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Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science seems to contain some rulings that may be of interest to those watching this page. Regards, ClovisPt ( talk) 01:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
the mountain has given birth to another mouse :) at least they didn't cause too much damage this time, as far as I can see. Unless you want to count rewarding classic wikilawyering in the form of "In the past, SA has lobbed death threats, which are explicitly forbidden under policy." in reference for the precise case described under "principle 7", "continuous goading of specific editors in order to exhaust their patience and induce them to lash out in an uncivil manner". Seriously, arbcom isn't fit to deal with the dynamics of fringecruft pushing. It will work as a simple timesink in the best of cases. Arbcom should be routed around whenever possible. -- dab (𒁳) 17:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I like the recognition that advocacy is disruptive regardless of whether it is promoting or suppressing fringe material. Wikipedia would benefit from a less polarised approach, whereby verifiable information about notable fringe material is sought out and described faithfully regardless of how it compares to our personal opinions, and material is only removed because it fails to meet policies and guidelines, not because it challenges our beliefs. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 01:38, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
DoDaCanaDa ( talk · contribs) has stated he is Ray Joseph Cormier, a "self-styled prophet." He states part of his user name is "Cana, is from the Marriage Feast at Cana when Jesus began his Public Life by turning water into wine described in John II." DoDaCanaDa has inserted the "fact" that Jesus began his "Public Ministry" at Cana. This is unsupported by references at this time.
More eyes on this users contributions would be useful, I think. Some theologically mainstream individuals would be useful at the Cana article. Any help would be appreciated. Hipocrite ( talk) 22:43, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm contemplating a move of the satanic ritual abuse page to satanic ritual abuse moral panic; the latter title accurately reflects the current view of the scholarly majority in my mind, with several scholarly books on the topic. If anyone is interested in giving an opinion, I wouldn't mind it. Right now it's me and one other editor, both of us have strong, diametrically opposed opinions on the matter. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 14:04, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
It would seem like a better title would be the more simple Satanic ritual abuse panic; I don't see the need for using the term "moral". This title accurately reflects the baseless accusations during a 20 year period and it happened in many states. Most, if not all, were proved to be nothing. Keeping the title as is may be seen as adding weight or credibility to the claims made during this period. Using the term panic puts the events in context. We are dealing with an area that is very gray; certainly it is not an area of black and white. -- Storm Rider 09:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Tom Van Flandern ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Recently deceased pseudoscientist. I just ran through the article with a comb removing all the WP:PSTS violations. We need someone to keep going and find out what the guy was most notable for. I'm thinking it's probably faster than light and Face on Mars. Everything else is just a bit too obscure and not really noticed.
In any case, the article was/is obviously being monitered by his supporters and I don't want to be disrespectful to the recently deceased, but we could use some people here watchlisting it and doing a little research and adding some third-party independent sources.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 03:51, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree this needs to be monitored. This is a biography about my father, an astronomer with a PhD from Yale who admitedly had unconventional thories, but had countless papers published in peer reviewed journals. His biography is now dominated by a malicious detractor at IP address 63.24.xxx.xxx. If Tom Van Flandern were alive these posts would be libelous. Please monitor this biography, steer back to NPOV and insist on citations. I'd rather the biography be deleted than owned by this single user. Thank you -MikeVF
Golden Plates ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) seems to be under the watchful eye of a few editors who, if not actual LDS members themselves, do seem somewhat overly sympathetic to the Mormon point of view regarding the authenticity (or even mere existence) of the plates. Rather than go into wall-of-text land trying to describe the reasons for my concern, I'd suggest any interested eyes give the article a look-see and decide the merits of this post for themselves. While the discussion on the talk page is still in the early stages, more eyes would be better sooner rather than later. Thanks! Badger Drink ( talk) 00:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
This is the kind of BS that makes editing so distasteful. I particularly enjoy the way Fyslee cheery picks the statements to twist reality. He starts off by telling me that, "If Storm Rider wishes all LDS articles to look odd, so be it. It only serves to strengthen the impression of what many see as an odd sect, a reputation one would think members and editors would seek to change." (See here for the full conversation.)
I don't belong to an odd sect and never have. Why on earth does an editor bring up religious affiliation? What does it have to do with the topic at hand? Absolutely nothing. Further, who set Fyslee up as the arbiter of what is odd and what is not in the world of religion or even Wikipedia for that matter? What this editor fails to understand or admit is that odd is in the eyes of the beholder. What is odd to him is normal to me. In this instance, flowing text looks better TO ME; he obviously has a different opinion. Great, that is what makes the world go round.
Having this type of drive by, Nazi-style, inflexible editing, POV enforcement is the bane of editing. The object here is that no editor should ever act as if they are the sole source of what is right or correct. Further, no editor has the right to demean the religious affiliations of any other editor. Then to complain that an editor has not rolled over and played docile so they can continue their maniacal attempt to exert control is detestable. I reject it completely and would seek to stamp out this type of tyranny that a few of our editors display, and what is worse is that he is an bloody administrator. Use your common sense and realize there are few absolutes on Wikipedia! -- Storm Rider 21:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Since when is formatting a WP:Fringe issue? Artw ( talk) 08:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Another incident on the Ion Antonescu page. Eurocopter ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) claims that the article is POVed, and has tagged it for neutrality - I pointed out that the info, which could perhaps be rephrased, is compliant with the Wiesel Commission's report on the Holocaust in Romania - which is the view of mainstream historiography in Romania, and is the basis for legislation. While the article still needs a lot of sources, Eurocopter has stated his intention of replacing the info with quotes from an essayist with no scientific credentials who is often described, including by the Commission, as a "Holocaust revisionist" (see Talk:Ion Antonescu#NPOV and sources for sources on that). He considers the info in the article, sourced or unsourced, "communist propaganda-style facts and disinformation". Eurocopter's tags are designed around that, and reflect this intent of introducing questionable material - while the info is (partly) unsourced, or not clearly sourced, this is POV-pushing at its grandest. What I find especially worrying is a comment he made in relation to the Wiesel report as a source. Verbatim: "Regarding the so called Final report of the INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE HOLOCAUST IN ROMANIA, I doubt its accuracy considering that the president of the comission was a jew (they were certainly not neutral historians). Unfortunately, the official position of the Romanian state in the past 20 years has been in accordance with foreign interests and pressures." How should wikipedia relate to such POVs? Dahn ( talk) 00:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
This is not a question of Holocaust Denial generally, its a question of reporting a specific individual's level of complicity (in the context of a natural human tendency for the "victor" to look for scapegoats). The original wording of the section was rather POV and OR, but also there has been heavy reliance on one particular source. Direct references to the Commission Report on specific accusations would improve the credibility of the article. Perhaps there should also be a clear acknowledgement that very few "dictators" actually have a free hand to decide policy in war-time conditions - Antonescu was undoubtedly culpable, but you need very good sources to accuse somebody of direct personal responsibility. It will always be hard to find sources that are neutral about war crimes. Wdford ( talk) 14:26, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
In a country like Britain, a politician's survival depends on telling believable lies and making sure you can pin the blame on somebody else when those lies are uncovered. In a dictatorship, survival depends on giving your core cronies whatever they want whenever they want it, otherwise they turn on you and you die (usually horribly). When you have manipulated a bunch of racist murdering thugs to get into power, and then you make enemies of a racist murdering thug like Stalin, and you are dependent on a racist murdering thug like Hitler to protect you from Stalin, I guess you have to act like the meanest racist murdering m8therf8cker in the valley all day every day just to keep the rats away from your own throat. In such a situation, when the cronies wanted to murder third-party civilians then he was probably only too grateful they were murdering somebody other than him. When you swim with piranas, its only a matter of time before one of them bites off your *****! Wdford ( talk) 19:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
No you don't need to elaborate, what you need to do is add your extra material to the article. If you are aware of a different point of view then you don't delete or revert the work of others which you happen to dislike, you add your extra material so that all the significant viewpoints are represented. Reverting a viewpoint you disagree with, or deleting material that quotes a source you don't approve of, is also POV. If you have a reliable source that says Stoenescu is a liar then add that to the article, so readers can make up their own minds. If you have a reliable source that says Antonescu personally ordered a particular massacre, then add it to the article. You mentioned what looked like a lot of good material in the talk page comment above - add some of that to the article to make it better all round. However, please be careful about your accusations - "Holocaust revisionism" is a very serious accusation and needs to be carefully substantiated. Remember to assume good faith, unless you can actually prove otherwise. Wdford ( talk) 13:39, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Possible trouble brewing on this old favourite of racists and cranks. One editor has already made personal attacks in their edit summaries. If people could take a look that would be great. Verbal chat 17:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Usual is happening: Homeopathy violates basic scientific laws, but the homeopaths find a few remedies where a few poor studies say there's some weak evidence they work, and that remedy gains an article which emphasises the evidence and fails to mention that if the evidence were true, whole fields of science would have to be wrong. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 03:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor has moved the page Business Plot conspiracy theory to Business Plot. While a couple of editors are working to NPOV the page, it largely treats this fringe theory as truth, though no one contemporaneously or since has, other than a couple of less than reliable sources. More eyes are needed. THF ( talk) 14:27, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
NB that three editors are trying to include, in violation of WP:UNDUE, conspiracy theories by John Buchanan (American politician) in the article. Does anyone read this noticeboard? THF ( talk) 14:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor or editors from a couple IP addresses have been changing this article to present what appears to be a fringe conpiracy theory about the subject's death as if it were generally accepted, e.g., and adding in some unsourced and unexplained innuendo about other family members' deaths. I'd appreciate some help with dealing with it as I don't want to get into an edit war. Phil Bridger ( talk) 18:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I made a few edits. Seems OK and NPOV to me now. -- Gciriani ( talk) 02:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
This article seems to be lacking in scientific interpretation, and what there is currently may about to be removed (possibly for valid reasons). Perhaps people with an interest could take a look. All the best, Verbal chat 19:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
The history of this term is utterly fascinating and there are a few good book references in the first section of the article. In particular, the tremendous success in the 19th century on the part of electromagnetic theory in delivering seemingly magical technologies to the world inspired many in the spiritualism to essentially co-opt the terminology associated with these ideas. Interestingly, "energy" was not the only term that was co-opted. "Force", "field", "magnetism", and "electricity" were all also used to describe the magic associated with these particular kinds of spiritual beliefs. What is truly interesting is that the use of these terms began to fall out of favor after the scientific revolutions in the early twentieth century began discussing ideas such as "duality", "relativity", "virtual particles", and "uncertainty". The parallels between the development of quantum quackery and "spiritual energy" or "spiritual forces" are undeniable and probably should be explained in the article for completeness. Additionally, consider using the pseudoscience template for explanations of how the term "energy" is used in ways that are explicitly pseudoscientific. ScienceApologist ( talk) 17:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I have reported a band of tagteamers to arbcom: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#Please_enforce_the_pseudoscience_arbitration. You may want to join the discussion at Talk:Orthomolecular psychiatry and Talk:Orthomolecular medicine. I believe it is time for administrative intervention in these articles. Good editors can easily be scared off from improving articles while these kind of tactics are allowed to continue unchecked. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I suggest that, since a strawpoll and merge discussion has been started on the Talk:Orthomolecular medicine page that furtheer discussion happen there. Artw ( talk) 19:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm looking to either address the pastel-shaded boxes of the article or re-nominate for deletion. What I'm primarily seeking now is any mentioning in mainstream media. I mean, if you invent a perpetuum mobile you would try to do some public relations and bring it to the press' attention. Any hints?
Also the lack of reliable sources for his academic (non-)career is disturbing.
-- Pjacobi ( talk) 20:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
User:Ivan2007 aggressively promotes Mykhailo Hrushevskyi's nationalist view that Ukrainian statehood has been in continuous existence since at least 882 (rather than 1991, as our pages stated several days go). Please see his user page and some of the recentmost edits. [1] [2] [3] In his List of Ukrainian rulers the user includes Ateas of Scythia and Kubrat of Bulgaria, as if preparing to proclaim Scythia another predecessor state of Ukraine. [4] I believe his additions mislead our readers. It's just like copying the list of Balhae sovereigns to the List of Russian rulers just because it so happens that Balhae's territories lie within the modern borders of Russia. With Kubrat and Ateas this is especially problematic, since the former's capital was Phanagoria in modern Russia, and the latter's capital, Scythian Neapolis, did not become part of Ukraine until the late 1950s. Someone should keep an eye on such edits. -- Ghirla -трёп- 08:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I am trying to restore some balance and remove some of the adherents POV from the Golden plates article. Unfortunately I have come across a group of LDS-adherents who revert any such edit to the page. See my proposed changes to the lead here Talk:Golden plates#New lead paragraph and please comment and support NPOV (even if you disagree with my edits). Thanks, Verbal chat 16:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
The occasional crossing the border into canvassing is something I have mentioned on this noticeboard a number of times. The usual concerns are, as I see it, Campaigning [5] and particularly Votestacking [6]. I do not know if many users here agree with me, but when I see something that I think presents a possible problem with Canvassing, I mention it. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 17:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Because it is less transparent than on-wiki notifications, the use of email or other off-wiki communication to notify editors is discouraged unless there is a significant reason for not using talk page notifications. Depending on the specific circumstances, sending a notification to a group of editors by email may be looked at more negatively than sending the same message to the same group of people on their talk pages. [7]
To my mind, this article has the status of
Red Book of Westmarch. Meaning, it is obvious it is mythological, there is no reason to keep dwelling on the point. There are Tolkien geeks, and there are Smith geeks, think of it that way, and maybe you'll be more willing to cut them some slack. --
dab
(𒁳) 20:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes Dab, it is mythological. Just like those who actually think Jesus is the Son of God is a mythological belief system; that he really rose from the dead is the stuff of pure fantasy. That the pope is the actual Vicar of Christ is an invention of mankind. Those who think we can actually die and be reborn in an eternal journey to nirvana are following a pure imagination. Mythology takes on many masks developed by man to provide themselves an opiate to pacify the people. The issue is are we going to classify all religious topics as mythology or not? Or do we just classify all those religions foreign to our own POV/belief system as such? The problem for this type of mindset is that Wikipedia seeks to approach each topic in a neutral manner, without spin and without declaring what is true or false. We report experts (reliable references) and allow them to make declarative statements.
Campaigning and canvassing are not acceptable or appropriate in any edit on Wikipedia. You know as well as I that the tone of a edit makes it acceptable or not. -- Storm Rider 21:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
My impression is that this is a POV mess. An article on fortune-telling that seems devoted to promoting it. Not once is the word "fraud" used. Am I being too critiical, or is it as bad as I think? - Nunh-huh 11:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Opposition to water fluoridation ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
A particular user who is under sanction from WP:AE made a pretty dramatic series of edits at this article. [9]. Please look and see, especially at the section on "Potential health risks". I have also reported this behavior to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Pseudoscience Report (2). ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor is claiming that CSICOP is completely unreliable and is a propaganda group full of fraudsters and few scientists on the Ghost article. I think this needs a few eyes on it and comment from people more familiar with CSICOP. Thanks, Verbal chat 08:04, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Do you think that "controversial" = "fraudulent"? Do you think that CSICOP does not engage in 'ghostbusting'? Please give refs to support your case. Also state why CSICOP is above criticism from scientists? Is everything they say totally beyond criticism, by anybody? Do you think that everything they say is automatically true, even when scientists disagree with it? This is what the scientist Eynsenk said:
I quoted that view by Eynsenk on the Talk page of the article by the way. Whether or not I or any other editor agrees or disagrees with it is immaterial. Eynsenk said it, not me! Colin4C ( talk) 08:23, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
We have an article on the subject. Ghostbusters. ScienceApologist ( talk) 19:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Someone asked for my help on this, but I haven't had the energy to tackle an article so thoroughly screwed up. It's a page about a supposed psychic that was obviously written by a true believer. I have no idea if the person is even notable enough to have an article in the first place, but the article should not stay as it is. DreamGuy ( talk) 14:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Talk:List of psychic abilities#Query.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 04:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Additional brains are invited to review a lively dispute in progress here. One determined editor is staring down half a dozen (myself included) who don't accept metaphor as sufficient justification for adding a large body of somewhat POV content to this article. Cheers Bjenks ( talk) 09:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I suspect there may be a possible article about this writer, but this is just a puff piece. Any help in making this an encyclopedic article appreciated. Thanks. dougweller ( talk) 11:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
There are a few articles based on linguistic constructs that are not supported by linguistic or any other evidence. These articles make no actual claims that are pseudoscientific (fringe?), but by their very titles they presume unsupported conclusions.
The naming formats I've noticed are "X peoples" and "X mythology" or "-ies", where X is the name of a proposed language family. Such titles strongly imply—though the articles never actually state this—that there is a set of peoples or mythologies that corresponds to language family X, and which have something in common as peoples or mythologies. There is a scientific way to go about this: linguistic reconstruction. However, AFAIK, none of these articles—apart from the Indo-European stuff (much of which is quite good) and low-level groups like Tai—are about linguistic reconstruction or conclusions drawn from linguistics. Instead, they simply lump together a bunch of disparate peoples or mythologies as if they were known to have something in common. Granted, this is a common, if sloppy, phrasing found in popular and sometimes even academic literature, but generally the author is apparently parroting fancy-sounding terms without presenting any scientific justification for their use.
I've been deleted these articles where I can, except for low-level groups where I think it's possible that the relevant peoples are aware of their similarities, because the languages are so close that it should be obvious. (Even some of these may turn out to be spurious, since ethnicity very often does not follow language, but I'm saving my time for grandiose claims like 'Altaic mythology' and 'Sino-Tibetan peoples'.) However, I've been getting pushback at Finno-Ugric peoples. Now Finno-Ugric, as a language family, is part of a very well established Uralic family, though there is some question as to whether the Finnic and Ugric languages are closer to each other than the are to the third branch, the Samoyedic languages. If Finnic and Ugric turn out not to be a valid linguistic node together, do the Finno-Ugric peoples suddenly cease to exist? Like the way the dwarf planet Eris did not influence your horoscope until the very second that Mike Brown spotted it on his photographic plates, but in reverse? AFAIK, there are no known ethnic commonalities, no cultural, mythic, or genetic commonalities, that set these peoples, as a group, apart from their neighbors. The languages are so distant that a non-linguist is not likely to notice the similarities, even when presented with the data, and they were entirely unknown until philologists started working on these languages (prior to the establishment of Indo-European, actually). The things they do have in common, such as shamanism, are shared by many of their neighbors, and so do not define them as a group. Genetic studies have not found common genetic markers. (One genetic study recently added as a purported reference used the term "Finno-Ugric", but only dealt with a subset of Finnic, ignoring Ugric entirely, and admitted that any Finno-Ugric markers—if they are ever found—may end up being regional rather than actually corresponding to Finno-Ugric.) So what does "Finno-Ugric peoples" mean? The article leaves it undefined, except as the almost meaningless statement that FU peoples are peoples that speak FU lanugages, and my unsourced attempts at pointing out that they are nothing more than this have been reverted. (Currently just fact tagged, which is fine by me, until someone wants to delete it again.) Ethnicity is a cultural construct, and there are Finno-Ugric societies, so perhaps we're witnessing an ethnicity in the making. But that isn't the operating premise of the article.
I've heard historical and comparative linguists complain about historians, geneticists, and anthropologists reifying language families, and then drawing conclusions from them that are entirely unsupported by linguistic, historical, genetic, or cultural evidence. Like three migrations into the Americas, corresponding to Greenberg's three-way partitioning of Native American languages, which Americanist linguists believe to be entirely without justification. However, these articles don't even go that far, they just glomm peoples together, and as with much fringe usage, there is little in academic writing to counter their assumptions. kwami ( talk) 07:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Comment: It looks like what is going on in here is called 'anti Finno-Ugric sentiment' by Hungarian nationalists. But let the sources do the talking:
In Finland, as well as in Hungary, language history and language origins have always been acutely relevant to national identity in a way that they are not in, for example, Western Europe during the past fifty years...
In Hungary, conversely, nationalist ideologies have been mostly hostile to mainstream historical linguistics for positing a close connection between the Hungarians and the Khanty and Mansi hunters and fishermen of the Ob river in Siberia. Hungarian nationalists (for example, László Marácz, Hungarian Revival, Nieuwegein 1996) would rather envision prehistorical kinship with the Mongols, the Sumerians, the Uyghur of Western China, and other, more “prestigious” people.
According to László Marácz:
The discovery of these Finno-Ugric linguistic links was used as a psychological blow to the Hungarians whose pride and fighting spirit had always partly derived from the inspiration they had gained from their supposed Scythian origins.--
Termer (
talk) 09:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
there is no WP:DEADLINE and no need to WP:DEMOLISH anything. In case you're not familiar with the subjects but think that the articles could be improved. There is google books that gives 544 returns on Uralic peoples and 1,391 on Altaic peoples. So I know it's easier to delete the stuff but much more constructive would it be to get a book and improve the articles I think.-- Termer ( talk) 10:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Again UA (like objections to Altaic) is discredited only by hard core Hungarian nationalists a la László Marácz who'd wannabe related to Skythians and Sumerians, also Huns rather than mostly insignificant Finnic and Ugric peoples. Also , there are often racial aspects involved. For example some Finnish teens do not want to get associated with the Sami and keep reverting Finnic mythology into Finno-Ugric mythology [19] [20], just to make sure that the Sami wouldn't get associated with the term Finnic and hping to push the Sami over to the Ugric side. And then we have you who objects the idea that Hungarian mythology gets associated with Finnic and reverts it back to Finnic-mythology. [21]. The joke is in the fact that both Finnic mythology and Finno-Ugric Mythology are valid subjects. Exactly like Altaic peoples and Uralic peoples. So I don't have much to add, I'm going to restore the articles you have blanked and redirected as I get to it and as time permits and rewrite if necessary following WP:RS.-- Termer ( talk) 22:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Here is a good edit. I like to be positive sometimes. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't think calling it a pseudoscience in the opening sentence is a good edit. While it's obviously a pseudoscience, it's not a defining characteristic. It places undue weight on the scientific demarcation of a field that very often (especially historically) hasn't claimed any scientific status to call it a pseudoscience in the opening definition. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 23:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi, Recently I was found in violation of 3RR, I just started editing wikipedia a few days ago and found myself reverting deletions that I could not understand and that I received no clear explanation of. I must admit that at the time I felt harassed and annoyed over the fact that the other parties involved did not deal directly with what could be done to reach consensus merely taking turns reverting my edits. I am deeply sorry that I breached this vital aspect of wikipedia etiquette.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Aspartame_controversy#Latest_edits_by_keepcalm Shows how the 'revert war' started.
At the heart of this issue is that it seems to me that the information in GAO87 report - Food Additive Approval Process Followed for Aspartame is relevant to the article 'Aspartame Controversy' but whenever I added information from it, it would get deleted wholesale. When I asked for comments so that consensus could be reached the responses were brusque and seemingly displayed a lack of familiarity with the content of the GAO87. The GAO87 report is used throughout the article as a valid source of information. Surely using direct quotes and copying tables from it could not be construed as 'Original Research'.
That is pretty much it in a nutshell, the rest can be seen on the discussion page and in the edit logs.
Sorry for the trouble and thanks in advance for any advice that allows all our efforts to be constructive and fruitful. Unomi ( talk) 02:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Also could someone please interpret this for me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar#Removal_of_sourced_edits_made_in_a_neutral_narrative_is_disruptive As I understand it sourced edits do not necessitate 'consensus' assuming that the sources are valid. This is a separate issue but I would like clarification for the future. Unomi ( talk) 02:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
You have decidedly not answered my questions regarding the edits that you see unfit, the closest you came to that was today when you ventured that the GAO87 is a bad source, which honestly I think you need to reconsider, it is used extensively on the article we are talking about here as well as on the 'Aspertame' article, it is endorsed by the GAO and HHS, it is *the* document which outlines the approval process of aspertame. I found the 'relatively obscure' RfAr because it is linked to via the tendentious tag that you seem to like so much. Yes, I do know how to read. You and other editors kept saying simply NPOV without telling me what it was exactly that you considered NPOV. No, I can not read minds. I asked you repeatedly for elucidation but none has been forthcoming, instead it has now changed into
First, the report is 20 years old. Second, it is not a reliable source. Third, hundreds of studies that are reliable supersede the report. Fourth, you are attempting to give undue weight to an unreliable, outdated, and unscientific report.
Which could be construed as Original Research, can you show me sources that show that GAO87 is discredited? Can you point me to these 'hundreds of studies that supersede the report' - on the subject matter that I use it as source for? I am writing about the historical FACT of the existence of the GAO87 and its contribution to the 'Aspertame Controversy'. While you may find it disagreeable that 9 out of 43 (self proclaimed) aspartame researchers had 'Major Concerns;little if any confidence in aspertame's safety' that does not mean you or I can disagree with the fact that this report exists and is a major event in the timeline of 'Aspertame Controversy' No one is saying that it should be the 'only' questionnaire data from scientists, but we cannot take it out simply because we are waiting for something to 'balance' it. If you truly felt that the GAO87 was so problematic why haven't you moved to strike all entries that use it as source? The GAO87 is NOT a scientific report, it was never meant to be, it states that itself quite clearly. Its stated goal was to clarify the process by which the FDA approved aspartame and also sought to shed light on current(1987) research into aspartame and the scientific opinion of researchers in the field. Again I am sorry if I am 'taking up too much space' but it seems that no matter where I try to get reasoned answers I am met with some manner of wikistrictions. To all neutral editors, we need your help. Unomi ( talk) 10:13, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Over at the pseudoscience template talk page we're discussing whether Scientology should be listed as an example of a pseudoscience on the pseudoscience template. Does anyone have reliable sources on whether or not Scientology is generally considered a pseudoscience by the scientific community? It's clear that Dianetics is from the sources given on its page, but what about Scientology? Ryan Paddy ( talk) 02:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Started looking for some sources. Here's what I see so far:
These are mostly of the first type I mentioned above (perspectives of individual scientists or academics), so I'd be interested to see some of the other types. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 05:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm getting the impression that regulars here will approve the slapping of the term Pseudoscience on any old thing, as a way of basically designating it an unsciency dislikable thing. Scientology is a religion that uses some pseudoscience terminology, that doesn’t actually make it a pseudoscience. Astrology existed for thousands of years without the modern concept of science existing. Poor old Cryptozoology is a broad field that yes, encompasses a lot of pseudoscience, but does it deserve “is a Pseudoscience” slapped into the very first senetence in place of the previous version which was actually quite a succinct description, especially as questions of whether or not it might be a pseudoscience are dealt with a paragraph or too later. I’m beginning to think that throwing “is a pseudoscience” without further examination into any lede is just an inherently bad idea. Artw ( talk) 17:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The slim evidence of scientific views I've found so far doesn't seem to warrant a conlusion that "Scientology is generally viewed as a pseudoscience by the scientific community". So unless more evidence is found, it'll be removed as an example of a pseudoscience on the pseudoscience template. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 20:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I need help for deciding which viewpoint has more weight. There has been a dispute over a realistic estimation of Iraqi Turkmans and Syrian Turkmans for weeks. Some certain editors with a clear and heavy POV are committing a revert-war on those articles; with no verifiable source, keep adding the most unrealistic population figures into those articles, proven to be exaggerations of Turkman nationalists such as ITF. Please help to solve this dispute.
Also please note that their only source (apart from a bunch of random urls) is UNPO, which by defination is a political organisation forming of and supporting ethnic nationalists around the world. There is a very huge gap between the neutral estimations by third-party and verifiable sources, which put the estimation of Iraqi Turkmens as 1-2% of the country(ca. 300-500 thousands), and these users' exaggerated figures which claim a funny lie of 2 to 3.5 millions. Please see this to find out about mainstream estimation and the nationalistic fringe one: [23]. Ellipi ( talk) 17:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Adults needed. 85.74.201.146 ( talk) 06:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
i see that wiki supports calling the mittani 'armenians' 85.72.90.42 ( talk) 21:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
this is just our resident Armenian troll hailing from Richardson, TX adding to his sock army. This would be as easy as clicking rollback if it wasn't for the insistence of Til Eulenspiegel ( talk · contribs) to play troll's advocate. -- dab (𒁳) 08:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I believe with some confidence that we should refer to "Ararat arev" as "Gevork" in the future [25]. Also, if he is really aged 20, this means he began his trolling spree aged 17, which fits the "angry young man" profile perfectly. Here's hoping he'll grow out of soon. -- dab (𒁳) 11:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
You have a point. I understand USians become grad students around the age of 17. Even assuming Grevork turns 21 tomorrow, he would have been still 14 at the time the UCLA article was published. Also, the armenianhighland.com site went online in late 1998, when he would have been aged 9. I conclude that quite regardless of AA's identity, the myspace.com information on GN's age is wrong. He would be closer to 30 today. Note that in 1999, he intimates that The idea for The Armenian Enlightenment Chronicle was born in early 1997. ... I, Gevork Nazaryan decided to dedicate almost all of my time and energy to the creation of a Mega Site, one which will rightly present all of the greatness and glory of the ancient Armenian Civilization. ... It is during this period that I decided to start typing from my historical works from the original handwritten manuscripts, which I started to write as part of my first historical works when I was Seventeen years old ... Since the age of seven years old ... I have fell in love with books and my fascination has become reading and knowledge. Throughout these years I have developed a unique and particular passion for history. The study of the my great ancestors the proud Highlanders of Ararat-Armenia since times immemorial has become my foremost interest
we need to understand that this guy is on a mission. He makes it his life's task to imprint his version of human history on the internet. This makes it extremely unlikely that our incredibly motivated Wikipedia troll is anyone else but GN himself. He started out when he was seven. He apparently passed 17 before or around 1997, which would make him 23 in 2003 and 29 today.
This means, of course, that if this man is aged close to 30 now and still has his head stuck all the way in ethnic nationalist fantasy, this is a chronic condition and won't go away anytime soon. We'll just have to deal with our Armenia articles being under attack for as long as the man has internet access. I am able to locate Gevork's " close blood relative and next of kin" on facebook, confirming the "about 30" hypothesis. -- dab (𒁳) 12:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
hm, upon further investigation, I find Nareklm ( talk · contribs), apparently a mate of Gevork's, originally from Boston, but it seems now also hailing from Los Angeles. Narek is "17" at myspace, and he writes articles about Gevork and about " Armenism" at armeniapedia.org. Also eloquently comments at youtube. -- dab (𒁳) 13:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
you are right, I keep forgetting Til Eulenspiegel is Codex Sinaiticus. Under both incarnations, this user wasted prodigious amounts of my time, and the time of other editors.
As for ClovisPt's comment: Gevork (Ararat arev) has seen it fit to troll Wikipedia more than two years. He has his own long term abuse subpage. He has created hundreds of socks. Yes, I believe it is justified to try and take measures that addresses the problem at the root. If highschool kids post "penis" on articles, we don't hesitate to notify their schools in the hope they take disciplinary measures. Gevork has caused more disruption than entire legions of pubescent teenagers. He is banned from writing access to this website, and he is trying to circumvent this ban. If establishing his real-world identity can be used to prevent him from doing further damage, we should by all means try to establish it. -- dab (𒁳) 10:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Those interested in this subject might want to see the articles and categories being created by Tiramisoo ( talk · contribs). dougweller ( talk) 14:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Rigveda under attack by incoherent/confused Arya Samaj adherent. -- dab (𒁳) 19:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Quantum aetherdynamics is a new article created by User:PhysicsExplorer. Needs attention. Vsmith ( talk) 01:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Seems to vouch for the effectiveness of these products and stuff like that, more than is justified by scientific/regulatory opinion. All checking and WP:NPOV appreciated. Sticky Parkin 23:05, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
How and when is discussion on a particular article deleted out of this board? It seems to me that the editors particularly knowledgeable on this subject helped fixing the title of the article. However, none of them has challenged it, and on the contrary the discussion in the talk page of the article lends to its credibility. -- Gciriani ( talk) 12:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Two editors, of whom I know one to be a Neopagan, have repeatedly removed the information that no archaeological remains of Temple at Uppsala as described by Adam of Bremen have been found. One of them commented in the edit summary: churches on top of pagan sites are everywhere in Scand. diff This might be a popular folk historiography in Scandinavia, or a belief hold by many Neopagans, but actually, the situation is more complex and in this case nothing that resembles the temple as described by Adam of Bremen has been found by archaeologists. The sources I used for this issue are definite, see my comments at Talk:Christianization of Scandinavia and they are highly reputable. Now the two editors are bringing in wp:NPOV, but so far they have refused to state which sources actually say that archaeological remains have been found. Zara1709 ( talk) 16:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
this discussion isn't really appropriate here. This is a regular editing dispute, and I am sure there can be a reasonable agreement if both sides take a step back, and show willingness to charitable reading of the other side's points. This is an example of a potentially fruitful dispute, the kind that tends to result in improved articles (as opposed to the "disputes" which are really a mere waste of time spent on editors who don't have a point to begin with). -- dab (𒁳) 09:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
There is yet another attempt to get Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories renamed to something more congenial to the birthers (you can't say these people aren't persistent). Discussion is ongoing at Talk:Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories and there is a related thread at WP:AN/I#Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. -- ChrisO ( talk) 20:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
created by Knightguild ( talk · contribs). I've already tried to clean it of the most egregious viking fantasies, but maybe someone wants to take a look. -- dab (𒁳) 10:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor is modifying Royal Rife extensively in order to add in weasel words. FDor instance, "The limitations of optical microscopes and the size of viruses are such that most viruses cannot be seen under an optical microscope." - the sourced fact which basically means that the claims cannot be true under well-accepted scientific theories - becomes "The limitations of optical microscopes and the size of viruses are such that most viruses cannot be seen under a standard optical microscope." - A direct violation of the source. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 16:06, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
BLP of writer on life extension and related things. I wonder if it needs to be stubified still further? Would be grateful for any further opinions. Itsmejudith ( talk) 22:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
The subject of this article has written a book claiming that Jesus was Julius Caesar (same initials, proof positive). It's being edited by an IP that may have a COI and certainly has a POV. I've removed some of the wilder claims but they are beginning to come back (eg the claim that he's a linguist - so far as I can see, and I don't know that it is even definite, all he did was studying linguistics among other subjects, he's an industrial engineer). Eyes would help. It's hard to find useful sources (it would be nice to use this one [30] giving Carotta " the Screaming Lord Sutch Memorial Award for such a complete load of garbage that it beggars belief, let alone how on earth it got printed", but it's a blog). Thanks. dougweller ( talk) 12:33, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Now, die tageszeitung is know for its satires, and it's quite probable that they would use thesis like this one as pretext for some Realsatire. "Jesus hat nie wirklich existiert" (Jesus didn't really exist) is a headline that fits die tageszeitung quite well. On the other hand, especially 4) looks promising if we want write a Wikipedia article. "Der schöpferische Umgang mit der Wahrheit war schon immer kulturstiftend" (The creative approach to truth has always been formative for culture.) Zara1709 ( talk) 14:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
({outdent)The German version says "In Deutschland erwarb er einen Abschluss als staatlich geprüfter Dolmetscher und Übersetzer. In Germany, he earned a degree as a certified interpreter and translator." So clearly not a linguist which generally means a specialist in linguistics. The German article also says "Carottas hypothesis is not scientifically recognized. Die Leben-Jesu-Forschung beachtet die Publikation nicht, mehrere Rezensenten in Tageszeitungen sahen darin eine „Wissenschaftsparodie" [1] [2] und der niederländische Historiker Anton van Hooff bezeichnet sie gar als Pseudowissenschaft [3] . The life of Jesus research is not respected the publication, several reviewers in newspapers saw it as a "parody of science" [1] [2] and the Dutch historian Anton van Hooff described even as pseudo-science [3]." The sources being
↑ "JESUS-JULIUS" - Arno Widman in the Berliner Zeitung
↑ „Ein Stück Welträtsellösung“ - Albert Sellner in der Badischen Zeitung (wiedergegeben bei Carotta mit Anmerkung) ↑ "A piece of the puzzle solving world" - Albert Sellner in the Badische Zeitung (reproduced in Carotta with Note)
↑ Anton van Hooff auf skepsis.nl zu Carottas Buch (niederländisch) ↑ Anton van Hooff skepsis.nl on to book Carottas (Dutch).
I guess these need to be added as well. dougweller ( talk) 16:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Widman says that "literature about Jesus is full of cranky things" and Carotta's book is one of the finest pieces of crankery (Verrücktheiten) to appear in the year 2000. Carotta proceeds "with admirable lack of shame and the boldness of a fanatic" (mit bewunderswerter Schamlosigkeit und mit der Verwegenheit eines Fanatikers). He describes Carotta's comparative method as "horrendous nonsense" (horrender Blödsinn). He regards the whole thing as a parody of scholarship and thinks it a pity Carotta never managed to publish his "wonderful joke" with an academic press (Schade, dass es Carotta nicht geglückt ist, diesen wunderbaren Jux in einem Wissenschaftsverlag unterzubringen). -- Folantin ( talk) 17:05, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
There has recently been a debate on the inclusion of the Expanding Earth hypothesis in four articles, Talk:Expanding Earth, Talk:Ganymede (moon), Talk:Mantle (geology), and Talk:Subduction. I was advised to initiate a request for comment, which is at Talk:Expanding Earth#Request for Comment: Expanding Earth and Plate Tectonics. Any comments there would be appreciated - thanks. Awickert ( talk) 05:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Over 2 years ago I started to clean up the mess that was previously known as Nazi mysticism. The fringe theories that exists about the topic of the religious aspects of Nazism are themselves notable; they even have an own name, which is Nazi occultism. Since the pseudo- or rather cryptohistoric theories about are themselves notable, I didn't remove them completely, but created a specific article for them. I probably shouldn't have done that. You know how fringe advocates are ( Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia cannot claim the earth is not flat): Give them a little finger and they'll try to chew off your hand. It appears as if I have stopped one particular editor from removing the sentences: "The recurring motif of this literary genre [Nazi occultism] is the thesis that the Nazis were directed by occult agencies of some sort: black forces, invisible hierarchies, unknown superiors, secret societies or even Satan directly. Since such an agency "has remained concealed to previous historians of National Socialism," they have dismissed the topic as modern cryptohistory." , ( diff) but they still appear of wanting to give me a NPOV dispute. ( diff) I will see to that, but currently I don't know if arguments will actually be useful in the debate; probably they will not, and then I would appreciate it, If some more editors, probably some who are familiar with the preceding state of affairs in the article Nazi mysticism, could take a look at the article and the discussion. Zara1709 ( talk) 11:07, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
This is neither a correct characterization of my edit (I kept nearly all of the content of the sentence Zara1709 says was deleted, moved it to the top of the page, and removed biased wording), nor particularly keeping in good faith or civility.There is an aggressive censorship of the Nazi occultism page occurring, and I am not sure what the motivation is. I don't even think the broad topic of Nazism's myriad connections with occult issues belongs here in fringe theories. Even Zara1709 has admitted to real occult connections (see talk:Nazi occultism): "Admittedly, there were some occultists who worked for the SS..." and "what there is to say on the real relation between Nazism and Occultism is said (or is to be said) in the article Religious aspects of Nazism, where we currently have a section on Occultists working for the SS." Simply because relations between Nazism and Occultism have been covered in Religious aspects of Nazism does not mean they should not be covered in a page called Nazi occultism. To censor anything on the Nazi occultism page by that logic seems to me to be a clear violation of the POV rule against content forking. If this one author Goodrick-Clarke that Zara1709 adores defines "nazi occultism" as having only to do with fringe theories about demonic possession of Hitler, then he defines the phrase too narrowly (that's not why I originally came to the page for information, for instance), and consequently shouldn't be the only source for defining nazi occultism. Presumably a page on Nazi occultism should, for instance, discuss Nazi occultists, even if that means overlap with the page on Religious aspects of Nazism. I do not appreciate the disparaging comments or the consistent unilateral censorship by Zara1709, and will seek further means of dispute resolution if such activity continues. Somebody, please do look at the talk page and see if any of the several editors flagging for neutrality have done anything that deserves to be characterized as "trying to chew off your hand." Zara1709 may be giving me a finger, but I don't think it's the little one... Parallaxvision ( talk) 23:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I've recently taken part in discussion about the "Nazi occultism" page, and have questioned the way the page has been edited by Zara1709. Does that make me a "fringe advocate"? I don't know.
Anyway, I agree with much of what is said above by Parallaxvision. However, the point about Goodrick-Clarke needs a little clarification. It is the often-stated notion of Zara1709 that the words "Nazi occultism" are simply the name of a bunch of fringe theories. On this basis, Zara has made the WP article "Nazi occultism" an article that isn't about Nazi history as such, but is rather a highly critical review of works Zara considers to be "fringe". Zara has defended this approach by referring to the eminence of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, who is indeed an important mainstream historian.
The thing is, though, that Goodrick-Clarke actually does not define "nazi occultism" as having only to do with fringe theories. Goodrick-Clarke does indeed criticise much of the early literature on the topic. As he puts it: "Books written about Nazi occultism between 1960 and 1975 were typically sensational and under-researched." (Goodrick-Clarke, N.; Occult Roots of Nazism; New York Uni Press, 1992; pp 224-225, emphasis added) But he goes on to say that those early books, with all their faults, attracted the attention of "serious authors" to "an exciting field". Goodrick-Clarke expresses particular appreciation for James Webb's 1976 book The Occult Establishment, which Goodrick-Clarke says "rescued the study of Nazi occultism for the history of ideas". (Goodrick-Clarke, N.; Occult Roots of Nazism; New York Uni Press, 1992; p225)
Where then is the justification for treating "Nazi occultism" as simply a fringe topic? Kalidasa 777 ( talk) 08:21, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Seems to me there are several distinct issues here, which need to be disentangled.
1. The overall scope of the article, its subject matter. On one hand, we have the view expressed by Parallaxvision: "Presumably a page on Nazi occultism should, for instance, discuss Nazi occultists, even if that means overlap with the page on Religious aspects of Nazism." On the other hand, there is Zara's position, expressed in the current intro "Nazi occultism is any of several highly speculative theories about Nazism… The actual religious aspects of Nazism, including the question of its potential occult and pagan aspects, are a different topic."
2. What sources to use? Zara has energetically defended his/her reliance on the work of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, on the grounds that Goodrick-Clarke is one of the few respected mainstream historians writing in this area.
3. Exactly how sources are to be used. Is it appropriate to base an article on some of the statements made by Goodrick-Clarke, while disregarding other statements on the same topic by the same author as an "exception"?
On point 1, I agree with Parallaxvision. Like him/her, I initially visited the page "Nazi occultism" expecting to find a discussion of the historical relation between Nazism and occultism. I was very surprised to be told that that "potential occult... aspects" of Nazism were "a different topic".
On point 2, I agree with Zara to the extent that well-researched works, including Goodrick-Clarke's book, should be given more weight than more popular and speculative writings.
On point 3, it seems to me that if Goodrick-Clarke is such an important source, then the aim should be to take seriously everything he says about the topics we are discussing. Not just the bits we happen to like, or the bits we find "extraordinarily plain".
This is, or should be, a serious discussion about serious questions. However, the level of discussion is brought down when someone resorts to tactics like taking down the pov tag, when the neutrality of the article has clearly been questioned and the discussion about it has not been resolved. Kalidasa 777 ( talk) 00:24, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
This might be an illustrative case for those committed to the cause of wikipedia. I am a new editor and already I am tired of it. I spent a considerable amount of time sincerely trying to make a page more complete (I'm not really committed one way or the other on the substantive argument Zara1709 wants to engage in, I just wanted to put more useful information on a page I think is lacking). In return, all I got was some uncivil commentary from the person who created this page, who appears to feel too much ownership over it, and a retraction of absolutely everything that I added to the page. I was accused of being a single-purpose account, simply because I'm new to this, told I don't understand neutrality, although I read and cited from the page thoroughly in making a complaint that I am not the first to make, and called a "fringe advocate" simply because I thought it might make sense to include information about Nazi occultists on a page called "Nazi occultism." I promised to add more to the page, and tried to make good on that promise, but since it doesn't appear my additions are welcome here, I can't see what the point would be in trying to add any more. I also promised to follow through on dispute resolution if unfair behavior continued, but I'm not interested in engaging in that sort of activity with a reactionary denialist. I already know what sort of ugly roads it will lead down. I get the sense Zara1709 would support burning all books about Nazi occultism not written by Goodrick-Clarke. He/She certainly doesn't want anyone to try reading any of them for subversive ideas. Yes, I've crossed the line of civility, but anyone who reads my previous posts will see I really did try to act in good faith. Now I'm fed up.
On a side note, I was trying to recall where I had heard Zara1709's derogatory comment about me before ("You know how fringe advocates are, Give them a little finger and they'll try to chew off your hand.") Then I saw The Pianist again tonight, and there it was: A Nazi soldier says it to Wladyslaw Szpilman about Jewish people. Something to think about...
Farewell wikipedia editing community. It was a short run, but certainly illuminating. Remember all, try not to bite the newcomers... Parallaxvision ( talk) 06:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me that
Nazi occultism amounts to a POV fork from
Esotericism in Germany and Austria.
Malcolm Schosha (
talk) 13:16, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Last I looked, this article had a blanket, unqualified and unsourced statement claiming that herbal remedies were effective. Keep some eyes on this, lads. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 06:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
This may be a question that is too subject specific for this noticeboard, but .... the Society of St. Pius X is a conservative Catholic group (some would call them ultra-conservative). The question is whether we can place them in the Fringe category, or whether we should consider them as a mainstream group with a minority viewpoint. Blueboar ( talk) 15:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I have just come across Biblical cosmology, which has me rather puzzled. It starts out by saying: The various authors of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) provide sporadic glimpses of their insight regarding astronomy and cosmology. These glimpses may be stitched together to form a Biblical impression of the physical universe.
It is the "stitched together" that worries me, particularly because no secondary sources are cited, aside from a link to what appears to be an unpublished work by Jim Siebold. It is possible that the article is taken from a published book, or essay, but no credit is given. Or, it could be very nicely written original research, and represent a fringe POV. Anyone have some thoughts on the subject? (I see that Early world maps -- another interesting article with little in the way of secondary sourcing -- also links to Jim Siebold as a source.) Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 14:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
The heavy use of outdated sources in religion articles is sometimes a sign of the earlier days of Wikipedia, when many articles were built using public domain texts. However, this is less and less true as the project matures and such usage is often a red flag indicating fringe POV pushing. Many editors rely on those public domain texts because they take strong issue with modern scholarship on religious topics. Context and the particular source are important to note. If someone is using New Advent as a source of traditional histories, that's probably on the up and up. If someone is using New Advent to assert claims about early Christian history without qualification, it's likely to be a fringe POV push (but could be simple ignorance of source evaluation and/or our content principles). -- Vassyana ( talk) 11:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I have noticed that Hebrew astronomy is a closely related article, but rather different in content. That one seems to be based on the Jewish Encyclopedia. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 11:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I've just done a bit of cleanup here, but I don't think it will last and the article needs help anyway. A fringe astrologer (I mean fringe of fringe of course) named Mardyks is being pushed in this and other articles, eg Maya calendar. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 21:04, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
My watchlist told me that Panentheism had been added to Category: Religious naturalism. Looking at the parent article of this, I see possible big problems. I do not have the time to examine it in any detail, but a cursory glance suggests that it is someone's pet, either OR or something fringey. I am inclined to pull panentheism out of its category because typically it has nothing to do with any naturalism, but I would suggest that people with more time and perhaps expertise than I take a look at the whole thing. Mangoe ( talk) 03:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Newly created article with a major COI, I'd like advice as to whether this should go immediately to the COI noticeboard, and eyes on the article. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 08:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Until recently, various deities and practices relating to Lusitanian mythology were listed with spurious attributes apparently created by modern neo-Pagans, not backed up in any way by real evidence that can be found. Some of us have been trying to give the pages of various deities a more solid basis, but the neo-Pagans have returned, resulting in edit wars and potential edit wars with various anonymous IP addresses (all belonging to the same ISP...) reverting changes they don't like. The deity Trebaruna is an example of this descending into an edit war. The "other side" in the edit war seems to refuse to discuss the matter on the talk pages. Is it possible some or all pages could be blocked from anonymous editing until the matter is resolved? Paul S ( talk) 18:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I just came across this page and have removed some of the more troubling unsourced claims, but I expect they will be returned in no short order. If some people would like to have a read and try to NPOV, copyedit, trim and unfringe this article as much as possible, well that would be just swell. Verbal chat 15:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
This AfD may end up being decided on straight WP:N grounds, but the discussion contains some tidbits that may be of interest to readers of this board. -- Arxiloxos ( talk) 21:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Wow. "But one can safely assume that the so-called Mount Meru or Sumeru might have been several thousands of miles in height, and therefore not located in our earthly realm, but possibly in another part of the Universealtogether, as according to recent research done by Vedic Scholars like Dr. Richard L Thompson." - Thompson being one half of Cremo and Thompson who wrote Forbidden Archeology, a collection of some amazing nonsense. I may not have time to day to work on this - there may be just one editor involved in these weird edits. Dougweller ( talk) 05:37, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I recently removed a claim from this article that homeopathy is 100% effective in treating this condition (in two people). Is there a clever way to search out claims like this, or do we have to keep an eye on all medical conditions? Verbal chat 08:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I've searched for "homeopathic", and flagged up some articles for further investigation:
Worst of the worst:
There's 681 results, this is about the first 200 checked. I'll continue going through these tomorrow.
Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 01:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
This article really needs some work. I've tagged it in a way I think appropriate, but does anyone know anything about this topic? Thanks, Verbal chat 09:12, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Homeopathy is now up at FAC. I'd appreciate any and all help during what's likely to be a somewhat trying candidacy. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:50, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Since 2007, when I last looked at it, the article on RSI seems to have been hijacked by a small group of people very strongly pushing the hypotheses of one Dr. Sarno, who is of the opinion that RSI is psychosomatic. Whilst perhaps not that unreasonable, it is definitely not the mainstream medical opinion; which the John E. Sarno article makes clear ("[it] is not recognized by mainstream medical science") -- but large chunks of the RSI article present it as if it were fact, flatly asserting that all traditional treatments are palliative.
There hasn't been that extensive a discussion on the talk page about this, since the threads from 2009 (last two sections) both unanimously agree that the article is unscientific and unbalanced; the advocates of Dr. Sarno are apparently happy to ignore the talk page and use their tenacity to keep their preferred version of the article. There was some argument back in 2007, but it wasn't exactly high quality (e.g. "I don't understand why you would wish to deprive suffering patients of perhaps the most successful treatment out there for RSI. ... What is your agenda against Dr. Sarno?")
I'm not a doctor, and will be unable to access WP for a while after tomorrow; so I thought I should bring this to the fringe noticeboard's attention. -- simxp ( talk) 22:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
A lengthy rebuttal of a bit of nonsense about John Randolph supposedly being a Muslim which briefly escaped into the real media, it simply serves to draw attention to the notion. It's headed for WP:AFD as soon as I can suck the good stuff out of it and merge it back into the main article. Mangoe ( talk) 16:08, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
This Special:Contributions/Ibrahim4048 ingle purpose account has introduced the word "alleged" before the words Armenian Genocide on the Mehmed Talat article [36]. This gives undue weight to this fringe theory. And according to line 2, Often, such theories are promoted in order to promote a particular point of view, which violates our rules on neutrality. -- Kansas Bear ( talk) 01:23, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Editors are repeatedly trying to add a link to a Youtube video from a Israeli TV show where Meir Schneider makes the fantastical claim that his blindness was fixed via the Bates method, a video that basically allows Meir Schneider to parrot his claims without any critical discussion of the claims made nor any evidence or information provided for the reader to draw their own conclusions. There is a discussion here Talk:Bates method/Archive 14#Meir Schneider yet again: RFC Nil Einne ( talk) 17:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
It appears that I have wondered into an edit war with a fervent proponent of the polio vaccine hypothesis who aims to remove references to studies and reviews that discredit his stance. Could someone please intervene with a third opinion or an explanation of WP:3RR to the other party. I'd rather refrain from issuing warnings which may only inflame the situation. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 06:02, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Armenian patriots heroically defending their sacred WP:TRUTH against academic references at Moses of Chorene. -- dab (𒁳) 06:58, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
This article, about a proponent of a variety of classic woowoo claims (reincarnation, NDE, etc.), has an editor that will not let cited and reliably sourced skeptical views be presented and seems to want the overwhelming tone of the article to be supportive of the subject's fringe beliefs, and also removes the tag pointing out that an editor believes the article violates NPOV policy. DreamGuy ( talk) 23:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Lots of woowoo beliefs have appeared in some academic presses occasionally and have appeared in plenty of secondary resources. The problem that Mitsube and Unomi here are clearly ignoring is that per our policies and the results of the fringe ArbCom case we have to give the most attention to the mainstream scientific views on the topic, and that's certainly and overwhelmingly obvious in this case, even if we have some editors trying to wikilawyer their way into turning policy on its head. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:43, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Or, for those who need it spelled out: recalling past lives, for example, is not the prevailing scientific view, so the article cannot present it as if it were. Right now the fringe view not only has WP:UNDUE weight, it has crushing overwhelming weight with only a token attempt at even admitting any other views exist. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
I've stumbled into a rather worrying set of articles about a type of therapy and the people associated with it:
At first sight it all looks nice and academic: they have their own institute, which publishes a journal called Human Givens with tons of articles that show up in Google Scholar. But the scary thing is that they are almost completely unknown outside their own community. I can't find any high-quality independent references -- pretty much the only independent account I've found is this one, which doesn't encourage confidence. I'm inclined to think that all of these articles should be deleted on the basis of lack of valid sources (they are certainly notable, that's not an issue), but thought I should bring it here first for other reactions. Looie496 ( talk) 03:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Spouts nonsense of the utterly surreal sort. We either need a kind soul to babysit this account, or a brave soul putting it out of its misery. I am sort of neither kind nor brave enough for this. -- dab (𒁳) 15:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
seems to have given up for now. RFC is a waste of effort in these cases. People too confused for a basic coherent conversation cannot meaningfully be considered editors in good standing. The solution is rollback, ignore, and after a reasonable number of warnings, block. -- dab (𒁳) 08:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
The articles contained in Category:Tibetan martial arts share a number of problematic characteristics: they're largely unreferenced (or referenced only with web links to dojos purporting to teach these 'arts'), they make nebulous claims of ancient, Tibetan lineage, and many of them read like advertising materials for the art in question. Is there anyone here who has any experience with these specific traditions, or reliable sources for working with them? I've never seen mention of any of these traditions in sources dealing more generally with Tibet or Tibetan religious traditions (including Tibetan medicine), and I'm concerned that Wikipedia may be being used to propagate some dubious claims for commercial purposes. The claim, for instance, that this guy holding an orb of light is the direct heir to an ancient Tibetan martial arts tradition, taught only in Russia, that was secretly taught to Stalin's bodyguards sounds like an attempt to give a boring Westerner an exotic pedigree -- Clay Collier ( talk) 09:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I've now listed Qi Dao on AfD here.-- Salix ( talk): 07:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
The Assyrianists are out in force, presently a "majority" over Arameanists and "consensus" to impose their version of reality seems within reach. Nobody is interested in dealing with this, and the topic is left to the angry young men with an agenda. This troublespot is not exactly a glorious demonstration of how Wikipedia's principles work even when under attack. If we let this pass, the message to the Arameanists is, come back with fifty meat-puppets and impose a counter-"consensus" of your own. WP:BATTLEGROUND. -- dab (𒁳) 08:37, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I know. The sad thing is, there is no "common English language usage". Common English usage may have been Assyrian back in the 1910s or so, but it is impossible to find any stable consensus after WWII. Which is why the US census authorities, after careful deliberation I am sure, came up with the contorted "Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac", which as far as I am concerned is the best we have in term of contemporary authoritative English language usage. -- dab (𒁳) 08:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
There is currently an open Request for Comment that has attracted very little (read: me) outside attention regarding how Acupuncture should be cited and treated at that article. The background material is long and acrimonious, but somewhat less so after I {{ hat}}ed a fair bit of off-topic commentary from involved editors. That discussion could certainly use a couple fresh perspectives. I have included a summary of my understanding of the basic options presented, which might help people who do not feel like slogging through that morass. - Eldereft ( cont.) 20:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
This is by fringe writer John Grigsby. Grigsby wrote a book with Hancock & Bauval, and an article about his book on Lindow Man (which was used as a citation in various articles) is on Hancock's site [40]. His books are published by fringe publishers Watkins and Adventures Unlimited. I can find very little on them, no scholarly references to them, etc. If anyone can help with B&W or the author's article, it would be useful. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 13:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Earlier today I came across the Vastu Shastra, which is I think a not bad article on the subject, although it does not cite sources. I did some editing to improve the lead.
What I am curious about is, because the lead contained the word 'science' ("Vastu is the science of direction that combines all the five elements of nature and balance them with the man and the material."), Sifaka jumped in and removed that. I had not changed that because it seemed pretty clear to me that word did not make any claim of scientific method, but rather just to the wider use of of the word science as "In its broadest sense, science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") refers to any systematic knowledge or practice."
Is there is any WP accepted standard for the use of the word science in articles? There is, I think, nothing fringe about the Vastu Shastra article. It just describes a tradition of Indian geomancy in fairly objective terms. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 22:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
"science" is here simply used as an English translation of shastra. This should be made clear as a point of terminology. Details should be discussed at the shastra article. The article is horrible in lots of other respects though. -- dab (𒁳) 12:24, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
the really dubious article here is Environmental metaphysics. I am not sure it should even be there. -- dab (𒁳) 05:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Can someone have a look at this? It's getting awfully advertise-y, and I'm worried that there may be cherrypicking of weak studies. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 18:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Note: this was moved from the talk page. -- Rocksanddirt ( talk) 17:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Hello,
I have already posed my question to two wikipedians, and both have told me to ask my question here because it is the place I most likely would get the right answers:
I'm a new member on Wikipedia, and think I have run into a problem, well maybe not a real problem, but a new stituation I am not used to. I have stumbeled recently on some pages named " Science and the Bible", " Scientific foreknowledge in sacred texts" and eventually " Qur'an and Science". As far as I can see all three articles suffer from problems. While "Science and the Bible" is honestly trying to maintain an objective outlook on Science in the Bible, the other two articles are increasingly fraught with what I consider pseudoscientific positions without accurately [and unmistakably] identifying them as such. The last article is the most problematic, because it has the neutral title "Qur'an and Science" without - in my opinion - covering the topic in a neutral fashion.
I tried to improve on the last article, and have run into my first conflict on wikipedia. My - sourced - and in my opinion relevant and counterbalancing content was removed a few times by another editor, with hardly mentioning any reasons and not by any means satisfactory reasons (to me). I want to refrain from getting snarky and don't wan't to get into an edit war. This is *not* meant as a request for mediation, I just want to hear an independent opinion and some hints on that matter from a persons that has experience with such problems.
What should I do about the issue?
Best regards, Larkusix ( talk) 17:21, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
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Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science seems to contain some rulings that may be of interest to those watching this page. Regards, ClovisPt ( talk) 01:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
the mountain has given birth to another mouse :) at least they didn't cause too much damage this time, as far as I can see. Unless you want to count rewarding classic wikilawyering in the form of "In the past, SA has lobbed death threats, which are explicitly forbidden under policy." in reference for the precise case described under "principle 7", "continuous goading of specific editors in order to exhaust their patience and induce them to lash out in an uncivil manner". Seriously, arbcom isn't fit to deal with the dynamics of fringecruft pushing. It will work as a simple timesink in the best of cases. Arbcom should be routed around whenever possible. -- dab (𒁳) 17:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I like the recognition that advocacy is disruptive regardless of whether it is promoting or suppressing fringe material. Wikipedia would benefit from a less polarised approach, whereby verifiable information about notable fringe material is sought out and described faithfully regardless of how it compares to our personal opinions, and material is only removed because it fails to meet policies and guidelines, not because it challenges our beliefs. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 01:38, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
DoDaCanaDa ( talk · contribs) has stated he is Ray Joseph Cormier, a "self-styled prophet." He states part of his user name is "Cana, is from the Marriage Feast at Cana when Jesus began his Public Life by turning water into wine described in John II." DoDaCanaDa has inserted the "fact" that Jesus began his "Public Ministry" at Cana. This is unsupported by references at this time.
More eyes on this users contributions would be useful, I think. Some theologically mainstream individuals would be useful at the Cana article. Any help would be appreciated. Hipocrite ( talk) 22:43, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm contemplating a move of the satanic ritual abuse page to satanic ritual abuse moral panic; the latter title accurately reflects the current view of the scholarly majority in my mind, with several scholarly books on the topic. If anyone is interested in giving an opinion, I wouldn't mind it. Right now it's me and one other editor, both of us have strong, diametrically opposed opinions on the matter. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 14:04, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
It would seem like a better title would be the more simple Satanic ritual abuse panic; I don't see the need for using the term "moral". This title accurately reflects the baseless accusations during a 20 year period and it happened in many states. Most, if not all, were proved to be nothing. Keeping the title as is may be seen as adding weight or credibility to the claims made during this period. Using the term panic puts the events in context. We are dealing with an area that is very gray; certainly it is not an area of black and white. -- Storm Rider 09:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Tom Van Flandern ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Recently deceased pseudoscientist. I just ran through the article with a comb removing all the WP:PSTS violations. We need someone to keep going and find out what the guy was most notable for. I'm thinking it's probably faster than light and Face on Mars. Everything else is just a bit too obscure and not really noticed.
In any case, the article was/is obviously being monitered by his supporters and I don't want to be disrespectful to the recently deceased, but we could use some people here watchlisting it and doing a little research and adding some third-party independent sources.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 03:51, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree this needs to be monitored. This is a biography about my father, an astronomer with a PhD from Yale who admitedly had unconventional thories, but had countless papers published in peer reviewed journals. His biography is now dominated by a malicious detractor at IP address 63.24.xxx.xxx. If Tom Van Flandern were alive these posts would be libelous. Please monitor this biography, steer back to NPOV and insist on citations. I'd rather the biography be deleted than owned by this single user. Thank you -MikeVF
Golden Plates ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) seems to be under the watchful eye of a few editors who, if not actual LDS members themselves, do seem somewhat overly sympathetic to the Mormon point of view regarding the authenticity (or even mere existence) of the plates. Rather than go into wall-of-text land trying to describe the reasons for my concern, I'd suggest any interested eyes give the article a look-see and decide the merits of this post for themselves. While the discussion on the talk page is still in the early stages, more eyes would be better sooner rather than later. Thanks! Badger Drink ( talk) 00:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
This is the kind of BS that makes editing so distasteful. I particularly enjoy the way Fyslee cheery picks the statements to twist reality. He starts off by telling me that, "If Storm Rider wishes all LDS articles to look odd, so be it. It only serves to strengthen the impression of what many see as an odd sect, a reputation one would think members and editors would seek to change." (See here for the full conversation.)
I don't belong to an odd sect and never have. Why on earth does an editor bring up religious affiliation? What does it have to do with the topic at hand? Absolutely nothing. Further, who set Fyslee up as the arbiter of what is odd and what is not in the world of religion or even Wikipedia for that matter? What this editor fails to understand or admit is that odd is in the eyes of the beholder. What is odd to him is normal to me. In this instance, flowing text looks better TO ME; he obviously has a different opinion. Great, that is what makes the world go round.
Having this type of drive by, Nazi-style, inflexible editing, POV enforcement is the bane of editing. The object here is that no editor should ever act as if they are the sole source of what is right or correct. Further, no editor has the right to demean the religious affiliations of any other editor. Then to complain that an editor has not rolled over and played docile so they can continue their maniacal attempt to exert control is detestable. I reject it completely and would seek to stamp out this type of tyranny that a few of our editors display, and what is worse is that he is an bloody administrator. Use your common sense and realize there are few absolutes on Wikipedia! -- Storm Rider 21:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Since when is formatting a WP:Fringe issue? Artw ( talk) 08:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Another incident on the Ion Antonescu page. Eurocopter ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) claims that the article is POVed, and has tagged it for neutrality - I pointed out that the info, which could perhaps be rephrased, is compliant with the Wiesel Commission's report on the Holocaust in Romania - which is the view of mainstream historiography in Romania, and is the basis for legislation. While the article still needs a lot of sources, Eurocopter has stated his intention of replacing the info with quotes from an essayist with no scientific credentials who is often described, including by the Commission, as a "Holocaust revisionist" (see Talk:Ion Antonescu#NPOV and sources for sources on that). He considers the info in the article, sourced or unsourced, "communist propaganda-style facts and disinformation". Eurocopter's tags are designed around that, and reflect this intent of introducing questionable material - while the info is (partly) unsourced, or not clearly sourced, this is POV-pushing at its grandest. What I find especially worrying is a comment he made in relation to the Wiesel report as a source. Verbatim: "Regarding the so called Final report of the INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE HOLOCAUST IN ROMANIA, I doubt its accuracy considering that the president of the comission was a jew (they were certainly not neutral historians). Unfortunately, the official position of the Romanian state in the past 20 years has been in accordance with foreign interests and pressures." How should wikipedia relate to such POVs? Dahn ( talk) 00:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
This is not a question of Holocaust Denial generally, its a question of reporting a specific individual's level of complicity (in the context of a natural human tendency for the "victor" to look for scapegoats). The original wording of the section was rather POV and OR, but also there has been heavy reliance on one particular source. Direct references to the Commission Report on specific accusations would improve the credibility of the article. Perhaps there should also be a clear acknowledgement that very few "dictators" actually have a free hand to decide policy in war-time conditions - Antonescu was undoubtedly culpable, but you need very good sources to accuse somebody of direct personal responsibility. It will always be hard to find sources that are neutral about war crimes. Wdford ( talk) 14:26, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
In a country like Britain, a politician's survival depends on telling believable lies and making sure you can pin the blame on somebody else when those lies are uncovered. In a dictatorship, survival depends on giving your core cronies whatever they want whenever they want it, otherwise they turn on you and you die (usually horribly). When you have manipulated a bunch of racist murdering thugs to get into power, and then you make enemies of a racist murdering thug like Stalin, and you are dependent on a racist murdering thug like Hitler to protect you from Stalin, I guess you have to act like the meanest racist murdering m8therf8cker in the valley all day every day just to keep the rats away from your own throat. In such a situation, when the cronies wanted to murder third-party civilians then he was probably only too grateful they were murdering somebody other than him. When you swim with piranas, its only a matter of time before one of them bites off your *****! Wdford ( talk) 19:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
No you don't need to elaborate, what you need to do is add your extra material to the article. If you are aware of a different point of view then you don't delete or revert the work of others which you happen to dislike, you add your extra material so that all the significant viewpoints are represented. Reverting a viewpoint you disagree with, or deleting material that quotes a source you don't approve of, is also POV. If you have a reliable source that says Stoenescu is a liar then add that to the article, so readers can make up their own minds. If you have a reliable source that says Antonescu personally ordered a particular massacre, then add it to the article. You mentioned what looked like a lot of good material in the talk page comment above - add some of that to the article to make it better all round. However, please be careful about your accusations - "Holocaust revisionism" is a very serious accusation and needs to be carefully substantiated. Remember to assume good faith, unless you can actually prove otherwise. Wdford ( talk) 13:39, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Possible trouble brewing on this old favourite of racists and cranks. One editor has already made personal attacks in their edit summaries. If people could take a look that would be great. Verbal chat 17:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Usual is happening: Homeopathy violates basic scientific laws, but the homeopaths find a few remedies where a few poor studies say there's some weak evidence they work, and that remedy gains an article which emphasises the evidence and fails to mention that if the evidence were true, whole fields of science would have to be wrong. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 03:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor has moved the page Business Plot conspiracy theory to Business Plot. While a couple of editors are working to NPOV the page, it largely treats this fringe theory as truth, though no one contemporaneously or since has, other than a couple of less than reliable sources. More eyes are needed. THF ( talk) 14:27, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
NB that three editors are trying to include, in violation of WP:UNDUE, conspiracy theories by John Buchanan (American politician) in the article. Does anyone read this noticeboard? THF ( talk) 14:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor or editors from a couple IP addresses have been changing this article to present what appears to be a fringe conpiracy theory about the subject's death as if it were generally accepted, e.g., and adding in some unsourced and unexplained innuendo about other family members' deaths. I'd appreciate some help with dealing with it as I don't want to get into an edit war. Phil Bridger ( talk) 18:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I made a few edits. Seems OK and NPOV to me now. -- Gciriani ( talk) 02:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
This article seems to be lacking in scientific interpretation, and what there is currently may about to be removed (possibly for valid reasons). Perhaps people with an interest could take a look. All the best, Verbal chat 19:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
The history of this term is utterly fascinating and there are a few good book references in the first section of the article. In particular, the tremendous success in the 19th century on the part of electromagnetic theory in delivering seemingly magical technologies to the world inspired many in the spiritualism to essentially co-opt the terminology associated with these ideas. Interestingly, "energy" was not the only term that was co-opted. "Force", "field", "magnetism", and "electricity" were all also used to describe the magic associated with these particular kinds of spiritual beliefs. What is truly interesting is that the use of these terms began to fall out of favor after the scientific revolutions in the early twentieth century began discussing ideas such as "duality", "relativity", "virtual particles", and "uncertainty". The parallels between the development of quantum quackery and "spiritual energy" or "spiritual forces" are undeniable and probably should be explained in the article for completeness. Additionally, consider using the pseudoscience template for explanations of how the term "energy" is used in ways that are explicitly pseudoscientific. ScienceApologist ( talk) 17:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I have reported a band of tagteamers to arbcom: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#Please_enforce_the_pseudoscience_arbitration. You may want to join the discussion at Talk:Orthomolecular psychiatry and Talk:Orthomolecular medicine. I believe it is time for administrative intervention in these articles. Good editors can easily be scared off from improving articles while these kind of tactics are allowed to continue unchecked. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I suggest that, since a strawpoll and merge discussion has been started on the Talk:Orthomolecular medicine page that furtheer discussion happen there. Artw ( talk) 19:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm looking to either address the pastel-shaded boxes of the article or re-nominate for deletion. What I'm primarily seeking now is any mentioning in mainstream media. I mean, if you invent a perpetuum mobile you would try to do some public relations and bring it to the press' attention. Any hints?
Also the lack of reliable sources for his academic (non-)career is disturbing.
-- Pjacobi ( talk) 20:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
User:Ivan2007 aggressively promotes Mykhailo Hrushevskyi's nationalist view that Ukrainian statehood has been in continuous existence since at least 882 (rather than 1991, as our pages stated several days go). Please see his user page and some of the recentmost edits. [1] [2] [3] In his List of Ukrainian rulers the user includes Ateas of Scythia and Kubrat of Bulgaria, as if preparing to proclaim Scythia another predecessor state of Ukraine. [4] I believe his additions mislead our readers. It's just like copying the list of Balhae sovereigns to the List of Russian rulers just because it so happens that Balhae's territories lie within the modern borders of Russia. With Kubrat and Ateas this is especially problematic, since the former's capital was Phanagoria in modern Russia, and the latter's capital, Scythian Neapolis, did not become part of Ukraine until the late 1950s. Someone should keep an eye on such edits. -- Ghirla -трёп- 08:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I am trying to restore some balance and remove some of the adherents POV from the Golden plates article. Unfortunately I have come across a group of LDS-adherents who revert any such edit to the page. See my proposed changes to the lead here Talk:Golden plates#New lead paragraph and please comment and support NPOV (even if you disagree with my edits). Thanks, Verbal chat 16:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
The occasional crossing the border into canvassing is something I have mentioned on this noticeboard a number of times. The usual concerns are, as I see it, Campaigning [5] and particularly Votestacking [6]. I do not know if many users here agree with me, but when I see something that I think presents a possible problem with Canvassing, I mention it. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 17:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Because it is less transparent than on-wiki notifications, the use of email or other off-wiki communication to notify editors is discouraged unless there is a significant reason for not using talk page notifications. Depending on the specific circumstances, sending a notification to a group of editors by email may be looked at more negatively than sending the same message to the same group of people on their talk pages. [7]
To my mind, this article has the status of
Red Book of Westmarch. Meaning, it is obvious it is mythological, there is no reason to keep dwelling on the point. There are Tolkien geeks, and there are Smith geeks, think of it that way, and maybe you'll be more willing to cut them some slack. --
dab
(𒁳) 20:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes Dab, it is mythological. Just like those who actually think Jesus is the Son of God is a mythological belief system; that he really rose from the dead is the stuff of pure fantasy. That the pope is the actual Vicar of Christ is an invention of mankind. Those who think we can actually die and be reborn in an eternal journey to nirvana are following a pure imagination. Mythology takes on many masks developed by man to provide themselves an opiate to pacify the people. The issue is are we going to classify all religious topics as mythology or not? Or do we just classify all those religions foreign to our own POV/belief system as such? The problem for this type of mindset is that Wikipedia seeks to approach each topic in a neutral manner, without spin and without declaring what is true or false. We report experts (reliable references) and allow them to make declarative statements.
Campaigning and canvassing are not acceptable or appropriate in any edit on Wikipedia. You know as well as I that the tone of a edit makes it acceptable or not. -- Storm Rider 21:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
My impression is that this is a POV mess. An article on fortune-telling that seems devoted to promoting it. Not once is the word "fraud" used. Am I being too critiical, or is it as bad as I think? - Nunh-huh 11:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Opposition to water fluoridation ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
A particular user who is under sanction from WP:AE made a pretty dramatic series of edits at this article. [9]. Please look and see, especially at the section on "Potential health risks". I have also reported this behavior to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Pseudoscience Report (2). ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor is claiming that CSICOP is completely unreliable and is a propaganda group full of fraudsters and few scientists on the Ghost article. I think this needs a few eyes on it and comment from people more familiar with CSICOP. Thanks, Verbal chat 08:04, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Do you think that "controversial" = "fraudulent"? Do you think that CSICOP does not engage in 'ghostbusting'? Please give refs to support your case. Also state why CSICOP is above criticism from scientists? Is everything they say totally beyond criticism, by anybody? Do you think that everything they say is automatically true, even when scientists disagree with it? This is what the scientist Eynsenk said:
I quoted that view by Eynsenk on the Talk page of the article by the way. Whether or not I or any other editor agrees or disagrees with it is immaterial. Eynsenk said it, not me! Colin4C ( talk) 08:23, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
We have an article on the subject. Ghostbusters. ScienceApologist ( talk) 19:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Someone asked for my help on this, but I haven't had the energy to tackle an article so thoroughly screwed up. It's a page about a supposed psychic that was obviously written by a true believer. I have no idea if the person is even notable enough to have an article in the first place, but the article should not stay as it is. DreamGuy ( talk) 14:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Talk:List of psychic abilities#Query.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 04:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Additional brains are invited to review a lively dispute in progress here. One determined editor is staring down half a dozen (myself included) who don't accept metaphor as sufficient justification for adding a large body of somewhat POV content to this article. Cheers Bjenks ( talk) 09:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I suspect there may be a possible article about this writer, but this is just a puff piece. Any help in making this an encyclopedic article appreciated. Thanks. dougweller ( talk) 11:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
There are a few articles based on linguistic constructs that are not supported by linguistic or any other evidence. These articles make no actual claims that are pseudoscientific (fringe?), but by their very titles they presume unsupported conclusions.
The naming formats I've noticed are "X peoples" and "X mythology" or "-ies", where X is the name of a proposed language family. Such titles strongly imply—though the articles never actually state this—that there is a set of peoples or mythologies that corresponds to language family X, and which have something in common as peoples or mythologies. There is a scientific way to go about this: linguistic reconstruction. However, AFAIK, none of these articles—apart from the Indo-European stuff (much of which is quite good) and low-level groups like Tai—are about linguistic reconstruction or conclusions drawn from linguistics. Instead, they simply lump together a bunch of disparate peoples or mythologies as if they were known to have something in common. Granted, this is a common, if sloppy, phrasing found in popular and sometimes even academic literature, but generally the author is apparently parroting fancy-sounding terms without presenting any scientific justification for their use.
I've been deleted these articles where I can, except for low-level groups where I think it's possible that the relevant peoples are aware of their similarities, because the languages are so close that it should be obvious. (Even some of these may turn out to be spurious, since ethnicity very often does not follow language, but I'm saving my time for grandiose claims like 'Altaic mythology' and 'Sino-Tibetan peoples'.) However, I've been getting pushback at Finno-Ugric peoples. Now Finno-Ugric, as a language family, is part of a very well established Uralic family, though there is some question as to whether the Finnic and Ugric languages are closer to each other than the are to the third branch, the Samoyedic languages. If Finnic and Ugric turn out not to be a valid linguistic node together, do the Finno-Ugric peoples suddenly cease to exist? Like the way the dwarf planet Eris did not influence your horoscope until the very second that Mike Brown spotted it on his photographic plates, but in reverse? AFAIK, there are no known ethnic commonalities, no cultural, mythic, or genetic commonalities, that set these peoples, as a group, apart from their neighbors. The languages are so distant that a non-linguist is not likely to notice the similarities, even when presented with the data, and they were entirely unknown until philologists started working on these languages (prior to the establishment of Indo-European, actually). The things they do have in common, such as shamanism, are shared by many of their neighbors, and so do not define them as a group. Genetic studies have not found common genetic markers. (One genetic study recently added as a purported reference used the term "Finno-Ugric", but only dealt with a subset of Finnic, ignoring Ugric entirely, and admitted that any Finno-Ugric markers—if they are ever found—may end up being regional rather than actually corresponding to Finno-Ugric.) So what does "Finno-Ugric peoples" mean? The article leaves it undefined, except as the almost meaningless statement that FU peoples are peoples that speak FU lanugages, and my unsourced attempts at pointing out that they are nothing more than this have been reverted. (Currently just fact tagged, which is fine by me, until someone wants to delete it again.) Ethnicity is a cultural construct, and there are Finno-Ugric societies, so perhaps we're witnessing an ethnicity in the making. But that isn't the operating premise of the article.
I've heard historical and comparative linguists complain about historians, geneticists, and anthropologists reifying language families, and then drawing conclusions from them that are entirely unsupported by linguistic, historical, genetic, or cultural evidence. Like three migrations into the Americas, corresponding to Greenberg's three-way partitioning of Native American languages, which Americanist linguists believe to be entirely without justification. However, these articles don't even go that far, they just glomm peoples together, and as with much fringe usage, there is little in academic writing to counter their assumptions. kwami ( talk) 07:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Comment: It looks like what is going on in here is called 'anti Finno-Ugric sentiment' by Hungarian nationalists. But let the sources do the talking:
In Finland, as well as in Hungary, language history and language origins have always been acutely relevant to national identity in a way that they are not in, for example, Western Europe during the past fifty years...
In Hungary, conversely, nationalist ideologies have been mostly hostile to mainstream historical linguistics for positing a close connection between the Hungarians and the Khanty and Mansi hunters and fishermen of the Ob river in Siberia. Hungarian nationalists (for example, László Marácz, Hungarian Revival, Nieuwegein 1996) would rather envision prehistorical kinship with the Mongols, the Sumerians, the Uyghur of Western China, and other, more “prestigious” people.
According to László Marácz:
The discovery of these Finno-Ugric linguistic links was used as a psychological blow to the Hungarians whose pride and fighting spirit had always partly derived from the inspiration they had gained from their supposed Scythian origins.--
Termer (
talk) 09:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
there is no WP:DEADLINE and no need to WP:DEMOLISH anything. In case you're not familiar with the subjects but think that the articles could be improved. There is google books that gives 544 returns on Uralic peoples and 1,391 on Altaic peoples. So I know it's easier to delete the stuff but much more constructive would it be to get a book and improve the articles I think.-- Termer ( talk) 10:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Again UA (like objections to Altaic) is discredited only by hard core Hungarian nationalists a la László Marácz who'd wannabe related to Skythians and Sumerians, also Huns rather than mostly insignificant Finnic and Ugric peoples. Also , there are often racial aspects involved. For example some Finnish teens do not want to get associated with the Sami and keep reverting Finnic mythology into Finno-Ugric mythology [19] [20], just to make sure that the Sami wouldn't get associated with the term Finnic and hping to push the Sami over to the Ugric side. And then we have you who objects the idea that Hungarian mythology gets associated with Finnic and reverts it back to Finnic-mythology. [21]. The joke is in the fact that both Finnic mythology and Finno-Ugric Mythology are valid subjects. Exactly like Altaic peoples and Uralic peoples. So I don't have much to add, I'm going to restore the articles you have blanked and redirected as I get to it and as time permits and rewrite if necessary following WP:RS.-- Termer ( talk) 22:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Here is a good edit. I like to be positive sometimes. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't think calling it a pseudoscience in the opening sentence is a good edit. While it's obviously a pseudoscience, it's not a defining characteristic. It places undue weight on the scientific demarcation of a field that very often (especially historically) hasn't claimed any scientific status to call it a pseudoscience in the opening definition. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 23:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi, Recently I was found in violation of 3RR, I just started editing wikipedia a few days ago and found myself reverting deletions that I could not understand and that I received no clear explanation of. I must admit that at the time I felt harassed and annoyed over the fact that the other parties involved did not deal directly with what could be done to reach consensus merely taking turns reverting my edits. I am deeply sorry that I breached this vital aspect of wikipedia etiquette.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Aspartame_controversy#Latest_edits_by_keepcalm Shows how the 'revert war' started.
At the heart of this issue is that it seems to me that the information in GAO87 report - Food Additive Approval Process Followed for Aspartame is relevant to the article 'Aspartame Controversy' but whenever I added information from it, it would get deleted wholesale. When I asked for comments so that consensus could be reached the responses were brusque and seemingly displayed a lack of familiarity with the content of the GAO87. The GAO87 report is used throughout the article as a valid source of information. Surely using direct quotes and copying tables from it could not be construed as 'Original Research'.
That is pretty much it in a nutshell, the rest can be seen on the discussion page and in the edit logs.
Sorry for the trouble and thanks in advance for any advice that allows all our efforts to be constructive and fruitful. Unomi ( talk) 02:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Also could someone please interpret this for me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar#Removal_of_sourced_edits_made_in_a_neutral_narrative_is_disruptive As I understand it sourced edits do not necessitate 'consensus' assuming that the sources are valid. This is a separate issue but I would like clarification for the future. Unomi ( talk) 02:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
You have decidedly not answered my questions regarding the edits that you see unfit, the closest you came to that was today when you ventured that the GAO87 is a bad source, which honestly I think you need to reconsider, it is used extensively on the article we are talking about here as well as on the 'Aspertame' article, it is endorsed by the GAO and HHS, it is *the* document which outlines the approval process of aspertame. I found the 'relatively obscure' RfAr because it is linked to via the tendentious tag that you seem to like so much. Yes, I do know how to read. You and other editors kept saying simply NPOV without telling me what it was exactly that you considered NPOV. No, I can not read minds. I asked you repeatedly for elucidation but none has been forthcoming, instead it has now changed into
First, the report is 20 years old. Second, it is not a reliable source. Third, hundreds of studies that are reliable supersede the report. Fourth, you are attempting to give undue weight to an unreliable, outdated, and unscientific report.
Which could be construed as Original Research, can you show me sources that show that GAO87 is discredited? Can you point me to these 'hundreds of studies that supersede the report' - on the subject matter that I use it as source for? I am writing about the historical FACT of the existence of the GAO87 and its contribution to the 'Aspertame Controversy'. While you may find it disagreeable that 9 out of 43 (self proclaimed) aspartame researchers had 'Major Concerns;little if any confidence in aspertame's safety' that does not mean you or I can disagree with the fact that this report exists and is a major event in the timeline of 'Aspertame Controversy' No one is saying that it should be the 'only' questionnaire data from scientists, but we cannot take it out simply because we are waiting for something to 'balance' it. If you truly felt that the GAO87 was so problematic why haven't you moved to strike all entries that use it as source? The GAO87 is NOT a scientific report, it was never meant to be, it states that itself quite clearly. Its stated goal was to clarify the process by which the FDA approved aspartame and also sought to shed light on current(1987) research into aspartame and the scientific opinion of researchers in the field. Again I am sorry if I am 'taking up too much space' but it seems that no matter where I try to get reasoned answers I am met with some manner of wikistrictions. To all neutral editors, we need your help. Unomi ( talk) 10:13, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Over at the pseudoscience template talk page we're discussing whether Scientology should be listed as an example of a pseudoscience on the pseudoscience template. Does anyone have reliable sources on whether or not Scientology is generally considered a pseudoscience by the scientific community? It's clear that Dianetics is from the sources given on its page, but what about Scientology? Ryan Paddy ( talk) 02:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Started looking for some sources. Here's what I see so far:
These are mostly of the first type I mentioned above (perspectives of individual scientists or academics), so I'd be interested to see some of the other types. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 05:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm getting the impression that regulars here will approve the slapping of the term Pseudoscience on any old thing, as a way of basically designating it an unsciency dislikable thing. Scientology is a religion that uses some pseudoscience terminology, that doesn’t actually make it a pseudoscience. Astrology existed for thousands of years without the modern concept of science existing. Poor old Cryptozoology is a broad field that yes, encompasses a lot of pseudoscience, but does it deserve “is a Pseudoscience” slapped into the very first senetence in place of the previous version which was actually quite a succinct description, especially as questions of whether or not it might be a pseudoscience are dealt with a paragraph or too later. I’m beginning to think that throwing “is a pseudoscience” without further examination into any lede is just an inherently bad idea. Artw ( talk) 17:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The slim evidence of scientific views I've found so far doesn't seem to warrant a conlusion that "Scientology is generally viewed as a pseudoscience by the scientific community". So unless more evidence is found, it'll be removed as an example of a pseudoscience on the pseudoscience template. Ryan Paddy ( talk) 20:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I need help for deciding which viewpoint has more weight. There has been a dispute over a realistic estimation of Iraqi Turkmans and Syrian Turkmans for weeks. Some certain editors with a clear and heavy POV are committing a revert-war on those articles; with no verifiable source, keep adding the most unrealistic population figures into those articles, proven to be exaggerations of Turkman nationalists such as ITF. Please help to solve this dispute.
Also please note that their only source (apart from a bunch of random urls) is UNPO, which by defination is a political organisation forming of and supporting ethnic nationalists around the world. There is a very huge gap between the neutral estimations by third-party and verifiable sources, which put the estimation of Iraqi Turkmens as 1-2% of the country(ca. 300-500 thousands), and these users' exaggerated figures which claim a funny lie of 2 to 3.5 millions. Please see this to find out about mainstream estimation and the nationalistic fringe one: [23]. Ellipi ( talk) 17:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Adults needed. 85.74.201.146 ( talk) 06:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
i see that wiki supports calling the mittani 'armenians' 85.72.90.42 ( talk) 21:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
this is just our resident Armenian troll hailing from Richardson, TX adding to his sock army. This would be as easy as clicking rollback if it wasn't for the insistence of Til Eulenspiegel ( talk · contribs) to play troll's advocate. -- dab (𒁳) 08:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I believe with some confidence that we should refer to "Ararat arev" as "Gevork" in the future [25]. Also, if he is really aged 20, this means he began his trolling spree aged 17, which fits the "angry young man" profile perfectly. Here's hoping he'll grow out of soon. -- dab (𒁳) 11:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
You have a point. I understand USians become grad students around the age of 17. Even assuming Grevork turns 21 tomorrow, he would have been still 14 at the time the UCLA article was published. Also, the armenianhighland.com site went online in late 1998, when he would have been aged 9. I conclude that quite regardless of AA's identity, the myspace.com information on GN's age is wrong. He would be closer to 30 today. Note that in 1999, he intimates that The idea for The Armenian Enlightenment Chronicle was born in early 1997. ... I, Gevork Nazaryan decided to dedicate almost all of my time and energy to the creation of a Mega Site, one which will rightly present all of the greatness and glory of the ancient Armenian Civilization. ... It is during this period that I decided to start typing from my historical works from the original handwritten manuscripts, which I started to write as part of my first historical works when I was Seventeen years old ... Since the age of seven years old ... I have fell in love with books and my fascination has become reading and knowledge. Throughout these years I have developed a unique and particular passion for history. The study of the my great ancestors the proud Highlanders of Ararat-Armenia since times immemorial has become my foremost interest
we need to understand that this guy is on a mission. He makes it his life's task to imprint his version of human history on the internet. This makes it extremely unlikely that our incredibly motivated Wikipedia troll is anyone else but GN himself. He started out when he was seven. He apparently passed 17 before or around 1997, which would make him 23 in 2003 and 29 today.
This means, of course, that if this man is aged close to 30 now and still has his head stuck all the way in ethnic nationalist fantasy, this is a chronic condition and won't go away anytime soon. We'll just have to deal with our Armenia articles being under attack for as long as the man has internet access. I am able to locate Gevork's " close blood relative and next of kin" on facebook, confirming the "about 30" hypothesis. -- dab (𒁳) 12:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
hm, upon further investigation, I find Nareklm ( talk · contribs), apparently a mate of Gevork's, originally from Boston, but it seems now also hailing from Los Angeles. Narek is "17" at myspace, and he writes articles about Gevork and about " Armenism" at armeniapedia.org. Also eloquently comments at youtube. -- dab (𒁳) 13:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
you are right, I keep forgetting Til Eulenspiegel is Codex Sinaiticus. Under both incarnations, this user wasted prodigious amounts of my time, and the time of other editors.
As for ClovisPt's comment: Gevork (Ararat arev) has seen it fit to troll Wikipedia more than two years. He has his own long term abuse subpage. He has created hundreds of socks. Yes, I believe it is justified to try and take measures that addresses the problem at the root. If highschool kids post "penis" on articles, we don't hesitate to notify their schools in the hope they take disciplinary measures. Gevork has caused more disruption than entire legions of pubescent teenagers. He is banned from writing access to this website, and he is trying to circumvent this ban. If establishing his real-world identity can be used to prevent him from doing further damage, we should by all means try to establish it. -- dab (𒁳) 10:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Those interested in this subject might want to see the articles and categories being created by Tiramisoo ( talk · contribs). dougweller ( talk) 14:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Rigveda under attack by incoherent/confused Arya Samaj adherent. -- dab (𒁳) 19:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Quantum aetherdynamics is a new article created by User:PhysicsExplorer. Needs attention. Vsmith ( talk) 01:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Seems to vouch for the effectiveness of these products and stuff like that, more than is justified by scientific/regulatory opinion. All checking and WP:NPOV appreciated. Sticky Parkin 23:05, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
How and when is discussion on a particular article deleted out of this board? It seems to me that the editors particularly knowledgeable on this subject helped fixing the title of the article. However, none of them has challenged it, and on the contrary the discussion in the talk page of the article lends to its credibility. -- Gciriani ( talk) 12:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Two editors, of whom I know one to be a Neopagan, have repeatedly removed the information that no archaeological remains of Temple at Uppsala as described by Adam of Bremen have been found. One of them commented in the edit summary: churches on top of pagan sites are everywhere in Scand. diff This might be a popular folk historiography in Scandinavia, or a belief hold by many Neopagans, but actually, the situation is more complex and in this case nothing that resembles the temple as described by Adam of Bremen has been found by archaeologists. The sources I used for this issue are definite, see my comments at Talk:Christianization of Scandinavia and they are highly reputable. Now the two editors are bringing in wp:NPOV, but so far they have refused to state which sources actually say that archaeological remains have been found. Zara1709 ( talk) 16:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
this discussion isn't really appropriate here. This is a regular editing dispute, and I am sure there can be a reasonable agreement if both sides take a step back, and show willingness to charitable reading of the other side's points. This is an example of a potentially fruitful dispute, the kind that tends to result in improved articles (as opposed to the "disputes" which are really a mere waste of time spent on editors who don't have a point to begin with). -- dab (𒁳) 09:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
There is yet another attempt to get Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories renamed to something more congenial to the birthers (you can't say these people aren't persistent). Discussion is ongoing at Talk:Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories and there is a related thread at WP:AN/I#Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. -- ChrisO ( talk) 20:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
created by Knightguild ( talk · contribs). I've already tried to clean it of the most egregious viking fantasies, but maybe someone wants to take a look. -- dab (𒁳) 10:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
An editor is modifying Royal Rife extensively in order to add in weasel words. FDor instance, "The limitations of optical microscopes and the size of viruses are such that most viruses cannot be seen under an optical microscope." - the sourced fact which basically means that the claims cannot be true under well-accepted scientific theories - becomes "The limitations of optical microscopes and the size of viruses are such that most viruses cannot be seen under a standard optical microscope." - A direct violation of the source. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 16:06, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
BLP of writer on life extension and related things. I wonder if it needs to be stubified still further? Would be grateful for any further opinions. Itsmejudith ( talk) 22:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
The subject of this article has written a book claiming that Jesus was Julius Caesar (same initials, proof positive). It's being edited by an IP that may have a COI and certainly has a POV. I've removed some of the wilder claims but they are beginning to come back (eg the claim that he's a linguist - so far as I can see, and I don't know that it is even definite, all he did was studying linguistics among other subjects, he's an industrial engineer). Eyes would help. It's hard to find useful sources (it would be nice to use this one [30] giving Carotta " the Screaming Lord Sutch Memorial Award for such a complete load of garbage that it beggars belief, let alone how on earth it got printed", but it's a blog). Thanks. dougweller ( talk) 12:33, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Now, die tageszeitung is know for its satires, and it's quite probable that they would use thesis like this one as pretext for some Realsatire. "Jesus hat nie wirklich existiert" (Jesus didn't really exist) is a headline that fits die tageszeitung quite well. On the other hand, especially 4) looks promising if we want write a Wikipedia article. "Der schöpferische Umgang mit der Wahrheit war schon immer kulturstiftend" (The creative approach to truth has always been formative for culture.) Zara1709 ( talk) 14:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
({outdent)The German version says "In Deutschland erwarb er einen Abschluss als staatlich geprüfter Dolmetscher und Übersetzer. In Germany, he earned a degree as a certified interpreter and translator." So clearly not a linguist which generally means a specialist in linguistics. The German article also says "Carottas hypothesis is not scientifically recognized. Die Leben-Jesu-Forschung beachtet die Publikation nicht, mehrere Rezensenten in Tageszeitungen sahen darin eine „Wissenschaftsparodie" [1] [2] und der niederländische Historiker Anton van Hooff bezeichnet sie gar als Pseudowissenschaft [3] . The life of Jesus research is not respected the publication, several reviewers in newspapers saw it as a "parody of science" [1] [2] and the Dutch historian Anton van Hooff described even as pseudo-science [3]." The sources being
↑ "JESUS-JULIUS" - Arno Widman in the Berliner Zeitung
↑ „Ein Stück Welträtsellösung“ - Albert Sellner in der Badischen Zeitung (wiedergegeben bei Carotta mit Anmerkung) ↑ "A piece of the puzzle solving world" - Albert Sellner in the Badische Zeitung (reproduced in Carotta with Note)
↑ Anton van Hooff auf skepsis.nl zu Carottas Buch (niederländisch) ↑ Anton van Hooff skepsis.nl on to book Carottas (Dutch).
I guess these need to be added as well. dougweller ( talk) 16:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Widman says that "literature about Jesus is full of cranky things" and Carotta's book is one of the finest pieces of crankery (Verrücktheiten) to appear in the year 2000. Carotta proceeds "with admirable lack of shame and the boldness of a fanatic" (mit bewunderswerter Schamlosigkeit und mit der Verwegenheit eines Fanatikers). He describes Carotta's comparative method as "horrendous nonsense" (horrender Blödsinn). He regards the whole thing as a parody of scholarship and thinks it a pity Carotta never managed to publish his "wonderful joke" with an academic press (Schade, dass es Carotta nicht geglückt ist, diesen wunderbaren Jux in einem Wissenschaftsverlag unterzubringen). -- Folantin ( talk) 17:05, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
There has recently been a debate on the inclusion of the Expanding Earth hypothesis in four articles, Talk:Expanding Earth, Talk:Ganymede (moon), Talk:Mantle (geology), and Talk:Subduction. I was advised to initiate a request for comment, which is at Talk:Expanding Earth#Request for Comment: Expanding Earth and Plate Tectonics. Any comments there would be appreciated - thanks. Awickert ( talk) 05:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Over 2 years ago I started to clean up the mess that was previously known as Nazi mysticism. The fringe theories that exists about the topic of the religious aspects of Nazism are themselves notable; they even have an own name, which is Nazi occultism. Since the pseudo- or rather cryptohistoric theories about are themselves notable, I didn't remove them completely, but created a specific article for them. I probably shouldn't have done that. You know how fringe advocates are ( Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia cannot claim the earth is not flat): Give them a little finger and they'll try to chew off your hand. It appears as if I have stopped one particular editor from removing the sentences: "The recurring motif of this literary genre [Nazi occultism] is the thesis that the Nazis were directed by occult agencies of some sort: black forces, invisible hierarchies, unknown superiors, secret societies or even Satan directly. Since such an agency "has remained concealed to previous historians of National Socialism," they have dismissed the topic as modern cryptohistory." , ( diff) but they still appear of wanting to give me a NPOV dispute. ( diff) I will see to that, but currently I don't know if arguments will actually be useful in the debate; probably they will not, and then I would appreciate it, If some more editors, probably some who are familiar with the preceding state of affairs in the article Nazi mysticism, could take a look at the article and the discussion. Zara1709 ( talk) 11:07, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
This is neither a correct characterization of my edit (I kept nearly all of the content of the sentence Zara1709 says was deleted, moved it to the top of the page, and removed biased wording), nor particularly keeping in good faith or civility.There is an aggressive censorship of the Nazi occultism page occurring, and I am not sure what the motivation is. I don't even think the broad topic of Nazism's myriad connections with occult issues belongs here in fringe theories. Even Zara1709 has admitted to real occult connections (see talk:Nazi occultism): "Admittedly, there were some occultists who worked for the SS..." and "what there is to say on the real relation between Nazism and Occultism is said (or is to be said) in the article Religious aspects of Nazism, where we currently have a section on Occultists working for the SS." Simply because relations between Nazism and Occultism have been covered in Religious aspects of Nazism does not mean they should not be covered in a page called Nazi occultism. To censor anything on the Nazi occultism page by that logic seems to me to be a clear violation of the POV rule against content forking. If this one author Goodrick-Clarke that Zara1709 adores defines "nazi occultism" as having only to do with fringe theories about demonic possession of Hitler, then he defines the phrase too narrowly (that's not why I originally came to the page for information, for instance), and consequently shouldn't be the only source for defining nazi occultism. Presumably a page on Nazi occultism should, for instance, discuss Nazi occultists, even if that means overlap with the page on Religious aspects of Nazism. I do not appreciate the disparaging comments or the consistent unilateral censorship by Zara1709, and will seek further means of dispute resolution if such activity continues. Somebody, please do look at the talk page and see if any of the several editors flagging for neutrality have done anything that deserves to be characterized as "trying to chew off your hand." Zara1709 may be giving me a finger, but I don't think it's the little one... Parallaxvision ( talk) 23:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I've recently taken part in discussion about the "Nazi occultism" page, and have questioned the way the page has been edited by Zara1709. Does that make me a "fringe advocate"? I don't know.
Anyway, I agree with much of what is said above by Parallaxvision. However, the point about Goodrick-Clarke needs a little clarification. It is the often-stated notion of Zara1709 that the words "Nazi occultism" are simply the name of a bunch of fringe theories. On this basis, Zara has made the WP article "Nazi occultism" an article that isn't about Nazi history as such, but is rather a highly critical review of works Zara considers to be "fringe". Zara has defended this approach by referring to the eminence of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, who is indeed an important mainstream historian.
The thing is, though, that Goodrick-Clarke actually does not define "nazi occultism" as having only to do with fringe theories. Goodrick-Clarke does indeed criticise much of the early literature on the topic. As he puts it: "Books written about Nazi occultism between 1960 and 1975 were typically sensational and under-researched." (Goodrick-Clarke, N.; Occult Roots of Nazism; New York Uni Press, 1992; pp 224-225, emphasis added) But he goes on to say that those early books, with all their faults, attracted the attention of "serious authors" to "an exciting field". Goodrick-Clarke expresses particular appreciation for James Webb's 1976 book The Occult Establishment, which Goodrick-Clarke says "rescued the study of Nazi occultism for the history of ideas". (Goodrick-Clarke, N.; Occult Roots of Nazism; New York Uni Press, 1992; p225)
Where then is the justification for treating "Nazi occultism" as simply a fringe topic? Kalidasa 777 ( talk) 08:21, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Seems to me there are several distinct issues here, which need to be disentangled.
1. The overall scope of the article, its subject matter. On one hand, we have the view expressed by Parallaxvision: "Presumably a page on Nazi occultism should, for instance, discuss Nazi occultists, even if that means overlap with the page on Religious aspects of Nazism." On the other hand, there is Zara's position, expressed in the current intro "Nazi occultism is any of several highly speculative theories about Nazism… The actual religious aspects of Nazism, including the question of its potential occult and pagan aspects, are a different topic."
2. What sources to use? Zara has energetically defended his/her reliance on the work of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, on the grounds that Goodrick-Clarke is one of the few respected mainstream historians writing in this area.
3. Exactly how sources are to be used. Is it appropriate to base an article on some of the statements made by Goodrick-Clarke, while disregarding other statements on the same topic by the same author as an "exception"?
On point 1, I agree with Parallaxvision. Like him/her, I initially visited the page "Nazi occultism" expecting to find a discussion of the historical relation between Nazism and occultism. I was very surprised to be told that that "potential occult... aspects" of Nazism were "a different topic".
On point 2, I agree with Zara to the extent that well-researched works, including Goodrick-Clarke's book, should be given more weight than more popular and speculative writings.
On point 3, it seems to me that if Goodrick-Clarke is such an important source, then the aim should be to take seriously everything he says about the topics we are discussing. Not just the bits we happen to like, or the bits we find "extraordinarily plain".
This is, or should be, a serious discussion about serious questions. However, the level of discussion is brought down when someone resorts to tactics like taking down the pov tag, when the neutrality of the article has clearly been questioned and the discussion about it has not been resolved. Kalidasa 777 ( talk) 00:24, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
This might be an illustrative case for those committed to the cause of wikipedia. I am a new editor and already I am tired of it. I spent a considerable amount of time sincerely trying to make a page more complete (I'm not really committed one way or the other on the substantive argument Zara1709 wants to engage in, I just wanted to put more useful information on a page I think is lacking). In return, all I got was some uncivil commentary from the person who created this page, who appears to feel too much ownership over it, and a retraction of absolutely everything that I added to the page. I was accused of being a single-purpose account, simply because I'm new to this, told I don't understand neutrality, although I read and cited from the page thoroughly in making a complaint that I am not the first to make, and called a "fringe advocate" simply because I thought it might make sense to include information about Nazi occultists on a page called "Nazi occultism." I promised to add more to the page, and tried to make good on that promise, but since it doesn't appear my additions are welcome here, I can't see what the point would be in trying to add any more. I also promised to follow through on dispute resolution if unfair behavior continued, but I'm not interested in engaging in that sort of activity with a reactionary denialist. I already know what sort of ugly roads it will lead down. I get the sense Zara1709 would support burning all books about Nazi occultism not written by Goodrick-Clarke. He/She certainly doesn't want anyone to try reading any of them for subversive ideas. Yes, I've crossed the line of civility, but anyone who reads my previous posts will see I really did try to act in good faith. Now I'm fed up.
On a side note, I was trying to recall where I had heard Zara1709's derogatory comment about me before ("You know how fringe advocates are, Give them a little finger and they'll try to chew off your hand.") Then I saw The Pianist again tonight, and there it was: A Nazi soldier says it to Wladyslaw Szpilman about Jewish people. Something to think about...
Farewell wikipedia editing community. It was a short run, but certainly illuminating. Remember all, try not to bite the newcomers... Parallaxvision ( talk) 06:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me that
Nazi occultism amounts to a POV fork from
Esotericism in Germany and Austria.
Malcolm Schosha (
talk) 13:16, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Last I looked, this article had a blanket, unqualified and unsourced statement claiming that herbal remedies were effective. Keep some eyes on this, lads. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 06:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
This may be a question that is too subject specific for this noticeboard, but .... the Society of St. Pius X is a conservative Catholic group (some would call them ultra-conservative). The question is whether we can place them in the Fringe category, or whether we should consider them as a mainstream group with a minority viewpoint. Blueboar ( talk) 15:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I have just come across Biblical cosmology, which has me rather puzzled. It starts out by saying: The various authors of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) provide sporadic glimpses of their insight regarding astronomy and cosmology. These glimpses may be stitched together to form a Biblical impression of the physical universe.
It is the "stitched together" that worries me, particularly because no secondary sources are cited, aside from a link to what appears to be an unpublished work by Jim Siebold. It is possible that the article is taken from a published book, or essay, but no credit is given. Or, it could be very nicely written original research, and represent a fringe POV. Anyone have some thoughts on the subject? (I see that Early world maps -- another interesting article with little in the way of secondary sourcing -- also links to Jim Siebold as a source.) Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 14:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
The heavy use of outdated sources in religion articles is sometimes a sign of the earlier days of Wikipedia, when many articles were built using public domain texts. However, this is less and less true as the project matures and such usage is often a red flag indicating fringe POV pushing. Many editors rely on those public domain texts because they take strong issue with modern scholarship on religious topics. Context and the particular source are important to note. If someone is using New Advent as a source of traditional histories, that's probably on the up and up. If someone is using New Advent to assert claims about early Christian history without qualification, it's likely to be a fringe POV push (but could be simple ignorance of source evaluation and/or our content principles). -- Vassyana ( talk) 11:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I have noticed that Hebrew astronomy is a closely related article, but rather different in content. That one seems to be based on the Jewish Encyclopedia. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 11:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I've just done a bit of cleanup here, but I don't think it will last and the article needs help anyway. A fringe astrologer (I mean fringe of fringe of course) named Mardyks is being pushed in this and other articles, eg Maya calendar. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 21:04, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
My watchlist told me that Panentheism had been added to Category: Religious naturalism. Looking at the parent article of this, I see possible big problems. I do not have the time to examine it in any detail, but a cursory glance suggests that it is someone's pet, either OR or something fringey. I am inclined to pull panentheism out of its category because typically it has nothing to do with any naturalism, but I would suggest that people with more time and perhaps expertise than I take a look at the whole thing. Mangoe ( talk) 03:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Newly created article with a major COI, I'd like advice as to whether this should go immediately to the COI noticeboard, and eyes on the article. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 08:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Until recently, various deities and practices relating to Lusitanian mythology were listed with spurious attributes apparently created by modern neo-Pagans, not backed up in any way by real evidence that can be found. Some of us have been trying to give the pages of various deities a more solid basis, but the neo-Pagans have returned, resulting in edit wars and potential edit wars with various anonymous IP addresses (all belonging to the same ISP...) reverting changes they don't like. The deity Trebaruna is an example of this descending into an edit war. The "other side" in the edit war seems to refuse to discuss the matter on the talk pages. Is it possible some or all pages could be blocked from anonymous editing until the matter is resolved? Paul S ( talk) 18:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I just came across this page and have removed some of the more troubling unsourced claims, but I expect they will be returned in no short order. If some people would like to have a read and try to NPOV, copyedit, trim and unfringe this article as much as possible, well that would be just swell. Verbal chat 15:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
This AfD may end up being decided on straight WP:N grounds, but the discussion contains some tidbits that may be of interest to readers of this board. -- Arxiloxos ( talk) 21:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Wow. "But one can safely assume that the so-called Mount Meru or Sumeru might have been several thousands of miles in height, and therefore not located in our earthly realm, but possibly in another part of the Universealtogether, as according to recent research done by Vedic Scholars like Dr. Richard L Thompson." - Thompson being one half of Cremo and Thompson who wrote Forbidden Archeology, a collection of some amazing nonsense. I may not have time to day to work on this - there may be just one editor involved in these weird edits. Dougweller ( talk) 05:37, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I recently removed a claim from this article that homeopathy is 100% effective in treating this condition (in two people). Is there a clever way to search out claims like this, or do we have to keep an eye on all medical conditions? Verbal chat 08:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I've searched for "homeopathic", and flagged up some articles for further investigation:
Worst of the worst:
There's 681 results, this is about the first 200 checked. I'll continue going through these tomorrow.
Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 01:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
This article really needs some work. I've tagged it in a way I think appropriate, but does anyone know anything about this topic? Thanks, Verbal chat 09:12, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Homeopathy is now up at FAC. I'd appreciate any and all help during what's likely to be a somewhat trying candidacy. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:50, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Since 2007, when I last looked at it, the article on RSI seems to have been hijacked by a small group of people very strongly pushing the hypotheses of one Dr. Sarno, who is of the opinion that RSI is psychosomatic. Whilst perhaps not that unreasonable, it is definitely not the mainstream medical opinion; which the John E. Sarno article makes clear ("[it] is not recognized by mainstream medical science") -- but large chunks of the RSI article present it as if it were fact, flatly asserting that all traditional treatments are palliative.
There hasn't been that extensive a discussion on the talk page about this, since the threads from 2009 (last two sections) both unanimously agree that the article is unscientific and unbalanced; the advocates of Dr. Sarno are apparently happy to ignore the talk page and use their tenacity to keep their preferred version of the article. There was some argument back in 2007, but it wasn't exactly high quality (e.g. "I don't understand why you would wish to deprive suffering patients of perhaps the most successful treatment out there for RSI. ... What is your agenda against Dr. Sarno?")
I'm not a doctor, and will be unable to access WP for a while after tomorrow; so I thought I should bring this to the fringe noticeboard's attention. -- simxp ( talk) 22:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
A lengthy rebuttal of a bit of nonsense about John Randolph supposedly being a Muslim which briefly escaped into the real media, it simply serves to draw attention to the notion. It's headed for WP:AFD as soon as I can suck the good stuff out of it and merge it back into the main article. Mangoe ( talk) 16:08, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
This Special:Contributions/Ibrahim4048 ingle purpose account has introduced the word "alleged" before the words Armenian Genocide on the Mehmed Talat article [36]. This gives undue weight to this fringe theory. And according to line 2, Often, such theories are promoted in order to promote a particular point of view, which violates our rules on neutrality. -- Kansas Bear ( talk) 01:23, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Editors are repeatedly trying to add a link to a Youtube video from a Israeli TV show where Meir Schneider makes the fantastical claim that his blindness was fixed via the Bates method, a video that basically allows Meir Schneider to parrot his claims without any critical discussion of the claims made nor any evidence or information provided for the reader to draw their own conclusions. There is a discussion here Talk:Bates method/Archive 14#Meir Schneider yet again: RFC Nil Einne ( talk) 17:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
It appears that I have wondered into an edit war with a fervent proponent of the polio vaccine hypothesis who aims to remove references to studies and reviews that discredit his stance. Could someone please intervene with a third opinion or an explanation of WP:3RR to the other party. I'd rather refrain from issuing warnings which may only inflame the situation. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 06:02, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Armenian patriots heroically defending their sacred WP:TRUTH against academic references at Moses of Chorene. -- dab (𒁳) 06:58, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
This article, about a proponent of a variety of classic woowoo claims (reincarnation, NDE, etc.), has an editor that will not let cited and reliably sourced skeptical views be presented and seems to want the overwhelming tone of the article to be supportive of the subject's fringe beliefs, and also removes the tag pointing out that an editor believes the article violates NPOV policy. DreamGuy ( talk) 23:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Lots of woowoo beliefs have appeared in some academic presses occasionally and have appeared in plenty of secondary resources. The problem that Mitsube and Unomi here are clearly ignoring is that per our policies and the results of the fringe ArbCom case we have to give the most attention to the mainstream scientific views on the topic, and that's certainly and overwhelmingly obvious in this case, even if we have some editors trying to wikilawyer their way into turning policy on its head. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:43, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Or, for those who need it spelled out: recalling past lives, for example, is not the prevailing scientific view, so the article cannot present it as if it were. Right now the fringe view not only has WP:UNDUE weight, it has crushing overwhelming weight with only a token attempt at even admitting any other views exist. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
I've stumbled into a rather worrying set of articles about a type of therapy and the people associated with it:
At first sight it all looks nice and academic: they have their own institute, which publishes a journal called Human Givens with tons of articles that show up in Google Scholar. But the scary thing is that they are almost completely unknown outside their own community. I can't find any high-quality independent references -- pretty much the only independent account I've found is this one, which doesn't encourage confidence. I'm inclined to think that all of these articles should be deleted on the basis of lack of valid sources (they are certainly notable, that's not an issue), but thought I should bring it here first for other reactions. Looie496 ( talk) 03:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Spouts nonsense of the utterly surreal sort. We either need a kind soul to babysit this account, or a brave soul putting it out of its misery. I am sort of neither kind nor brave enough for this. -- dab (𒁳) 15:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
seems to have given up for now. RFC is a waste of effort in these cases. People too confused for a basic coherent conversation cannot meaningfully be considered editors in good standing. The solution is rollback, ignore, and after a reasonable number of warnings, block. -- dab (𒁳) 08:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
The articles contained in Category:Tibetan martial arts share a number of problematic characteristics: they're largely unreferenced (or referenced only with web links to dojos purporting to teach these 'arts'), they make nebulous claims of ancient, Tibetan lineage, and many of them read like advertising materials for the art in question. Is there anyone here who has any experience with these specific traditions, or reliable sources for working with them? I've never seen mention of any of these traditions in sources dealing more generally with Tibet or Tibetan religious traditions (including Tibetan medicine), and I'm concerned that Wikipedia may be being used to propagate some dubious claims for commercial purposes. The claim, for instance, that this guy holding an orb of light is the direct heir to an ancient Tibetan martial arts tradition, taught only in Russia, that was secretly taught to Stalin's bodyguards sounds like an attempt to give a boring Westerner an exotic pedigree -- Clay Collier ( talk) 09:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I've now listed Qi Dao on AfD here.-- Salix ( talk): 07:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
The Assyrianists are out in force, presently a "majority" over Arameanists and "consensus" to impose their version of reality seems within reach. Nobody is interested in dealing with this, and the topic is left to the angry young men with an agenda. This troublespot is not exactly a glorious demonstration of how Wikipedia's principles work even when under attack. If we let this pass, the message to the Arameanists is, come back with fifty meat-puppets and impose a counter-"consensus" of your own. WP:BATTLEGROUND. -- dab (𒁳) 08:37, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I know. The sad thing is, there is no "common English language usage". Common English usage may have been Assyrian back in the 1910s or so, but it is impossible to find any stable consensus after WWII. Which is why the US census authorities, after careful deliberation I am sure, came up with the contorted "Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac", which as far as I am concerned is the best we have in term of contemporary authoritative English language usage. -- dab (𒁳) 08:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
There is currently an open Request for Comment that has attracted very little (read: me) outside attention regarding how Acupuncture should be cited and treated at that article. The background material is long and acrimonious, but somewhat less so after I {{ hat}}ed a fair bit of off-topic commentary from involved editors. That discussion could certainly use a couple fresh perspectives. I have included a summary of my understanding of the basic options presented, which might help people who do not feel like slogging through that morass. - Eldereft ( cont.) 20:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
This is by fringe writer John Grigsby. Grigsby wrote a book with Hancock & Bauval, and an article about his book on Lindow Man (which was used as a citation in various articles) is on Hancock's site [40]. His books are published by fringe publishers Watkins and Adventures Unlimited. I can find very little on them, no scholarly references to them, etc. If anyone can help with B&W or the author's article, it would be useful. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 13:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Earlier today I came across the Vastu Shastra, which is I think a not bad article on the subject, although it does not cite sources. I did some editing to improve the lead.
What I am curious about is, because the lead contained the word 'science' ("Vastu is the science of direction that combines all the five elements of nature and balance them with the man and the material."), Sifaka jumped in and removed that. I had not changed that because it seemed pretty clear to me that word did not make any claim of scientific method, but rather just to the wider use of of the word science as "In its broadest sense, science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") refers to any systematic knowledge or practice."
Is there is any WP accepted standard for the use of the word science in articles? There is, I think, nothing fringe about the Vastu Shastra article. It just describes a tradition of Indian geomancy in fairly objective terms. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 22:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
"science" is here simply used as an English translation of shastra. This should be made clear as a point of terminology. Details should be discussed at the shastra article. The article is horrible in lots of other respects though. -- dab (𒁳) 12:24, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
the really dubious article here is Environmental metaphysics. I am not sure it should even be there. -- dab (𒁳) 05:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Can someone have a look at this? It's getting awfully advertise-y, and I'm worried that there may be cherrypicking of weak studies. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 18:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Note: this was moved from the talk page. -- Rocksanddirt ( talk) 17:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Hello,
I have already posed my question to two wikipedians, and both have told me to ask my question here because it is the place I most likely would get the right answers:
I'm a new member on Wikipedia, and think I have run into a problem, well maybe not a real problem, but a new stituation I am not used to. I have stumbeled recently on some pages named " Science and the Bible", " Scientific foreknowledge in sacred texts" and eventually " Qur'an and Science". As far as I can see all three articles suffer from problems. While "Science and the Bible" is honestly trying to maintain an objective outlook on Science in the Bible, the other two articles are increasingly fraught with what I consider pseudoscientific positions without accurately [and unmistakably] identifying them as such. The last article is the most problematic, because it has the neutral title "Qur'an and Science" without - in my opinion - covering the topic in a neutral fashion.
I tried to improve on the last article, and have run into my first conflict on wikipedia. My - sourced - and in my opinion relevant and counterbalancing content was removed a few times by another editor, with hardly mentioning any reasons and not by any means satisfactory reasons (to me). I want to refrain from getting snarky and don't wan't to get into an edit war. This is *not* meant as a request for mediation, I just want to hear an independent opinion and some hints on that matter from a persons that has experience with such problems.
What should I do about the issue?
Best regards, Larkusix ( talk) 17:21, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
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