I am of course talking about the Church of Scientology.
Of course their various organizations have had a hand in reshaping the entries for the Church, L. Ron Hubbard, prominent members like Tom Cruise and David Miscavige and the like, which, while unethical, is likely common practice for many corporations and groups.
But there was something a little darker and low key in some of their edit attempts.
I had noticed there were the names of various celebrities and people of notoriety on that list... and there was a common thread... they had all committed suicide or due to mental illness had killed or been killed.
Someone at the Church of Scientology had at some time added links to the bottom of the entries for Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith, Phil Hartman, Michael Hutchence and the Columbine Shooters to poorly written short articles at the domain cchr.org.
What is the CCHR? It is the Citizens Commission for Human Rights, which is a Church of Scientology non-profit (and admittedly so) which is a group dedicated to fighting the abuses of psychiatric medicine, which sounds like a noble cause.
But if you have seen Tom Cruise on the Today Show discussing psychiatry, you know that the Church publicly goes far beyond that CCHR mission statement.
Of course, the CCHR goes beyond that statement too. Don't believe me? Watch this video of Dr. Jeffery Schaler of American University giving an acceptance speech for winning an award from the group. I am not saying he is a Scientologist... but his speech and the reception it received demonstrate the true intentions of the CCHR.
In looking at the list of topics someone at the Church of Scientology had edited, I noticed that in many cases, they were topics on psychology and learning as well.
They dropped in links on depression, general anxiety disorder, active learning, parenting, postnatal depression, schizophrenia, school violence, ADHD, dyslexia, the American Psychiatric Association, bipolar disorder and anti-psychiatry (which whoever did that one did quite a bit of editing). It is sort of creepy when you think about it.
Luckily, given the nature of the community, most if not all of these attempts to hijack discussion in those subjects were quickly removed by other users. But after seeing the hundreds of entries listed from that search, it makes me really question the overall integrity of Wikipedia, so if it is a controversial subject, I will likely take a trip to WikiScanner to make sure certain organizations didn't totally co-op an entry. I can't be completely assured of that, but I can at least make the effort.
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