. Neither are they secondary sources:
A secondary source summarizes one or more primary or secondary sources. Secondary sources produced by scholars and published by scholarly presses are carefully vetted for quality control and can be considered authoritative.
Without readers being able to trace back to the origin of a claim and form a judgement about its reliability, all we would be doing is perpetuating hearsay. In many of these cases several unattributable sources may all derive their justification by quoting each other. This is a serious danger with much of the material you have inserted all over the place, often deriving from anonymous quotes on web forums and blogs. Similarly much of the content of Pressman's book deals with assertions about which he had no direct experience, and nor does he indicate any reputable or verifiable sources from which he drew his material.
Looking at the vast quantity of your edits and their common themes, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that you are attempting to subvert wikipedia into a rumour mill for discrediting Werner Erhard and individuals and organisiations associated with him, as well as using it as a link farm to promote all manner of dubious websites. DaveApter 14:26, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Please, I believe it would be best for all parties involved to avoid direct verbal attacks against individual users. As for the primary information, the articles cited in blockquote citation format include quotes from the CEO of the organization, as the primary source for some of the information.Smeelgova 14:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


First of all, please forgive me if anything I said appears to be a personal attack - I did not mean it to be so.
However, surely you would agree that your pattern of edits is very unusual in the following respects:
1)since arriving in wikipedia about a month ago, you have made well over 1000 edits
2)over 95% of these have been about Werner Erhard, or people associated with him
3)your edits have been predominantly negative about him and his associates
4)your use of blockquotes confuses between fact and assertion
5)you have place an unusually large number of outbound links in wikipedia (many dozens)
6) the majority of these point to sites making negative claims about Werner Erhard or those close to him
7) most of these would not qualify as notable, primary sources DaveApter 21:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it a cult?

I made some corrections and reorganized the section. It was completely unbalanced and bordering on inflammatory with the majority of the section making reference to books, web pages and people who had made references to LE in them, thus indicating that there may be some truth to it being a cult simply because some book had a section or some website had a page. That would be "guilt by mention" and just because the name of a person or company shows up in someones book or on someones web page about ANY subject doesn't connect them to that subject in reality. That's what sensational journalism is always looking to do, but Wikipedia, intending to be an encyclopedia, cannot have such biased entries. The option was to take all those lines out but in the interest of keeping it balanced I chose to rework the section so both "sides" were represented.

Legal Status / Labor Practices

I reorganized this information and put what was under Labor Practices under a new heading Landmark Education in France. After reading these sections it is obvious that an area of "controversy" (which is what this section is about) is the French thing AND the section about Berlin (formerly under "Legal Status") has no relevance. Those lines simply indicate that the Berlin Senate at one time classified Landmark as espousing a "religious world view" - if that were true it is clearly irrelevant in a section called Legal Status - and now countered themselves and now call Landmark a "provider of life assistance." All irrelevant so I removed it. This subsection is now consistent with the intent of this main section.

Brainwashing allegations

To be consistent the heading doesn't work inside the overall section and implies some list of allegations. The section has one allegation followed by one strong counter by an expert who clearly states that it is not brainwashing. More appropriate to this controversy section and to what is actually happening in this sub-section, I changed the heading.

Financial Ties

Smeelgova; It looks like you just took some irrelevant information that I removed from another sub-heading where it didn't belong and dropped it here. It is still irrelevant. That whole thing about "pulling the strings" that you are committed to just baffles me, in the realm of someone contributing to an encyclopedia. It is a sensational quote pulled from an article where an electronics engineer in Colorado was giving his opinion:

"Landmark alumnus Walter Plywaski, a Colorado electronics engineer who took on the company after his daughter ran up a $3,000 tab on courses, thinks Erhard is still pulling the strings."

How does that qualify to be included in an encyclopedia article?

Also, what relevance is it that former staff members of one organization now work for another one, even if they are family members? How does that equate to financial ties. If I hired the accountant of my former company to do my personal accounting while I was an employee there, then left that company, but still use that accountant. . . does that give me financial ties to my former employer? This seems to be what you are saying by putting those peoples names here. If you want them listed in the article, the only possible place they could go is under some "current management personnel" section and even then I am not sure how relevant that would be, or who is going to take the time to keep it current when changes are made.

Also, how does the fact that Landmark put up a favorable site for Erhard, when they have already acknowledged that they respect the contribution he has made and since they use the "technology" they bought from him, equate to financial ties?

Also, you show no source for what is obviously confidential information; licensing fees paid and technology reverting in 2009, as an example. You provide a link to an old MetroActive article (The est of Friends) in which the author has the exact paragraph that you have put in your edit, without even updating it, by the way (I am sure Erhard is no longer 63). The author doesn't give a source for that confidential information either. So far as I know, Landmark is a privately held company and unless you (or she) got that information from them or Erhard directly, you are claiming to know (and worse, pass on) something you do not know. Otherwise, you would quote the real source.

This kind of work on this site that is sure to corrupt it and ruin the intention. THIS IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Your opinions, or worse, someone elses opinions passed off as the truth, do not belong here. There are other places to register your opinions. As far as I am concerned your intentions are counter to the intention of this resource. The first thing that I was impressed by when I first looked at Wikipedia was their statement that this is not a place for expressing your own opinions. I request you stop doing that, and stop using others as if they are facts. Dante C 16:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Philosophical References

I took out "Sudbud" and "Hypnosis" as there is NO direct link of these to Landmarks programs. I am curious to know who put them here and on what basis? It occurs that any Philosophical References regarding Landmark's programs need to come from Landmark, and therefore, frankly I question ALL the others listed here unless someone from Landmark or some one else can say why there are here, BUT there is no indication of a source for this information in this section. I recommend removing this entire section really, but make these changes for now.

Financial Ties

Whether another user agreed to your changing my edits back or not (I am in communication with them to find out if they did agree) what you keep trying to put in this section, which I keep removing, has NOTHING to do with this section and / or is not sourced. I am still waiting for you to provide an accurate source for the claim that technology reverts to Werner Erhard in 2009. You cannot use the Time article for this as that author didn't quote her sources either, in an article that was clearly slanted negatively against Landmark. I say again, neither you nor she could possibly have that information.

And, you repeat information which is also listed in the section immediately above this one; Current Involvement. And, you keep refering to Erhard as 63 years old - I know that that's not possible. And, you make claims for something about the Mexico deal which was "later revealed". . . by whom?

I don't think you have a clear idea of what Wikipedia is trying to do and I don't mean to be persona but your writing and quoting non sourced articles from magazines (no less) and from clearly biased articles (no less) is nothing more than polite mud slinging. This works for magazines, newspapers, the National Enquirer but just not here. An encyclopedia is nothing and useless at best, and dangerous at worst (given it is used for reference material by many people), if it is not accurate and the material included in each article relevant to the topic.

As I said before, there are plenty of places for you to get your opinion accross about Erhard, Landmark or anything else you have an opinion about. I request that you respect the opportunity that Wikipedia is and work inside the guidelines they have set out.

Smeelgova's links

I believe that many, if not most, of Smeelgova's external links violate this wikipedia guideline:

Any site that contains factually inaccurate material or unverified original research. (See Wikipedia:Reliable sources for further information on this guideline.)

DaveApter 18:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Current Involvement

I removed a quote that was represented as if it was a viable source regarding Werner Erhard's supposed involvement. As I explained before, the Time magazine quote of an electonics engineer from Colorado expressing his OPINION that Erhard is "pulling the strings" is CLEARLY someone adding inaccurate / unsourced information as if it were the opinion of "some claim" vs. one person, not qualified to say, expressing his opinion.Dante C

Regarding your attempt to continue to add the irrelevant information about Erhards personal attorney (though I doubt you have talked with Erhard or Schreiber directly to see if they still have that relationship), even if it is true, it is still not relevant. Who cares? and Why would they? Why would someone interested in looking up information about a company IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA (by the way) care about the possibility that the former owner's attorney is still on the board of directors of said company? How does that equate to that former owners Current Involvement? This section is about Erhards Current Involvement not Schreibers. If you have a reason for including such seemingly irrelevant information you should explain the relevance or make the connection which demonstrates "current involvement." Since you do neither, and until you do, this type of information doesn't belong here.

In addition, your inference that Erhard is "currently involved" because Landmark started the website on him is stretching it, albeit clever. . . as accurate as that information may be, it is still not relevant. Please add "relevant" to your editing of this article vs. just accurate. This kind of unnecessary, irrelevant information just bogs down the article. Unless or until you can make a case for including speculations, inferences and opinions as relevant to the article, I request you keep them out.Dante C 16:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Reputable Sources

I have added sources, in blockquoted citation format, to the Werner Erhard section. These sources are reputable, and in fact the New York Magazine source includes information from CEO Harry Rosenberg regarding the purchases from Erhard in 2001.Smeelgova 15:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted your last edit. You seem to be ignoring the points made on this page by several editors. The sources you reference are not reputable primary or secondary sources of factual information. The quote from Harry Rosenberg in no way corroborates the speculative assertions about the financial arrangements with Werner Erhard.
Whatever the merits of Metro or New York magazine may or may not be, their reporters would have no access to definitive knowledge about the matters under discussion, and they give no indication of where they derived authority for the claims made in the articles you quoted.
I don't know where you got the idea that it is ok to insert questionable statements into an article as though they were factual by blockquoting them and adding a footnote reference. If is a fact that someone has certain opinions, it is fair to report that, but it should be done in such a way that it is clear to readers that this is a report of someone's opinion, and what is the basis for them having that opinion. DaveApter 18:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Blockquoted citation is a fair method for producing material directly from sourced information, as opposed to simply stating material that is not backed up by sources. The reader can then go directly to the source for more information regarding said blockquotes. The very fact that the New York Magazine has statements from Harry Rosenberg regarding the financial information lends even more credibility to the source and blockquote.Smeelgova 21:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Blockquotes should principly be used for an extended quote from a speaker, document or other primary source-- not for taking a large section of text from a secondary source, such as a feature story in a magazine. The usage in this article makes it appear that the section is a quote of an actual statement made by Rosenberg, which is not the case. It should be synthesised within the text of the article, rather than copied directly from a published source, as this could be considered a copyvio. Of further concern is the method of combining, with ellipses, two separate parts of the magazine story-- five paragraphs apart-- as though they were in near vicinity, using ellipses. This is also not a proper way to quote from a source. --LeflymanTalk 01:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree. Please refrain from re-introducing this quotation. I have left the sentence which is a direct quotation from Harry Rosenberg, and removed the part about financial arrangements which is empty and unsourced speculation on the part of the journalist. To quote this in a form that implies that it is part of Rosenberg's statement is highly misleading.DaveApter 14:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Tagged for NPOV

I've placed an Template:NPOV tag on this article, as well as in a particular section. There is an excess of "promotional" language taken apparently from Landmark Education itself, rather than neutral language from reliable sources about the organization. In general, articles should cite assertions, particularly controversial ones, and such citations should preferably be publications not produced by the subject of the article, or those involved with the subject. Additionally, care must be taken when using POV verbs such as "claims", "maintains", "asserts"-- all of which are attributed nebulously to "Landmark Education". See: Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid#Claim_and_other_synonyms_for_say --LeflymanTalk 01:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I've left the tag at the top of the article, but removed it from the 'cult' section, as I can't see anything particularly objectionable there.
I agree with you about the undesiribility of the verbs such as "claims", "maintains", "asserts". Almost all instances of these have been introduced into the article over time by editors with an anti-Landmark POV, with a presumed intention of casting doubt on the accuracy of the statements. It seems to me valid in the context of documenting the controversy and debate surrounding the organisation to quote Landmark's own stated position as well as external commentators on both sides. All of the reported assertions can be found by following up the various references and citations in the article. DaveApter 15:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
  • The "Cult" section was a particularly egregious example of non-NPOV language usage. Please revert the tag there. Examples include: "weasel words", such as in the opening sentence, "Occasionally this question is asked or considered by detractors of Landmark Education, but there has been no evidence presented that would affirm such a claim."; slipping in Original Research, ala "...however she makes no claim to have even observed Landmark programs first hand, and also uses the term "cult" (or "dangerous persuader") when discussing organizations such as multi-level-marketing company Amway.)"; including the assertion of "Experts with direct experience of Landmark Educations programs" which makes a value judgement of one source versus another. In sum, these sections are obviously intended to provide a pro-LE view, rather than a neutral one.--LeflymanTalk 18:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


Thanks for participating in the debate. Firstly, my understanding is that tags such as the NPOV are there to be put in as a last resort once attempts to reach consensus by re-iterative editing have reached deadlock, rather than a first resort to state disagreement with a current state of the article. If you don't like the article in its present form, why not edit it to your satisfaction and see whether these edits stick, or whether it evolves into a form that you can be happy with? If this fails, put in the tag then, and maybe bring in arbitrators if we still can't reach consensus.
Secondly, I can't see what your objection is to the points made in the article:
a) in that first example, the sentence seems to me to be a fair summary of the "facts" of the controversy - viz: (i) some people say Landmark is a cult; (ii) they don't provide any concrete facutal evidence to support this (or even, generally, to clarify what they mean by the accusation). If you (or any of the other editors who are keen to bring in the cult debate to this article) want to dispute this, the best way to do so would be by citing specific verifiable examples of cult-like behaviour by Landmark Education.
b) Once again, I don't see why you have a problem with this section. Editors with a clear anti-Landmark POV introduced the citation from Samways to support the contention that Landmark is a cult. Do you really dispute that it is relevant for a reader of the article to know whether she came to this conclusion with or without directly observing the phenomenon she is casting judgement over? Or that it is relevant for them to have some idea of the breadth of the spectrum of organisations which Samways is happy to describe as being "cults"?
c) and finally, I would disagree that the phrase "Experts with direct experience of Landmark Educations programs" introduces a bias or value judgement; it is a straightforward statement of fact. Examples (cited and referenced elsewhere within the article) include Dr Raymond Fowler, Dr Edmond Lowell (both eminent and highly respected psychiatrists) and Bishop Otis Charles, all of whom have stated publicly on the record that Landmark has none of the characteristics of a cult, and all of whom did so after observing the procedings for themselves, rather from the standpoint of armchair critic. DaveApter 18:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
  • In my view, this is not a debate, but an explanation of Wikipedia policy. The NPOV tag can be added at any time to an article or particular section which is presented in biased or non-neutral language. (Given that it is a legitimate and explicit issue.) It alerts editors and readers that some Wikipedians have raised concerns with the assertions made in an article -- and provides a greater impetus to bring it into compliance. Unfortunately, I don't intend to edit this article, as it is a battleground for POV-warring (as most controversial topics/subject groups tend to be); further, I am not knowledgeable, nor intend to be, about Landmark Education. However, if I were to edit it, I'd likely excise most of the sections which read as promotional, rather than informational. Thus, I am taking a neutral position and pointing out that the use of language here is not in keeping with Wikipedia's non-negotiable neutrality policy. Please take a look at Wikipedia dispute resolution -- Arbitration is the last resort. Prior to this, when editing is deadlocked, it's suggestible to seek a third opinion, or post a request for comment, and if that doesn't suffice, move onto mediation
As to your specific points:
Use of language such as in your comment, "some people say..." or in specific section, "this question is asked or considered by detractors..." is considered "weasel wording". Contending "they don't provide evidence" is a primae facia Original Research- it is a non-verifiable assertion. Wikipedia editors should not evaluate the evidentiary status of statements made by sources. The only concerns when including a factual, theoretical or opinion claim should be: 1) is it verifiable; 2) is it from a reliable source; and 3) is it presented in neutral language. As is stated at the top of the Verifiability Policy, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth."
Your other points-- such as providing rebuttals by "experts"-- likewise indicate a non-familiarity with WP standards. A quick Google search, for example, reveals that the oft-cited Dr. Fowler's "expertise" about Landmark is based on his attendance of a two-weekend seminar more than ten years ago ("several years" before a 1995 letter), and a four day review at the request of Landmark in 1999 -- not as is stated, "studying Landmark Education on his own behalf." I would suggest reviewing the three core policies (as highlighted above) of No Original Research, Verifiability, and Neutral Point of View. A good synopsis, particularly applicable to this article is: Guidelines for controversial articles. Finally, I would also suggest gaining experience editing any of the other million+ articles here, otherwise as this article is your nearly-exclusive area of interest, it may appear that you are editing out of fanaticism. Please see the apropos essay, "Don't be a fanatic".
Regards,--LeflymanTalk 20:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify: by debate, I meant the discussion on this talk page to reach consensus about what is and is not an acceptable implementation of Wikipedia's policies as expressed in the article (isn't that what this page is for?). I'm not disputing the policy or its negotiablity, just how the article adheres to it or otherwise, which is surely a matter on which individual judgements will vary.
Interesting that you characterise yourself as "neutral", but indicate that you would be inclined to excise "sections which read as promotional, rather than informational", but make no mention of excising sections which are defamatory. After all the guideline on controversial topics you recommend below does say "...it is our job to be fair to all sides of a controversy." Also the NPOV policy states "When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about competing opinions, and to do so without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It's also generally important to give the facts about the reasons behind the views, and to make it clear who holds them. It's often best to cite a prominent representative of the view." DaveApter 10:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  • It's your opinion that it there are "defamatory sections" -- I wold suggest that perhaps you are too close to this topic, and may see things a bit more critically than those who are outsiders, looking in.--LeflymanTalk 17:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Similarly, it's your opinion that it there are "promotional sections". (I should have thought it incontrovertible that ther were both). All of these are value judgements. And all depend on the point of view of the person making the value judgement. It is the nature of a point of view that it is not readily discernable to the person who posesses it. Your comments here seem to suggest that you imagine that you do not have one, and are entering the debate from a position of neutrality. Is this what you feel? DaveApter 22:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
The fact that I used the construction "some people say..." above in this discussion does not mean that I would use or condone it within an article. As regards the sentence under discussion (which I didn't write, and probably wouldn't have expressed that way myself), the comment that "they don't provide evidence" is actually better than verifiable - it is very readily falsifiable, which could easily be done by producing verifiable, notable sources detailing any such evidence. In fact my opinion is that the sections on cults and brainwashing have no place in a wikipedia article, precisely because the claims cannot be backed up by respected sources which meet wikipedia's criteria. However since some editors insist in introducing these topics, others will attempt to restore some balance. DaveApter 10:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I think you are still misunderstanding the Wikipedia standard: when asserting any claim-- such as "they don't provide evidence", or like the one you deleted, "None of these claims have been validated by peer-reviewed scientific research"-- a source must be provided for the assertion. You can't cite "evidence" -- as that would be tantamount to Original Research-- but need an actual published quote/secondary source which effectively makes the statement you wish to include. The only exceptions occur when something (like a popularly held belief or opinion) is in such common usage that there is no direct source to be found for a specific claim; in such cases, examples of the usage may be cited-- but that's not the case here. --LeflymanTalk 17:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I think we have more common ground than divergence on this point. DaveApter 22:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
On the contrary, this entry does precisely meet these standards: the professional reputation and expertise of Drs Fowler and Lowell are verifiable facts, as are the questions of whether they based their judgements on first hand experience or hearsay, as are the questions of whether they did say what is quoted or not. Similarly, it is verifiable whether Samways is basing her judgement on experience or hearsay. Surely all these are relevant factors for a reader wishing to weigh up the merits of the competing views?
  • An assertion of "expertise" would need to likewise be souced. An expert in what? Landmark? As attributed by whom? The use of the term "expert" is in itself a POV-characterisation, which adds nothing to the content. Avoid it altogether by letting the facts speak for themselves. Simply write, for example, "Raymond D. Fowler, Ph.D., a former CEO of the American Psychological Association, stated that..." --LeflymanTalk 17:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks - that's useful and constructive. I have no objection to re-phrasing that in the way you suggest. (btw I'm going to be offline for a few days now) DaveApter 22:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your advice. Contrary to your speculation, I am acquainted with the various policies and guielines you mention, and my committment is to having this article be a useful, balanced and informative one which meets them (in fact only last week, I removed several pieces of pro-Landmark editorialising for precisely this reason). The article is doubtless a work in progress, and probably always will be, but it is a vast improvement on its state a year ago when it was an unashamed soapbox for unattributable and unverifiable anti-Landmark gossip and rumour. I am happy to have assessments of my fanaticism or otherwise based on the quality of my edits, regardless of the breadth of my areas of activity. Best wishes DaveApter 10:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Post Hoc? Section

In reading through this article, this is the first section I saw that made no sense and is inappropriate for what is supposed to be an encyclopedia article. It's not neutral at all and looks mostly like hearsay ("some critics say" or "supporters say"), etc. It ignores the section above by DYG and their findings and quotes Langone regarding LGATP's which is irrelevant to this article. Since Langone isn't quoted about Landmark, the LGATP information belongs on a page for that subject if someone wants to add one. This section of the article isn't NPOV as well as being poorly written and makes no point worthy of referencing for someone wanting to use this article for reference material. It looks like a recent editor called for sources to be cited on the "some critics" and "supporters say" lines, so if someone can provide those it may be worth adding this section back in.WBLman 01:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

History Section

I combined some sections to eliminate redundancy. The History title was at the bottom of the article just floating there with no related information before or after it, so I moved it to the top of the article and combined the Naming and Timeline section under the heading History since both of those sections contain only historical information. I also removed the line "For information about pre Landmark entities see. . . " which was under the previous Timeline section because that information and those links were already just above in the pre-edited format and I left them there in my edit.WBLman 18:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Clear violation of NPOV?

First, some disclosure: I have done the Landmark Forum and Seminar Series, and while I did enjoy and benefit from them, I do consider some of their marketing tactics dubious, and I challenge their claim they do not espouse an ideology.

Thanks for being clear about your position. We're agreed that these are statements of your opinions rather than matters of fact? What do you mean by "dubious"? (If you'd said "sometimes hamfisted and inept", I'd agree with that). And what ideology do you think they espouse? DaveApter 09:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, these are my opinions. About the word "dubious"--during the Forum, I watched the coach work with people to the point of tears--of course, that's how it works. Now, on about four or five occassions, right when the participant was bawling most, the coach suggested that if they really wanted to make their life better, they had to get their father/mother/partner etc. to do Landmark. They participants were then asked if that was want they wanted (having just been told that it was best for them), and then asked to turn that into a pledge ("The possibility I am creating..."). The coaches did some amazing work with people on thorny emotional issues, but I considered it low (i.e., "dubious") that they also seemed to use emotional fragility to sign up new recruits. This is in addition to the "assignments", where often the task involves getting people involved in Landmark. ("Maybe you can have a breakthrough in enrolment!", a staff member promised me if I agreed to try to bring someone to the next Seminar.)
As for an ideology, their views on the nature of being (life is empty and meaningless, attachment causes suffering) are similar to Zen Buddhism, as I'm sure you're aware. Zen is considered a religion--and what ideas are there in Zen that are more radical than in Landmark? There are no gods in Zen; a lot of it, to use Landmark language, is about "popping".
And while people get hot and bothered over evolution, Landmark's conflicts with religion, I believe, are deeper than the conflicts between science and religion. You cannot, for example, believe that life is empty and meaningless and that the purpose of life is to serve Jesus. When this came up in my Forum, the coach suggested that through Landmark you can "choose" to serve Jesus, but that's missing the point, and no other answer was forthcoming. And while it's stated that the Forum is an "inquiry", and that none of it is "true", and it's just something to "try on", this isn't the way it's presented, nor, I believe, is it the way it's received. (To quote verbatim from our Forum leader: "The truth is, there is no is." So they do present "truths".) Ckerr 13:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Well I don't find any conflict with my own spiritual convictions, and plainly plenty of people with strong religions beliefs don't either. DaveApter 16:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

What this is about is the positioning of positive and negative comments about Landmark. It appears that the negative comments are usually placed first, with the (probably unintentional) consequence that they appear to be refuted by the subsequent positive claims. Section-by-section, in every relevant case:

Surely that is simply the most logical structure for reporting the spectrum of opinions on the topic? - in accordance with the Wikipedia NPOV policy:
  • The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly, but not asserted. ... Readers are left to form their own opinions. ... Debates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular. Detailed articles might also contain the mutual evaluations of each viewpoint, but studiously refrain from stating which is better.
The impression I got from reading the article was that each of the negative comments was refuted by a positive one. It's a common way to structure an argument: if you're advocating B, you first discuss not-B and then refute it. This "problem" is accentuated by other things. For example, in "Is it a cult?", the two anti-Landmark sources are not titled, but the next two (pro-Landmark) are doctors. Certainly my feeling was that some uninformed kooks say that Landmark was a cult, but the qualified people say it isn't. I don't consider this a fair sample of opinion since, as I noted below, most of the pro-Landmark sources are taken from Landmark itself. Ckerr 13:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
As indicated in the extract above, the NPOV policy requires that both sides of the argument are presented fairly. Quotes from people that Landmark like enough to put on their website are a legitimate source. Many of the critics have an axe to grind, and very often are not in posession of much factual information about Landmark or its programs. A lot of the critical stuff is of poor quality. If you can find any better quotations or more qualified critics, feel free to add them. DaveApter 16:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, I have to disagree with you that Landmark is a legitimate source. It says on the Verifiability page that "Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources" and also that "If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." Landmark is not a third-party source, and thus I believe it violates the criterion. However, a lot of the anti-Landmark stuff is either disreputable or unreliable--if it's sourced at all--and thus that doesn't warrant inclusion either.
Further, Wikipedia has a specific policy on sources discussing themselves: "Material from self-published sources, and other published sources of dubious reliability, may be used as sources of information about themselves in articles about themselves, so long as: [...] It is not contentious; It is not unduly self-serving." In my opinion, the quotes and references taken from the Landmark website fail both of these (though not the other three conditions). Ckerr 03:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Academic studies: first study positive (pro-Landmark), second study negative (anti-Landmark); next three positive. Also, every single one of these studies was commissioned by Landmark, quoted from the Landmark website, or both. This is hardly independent and verifiable.

These are reputable survey companies - people can draw their own conclusions about how likely they are to cook their results to curry favour with the people who commission them. (and who else is going to pay to have a survey done?) DaveApter 16:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Is it a cult?: first two comments negative; next three positive

Landmark in France: first sentence negative, rest of paragraph positive; second paragragh largely negative

Landmark in Berlin: first sentence negative, rest of paragraph positive

Clergy and Landmark: all positive (so why put it in? There must have been some dispute in the first place)

I've edited that to restore the context that had been lost. DaveApter 09:55, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. While I consider this an improvement, do you agree that it fits the pattern of criticism-then-refutation? I think the way it is it could be paraphrased "While there are some vague suggestions that Landmark conflicts with religion, experts disagree." While that may be factually true (I don't know, I don't know many clergy!), I think what's more likely is that the pro-Landmark clergy are much easier to find, conveniently listed as they are on the Landmark website. So if it's OK with you, I might remove the citations in this section that point to the Landmark website (that is, leaving Sister Iris Clark). I don't think citing Landmark itself sits nicely with NPOV. Ckerr 13:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
As I said above, the fact that a quote comes from the Landmark site doesn't make it illegitimate. DaveApter 16:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Is it brainwashing?: first paragraph negative; second paragraph positive; third paragraph somewhat negative; rest of section strongly positive (an eminent psychiatrist? Says who? He's not eminent enough to have a Wikipedia entry!)

I agree - "eminent" is a peacock term in this context; I'll take it out. DaveApter 09:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Large Group Awareness Training: effectively negative (assuming that LGAT is a bad thing, which is the implication)

Lawsuits against Landmark: first example ends with Landmark's analysis of the case (!); second ends with an obscure external link; third is effectively negative

Lawsuits brought by Landmark: first case positive (what was the defamation?); second case strongly positive (why choose that testimony to include?); third case negative; fourth case negative; fifth case not clearly positive or negative.

They read to me like a reasonably balanced and factual summary of the issues on each side. As regards the second case (CAN and Cynthis Kisser), I'd guess that the editor who inserted that quote did so because it got to the heart of the matter - CAN had irresponsibly distibuted leaflets describing the Forum as a cult, and when held to account they had to climb down (and also admit that they actually knew almost nothing about the program or the organisation).
It's not, in my opnion, the most interesting testimony. I think the eight lines could be replaced, at no informational loss, with "During the deposition, Kisser stated that she did not consider the Landmark Forum to be a cult." Ckerr 13:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
My view is that a direct quote of what she actually said under oath is more informative than a paraphrase. DaveApter 16:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Though I disagree, I'm willing to compromise on that, but would you be happy to pare it down to a single denial? Ckerr 03:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
In any case, it doesn't look to me as though these examples actually confirm your thesis that there's the pattern you described above. But please go ahead and make any edits that you thnk would improve the article.
My personal view is that excessive weight is already given to reporting marginal and unauthoratitive anti-Landmark opinions. But I guess that when sympathetic readers feel there's an anti bias, and antagonistic ones feel there's a pro bias, maybe that's a sign that it's actually not too far out. DaveApter 09:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree we're never going to reach complete consensus (though I did like your recent edits!). Ideally, though, there would be much better referencing of all claims, as at the moment most anti-Landmark claims are vague and totally unsubstantiated, and the pro-Landmark claims are sourced mostly from Landmark itself. None of that is really deserving of being in an encyclopedia article. Ckerr 13:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps that's because much of the criticism is vague and unsubstantiated? Not that I find the organisation beyond reproof by the way. For example, I do think that they sometimes let assistants loose on the public at an excessively early point in their training, that sometimes the registration conversations are pushy and insensitive, and that sometimes program leaders harangue participants too much about bringing guests. But I've found the courses themselves to be mostly excellent (but I'm not doing any just at the moment). DaveApter 16:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that much of the criticism is vague and unsubstantiated. And I think a lot of it should be removed, if it cannot be properly sourced. Ckerr 03:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Registration Pressure: first quote negative; second quote positive.

As you can see, it's not a 100% correlation, but I think it reads with even more bias than this list indicates. Pending vehement objections, I will make some edits to the article in the near future to better achieve what I see as NPOV. Ckerr 10:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

OK with me. In concept. Though I am not clear as to how you plan to address it. --Epeefleche 11:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

intro to article

I'm not willing to attempt editing a hotly debated article like this but I'd like to urge that some short statement of the controversy be put near the very beginning of the article, e.g. "proponents say the forums make positive changes in people's lives; critics accuse it of being cult-like". IMO the early history (i.e. the early connection to Est) should also be mentioned at the top of the article. This is a very weak article since it says nothing til halfway through about what the controversies mentioned in the introduction actually are. Phr (talk) 09:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Changes to Erhard Section

Imagine an article that said "there is no hard evidence that Ramon Martinez has any direct current involvement with the Los Angeles Dodgers, other than that he plays second base for the team." If you can see why that is odd, you should be able to see why "there is no hard evidence that Erhard has any direct current involvement with the operations of Landmark Education, other than his consulting with Landmark" is also odd. I changed the article to simply state what his involmemnt is, without editorializing on whether there is "hard evidence" of "direct current involvement with the operations," which smacks of original resarch.

I also deleted redundant statements. -- Sparkman1 05:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is clearly pro-Landmark Education.

My sister just attended a Landmark Forum. I come to this article out of curiosity, and from a neutral point of view, being neither for nor against LE.

I am not surprised the neutrality of this article is under dispute.

The section on controversies is euphemistic, and the language used to discuss lawsuits filed against Landmark Education is clearly written from a biased point of view: The plaintives' claims are treated in a perjorative tone; the plaintives' legal failure is, firstly, treated as a matter of course, and secondly, assumed to be a repudiatation of the veracity of those claims. This second fact is--obviously--a non sequitur.

I am assuming that the intention of the pro-LE contributors to this article was to dissuade readers that LE has any similarities to a cult. Speaking for myself, the bias slant they (and who else could it be?) have given the article brings a negative return on that intention.

There's nothing wrong with advocating Landmark Education. But Wikipedia is NOT NOT NOT the place to do it.

Get. A. Blog.

Meanwhile, this article is screaming out for a complete rewrite. At the moment the article just oozes a pro-Landmark Education point of view and reads like something from the official website, wherever that is.

Also, I added the name of the founder Werner Erhard to the introduction and cited, under the controversies section, the accusations of sexual abuse and tax evasion (from the Wikipedia article on him).

This article is clearly not NPOV

As an article that is supposed to be aiming to be NPOV, this is atrocious! I've read many of the comments here. There are some people who are conscientiously trying very hard to produce an NPOV article, and there are people who don't understand the genre of an encyclopedic article, who don't understand NPOV, who don't understand Wikipedia's policies, who are doing nothing but get in the way of arriving at an NPOV article. With a subject this controversial, both sides should be factually presented, and the reader should be unable to determine from the article's content whether either POV is superior. That is not being done here. Editing is far too agenda-driven in promoting Landmark Education. They've got their own website to do that. This is an encyclopedia! Kat'n'Yarn 07:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

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