Talk:Gwen Shamblin

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[edit] "Remnant Fellowship" is not "Gwen Shamblin"

Shamblin's family (and three other families started the Remnant Fellowship church). While it is noteable and certainly appropriate to mention that she is a founder and church leader here, wouldn't it be more in keeping with other church founder biographies to link to an article with more information about the church? This is done for almost all of the other notable churches and their religious leaders, even highly criticised New Reilgious Movements. Much of the content here is news about Remnant Fellowship Church, it's reported beliefs, and news reports that had more to do with the Smith trial than Shamblin's support and the initial investigation of her and the Church. Best selling and controversial authors like Dan Brown often even have seperate entries for their noteable books. So far, this has become much more than a biography of Gwen Shamblin. GwenShamblinRepresentative 18:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First admin talk on frequent vandalism and NPOV

The most recent revision removed any discussion of the controversy surrounding Ms. Shamblin and removed articles from reputable sources detailing the controversy. In fact, the current article is not from a neutral POV at all. I would prefer to see this article reverted to a more neutral POV. Anne 13:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)Anne

I agree. Given that this anon has made similar edits on two other occasions (see history)), and no other edits to WP, as well as no explanation or edit summary, I think it's safe to assume that they have an agenda to push, and it's not NPOV. :) I reverted the edit. If they or anyone else would like to question this, please do so here before making similar edits. pfctdayelise 16:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I fully agree with User:Pfctdayelise the current version is much more neutral and better cited than the one before the revert. DES (talk) 16:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

while some additional sources are needed, it looks to me as if most of the factual statemes, including the more controversial ones (the child abuse issues) have been reasnably well sourced. i think the BLP tag cvould be removed. DES (talk) 20:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to include more information that has been reported in The Tennesseean, a local paper covering Remnant Church. Sadly, much of the best reporting from this paper is now not reachable by the internet - one has to pay to get articles from their archives. Is it OK to cite and link to articles that are pay-per-veiw?Efkeathley 13:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
It is ok to cite sources that are not online at all. In this case, the best approach would probably be to cite the paper's name, publication date, and page number, and then additionally give "Available on pat-per-view at <link>". Note that if you have a library that has back issues or microfilm/fiche of this paper, it may not be required for you to pay to get the sources. DES (talk) 14:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for the help. I'm in Georgia and my library doesn't have these papers. I have found a way to get to the articles I need without paying anyhow. For some reason, if you search The Tennessean's "archive" page directly they ask you to pay, but hitting the articles through google allows one in directly. I have no idea why they're set up that way, but they are!Efkeathley 17:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Good. Weird -- it may be that google grabbed those links while they were "open" and in "closing" them the paper simply deleted links to them. In any case, I sugest that your citation include the print info if possible, as well as the URL, because that url might go away or ecome pay-per-view in the future, whoknows. Whisl a print citation can always be verified by anyone willing to take some trouble. Anyway, inmproving the sourcing is always good. DES (talk) 18:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gwen's birthdate

I've bunnyhunted every source I could on this page, but nowhere can I found mention of Shamblin's birthdate. In grand Southern tradition, she seems to be hiding how old she is. If anyone's looking to put their mark on this article, they could easily do so by being the first person to find a confirmed source for her birthday and birth year! Efkeathley 30 March 2007

Generally there is no vital need to include the precise birthdate of a living person, and in the age of identity theft, since a birthdate is often considered a significant piece of identifying information many people have good reason not to publish their birthdates. See WP:BLP. The year of birth is sufficient to put the person in historical context, unless for some reason the precise date is particularly significant for a particular person. DES (talk) 21:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about that, I thought the tag at the bottom stating "Year of birth missing" meant that a birth date was needed; I understand about the ID theft thing though and have stopped searching for this. Efkeathley 04 April 2007

[edit] Prophecy

The last paragraph in the church section now touches on Gwen's status as a maybe-prophet. There are more sources and information on this topic, but I am unsure as how to fit them in the article. Should the topic of prophecy stay with the church bit, and that section relabled as "Remnant Church and Prophecy", or broken out altogether in a section called "Gwen as Prophet"? Efkeathley 17:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weigh Down Vandalised the page today (Or did they?)

The user that deleted the information on the Spirit Watch website - 64.221.243.178 - is an employee of Weigh Down. The evidence of the email addy associated with this ISP can be found at http://osdir.com/ml/mail.spam.spamcop.help/2002-09/msg00654.html can I get an admin to block? Efkeathley 19:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It is not normal to block for a single instance of vandalism. If any editor persistantly vandalizes, report the matter on WP:AIV where you will see that only reports of vandalism after a 'last warning" are accepted. I have mentioned that there seems to be a lot of recent vandalizm here over on WP:ANI and asked more people to keep an eye on this. Also, your link is IMO a long way from clear proof that the editor was an employee. DES (talk) 21:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
You have more experience than I, and so you're probably right. If Weigh Down workshop emails were sent by the same ISP as the edit, what are the other possiblities? This isn't a common ISP like the big ones used by comcast or BellSouth for mass accounts. I promise I'm not trying to argue; I just want to know why I might be wrong. I felt sure I had proof, but this might be because of my lack of IT training.Efkeathley 12:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
You may well be right, and that does look suspicious, it merely isn't proof. IPs in both big and small ISPs are often shuffled around, so this may merely mean that someone from the same geographic area as the WD HQ who used the same ISP made the edit. It is about the same as saying "I got a letter from an employee with postmark X, and later I got an unsigned letter with an identical postmark, so an employee must have sent the unsigned letter." Suggestive, but not exactly proof. Most ISPs do not provide static IPs, and if an IP isn't static, it might be reassigned to any other client of the same ISP at any time. In some cases a particular IP range will be restricted to a particular geographic area, in other cases not. Even if the IP is static to a local network owned by WD, it might be available for use by workshop attendees who are not employees. DES (talk) 16:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the lesson. My understanding of IP's and ISP's was not complete enough for me to make this accusation, and I withdraw it. You're right; the IP is suggestive, but not proof in of itself of WD employee interference.Efkeathley 17:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The image

Please note that Wikipedia policy does not permit non-free images of living people in most cases. Please read Wikipedia:Non-free content, Wikimedia Foundation's licensing policy and Kat Walsh's statement on licensing policies for more information. I have deleted the image again and request that only a freely licensed image be put up in its place. —Angr 14:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Please wait for arbitration

This is a note for Sqwikiclean copied to their user page. Please wait for third party review before making any further edits. I understand your frustration, but there was a raid on the church - every news source cited talks about the raid - and I think we should let the article lie until we can both get some outside input.Efkeathley 19:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I would love to try to help resolve this issue, but I'm not sure where to begin. Can you each post a proposal for what the text should be? Novalis 17:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I would like to propose that a third party possibly rewrite the section on the Josef Smith trial and corporal punishment at Remnant entirely. I have a list of extra (unused) citations at hand if anyone would like them, including some on the evidence at trial. The article gets vandalised a lot, so my defense has involved adding citations whenever this happens. I think all the information currently presented needs to be retained. Some of it should be changed - for instance, Sqwiki mentioned that the tape was an audio recording. I am unsure if Sqwiki's allegation of the article granting undue weight to certain subjects is correct or not. I would like to work towards a compromise on article format while retaining as much current content as possible. I'm also interested in third party opinions about NPOV; I feel that the current article is NPOV, while SqwikiKlean feels that it is not.Efkeathley 17:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I would prefer to see you and SqWikiKlean do the work of writing the article. I am confident that, with a little help, you two can come to an agreement about the text. Novalis 17:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, I will post my ideas by this time tommorrow. Thank you for your help. We are to post our proposals here on the talk page, and not on the article itself, correct?Efkeathley 18:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Right. Novalis 18:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, we can surely come to an agreement. There should be no problem with controversial content or anyone's POV as long as it is accurately referenced and that additional quotes from the same or similar articles are also allowed to be entered as well. Anyone should be allowed to add references and citations from verifiable and reputable sources to this article about the Smith case? Again, and I must insist, no accurately referenced citation was removed. Nor did I ever remove a single paragraph of information (referenced or not) as previously accused. This misunderstanding is about facts pertaining to accurate use of cited references, and has very little to do with POV beyond that. Just look at my talk page for the "disputed paragraph" and please compare it to the references and the claim that I deleted the entire "raid on the church" statement.SqwikiKlean
The only reason I stopped the above referenced edit was because we were waiting for arbitration. The information you removed previously was about glue sticks, and you had also inserted unrefed info, and a photo you didn't own. You also then ranted on my talk page for some length. What you're arguing now is different from what you were arguing a few days ago. Can we just get past what has happened before and move on with the edits? I agree that only one tape was leaked to the press, and that was an audio tape. This is a good addition. Let us move forward with outside help to change the things in the article that you think are unfair.
Of course, I don't really have a problem with the edit you're mentioning in this section at all. Let's keep that one. However, please stop the kind of edits you were doing before I asked for arbitration, which were quite slanted. I'm also unsure of why you keep ranting on my talk page. Again, the only reason I stopped the edit about the tapes - which I've said before I think was a good idea - was I didn't want to get into an edit war while waiting for help. This is why I asked you to stop and wait.Efkeathley 13:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The most useful thing right now would be to work towards consensus. In fact, that's pretty much always the most useful thing. Let's stick to talking about the article itself. I would like to see a proposal from each of you for each section that's in dispute. Novalis 13:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I propose we keep SqwikiKlean's last edit to the Josef Smith case, and also include a citation for the audio of the leaked tape. http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?vendor=wss&qu=Gwen+Shamblin It's the very first link on the top of this search page. We can put the ref marker for this citation into the existing text mentioning the tape.Efkeathley 17:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Another proposal for a section modification on Smiths and Shamblin on Corporal Punishment::: NOTE - The following paragraph does not accurately represent statements made in the referenced articles - inconsistent or un-referenced text bolded.

Original Paragraph
"At the time of the trial, it was reported by former members that a common child discipline tactic of parents in the Remnant Church was to use glue sticks to beat their children - the sticks are flexible, and so would hurt badly but leave no marks, covering evidence of frequent corporal punishment.[27] Mrs. Shamblin acknowledged that this was a common practice among her followers but stated "It was not from here...it came from a member somewhere, someplace else and then it went around."[28]"
Language used in the current seems to re-words source articles in a way that may imply - Gwen_Shamblin condones or at least "aknowledged" as a "common practice", the "frequent" "beating" and "hurting badly" of children, the news articles did not use this wording, and when questioned, Shamblin is quoted in these same articles saying that neither her nor the church condones or "aknowledge" as a "commonly practice" the physical abuse or "beating" of children and she seems to differentiate her teachings from allegations. The article authors allowed and printed her responses to her critics.
Proposed Paragraph (trying to use WP:BLP#Criticism guidelines)
Former Remnant members have suggested to investigators and reporters that church teachings on discipline include corporal punishment. Shamblin previously said the church leaves discipline to parents but believes in spankings as a last resort. (reference would be - By DANIEL YEE - Associated Press Writer – Tuesday, February 6, 2007 http://www.jacksonville.com/apnews/stories/020607/D8N4GJEG1.shtml)
A local Nashville television station reported one former church member saying that glue-sticks were used because "... they hurt like switches, that it really hurts, but it doesn't make marks on your children.” When asked whether she ever told members to use glues sticks for spanking children, Shamblin told reporters that this idea did not come from her, “It came from a member somewhere, someplace else and then it went around.” (direct link to original source http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?s=5419494)
In February of 2007, in an interview with reporters from Nashville’s Tennesseean, Shamblin was asked about the specific methods of child abuse the Smiths were charged with and whether the church advocates treating children in this manner, Shamblin answered “The church condones discipline, not abuse,” and called spanking a "loving," "time-tested, ancient teaching from the Bible.” (direct reference: "Child's death renews scrutiny of local church - Members say accused Georgia parents innocent of murder," by Anita Wadhwani and Heather Donahoe, The Tennessean, Nashville (February 7, 2007) )
In the report, Ms. Shamblin defines what she means when referring to “spanking” a child stating, “Spanking a child is very different from hitting a child,” she said. “Hitting is not spanking. Hitting is inflicting pain in anger. Spanking is a reluctant feeling that is necessary, and it does hurt the parent more than the child." “Every child is different, and some parents in the Remnant, all they have to do is give the child a disapproving look, and some children are strong-willed. Teaching and constant direction in the form of both positive and, very occasionally negative, reinforcement is the most loving way to raise a child." (direct reference: "Child's death renews scrutiny of local church - Members say accused Georgia parents innocent of murder," by Anita Wadhwani and Heather Donahoe, The Tennessean, Nashville (February 7, 2007) )

My apologies for length here and poor (but quicker) formatting - SqwikiKlean 2:23, 2 June 2007

Just to clarify: you propose keeping the first an third paragraphs of that secion, but replacing the second? Novalis 13:45, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
No and Yes. The first and third paragraphs still need some work, but EFKeathley already agreed to the original edits I had made regarding the paragraph about the tape (see above... and my talk page has the corrected paragraph).
I will try to put that paragraph and other proposed changes to this section here as well. I work a third shift job (odd hours) while school's out and wanted to get each paragraph proposal out as I have time. I'll try to propose a bit more today. Thank you for being patient. SqwikiKlean 09:47, 4 June 2007
If the first and third paragraphs need work, and you think the work will not be controversial, please just make the edits. But if you think EFKeathley (or someone else) will want to discuss them first, then please post them here first. Novalis 16:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Reference sources and citation list formatting question: It seems necessary to refer to some article citations more than once in various places. This makes the reference list at the bottom very long. Is there a way to consolidate duplications that the automatic citation listing at the bottom of the page creates to shorten the list? Also, some articles referenced are from multiple "tertiary source" type sites but sharing the same secondary source references. For accuracy and history's sake, could we agree to stick to citing reliable and "original" news sources instead of secondary sources that are linked via third-party or "tertiary" websites that tend to distill only specific categories of articles within a characterized or commentary framework.SqwikiKlean 10:04, 4 June 2007
See Wikipedia:Harvard referencing. Novalis 16:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see new edits posted here on the talk page. I think some of the above proposed edits should be put in, but that it should be balanced with information from former Remnant Members who have talked about Shamblin encouraging harsh discipline. Here is a section we could work in with the bits above:

Former members of Remanant Church and critics of Smablin believe the insittution to be strictly authoritatian, with recruits and adherents under the guidance of Shamblin about many different aspects of their lives.http://www.spiritwatch.org/RFtest.htm Former recruit Adam Brooks stated that "members...are willing to yield to Shamblin on the use of severe discipline for children" due to this type of church environment. http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?s=541230

If we are going to include more information about the church, I'd also like to put in this bit as well. I haven't put it in yet, but I think it is important and I'm not quite sure where in the article it should go. It does touch on issues related to Josef Smith, and the reliability of Gwen's quotes about her involvement with Josef's discipline. Here is the direct quote from an interview with Gwen. It is from the same article as the Adam Brooks quote.

As to the truth about Remnant Fellowship, there is this problem:

"You think if you lie for God's sake, it's OK?" Williams asks Shamblin.

"I believe if God calls you to, you'd better protect Jerusalem," she answers, pointing to her Bible.

"There are so many cases in here where people did that very thing to protect Jerusalem, and so they were rewarded." http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?s=5412303

Basicly, Gwen says the Bible tells her it's OK to lie in the defense of her church. What do we do with this? Where does it go in the article, and how do we balance her quotes relating to the Smith trial in this light?Efkeathley 21:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Excellent question. Wow. - I can see where the reporter seemed to be going with this. It is very interesting and maybe even noteworthy, but it may fall into inuendo or conjecture at this point. I think if charges had been brought against Shamblin or the church leaders, it would make a lot of sense to include it. With wiki:BLP in mind, we need to be careful how we use an article which may even go as far as insinuating that a person may be a criminal when they were never charged or called as a prosecution or defense witness. Ultimately, with no proof of what was insinuated in this television report, why should we say what the reporter wouldn't even come right out and say? I would also totally agree with you that there is so much more information from Court TV and AP news about the Smith trial that could easily consume this article by itself. Out of its own significance, maybe it should be seperate, it would allow room for the controversy and the Smith Trial to be kept in context.
Here's another suggestion. Take a look at other living celebs and celeb-religious leaders where they were "directly charged" or even convicted of a crime (or alledged misconduct). The court case info and/or controversy info has it's own wiki entry with a link from the biography page. This seems fairly common in high profile celeb cases (examples Michael Jackson, OJ Simpson, Ted Haggard, Joyce Meyer, Prem Rawat, Dr. Phil, Catholic Priest pedophile convictions). I think this is done to keep the biography as a biography and allow for detailed reporting of the news related to a specific controversy. This would also help us to protect the biography from Wikipedia:Recentism and from the bio becoming a repository for wiki:news. (Idea input from Novalis or other welcomed) SqwikiKlean16:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I really like the way the Ted Haggard page is set up, and think that his page is probably a good example of how this page should look and read. The Joyce Meyer page needs some help though; I may go over there today and try to straighten out some of the citation problems. Taking Ted Haggard as an example may be the way to go.
As for Gwen lying in the denfese of her church, I think the reporter was straighforward, but Gwen herself was dodging. When repeatedly asked if she believes herself a prophet Shamblin will dodge (both in newspaper reports and TV) and say others have called her a prophet. Gwen will never say, directly "I am a prophet", because this would lead her into the sin of pride - a classic downfall of prophets in the bible. Likewise, when asked directly if she would lie for her church, Shamblin has to say she would lie to protect Jerusalem, but her meaning there is clear. I don't think it's insinuation at all to take Gwen's words and point out their biblical sources and meanings. Gwen Shamblin believes her church to be the New Jerusalem, so when she syas it's OK to lie to protect Jerusalem, she's saying it's OK to lie to protect her church. This tactic is called "divine deception", and is also used by some pro-life activists to defend the practice of giving misleading health information to women seeking abortions.Efkeathley 12:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
So you're saying "she's a liar about advocating abuse" but, unlike Ted Haggard, there is no proof or confession to validate the claim. The thing that made the Ted Haggard lies noteworthy, is that they were proven to be lies by his confessions. When claims are not proven, they quickly cease to be "newsworthy".
From what I can find in the news reports after this report (notably by only one local news reporter), the raid by police has not turned up any evidence to support the "teaching abuse" and "harming of other children" by all these "other" families. After the raid and an investigation of the church offices and Shamblin's teachings, where are all the reports about other church families having their children removed by Child Services? Where are the subsequent child protective custody cases? Where are the conspiracy charges? Why weren't the church leaders taken into custody? Where are the secret recordings or emails with Shamblin telling people to "beat" (or even spank) their kids with glue sticks. and "put them in small wooden boxes"?
Ultimately, by all news accounts and police testimonies in the trial, Shamblin and the church were "not linked" because police did not find any evidence, not because of any deal. Shamblin was not brought to court by the prosecution to witnesses against the Smiths. With all of the Court TV information about the trial, no former members testified about these "teachings of abuse" or the widespread "harsh discipline". None of the worried cult experts were brought in to testify about all of the "members... willing to yield to Shamblin on the use of severe discipline for children". Mr. Brooks claimed as much in the report, but it was never supported by any fact. This seems like an incredible conspiracy theory but without facts, claiming that she is lying about this is just name calling. What encyclopedia in print supports claims of this nature without facts to back up the claims? The most notable thing about the claims regarding Shamblin and this church's supposed teachings of "harsh discipline", is that no former members testified, no charges were brought against Shamblin, and nothing became of the local TV report's claims about Shamblin and the church. Ironically, that same Nashville TV station has since published new reports on their website about Shamblin and recent success stories of the Weigh Down Diet and the Workshop programs. Where is the mention of that? Could it be that even the same local news stations don't believe in the "conspiracy theories" anymore? Then why should the rest of us? SqwikiKlean 19:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Can't we just say something about news reports at the time, rather than trying to figure out what's really true? As in "some news reports said that Shamblin encouraged glue-sticking, but Shamblin denies it."? Does that seem like a reasonable way to report on this? Novalis 20:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed! This seems like a simple straight forward solution. A factual and non-inflamatory summary. But wasn't JFK really taken out by Castro and the mob as sources said? SqwikiKlean 23:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Now that Gwen Shamblin's representatives have officially signed on to edit the entry, I'm bowing out. The truth is that after pouring over article after article about child abuse allegations and Josef Smith, I can't write about this anymore. I'm not a social worker, and I just can't handle people who think that beatings aren't abuse as long as they don't leave marks. I started off with a fairly neutral article I wrote two months ago in the interest of giving this heading a decent entry, but SqwikiKlean is right; after the past few months of researching Remnant Fellowship, I can't write or think nuetrally anymore. I hope that Sqwiki also realises how hard it can be to maintain neutrality. Every time one of Gwen's followers vandalised the page or blanked it, I made more annotations, leading me down a path of reading more and more about this group. At first I was curious, but the more I read the more I felt involved. I'm not involved, I'm just a wiki contributor.
I hope this article finds more good people willing to watch it and keep it vandalism free and relatively balanced. The Weigh Down organisation has a lot of money, and now that their PR people are involved, I have little doubt that this article will become a shadow of a page on PR web, or a battleground of wiki perspectives. I can't dedicate any more of my energy to fighting a PR vs. fact kind of battle. God bless those who do have the time and will; and God protect those involved in the cult. Thanks to Novalis and other wiki editors for helping me along. I learned a lot.Efkeathley 17:13, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Fully agreeing that any kind of abuse or beatings, marks or no marks, is wrong. But potentially worse are unfounded accusations of beatings against a person or group who our best police departments, justice system, and even the media have cleared. Such assertions cannot be perpetuated by myth. We should never take a public stand for (or listen to) those who alledge "some secret evil is being done" when those accusing lack the conviction to come forward with specific "facts" and allow our country's great legal system work to protect the innocent. Otherwise we quickly digress and repeat the historical mistakes of using lynch mobs, witch hunts, and religious inquisitions. Any historian knows even well meaning allegations of wrongs that are not proven or provable, can and have repeatedly resulted in real bodily harm to innocent people. Proven facts and concrete evidence, on the other hand, bring clarity, light, and justice. SqwikiKlean 17:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another bad edit on Josef Smith

Another person just added a patently false statement to the Josef Smith section. The sentence now at the end suggesting that even Ms. Shamblin's critics don't think she encourages abuse links to an news piece suggesting that Remnant Church does, in fact, foster an abusive environment. I want to undo this statement but I'm afraid it will interfere with the above arbitration. Ugh. Can someone else undo the bad edit?Efkeathley 20:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)