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[Mooby]

So I happened upon a Burt Reynolds football movie called "Semi-Tough", and its WP article goes on and on about "est" and Werner Erhard. Like, it mentions "est" 20 times, and Erhard more than that. Very little mention of football.

That seemed a bit weird, like someone was trying to make a really big deal of "est", so I looked at the page history to see who wrote the thing, and here we are.

A cursory scan through these threads and the "est" articles themselves seems to indicate that Cirt hates Scientology, and Scientologists hate est... so is Cirt talking about est a lot to poke at Scientology? Or is he poking at est itself? Or what?

Forgive me for not slogging through all the threads, there's rather a lot and I figured someone knowledgeable would have a quick answer.

-Mooby

[Bottled_Spider]

A cursory scan through these threads and the "est" articles themselves seems to indicate that Cirt hates Scientology, and Scientologists hate est... so is Cirt talking about est a lot to poke at Scientology? Or is he poking at est itself? Or what?

Probably just killing two birds with one stone.

[carbuncle]

Cirt has a thing about Werner Erhard. No one on WP sees it as strange to turn an article on a forgettable movie about football players into a critique of something that is only parodied in the movie.

[Heat]

Werner Erhard, was an ex-Scientologist who stole that cults secrets to found a new cult, est, with himself as guru instead of L. Ron. It was big in the 70s among me generation types but has declined since then.

[melloden]

Cirt has a thing about Werner Erhard. No one on WP sees it as strange to turn an article on a forgettable movie about football players into a critique of something that is only parodied in the movie.

More importantly, no one on WP sees it as strange for someone to register a username that was once Erhard's alias.

[Mooby]

More importantly, no one on WP sees it as strange for someone to register a username that was once Erhard's alias.

Huh. I didn't know that. That is... odd.

I'll admit I'm still a little fuzzy on whether Cirt actually likes the guy. Obviously Cirt thinks he's really, really important, for good or ill.

If I edited a Burt Reynolds movie to heavily play up the importance of the Pet Rock (also big in the 70s, I understand), you'd think it'd be easy to suss out whether I actually liked Pet Rocks. But maybe I'm just slow.

-Mooby

[carbuncle]

More importantly, no one on WP sees it as strange for someone to register a username that was once Erhard's alias.

Huh. I didn't know that. That is... odd.

I'll admit I'm still a little fuzzy on whether Cirt actually likes the guy. Obviously Cirt thinks he's really, really important, for good or ill.

If I edited a Burt Reynolds movie to heavily play up the importance of the Pet Rock (also big in the 70s, I understand), you'd think it'd be easy to suss out whether I actually liked Pet Rocks. But maybe I'm just slow.

-Mooby

Yep. The folks who hate Scientology were the ones creating articles about otherwise obscure minor celebrities and businessmen just so they could label them as Scientologists. Weird isn't it? Cirt went a step beyond this by creating articles that were puff pieces for people and things connected to anti-CoS stuff, which is even weirder since many of the anti-CoS folks still think of themselves as Scientologists.

[iii]

Yep. The folks who hate Scientology were the ones creating articles about otherwise obscure minor celebrities and businessmen just so they could label them as Scientologists. Weird isn't it? Cirt went a step beyond this by creating articles that were puff pieces for people and things connected to anti-CoS stuff, which is even weirder since many of the anti-CoS folks still think of themselves as Scientologists.

It has been taken for granted by many on this board that Cirt's writing was all about being on an "anti-CoS" kick when in fact it is probably closer to the truth that he is just an obsessive and enjoys documenting his obsessions on Wikipedia. He dislikes CoS, for sure, but his primary motivation is to spew out all that he obsessively researches about obscure connections to Scientology onto Wikipedia rather than to go on an anti-CoS crusade. It's a Wikipedia predilection, not an anti-CoS one.

[carbuncle]

It has been taken for granted by many on this board that Cirt's writing was all about being on an "anti-CoS" kick when in fact it is probably closer to the truth that he is just an obsessive and enjoys documenting his obsessions on Wikipedia. He dislikes CoS, for sure, but his primary motivation is to spew out all that he obsessively researches about obscure connections to Scientology onto Wikipedia rather than to go on an anti-CoS crusade. It's a Wikipedia predilection, not an anti-CoS one.

I think you're wrong about that one.

[Proabivouac]

It has been taken for granted by many on this board that Cirt's writing was all about being on an "anti-CoS" kick when in fact it is probably closer to the truth that he is just an obsessive and enjoys documenting his obsessions on Wikipedia. He dislikes CoS, for sure, but his primary motivation is to spew out all that he obsessively researches about obscure connections to Scientology onto Wikipedia rather than to go on an anti-CoS crusade. It's a Wikipedia predilection, not an anti-CoS one.

I think you're wrong about that one.

Cirt had been railing about Landmark Education and COS under a variety of aliases long before arriving on Wikipedia.

[iii]

Cirt had been railing about Landmark Education and COS under a variety of aliases long before arriving on Wikipedia.

Absolutely. But as a Wikipedia writer he seems obsessed with the subject writ large. The attacks against his bugbears are secondary to his obsessive number of edits. This confuses those who are expecting every last edit to look like a riposte.