Talk:The Science of Getting Rich

SGR Program

The Science of Getting Rich Seminar may not actually be based on this book. I don't know since it costs $2000 to find out. In any case, a citation is needed to support this claim since, otherwise, any mention of the SGR Program would be nothing other than SPAM. And yes, SPAM is not allowed in Wikipedia. See, Wikipedia:Spam —WikiLen 03:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The SGR Program was initially endorsed by Rhonda Byrne and the Creators of The Secret is based on Wattles book, The Science of Getting Rich. Here is the citation from the official secret blog: http://what-is-the-secret.blogspot.com/2006/12/secret-diary-second-edition.html#the_secret_seminar

The above source is a blog. Blogs—except in rare cases—are not acceptable sources for citations — see Links normally to be avoided. —WikiLen 03:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

The SGR Program is DEFINITELY based on the book "The Science of Getting Rich". It is included with the seminar AND the workbook. In addition, there are questions to ponder/answer regarding each individual chapter. Pictures of the "little green book" can be seen in the promotional material for the SGR Program Aujy 13:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Note about links

These links are to be avoided (see Wikipedia policy on Links normally to be avoided):

• Links to booksellers
• Links to blogs — some exceptions
• Links to commercial sites — some exceptions
• Links to sites that only have an indirect relationship to this site

—WikiLen 04:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Page restored to existence again

This page has been wiped out of existence by redirection to the author's bio, thus losing valuable information about it. I have restored it, with citations and references, which it originally lacked. I trust it will no longer be removed from Wikipedia. cat yronwode a.k.a. "64" 64.142.90.33 (talk) 23:54, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Given that you copied most of this "valuable information" (and apparently all of the information that is actually sourced) from Wallace D. Wattles I view your claims with considerable skepticism.

The above is a false statement I did not copy the text from the Wallace Wattles page. I merely went back through the edit history of this page, restored what i found there (i had not created this page), and i then began to add sources. A look at the edit history will bear this out. cat yronwode a.k.a. "64" 64.142.90.33 (talk) 05:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Catherine's accusation is patently false. The 'restored' article bears far greater resemblance to Wallace Wattles than it does to the pre-redirect version. She has also dumped some WP:OR in, and has now cited some of this to sources that do not support them. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 07:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It is questionable whether there is sufficient reliable, verifiable information to support even one article, there definitely is not enough to support two. I will therefore be nominating these two for a merger back into a single article. I have no preference as to whether it is here or there. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

While i was in the middle of working on this page, the page was again redirected out of existence, by someone who did not even notice what i was doing. All of the data on the page was trashed -- not carried over and used on the Wattles page, just dumped. I restored it again, added another sentence and its supporting reference, then went out to dinner, and upon my return to continue working on the page, i found a notice to merge and two false statements: that i had "copied" the material from another page and that what i had added was "OR." This is disruptive editing. Please stop. cat yronwode a.k.a. "64" 64.142.90.33 (talk) 05:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Page is of "Top Importance"

Please note that some assessment team has rated this page as a stub of "Top Importance" in the Business area of Wikipedia. I did not do that, and have no connection to or knowledge of that team. I suggest that rather than redirect or merge this page, hrafn should contact the assessment team that made that ranking and see if they can spare an editor to come here and help upgrade this TOP IMPORTANCE page. cat yronwode a.k.a. "64" 64.142.90.33 (talk) 05:55, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, how silly of me. I asked hrafn to do some work around here. My bad. Of course he put us all in our places by telling us that he would be slapping a notability tag on the article. I repeat, a litte louder this time: I suggest that rather than redirect or merge this page, hrafn ought to contact the assessment team that made that ranking and see if they can spare an editor to come here and help upgrade this TOP IMPORTANCE page. cat yronwode a.k.a. "64"64.142.90.33 (talk) 11:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It is silly to ask someone else to do what is just as easily done by oneself. This of course also includes adding tags instead of improvements.·Maunus·ƛ· 11:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Maunus, when somebody adds un/mis-sourced material to an article there are generally three practical things another editor can do about it. They can either:

1. 'Do it themselves' and simply remove/revert the material immediately as unverifiable WP:OR.
2. If they suspect WP:COPYVIO they can do a search for the exact phrases, and if they find out that it's a simple copy & paste again remove the material (as I had to do to Catherine's additions on Charles F. Haanel‎).
3. Assume good faith and tag the material, hoping that the author who introduced it cares enough to cite it (to a source that actually contains this information -- not a semi-random source).

Looking for sources for material that other people have written is generally a little-results-for-much-work needle-in-the-haystack task, even in subjects one is widely read in.

As for Catherine's mythical "assessment team" -- it was a lone editor who hasn't been active for some time. Most projects tend to accumulate tags from large numbers of articles, most of which never receive either interest or attention from the project -- or any attention to how they've been rated. If Catherine wishes to see if they're interested, she's welcome to, but I don't see it as having sufficient probability of being productive to bother. I am further amused that, having done her level best to engender a 'wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire' attitude from myself towards her, she now expects me to run her errands. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 12:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you will find that most of your fellow editors have different ideas about how the principle of assuming good faith relates to how editors should interact and colaborate than the ones your actions manifest. Coming as an outside editor with no personal interest in this article whatsoever I must say that your actions do have more of a feeling of vendetta and tenacious spite to them than a feeling of working together for a common goal. And I can tell you that looking from the outside in on the interactions between you and Catherine none of you are blamefree in the creation of an extremely hostile editing environment and the escalation of any possible conflict into its full potential. In other words you may both be sticking to the letter of the law about WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL but none of you follows its spirit. Also as an editor with no previous experience with "new thought movement" or "wallace wattles" or the science of self-help books, I managed to find several useful third party sources for the article investing less than ten minutes. ·Maunus·ƛ· 15:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

General sources on a topic are quite easy to find, sources to verify a specific claim (as needed to source un/mis-sourced statements inserted by another editor) are generally far more difficult. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 03:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Notability

Maunus has removed the notability template stating "it is notable according to criteria 3 & 5 and probably 1"

1. Criteria 3 states "The book has been made or adapted with attribution into a motion picture that was released into multiple commercial theaters, or was aired on a nationally televised network or cable station in any country." This book has not been "made or adapted ... into a motion picture". The Secret (2006 film) is not a film adaptation of this book, merely influenced by it.
2. Criteria 5 states "The book's author is so historically significant that any of his or her written works may be considered notable." However, the paucity of sources on Wallace Wattles‎ clearly contrdicts this. Wattles is of, at best, very marginal historical significance, as attested to by the lack of third party coverage of him.
3. Maunus may eventually be proven correct that it can establish notability under criteria 1 "The book has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works whose sources are independent of the book itself, with at least some of these works serving a general audience", but this has yet to be established by identification of such "non-trivial published works".

Unless somebody can come up with evidence that this book meets any of the criteria in WP:BK, I'll be restoring this template shortly. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 07:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

This book is very notable, if only for being in print for as long as it has. If you don't feel its notable, please nominate it for deletion. Madman (talk) 02:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Sourcing

Catherine has sourced the claim that:

which are similar to ideas about will power found in the success writings of early 20th century authors like Charles F. Haanel (The Master key System) and Frank Channing Haddock (Mastery of Self for Wealth Power Success), as well as Elizabeth Towne (How to Grow Success), who published other books and magazine articles by Wattles.

To a source that is quoted as stating:

She [Towne] ran pieces by Wallace Wattles in almost every issue [of The Nautilus] during the early 1900s.

This quote says nothing whatsoever about similarity of Wattles work, or about Haanel or Haddock at all. And people are surprised that I tag this article for faults in sourcing & potential WP:OR. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 11:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hrafn, let me explain and then i will rewrite this material in a way that you can more easily understand. The first part of the sentence refers to similar books with similar titles, focussed on the specific keywords Master/Mastery and Success. Do you understand that? Okay, good. After the word "Towne" there is a comma, followed by a "specific claim" that Towne published Wattles's magazine articles as well as his books. I will now break these two ideas into two complete, very short sentences, so as to eliminate your obvious confusion. My apologies for using a comma; i did not intend to alarm you in any way, or make it difficult for you to read the message that was being conveyed. cat yronwode a.k.a. "64" 64.142.90.33 (talk) 02:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

And I was clearly tagging the first part of the sentence, before the comma as unsourced, not the sentence as a whole. The conjunction of the two statements into the same sentence wasn't the main problem (though conjoining an unsourced statement with and before a sourced one inevitably raises confusion as to whether both are meant to be sourced to the same citation). Regardless, the latest version of this statement "similar keywords about will power, mastery, and success are found in the writings of his contemporary early 20th century authors Charles F. Haanel (The Master Key System), the Methodist minister Frank Channing Haddock (Power of Will, Power for Success, Mastery of Self for Wealth Power Success), and Elizabeth Towne (How to Grow Success)." remains unsourced, and is most probably WP:OR. Please source it, or it will be removed again. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 03:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

A caution to editors: This is not a "Law of Attraction" book

Please don't tag this book as teaching "The Law of Attraction," ala the writings of William Walker Atkinson or Rhonda Byrne. This book did inspire Byrne, but the teaching in this book is something called "the Certain Way of Thinking," that is, thinking with certainty, purposefulness, and orientation toward achievement.

The "Law of Attraction" is a mystical or spiritual concept. The "Certain Way" is a mental technique.

Within the New Thought Movement, the former derives primarily from the writings of James Allen and William Walker Atkinson, while the latter originated with Wallace Wattles and was carried on by Charles F. Haanel and Napoleon Hill, among others.

Rhonda Byrne casually fused the two concepts in her film and book The Secret, but for about 100 years they were considered separate ideas -- and they are still consided entirely separate by those who study them outside of the fused conceptual framework provided by Byne and her followers.

I have removed two references in which this book was spuriously connected with the Law of Attraction, one in the lead graph and one in the Criticisms section, where a criticism of the Law of Attraction were incorrectly applied to this book merely because some author had criticized the ideas of Rhonda Byrne, without refernce to this book at all.

I realize that spirituality, science, mental self-training, religion, politics, and mysticism are hot button topics for some editors at Wikipedia, as well as for many readers. We must be particularly careful in writing about hot button topics that require familiarity with old books. Since this book is online, however, one need not take my word for the above. Open the Google electronic version of "The Science of Getting Rich" and search on the keyword term "Law of Attraction" in quotes. No results. The reason should be obvious: this book does not mention the Law of Attraction.

Thanks for reading what i write, and best wishes for your own success!

Cordially, cat yronwode a.k.a. "64" 64.142.90.33 (talk) 03:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

According to reliable sources such as Karen Kelly it is a law of attraction book, even if it doesn't mention the law. It will require better sources to say that it is not. ·Maunus·ƛ· 04:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)