Wikipedia:Peer review/Large Group Awareness Training/archive1

Large Group Awareness Training

Peer Review Request by Smee (talk · contribs)

Please provide polite feedback on the content of the article, as well as helpful pointers as to how to improve the article towards Wikipedia:Featured article status. Thank you for your time. Yours, Smee 03:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

There are substantial problems with this article. It reads very much like a advocacy piece, for example (my highlights): .

These techniques are applied during long sessions, sometimes called a marathon session when lasting for eight hours or more. Compare with regular psychiatric outpatient care, where sessions last thirty to sixty minutes.; and
The trainings are usually run by non-psychologists and often involve more than two hundred people at a time. ; and
Large Group Awareness Trainings often take place in relatively closed confines.
The comparison with "cults" is based on anti-cult sources, some of which have been discredited;
The lead could be tightened to remove duplicated material such as the emphasis on the "white collar cults" opinion.
Basically the article reads as not neutral, and seems written from an antagonistic viewpoint.
Another concern is the selective use of sources in the lead. For example, one source describes this as "Large-group awareness training refers to programs that claim to increase self-awareness and facilitate constructive personal change." But there is no mention of this in the lead. Lead needs to explain the subject, not to frame a dispute.

The article will benefit from an expansion on the content of the only peer reviewed article provided as a source (1982 peer-reviewed article) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Lsi john (talk · contribs)

There are a number of problems with this article. The biggest problem is the mixing of the usage of LGAT. The article alternates between using LGAT as a methodology for training, and as a label for companies. The article should have one focus or make a clear distinction between the usages.

Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) = a training methodology.

Large Group Awareness Training Organizations (LGATs) = companies.

This article appears to slur the two together and implies that cult-claims made about specific companies somehow ties back to the methodology. I believe this is inaccurate and very misleading.

I think the article is supposed to be about the methodology. And, in this case, claims about companies being cults, unless somehow tied directly to the methodology, either should not be included in this article, or should be included in a separate section on 'Companies who use LGAT' .. and 'Criticism of companies who use LGAT'.

Note: In the same way that a hammer cannot build a building or make claims about building things, a methodology cannot be a cult or make claims of success. LGAT is a tool that is used by companies which make the claims.

I am also concerned that this article, by incorrectly bringing 'cult' into the definition of LGAT, is being used to slur cult references into other articles about companies that have not been referred to as, or called cults.

Lsi john 23:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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