Talk:Church of the SubGenius

Praise Slackers

This is a blessed thing ya'll got going here. May the dobbs head never frown upon your slack.. - Pope Sinphaltimus Exmortus of F.E.D.C.O.M.S.

Curious

Do any members of this religion actually 'believe in' what it preaches? I think that could be an interesting point to distinguish it from most other religions. Christians/Muslims/etc. genuinely believe in their faith (for the most part). Do Subgenii actually believe that its teachings are real? Or do they enjoy it for its over-the-top satirical nature, without a genuine 'belief' in its teachings? I guess I find it hard to believe that, if faced with an actual appraisal of their beliefs, a large (is it? - some numbers would be nice) number of people would tell you that they were descended from the Yeti. I get it's commentary, but I don't know if I think anyone truly believes in it, as many of the people seem to be so averse to these kind of beliefs that they left their original faith in the first place because they were unhappy with what they saw as its ridiculous nature. K1da42 (talk) 15:49, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. You "don't know if you think anyone truly believes in it"? That's a lot of qualifications. With all due respect, I don't know if I think it's truly relevant whether you do or not. I've never seen an article about a religion in an encyclopedia that tried to evaluate the percentage of members that "truly believe", whatever that means. What percentage of Christians and Jews "truly believe" that they were descended from a single parentless couple (one made of dust, the other fashioned from a rib of the former), or that the world was created in six days less than six thousand years ago, or that a prophet made the sun stand still in the sky by holding his hand up, or that a good and merciful God wiped out all life on Earth except one family and a breeding pair of every land-bound life form all crammed into a single boat made by a 600-year old man? I doubt that any modern religion can be judged by whether its members "truly believe" in the LITERAL TRUTH of everything in their printed material, and I'm darned grateful of that; I'd hate to see the bonfires of science books and the slaying of witches, heretics, and just plain people who like bacon or shellfish, or who dare light fires on the sabbath.

In any event, I don't think there are stats on the "true believers" or those who adhere to a literal orthodoxy in ANY religion, nor would I trust any claims of such data. And as I said, it's irrelevant in an article simply describing the definition and history of a religion to try to judge the degree of belief of its members, or qualify belief in a religion's essential message versus a literal belief in its mythology. Rosencomet (talk) 16:36, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

While I agree with your comments and enjoy the commentary that the Church provides on religion, I feel as if it's an aspect of the 'faith' that is unique. It's the only faith I can think of whose members won't even pretend to believe in it's message, which I think accurately describes its role as functioning differently than a standard religion does. Its differences from standard religions are downplayed in the article to make it seem more like a standard faith and propagate its deadpan commentary on how other faiths seem rather ridiculous, too. The way that the article presents these views seems to, on the whole, downplay the specific point of the religion functioning to comment on other religions more than act out the standard roles a religion plays. K1da42 (talk) 17:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I also apologize for anything unclear in my first post - I didn't mean numbers on a number of believers - that is impossible with any faith - I meant just a total number of members of the Church. Of course the biggest problem with my argument is a bit of "OR" on the 'people who believe,' but it's impossible to deny that the church functions in a different and unique way that doesn't reduce its importance it at all but rather shows it as a harbinger of the new way in which a growing portion of the world views religion and faith. It seems that pitching it in this article in the same way that the Church does overlooks what the religion actually serves to do, and instead just seems to, again, propagate its commentary in its unique and deadpan way rather than objectively show it for what it is/does. K1da42 (talk) 17:31, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Besides my belief (for what that's worth) that most Judeo-Christians do not believe in the mythology of the creation story or much of the miracles of the Old Testament, I would say that most Neopagans, though they use the names of gods and goddesses from the mythologies of older Pagan religions, do not believe in Thor, Hecate, Bran, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ahura-Mazda, Osiris, Bridget, Pluto, etc as physically-manifesting beings living on mountaintops or physical underworlds. Like modern Judeo-Christians, they consider these anthropomorphic ways of addressing a divine principle of ourselves and/or the universe that have certain advantages to us in our ability to relate to the divine AS IF it were a humanoid entity that can relate to US, but that divinity (or God) is actually something much more complicated and outside our understanding except insofar as we focus on some limited aspect of its existence that IS within our comprehension.

Of course, the Church of the SubGenius is not unique in having a light-hearted or outrageous approach to spirituality; Sufiism, Discordianism, some forms of Shamanism, the Church of the Cosmic Giggle, and even Evangelical Agnosticism share a strong desire not to let one's Dogma be run over by one's Karma, as one sage put it. I think a religions' place in an adherent's life, providing a basis for a lifestyle that includes a format for his/her relationship with the divine and/or non-material, and a set of moral and/or ethical (or otherwise transcendent of the mundane) principles to live by is more important to its definition as a religion than whether its members consider its mythology to be literal historical "truth" or allegorical stories created to illustrate the religion's principles.

But in one way you are quite wrong; SubGeniuses may not "believe" in the mythology as history (and some might, of course), but they DO believe "in what they preach"; that is, in the Church's messages and truths as they are expressed through the words of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs and his spokes-creatures: Too Much is Always Better than Not Enough (though sometimes nearly as bad), Pull the Wool Over Your OWN Eyes, the SubGenius Must Have Slack, Question Authority, etc etc. However, adherence to dogma should never be considered synonymous with piety; remember: Convictions Make Convicts. Rosencomet (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that your arguments really drive my point home: a lot of the religion is a reactionary way of saying 'isn't Christianity/Judaism/etc. ridiculous too?,' which is, again, its most important aspect, as it reflects a broader acceptance and increased popularity in society of religious skepticism. As for the similar religions that you mention, I feel as though they aren't particularly helpful. The closest comparisons are Discordianism and (I'll assume) the Church of the Cosmic Giggle. The article for the former clearly states that many do not hold the religion first in their lives (i.e. it's status as a thought-provoking aside), as well as a section devoted to the question of whether or not Discordianism is, in fact, a religion; the latter is not on wikipedia.

The rest of the religions you mention may be more 'lighthearted' than others, but there is no doubt that they differ greatly. There is nothing within the religions that can be called a commentary on human religious beliefs, while this commentary is central to the Church. You could call the others religions whose views are not as serious as some, while the Church would be one that does not take the greater idea of religion seriously.

As for the last part: I find it interesting. Would you like to add more to the article about it? There is very little in the article about the lifestyle that the Church encourages (outside of the section on Slack).

Nonetheless, the article will be read by any with a questioning eye as to the validity of the religion and its status as an actual religion. Any reader would wonder about a religion whose own believers do not necessarily take the faith seriously (as opposed to taking a non-serious faith seriously), and enjoy it more for what it is saying about society than for what it has to say in the way most other religions do. I feel that crafting the article to directly discuss the faith, with little to no greater commentary on its standing, does readers a great disservice. Instead of talking about its most interesting - and important - aspect, we are simply disseminating the beliefs and continuing its deadpan story (it's worth noting that nearly every article on other religions has a section on criticisms/controversy that operate as looking at the religion detached, as opposed to regurgitating what the faith says).

Last: Although you did not put it in, 20-year old numbers are hardly worth adding. If you had access to newer data it would help give a better idea of the religion's standing and acceptance. K1da42 (talk) 05:18, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I must say that I resent the way you keep mis-representing what I'm saying. First of all, let me state that I don't speak for the Church. Second, I was pointing out that "believing in the faith" and "holding the religion first in their lives" has little to do with accepting the mythology, stories or parables of the religion as historical fact. You made the point that "I guess I find it hard to believe that...a large number of people would tell you that they were descended from the Yeti". Then you went on to assume this means they don't believe in their own religion or "take the faith seriously". I tried to explain that even though many Jews and Christians don't believe in the creation story and other biblical myths, that doesn't mean they don't believe in their religion or take it seriously; not because "they're ridiculous, too", as YOU, not I, put it, but because most people don't equate belief in their religion with belief in the literal, historical truth of its mythology. They see the truths communicated by those stories as of a different kind than a history or science textbook, but they believe in their religion and hold it as important to their lives regardless.

Nor can you say that a religion is not a religion because "many do not hold the religion first in their lives", unless you have a way of judging where thousands of people hold their religion relative to other things in their lives, and apply the same measure to the members of every other religion. Do all Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Yorubans, Santerians, Neopagans, etc etc hold their religion "first in their lives", or do they reserve that position for family, or business, or patriotism, or their place in greater society as a human being... and what the heck does that have to do with whether the religion is really a religion? What, in fact, does the success of individual members of a religion at adhering to its precepts or where they rank it in importance in their lives have to do with whether the religion meets the definition of a religion? Your criticisms all seem to have to do with your personal judgment as to how successful the religion is, not whether it IS a religion. It all seems to be about how seriously you intend to take the religion, rather than whether it meets an objective criteria.

(By the way, there is plenty in Sufiism "that can be called a commentary on human religious beliefs". I think Sufis can be said to "not take the greater idea of religion seriously". They take it humorously.)

And I disagree with your belief that a Wikipedia article is meant to be a forum for judging "the validity of the religion and its status as an actual religion". There are plenty of forums for that type of analysis. Write a treatise on it if you find it interesting, but it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article. However, if you can find a serious scholarly discussion of the issue in a reliable forum, by all means feel free to report it, cite it, and even open a section about the controversy, if there really is one. But remember, just because in your words "the article will be read by any with a questioning eye as to the validity of the religion" doesn't mean it isn't a religion; Fundamentalist Christianity, for instance, views ALL religions that don't recognize Jesus as Lord to be invalid, and fundamentalist Muslims feels the same way about Allah. Their opinion has nothing to do with whether a religion meets the definition of a religion. Nor does it have to do with whether its mythology is historically or scientifically credible, or whether a poll of its members finds a high or low level of belief in those myths as factual. (One might ask them how important to their faith such a belief is. It would have no bearing on the issue, but I for one would be interested in the answer.)

By the way, you stated that "it's worth noting that nearly every article on other religions has a section on criticisms/controversy". I have looked at several articles such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Santeria, Buddhism and Catholicism, and could not find such sections questioning whether the religions are true religions. Specific controversies like whether the Bible was written by God or man, or whether Santeria rituals violate U.S. animal cruelty laws, sure, but nothing like a question as to whether the religions were actually religions, or a discussion of their "validity" or "status as an actual religion" based on the faith of their followers in the mythology of those religions.Rosencomet (talk) 17:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

In response to the opening question. “Do any members of this religion actually 'believe in' what it preaches?” Yes. I speak as a card carrying, dues paying full-fledged “SubGenius”. I speak not to be sarcastic, or contrary but to put another slant on this dialogue.

I believe in Aliens, Gods, the Conspiracy, Yetis, “Bob”, Slack, and Something for Nothing. And I also believe that people who try to expose undesirable truths with a straight face do so at their own risk, therefore the need to ‘mask’ it as something other than what it is is necessary. Censorship has an ugly history, even in this country.

Furthermore, the controversy surrounding the term “postmodern religion” is particularly irksome considering what “postmodernism” MEANS! Please refer to the Postmodernism article and subsequent ‘Criticism’ section. In it it says, “He [Noam Chomsky] asks why postmodernist intellectuals won't respond as "people in physics, math, biology, linguistics, and other fields are happy to do when someone asks them. "” Isn’t that the same complaint here? That people in the SubGenius religion don’t respond to their religion as people from another religion respond to their own?! THIS IS a Postmodern religion! The fact some or even all the members don’t believe a word of it shouldn’t be an issue. But then the question becomes not ‘why don’t they believe what they’re told,’ but rather, ‘if they don’t believe in their religion, why have they accepted it as their own?” this has postmodernism written all over it. And I thank you. -MONITOR613 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.185.15.180 (talk) 21:54, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Notability & Review of references

According to Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies): "An organization is generally considered notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. All content must be verifiable."

Review of references, numbering as of [Dec 8 revision]

References

1. Reliable - Primary
2. Reliable - Secondary (cannot determine scope of coverage, no footnote or page numbers)
3. Questionable reliability
4. Reliable - Primary
5. Reliable - Primary
6. Questionable reliablilty - Primary (a Subgenious card game, I guess)
7. Probably reliable - Primary

Notes

1. Not reliable
2. Reliable - Secondary (I don't have access to this article at the moment)
3. Reliable - Secondary (passing mention in an interview)
4. Reliable - Primary
5. Reliable - Secondary (figurehead Bob voted as phony or fraud of the century)
6. Not confirmed - possibly primary
7. Reliable - Secondary
8. Not confirmed - possibly primary
9. Cannot use Wikipedia as a reference
10. Reliable - primary
11. RS - primary
12. RS - primary
13. RS - primary
14. RS- Secondary (passing mention of mother's involvement in the organization)
15. File host, not reliable
16. RS - Secondary (court document - doesn't mention the subject)
17. Not Reliable

As far as I can tell here, there has been no demonstration of notability as demonstrated by reliable independent sources (saying it's notable in an edit summary doesn't cut it). Until such an argument has been made, the notability tag must remain on the page. When/if a sufficient argument has been made, I will remove the tag, do not remove the tag. Thank you. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 08:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Countless news organizations have had stories about the Church of the SubGenius, including CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Boston Globe, the Dallas Morning News, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Baltimore Sun, Time Magazine, the San Francisco Examiner, the Toronto Globe, Wired News, the Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone magazine, the Village Voice, U.S. News and World Report, and People Magazine, just to mention a few. The Church of the SubGenius is the second oldest joke religion in the world, after the Discordians, and has published a number of books, pamphlets, movies, audio tapes, CDs, and Internet media. It has quite a few celebrities as members, although not as many as the Church of Scientology. The actor who played Pee Wee Herman, the lead singer of the band Devo, all the members of the band Sublime, Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller, the programmer who makes Slackware Linux (the oldest Linux distribution that is still currently maintained), cartoonists Paul Mavrides and R. Crumb, best-selling author Robert Anton Wilson, the makers of the children's cartoon Rugrats, counterculture icon Timothy Leary, and a number of other people that I forgot to mention are/were all dues-paying members of the Church of the SubGenius (some of them are dead now). By any logical measure, the Church of the SubGenius is notable. Your stance on this issue is entirely illogical and without reasonable justification. Many others here have posted on the talk page also disputing what you say and agreeing with me that the Church of the SubGenius is notable. The link at the top of my comment here links to a page on modemac.com where it links to a number of articles about the Church of the SubGenius in major news sources going back for many years. Now, I know that you want us all to assume good faith and practice civility, which I am trying to do. However, you have not adequately justified your position that the Church of the SubGenius is not notable, and everybody else disagrees with you unanimously. Given those circumstances, I would request that you remove the tag immediately or else come up with a reasonable, logical explanation for why it is there, because you have not provided one yet. Kraftlos, your user page explains how you are an exclusionist, which you seem to take a bit too far, although exclusionism can be a good thing for Wikipedia if done in moderation. But your user page also proclaims that you believe in consensus, and when everyone else disagrees with you, I think you ought to follow that route rather than sticking to your guns on exclusionism. You also state on your user page that you do not have much time for editing Wikipedia. A lot of us here do have time for that, and we also have the time to do research and improve articles instead of just putting tags on them that they are not notable without taking the time to do the research yourself. You should just admit you were wrong, remove the tag that it is not notable, and find some other article to edit instead, rather than editing an article on a subject that you freely admit you know nothing about. I would humbly suggest that in the future you only edit articles on subjects you know about, rather than making edits that are, quite frankly, completely without merit, such as marking this as not being notable. Every other person who has posted on the talk page about this issue disagrees with you, including someone who I know is actually a critic opposed to the Church of the SubGenius based on his many anti-SubGenius postings on the USENET newsgroup alt.slack, so there is quite obviously a very strong and unanimous consensus that you are wrong about lack of notability, and since you say on your user page that you believe in following consensus, it is time for you to follow through and prove it. I am sorry to you if I sounded a little harsh, but I am just being honest with you, Kraftlos, and I hope that if you decide you want to continue editing this article, you at least study more about the Church of the SubGenius, so that we can avoid these types of misunderstandings in the future. And since I am assuming goodwill, as you ask on your user page, I assume that you will go along with the consensus view of everyone else here, and also look at what I linked to above to prove to yourself that the Church of the SubGenius is indeed a notable organization that has been in many news stories over the years and has many famous members. That does not necessarily mean that it is a good or a bad organization, and of course the article should remain neutral on that point, but it is undoubtedly notable. --69.205.231.117 (talk) 13:46, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I have to admit that I'm sometimes somewhat at a loss in terms of understanding what constitutes "notability" in the eyes of some editors, in particular, when the subject is smaller sized organizations. In its first paragraph WP:ORG clearly says, "[l]arge organizations are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability; however, smaller organizations can be notable, just as individuals can be notable, and arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations" (emphasis added). In your personal count above, you cite six secondary "references" that in all probability speak to the issue of "coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources". My understanding of policy is that this isn't supposed to be a numbers game, especially when we're talking about a smaller group and that the 'depth' of information provided by cited sources for a smaller group article should also be somewhat more relaxed as well. Regardless of whether or not it's a "passing" reference, I'd suggest that coverage by the New York Times and Time magazine, alone in any form, is more than enough to constitute basic "notability" in the context of group whose actual participatory membership is probably in the low thousands at best. A basic search of "SubGenius" on Google scholar generates a mixed bag of 106 results to be sure, but interspersed within a lot of chaff are some solid secondary references to the group contained in everything from a masters thesis from the University of Virgina, several recent academic journal articles and some coverage, at least devoting a percentage of a chapter of content devoted to the group, contained within a number of reputably published books over the past 15 years or so. I'd be the first one to agree that this article is far from perfect, but to me the real problem is a lack of more references to support the existing information, not whether or not the Church is notable enough at a basic level to deserve its own Wikipedia article. In my opinion, more footnotes and an expansion of the mention of the groups documented participation in international art movements of the 1970's and 80's is what should be addressed. One last thing, I took note that you labelled my addition of a couple of references citing "adherents.com" as a source, as being "not reliable" in your list. Adherents.com is currently cited 936 times[1] as a source in the encyclopedia and although it is challenged on occasion (see #8 at [2]) the interesting point is made at that link that the site is regularly used as a reliable source by many highly reputable publishers. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 21:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me! I don't have any desire to discriminate against small organizations, and the intent of this notability debate isn't to delete the article; rather, I'd like to see a clear statement of notability in the article and see the referencing cleaned up a bit so that it leaves no question that it's notable. Again, I'll have to see the New York times article to determine whether it constitutes significant coverage or not. Simply being mentioned in the times doesn't make a subject notable, however I think it could be a solid reference. I think the Time Magazine poll could also be played up a bit, that seems fairly significant (though that's not really coverage). All I want to do is improve the article, so please don't take offense. Thanks! --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 06:39, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Just read the article, that is solid coverage in a very reliable independent source. If we can nail down the independant books or other articles then I'll be fine with taking down the tag. While the article technically meets WP:N now, the policy also says that multiple sources are always preferred to a single source. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 06:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

As a regular contributor to this article, an ordained minister of the Church of the SubGenius, and the maintainer of the High Weirdness Project wiki (included in the article as the primary source for the legal incident regarding Reverend Magdalen in the "Legal Matters" section), I'd like to submit for your perusal my archive of media articles on the Church: The SubGenius Media Archive. The articles in this archive are exact transcripts of published articles in newspapers, magazines, and some printed books that mention and describe the Church of the SubGenius over the years -- including the New York Times, Boston Globe, U.S. News and World Report, Washington Post, Wired, CNN, and others. Hopefully this can help in terms of verification of the sources for this article. --Modemac (talk) 04:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look! --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 05:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Also there are 3 books (two of which were published by Simon & Schuster). [3], [4], [5] and a film featuring Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo and Negativland [6]. Seriously, whoever posted the Notability statement needs a swift kick in the ass for not doing his homework. 71.102.2.128 (talk) 20:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey! Please remain Civil. That was uncalled for. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 18:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

tell you what. if you poke around a little bit on Google for references and cultural notability of concepts before posting tags, I'll remain civil. Honest, dude. This was a bad thing to miss. Even though it is a generational thing. It'd be like if I decided Joan Baez wasn't relevant in today's society so i put up a vfd on her. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doc Martian (talk • contribs) 01:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you dont understand the concept of notability. It has nothing to do with relevance, popularity, or significance. It rests solely on the topic's coverage in reliable published secondary sources. I clearly did do my homework, I checked every single book and article referenced to this page, and had my google searches come up with reliable content, I would have mentioned it in my eval. As it turned out the sources were not available online, I had to go to the library.

Just because this is your pet topic, doesnt give you the right to get nasty. This page was poorly referenced and made no assertion of notability. So now that the references are out in the open, we can start to bring the page up to wikipedia standards. I said it before, my purpose here is to make the article better. Thank you to those who helped. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 02:59, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Well maybe next time you'll go to the library FIRST! As I stated before, your lack of knowledge in a subject doesn't make make something unnotable. Stick to anime or whatever.Doc Martian (talk) 17:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Aak! - Wikidemon (talk) 10:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Well actually, the burden of evidence rests with those that think the topic is notable. I challenged it, and some editors brought up some good sources of information. That's how this process works. I didn't make a mistake, and I don't really know what you want from me. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 11:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Stick to topics you are knowledgeable about. There are plenty of folks who are knowledgeable in industrial culture. Just because YOU'RE confused doesn't mean that the article lacks notability. Here. Set this in your mind as the lowest standards for notability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_Rain . The Church of the Subgenius has been featured on MTV, in the New York Times, Time Magazine, has members like Bruce Campbell, Mark Mothersbaugh, Robert Anton Wilson, Ken Kesey and has its own newsgroup. That should be plenty. Not to mention all the mentions of Rev. Magdalen in a variety of news sources in the last few years. Once again, you didn't do your homework very well. Now go ahead and blather some more, I'm through with you. 71.102.2.128 (talk) 13:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

As you'll notice, Chocolate Rain meets WP:N. Plus, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS isn't a criteria for inclusion. Sorry. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 21:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Now who's all up in arms about cultural minutiae. Face it bud, you didn't do you homework. Nor did you discuss on the talk page before you slapped a tag on it. I'm sure you can find some sort of wikijustification for your poor research. Just keep to stuff you know from here on out. Otherwise you'll get your ass handed to you over and over again. 71.102.2.128 (talk) 22:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

True. But in all fairness I think he/she knows that. Lesson learned... if you attach notability tags on articles that people care about without first discussing it you get spanked. Another lesson... unless you add one or two major publication citations to your article someone is going to come sooner or later and put a notability tag on it. Spanking ensues. Such a jungle out there on the net. Wikidemon (talk) 22:14, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the tag is the correct way to determine notability. The tag doesn't imply that the page is being considered for merging or deletion (though that would be considered if sources couldn't have been found), it simply states that the notability is being challenged on the talkpage. I don't have to discuss notability before flagging the page, any editor can place the tag. The flag isn't for administrators to come delete the page, nothing like that; the flag is for editors of the page to take note of the discussion.

I didn't do poor research, and I'd also like to point out that the sources you showed me were primary sources and didn't add to a notability claim. Your "google-search suggestion" (as if I would flag a page for notability and not check a search engine first) only comes up with primary sources listed on amazon and unreliable sources. Whatever happened to assuming good faith?, I'm not guilty til proven innocent.

Notability is a core content guideline and determines whether a topic should be included on Wikipedia (read: not minutia). It doesn't matter whether or not I have knowledge of the topic's notability, it cannot be presumed that everyone has heard of a topic, and the assertion of notability needs to be down on the page, not just in your head. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 22:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Blah, blah fuckin' blah. with 7 books, a TIME magazine article, several news articles and the presence of a number of celebrities, its notable, if you want a higher notability for it? do the research and add it yourself. You were just bored, feeling like 'improving' some article by slapping a tag on it instead of actually improving it, and nobody would let you touch the Jesus article. Off with ye! -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.102.2.128 (talk • contribs) 17:44, 17 December 2008

You need to remain CIVIL, it is unacceptable to personally attack another editor. I can't even talk to you because you wont even address what I have to say, instead you keep calling me names and telling me to get lost, like some child. I'm on this article now, there's nothing you can say to me to make me leave.

With regard to the references, if I listed them individually and evaluated them one-by-one, I find it hard to believe that you still think that ignored anything. The books were primary sources and didn't contribute to the subjects notability. The TIME article, while interesting, didn't constitute significant coverage by time magazine. The only article on the page that constituted significant coverage was the New York Times article, and as soon as read the article, I conceded that the topic had notability (along with the news archives kindly shown to me by Modemac). This clearly isn't a lapse on my part, it's simply a lack of familiarity. Wikipedia's guidelines don't state to not challege notability if you are not familiar with the topic, the guidelines clearly state that you should seek the help of experts and fellow editors, which is exactly what I did. There was no negligence whatsoever on my part. I did exactly what I was supposed to do. Enough with this ridiculous conversation with you. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 02:04, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Slack dude, slack. Although the organization itself is clearly notable - along with a few dozen other related semi-serious self-conscious postmodern tongue-in-cheek religions, media pranks, individuals, ideas, and such - the article itself is not written up to Wikipedia standards for readability, style, tone, sourcing, etc. As someone who has known about them for some time (I have the book somewhere), it is still a harder read than it should be because the article is loosely organized and meanders in and out of an in-universe point of view. That's fine. Nobody is going to delete the article at this point. Most articles are not but that's an opportunity for improvement. A better article - professional looking, with good format, images, infoboxes, etc., is a proud thing, not something to fight. We should welcome anyone who wants to help, and the way Wikipedia works, except for a few of its most technical subjects (I dare anyone to try to improve the second half of Fermi–Dirac statistics) any diligent, intelligent writer can usually do some good improving an article whether or not they are an expert in the subject matter. It might seem a bit strange - encyclopedic articles about joke religions are kind of jarring in an ironic way.

The child custody case about Rev. Magdalen is terribly sad, and has enough interest and relevance that I think is worth covering on Wikipedia, but it treads dangerously on WP:BLP territory by putting private individuals' personal and traumatic moments up on the Internet. I think one would do well to look hard for additional reliable sources to show that this is truly a matter of public interest and not just someone's sad domestic problem. The initial court action raises some rather shocking questions about intolerance, religious persecution, judicial misconduct, and the first amendment, particularly with Paul Cambria's involvement. But the media seems to have ignored the case after that, and there is no indication of any of these issues after the first judge removed himself. Courts awarding custody due to a perception - right, wrong, staged by coaching the child, or bought through money for lawyers - that one parent is unfit because of their alternative lifestyle, lack of means, stress, etc., is a daily issue in America, and something that is probably better addressed through better-known cases and Wikipedia articles and sources more directly on topic. We have to be very careful in this section to stick to the sourceable facts, in a way that does not bring additional harm to her, her child, the child's father, and the judge. Wikidemon (talk) 17:00, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Wikidemon. To the other editor, anyone is welcome to edit any page on Wikipedia. There's no requirement that I have knowledge of the topic beforehand. I'm allowed to go where I please. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is to be written for a broad audience, favoring a clear reading for readers over editors. If I as a layman couldn't determine why the subject was notable, then there was clearly something wrong with the page.

I'd also like to point out, that while a Notability tag might look scary and imply that the page is being threatened with deletion; but it's really not that serious. You'd have a right to jump on me if I had nominated it for deletion before checking the facts, but I did not that do that. So please actually go and read these policies that I'm linking to rather than simply yelling at me because your pet topic is getting questioned. Thanks --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 21:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

With regard to the child custody case, I was a bit surprised how much space was given to it on the page. It seems like a movement with 5000+ members probably has more to cover than some high-profile case. I agree with you, we need to be sensitive to these individuals privacy. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 23:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Legal Matters

This should probably have a mention of the Bob Black firecracker incident. Bob Black is a fairly popular figure among anarchists despite him bein' a pusillanimous lil' git by our standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.102.2.128 (talk) 01:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Image of "Bob"

Ok every six months or so someone rolls by and deletes the graven image of 'Bob' from the article. This has been going back and forth for like 2 years as far as I remember. Please look into the history of this arguement AND THE FACT WE HAVE EXPRESS PERMISSION TO PUT THE PICTURE HERE,AS WELL AS THE RATIONALE THAT HE IS THE LOGO OF THE CHURCH before you just mindlessly delete it. AnkaraX (talk) 16:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

is subgenius believe in GOd? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.54.135.29 (talk) 06:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Basic English

This article variously uses the forms "SubGenius" and "Sub-Genius." The Church's own web site uses the former. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.229.114 (talk) 16:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)