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Needs some attention. Am I right in saying that as Y chromosome has been identified it must have a human father? See this diff [1]. The Royal Holloway investigation is sourced not from an official report but from an interpretation in powerpoint form on the Starchild website [2] although it isn't clear it isn't the official report. For some reason this article from the New England Skeptical Society doesn't seem to have been used in the article. [3] dougweller ( talk) 19:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Has anyone here heard of Stylometry? This article has very few sources; and I am uncertain if it is something relatively new but substantial, or if it just a subject that lacks notability. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 12:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Is it WP:UNDUE or fringy to mention the Obamas' multiracial or biracial heritage based on a mere, uh, quarter million references? -- dab (𒁳) 13:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Surprise, some ABCD jokers have discovered this article once again. Are various mutually exclusive decipherment claims by people like "eminent expert" (poor crackpot) Egbert Richter "decipherments" that belong listed under "written accounts"? Or is this much ado about nothing? -- dab (𒁳) 20:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I would like to point out that the reference given for some studies for adverse health effects of olive oil, is actually more or less a biased article written by the Pritikin Center's chief doctor, a center which commercially promotes the so-called ' Pritikin diet'. This commercial diet is known for the antipathy to fats and oils of any kind. Even though i do agree that research into any negative health effects of olive oil should ultimately be included, i hardly think that that should be drawn from a commercially-driven article, which cites a handful medical studies, especially in the light of many tens of studies that highlight the positive health effects of olive oil. The ref is here: Olive_oil#cite_note-oliveoiltruth-26 I would please like your input on this. ps. I have already posted this query in the Olive Oil talk page and it was suggested that i repost here. KLA ( talk) 22:28, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
This needs at least some recognition that there is mainstream medicine, and that there is criticism of this or the Ayurveda that this is based upon. As it is, it uses almost solely fringe sources, with trivial mentions of mainstream journals.
By far the most-cited source is:
Contemporary Ayurveda; Medicine and Research in Maharishi Ayurveda, H. Sharma MD, C. Clark MD
Is this even a reliable source for what it's used to claim? It's hardly independent. I suspect that a lot of the other sources are just taken from its footnotes, though I cannot prove that. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:33, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Alien Abduction Trauma and Recovery ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). This article really needs a rename and cleanup, if not a request for deletion. Related article: Post-abduction syndrome ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Vassyana ( talk) 11:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Stumbled across the page Novelty Theory just now. Now I may know crap-all about cosmetology, but I know the stank of crank when I smell it. It may be a notable enough crank idea, but it doesn't appear to be described objectively. At the very least it completely fails WP:LEAD. What do you think? Aunt Entropy ( talk) 00:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I found this on the NPOV board [ [6]]. There does seem to be a problem here (see the talk page) although the publishing house seems to pay royalties [7] the article is clearly fringe and POV. dougweller ( talk) 06:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
This veers on hagiography. Even though the PRC persecution of Falun Gong is horrible, the article is really overly complimentary. Some of our pseudoscience debunkers might like to have a look at the "academic perspectives" section. Can we please balance this up a bit? Moreschi ( talk) 13:34, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Some months back, I was involved heavily in a dispute surrounding List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts. Out of this dispute, a curious consensus emerged (even supported by some of those who seemed to dislike certain subjects that they believed in being labeled pseudoscience) that there should be one list on that page. I have just today implemented that change, but it would be good if we got some people to go through and make sure everything came out okay. The first quasi-objection also came through with a homeopath stating that he is worried that some "pseudoskeptical" organizations are being used to source claims of pseudoscience. You can see what I think about such sentiments here. However, as with most of these kinds of articles, the more eyes that are attached to the heads of people without specific fringe-agendas, the better.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 18:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
I'd appreciate more eyes on this article about the mercury amalgam controversy ex-dentist, as I'm about to go to bed and it's currently being edited by someone with strong opinions about this guy. So, if people could watch to make sure he and others don't get too carried away, that would be great. Good night, Verbal chat 21:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Orthomolecular psychiatry should probably be redirected to orthomolecular medicine and properly content forked. However, we have people like User:Alterrabe making threats like this. Please help combat WP:OWN, WP:POVPUSH, Wikipedia:Walled garden, etc. etc. etc. ScienceApologist ( talk) 10:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Pyroluria also needs to be considered carefully. Does Wikipedia make it a habit to report on invented diseases for which the only sources are people who believe in the disease? Seems to run afoul of WP:FRINGE. ScienceApologist ( talk) 14:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Welcome to my world. Merge too quickly and there's a complaint, post to AfD and there's a complaint, place a merge notice without posting on the talk page and there's a complaint, ignore the false consensus that is trumpeted when various fringe proponents complain loudly about their pet articles being "decimated" and there's a complaint, remove unreliable sources and there's a complaint, impose reliable sources and there's a complaint.... ....and I'm the one that's supposed to have the problem! ScienceApologist ( talk) 18:42, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
sheesh. It is a vice if you sit back and let others do the dirty work. It is a virtue if it reminds you that your efforts aren't all in vain. Both Moreschi and I have done our share in making it happen. We're just saying that now Pyroluria is getting wider attention, it's going to be fine. I know you do important work, SA, but man, are you on a high horse today. -- dab (𒁳) 09:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
I have started an RfC: RfC: Mass removal of "Category:Alternative medicine" from most articles. Please comment on this important subject. -- Fyslee / talk 17:10, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
There's a small, fringe controversy about where President-elect Barack Obama was born. Reliable sources say he was born in Hawaii, but some people claim he may have been born in Kenya or some other place outside the United States (a foreign birth would raise questions about his eligibility for the presidency). Obama's mother was Ann Dunham, and so I mentioned this fringe controversy briefly in a footnote there. I was reverted by another editor, and talk page discussion ensued [8].
This birthplace controversy is notable, having been covered by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Washington Times, Associated Press via Hartford Courant, NBC, Forbes, and other mainstream publications. There is a section about this fringe controversy in Wikipedia's Alan Keyes article, here. However, not even the slightest mention of this controversy (even in a footnote) is being allowed in any of the Obama articles, including Ann Dunham.
I have pointed out that a Wikipedia guideline specifically allows fringe theories to be mentioned in non-fringe articles. I can see why this fringe controversy might not be mentioned in the main Obama article, where there is a great deal of notable information competing for inclusion, but the article about his mother ( Ann Dunham) has a much lower threshold for notability.
Of course, I don't personally believe that Obama was probably born outside the United States, but still this notable fringe theory has been widely covered by the mainstream press. So, I don't see why the fringe theory cannot be mentioned very briefly (and described as a fringe theory) in Ann Dunham. Would doing so be a violation of Wikipedia policies or guidelines regarding fringe stuff? Ferrylodge ( talk) 22:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
(undent)I just came across the following statement: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article."
That statement seems to be in tension with another statement: "The theory probably does not deserve its own Wikipedia article, as there is no mainstream reference to it whatsoever, but could easily have a small mention in the main Port Chicago disaster article, since its Internet presence is very large due to the aforementioned fringe websites."
Are there other relevant policies or guidelines, and how would these two quoted statements apply under present circumstances? It seems odd to have a whole section in one article that mentions certain things, while not allowing articles about those things to Wikilink back to that section. But if that's the policy then I'm happy to drop the matter. This is a matter of curiosity for me more than anything else, and it would be useful to have people's views for future reference. Ferrylodge ( talk) 04:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Clearly that tidbit does not belong in that article. We are a WP:MAINSTREAM encyclopedia, not a place to load up on gossip and innuendo and frivolous court cases. There may be a place to include such information in this encyclopedia. Slander and libel about Barack Obama, for example. Not in main biographical articles, however. No, off-handed mention in out-of-the-way paragraphs or in minor lawsuits does not a reliable source for a major topic make. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
ScienceApologist wrote: "We are a WP:MAINSTREAM encyclopedia..."
Perhaps you have forgotten about this. It is hard to see why an article about one is notable, but not the other. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 16:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
this thing is treated at Alan_Keyes#Obama_citizenship_lawsuit. That's good enough. WP:FRINGE says it's ok to cover fringecruft, at the appropriate place, but avoid spilling it to articles that aren't dedicated to fringe topics. Alan Keyes is probably the only article where this is within WP:DUE. -- dab (𒁳) 16:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
If there is enough material, there is no reason for it not to have its own article. There is stuff nuttier than that on WP. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 16:49, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
unlike Alien Abduction Trauma and Recovery, this is a topic of WP:BLP. But sure, if we can have Seigenthaler incident, we can also have Obama citizenship lawsuit, that's not ruled out in principle. We just need to be clear that linking it from Barack Obama would be about as WP:DUE as linking Alien Abduction Trauma and Recovery from the main Psychological trauma article. Instead, it will be a WP:SS sub-article with a {{ summary in}} Alan Keyes. -- dab (𒁳) 18:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
(undent)The obviously fringe theory Paul is dead is linked by an enormous number of non-fringe articles, including BLPs. Therefore, it's odd that the present fringe material cannot be wikilinked in any non-fringe BLP. But, it appears that no one's opinion will be changing any time soon, so Looie496 is probably correct that it's best to let it rest for now. Ferrylodge ( talk) 19:32, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
A note about the Paul McCartney death urban legend... In my mind, it's all about BLP. That particular urban legend impacted Paul McCartney's life many years ago, prior to Wikipedia's existence, enough to carry a modicum of weight in his BLP. But -- and this is important -- it would be against Wikipedia policy to incorporate that hoax into his BLP if the hoax had sprung up recently, since we can't be party to affecting someone's life by lending credence to what is obviously libel and slander. The claims of foreign birth, on the other hand, have the potential to impact Obama now, through Wikipedia, even though they are absolutely unquestionably false. This is unacceptable. Wikipedia cannot lend these claims credence, because even as reliable sources report on the claims, reliable sources agree that they are utterly lacking in merit. -- Good Damon 21:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually the unanswered questions involved here fascinate me. For instance I had no idea of this [10]. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 22:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
The McCain parallel doesn't really apply. Assuming the non-fringe facts of that case (McCain was born in Panama Canal Zone), there was still a legitimate if academic (in the sense that it was never in doubt that the political and legal establishment was behind McCain) question about whether he was eligible. That's what we included brief mentions of in our articles. There was also a conspiracy theory that McCain in fact was not born in the PCZ, but in regular Panama. That we kept out of our articles, on grounds of lack of RS and total fringiness. Wasted Time R ( talk) 23:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Majestic 12. Credulity is amazing. ScienceApologist ( talk) 02:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Above article was brought to the attention of this board a while ago as some of the content seemed to be fringy. I've made a number of edits, moving it into chronological rather than regional order, the logic being that if people want to know about the History of East Africa they can follow the link to that article. If anyone wants to take a critical look at what I've done, I'd be grateful. Itsmejudith ( talk) 18:29, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
I recently removed a large swatch of text from torsion field because it was entirely based on the primary sources of proponents of this alleged "theory". Now I see that some other editors are removing pretty much the only sources which actually address this theory from a WP:NPOV (bearing in mind of course that this is a fringe theory par excellence). The question is whether this is a reliable source for some of the claims made in the article. Otherwise, if absolutely no independent reliable sources can be found (the article is quite thin on them as it is), then perhaps deletion should once again be countenanced. siℓℓy rabbit ( talk) 15:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Anyone with an interest in this who doesn't have it on their watchlist, the lead is heavily rewritten (and looks awful in any case). dougweller ( talk) 15:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
There are very big ownership and neutrality (and civility) issues on the Seth Material article. It currently has an essay style with an in universe perspective, and only primary sources. It also has one unsourced section which is far too long. It needs trimming down, sourcing and reframing, and then perhaps merging into the Jane Roberts article. Verbal chat 07:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
A POV spinoff from Jane Roberts, as credulous as you can get. dougweller ( talk) 09:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
I have started a discussion about the redirect here. Verbal chat 12:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
More editors would be very welcome here, to find external sources and integrate them into the article, and address the style and tone problems. This essay can probably be quick quickly turned into an article - and then we can decide whether it stands alone or should be moved into another article. Verbal chat 10:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
← (Unindent) WP:FRINGE may need some clarification but (per ArbCOM) it does cover fringe material in history, sociology, etc. and not simply scientific topics. This is fringe in that it's a very small socio-religious movement, far outside the mainstream, with little written about it by people outside this fringe movement. Basically, to pass WP:NOTE, there needs to be papers/books/etc. written about the subject from people outside the movement itself. Otherwise, we're looking at a walled garden of self-referential material. — The Hand That Feeds You: Bite 22:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Paranormal as an effective tag: 12) The use of a link to paranormal in the introduction of an article serves to frame the matter. Links to psychic, new age, or occult serve the same purpose. passed 8-0 at 03:06, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
And this is also fringe. And a mess. Also see the talk page. dougweller ( talk) 11:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Spillover from the Obama birthplace "controversy" seems to have sent the Natural-born citizen article into cuckooland. A couple of months ago the article was clean, concise, and reasonably free of bias; today it's a morass of fringe theories that are distinguished from mainstream thought inadequately or not at all. Please help. — phh ( t/ c) 23:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi, we're in a rather difficult and long-running dispute at Talk:Horned God over whether undue weight is being given to certain aspects of the Horned God theory — a disputed historical theory that a host of different horned deities from different cultures in prehistory and antiquity were historically linked or in some sense were the same god. The article itself is about that fringe theory, and we all agree that it must be couched in the context of modern critical viewpoints to provide context and make it clear that it is disputed and not established historical fact. The question we're currently arguing over is, how much of the theory can we legitimately describe without breaking WP:UNDUE policy? One editor there would like to delete material relating to the individual gods involved in this theory, while I hold that since this is a fringe article, and Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, we should be able to discuss the theory in some detail without the threat of large-scale deletions hanging over us. I'd love some help.
I've also asked for help at WP:ORN on a related subject from this same dispute; advice seems to have petered out there and it's still unresolved, so if any of you have the patience to check that out, I'd appreciate it. Apologies in advance for the screeds of text, but I think the later posts contain most of what's relevant to this particular query. Thank-you kindly, Fuzzypeg ★ 03:24, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Hello! The debate is actually quite simple. It's about the removal of a list of deities which are not related to the subject of the article in reliable sources. The sources (where cited) do not propose that the deities relate to the Horned God (the subject of the article), and therefore the article is misrepresenting those sources, and misleading readers. Much of the disputed content is totally unsourced. The sources which would be required to establish the links have not presented themselves over the past 6 weeks, despite frequent posts to the talk-page by several editors on the subject. It is highly unlikely that these sources exist at all.
Where the "historical origins" fringe-theories are discussed, they need to be summarised and not have all the evidence simply re-iterated in a list which makes no reference to them being part of a fringe-theory as article currently does. The fringe-theory needs to be explained, not restated.
I'll also clarify this at WP:ORN#Horned god in the hope that we can establish a way forward with this article. Davémon ( talk) 11:22, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
why, of course. Any number of horned deities can and should be discussed in the Horned God article inasmuch as they can be shown to have relevance to the "Horned God" theory. A generic discussion of horned deities in general is still a separate topic independent of the "Horned God" idea. There isn't a real problem here. -- dab (𒁳) 15:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
You say you opened this discussion: to determine whether "undue weight" is a reasonable justification for wholesale deletions from an article about a fringe theory.. The point I'm making is that the article is not about a fringe theory. There are many theories about the subject, some are fringy, some are mainstream:
Hi all. This isn't necessarily typical of the articles brought to attention on this board, but Newport Tower (Rhode Island) wouldn't be in the horrible state it is if it wasn't associated with fringe theories. Feel free to take a look. ClovisPt ( talk) 05:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Concerning a recent block 2 days ago by Administrator Protonk & censoring of pertinent reference links by user: Mosedschurte
Protonk,
I appreciate your acknowledgement that user Mosedschurte was edit warring too, but you are mistaken to say that I did a revert from IP address (69.22.221.46). That never was my IP address and I don't know how you've come to that conclusion it was ever my IP address. All my edits so far should have been from the exact same IP address as the account from this edit. If there are other accounts from this IP address, I am unaware of them and they are not sockpuppets. At least 2 other people share the current IP address which this message is being posted.
I also appreciate your acknowledgement that what I posted was not vandalism.
I was not aware of the three revert rule and see no reason why I would want to revert more than 3 times after a 24 hour period.
If you find it in your administrative duty to agree these childish, stubborn and combative persistent demands by Mosedschurte that those references be removed, all I ask is a better explanation far more scholarly and rational from a seasoned professional, arbitrator and moderator rather than parroting Mosedschurte's combative, stubborn, outlandish, juvenile, childish, infantile, and mentally retarded boldfaced lies and condemnation that this reference John Judge at ratical.org, is all about espousing the extremist fringe theory that "Jonestown was an experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and military intelligence code name for mind control", in violation of WP:Reliable sources. The Black hole of Guyana by John Judge names pertinent names and roles to the subject of the article as far as I can see and even if it is espousing some strong accusation, I see no reason why that fact discredits the valid information pertinent to the article. The alleged extremist fringe theory is entirely up to the party responsible for clicking on this reference to decide whether it is fringe or not. The purpose of this reference is to give interested readers information who Deborah Layton was in Jonestown and a clue who George Phillip Blakey was by mentioning he was her husband/consort was while in Jonestown. People like Mosedschurte clearly have an agenda to prevent people on wikipedia from knowing about this information. My2sense2wikip (talk) 07:31, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Even if that article is considered "extremist fringe theory" by wikipedia guidelines. It's even worse that Mosedschurte would continuously censor this reference:
Deborah Layton is the daughter of the late Laurence Laird Layton[1]. Why an entry for "Deborah Layton" automatically re-directs to "seductive poison" makes no sense.
This is an undisputed well recognized mainstream link to her father's background. There is no sane explanation why Laurence Laird Layton's obituary link can't be included either and I don't appreciate the continued liberty that you as a wikipedia moderator and all your responsibility would continue to allow such a bigoted and obtuse individual like Mosedschurte to run rampant censoring the free thinking flow of information of notable people VERY PERTINENT to the article. My2sense2wikip ( talk) 03:09, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Regarding this quote by My2sense2wikip: Mosedschurte's combative, stubborn, outlandish, juvenile, childish, infantile, and mentally retarded boldfaced lies and condemnation that this reference John Judge at ratical.org, is all about espousing the extremist fringe theory that "Jonestown was an experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and military intelligence code name for mind control", in violation of WP:Reliable sources.
Perhaps most humorous about that attack is that it was nowhere near a "boldface lie" -- all I did was cite a direct quote from the exact internet source page by conspiracy theorist John Judge you cited and attempted to include in the Seductive Poison article. This was it:
“ | "Jonestown was an experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and military intelligence code name for mind control." | ” |
Also, just for information's sake, your repeated conduct reverting to this extremist fringe source caused me to have to take it to the ANI board, after which an administrator blocked you. Mosedschurte ( talk) 11:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
The most humorous part is cowards afraid of truth and the lengths they go to show what a bunch of cowards they all are. My2sense2wikip ( talk) 08:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
We had reached a stage today where even Caleb was working on the subpage on improving the article, however now Jac-A-Row is edit-warring the poorly sourced and dubious material back into the page - and claiming he has consensus for this. Can more editors pleas, again, have a look. The summary section is hugely bloated and needs to be changed into summary form (which has started), and the subsections either removed, summarised into the summary, or via RS sources given their own sections when shown to be important or central. Verbal chat 21:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Verbal, lay off the "edit-warring" accusations.
If someone were to review the history of that article to explore for edit-warring, they would notice that you removed that same content at least 7 times, and you've been reverted by multiple editors - none of whom did anything near the number of reverts that you did:
[15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
In the meantime, while you were deleting information and arguing, several editors have been adding sources. When I first saw the article a week ago (following a report here at FTN), it had 15 footnotes, now it has 50, including sources published by Oxford, Brill, Yale and other major publishers, several of which were written by university professors.
So far, I have not seen you add even one reference.
Generally, I avoid commenting about individual editors rather than content, but this comment is needed because you have posted (in at least two places), personal attacks accusing me of edit-warring, with absolutely no foundation.
Please retract your accusation. Let's get back to the work of making the article better. Thanks. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 04:55, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
This is begining to pop up in all sorts of articles related to Obama (or US Presidents in general). Unfortunately, the theory has been recieving a fair amount of coverage in the press recently (most, but not all, of it dismissive) ... so it probably counts as being "Notable Fringe". That said, we should be ready for a lot of questions and complaints about it being added to articles. Blueboar ( talk) 03:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Blueboar is not suggesting we "do it again", he is saying the problem persists. Previous discussion is here. -- dab (𒁳) 15:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
If Wikipedia can accommodate a Siegenthaler incident article, it can certainly accommodate a Barack Obama citizenship controversy article. -- dab (𒁳) 22:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've started the article at
Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories as suggested. Take a look and see what you think. I've merged in the litigation sections from
Andy Martin (U.S. politician),
Philip J. Berg and
Alan Keyes; I've reduced those sections to stubs and pointed them to the relevant parts of this new article. It's still very much a work in progress, but please feel free to jump in and start editing it. --
ChrisO (
talk) 23:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
(added)
Donofrio v. Wells was up for deletion - see
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donofrio v. Wells. I've taken the liberty of closing the AfD and merging a condensed version of that article into the conspiracy theories article. --
ChrisO (
talk) 01:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
← Yup, I agree it's probably best to have a place to send them. But the title change that is being pushed - "Barack Obama citizenship challenges" - seems to me to be legitimizing this nonsense, and therefore POV. Keep the title as Chris set it up. Tvoz/ talk 03:02, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
1) Thank you, ChrisO.
2) The recent history of Natural-born citizen should probably be scrutinized. I am surprised to see that the child of American citizens (or citizens) born on foreign soil apparently might not be a natural-born citizen...so, say, if I were an army brat born in Panama, would I not be a natural-born citizen? Just to ask an academic question. Apparently, the answer is if I were born on an army base, I would be a natural-born citizen. --Akhilleus ( talk) 03:19, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
The title of this article is currently being disputed. Anyone wishing to offer some input, following the discussion about naming above, is welcome to join the new discussion at Talk:Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories#Retitle. -- ChrisO ( talk) 09:24, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
One of the tracts described in the Chick tract article mentions the claim that condoms do not protect against AIDS. The mention was qualified with a parenthetical "falsely" but that has been removed as "editorialising". I believe that the claim shouldn't stand alone without some sort of qualification as it's pseudoscientific, CliffC disagrees. What do you think? Aunt Entropy ( talk) 00:02, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Just so we all know what we are discussing... The passage at issue is the discription of Chick's "That Crazy Guy" and is currently worded:
This is an accurate discription of what appears in the Chick Track.
I seriously doubt that anyone reading this article is looking for information on preventing AIDS... instead they will be looking for information on what Chick says in his tracts. If consensus is that this really is something that needs to be commented upon, I think the key is to phrase things neutrally, in terms of contrasting opinions... I would suggest simply adding: (This last comment relfects Chick's view on the effectiveness of condoms in preventing AIDS transmission. The view of the majority of Scientists, Doctors and other health professionals is that condoms are in fact very effective at preventing the transmittion of AIDS)... all properly sourced of course. Blueboar ( talk) 02:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
This report is in regards to literary criticism vs non-scholarship in an area that is talking about a "genre", which falls within the science of literary criticism. Over at Ludovico Ariosto, two fringe theories are being pushed here. The attempt is to remove the term "Christian" and replace it with "Romantic". Within literary scholarship, Romantic is reserved for Romantic poets. Romance is the proper adjective for works that incorporate Romance. As pointed out on the talk page, genre scholars use the term "Romance Epic", and this was provided to show how the term is prevalent. The only ones provided as evidence of "Romantic Epic" was a work produced by a translator, not a genre scholar, and an "encyclopedia" about Spenser, a field that is very large and not everything is thorough. This use of "Romantic" (not the correct term, "Romance") is used to replace Orlando Furosio as being described as a "Christian Epic", a term that means that the epic is based on the forces of Christianity fighting against an enemy, which is the common descriptive within scholarship (the plot is God favors the Christians under Charlemange against the "pagan" Saracens). Thus, we have two fringe theories being produced: 1. that Orlando Furioso is not "Christian", and 2. that it is a "Romantic Epic" and not "Romance Epic". If anyone needs any books verifying any of this, please ask and I can provide. Ottava Rima ( talk) 00:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh brother, is this still going on? I suspect the difference between "romantic epic" and "romance epic" is miniscule, but I've already cited many occasions where English-language scholars use the term "romantic epic" and it's the one I'm most familiar with. In fact, it's used by Barbara Reynolds as the subtitle of her translation of Orlando furioso for Penguin Classics, perhaps the most widely read modern version of the poem in English. Reynolds was Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University (among other academic posts) but that hasn't stopped Ottava Rima trying to smear her reputation on the Ludovico Ariosto talk page (after all, "anyone can be a lecturer at Cambridge"!!). As for "Christian", well Ariosto was no doubt a Christian and the poem contains Christian elements, but "Saracens versus Christians" is part and parcel of the Carolingian subject matter anyone writing about Roland/Orlando would inherit. Ariosto hardly puts much emphasis on this theme. He's not that reverential either as a comparison between Dante's journey to the moon from the Earthly Paradise in the Divine Comedy and Astolfo's in Orlando would demonstrate. So, no, if you're going to use one adjective to modify "epic" when describing Orlando furioso then "Christian" doesn't really fit the bill. Likewise, Tristram Shandy was written by an Anglican clergyman and it contains a sermon but I wouldn't necessarily define it as a "Christian novel". -- Folantin ( talk) 09:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
(Outdent)"Folantin has supplied ample references...". And just to knock any further potential BLP violations from Ottava on the head, this is from the bio of Barbara Reynolds in her Penguin Classics translation of Orlando Furioso (subtitled "A Romantic Epic by Ludovico Ariosto", sic): “Barbara Reynolds is Honorary Reader in Italian at Warwick University. A graduate of University College, London, she was for twenty-two years Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University and from 1966 until 1978 was Reader in Italian Studies at Nottingham University. Her first book was a textual reconstruction of the linguistic writings of Alessandro Manzoni. The General Editor of the Cambridge Italian Dictionary, she has been awarded silver medals by the Italian Government and the Province of Vicenza, and the Edmund Gardner Prize for her services to Italian scholarship and to Anglo-Italian cultural relations. She was appointed Visiting Professor in Italian at the University of California, Berkeley, for 1974-5.” That’s from the 1975 edition. I imagine she’s acquired even more credentials since then.-- Folantin ( talk) 09:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Stop the off topic posting. It does not belong here and is a violation. This is for Fringe theory discussion. Fringe theories is not limited to biology, chemistry, etc. Furthermore, as the directions even state: "This noticeboard aims to serve as a place where questions relating to articles on Fringe theories can be answered, and to report instances where undue weight is being given to fringe theories. Often, such fringe theories are promoted in order to push a particular point of view, which violates our rules on neutrality. As the guidelines given at Wikipedia:Fringe theories state, theories outside the mainstream that have not been discussed at all by the mainstream are not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Wikipedia aims to reflect academic consensus."
This is about academic consensus versus the wanting to insert a minority opinion on a topic. The fact that people want to attack philology, one of the oldest fields, is disturbing. To do so in order to derail this process? That is a violation. Stop it now. Any further off topic posts that do not deal with academic consensus versus a fringe view will be reported to ANI as disrupting a process and a point violation.
Now, we have three things to consider: 1) the use of the term "Romantic" versus "Romance". As pointed out, Philology has determined that "Romantic" is reserved for the Romantic poets and a type of poetry that is similar. The term "Romantic" even links to "Romanticism", which is this subject area. 2) the use of Christian, whereas this is a work that deals with a Christian protagonist, involves a Christian God, and pits Christians versus Muslims. 3) The contrary evidence coming from someone who specializes in a field of linguistics (aka, Italian), as opposed to those who specialize in genre classifications. The third will determine the legitimacy of the claims of the other two. Ottava Rima ( talk) 15:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Newly created (see editor's other contributions). Relates to Don Elkins, there was an attempt to place some paranormal stuff in Ra. dougweller ( talk) 16:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
"My understanding is that WP:FRINGE applies to fringe science topics. The material referred to in this article presents a religious/philosphical/spiritual worldview, not a scientific or pseudoscientific one, so I don't see how it can possibly be fringe science."
I believe the same comment can apply for this article as well.-- Logos5557 ( talk) 21:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Note, WP:FRINGE is not limited to only fringe science topics. The guideline covers fringe concepts in history, religion, pop culture, etc. as well. If it is on the fringe, WP:FRINGE applies. Blueboar ( talk) 04:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
In recent discussions about the
Seth Material, several editors argued that claims that the text was written by a supernatural being through channeling made the Seth Material
ipso facto a fringe topic, because
channeling is a fringe topic (it is listed in the
list of pseudosciences). Does this therefore mean that other texts for which a supernatural origin is claimed, such as
A Course in Miracles,
Conversations with God or
The Book of Mormon, are also fringe topics ? If not, why not ?
Gandalf61 (
talk) 09:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
(Note that the term "fringe topic" is not used here in any perjorative or disrespectful sense. Also, note that this question is about "fringy-ness", not about notability - for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that any topic mentioned is notable as defined by
WP:NOTE.)
Outdenting, and amplifying Itsmejudith's statement that fringe means different things in different contexts. The Old Testament is a good example: it's very hard to call Islam/Christianity/Judaism a fringe belief, because believers constitute nearly half the world's population. Still, when it comes to the origins of life, creationism is considered a fringe belief. The book may not be a fringe text, but relying it to the point of denying evidence to the contrary is a fringe belief.— Kww( talk) 16:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Paranormal as an effective tag: 12) The use of a link to paranormal in the introduction of an article serves to frame the matter. Links to psychic, new age, or occult serve the same purpose. passed 8-0 at 03:06, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Adequate framing: 6.2) Language in the introduction of an article may serve to frame the subject thus defining the epistemological status. Examples include "mythical", "fictional", "a belief", and in the present case "paranormal", "psychic", "new age", "occult", "channeling", or "parapsychological researcher". "UFO", "Bigfoot", "Yeti", "alien abduction", and "crop circle" serve the same function. It should not be necessary in the case of an adequately framed article to add more, for example to describe Jeane Dixon as a psychic who appeared on TV says it all. "Purported psychic" or "self-described psychic" adds nothing. Passed 9-0 at 03:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
There has recently been a debate at Talk:Iraq War about what constitutes a fringe theory.
The following sources have been provided in support of an issue:
That being said, the issue has also been denied:
If anyone could provide there input as to whether this is a well-sourced political debate or a fringe theory, the input would be appreciated.-- Nosfartu ( talk) 20:09, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
So I guess future direction is being sought. Given these sources, may it be mentioned as an ongoing debate about one of the causes of the war? Or, is it a fringe theory which is inappropriate for mention in Wikipedia? Thanks for all the input, -- Nosfartu ( talk) 21:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)It has also been claimed the U.S. invaded for Iraq's oil reserves, although this has also been denied.
I've been asked to post my arguments here as well so I will: The dispute mostly involves around the inclusion of, how 'some' allege that US officials invaded Iraq for Oil, in the lead section of the article Iraq War. I don't mind this issue carefully worked out anywhere else in the article, but feel that the inclusion of this theory in the lead section is unnecessary and unencyclopedic, and believe that it might qualify as a fringe theory.
First I'd like to point out that the above statements are from people of which none are US or UK officials, they are foreign officials, opposition figures or journalists.
The allegations from some press that the US/UK invaded Iraq for oil has always been disputed by officials, and Tony Blair called it a conspiracy theory [27] [28]
I believe that we might be dealing with a fringe theory, because any allegation on what the "true motives" are for US officials to have invaded Iraq are impossible to determine, unless you were able to read their minds.
There's also many experts and respected journalists who have debunked such theories, as they make little sense:
To get back on what I said earlier, and quote Gideon Rachman again "it is an unprovable thesis". I think we're dealing with a fringe theory mostly because of this. Most of these allegations claim that they know the "true motives" of US officials' to have attacked Iraq, but it's impossible to prove, unless those who launched the invasion would all publically state that their reason for invasion was oil. You would need to be able to read their minds to find out any hidden motives, and given that's impossible, we're only dealing with gossip theories.
I DO however believe that, fringe theory or not, all this debate is notable (we all agree on that it seems), however, I think it needs to be worked out in the body of the article of the Iraq War, as well as on pages where it's already partially done such as the Criticism of the Iraq War and Rationale for the Iraq War articles, and that it should be excluded from the lead section of the main article for the Iraq War, and only that is what this dispute is all about.
(btw sorry if my reply is too long) Grey Fox ( talk) 21:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
There is apparently now a consensus that the debate is notable. I thought there was an argument that a fringe theory didn't belong in Wikipedia, but this doesn't appear to be the case. Besides the article's talk page which has degraded in to a back and forth, is there somewhere this could be discussed? Thanks, -- Nosfartu ( talk) 22:06, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Loremaster is doing an extensive rewrite of this which I haven't had time to follow, although I just reverted one edit as it appears to be OR (although it may be just something he found elsewhere and didn't bother to source). If anyone is familiar with this conspiracy theory, could they have a look? Thanks. dougweller ( talk) 20:59, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I've just noted Eurabia and related. Essentially a walled garden surrounding a consipiracy theory best merged to Islamophobia and/or Bat Ye'or (or Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, a 2005 book by this author). "Eurabia" gives me 90 hits on google news, and 276 hits on google scholar, apparently all related to the 2005 book. Eurabia apparently has never been up for deletion, and a dedicated Category:Eurabia is a joke. -- dab (𒁳) 17:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
on reflection, I suppose that the "Eurabia" topic is a fringy take on Islam in Europe (or more precisely Muslims in Western Europe). We can merge it there, and state that there were a few panic-mongering books on the topic, and link to the most notable titles. -- dab (𒁳) 19:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Eurabia is a notable subject. Just do a Google search. You can't get just get rid of an article because you think its premise is incorrect, or is defective. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 20:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
The book seems to have generated a good deal of additional literature, and the term is widely used. I have not looked at the article in a long time, but any defects can be edited out. It is not a fringe theory, and does not belong here. It is certainly controversial, but since main stream conservatives like Dennis Prager and Daniel Pipes take it very seriously [34]. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 20:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
as Blueboar points out above, the thing that is "taken seriously" is discussion of Islam in Western Europe, not the neologism. " Eurabia" was in the "conspiracy theory" category even before I noticed it. So even if there is enough notability for a standalone article, a rename would seem to be in order. -- dab (𒁳) 21:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
That's interesting. "Eurabia" is notable as a subject, but it needs a different name. How do you figure that? Why not use the notable name that names the notable subject? Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 22:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I think it a mistake to categorize Eurabia as "conspiracy theory." There may be some of that to be found, but with serious consideration coming from respectable sources such as the Hoover Institution [35], that accusation is unjustified. As I have said, I do not think this subject belongs on the Fringe theories/Noticeboard at all. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 15:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
what I do not understand is, if we have "toughtful and nuanced" discussions which contain soundbites like a youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonize—the term is not too strong—a senescent Europe -- what point is there in bothering with cheap Islamophobic pamphlets of the Bat Yeor type? We can and should implement all these scenarios into Islam in Western Europe, balanced and WP:DUEly. "Eurabia" can then just bea redirect to such a serious discussion of the problem. -- dab (𒁳) 21:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
In the Yeshu#Jesus_Connection.3F section of the Yeshu page, Gerald Massey makes up about half the section. I think this should be reduced significantly, if not removed entirely, because:
1. he is not a reliable source even in Egyptology as per the consensus established on the reliable sources noticeboard, much less in Jewish history
2. There was no mention of him in any contemporary scholarly sources given in the article, in fact, there was no mention of him or his ideas in any sources at all, other than his own book he wrote which was quoted in the article.
3. The notability of his view in the subject was not established at all. He, an unreliable source, could have been the only person in the world with that view at that time, from all we know from the article.
For 1., WP:Undue weight requires "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source...(emphasis mine)
For 2. and 3., WP:FRINGE states: "A fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory. (emphasis mine)"
The Massey quote included in the article satisfies none of these requirements. Madridrealy ( talk) 12:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
so it appears for once I am being accused of pushing fringe science. I have been struggling to compile a main overview article of our populated Category:Ethnic groups in Europe. This is a hairy topic, and academic sources aren't exactly ubiquitous, but I have started on our trusty first stop the CIA Factbook, and then actually dug up some recent academic publications (notably Pan & Pfeil 2002). But behold, I am " WP:OWNing" the article, pushing obsolete 19th century racialist scholarship. This is the opinion of a couple of editors who aren't so much working on the article, but who seem to think it shouldn't exist at all. Did they up and AfD it? No, they just try to impede any work on the article by unsourced hyper-skepticism. Samples
and so on, and so on, for pages, without as much as referring to a single source. The upshot is that these editors allege it isn't possible today to talk about "ethnic groups", or draw maps of their distributions, that " ethnology" doesn't exist any more (in spite of our article on it, and in spite of the current OED's definition of ethnology as a "science"). Then, in reply to idle questions like is "Portuguese" really an ethnic group? White Russian? I have gone to the library and taken out the 2002 monograph on ethnic minorities in Europe, which lists 87 "peoples of Europe" with population figures as well as maps showing their territorial distribution. Yes, this is "original research", on the part of the authors of the academic monograph cited, duh, as with any other reference cited on Wikipedia. What was the reaction to that? Any citation of references that would discredit my reference? No, it was a posting to my talkpage that I am trying to "OWN" the article with my "vandalism" and "home made original research" [39], and that "consensus" wants me to forget about my references and submit to the fuzzy feeling that the article cannot be written because its subject doesn't exist.
To me, this seems like a case for User:Durova/Reality check: "a few people's idea of useful can't trump the law". So we have four editors on an article talkpage who think the article shouldn't be written. Never did they cite any sources, or present any evidence of why the sources used were inappropriate. But hey, they have "consensus". -- dab (𒁳) 10:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I have no beef with Ramdrake, his criticism is constructive and I am willing to act on it. What really got my goat this morning is, I spend hours with hairy and complex sources to draw up a survey, and this guy comes to my talkpage calling me a vandal. What really got my goat was being treated like some ethnic crackpot, after my three years of service of protecting Wikipedia from ethnic crackpots. Slrubenstein & Cie. simply do not want this topic discussed. They want to obfuscate it behind a cloud of postmodernism and pretend it doesn't exist. And they do this without bothering to cite any sort of source, and without respecting any source cited at them, with the vexing implicatin that anyone drawing ethnographic maps is a racialist. I know this is a "minefield". This is why I insist on sources. I don't ask anything I am not willing to produce myself. I have compiled the {{ Ethnic Europe}} overview map, to 100% based on an academic source (Ramdrake, I thought the population density map, also from a reliable source, would be a nice touch, because after all the topic is the geographic distribution of population, but if you find it unacceptable, we can also use a blank map, you only need to ask). I am willing to review other sources as they are presented, this is just the best source I could find so far. What I will not put up with is being shot down as "vandalising", "unhelpful" or "OWNing" by people who have yet to cite their first WP:RS on the topic.
I have a recent scholarly monograph on ethnic minorities in Europe right in front of me. I am trying to base the article on it. And believe it or not, these authors are fully aware of the uncertainties and terminological ambiguities. That didn't stop them from writing a book about the topic, and that shouldn't stop us from building an encyclopedic article. Anyone who has RSes to contribute is welcome. Anyone who is just trying to make me jump through hoops because they feel like it should stand down, or be made stand down by the community. It works like this: (1) I cite a scholarly source. You don't like it? (2) You cite a scholarly source which contradicts mine. After this, (3) discussion towards a compromise solution may ensue. There is no way you can jump from step 1 to 3 omitting step 2. -- dab (𒁳) 18:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
dab, I am not familiar with with the monograph. Having just stopped to take a look at this noticeboard, I have gotten the impression that you are frustrated that some opposing editors have not sited opposing sources to back their views, and that is understandable. But, how notable is this monograph, and has it attracted much published comment...either for or against? If there is a lot of notable comment backing the view of this monograph, and little or nothing opposed, then you have nothing to worry about, and you will certainly get the article you want. But, if that is not the situation, you may need to find a more reliable source to base the article upon. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 18:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I have found this article that has turned into a horrible POV fork and a battleground. I am not sure if it qualifies as fringe but I would be happy if someone could have a look (there's an ongoing AfD as well). Thanks. -- Tone 08:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
A discussion at templates for deletion hinges on whether an idea about transwomen's motivations for transitioning is a fringe theory. As I understand it (and I am not an expert), the idea is widely (but not universally) accepted among sexologists and vehemently rejected by (nearly) all transwomen. ( This article from The New York Times explains things fairly well.)
The navbox has been proposed for deletion on these grounds:
In discussion, we appear to have determined that (1) Wikipedia has no articles on any of these "other ideas" (although some older ideas are briefly mentioned in Classification of transsexuals) and (2) that nobody even knows what those hypothetical other ideas are called, although those who favor deletion are certain both that such ideas exist and that these other ideas are universally accepted by all right-thinking sexologists.
I generally avoid fringe theories in my editing, so I don't actually know much about what constitutes a fringe theory for Wikipedia's purposes. If you have an idea about sexuality that is used in current medical research (See, e.g., PMID 18299976, PMID 18956626, PMID 15803249, PMID 8494491), but which is rejected by the "patients" as being demeaning and politically dangerous, is it a fringe theory? What matters more: the views of the affected community, or the views of the psychologists, physicians, and other researchers? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
User:Heja_helweda has used Mehrdad Izady to claim that two thirds of Kurdish tribal names are of Hurrian origin. See here for example: [40] where she quotes:" M. R. Izady (1993) identifies two-thirds of Kurdish clan-names and toponyms (such as Buhtan, Barzan, Mardin, Ziwiya and Dinawar) as deriving from Hurrian". The actual article that quotes Izady is here: [41]. Note this is Izady's quote: "Nearly two-thirds of Kurdish tribal, topological and urban names are also likely of Hurrian origin: Buhtan, Talaban, Jelali, Barzan; Mardin, Ziwiya and Dinawar, to name a few." and User:Heja_helweda deleted Talaban and Jelali from it and named only "Buhtan, Barzan, Mardin, Ziwiya, Dinawar". The reason she deleted is that Talaban and Jelali are both actually Arabic and have nothing to do with Hurrian, but Izady who is not a linguist claims them to be Hurrian. The other names have different etymologies but there is no proof they are Hurrian.
After reading these articles, I am convinced that Izady is more on the nationalistic fringe [42](the complaint is towards this article here: [43]) on some of his theories and this:" An Appendix essay by the historian Mehrdad Izady charts the complex origins and history of the Kurds, which stretches back eight millennia" [44], rather than an actual academic source.
So how should this source be handled? Specially give the rather folk etymology where even Arabic names that have entered Kurdish are claimed to be Hurrian? -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 08:50, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Also I would appreciate to get feedback on two other things: 1) Corduene specially the overwhelming reliance on outdated sources like Rwalinson and lots of non-sourced claims written by the same user. 2) The user claims contacts between Sumerians and Kurds based on an erroneous entry here [45]. dab responded to this well: "this is a non-issue. The various toponyms mentioned are indeed found in Bronze Age sources. They have, however, nothing whatsoever to do with the Kurds.". I believe it is the same with Hurrian stuff of Izady which seems like pseudo-linguistics.-- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 09:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
We have an anon ip subverting strengths and weaknesses of evolution. This article appears to have been used by User:Ed Poor in one of his many efforts to write creationism into Wikipedia. I first saw the ip's version and wondered what the hell it was still doing here, but the previously stable version is less objectionable (I do think it ought to have some other title, though). In any case, I believe the article needs some attention from the fringe noticeboard denizens. - Nunh-huh 20:28, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Some articles may give the impression of truthful and believable information and facts, while in reality nonsense is being brought forward. The article Veljko Milković makes "free energy movement", by using that name, credible sounding, while it actually refers to the conspiracy theory free energy suppression. Calling a local hobby group of 20 people an "Academy" gives it undue status. Joing three different "words" (articles) together: [[impulse]]-[[gravitational]] [[machines]] makes it look like "impulse-gravitational machines" do exist and contribute positively to humanity (NOT). Some (?) readers may even believe that this person actually built a "perpetuum mobile", as mentioned in the article, which is of course ludicrous. A while ago I cut out a lot of nonsene already. Maybe someone here could also have a look at this. Thanks. -- VanBurenen ( talk) 11:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Here's my second opinion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Veljko Milković (2nd nomination). ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
MfD of several subpages of draft content that relate to fringe theories. Tim Vickers ( talk) 20:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Since the issue of Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories has been discussed here before, I thought it would be worth mentioning here that there is currently an RfC ongoing concerning whether the article should be renamed to remove "conspiracy theories" from the title. Please see Talk:Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories#RfC: Is the phrase "conspiracy theories" accurate for the article title?. -- ChrisO ( talk) 20:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
An interesting case, perhaps? Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science. ScienceApologist ( talk) 04:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Similar to the above, same editor, same lack of reasoning. See Talk:Brieselang Forest Light. ScienceApologist ( talk) 09:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I filed an AE report about Eric Lerner: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Pseudoscience. If you are an admin, please consider helping. ScienceApologist ( talk) 07:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Cold spot. Is this really article-worthy? Should we merge it into ghost hunting? Shouldn't a cold spot just be the opposite of a hot spot?
Pretend I'm not here, I'm on wikibreak. When I get back, I expect to either see a brilliant article or a brilliant merger or a deletion.
You have your assignments.
Love, from beyond the wikigrave, ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Cool Spot. ScienceApologist ( talk) 00:27, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
I've redirected to CMB cold spot in deference to Ruslik0's suggestion. I also think Cardamon's suggestion would work well too. ScienceApologist ( talk) 22:14, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted it back. If you want to effectively delete the page take it to AFD. Artw ( talk) 07:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
These articles are tripping my bullshit detectors, particularly the bits about hafnium bombs. They seem to be an earnest and overly credulous attempt to explain a series of nuclear isomer experiments that DARPA canned in the 1990s. Less fringey, more pathological science IMO. I suspect the articles are drawing unsupported conclusions from reputable sources like Phys Rev C, etc. I'd appreciate if someone more physics-minded than me could take a look. Cheers, Skinwalker ( talk) 11:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
A co-opting of a perfectly legitimate term from Catholic philosophy by the paranormalists. I first AfDed it, but then after being made aware of the Catholic Encyclopedia article, I tried to fix the article. See the Talk:Bilocation for more. ScienceApologist ( talk) 08:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
This report is in regards to literary criticism vs non-scholarship in an area that is talking about a "genre", which falls within the science of literary criticism. Over at Ludovico Ariosto, two fringe theories are being pushed here. The attempt is to remove the term "Christian" and replace it with "Romantic". Within literary scholarship, Romantic is reserved for Romantic poets. Romance is the proper adjective for works that incorporate Romance. As pointed out on the talk page, genre scholars use the term "Romance Epic", and this was provided to show how the term is prevalent. The only ones provided as evidence of "Romantic Epic" was a work produced by a translator, not a genre scholar, and an "encyclopedia" about Spenser, a field that is very large and not everything is thorough. This use of "Romantic" (not the correct term, "Romance") is used to replace Orlando Furosio as being described as a "Christian Epic", a term that means that the epic is based on the forces of Christianity fighting against an enemy, which is the common descriptive within scholarship (the plot is God favors the Christians under Charlemange against the "pagan" Saracens). Thus, we have two fringe theories being produced: 1. that Orlando Furioso is not "Christian", and 2. that it is a "Romantic Epic" and not "Romance Epic". If anyone needs any books verifying any of this, please ask and I can provide. Ottava Rima ( talk) 00:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh brother, is this still going on? I suspect the difference between "romantic epic" and "romance epic" is miniscule, but I've already cited many occasions where English-language scholars use the term "romantic epic" and it's the one I'm most familiar with. In fact, it's used by Barbara Reynolds as the subtitle of her translation of Orlando furioso for Penguin Classics, perhaps the most widely read modern version of the poem in English. Reynolds was Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University (among other academic posts) but that hasn't stopped Ottava Rima trying to smear her reputation on the Ludovico Ariosto talk page (after all, "anyone can be a lecturer at Cambridge"!!). As for "Christian", well Ariosto was no doubt a Christian and the poem contains Christian elements, but "Saracens versus Christians" is part and parcel of the Carolingian subject matter anyone writing about Roland/Orlando would inherit. Ariosto hardly puts much emphasis on this theme. He's not that reverential either as a comparison between Dante's journey to the moon from the Earthly Paradise in the Divine Comedy and Astolfo's in Orlando would demonstrate. So, no, if you're going to use one adjective to modify "epic" when describing Orlando furioso then "Christian" doesn't really fit the bill. Likewise, Tristram Shandy was written by an Anglican clergyman and it contains a sermon but I wouldn't necessarily define it as a "Christian novel". -- Folantin ( talk) 09:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
(Outdent)"Folantin has supplied ample references...". And just to knock any further potential BLP violations from Ottava on the head, this is from the bio of Barbara Reynolds in her Penguin Classics translation of Orlando Furioso (subtitled "A Romantic Epic by Ludovico Ariosto", sic): “Barbara Reynolds is Honorary Reader in Italian at Warwick University. A graduate of University College, London, she was for twenty-two years Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University and from 1966 until 1978 was Reader in Italian Studies at Nottingham University. Her first book was a textual reconstruction of the linguistic writings of Alessandro Manzoni. The General Editor of the Cambridge Italian Dictionary, she has been awarded silver medals by the Italian Government and the Province of Vicenza, and the Edmund Gardner Prize for her services to Italian scholarship and to Anglo-Italian cultural relations. She was appointed Visiting Professor in Italian at the University of California, Berkeley, for 1974-5.” That’s from the 1975 edition. I imagine she’s acquired even more credentials since then.-- Folantin ( talk) 09:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Stop the off topic posting. It does not belong here and is a violation. This is for Fringe theory discussion. Fringe theories is not limited to biology, chemistry, etc. Furthermore, as the directions even state: "This noticeboard aims to serve as a place where questions relating to articles on Fringe theories can be answered, and to report instances where undue weight is being given to fringe theories. Often, such fringe theories are promoted in order to push a particular point of view, which violates our rules on neutrality. As the guidelines given at Wikipedia:Fringe theories state, theories outside the mainstream that have not been discussed at all by the mainstream are not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Wikipedia aims to reflect academic consensus."
This is about academic consensus versus the wanting to insert a minority opinion on a topic. The fact that people want to attack philology, one of the oldest fields, is disturbing. To do so in order to derail this process? That is a violation. Stop it now. Any further off topic posts that do not deal with academic consensus versus a fringe view will be reported to ANI as disrupting a process and a point violation.
Now, we have three things to consider: 1) the use of the term "Romantic" versus "Romance". As pointed out, Philology has determined that "Romantic" is reserved for the Romantic poets and a type of poetry that is similar. The term "Romantic" even links to "Romanticism", which is this subject area. 2) the use of Christian, whereas this is a work that deals with a Christian protagonist, involves a Christian God, and pits Christians versus Muslims. 3) The contrary evidence coming from someone who specializes in a field of linguistics (aka, Italian), as opposed to those who specialize in genre classifications. The third will determine the legitimacy of the claims of the other two. Ottava Rima ( talk) 15:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
For Itsmejudith to answer a question: A) "What do you mean by "genre studies"? " To give a brief history. Dating back (at least in written material) to Aristotle, genre classification has been a vital component of philology, i.e. the study of language and words. By observing charactersitics, philologists, in particular genre specialists, classify works according to various types (or genres) in the same manner that was adopted in practice to classifying animals. You take various components, details, characterstics and the rest. Then you can find commonalities between the groups. Thus, we have "Epic", "Tragedy", "Comedy", etc. B) "then they obviously know an enormous amount about the different genres in that literature" No, they would only know the language. When you receive your doctorate, you may take one or two classes in a genre. However, a genre specialist would spend their whole life in the field, immersed in the works, theory, background, etc. They would also write their dissertation on the subject, which a language specialist would not. Thus, this would be saying that a Chemist might know Biology, but they aren't an expert on it. An expert in the epic genre studies would be individuals like Thomas Greene, Andrew Fichter, Sergio Zatti (the leading Ariosto and Tasso expert), David Quint (the leading New Historical epic theorist - he believes that the epic genre is a political tool) and even Mikhail Bakhtin. There are many more. I produced a link to google books above showing just from a cursory look how often the term "Romance Epic" is used in books on the theory of "epic". C) This was a discussion on the talk page but this needs a wider discussion because there is very little activity on the talk page, and it deals with a need for consensus. The reason why this is brought to fringe is that there are thousands of academics saying on thing, and a handful of those saying something else. Fringe is what deals with such matters. Ottava Rima ( talk) 17:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Ottava, if we can stop making this about your EGO for one minute, I think we can settle on the simple outcome of this thread of replacing "romantic epic" with "romance epic", which I think everyone agrees is just as correct. case closed. -- dab (𒁳) 21:58, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page. |
Needs some attention. Am I right in saying that as Y chromosome has been identified it must have a human father? See this diff [1]. The Royal Holloway investigation is sourced not from an official report but from an interpretation in powerpoint form on the Starchild website [2] although it isn't clear it isn't the official report. For some reason this article from the New England Skeptical Society doesn't seem to have been used in the article. [3] dougweller ( talk) 19:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Has anyone here heard of Stylometry? This article has very few sources; and I am uncertain if it is something relatively new but substantial, or if it just a subject that lacks notability. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 12:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Is it WP:UNDUE or fringy to mention the Obamas' multiracial or biracial heritage based on a mere, uh, quarter million references? -- dab (𒁳) 13:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Surprise, some ABCD jokers have discovered this article once again. Are various mutually exclusive decipherment claims by people like "eminent expert" (poor crackpot) Egbert Richter "decipherments" that belong listed under "written accounts"? Or is this much ado about nothing? -- dab (𒁳) 20:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I would like to point out that the reference given for some studies for adverse health effects of olive oil, is actually more or less a biased article written by the Pritikin Center's chief doctor, a center which commercially promotes the so-called ' Pritikin diet'. This commercial diet is known for the antipathy to fats and oils of any kind. Even though i do agree that research into any negative health effects of olive oil should ultimately be included, i hardly think that that should be drawn from a commercially-driven article, which cites a handful medical studies, especially in the light of many tens of studies that highlight the positive health effects of olive oil. The ref is here: Olive_oil#cite_note-oliveoiltruth-26 I would please like your input on this. ps. I have already posted this query in the Olive Oil talk page and it was suggested that i repost here. KLA ( talk) 22:28, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
This needs at least some recognition that there is mainstream medicine, and that there is criticism of this or the Ayurveda that this is based upon. As it is, it uses almost solely fringe sources, with trivial mentions of mainstream journals.
By far the most-cited source is:
Contemporary Ayurveda; Medicine and Research in Maharishi Ayurveda, H. Sharma MD, C. Clark MD
Is this even a reliable source for what it's used to claim? It's hardly independent. I suspect that a lot of the other sources are just taken from its footnotes, though I cannot prove that. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:33, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Alien Abduction Trauma and Recovery ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). This article really needs a rename and cleanup, if not a request for deletion. Related article: Post-abduction syndrome ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Vassyana ( talk) 11:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Stumbled across the page Novelty Theory just now. Now I may know crap-all about cosmetology, but I know the stank of crank when I smell it. It may be a notable enough crank idea, but it doesn't appear to be described objectively. At the very least it completely fails WP:LEAD. What do you think? Aunt Entropy ( talk) 00:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I found this on the NPOV board [ [6]]. There does seem to be a problem here (see the talk page) although the publishing house seems to pay royalties [7] the article is clearly fringe and POV. dougweller ( talk) 06:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
This veers on hagiography. Even though the PRC persecution of Falun Gong is horrible, the article is really overly complimentary. Some of our pseudoscience debunkers might like to have a look at the "academic perspectives" section. Can we please balance this up a bit? Moreschi ( talk) 13:34, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Some months back, I was involved heavily in a dispute surrounding List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts. Out of this dispute, a curious consensus emerged (even supported by some of those who seemed to dislike certain subjects that they believed in being labeled pseudoscience) that there should be one list on that page. I have just today implemented that change, but it would be good if we got some people to go through and make sure everything came out okay. The first quasi-objection also came through with a homeopath stating that he is worried that some "pseudoskeptical" organizations are being used to source claims of pseudoscience. You can see what I think about such sentiments here. However, as with most of these kinds of articles, the more eyes that are attached to the heads of people without specific fringe-agendas, the better.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 18:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
I'd appreciate more eyes on this article about the mercury amalgam controversy ex-dentist, as I'm about to go to bed and it's currently being edited by someone with strong opinions about this guy. So, if people could watch to make sure he and others don't get too carried away, that would be great. Good night, Verbal chat 21:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Orthomolecular psychiatry should probably be redirected to orthomolecular medicine and properly content forked. However, we have people like User:Alterrabe making threats like this. Please help combat WP:OWN, WP:POVPUSH, Wikipedia:Walled garden, etc. etc. etc. ScienceApologist ( talk) 10:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Pyroluria also needs to be considered carefully. Does Wikipedia make it a habit to report on invented diseases for which the only sources are people who believe in the disease? Seems to run afoul of WP:FRINGE. ScienceApologist ( talk) 14:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Welcome to my world. Merge too quickly and there's a complaint, post to AfD and there's a complaint, place a merge notice without posting on the talk page and there's a complaint, ignore the false consensus that is trumpeted when various fringe proponents complain loudly about their pet articles being "decimated" and there's a complaint, remove unreliable sources and there's a complaint, impose reliable sources and there's a complaint.... ....and I'm the one that's supposed to have the problem! ScienceApologist ( talk) 18:42, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
sheesh. It is a vice if you sit back and let others do the dirty work. It is a virtue if it reminds you that your efforts aren't all in vain. Both Moreschi and I have done our share in making it happen. We're just saying that now Pyroluria is getting wider attention, it's going to be fine. I know you do important work, SA, but man, are you on a high horse today. -- dab (𒁳) 09:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
I have started an RfC: RfC: Mass removal of "Category:Alternative medicine" from most articles. Please comment on this important subject. -- Fyslee / talk 17:10, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
There's a small, fringe controversy about where President-elect Barack Obama was born. Reliable sources say he was born in Hawaii, but some people claim he may have been born in Kenya or some other place outside the United States (a foreign birth would raise questions about his eligibility for the presidency). Obama's mother was Ann Dunham, and so I mentioned this fringe controversy briefly in a footnote there. I was reverted by another editor, and talk page discussion ensued [8].
This birthplace controversy is notable, having been covered by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Washington Times, Associated Press via Hartford Courant, NBC, Forbes, and other mainstream publications. There is a section about this fringe controversy in Wikipedia's Alan Keyes article, here. However, not even the slightest mention of this controversy (even in a footnote) is being allowed in any of the Obama articles, including Ann Dunham.
I have pointed out that a Wikipedia guideline specifically allows fringe theories to be mentioned in non-fringe articles. I can see why this fringe controversy might not be mentioned in the main Obama article, where there is a great deal of notable information competing for inclusion, but the article about his mother ( Ann Dunham) has a much lower threshold for notability.
Of course, I don't personally believe that Obama was probably born outside the United States, but still this notable fringe theory has been widely covered by the mainstream press. So, I don't see why the fringe theory cannot be mentioned very briefly (and described as a fringe theory) in Ann Dunham. Would doing so be a violation of Wikipedia policies or guidelines regarding fringe stuff? Ferrylodge ( talk) 22:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
(undent)I just came across the following statement: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article."
That statement seems to be in tension with another statement: "The theory probably does not deserve its own Wikipedia article, as there is no mainstream reference to it whatsoever, but could easily have a small mention in the main Port Chicago disaster article, since its Internet presence is very large due to the aforementioned fringe websites."
Are there other relevant policies or guidelines, and how would these two quoted statements apply under present circumstances? It seems odd to have a whole section in one article that mentions certain things, while not allowing articles about those things to Wikilink back to that section. But if that's the policy then I'm happy to drop the matter. This is a matter of curiosity for me more than anything else, and it would be useful to have people's views for future reference. Ferrylodge ( talk) 04:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Clearly that tidbit does not belong in that article. We are a WP:MAINSTREAM encyclopedia, not a place to load up on gossip and innuendo and frivolous court cases. There may be a place to include such information in this encyclopedia. Slander and libel about Barack Obama, for example. Not in main biographical articles, however. No, off-handed mention in out-of-the-way paragraphs or in minor lawsuits does not a reliable source for a major topic make. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
ScienceApologist wrote: "We are a WP:MAINSTREAM encyclopedia..."
Perhaps you have forgotten about this. It is hard to see why an article about one is notable, but not the other. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 16:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
this thing is treated at Alan_Keyes#Obama_citizenship_lawsuit. That's good enough. WP:FRINGE says it's ok to cover fringecruft, at the appropriate place, but avoid spilling it to articles that aren't dedicated to fringe topics. Alan Keyes is probably the only article where this is within WP:DUE. -- dab (𒁳) 16:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
If there is enough material, there is no reason for it not to have its own article. There is stuff nuttier than that on WP. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 16:49, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
unlike Alien Abduction Trauma and Recovery, this is a topic of WP:BLP. But sure, if we can have Seigenthaler incident, we can also have Obama citizenship lawsuit, that's not ruled out in principle. We just need to be clear that linking it from Barack Obama would be about as WP:DUE as linking Alien Abduction Trauma and Recovery from the main Psychological trauma article. Instead, it will be a WP:SS sub-article with a {{ summary in}} Alan Keyes. -- dab (𒁳) 18:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
(undent)The obviously fringe theory Paul is dead is linked by an enormous number of non-fringe articles, including BLPs. Therefore, it's odd that the present fringe material cannot be wikilinked in any non-fringe BLP. But, it appears that no one's opinion will be changing any time soon, so Looie496 is probably correct that it's best to let it rest for now. Ferrylodge ( talk) 19:32, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
A note about the Paul McCartney death urban legend... In my mind, it's all about BLP. That particular urban legend impacted Paul McCartney's life many years ago, prior to Wikipedia's existence, enough to carry a modicum of weight in his BLP. But -- and this is important -- it would be against Wikipedia policy to incorporate that hoax into his BLP if the hoax had sprung up recently, since we can't be party to affecting someone's life by lending credence to what is obviously libel and slander. The claims of foreign birth, on the other hand, have the potential to impact Obama now, through Wikipedia, even though they are absolutely unquestionably false. This is unacceptable. Wikipedia cannot lend these claims credence, because even as reliable sources report on the claims, reliable sources agree that they are utterly lacking in merit. -- Good Damon 21:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually the unanswered questions involved here fascinate me. For instance I had no idea of this [10]. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 22:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
The McCain parallel doesn't really apply. Assuming the non-fringe facts of that case (McCain was born in Panama Canal Zone), there was still a legitimate if academic (in the sense that it was never in doubt that the political and legal establishment was behind McCain) question about whether he was eligible. That's what we included brief mentions of in our articles. There was also a conspiracy theory that McCain in fact was not born in the PCZ, but in regular Panama. That we kept out of our articles, on grounds of lack of RS and total fringiness. Wasted Time R ( talk) 23:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Majestic 12. Credulity is amazing. ScienceApologist ( talk) 02:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Above article was brought to the attention of this board a while ago as some of the content seemed to be fringy. I've made a number of edits, moving it into chronological rather than regional order, the logic being that if people want to know about the History of East Africa they can follow the link to that article. If anyone wants to take a critical look at what I've done, I'd be grateful. Itsmejudith ( talk) 18:29, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
I recently removed a large swatch of text from torsion field because it was entirely based on the primary sources of proponents of this alleged "theory". Now I see that some other editors are removing pretty much the only sources which actually address this theory from a WP:NPOV (bearing in mind of course that this is a fringe theory par excellence). The question is whether this is a reliable source for some of the claims made in the article. Otherwise, if absolutely no independent reliable sources can be found (the article is quite thin on them as it is), then perhaps deletion should once again be countenanced. siℓℓy rabbit ( talk) 15:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Anyone with an interest in this who doesn't have it on their watchlist, the lead is heavily rewritten (and looks awful in any case). dougweller ( talk) 15:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
There are very big ownership and neutrality (and civility) issues on the Seth Material article. It currently has an essay style with an in universe perspective, and only primary sources. It also has one unsourced section which is far too long. It needs trimming down, sourcing and reframing, and then perhaps merging into the Jane Roberts article. Verbal chat 07:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
A POV spinoff from Jane Roberts, as credulous as you can get. dougweller ( talk) 09:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
I have started a discussion about the redirect here. Verbal chat 12:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
More editors would be very welcome here, to find external sources and integrate them into the article, and address the style and tone problems. This essay can probably be quick quickly turned into an article - and then we can decide whether it stands alone or should be moved into another article. Verbal chat 10:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
← (Unindent) WP:FRINGE may need some clarification but (per ArbCOM) it does cover fringe material in history, sociology, etc. and not simply scientific topics. This is fringe in that it's a very small socio-religious movement, far outside the mainstream, with little written about it by people outside this fringe movement. Basically, to pass WP:NOTE, there needs to be papers/books/etc. written about the subject from people outside the movement itself. Otherwise, we're looking at a walled garden of self-referential material. — The Hand That Feeds You: Bite 22:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Paranormal as an effective tag: 12) The use of a link to paranormal in the introduction of an article serves to frame the matter. Links to psychic, new age, or occult serve the same purpose. passed 8-0 at 03:06, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
And this is also fringe. And a mess. Also see the talk page. dougweller ( talk) 11:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Spillover from the Obama birthplace "controversy" seems to have sent the Natural-born citizen article into cuckooland. A couple of months ago the article was clean, concise, and reasonably free of bias; today it's a morass of fringe theories that are distinguished from mainstream thought inadequately or not at all. Please help. — phh ( t/ c) 23:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi, we're in a rather difficult and long-running dispute at Talk:Horned God over whether undue weight is being given to certain aspects of the Horned God theory — a disputed historical theory that a host of different horned deities from different cultures in prehistory and antiquity were historically linked or in some sense were the same god. The article itself is about that fringe theory, and we all agree that it must be couched in the context of modern critical viewpoints to provide context and make it clear that it is disputed and not established historical fact. The question we're currently arguing over is, how much of the theory can we legitimately describe without breaking WP:UNDUE policy? One editor there would like to delete material relating to the individual gods involved in this theory, while I hold that since this is a fringe article, and Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, we should be able to discuss the theory in some detail without the threat of large-scale deletions hanging over us. I'd love some help.
I've also asked for help at WP:ORN on a related subject from this same dispute; advice seems to have petered out there and it's still unresolved, so if any of you have the patience to check that out, I'd appreciate it. Apologies in advance for the screeds of text, but I think the later posts contain most of what's relevant to this particular query. Thank-you kindly, Fuzzypeg ★ 03:24, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Hello! The debate is actually quite simple. It's about the removal of a list of deities which are not related to the subject of the article in reliable sources. The sources (where cited) do not propose that the deities relate to the Horned God (the subject of the article), and therefore the article is misrepresenting those sources, and misleading readers. Much of the disputed content is totally unsourced. The sources which would be required to establish the links have not presented themselves over the past 6 weeks, despite frequent posts to the talk-page by several editors on the subject. It is highly unlikely that these sources exist at all.
Where the "historical origins" fringe-theories are discussed, they need to be summarised and not have all the evidence simply re-iterated in a list which makes no reference to them being part of a fringe-theory as article currently does. The fringe-theory needs to be explained, not restated.
I'll also clarify this at WP:ORN#Horned god in the hope that we can establish a way forward with this article. Davémon ( talk) 11:22, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
why, of course. Any number of horned deities can and should be discussed in the Horned God article inasmuch as they can be shown to have relevance to the "Horned God" theory. A generic discussion of horned deities in general is still a separate topic independent of the "Horned God" idea. There isn't a real problem here. -- dab (𒁳) 15:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
You say you opened this discussion: to determine whether "undue weight" is a reasonable justification for wholesale deletions from an article about a fringe theory.. The point I'm making is that the article is not about a fringe theory. There are many theories about the subject, some are fringy, some are mainstream:
Hi all. This isn't necessarily typical of the articles brought to attention on this board, but Newport Tower (Rhode Island) wouldn't be in the horrible state it is if it wasn't associated with fringe theories. Feel free to take a look. ClovisPt ( talk) 05:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Concerning a recent block 2 days ago by Administrator Protonk & censoring of pertinent reference links by user: Mosedschurte
Protonk,
I appreciate your acknowledgement that user Mosedschurte was edit warring too, but you are mistaken to say that I did a revert from IP address (69.22.221.46). That never was my IP address and I don't know how you've come to that conclusion it was ever my IP address. All my edits so far should have been from the exact same IP address as the account from this edit. If there are other accounts from this IP address, I am unaware of them and they are not sockpuppets. At least 2 other people share the current IP address which this message is being posted.
I also appreciate your acknowledgement that what I posted was not vandalism.
I was not aware of the three revert rule and see no reason why I would want to revert more than 3 times after a 24 hour period.
If you find it in your administrative duty to agree these childish, stubborn and combative persistent demands by Mosedschurte that those references be removed, all I ask is a better explanation far more scholarly and rational from a seasoned professional, arbitrator and moderator rather than parroting Mosedschurte's combative, stubborn, outlandish, juvenile, childish, infantile, and mentally retarded boldfaced lies and condemnation that this reference John Judge at ratical.org, is all about espousing the extremist fringe theory that "Jonestown was an experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and military intelligence code name for mind control", in violation of WP:Reliable sources. The Black hole of Guyana by John Judge names pertinent names and roles to the subject of the article as far as I can see and even if it is espousing some strong accusation, I see no reason why that fact discredits the valid information pertinent to the article. The alleged extremist fringe theory is entirely up to the party responsible for clicking on this reference to decide whether it is fringe or not. The purpose of this reference is to give interested readers information who Deborah Layton was in Jonestown and a clue who George Phillip Blakey was by mentioning he was her husband/consort was while in Jonestown. People like Mosedschurte clearly have an agenda to prevent people on wikipedia from knowing about this information. My2sense2wikip (talk) 07:31, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Even if that article is considered "extremist fringe theory" by wikipedia guidelines. It's even worse that Mosedschurte would continuously censor this reference:
Deborah Layton is the daughter of the late Laurence Laird Layton[1]. Why an entry for "Deborah Layton" automatically re-directs to "seductive poison" makes no sense.
This is an undisputed well recognized mainstream link to her father's background. There is no sane explanation why Laurence Laird Layton's obituary link can't be included either and I don't appreciate the continued liberty that you as a wikipedia moderator and all your responsibility would continue to allow such a bigoted and obtuse individual like Mosedschurte to run rampant censoring the free thinking flow of information of notable people VERY PERTINENT to the article. My2sense2wikip ( talk) 03:09, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Regarding this quote by My2sense2wikip: Mosedschurte's combative, stubborn, outlandish, juvenile, childish, infantile, and mentally retarded boldfaced lies and condemnation that this reference John Judge at ratical.org, is all about espousing the extremist fringe theory that "Jonestown was an experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and military intelligence code name for mind control", in violation of WP:Reliable sources.
Perhaps most humorous about that attack is that it was nowhere near a "boldface lie" -- all I did was cite a direct quote from the exact internet source page by conspiracy theorist John Judge you cited and attempted to include in the Seductive Poison article. This was it:
“ | "Jonestown was an experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and military intelligence code name for mind control." | ” |
Also, just for information's sake, your repeated conduct reverting to this extremist fringe source caused me to have to take it to the ANI board, after which an administrator blocked you. Mosedschurte ( talk) 11:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
The most humorous part is cowards afraid of truth and the lengths they go to show what a bunch of cowards they all are. My2sense2wikip ( talk) 08:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
We had reached a stage today where even Caleb was working on the subpage on improving the article, however now Jac-A-Row is edit-warring the poorly sourced and dubious material back into the page - and claiming he has consensus for this. Can more editors pleas, again, have a look. The summary section is hugely bloated and needs to be changed into summary form (which has started), and the subsections either removed, summarised into the summary, or via RS sources given their own sections when shown to be important or central. Verbal chat 21:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Verbal, lay off the "edit-warring" accusations.
If someone were to review the history of that article to explore for edit-warring, they would notice that you removed that same content at least 7 times, and you've been reverted by multiple editors - none of whom did anything near the number of reverts that you did:
[15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
In the meantime, while you were deleting information and arguing, several editors have been adding sources. When I first saw the article a week ago (following a report here at FTN), it had 15 footnotes, now it has 50, including sources published by Oxford, Brill, Yale and other major publishers, several of which were written by university professors.
So far, I have not seen you add even one reference.
Generally, I avoid commenting about individual editors rather than content, but this comment is needed because you have posted (in at least two places), personal attacks accusing me of edit-warring, with absolutely no foundation.
Please retract your accusation. Let's get back to the work of making the article better. Thanks. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 04:55, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
This is begining to pop up in all sorts of articles related to Obama (or US Presidents in general). Unfortunately, the theory has been recieving a fair amount of coverage in the press recently (most, but not all, of it dismissive) ... so it probably counts as being "Notable Fringe". That said, we should be ready for a lot of questions and complaints about it being added to articles. Blueboar ( talk) 03:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Blueboar is not suggesting we "do it again", he is saying the problem persists. Previous discussion is here. -- dab (𒁳) 15:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
If Wikipedia can accommodate a Siegenthaler incident article, it can certainly accommodate a Barack Obama citizenship controversy article. -- dab (𒁳) 22:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've started the article at
Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories as suggested. Take a look and see what you think. I've merged in the litigation sections from
Andy Martin (U.S. politician),
Philip J. Berg and
Alan Keyes; I've reduced those sections to stubs and pointed them to the relevant parts of this new article. It's still very much a work in progress, but please feel free to jump in and start editing it. --
ChrisO (
talk) 23:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
(added)
Donofrio v. Wells was up for deletion - see
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donofrio v. Wells. I've taken the liberty of closing the AfD and merging a condensed version of that article into the conspiracy theories article. --
ChrisO (
talk) 01:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
← Yup, I agree it's probably best to have a place to send them. But the title change that is being pushed - "Barack Obama citizenship challenges" - seems to me to be legitimizing this nonsense, and therefore POV. Keep the title as Chris set it up. Tvoz/ talk 03:02, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
1) Thank you, ChrisO.
2) The recent history of Natural-born citizen should probably be scrutinized. I am surprised to see that the child of American citizens (or citizens) born on foreign soil apparently might not be a natural-born citizen...so, say, if I were an army brat born in Panama, would I not be a natural-born citizen? Just to ask an academic question. Apparently, the answer is if I were born on an army base, I would be a natural-born citizen. --Akhilleus ( talk) 03:19, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
The title of this article is currently being disputed. Anyone wishing to offer some input, following the discussion about naming above, is welcome to join the new discussion at Talk:Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories#Retitle. -- ChrisO ( talk) 09:24, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
One of the tracts described in the Chick tract article mentions the claim that condoms do not protect against AIDS. The mention was qualified with a parenthetical "falsely" but that has been removed as "editorialising". I believe that the claim shouldn't stand alone without some sort of qualification as it's pseudoscientific, CliffC disagrees. What do you think? Aunt Entropy ( talk) 00:02, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Just so we all know what we are discussing... The passage at issue is the discription of Chick's "That Crazy Guy" and is currently worded:
This is an accurate discription of what appears in the Chick Track.
I seriously doubt that anyone reading this article is looking for information on preventing AIDS... instead they will be looking for information on what Chick says in his tracts. If consensus is that this really is something that needs to be commented upon, I think the key is to phrase things neutrally, in terms of contrasting opinions... I would suggest simply adding: (This last comment relfects Chick's view on the effectiveness of condoms in preventing AIDS transmission. The view of the majority of Scientists, Doctors and other health professionals is that condoms are in fact very effective at preventing the transmittion of AIDS)... all properly sourced of course. Blueboar ( talk) 02:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
This report is in regards to literary criticism vs non-scholarship in an area that is talking about a "genre", which falls within the science of literary criticism. Over at Ludovico Ariosto, two fringe theories are being pushed here. The attempt is to remove the term "Christian" and replace it with "Romantic". Within literary scholarship, Romantic is reserved for Romantic poets. Romance is the proper adjective for works that incorporate Romance. As pointed out on the talk page, genre scholars use the term "Romance Epic", and this was provided to show how the term is prevalent. The only ones provided as evidence of "Romantic Epic" was a work produced by a translator, not a genre scholar, and an "encyclopedia" about Spenser, a field that is very large and not everything is thorough. This use of "Romantic" (not the correct term, "Romance") is used to replace Orlando Furosio as being described as a "Christian Epic", a term that means that the epic is based on the forces of Christianity fighting against an enemy, which is the common descriptive within scholarship (the plot is God favors the Christians under Charlemange against the "pagan" Saracens). Thus, we have two fringe theories being produced: 1. that Orlando Furioso is not "Christian", and 2. that it is a "Romantic Epic" and not "Romance Epic". If anyone needs any books verifying any of this, please ask and I can provide. Ottava Rima ( talk) 00:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh brother, is this still going on? I suspect the difference between "romantic epic" and "romance epic" is miniscule, but I've already cited many occasions where English-language scholars use the term "romantic epic" and it's the one I'm most familiar with. In fact, it's used by Barbara Reynolds as the subtitle of her translation of Orlando furioso for Penguin Classics, perhaps the most widely read modern version of the poem in English. Reynolds was Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University (among other academic posts) but that hasn't stopped Ottava Rima trying to smear her reputation on the Ludovico Ariosto talk page (after all, "anyone can be a lecturer at Cambridge"!!). As for "Christian", well Ariosto was no doubt a Christian and the poem contains Christian elements, but "Saracens versus Christians" is part and parcel of the Carolingian subject matter anyone writing about Roland/Orlando would inherit. Ariosto hardly puts much emphasis on this theme. He's not that reverential either as a comparison between Dante's journey to the moon from the Earthly Paradise in the Divine Comedy and Astolfo's in Orlando would demonstrate. So, no, if you're going to use one adjective to modify "epic" when describing Orlando furioso then "Christian" doesn't really fit the bill. Likewise, Tristram Shandy was written by an Anglican clergyman and it contains a sermon but I wouldn't necessarily define it as a "Christian novel". -- Folantin ( talk) 09:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
(Outdent)"Folantin has supplied ample references...". And just to knock any further potential BLP violations from Ottava on the head, this is from the bio of Barbara Reynolds in her Penguin Classics translation of Orlando Furioso (subtitled "A Romantic Epic by Ludovico Ariosto", sic): “Barbara Reynolds is Honorary Reader in Italian at Warwick University. A graduate of University College, London, she was for twenty-two years Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University and from 1966 until 1978 was Reader in Italian Studies at Nottingham University. Her first book was a textual reconstruction of the linguistic writings of Alessandro Manzoni. The General Editor of the Cambridge Italian Dictionary, she has been awarded silver medals by the Italian Government and the Province of Vicenza, and the Edmund Gardner Prize for her services to Italian scholarship and to Anglo-Italian cultural relations. She was appointed Visiting Professor in Italian at the University of California, Berkeley, for 1974-5.” That’s from the 1975 edition. I imagine she’s acquired even more credentials since then.-- Folantin ( talk) 09:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Stop the off topic posting. It does not belong here and is a violation. This is for Fringe theory discussion. Fringe theories is not limited to biology, chemistry, etc. Furthermore, as the directions even state: "This noticeboard aims to serve as a place where questions relating to articles on Fringe theories can be answered, and to report instances where undue weight is being given to fringe theories. Often, such fringe theories are promoted in order to push a particular point of view, which violates our rules on neutrality. As the guidelines given at Wikipedia:Fringe theories state, theories outside the mainstream that have not been discussed at all by the mainstream are not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Wikipedia aims to reflect academic consensus."
This is about academic consensus versus the wanting to insert a minority opinion on a topic. The fact that people want to attack philology, one of the oldest fields, is disturbing. To do so in order to derail this process? That is a violation. Stop it now. Any further off topic posts that do not deal with academic consensus versus a fringe view will be reported to ANI as disrupting a process and a point violation.
Now, we have three things to consider: 1) the use of the term "Romantic" versus "Romance". As pointed out, Philology has determined that "Romantic" is reserved for the Romantic poets and a type of poetry that is similar. The term "Romantic" even links to "Romanticism", which is this subject area. 2) the use of Christian, whereas this is a work that deals with a Christian protagonist, involves a Christian God, and pits Christians versus Muslims. 3) The contrary evidence coming from someone who specializes in a field of linguistics (aka, Italian), as opposed to those who specialize in genre classifications. The third will determine the legitimacy of the claims of the other two. Ottava Rima ( talk) 15:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Newly created (see editor's other contributions). Relates to Don Elkins, there was an attempt to place some paranormal stuff in Ra. dougweller ( talk) 16:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
"My understanding is that WP:FRINGE applies to fringe science topics. The material referred to in this article presents a religious/philosphical/spiritual worldview, not a scientific or pseudoscientific one, so I don't see how it can possibly be fringe science."
I believe the same comment can apply for this article as well.-- Logos5557 ( talk) 21:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Note, WP:FRINGE is not limited to only fringe science topics. The guideline covers fringe concepts in history, religion, pop culture, etc. as well. If it is on the fringe, WP:FRINGE applies. Blueboar ( talk) 04:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
In recent discussions about the
Seth Material, several editors argued that claims that the text was written by a supernatural being through channeling made the Seth Material
ipso facto a fringe topic, because
channeling is a fringe topic (it is listed in the
list of pseudosciences). Does this therefore mean that other texts for which a supernatural origin is claimed, such as
A Course in Miracles,
Conversations with God or
The Book of Mormon, are also fringe topics ? If not, why not ?
Gandalf61 (
talk) 09:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
(Note that the term "fringe topic" is not used here in any perjorative or disrespectful sense. Also, note that this question is about "fringy-ness", not about notability - for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that any topic mentioned is notable as defined by
WP:NOTE.)
Outdenting, and amplifying Itsmejudith's statement that fringe means different things in different contexts. The Old Testament is a good example: it's very hard to call Islam/Christianity/Judaism a fringe belief, because believers constitute nearly half the world's population. Still, when it comes to the origins of life, creationism is considered a fringe belief. The book may not be a fringe text, but relying it to the point of denying evidence to the contrary is a fringe belief.— Kww( talk) 16:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Paranormal as an effective tag: 12) The use of a link to paranormal in the introduction of an article serves to frame the matter. Links to psychic, new age, or occult serve the same purpose. passed 8-0 at 03:06, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Adequate framing: 6.2) Language in the introduction of an article may serve to frame the subject thus defining the epistemological status. Examples include "mythical", "fictional", "a belief", and in the present case "paranormal", "psychic", "new age", "occult", "channeling", or "parapsychological researcher". "UFO", "Bigfoot", "Yeti", "alien abduction", and "crop circle" serve the same function. It should not be necessary in the case of an adequately framed article to add more, for example to describe Jeane Dixon as a psychic who appeared on TV says it all. "Purported psychic" or "self-described psychic" adds nothing. Passed 9-0 at 03:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
There has recently been a debate at Talk:Iraq War about what constitutes a fringe theory.
The following sources have been provided in support of an issue:
That being said, the issue has also been denied:
If anyone could provide there input as to whether this is a well-sourced political debate or a fringe theory, the input would be appreciated.-- Nosfartu ( talk) 20:09, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
So I guess future direction is being sought. Given these sources, may it be mentioned as an ongoing debate about one of the causes of the war? Or, is it a fringe theory which is inappropriate for mention in Wikipedia? Thanks for all the input, -- Nosfartu ( talk) 21:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)It has also been claimed the U.S. invaded for Iraq's oil reserves, although this has also been denied.
I've been asked to post my arguments here as well so I will: The dispute mostly involves around the inclusion of, how 'some' allege that US officials invaded Iraq for Oil, in the lead section of the article Iraq War. I don't mind this issue carefully worked out anywhere else in the article, but feel that the inclusion of this theory in the lead section is unnecessary and unencyclopedic, and believe that it might qualify as a fringe theory.
First I'd like to point out that the above statements are from people of which none are US or UK officials, they are foreign officials, opposition figures or journalists.
The allegations from some press that the US/UK invaded Iraq for oil has always been disputed by officials, and Tony Blair called it a conspiracy theory [27] [28]
I believe that we might be dealing with a fringe theory, because any allegation on what the "true motives" are for US officials to have invaded Iraq are impossible to determine, unless you were able to read their minds.
There's also many experts and respected journalists who have debunked such theories, as they make little sense:
To get back on what I said earlier, and quote Gideon Rachman again "it is an unprovable thesis". I think we're dealing with a fringe theory mostly because of this. Most of these allegations claim that they know the "true motives" of US officials' to have attacked Iraq, but it's impossible to prove, unless those who launched the invasion would all publically state that their reason for invasion was oil. You would need to be able to read their minds to find out any hidden motives, and given that's impossible, we're only dealing with gossip theories.
I DO however believe that, fringe theory or not, all this debate is notable (we all agree on that it seems), however, I think it needs to be worked out in the body of the article of the Iraq War, as well as on pages where it's already partially done such as the Criticism of the Iraq War and Rationale for the Iraq War articles, and that it should be excluded from the lead section of the main article for the Iraq War, and only that is what this dispute is all about.
(btw sorry if my reply is too long) Grey Fox ( talk) 21:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
There is apparently now a consensus that the debate is notable. I thought there was an argument that a fringe theory didn't belong in Wikipedia, but this doesn't appear to be the case. Besides the article's talk page which has degraded in to a back and forth, is there somewhere this could be discussed? Thanks, -- Nosfartu ( talk) 22:06, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Loremaster is doing an extensive rewrite of this which I haven't had time to follow, although I just reverted one edit as it appears to be OR (although it may be just something he found elsewhere and didn't bother to source). If anyone is familiar with this conspiracy theory, could they have a look? Thanks. dougweller ( talk) 20:59, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I've just noted Eurabia and related. Essentially a walled garden surrounding a consipiracy theory best merged to Islamophobia and/or Bat Ye'or (or Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, a 2005 book by this author). "Eurabia" gives me 90 hits on google news, and 276 hits on google scholar, apparently all related to the 2005 book. Eurabia apparently has never been up for deletion, and a dedicated Category:Eurabia is a joke. -- dab (𒁳) 17:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
on reflection, I suppose that the "Eurabia" topic is a fringy take on Islam in Europe (or more precisely Muslims in Western Europe). We can merge it there, and state that there were a few panic-mongering books on the topic, and link to the most notable titles. -- dab (𒁳) 19:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Eurabia is a notable subject. Just do a Google search. You can't get just get rid of an article because you think its premise is incorrect, or is defective. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 20:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
The book seems to have generated a good deal of additional literature, and the term is widely used. I have not looked at the article in a long time, but any defects can be edited out. It is not a fringe theory, and does not belong here. It is certainly controversial, but since main stream conservatives like Dennis Prager and Daniel Pipes take it very seriously [34]. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 20:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
as Blueboar points out above, the thing that is "taken seriously" is discussion of Islam in Western Europe, not the neologism. " Eurabia" was in the "conspiracy theory" category even before I noticed it. So even if there is enough notability for a standalone article, a rename would seem to be in order. -- dab (𒁳) 21:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
That's interesting. "Eurabia" is notable as a subject, but it needs a different name. How do you figure that? Why not use the notable name that names the notable subject? Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 22:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I think it a mistake to categorize Eurabia as "conspiracy theory." There may be some of that to be found, but with serious consideration coming from respectable sources such as the Hoover Institution [35], that accusation is unjustified. As I have said, I do not think this subject belongs on the Fringe theories/Noticeboard at all. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 15:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
what I do not understand is, if we have "toughtful and nuanced" discussions which contain soundbites like a youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonize—the term is not too strong—a senescent Europe -- what point is there in bothering with cheap Islamophobic pamphlets of the Bat Yeor type? We can and should implement all these scenarios into Islam in Western Europe, balanced and WP:DUEly. "Eurabia" can then just bea redirect to such a serious discussion of the problem. -- dab (𒁳) 21:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
In the Yeshu#Jesus_Connection.3F section of the Yeshu page, Gerald Massey makes up about half the section. I think this should be reduced significantly, if not removed entirely, because:
1. he is not a reliable source even in Egyptology as per the consensus established on the reliable sources noticeboard, much less in Jewish history
2. There was no mention of him in any contemporary scholarly sources given in the article, in fact, there was no mention of him or his ideas in any sources at all, other than his own book he wrote which was quoted in the article.
3. The notability of his view in the subject was not established at all. He, an unreliable source, could have been the only person in the world with that view at that time, from all we know from the article.
For 1., WP:Undue weight requires "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source...(emphasis mine)
For 2. and 3., WP:FRINGE states: "A fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory. (emphasis mine)"
The Massey quote included in the article satisfies none of these requirements. Madridrealy ( talk) 12:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
so it appears for once I am being accused of pushing fringe science. I have been struggling to compile a main overview article of our populated Category:Ethnic groups in Europe. This is a hairy topic, and academic sources aren't exactly ubiquitous, but I have started on our trusty first stop the CIA Factbook, and then actually dug up some recent academic publications (notably Pan & Pfeil 2002). But behold, I am " WP:OWNing" the article, pushing obsolete 19th century racialist scholarship. This is the opinion of a couple of editors who aren't so much working on the article, but who seem to think it shouldn't exist at all. Did they up and AfD it? No, they just try to impede any work on the article by unsourced hyper-skepticism. Samples
and so on, and so on, for pages, without as much as referring to a single source. The upshot is that these editors allege it isn't possible today to talk about "ethnic groups", or draw maps of their distributions, that " ethnology" doesn't exist any more (in spite of our article on it, and in spite of the current OED's definition of ethnology as a "science"). Then, in reply to idle questions like is "Portuguese" really an ethnic group? White Russian? I have gone to the library and taken out the 2002 monograph on ethnic minorities in Europe, which lists 87 "peoples of Europe" with population figures as well as maps showing their territorial distribution. Yes, this is "original research", on the part of the authors of the academic monograph cited, duh, as with any other reference cited on Wikipedia. What was the reaction to that? Any citation of references that would discredit my reference? No, it was a posting to my talkpage that I am trying to "OWN" the article with my "vandalism" and "home made original research" [39], and that "consensus" wants me to forget about my references and submit to the fuzzy feeling that the article cannot be written because its subject doesn't exist.
To me, this seems like a case for User:Durova/Reality check: "a few people's idea of useful can't trump the law". So we have four editors on an article talkpage who think the article shouldn't be written. Never did they cite any sources, or present any evidence of why the sources used were inappropriate. But hey, they have "consensus". -- dab (𒁳) 10:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I have no beef with Ramdrake, his criticism is constructive and I am willing to act on it. What really got my goat this morning is, I spend hours with hairy and complex sources to draw up a survey, and this guy comes to my talkpage calling me a vandal. What really got my goat was being treated like some ethnic crackpot, after my three years of service of protecting Wikipedia from ethnic crackpots. Slrubenstein & Cie. simply do not want this topic discussed. They want to obfuscate it behind a cloud of postmodernism and pretend it doesn't exist. And they do this without bothering to cite any sort of source, and without respecting any source cited at them, with the vexing implicatin that anyone drawing ethnographic maps is a racialist. I know this is a "minefield". This is why I insist on sources. I don't ask anything I am not willing to produce myself. I have compiled the {{ Ethnic Europe}} overview map, to 100% based on an academic source (Ramdrake, I thought the population density map, also from a reliable source, would be a nice touch, because after all the topic is the geographic distribution of population, but if you find it unacceptable, we can also use a blank map, you only need to ask). I am willing to review other sources as they are presented, this is just the best source I could find so far. What I will not put up with is being shot down as "vandalising", "unhelpful" or "OWNing" by people who have yet to cite their first WP:RS on the topic.
I have a recent scholarly monograph on ethnic minorities in Europe right in front of me. I am trying to base the article on it. And believe it or not, these authors are fully aware of the uncertainties and terminological ambiguities. That didn't stop them from writing a book about the topic, and that shouldn't stop us from building an encyclopedic article. Anyone who has RSes to contribute is welcome. Anyone who is just trying to make me jump through hoops because they feel like it should stand down, or be made stand down by the community. It works like this: (1) I cite a scholarly source. You don't like it? (2) You cite a scholarly source which contradicts mine. After this, (3) discussion towards a compromise solution may ensue. There is no way you can jump from step 1 to 3 omitting step 2. -- dab (𒁳) 18:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
dab, I am not familiar with with the monograph. Having just stopped to take a look at this noticeboard, I have gotten the impression that you are frustrated that some opposing editors have not sited opposing sources to back their views, and that is understandable. But, how notable is this monograph, and has it attracted much published comment...either for or against? If there is a lot of notable comment backing the view of this monograph, and little or nothing opposed, then you have nothing to worry about, and you will certainly get the article you want. But, if that is not the situation, you may need to find a more reliable source to base the article upon. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 18:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I have found this article that has turned into a horrible POV fork and a battleground. I am not sure if it qualifies as fringe but I would be happy if someone could have a look (there's an ongoing AfD as well). Thanks. -- Tone 08:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
A discussion at templates for deletion hinges on whether an idea about transwomen's motivations for transitioning is a fringe theory. As I understand it (and I am not an expert), the idea is widely (but not universally) accepted among sexologists and vehemently rejected by (nearly) all transwomen. ( This article from The New York Times explains things fairly well.)
The navbox has been proposed for deletion on these grounds:
In discussion, we appear to have determined that (1) Wikipedia has no articles on any of these "other ideas" (although some older ideas are briefly mentioned in Classification of transsexuals) and (2) that nobody even knows what those hypothetical other ideas are called, although those who favor deletion are certain both that such ideas exist and that these other ideas are universally accepted by all right-thinking sexologists.
I generally avoid fringe theories in my editing, so I don't actually know much about what constitutes a fringe theory for Wikipedia's purposes. If you have an idea about sexuality that is used in current medical research (See, e.g., PMID 18299976, PMID 18956626, PMID 15803249, PMID 8494491), but which is rejected by the "patients" as being demeaning and politically dangerous, is it a fringe theory? What matters more: the views of the affected community, or the views of the psychologists, physicians, and other researchers? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
User:Heja_helweda has used Mehrdad Izady to claim that two thirds of Kurdish tribal names are of Hurrian origin. See here for example: [40] where she quotes:" M. R. Izady (1993) identifies two-thirds of Kurdish clan-names and toponyms (such as Buhtan, Barzan, Mardin, Ziwiya and Dinawar) as deriving from Hurrian". The actual article that quotes Izady is here: [41]. Note this is Izady's quote: "Nearly two-thirds of Kurdish tribal, topological and urban names are also likely of Hurrian origin: Buhtan, Talaban, Jelali, Barzan; Mardin, Ziwiya and Dinawar, to name a few." and User:Heja_helweda deleted Talaban and Jelali from it and named only "Buhtan, Barzan, Mardin, Ziwiya, Dinawar". The reason she deleted is that Talaban and Jelali are both actually Arabic and have nothing to do with Hurrian, but Izady who is not a linguist claims them to be Hurrian. The other names have different etymologies but there is no proof they are Hurrian.
After reading these articles, I am convinced that Izady is more on the nationalistic fringe [42](the complaint is towards this article here: [43]) on some of his theories and this:" An Appendix essay by the historian Mehrdad Izady charts the complex origins and history of the Kurds, which stretches back eight millennia" [44], rather than an actual academic source.
So how should this source be handled? Specially give the rather folk etymology where even Arabic names that have entered Kurdish are claimed to be Hurrian? -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 08:50, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Also I would appreciate to get feedback on two other things: 1) Corduene specially the overwhelming reliance on outdated sources like Rwalinson and lots of non-sourced claims written by the same user. 2) The user claims contacts between Sumerians and Kurds based on an erroneous entry here [45]. dab responded to this well: "this is a non-issue. The various toponyms mentioned are indeed found in Bronze Age sources. They have, however, nothing whatsoever to do with the Kurds.". I believe it is the same with Hurrian stuff of Izady which seems like pseudo-linguistics.-- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 09:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
We have an anon ip subverting strengths and weaknesses of evolution. This article appears to have been used by User:Ed Poor in one of his many efforts to write creationism into Wikipedia. I first saw the ip's version and wondered what the hell it was still doing here, but the previously stable version is less objectionable (I do think it ought to have some other title, though). In any case, I believe the article needs some attention from the fringe noticeboard denizens. - Nunh-huh 20:28, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Some articles may give the impression of truthful and believable information and facts, while in reality nonsense is being brought forward. The article Veljko Milković makes "free energy movement", by using that name, credible sounding, while it actually refers to the conspiracy theory free energy suppression. Calling a local hobby group of 20 people an "Academy" gives it undue status. Joing three different "words" (articles) together: [[impulse]]-[[gravitational]] [[machines]] makes it look like "impulse-gravitational machines" do exist and contribute positively to humanity (NOT). Some (?) readers may even believe that this person actually built a "perpetuum mobile", as mentioned in the article, which is of course ludicrous. A while ago I cut out a lot of nonsene already. Maybe someone here could also have a look at this. Thanks. -- VanBurenen ( talk) 11:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Here's my second opinion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Veljko Milković (2nd nomination). ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
MfD of several subpages of draft content that relate to fringe theories. Tim Vickers ( talk) 20:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Since the issue of Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories has been discussed here before, I thought it would be worth mentioning here that there is currently an RfC ongoing concerning whether the article should be renamed to remove "conspiracy theories" from the title. Please see Talk:Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories#RfC: Is the phrase "conspiracy theories" accurate for the article title?. -- ChrisO ( talk) 20:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
An interesting case, perhaps? Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science. ScienceApologist ( talk) 04:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Similar to the above, same editor, same lack of reasoning. See Talk:Brieselang Forest Light. ScienceApologist ( talk) 09:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I filed an AE report about Eric Lerner: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Pseudoscience. If you are an admin, please consider helping. ScienceApologist ( talk) 07:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Cold spot. Is this really article-worthy? Should we merge it into ghost hunting? Shouldn't a cold spot just be the opposite of a hot spot?
Pretend I'm not here, I'm on wikibreak. When I get back, I expect to either see a brilliant article or a brilliant merger or a deletion.
You have your assignments.
Love, from beyond the wikigrave, ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Cool Spot. ScienceApologist ( talk) 00:27, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
I've redirected to CMB cold spot in deference to Ruslik0's suggestion. I also think Cardamon's suggestion would work well too. ScienceApologist ( talk) 22:14, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted it back. If you want to effectively delete the page take it to AFD. Artw ( talk) 07:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
These articles are tripping my bullshit detectors, particularly the bits about hafnium bombs. They seem to be an earnest and overly credulous attempt to explain a series of nuclear isomer experiments that DARPA canned in the 1990s. Less fringey, more pathological science IMO. I suspect the articles are drawing unsupported conclusions from reputable sources like Phys Rev C, etc. I'd appreciate if someone more physics-minded than me could take a look. Cheers, Skinwalker ( talk) 11:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
A co-opting of a perfectly legitimate term from Catholic philosophy by the paranormalists. I first AfDed it, but then after being made aware of the Catholic Encyclopedia article, I tried to fix the article. See the Talk:Bilocation for more. ScienceApologist ( talk) 08:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
This report is in regards to literary criticism vs non-scholarship in an area that is talking about a "genre", which falls within the science of literary criticism. Over at Ludovico Ariosto, two fringe theories are being pushed here. The attempt is to remove the term "Christian" and replace it with "Romantic". Within literary scholarship, Romantic is reserved for Romantic poets. Romance is the proper adjective for works that incorporate Romance. As pointed out on the talk page, genre scholars use the term "Romance Epic", and this was provided to show how the term is prevalent. The only ones provided as evidence of "Romantic Epic" was a work produced by a translator, not a genre scholar, and an "encyclopedia" about Spenser, a field that is very large and not everything is thorough. This use of "Romantic" (not the correct term, "Romance") is used to replace Orlando Furosio as being described as a "Christian Epic", a term that means that the epic is based on the forces of Christianity fighting against an enemy, which is the common descriptive within scholarship (the plot is God favors the Christians under Charlemange against the "pagan" Saracens). Thus, we have two fringe theories being produced: 1. that Orlando Furioso is not "Christian", and 2. that it is a "Romantic Epic" and not "Romance Epic". If anyone needs any books verifying any of this, please ask and I can provide. Ottava Rima ( talk) 00:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh brother, is this still going on? I suspect the difference between "romantic epic" and "romance epic" is miniscule, but I've already cited many occasions where English-language scholars use the term "romantic epic" and it's the one I'm most familiar with. In fact, it's used by Barbara Reynolds as the subtitle of her translation of Orlando furioso for Penguin Classics, perhaps the most widely read modern version of the poem in English. Reynolds was Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University (among other academic posts) but that hasn't stopped Ottava Rima trying to smear her reputation on the Ludovico Ariosto talk page (after all, "anyone can be a lecturer at Cambridge"!!). As for "Christian", well Ariosto was no doubt a Christian and the poem contains Christian elements, but "Saracens versus Christians" is part and parcel of the Carolingian subject matter anyone writing about Roland/Orlando would inherit. Ariosto hardly puts much emphasis on this theme. He's not that reverential either as a comparison between Dante's journey to the moon from the Earthly Paradise in the Divine Comedy and Astolfo's in Orlando would demonstrate. So, no, if you're going to use one adjective to modify "epic" when describing Orlando furioso then "Christian" doesn't really fit the bill. Likewise, Tristram Shandy was written by an Anglican clergyman and it contains a sermon but I wouldn't necessarily define it as a "Christian novel". -- Folantin ( talk) 09:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
(Outdent)"Folantin has supplied ample references...". And just to knock any further potential BLP violations from Ottava on the head, this is from the bio of Barbara Reynolds in her Penguin Classics translation of Orlando Furioso (subtitled "A Romantic Epic by Ludovico Ariosto", sic): “Barbara Reynolds is Honorary Reader in Italian at Warwick University. A graduate of University College, London, she was for twenty-two years Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University and from 1966 until 1978 was Reader in Italian Studies at Nottingham University. Her first book was a textual reconstruction of the linguistic writings of Alessandro Manzoni. The General Editor of the Cambridge Italian Dictionary, she has been awarded silver medals by the Italian Government and the Province of Vicenza, and the Edmund Gardner Prize for her services to Italian scholarship and to Anglo-Italian cultural relations. She was appointed Visiting Professor in Italian at the University of California, Berkeley, for 1974-5.” That’s from the 1975 edition. I imagine she’s acquired even more credentials since then.-- Folantin ( talk) 09:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Stop the off topic posting. It does not belong here and is a violation. This is for Fringe theory discussion. Fringe theories is not limited to biology, chemistry, etc. Furthermore, as the directions even state: "This noticeboard aims to serve as a place where questions relating to articles on Fringe theories can be answered, and to report instances where undue weight is being given to fringe theories. Often, such fringe theories are promoted in order to push a particular point of view, which violates our rules on neutrality. As the guidelines given at Wikipedia:Fringe theories state, theories outside the mainstream that have not been discussed at all by the mainstream are not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Wikipedia aims to reflect academic consensus."
This is about academic consensus versus the wanting to insert a minority opinion on a topic. The fact that people want to attack philology, one of the oldest fields, is disturbing. To do so in order to derail this process? That is a violation. Stop it now. Any further off topic posts that do not deal with academic consensus versus a fringe view will be reported to ANI as disrupting a process and a point violation.
Now, we have three things to consider: 1) the use of the term "Romantic" versus "Romance". As pointed out, Philology has determined that "Romantic" is reserved for the Romantic poets and a type of poetry that is similar. The term "Romantic" even links to "Romanticism", which is this subject area. 2) the use of Christian, whereas this is a work that deals with a Christian protagonist, involves a Christian God, and pits Christians versus Muslims. 3) The contrary evidence coming from someone who specializes in a field of linguistics (aka, Italian), as opposed to those who specialize in genre classifications. The third will determine the legitimacy of the claims of the other two. Ottava Rima ( talk) 15:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
For Itsmejudith to answer a question: A) "What do you mean by "genre studies"? " To give a brief history. Dating back (at least in written material) to Aristotle, genre classification has been a vital component of philology, i.e. the study of language and words. By observing charactersitics, philologists, in particular genre specialists, classify works according to various types (or genres) in the same manner that was adopted in practice to classifying animals. You take various components, details, characterstics and the rest. Then you can find commonalities between the groups. Thus, we have "Epic", "Tragedy", "Comedy", etc. B) "then they obviously know an enormous amount about the different genres in that literature" No, they would only know the language. When you receive your doctorate, you may take one or two classes in a genre. However, a genre specialist would spend their whole life in the field, immersed in the works, theory, background, etc. They would also write their dissertation on the subject, which a language specialist would not. Thus, this would be saying that a Chemist might know Biology, but they aren't an expert on it. An expert in the epic genre studies would be individuals like Thomas Greene, Andrew Fichter, Sergio Zatti (the leading Ariosto and Tasso expert), David Quint (the leading New Historical epic theorist - he believes that the epic genre is a political tool) and even Mikhail Bakhtin. There are many more. I produced a link to google books above showing just from a cursory look how often the term "Romance Epic" is used in books on the theory of "epic". C) This was a discussion on the talk page but this needs a wider discussion because there is very little activity on the talk page, and it deals with a need for consensus. The reason why this is brought to fringe is that there are thousands of academics saying on thing, and a handful of those saying something else. Fringe is what deals with such matters. Ottava Rima ( talk) 17:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Ottava, if we can stop making this about your EGO for one minute, I think we can settle on the simple outcome of this thread of replacing "romantic epic" with "romance epic", which I think everyone agrees is just as correct. case closed. -- dab (𒁳) 21:58, 5 January 2009 (UTC)