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I just discovered a family of articles that look like they could do with some help from more editors, and it's right up our street. For other articles look at the contributions of the main author (cf Energy (esotericism). Verbal chat 20:29, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
Having looked at User:Rmcnew's response in the AFD, and looking through the voluminous and cranky/crankish material in Talk:Socionics (typology), I think everything relating to socionics needs to be considered for deletion. It's of course hard to get anyone to come to the point, but it begins to appear that this thing have no real traction even in Russian sources. I hate to put people through it, but I would ask some others to look at the discussion and confirm or refute my sense of this, in which case I'll withdraw the current AFD and put in something more comprehensive. Mangoe ( talk) 04:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Jaakobou ( talk · contribs) has been trying to merge/add content about Arab republic into Islamic Republic, claiming that they're the same form of government. [1] Given that Arab Republic is a secular type of government, and Islamic Republic a religious type of government, and there are other major differences in terms of elected institutions etc, this is a violation of WP:Fringe, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV. I tried to explain this to him , but he reverted saying "not much difference. Arab republics also reliy heavily on Islamic code of laws and both systems are fake republics that share many trades". [2] The user is essentially advocating a fringe POV that the systems in Iran and Pakistan which combine elements of theocracy with elected institutions, are essentially "one and same" as the systems in Syria and Egypt which are more or less military dictatorships. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 09:01, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
The problem is that Arab republic doesn't appear to be a valid article. How is "Arab republic" a form of government? I mean, I can understand that an Islamic Republic is a form of Republic based on Islamic values, but is then an "Arab Republic" a Republic based on characteristics of the Arab ethnicity or something?
I don't think so. An Arab Republic is simply a Republic which is located somewhere in the Arab cultural sphere. Just like the Federal German Republic is simply a Republic located in the German cultural sphere. Nobody would argue that "German Republic" is a term for a form of govermnent.
In other words, Arab republic should just be deleted. -- dab (𒁳) 10:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure about Jaakabou. But for the record, I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My main concern is the factual accuracy of the Islamic Republic page. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 12:22, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Comment: I was only now notified of this conversation (pretty poor form) and I'd like to weigh in on the actual issue (btw, Israel-Palestine has nothing to do with it as well as the recent Iranian developments). Anyways, I'm fairly certain I took the time to explain it so that there would be no confusion and I can't understand the flawed presentation of my past discussion notes on my reasoning for including a seemingly differnt topic into the article. I'd like to ask fellow ediotrs to assume good faith (which seems hard to come by these days) and comment on content. Jaakobou Chalk Talk 00:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
On the subject: After noticing an editor changing the Iranian form of government from Islamic Republic to "dictatorship" I figured to give a look at the issue. The Islamic Republic gov. seems like an unclear one where each of the self declared Islamic Republics basically keep a similar concept of a fake self-declared
republic which brings to mind the self declared Arab republics. The issue of whether the supreme leader is a religious figure or a monarch is irrelevant to an article that starts with the following text: "Islamic republic is the name given to several states in the Muslim world including... Despite the similar name the countries differ greatly in their governments and laws."
[5] Personally, I figure that the "self declared X republic controlled by a supreme leader" issue connects the two terms far more than any arguments for differnt structures of power. In any event, agree with the joining of the terms or not, my combined version
[6] is clearly better structured than the current mishmash article.
[7]
With respect,
Jaakobou
Chalk Talk 00:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
p.s. there's nothing fringy about the theory that, in general, the Arab republics or the Islamic ones are not really free-elections type countries. I don't think it is neccesary to give articles about Syria's "elections" or any of the other mentioned states - although Pakistan could pass as some form of real republic whose main religion is Islam. Anyways, the article needs improvement, and structuring and I figured I'm constructing something that helps sort all the "republics".
Jaakobou
Chalk Talk 00:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Needs some attention from anyone interested in New Age planetary alignments (aren't we all?). Dougweller ( talk) 21:09, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Reddi again, adding a section on electrical engineering in the Bible. Dougweller ( talk) 07:30, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Please watch Pseudoskepticism. Consensus was previously arrived at several times to redirect because it is a term used almost exclusively by one person to mean a specific thing. Reddi can't seem to find the talk page. [10] NJGW ( talk) 21:52, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Reddi ( talk · contribs) has a history of literally years of completely ignoring all consensus and slow-paced revert warring. He doesn't get into 3RR problems, but he'll invariably be back after a couple of weeks or months and simply continue where he left off. This isn't respectable editing behaviour, and a community ban is beginning to impose itself. -- dab (𒁳) 07:25, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure what "some of the phases of electricity" even are, but Reddi is giving us the full monty now at Talk:Science and the Bible. This has got to stop. He used to be mildly annoying when he stubbornly insisted we discuss prehistory at the ancient history article in spite of everyone else, but now he is really going too far. -- dab (𒁳) 15:53, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
We have a pov editor here, new account, unhappy with the dating by academics like Witzel and adding stuff like " There are considerable difficulties in accepting, these dates as the time of composition of the Vedas.The biblical concept that the earth is only 6000 and odd years old, must have a played a significant role in arriving at the dates of composition of Vedas by these authors.If the earth is only 6000 years old, the vedas have to fit in with in this time sacle! The discredited Aryan invasion theorists also would have played a great role in rewriting the chronology of vedas." I've deleted a bit but missed some, and the editor is continuing to add their personal views. I did give them a welcome message and a warning message for their first set of edits. Dougweller ( talk) 10:36, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I've already put an advert banner on the "Dragon's Voice" section, but I wonder if it also counts as a fringe theory that certain documents are not Welsh but Cumbric. Or is that Original Research? Or Original Research giving rise to a Fringe Theory? Is the whole page a fringe theory or does it fail notability, seeing as there are about 6 members of this group of enthusiasts. Note that this "Anthony ap Anthony o Rheged" person (whose real name is Anthony Harris, I believe) has his findings in the above book, published by some sort of vanity publishing house, not in any kind of peer reviewable publication. Paul S ( talk) 15:49, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
We have a new editor who doesn't undertand Wikipedia, and the article probably can use some help anyway. I've deleted a whole bunch of See also's that were in the article or not clearly relevant. Dougweller ( talk) 17:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Well having read some of the stuff above about Stevenson and reincarnation I'm not exactly encouraged that I'm going to get much of a hearing, but I'll give it a shot anyway! There is a small disagreement about a couple of sentences toward the end of the Stevenson article;
Skeptics have questioned Stevenson's methodology and objectivity in drawing conclusions from his research,[6][7] and he was spurned by most academic scientists.[8] Stevenson himself recognized one limitation in his argument for reincarnation which Washington Post Staff Writer Tom Shroder termed a "glaring flaw": the absence of any evidence of a physical process by which a personality could survive death and travel to another body.[9]
I would argue that if a University has a research centre that publishes in peer reviewed journals, as Stevenson's does, then it is clearly embarking on a scientific journey. Part of Stevenson's stated goal was to add to scientific knowledge about a particular phenomenon and raise the status of his field of inquiry within the broader scientific project, and I am unaware of any accusations of fraud etc. So it strikes me that the first sentence quoted above starts well, but ends poorly. If there is any evidence that over 50% of academic scientists actively rejected Stevenson's work, then let's reference it. If not, the last part detracts from NPOV in my view. Additionally, one of Stevenson's complaints (?) is that his critics did not investigate the phenomenon themselves - as indicated by Tom Shroder [1]. It therefore strikes me as a triple whamy to use emotionally charged adjectives (spurned) in conjunction with dubious claims (most academic scientists) to give the impression that Stevenson had succeeded in getting others to embark on research but that his work had been found wanting.
My second observation is that in the second sentence it seems enough to point out that Stevenson acknowledged a limitation in his argument without the additional flourish of tagging it with the Tom Shroder quote of "glaring flaw". This is surely not reflective of a NPOV but rather of attempting to belittle the rest of the theory by over emphasising a weakness already raised by Stevenson himself. Normal science, in Kuhn's terms, is all about working on exactly these kinds of "glaring flaws" as puzzles to be overcome, so the additional emphasis seems to be both repetitive and pushing a particular view. The lack of a mechanism to explain the phenomenon he investigated does not make the phenomenon itself vanish in a puff of logic ;-)
Wow this is hard work for a couple of sentences!! I hope my efforts above are taken in the spirit they're intended. Cheers, Blippy ( talk) 14:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Advertisement for PhotoReading, "The distinguishing feature of PhotoReading is that the readers allow the unconscious mind to rapidly absorb material and then logically or consciously recapture the information they photoread through multiple perusals, as opposed to conventional reading or speed reading, which relies solely on the conscious mind to sort information through one passing conscious mind"
Needs a rewrite based upon independent, reliable sources. Currently a SPA is wants to remove an independent study on PhotoReading from the article completely. -- Ronz ( talk) 00:26, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Jackiestud ( talk · contribs) has now added this to Theology- "For the common term, see Thealogy" - I reverted it, saying Theaology is definitely not the common term for 'theology', she wrote to my talk page saying they were synonymous!. She is also adding the non-existent category Category:Pre-Historic Age to articles, and has found an article Dolmen deity which either needs some proof that the phrase is notable (which I can't find) or merger/AfD. Dougweller ( talk) 18:39, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
I have to admit though that this is still within my "funny" category, not yet entirely in the "pain in the behind" one. -- dab (𒁳) 05:36, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I went through and stripped a bunch of see also links to mother goddess. I have been keeping an eye on pages dealing with prehistoric art/anything made out of stone in prehistoric times. Sifaka talk 18:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Frankly I see no problem with "see also Mother goddess" at prehistoric religion. Preistoric art is a different case, because obviously a goddess per se isn't "art". -- dab (𒁳) 19:51, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
we shouldn't obsess over "see alsos" too much. This isn't WP:FRINGE. Of course Jackie is charmingly clueless, but as long as she restricts herself to adding random links to "see also" sections, she isn't doing much harm. "See also" tend to need periodical cleanup anyway, and they don't affect the quality of the article proper. It's not a big deal. -- dab (𒁳) 08:51, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
See new post below about Jackiestud ( talk · contribs) and a BLP. Verbal chat 11:04, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Relevant discussion regarding WP:OR and WP:RS problems in the spirituality section of this WP:BLP is taking place at the BLP noticeboard here. Involves Jackiestud ( talk · contribs) who has been mentioned a few times here. Cross-posted here to try and get more input and as it covers fringe beliefs. Verbal chat 10:59, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
An editor has added a POV tag to this article, claiming that it is unfairly portrayed as fringe. As this article has just been improved substantially, we should ensure that the standard is kept or improved and that it doesn't return to its previous state. A "review" justifying the tag is here. Verbal chat 18:57, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Hi, there is a dispute about whether an edit I made is supported by consensus to Psychic. Here is the diff. I'd appreciate it if people had a look and gave their thoughts on the talk page here. Verbal chat 08:49, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Oh, god. Don't tell me the article's claiming psychics unambiguously exist again. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 23:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
It's not really my bailiwick, but a lot of the content here rings alarm bells. The article currently equivocates between a "Traditional hypothesis," which as far as I can tell is actually a "mainstream consensus," and a bevy of "Alternative hypotheses," which as far as I can tell are mostly "Quixotic speculations" with a generous helping of "Crackpot silliness." Sources cited include that eminent Egyptological journal sphynxmystery.info - featuring a prominent testimonial from Rupert Sheldrake. Other sources apparently have academic qualifications but are extremely isolated and controversial, yet they are presented in the article as just other equally credible voices. Perhaps I'm overreacting. Someone with a better understanding of the current scholarship should probably take a gander. < eleland/ talk edits> 01:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Could use some monitoring. I've just removed a veritable how-to of alt-med advocacy. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 23:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
This bit of advocacy: Gripe water - also needs a good clean-out, but I'm not sure where to start, as there's so many problems. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 04:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
This article was nominated for deletion on the basis that it's not based on any serious historical reference, but seeks to promote historical fabrication induced by the contemporary territorial claims of one country against another. Upon the request to produce references, none were presented from third party NPOV sources and those from POV sources were found to contain serious historical inaccuracies. Hence, I would like to request a review of this article and its sources on the basis of the topic being a fringe theory. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 01:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
A new user is insisting on adding the assertion that "Yuz Asaf is Hebrew for Jesus" and an anecdote about a Muslim sage and an elderly woman. He has also created the new article Similarities between Ahmadiyya and Other Religions, which seeems to be just an argument that the Quran supports Ahmadiyya views of Jesus. Paul B ( talk) 13:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
There is some debate as to whether this "reincarnation researcher" meets either the WP:GNG or WP:PROF. Please see the talk page. Verbal chat 17:02, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Mr. Spock demonstrates Dim Mak, a long-forgotten management technique from 21st century Earth. The fringe theory that Dim Mak, based on TCM principles, will allow a skilled practitioner to kill you by causing your qi to stagnate is ruling the roost at Dim Mak. Eyes needed. Simonm223 ( talk) 19:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
this isn't a "fringe theory" in the classical sense. It is a medieval Chinese myth. We don't treat myths and legends as "fringe theories". -- dab (𒁳) 14:56, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
a google books search seems to confirm what Simonm says. I find no reference to "dim mak" predating 1969, and then in a reply to a letter to a martial arts journal, debunking a book on Dim Mak by one Count Dante. [12] So, I am willing to assume that this is indeed a 1960s Wuxia urban legend. -- dab (𒁳) 16:05, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Touch of Death is currently reasonably under control. It appears that Dim Mak is indeed an invention of the 1950s, although it does of course build on older tenets of TCM.
But this was only the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. I am not surprised that there is an Indian version of this, at Varma Kalai, where we learn, among other things, that
Now that's what I call advanced martial arts!
The article supposed to discuss this field encyclopedically would be pressure point, and it could also do with some attention. As is well known to all regulars on this board, there is also a huge pile of articles on Chinese esotericism which are practically beyond repair. E.g. Tui na, but I do not have the heart to look deeper into that particular abyss. -- dab (𒁳) 13:51, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Sorry if this is in the wrong place. For the last several days a variety of IPs and a single purpose account have been attempting to add details of the July 2009 Ürümqi riots to this article, generally based on this single source or related statements. The source does not say the riots were a terrorist incident, and the majority of neutral coverage (ie, non-Chinese state propaganda) describes the ongoing problems as riots, civil unrest and ethnic unrest. Myself and another editor believe that to claim this is a terrorist incident is a fringe view at best, would others agree? O Fenian ( talk) 00:53, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
At the moment the problem is over inclusion of what I gather is some obsolete notions of Leibnitz. Anyway, there's an RFC on this which can be gone over here, for those with the stamina to do so. Mangoe ( talk) 14:33, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
This is a truly amazing case. It illustrates how you can quibble about a very simple thing until the matter is so confused that it is impossible to state what the dispute is even about. -- dab (𒁳) 14:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
This article is not based on any serious research work and makes claims solely to insert Persian to historical contexts where it simply does not belong. For example, it's well known in scholarship that Timur (the grandson of Genghiz Khan) was a Turko-Mongol, whilst the article attempts to claim him or his dynasty Turko-Persian. The argument used in justification of this fringe theory is that Persian was spoken in some of the Turko-Mongol courts, but that's not an argument for identity association. For example, French was broadly spoken in Russian court and many Russian writers used this language. It does not mean Russia is Russo-French now. Americans eat pizza and sing opera in Italian, it does not mean U.S. is Anglo-Italian society. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 15:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Another example of this radical ethno-nationalism removal of the large number of referenced material, day's worth of work, in favor of an unsourced OR, fringe nationalist theory that Azeris and Uzbeks are Persians. It seems that people just have nothing else to do, but to pervert history. Yet another example Safavid Dynasty, which was originally called "Dowlat-e Safaviyye" (The Safavid State), now has Safavid Persian Empire stamped all over the article and removing/rescinding any kind of reference to Azeri/Turkic, while the founder of the kingdom even wrote poems and diplomatic letters in this language. This is called historical revisionism and reinventing identity at the expense of it, and with Persian case, it's gotten completely out of control. Atabəy ( talk) 18:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Looks like Dbachmman took care of the issue by redirecting a fork article to Turco-Persian tradition. About the term [ [13]]. For example René Grousset , not a Persian nationalist calls the Seljuqs a Turko-Persian empire. However that article was written poorly and was a fork.
However, I believe the above user is trying to fish around and cannot claim to be unbiased. His record is clear. Atabek has been topic banned from several regionals topics by the admin Moreshchi and has been in two arbcomms and is under 1rr. He recently had a scuffle with another established ubiased user here: [14] because legitimate sources call Alparslan Türkeş a fascist. Thus he claims the user was Turko-phobic.
His claim about Safavids are wrong [15] and there are books " http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Safavid+Persian+empire%22"(Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian empire). That is written by a scholar and there are dozens of such sources. It is a common geographical designation. I gave a detailed response on the usage of Iran/Persia for Safavids for the user here: [16] from both primary and secondary sources. However any European travel logue and map from the era names the country Persia. However just look at European maps of the era, and it is called Persia. And Safavids used 'Ajam (Persia) and Iran in their own official letters. As per the origin of the dynasty, Roger Savory says the concensus is Safavid origin was from Kurdistan and they later adopted Azeri-Turkic. This is reflected in the article and we have allowed various theories in the article, since users did not reach a concensus. As far as I can tell all statements from the article are sourced. Dbachmman should not mistake a poor article and generalize. I note again that Moreschi whom Dbachmann respects actually topic banned this user from some areas. So one should not say he has a neutral attitude here. He just found a badly written fork article and is looking to make all Iranian users look bad. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 18:49, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Huh? Since when are the academic projects of Columbia University ( Encyclopedia Iranica) and Safavid scholars such as Roger Savory considered "Persian sources"? I have worked on many of these pages with User:Folantin whom I have a great deal of respect for, and assisted him against the different types of Persian nationalists, so Folantin knows my stands on these issues very well. Take my word as you will, User:Atabəy should be the last person to talk about "radical ethno-nationalism" on Wikipedia, he is the worst manifestation of that problem here. A courtesy look at his attempts to white-wash the negative aspects of Alparslan Türkeş's character, some ultra-nationalist Turkish politician who favored his party members to wear Hitler style haircut and mustache, and advocated Nazi racist doctrines, while at the same time raving on the talk page about "Turkophobia" and how Reza Shah, a mild nationalist compared to Alparslan Türkeş, was a Nazi, will tell you all you need to know about Atabəy's real concerns. Eliminating ethno-racial-nationalist POV is the least of Atabəy`s worries, the neutral editors here should be careful not to fall into his trap. He knows how to game the system, and he is essentially fishing here, trying to play on the concerned editors's fear of nationalism, citing some random badly-written POV fork that was rightfully redirected by Dbachmann, to further his own nationalist agenda elsewhere. Sorry about the blunt language, but you gotta call a spade, a spade! -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 22:56, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, evidence of nationalist/racist POV as presented, additionally focusing on personality than on topics as usual. Below are just a few of numerous Google Books references that never make it into Safavid article due to this POV:
Now, I ask readers to dare to add any of this to Safavid dynasty and enjoy the action of Persian nationalist POV pushing, based on Pan-Iranism and ethnocentric political propaganda in encyclopedia to make own conclusions. Atabəy ( talk) 23:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
However, look at the third source you brought, it is about their Turkocmen followers not Safavids. Roger Savory has written more than 100 aritcles and books on Safavids. "From the evidence available at the present time, it is certain that the Safavid family was of indigineous Iranian stock, and not of Turkish ancestry as it is sometimes claimed." (History of Humanity-Scientific and Cultural Development: From the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century", Taylor & Francis. 1999). Why can't you quote any Western Safavid expert that agrees with you? Mathee says the same about their Kurdish origin. Kathryn Babayan (another Safavid expert) states:" Kathryn Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran , Cambridge , Mass. ; London : Harvard University Press, 2002. pg 143: “It is true that during their revolutionary phase (1447–1501), Safavi guides had played on their descent from the family of the Prophet. The hagiography of the founder of the Safavi order, Shaykh Safi al-Din Safvat al-Safa written by Ibn Bazzaz in 1350-was tampered with during this very phase. An initial stage of revisions saw the transformation of Safavi identity as Sunni Kurds into Arab blood descendants of Muhammad.”". Now who are the authors of your sources with regards to Safavid studies and how many publications they have on history of the area and Safavids? Still you have a section "Turkish component" and you can put whatever source you want, since your refusal to accept Safavid scholars has lead to the present situation. Encyclopedia Islam (Brill) clearly states the concensus is Safavids where from Kurdistan. However it is you that has made the article low quality, because when someone like Savory states: "From the evidence available at the present time, it is certain that the Safavid family was of indigineous Iranian stock, and not of Turkish ancestry " you go quote an out of the blue source like "History of Iranian literature". Look at another source you brought: [19]. It is called Firearms (a general book on firearms). So I think it is obvious who is pushing nationalistic POV and finding any non-expert source to claim anything. And yes complaining against Iranian nationalism while being blocked multiple times, under two arbcomm, under 1rr striction and also topic banned from some Armenian related articles does not really make you neutral user. Feel free to add those sources to the Turkish section on Safavids, no one has deleted them. Wikipedia is generally about WP:RS and WP:verifiability. So go ahead and put a source on firearms and Iranian literature on the origin of Safavids in the Turkish component section. However those sources such as "firearm", "Iranian literature" (general book on 1200 years of Iranian literature" and etc. are not really Safavid related books. Safavids experts are Savory, Mathee, Babayan, Melville, Roemer, and etc. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
If Nepaheshgar is involved, that's an instant warning sign that crank fringe theories are being pushed somewhere... -- ChrisO ( talk) 23:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes dear Atabəy, those ethnocentric/nationalist/racist/propagandist Iranians, how dare they don not let you use the highly-acclaimed expert academic sources such as "Iran: A Travel Guide By Vijeya Rajendra", "The fragmentation of Afghanistan", "Firearms`", "History of Iranian literature", "An outline of Turkish architecture in the Middle Ages". Oh the humanity, all these expert sources about Safavids are being ignored, for the likes of Roger Savory who know nothing about Safavids, this is clearly a violation of WP:Fringe and WP:RS. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 23:42, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
(Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes, (Rutgers University Press, 1991), 161,164)..they mean the empire as a whole was Turko-Persian. The culture, administration of these empires were Persian but the ruling elite and military was Turkic. As Dbachman says, this part of Iranian and Turkish history overlap and so it is good if some people with expertise like Folantin help balance any article that needs balancing. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 00:36, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, I guess the discussion subject was Turco-Persian article, which was a piece of nationalist invention and utter WP:OR. The issue was addressed by a redirect, further revealing (not by me) the extent of Persian nationalist POV pushing in Wikipedia. The rest of political propaganda and racist hogwash fed to non-Persian Iranians on daily basis can be moved to Safavid talk page. And by the way, the so much defamed Firearms source actually quotes the 17th century French traveler at Safavid court, as cited from Gandjei, "Turkish in the Safavid Court of Isfahan", p. 314. So yet another POV push exposed, and I am glad to see that I am not the only one seeing it clearly. If you have doubts, check out this and this articles at Persian nationalist portal, see if the propaganda described in first and fed in the second is any different, if not word-to-word quoted above. And I guess the recent edit [20] devoting portion of Pan-Iranism article to Pan-Turkism is yet another POV push, with a flavor of traditional Turcophobia. Atabəy ( talk) 00:58, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Especially so, following your relentless attempts to discount Pan-Iranism- Nazi connection
I'm amazed you were capable of finding that reference. Since you seemed completely lost when it came to Arpaslan Turkes' racist views!
More WP:SOAPBOX. I never claimed Uzbeks or Azeris were Persians. That is why I removed Uzbek and modified the sentence. It has nothing to do with anything you edit or said. It was there before I edited the article and I take credit for removing it. So no need to take credit for something you didn't do. I am not going to continue responding to you here as your rants are what gave you your Wikipedia record. I am not interested in having such a record and the next WP:SOAPBOX and WP:FORUM comment will be reported to admins who will give warnings and after that if it continues, it will get more. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 01:49, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
This template and its contents seek to put forward some baseless historical claims and advocate an irredentist political doctrine, well described by this reference (see the bold part):
There is no source that refers to the listed countries as "Greater Iran", moreover, there was never a country or a region by such name including all the countries listed. To my knowledge, no such equivalent exists in other cases.
I am not sure if templates are covered by WP:FRINGE, but this one is being inserted all over Wikipedia articles. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 22:51, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I would invite everyone to view the edit of the above user in pan-Iranism where he calls any scholar he does not like as a pan-Iranist. When a term gets about 500-600 hits in google books, then he should use the search tools to find history sources for the term.
It is the same here. The word "greater Iran" has nothing to do with any sort of political concepts. Rather the country called "Iran" is only part of the territory that was called Iran during various dynasties.
Richard Nelson Frye defines Greater Iran as including "much of the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, with cultural influences extending to China, western India, and the Semitic speaking world." According to Frye, "Iran means all lands and peoples where Iranian languages were and are spoken, and where in the past, multi-faceted Iranian cultures existed." [2]
Note the above user used Richard Frye in Safavids to push his viewpoint, but he simply ignores such a scholarly sources.
Richard Foltz states: "It is often assumed that various people of "greater Iran" - a cultural area that streched from Mesopotamia and the Caucasus into Khwarizm, Transoxiana, Bactria, and the Pamirs and included Persians, Medes, Parthians and Sogdians among others--were all "Zoroastrians" in in pre-Islamic times [3]. To the Greeks, Greater Iran ended at the Indus [4]
According to J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams most of Western greater Iran spoke SW Iranian languages in the Achaemenid era while the Eastern territory spoke Eastern Iranian languages related to Avesta [5].
George Lane also states that after the dissolution of mongol empire, the Ilkhanids became rulers of greater Iran [6] and Öljaitü according to Judith G. Kolbas was the ruler of this expanse between 1304-1317 A.D. [7]
Same source: "Abu Sa'id Last effective Mongol khan of Greater Iran" [8].
Or for example Amelie Kuhrt [ [25]].
Or UNESCO book on history edited by Sir Edmod Bosworth [ [26]].
Primary sources including Timurid historian Mir Khwand define Iranshahr (Greater Iran) as from the Euphrates to the Oxus [9]
So for examples Ilkhanids or Safavids or Sassanids or etc. had a territory for their name which was Iran. So scholars use the term greater Iran for dynasties who ruled modern Iran and its outlying regions. And also per definition of Frye. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:03, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Turkey is not a historical term. Mongolia was a single empire for one time and has a template. So your comparisons are not valid. Persia/Iran had various empires (Medes, Achaemenids, Parthians, Sassanids, Ilkhanids, Safavids, Qajars and etc.). These empire ruled outside of modern Iran and thus the term greater Iran by such qualified scholars as J.P. Mallory and Richard Frye. Islamic sources as well as modern specialist sources still use the term Iran for a vast expanse of the Seljuq empire. So have scholars [ [27]] [ [28]]. They do not use "greater Turkey". As far as I can see, the template is not making any political advocation and that is your WP:OR linking an unrelated statement about pan-Iranism to a template which has nothing to do with it. But as scholars I brought state: Same source: "Abu Sa'id Last effective Mongol khan of Greater Iran" [10]. Or Richard Frye, Cambridge history of Iran and Mallory and etc. The Qajar empire which included various territories outside of modern Iran was also called Iran, not Turkey or Arabia or etc. So overall it has the dual meaning which is used by Frye (which you have quoted in other articles). And obviously having a history template for what a term many scholars have used is common in Wikipedia. If you find major scholars like J.P. Mallory and Richard Frye and etc. use such a term as "greater Turkey", then go make a template for the history of that land. Else your comparison is invalid. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:21, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
And how about 437 Google Books results for Greater Turkey or whatever applies to Turkic cultural region? Or 440 Google books results for Greater Arabia? What about citing the magnitude of sources showing the extent of Greater Mongol Empire. Is this a reason to reference MODERN! countries or regions as part of "Greater Iran"? Atabəy ( talk) 23:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Greater Arabia can have a template since Islamic sources refer to Saudia Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, UAE, and etc. as Greater Arabia. However which SCHOLAR (turcologist) has used the term "Greater Turkey" for a span of 2000-3000 years of history? If the problem is a modern countries, sure the template should be up to the Qajar era. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I would also like to bring to administrators attention that the user above has been making nothing but battle field edits in the past week and calling scholars he does not like Touraj Atabaki as "pan-Iranist turkophobes" without absolutely any 3rd party source! This behaviour has not only be done with scholars, but even non-Iranian users whom he calls "Turkophones" [29]. Two arbcomms, 1rr restriction and some topic bans was simply not enough to get the point across that Wikipedia is not a battle field. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Why do you keep focusing on user instead of topic? Please, WP:AGF, I haven't violated any rule by opening a thread and requesting something per rules. I presented you with books. Scholars talked about historical cultural concept, not a historical region including modern countries and regions. Abuse of this is called irredentism, which is how Pan-Iranism and the whole thing with Greater Iran is properly named by scholars. Let's create a template for Greater England for any country speaking English. This is nonsense, but I will let the reviewers decide on that. All your arguments are relevant to Template talk:History of Greater Iran, so discuss there instead of opening another WP:FORUM here. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 23:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Template:History of Greater Iran which I request to be looked at is different from Template:History of Iran, which I find appropriate. My concern is not with name Iran or Persia, but with usage of the word "Greater" including existing foreign nations. That's a political doctrine. Atabəy ( talk) 00:00, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
I think if the name is a problem, Kurdo77's suggestion of Persia (modern Iran is part of what is known as ancient Persia and Persian empires) is good. Another suggestion is Iranshahr. However I note the term "Greater Iran" (despite the way it might sound) has been used by major scholars of Iranology as both a cultural and historical /territory concept. We can then put it on the footnote that it is also called "Greater Iran" by scholars. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 00:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Kurdo, I think your suggestion is alright. And moving to History of Persia would be helpful, or merger with History of Iran template. The Greater thing is just too POV. Nepaheshgar, please, do not engage in WP:BATTLE on Pan-Turkism with this sort of edits. Atabəy ( talk) 00:51, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Iran and Persia are the two names used for the same country. There is no such thing as "Greater Iran" in either geographical or political context, neither Afghanistan nor Uzbekistan are Iran. Atabəy ( talk) 01:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
I am still expecting administrator's decision as to the name Template:History of Greater Iran, which I think is irredentist, WP:POV and based solely on Iranian claims (as are Persian words, Iranzamin and Iranshahr, unfit to describe a concrete contemporary geographic region in English-language Wikipedia). Atabəy ( talk) 01:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
So that explains the recent edit warring on several articles. And note, my edit on pan-Turkism is not a retaliation but an article that needs improvement. So WP:AGF. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 02:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Again, take a look at Aryanism: The earliest epigraphically-attested reference to the word arya occurs in the 6th century Behistun inscription, which describes itself to have been composed "in arya [language or script]" (§ 70). As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, the arya of the inscription does not signify anything but "Iranian".
If I was to promote pan-Turkism ideology, I would not keep the criticism section in the article. Yes, I removed your POV/OR on Armenian genocide relation to pan-Turkism, because the ideology started in Russian Empire and most of it origins have to do with non-Ottoman part. Additionally, the claim that pan-Turkism was a cause for 1915 events is a claim of few Armenian scholars, only based on the fact that CUP was in favor of pan-Turkic views. However, CUP also cooperated with Armenian Revolutionary Federation in governing the empire, is this a ground to claim that ARF was involved in 1915 events as party responsible of Armenian deaths? Hence your edit seems to be driven by a nationalist passion, WP:BATTLE and Turcophobic opinion. Because the discussion was about Pan-Iranian irredentism and "Greater Iran" nonsense. The fact that pan-Turkism is even brought up here, ONLY due to my claimed ethnic background and absolutely nothing else, reveals the WP:BATTLE approach on your behalf rather than a sincere debate on the topic. I hope the admins take note of that. Atabəy ( talk) 15:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Nepaheshgar, the thread is dedicated to Template:History of Greater Iran, which included Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, i.e. contemporary non-Iranian nations. The issue was partially addressed by Kurdo, and I thank him for that, though not fully. I think the template should be merged with Template:History of Iran as it's pretty much the same thing. Again, all of your emotional outbreaks and attacks against me, violating WP:NPA, on Armenian issue, Pan-Turkism, etc. are irrelevant to the subject of this thread. If you want to further debate on it, please, switch to talk pages of the relevant articles, instead of your WP:FORUM and WP:SOAPBOX here. Go ahead say the final word, as I see there is no other way to let admins review this thread. Atabəy ( talk) 16:16, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Atabəy, why are you dragging this on and on? You said that your main concern was the modern section, and I removed the entire section in question. If your problem is now with the name of the template, that can be addressed too, by renaming the page to "Template:History of Persa" with a formal request on the talk page. But the template shouldn't be merged with "Template:History of Iran" as this is the English Wikipedia and in English language and literature, modern state of Iran is merely a part of, and not the same thing as, ancient Persia. There were many dynasties whose center of power was located outside of modern Iran, but called their state Iran (in English Persia) nonetheless. Merging these two templates would be like merging a template about Prussia with a template about Germany. That's just my opinion. If you disagree, I would urge you to request such merger, through the formal channels, on the article's talk page. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 22:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Take a look at the discussion here Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Admins_vs_contributors which should be of interest to almost everyone here even if they aren't interested in the specific article. Dougweller ( talk) 19:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
...but as we are merely suggesting a few topics for the reader's meditation, let us inquire, what was the type of that ancient Egyptian race which linked Africa with Asia? This interrogatory has given rise to enless discussions, nor can it, even now, be regarded as absolutely answered. For many centuries prior to the present, as readers of Rollin and of Volney may remember, the Egyptians were reputed to be Negroes and Egyptian civilization was believed to have descened the Nile from Ethiopia! Champollion, Rosseline, and others, while unanimous in overthrowing the former, to a great extent consecrated the latter of these errors, which could hardly be considered as fully refuted until the appearance of Gliddon's Chapters on Ancient Egypt, in 1843, and of Morton's Crania Aegyptiaca in 1844.
unindent; it should be clear that CoM is part of the problem, not of the solution. [35] Yes, the question of the "race of the Ancient Egyptians" would have been a viable question in 1840 to 1930 scientific racism. The question is today kept alive by racists who apparently have their mental home in the pre-WWII period. We can and do discuss scientific racism, no problem, but these articles aren't intended as being written by racists in defence of racism, per WP:TIGERS. Anyone who has difficulties understanding this after being kindly made aware of the fact five times over is either trolling, or a walking illustration of Hanlon's razor. It doesn't matter which, because either case will result in a ban. -- dab (𒁳) 12:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
(unindent) Perhaps newly arrived editors to Ancient Egyptian race controversy should acquire more skills in locating secondary sources. I made a search on google scholar for "egyptian" and "afrocentrism". The following mainstream academic book, published after a major conference in 2000 at University College London, seems to be an excellent secondary source:
The contributors are all established academics. There is an article by John North on "Attributing colour to the ancient egyptians", another by Bernal and a long general introduction by the two editors. The fact that no article in this book has been cited is problematic; amongst other things the book specifically deals with afrocentrism and egyptology. Mathsci ( talk) 08:37, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
After reading the comments in this thread, I see now the position that some have against the "black-egyptian" (BE)theory, even though I still believe they were black. Some indicating that BE is a fringe theory have a belief that it’s about black people making Ancient Egypt an expression of black pride. But that is not the purpose of BE contributors. In the Vikings example further up this thread, "Ancient Egypt and Black Pride". It is exactly as eccentric as "Vikings and White Pride". Yes it is eccentric, but what is NOT eccentric is this: Vikings were white. Pride or not, we cannot escape the notion that the Vikings were as white ethnically as modern day white people. So perhaps the notion that the terms “black” and “white” are not acceptable terms to describe ancient people? Ok fine. How then do we express the fact that the Ancient Egyptians shared traits that are found in black people today? Because the BE contributors and BE believers in general see a tactic that is very disrespectful. We see that the Ancient Egyptians (AE), when their own representations show characteristics found exclusively or primarily in modern day black people, those traits are explained with other anti-BE theories (Marfan's Syndrome, Dynastic Race Theory, wigs, etc). Secondly, the characteristics are not rare, they are the most common. Average AE people had kinky hair, brown skin, etc. This is the only group of ancients mind you that has these traits that are somehow classified AS Caucasoids. Then to argue against this is fringe? No, that's impossible. You can basically take it like this: Ancient Egyptians, if you took one from the past, and placed him/her here today, they would be viewed not as white/Caucasian (even if they do have some skeletal traits), they would at least be viewed as biracial (black/white) and more often than not as black. With the "Caucasoid" designation, this is also a bait and switch. Why? Caucasoid deals exclusively with skeletal designation. I am sure that a large chunk of African-Americans who otherwise are considered black by every understanding, if you took their skeletons, measured them, they would be reclassified as Caucasoid. Caucasoid itself has morphed from a clear expression of white racial classification to now a grouping meant to politically link white people with ancient societies that they otherwise have NO connection to. Ethiopians, classified as Caucasoids, but they have zero historical connection with Caucasoids in Europe, and Ethiopians have far more connected with Negroids in Africa, Black Africans throughout the continent. So to say that the Ancient Egyptians, a Nilotic people by the way, are not black and to paint the BE theory as fringe is simply out of touch with the facts. Unless you redefine every other noun in a way to exclude them of course. Negroid, Black, Caucasoid, Afro-Asiatic, etc... if you redefine those nouns to exclude the black presence and to forge links to white ancestors, then yes, you could then paint it as fringe. But that is an elaborate POV tactic, and the BE contributors see it, and that is why we react so strongly. Not because we are trying to express black pride. Please, stop relating to us as if we are child minded and unsophisticated in the art of objectivity. When we see this POV tactic is attempted and we point it out, we get talked down to about the rules. It is insulting and partly why we react uncivil. We know the rules, we are pointing out how others are breaking them without consequences to push the anti-BE POV. It's time to move past that. The Ancient Egyptian BE theory is not fringe and as you can see has a large contributive body. -- Panehesy ( talk) 02:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Second comment. My grammar above is disjointed. I understand that. I want to add also that the issue here goes beyond Ancient Egypt. Articles about black people, skin color for example are designed to maintain POV that is inaccurate. the skin color article is still using a scale that overempathizes the very small variations in skin tone between white people, while painting in a broad stereotype the far more diverse skin color among black people. This method, an actual reverse of reality, is maintined BY contributors in the article for reasons that lack common sense. Read their comments! They push a skin color scale that is now debunked and is now fringe, yet it has such prominence in the article itself. -- Panehesy ( talk) 03:03, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Strong campaign by IPs to try and insist, contra sources, that the father wasn't human. Please watchlist this, and be liberal with the revert button. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Ice Cold Beer ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) topic banned five editors from the race controversy article. Claims of support and opposition to the bans involve claims about NPOV and fringe theories. Thus, it would be invaluable if some experienced regulars from this noticeboard participate in the review of the topic bans at: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Ancient Egyptian race controversy ban review. Thank you. -- Vassyana ( talk) 01:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I see no reason to "review" stuff. This is just wikilawyering, just keep nagging people until you get your way. I don't see why anyone in their right mind would think of rewarding this kind of approach with their attention. -- dab (𒁳) 17:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Lots of criticism has been removed from this article recently and an NPOV tag added. Some criticisms of t being a quotefarm looks justified, but due to the nature of the article I'd like to request more eyes to review the changes and watchlist this and related pages. (I hope racism is a fringe position!) Verbal chat 07:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
In the George Trenholm biography, an editor inserted his fringe theory that the fictitious character Rhett Butler in the novel Gone with the Wind is modeled after George Trenholm.
I tagged, challenged and removed the fringe theory almost one year ago. There are simply no reliable sources on this subject, other than the self-published book by the creator of this theory. Just recently, another editor believed the theory should be included in the biography, and inserted:
It is claimed that novelist Margaret Mitchell patterned her fictional character, Rhett Butler, on the life of Trenholm
The references given are:
This has lead to an edit war, as the references given are not solid enough to be included in an historical figure biography. The references are repeating hearsay/rumors and do not go into explanation on the matter. The 3O who is trying to assist is on the fence, but cited WP:UNDO and the claim/rumor should be dropped if no WP:RS could be cited.
Discussion here: Talk:George_Trenholm Jim ( talk) 11:31, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
In an article about the intelligent design book Darwin's Black Box, is it appropriate to mention that the book made it onto the National Review "100 Best Non-Fiction Books Of The Century" list? This is being discussed at Talk:Darwin's Black Box#Inclusion of National Review ranking.-- Arxiloxos ( talk) 19:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Alfonzo Green ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is attempting to present Rupert Sheldrake ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) as a legitimate scientist, and his claims as legitimate theoretical biology and morphogenesis research. Greater scrutiny would be welcome. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 07:12, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
it is funny how people like Sheldrake in retrospect have a huge "1980s" stamped right across their foreheads. The 80s were a crazy decade which is only beginning to emerge from the shadow of the 60s and 70s to which it was long taken as being a kind of dull epilogue. -- dab (𒁳) 09:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Green is now attempting to recreate Wolpert-Sheldrake Genome Wager as The Genome Wager (still with nary a third party source in cite). Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 10:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
This article came up on a list of stuff to do. I don't want to touch it because I can't maintain NPOV. in 2006 he wanted to remove from public view some very important fossils. here's link to sort of reliable uk paper guardian observer http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/sep/10/theobserver.kenya hope someone can help with at least the ref for the hiding fossils thing NotAnIP83:149:66:11 ( talk) 23:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
less abysmal than the recently addressed Science and the Bible but still worth a look. -- dab (𒁳) 11:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
The article on Thomas (à) Becket (1118-1170) claims that the often used "à" in his name is and always has been incorrect. The only source given for this claim is John Strype's 1694 work Memorials of Thomas Cranmer. This book was written over 500 years after Becket's death, and it was written about Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), not Becket. It does not seem like this source is credible or relevant enough to override all of the sources who use the "à", including: the Oxford Dictionary of English, the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, and Chambers Biographical Dictionary (all given in the Becket article).
This article is having problems with its lead at the moment, with an editor insisting on inserting peacock terms into the lead, puffery, and minimising the conclusion that his work was not accepted by the scientific community. The article has got a lot better, but it shouldn't be allowed to turn into a whitewash. More eyes please, Verbal chat 10:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
We have what could develop into a severe problem here. An admin has showed up, declaring that other people are violating ArbCom sanctions and insinuating that she's going to get them blocked. At the same time she is demanding that no article can mention the term "pseudoscientific" (of which she says "please believe me, is a completely meaningless term" and that those using it "are only displaying their own ignorance") despite the fact that the two ArbCom decisions behind WP:FRINGE explicitly approve of the use of the term. When we have someone misrepresenting a decision like this and taking a very aggressive stance -- especially considering the admin in question has been known to make rather unorthodox decisions on her own in the past -- I think it's important that a broad range of editors including other admins watch what's going on in case it escalates beyond mere bluff and bluster. DreamGuy ( talk) 16:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Can more people please review recent activities at Ian Stevenson, including a rather longwinded talk page discussion. I'm worried about the neutrality of the article which has attracted some WP:SPA activity. (Previous comment removed by me following justified criticism: diff) Verbal chat 17:05, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Claimed as "Islamic scholar" in the early 1800s USA. From what I can tell his situation is more ambiguous than this; the references in the article say that he converted to Christianity in 1820. He's being used to prop up diversity-minded FRINGE/UNDUE notions about Islam among African-American slaves; see also the section on Islam in Religion in the United States, which got mauled at some point as well. This is probably not an ongoing issue but could use some attention at this time. Mangoe ( talk) 11:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
This article gives far too much emphasis to the fringe theory that Edward II survived past 1327. It is also unduly critical of the standard account of the method of his execution. *** Crotalus *** 20:21, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Race and crime, which was a coatrack for racist POV and OR (by presentation of raw statistics with discussion and analysis begin supressed or coming from recognised hate groups), was merged into Anthropological criminology by consensus some time ago, and Race and crime was protected as a redirect. A new editor is trying to revive the article by posting across multiple noticeboards, suggests sources that clearly fail WP:RS, and has recently recreated the article at Relationship between race and crime. More eyes on all these articles please, and please join in the discussions. I'm not against well sourced analysis from good sources, but I don't want to see the implied racism reappearing. Thanks, Verbal chat 09:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
well, Race and crime was deleted on grounds of being WP:SYNTH, not because the topic is inherently invalid. There appears to be a bona fide attempt at encyclopedic coverage at Talk:Anthropological_criminology#Race_and_crime_statistics. But, for the moment, it will be sufficient to just introduce a "race and crime" section within Anthropological criminology. Once such a section has been introduced and proven stable, it can still be branched out as a WP:SS {{ main}} article. At that point, and only then, should Race and crime become unprotected. This is just a matter of proper procedure, not of WP:FRINGE.
It is my view that we should not put up unreasonable hoops to jump through for people wishing to document this particular topic in good faith. This would have a nasty smell of censorship (we're not comfortable with statistics on race and crime, hence we're going to make this very difficult for you). The people who want to compile this article must make a reasonable effort of avoiding SYNTH and OR, but it stops there. If they can point to valid resources discussing the question, they are free to write an article about it. I am obviously on the same page as Verbal that "discussion and analysis being supressed or coming from recognised hate groups" isn't convincing as a bona fide effort. But instead of going to lengths to establish that valid analysis is being "suppressed", people could just insert such analysis. It's a wiki. -- dab (𒁳) 16:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
Anthropological criminology doesn't seem an appropriate merge target for this topic. Some kind of variant of Race and crime should exist in this encyclopedia - it is a topic that is notable and readers should expect to learn about. Raw stats are a no-no, and it'll need watching for racist POV pushers and vandals, but to suppress this article entirely seems like an overreaction. Fences& Windows 19:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure why you addressed that concern to me, Hrafn, since obviously I am also of the opinion that this cannot be about dumping "raw statistics". I am talking about an actual "coverage of expert discussion of the potential underlying statistical relationships". If somebody wants to write that article, let them. If they insist on just dumping raw statistics, tell them to stuff their statistics and present some coherent secondary source discussing the statistics.
People are extremely touchy about discussing race issues openly. I realize that this is due to the rather recent history of racial discriminatino in the USA, and everybody still feels kind of bad about that. But this shouldn't interfere with our project of writing an encyclopedia. I am actually investing great hopes in President O. and his candid and above-the-board approach to the matter that this situation is going to vastly improve over the next years or even months.
Obama is telling racial minorities to stop blaming colonial slave trade if they drop out of school. We have the same effect on Wikipedia, people whining about historical discrimination if their crappy edits are reverted. Perhaps they need to start considering the possibility that their crappy edits were reverted because the were crappy and not because of some WASP cabal behind Wikipedia. Now that was a rant about the "Afrocentrism" hubbub further up on this page, but you can see how it relates to this point here. We just need to grow out of this sort of thing, its the only way to a better (and for Wikipedia that is: more encyclopedic) future. -- dab (𒁳) 21:49, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
The POV pushing over there by some dedicated SPA editors (might need to do some sock checks soon, come to think of it) is still ongoing,l despite repeated notices here. The editors in question insist upon presenting this person's reincarnation beliefs as science at its best and do so based upon very selective choice of sources and WP:SYNTHESIS. They are also wikilawyering klike nobody's business to remove all mention taht reliable sources has explicitly named his work as an example of pseudoscience. Apparently the main argument now is that being mentioned by name as making flawed arguments in a paragraph discussing specific instances of pseudoscience in a section discussing a pseudoscientific topic in the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience is somehow conveniently not actually calling his research pseudoscience because they do not see the actual word "pseudoscience" in the sentence mentioning the individual. This is wikilawyering at its most absurd, and clearly doing so to censor the majority scientific view while enthusiastically giving WP:UNDUEWEIGHT to an extreme WP:FRINGE view. It'd be nice if some sane people showed up over there to help out again. It's clear that unless the POV pushers in question get blocked that they will never give up on this article. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:16, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
All the "alternative" causes [37] of ADHD are fringe theories with regards to the Causes of ADHD. Causes would mean what theories would best explain the causes of ADHD. This is best determined by scientists and none of these theories have true scientific backing. Theories in Causes section of the article include, the social construct theory of ADHD. This theory believes that ADHD is a fabrication of society and is a philosophy often expounded by anti-psychiatrists. Neurodiversity is another philosophy not based on science. The Hunter vs. farmer theory has a popular following but is not based on science. This theory believes that those with ADHD carry the Hunter genes while the rest of the population carries the farmer genes. Finally the low arousal theory explains symptoms and not causes. This theory may have been created to sell product.-- scuro ( talk) 19:01, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm thinking that there's some problems here. For example, it looks like there's some POV forking going on, there shouldn't need to be so many articles. With the exception of Neurodiversity, the other articles are all begin by centering in on ADHD as the topic. Perhaps they should be merged into the main article? I'm proposing that. Irbisgreif ( talk) 06:27, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
See this edit, adding Viera Scheibner who said that 95% of sudden death of infants was caused by vaccines. See discussion in talk page. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 02:31, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I added some information which counters the prevailing (Western mainstream) view that homosexuality is immutable, but someone deleted the material even though it was referenced; there's even an article about the organization which provides the information. Is this a case of a "fringe" view being unworthy of inclusion, or what? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 21:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Reducing the statement "sexual orientation may not be immutable" to "zomg Conservapedia Nazis bible-thumping brainwashers" strikes me as a bit of an over-reaction. I have not researched this, but the claim that sexual orientation may change in the course of an individual's life does not necessarily have anything to do with homophobia, or brainwashing. It entails, much rather, that somebody may start out as a homosexual in their teens and switch to being hetero at some later date, or, equally, as a hetero teen that may turn homosexual at some later point. I am sure there are plenty of case studies for either direction of such "re-orientations", even omitting the rather large field of "neiher, or both", and I do not think it is helpful to reduce this discussion to one on ideology from the outset. The question whether such a change in either direction is in any way desirable is a completely different issue, and necessarily subjective. -- dab (𒁳) 18:09, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Serious attention is needed... the article is full of OR (especially the section: Examination of Apollo Moon photographs#Accusation that NASA uploaded doctored pictures to website, currently the subject of a dispute). Blueboar ( talk) 22:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
This is definitely going to need more hands... Stubborn POV warrior is refusing to listen to explanations of what is wrong. Simply reverts to "his" version. Blueboar ( talk) 21:51, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
As I figured would happen... the AfD has has resulted in a Keep. Unfortunately, no rational was given for the result, but most of the comments in favor of keeping were WP:ILIKEIT type votes... and I think many of those arguing for keep did not fully understand that we were NOT talking about the main Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories article but the more specific Examination of Apollo Moon photographs. In any case... the article still has a LOT of problems and we need some people who understand WP:FRINGE, WP:NOR, WP:UNDUE, WP:RS and WP:V to address them. Please help. Blueboar ( talk) 21:21, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Read all about it here. Mangoe ( talk) 13:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
I wonder if those who run Wikipedia might consider updating WP:UNDUE to indicate that, although giving undue weight to the claims of actual Holocaust deniers is, of course, a good example of what this policy is trying to prevent, it nevertheless is bad Wikipedia etiquette to imply that a person who is advancing a claim thought to be WP:UNDUE is somehow a supporter of Holocaust denial or engaging in anything akin to Holocaust denial. What I'm concerned about is that some editors invoke this in order to put a chill on debate on the Talk pages, e.g., "No one believes that but you, you're just like a Holocaust denier." A Holocaust denier is someone who wants to spread the manifest falsehood that millions of people were murdered. The average person whose edits manifest a potential issue over WP:UNDUE are people who have merely not sufficiently demonstrated that a substantial minority of people agree with some specific statement. I'm okay with the principle of WP:UNDUE, it's the tenor of the discussion that I have a problem with. We shouldn't be here to belittle people's edits, but to tell them what will fly and what won't. In the specific case I've confronted (on the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis page) I've found that some elements first criticized as WP:UNDUE turned out not to be as reliable sources began to report on those elements in more detail. In other words, the "Holocaust deniers" turned out to be people trying to report a dimension of the crisis but simply not having enough evidence yet to make their point. It was legitimate of people to make edits citing WP:UNDUE until those sources emerged. It was not legitimate of those people to compare their adversaries in an editing dispute to the Nazis. Is there something that can be added to this policy to make it clear that name-calling and guilt by association are not okay according to WP:UNDUE? Zachary Klaas ( talk) 21:40, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
A user has requested more sources and evidence of notability for this work. I'm sure people here can provide some. This seems to be related to the Jim Tucker/ Ian Stevenson/ Reincarnation research debates. Reviews, sources, citations all requested! Thanks, Verbal chat 13:04, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
The asrticle on Robert Todd Carroll seems like a rich source of potential references that could be used to bring the The Skeptic's Dictionary to the point where it meets WP:N. I'm not entiurely sure why I mention this, since form the evidence of the last few days conversation you lot are far too lazy and useless to do it and I'll end up doing it myself. Artw ( talk) 02:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Armenian patriotism galore. After all these months, this article still hasn't gone past the mandatory handful of diehard nationalists pushing Soviet era propaganda. Many more encyclopedist's eyes needed. -- dab (𒁳) 17:26, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
hello? There are at least three nationalist kids between them "owning" the article. We either need enough bona fide editors to keep the article under control, or an admin with balls to show them the door. -- dab (𒁳) 07:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
ahem. I am willing to absorb as many personal attacks as I have to, but the issue of the Moses article pushing pseudohistory still remains. So, the sooner you switch from taking potshots at me to reacting to the actual problem at hand, the better you will pobably look to the outside observer.-- dab (𒁳) 16:05, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
I totally agree with dab. The article is taken over by a group of editors, who prevent others to add any info. If anyone tries to add any info that contradicts the 5th century claim, it gets instantly reverted, no matter how reliable the source you are referring is. The discussions are being stonewalled, and the progress is extremely slow. After many months of discussions I managed to achieve a consensus only on 2 short sections. In general, the article attaches an undue weight to the opinion of the Armenian scholarship, while the western scholarship is being suppressed. Mahe and Traina mentioned above are among the few international scholars who agree with the 5th century dating. Most of the 5th century dating supporters are the scholars in Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, as described by politologist Razmik Panossian: [39] Something needs to be done to bring the article to neutrality, and fairly represent both opinions on dating. Grand master 05:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I removed a section from the article, and there is a very unhappy editor complaining about this on the talk page. If anyone else is interested in this I'd appreciate it if they'd take a look. Maybe some of it should go back, but it was a lot of SPS stuff and I may have missed some relevance that would mean that some of it should go back. Dougweller ( talk) 17:19, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
A group editors advocating Armenian POV in Wikipedia is persistently attempting to either remove or obscure a reference to the Georgian origins of the name of this Turkish city - [40], [41], [42] (initially removed by a sock [43]). While the city may have been associated with Armenia at some point in history, it is not now, and there is no reliable reference as to either the meaning of "Kars" in Armenian or to the fact that the origin of the name is Armenian, whilst a reference that clearly says the name is Georgian. Can you please, look at the issue and decide whether Armenian transliteration should even appear in this case, when Georgian is not being allowed. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 00:31, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
There needs to be a definitive policy about the purpose of listing alternative names for a location. Is there one? In his edits, I think Atabəy was quite conciously distorting the common-sense usage, which would be to list the historical name(s) for a place that has changed its name, or to list the native name(s) where the name commonly used in English is not the same as the native name(s). Atabəy is trying to introduce into the first sentence of the article a specific theory (one of several) about the etymological origin of the name "Kars"
[45] and
[46]. Those controversial edits form the background to this edit conflict. They are controversial for three reasons. Firstly, there is no evidence that the settlement of Kars was ever called "Karsi". If the alternative names are there to list historical names then his addition is not valid at that location within the article. Secondly, the Georgian word "karsi" is just one possible etymological origin for the word "Kars", and there are other theories - so inserting just that theory is POV. Actually, the concept that every placename must mean something and that that something can be deduced with certainty, is wrong. Thirdly, the core reason behind Atabəy's edits are to remove the Armenian name that appears on the first sentence. That Armenian name is justified because it is a real alternative name, an historical name which differs from the curent name.
Meowy 16:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
There seems to be only some shaky evidence for this, and while I'm no longer convinced it's a blatant hoax, I'd like some more people to take a look. Irbisgreif ( talk) 15:15, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Lots of nonsense in here.
The worst bit: "Chi Kung practiced at the mind level cures any disease, including diseases considered by some as incurable, such as cancer, diabetes, ulcers and cardiovascular disorders."
Please see its AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shaolin Wahnam Institute. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 00:28, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Viktor Suvorov is a former low-level GRU officer-cum-amateur historian, who argues without sources and from extremely circumstantial evidence that Hitler's 22 June 1941 invasion of Soviet Union was desperate pre-emptive strike against Communist juggernaut about to attack him (in accordance with long-held Stalinist master plan of world takeover.) He has found extremely hostile reception among professional historians, although a few have made vaguely sympathetic though noncommittal reviews.
Suvorov article as of now is highly promotional. Worst problem: It conflates "Suvorov thesis," which is about disposition of Soviet ground troops in Spring/Summer 1941, with various "Stalin's psychology and ideology" debates, which revolve around his committment to Socialism in One Country versus his possible sympathy for Permanent revolution achieved by military force (ie, Soviet invasions / subversions of other countries.) So you have a lot of legitimate authors saying "Stalin was maybe more aggressive than some people realize," and they have no time for Suvorov, yet they are presented as allies supporting Suvorov's fringe theory. Careful attention has been lavished on accumulation of book and scholarly journal sources, but of those I have checked, many are being blatantly misused.
Suvorov's own article is worst. Soviet offensive plans controversy is about his thesis and looks OK though disproportionate space in text given to his few allies, overall framing makes clear his idea is non-mainstream to say the least. Suvorov influence is apparent in other articles though. He has other wild ideas in relation to not just 1941, for example, he claims that all estimates of Soviet military equipment are wildly distorted by Monkey model bias (that article should probably be AfDd) and his ideas are liberally sprinkled through articles relating to various pieces of USSR military equipment. 74.14.70.54 ( talk) 18:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Spinning off from the discussion regarding The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience I did a quick survey of articles relating to the feild of skeptisism and found quite a number that currently fail WP:N.
Given their expertise in this field I'm assuming members of WP:FTN will want to do search for third party reliable sources and add them to these pages where they can be found. I'm assuming them will be no brainers, but it does need to be done if WP:N is to be met.
Note that removal of the notability tag without providing sources is not particularly helpful: It is an informational tag that describes steps required to keep an article within Wikipedia, so assuming you don't want to see an article deleted or merged before someone has a chance to fix it you probably want to leave that tag on there. Artw ( talk) 06:03, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
many of these should just be merged without further ado, e.g. Voodoo science into pseudoscience, or Derek Colanduno into Skepticality. -- dab (𒁳) 16:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
The follow also need a little work, mostly bringing references in line, to make it clear that WP:N is met, though I beleive from the various links and references on the page that they do:
Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations Julia Sweeney Martin Gardner Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Gene-centered view of evolution Richard Wiseman Randy Cassingham The Blank Slate
(Again, this is a pretty meandering and informal survery of articles, so some of these are only indirectly skeptisism related ( Gene-centered view of evolution is by way of Dawkins, that sort of thing) and by nomeans should it be considered a complete list. Artw ( talk) 23:24, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
I didn't see any stated procedure anywhere for removing a ((notability)) tag, so I've added 11 footnotes (cited in 17 different spots) to Ray Hyman and went ahead and removed the tag on that article. Let me know if there's an issue. -- Krelnik ( talk) 04:05, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
The list is laughable. I just grabbed an article title at random (China Association for Science and Technology,) put it into Google, and got a BBC article about the president of China speaking at their 50th anniversary dinner. Yes, maybe Derek from Skepticality shouldn't have his own article. But The Skeptic's Dictionary? It's been reviewed in New Scientist, the BBC, etc etc. James Oberg is the foremost Western expert on the Soviet space program and the chief space reporter for MSNBC (and not even particularly well-known as a skeptic.) You're obviously using some strange criteria to make this list and certainly not the WP:N policy you've cited. 69.159.60.55 ( talk) 00:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
James Oberg not notable? A clear case of WP:POINT. NVO ( talk) 02:32, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
This is just User:Artw disrupting Wikipedia to make a WP:POINT again. I would suggest that WP:DENY applies here. DreamGuy ( talk) 12:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I've nominated a number of these articles that do not appear likely to be improved for deletion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dakshina Kannada Rationalist Association
no doubt an extremely important artefact, but it would appear the article has been written by people who want it to be aged 20,000 years, not 9,000 years. That's a huge difference, and raises WP:REDFLAGs. Also the speculative, question-marked "interpretations" seem rather far-fetched. Also raises further {{ notability}} issues for the Alexander Marshack and Claudia Zaslavsky articles linked. The lakeside Ishango population of 20,000 years ago may have been one of the first counting societies, but it lasted only a few hundred years before being buried by a volcanic eruption sounds like cheap fiction of the Lost World kind. In any case. my WP:FRINGE detectors went off with this article and perhaps somebody else wants to take a look. Also check out Lebombo bone which imo is a clear case of a ghost-artefact. -- dab (𒁳) 08:39, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
An editor is attempting to push opinion of Harold Lief, a self-described "close friend and indeed an admirer" of Ian Stevenson, that "Either he is making a colossal mistake, or he will be known ... as 'the Galileo of the 20th century'" into the lead of that article. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 09:32, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
Honestly, someone needs to get out the ban stick for that article. The dedicated determination of the POV pushers there is crazy. And anybody looked into sockpuppet concerns yet, both in general and for banned users? The strategy of civil POV pushing and gaming the system demonstrated there are way beyond what anyone can in good faith expect from newbie accounts. DreamGuy ( talk) 12:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The topic area is plagued by POV pushing and personal commentary. I am currently attempting to help mediate the dispute. The current stage of the mediation is focused on identifying serious issues and soliciting uninvolved outside input. I have invited some experienced uninvolved editors to take part in the editorial process, in an attempt to help steer things back on track. However, further specialized outside input would be invaluable. If some of the regulars from this noticeboard could review the main Falun Gong articles for fringe theories and severe undue weight violations, it would be sincerely appreciated. Providing a review at the main article talk page and/or correction of the problems would be particularly helpful. Thanks! -- Vassyana ( talk) 05:11, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
We have a new editor, ArXivist who doesn't quite get WP:NPOV on WP:Fringe topics. Me and several other editors have tried explaining it to him, but without much success. Our 9/11 conspiracy theories article might need some extra attention. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 01:11, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Is it necessary to quote works in English to prove that a theory is not a fringe theory,Can foreign works be used too ? If a publication claims that their book is Academy reviewed or peer reviewed can the publishers word be taken as true ? -- Gnosisquest ( talk) 00:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, Gnosisquest, I suppose the easiest would be for you to just present your case with what sources you have and see how people react, and things will develop from there. -- dab (𒁳) 20:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
This article is again undergoing edits that change whether Stevenson's research is accepted or rejected at large, possible mischaraterisations and misrepresentations of sources, peacocking, etc. Please take a look. The discussion on the talk page is repetitive and tedious, unfortunately. Verbal chat 13:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Now sourced information is being removed as it's 'unfair'. Sheesh. Verbal chat 18:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Question being considered here: Should this article have the pseudoscience tag and template? It's also home to a lot of fringe POV pushing generally, so a good one to add to watch lists. Thanks, Verbal chat 08:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page. |
I just discovered a family of articles that look like they could do with some help from more editors, and it's right up our street. For other articles look at the contributions of the main author (cf Energy (esotericism). Verbal chat 20:29, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
Having looked at User:Rmcnew's response in the AFD, and looking through the voluminous and cranky/crankish material in Talk:Socionics (typology), I think everything relating to socionics needs to be considered for deletion. It's of course hard to get anyone to come to the point, but it begins to appear that this thing have no real traction even in Russian sources. I hate to put people through it, but I would ask some others to look at the discussion and confirm or refute my sense of this, in which case I'll withdraw the current AFD and put in something more comprehensive. Mangoe ( talk) 04:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Jaakobou ( talk · contribs) has been trying to merge/add content about Arab republic into Islamic Republic, claiming that they're the same form of government. [1] Given that Arab Republic is a secular type of government, and Islamic Republic a religious type of government, and there are other major differences in terms of elected institutions etc, this is a violation of WP:Fringe, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV. I tried to explain this to him , but he reverted saying "not much difference. Arab republics also reliy heavily on Islamic code of laws and both systems are fake republics that share many trades". [2] The user is essentially advocating a fringe POV that the systems in Iran and Pakistan which combine elements of theocracy with elected institutions, are essentially "one and same" as the systems in Syria and Egypt which are more or less military dictatorships. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 09:01, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
The problem is that Arab republic doesn't appear to be a valid article. How is "Arab republic" a form of government? I mean, I can understand that an Islamic Republic is a form of Republic based on Islamic values, but is then an "Arab Republic" a Republic based on characteristics of the Arab ethnicity or something?
I don't think so. An Arab Republic is simply a Republic which is located somewhere in the Arab cultural sphere. Just like the Federal German Republic is simply a Republic located in the German cultural sphere. Nobody would argue that "German Republic" is a term for a form of govermnent.
In other words, Arab republic should just be deleted. -- dab (𒁳) 10:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure about Jaakabou. But for the record, I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My main concern is the factual accuracy of the Islamic Republic page. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 12:22, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Comment: I was only now notified of this conversation (pretty poor form) and I'd like to weigh in on the actual issue (btw, Israel-Palestine has nothing to do with it as well as the recent Iranian developments). Anyways, I'm fairly certain I took the time to explain it so that there would be no confusion and I can't understand the flawed presentation of my past discussion notes on my reasoning for including a seemingly differnt topic into the article. I'd like to ask fellow ediotrs to assume good faith (which seems hard to come by these days) and comment on content. Jaakobou Chalk Talk 00:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
On the subject: After noticing an editor changing the Iranian form of government from Islamic Republic to "dictatorship" I figured to give a look at the issue. The Islamic Republic gov. seems like an unclear one where each of the self declared Islamic Republics basically keep a similar concept of a fake self-declared
republic which brings to mind the self declared Arab republics. The issue of whether the supreme leader is a religious figure or a monarch is irrelevant to an article that starts with the following text: "Islamic republic is the name given to several states in the Muslim world including... Despite the similar name the countries differ greatly in their governments and laws."
[5] Personally, I figure that the "self declared X republic controlled by a supreme leader" issue connects the two terms far more than any arguments for differnt structures of power. In any event, agree with the joining of the terms or not, my combined version
[6] is clearly better structured than the current mishmash article.
[7]
With respect,
Jaakobou
Chalk Talk 00:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
p.s. there's nothing fringy about the theory that, in general, the Arab republics or the Islamic ones are not really free-elections type countries. I don't think it is neccesary to give articles about Syria's "elections" or any of the other mentioned states - although Pakistan could pass as some form of real republic whose main religion is Islam. Anyways, the article needs improvement, and structuring and I figured I'm constructing something that helps sort all the "republics".
Jaakobou
Chalk Talk 00:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Needs some attention from anyone interested in New Age planetary alignments (aren't we all?). Dougweller ( talk) 21:09, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Reddi again, adding a section on electrical engineering in the Bible. Dougweller ( talk) 07:30, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Please watch Pseudoskepticism. Consensus was previously arrived at several times to redirect because it is a term used almost exclusively by one person to mean a specific thing. Reddi can't seem to find the talk page. [10] NJGW ( talk) 21:52, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Reddi ( talk · contribs) has a history of literally years of completely ignoring all consensus and slow-paced revert warring. He doesn't get into 3RR problems, but he'll invariably be back after a couple of weeks or months and simply continue where he left off. This isn't respectable editing behaviour, and a community ban is beginning to impose itself. -- dab (𒁳) 07:25, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure what "some of the phases of electricity" even are, but Reddi is giving us the full monty now at Talk:Science and the Bible. This has got to stop. He used to be mildly annoying when he stubbornly insisted we discuss prehistory at the ancient history article in spite of everyone else, but now he is really going too far. -- dab (𒁳) 15:53, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
We have a pov editor here, new account, unhappy with the dating by academics like Witzel and adding stuff like " There are considerable difficulties in accepting, these dates as the time of composition of the Vedas.The biblical concept that the earth is only 6000 and odd years old, must have a played a significant role in arriving at the dates of composition of Vedas by these authors.If the earth is only 6000 years old, the vedas have to fit in with in this time sacle! The discredited Aryan invasion theorists also would have played a great role in rewriting the chronology of vedas." I've deleted a bit but missed some, and the editor is continuing to add their personal views. I did give them a welcome message and a warning message for their first set of edits. Dougweller ( talk) 10:36, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I've already put an advert banner on the "Dragon's Voice" section, but I wonder if it also counts as a fringe theory that certain documents are not Welsh but Cumbric. Or is that Original Research? Or Original Research giving rise to a Fringe Theory? Is the whole page a fringe theory or does it fail notability, seeing as there are about 6 members of this group of enthusiasts. Note that this "Anthony ap Anthony o Rheged" person (whose real name is Anthony Harris, I believe) has his findings in the above book, published by some sort of vanity publishing house, not in any kind of peer reviewable publication. Paul S ( talk) 15:49, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
We have a new editor who doesn't undertand Wikipedia, and the article probably can use some help anyway. I've deleted a whole bunch of See also's that were in the article or not clearly relevant. Dougweller ( talk) 17:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Well having read some of the stuff above about Stevenson and reincarnation I'm not exactly encouraged that I'm going to get much of a hearing, but I'll give it a shot anyway! There is a small disagreement about a couple of sentences toward the end of the Stevenson article;
Skeptics have questioned Stevenson's methodology and objectivity in drawing conclusions from his research,[6][7] and he was spurned by most academic scientists.[8] Stevenson himself recognized one limitation in his argument for reincarnation which Washington Post Staff Writer Tom Shroder termed a "glaring flaw": the absence of any evidence of a physical process by which a personality could survive death and travel to another body.[9]
I would argue that if a University has a research centre that publishes in peer reviewed journals, as Stevenson's does, then it is clearly embarking on a scientific journey. Part of Stevenson's stated goal was to add to scientific knowledge about a particular phenomenon and raise the status of his field of inquiry within the broader scientific project, and I am unaware of any accusations of fraud etc. So it strikes me that the first sentence quoted above starts well, but ends poorly. If there is any evidence that over 50% of academic scientists actively rejected Stevenson's work, then let's reference it. If not, the last part detracts from NPOV in my view. Additionally, one of Stevenson's complaints (?) is that his critics did not investigate the phenomenon themselves - as indicated by Tom Shroder [1]. It therefore strikes me as a triple whamy to use emotionally charged adjectives (spurned) in conjunction with dubious claims (most academic scientists) to give the impression that Stevenson had succeeded in getting others to embark on research but that his work had been found wanting.
My second observation is that in the second sentence it seems enough to point out that Stevenson acknowledged a limitation in his argument without the additional flourish of tagging it with the Tom Shroder quote of "glaring flaw". This is surely not reflective of a NPOV but rather of attempting to belittle the rest of the theory by over emphasising a weakness already raised by Stevenson himself. Normal science, in Kuhn's terms, is all about working on exactly these kinds of "glaring flaws" as puzzles to be overcome, so the additional emphasis seems to be both repetitive and pushing a particular view. The lack of a mechanism to explain the phenomenon he investigated does not make the phenomenon itself vanish in a puff of logic ;-)
Wow this is hard work for a couple of sentences!! I hope my efforts above are taken in the spirit they're intended. Cheers, Blippy ( talk) 14:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Advertisement for PhotoReading, "The distinguishing feature of PhotoReading is that the readers allow the unconscious mind to rapidly absorb material and then logically or consciously recapture the information they photoread through multiple perusals, as opposed to conventional reading or speed reading, which relies solely on the conscious mind to sort information through one passing conscious mind"
Needs a rewrite based upon independent, reliable sources. Currently a SPA is wants to remove an independent study on PhotoReading from the article completely. -- Ronz ( talk) 00:26, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Jackiestud ( talk · contribs) has now added this to Theology- "For the common term, see Thealogy" - I reverted it, saying Theaology is definitely not the common term for 'theology', she wrote to my talk page saying they were synonymous!. She is also adding the non-existent category Category:Pre-Historic Age to articles, and has found an article Dolmen deity which either needs some proof that the phrase is notable (which I can't find) or merger/AfD. Dougweller ( talk) 18:39, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
I have to admit though that this is still within my "funny" category, not yet entirely in the "pain in the behind" one. -- dab (𒁳) 05:36, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
I went through and stripped a bunch of see also links to mother goddess. I have been keeping an eye on pages dealing with prehistoric art/anything made out of stone in prehistoric times. Sifaka talk 18:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Frankly I see no problem with "see also Mother goddess" at prehistoric religion. Preistoric art is a different case, because obviously a goddess per se isn't "art". -- dab (𒁳) 19:51, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
we shouldn't obsess over "see alsos" too much. This isn't WP:FRINGE. Of course Jackie is charmingly clueless, but as long as she restricts herself to adding random links to "see also" sections, she isn't doing much harm. "See also" tend to need periodical cleanup anyway, and they don't affect the quality of the article proper. It's not a big deal. -- dab (𒁳) 08:51, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
See new post below about Jackiestud ( talk · contribs) and a BLP. Verbal chat 11:04, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Relevant discussion regarding WP:OR and WP:RS problems in the spirituality section of this WP:BLP is taking place at the BLP noticeboard here. Involves Jackiestud ( talk · contribs) who has been mentioned a few times here. Cross-posted here to try and get more input and as it covers fringe beliefs. Verbal chat 10:59, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
An editor has added a POV tag to this article, claiming that it is unfairly portrayed as fringe. As this article has just been improved substantially, we should ensure that the standard is kept or improved and that it doesn't return to its previous state. A "review" justifying the tag is here. Verbal chat 18:57, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Hi, there is a dispute about whether an edit I made is supported by consensus to Psychic. Here is the diff. I'd appreciate it if people had a look and gave their thoughts on the talk page here. Verbal chat 08:49, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Oh, god. Don't tell me the article's claiming psychics unambiguously exist again. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 23:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
It's not really my bailiwick, but a lot of the content here rings alarm bells. The article currently equivocates between a "Traditional hypothesis," which as far as I can tell is actually a "mainstream consensus," and a bevy of "Alternative hypotheses," which as far as I can tell are mostly "Quixotic speculations" with a generous helping of "Crackpot silliness." Sources cited include that eminent Egyptological journal sphynxmystery.info - featuring a prominent testimonial from Rupert Sheldrake. Other sources apparently have academic qualifications but are extremely isolated and controversial, yet they are presented in the article as just other equally credible voices. Perhaps I'm overreacting. Someone with a better understanding of the current scholarship should probably take a gander. < eleland/ talk edits> 01:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Could use some monitoring. I've just removed a veritable how-to of alt-med advocacy. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 23:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
This bit of advocacy: Gripe water - also needs a good clean-out, but I'm not sure where to start, as there's so many problems. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 04:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
This article was nominated for deletion on the basis that it's not based on any serious historical reference, but seeks to promote historical fabrication induced by the contemporary territorial claims of one country against another. Upon the request to produce references, none were presented from third party NPOV sources and those from POV sources were found to contain serious historical inaccuracies. Hence, I would like to request a review of this article and its sources on the basis of the topic being a fringe theory. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 01:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
A new user is insisting on adding the assertion that "Yuz Asaf is Hebrew for Jesus" and an anecdote about a Muslim sage and an elderly woman. He has also created the new article Similarities between Ahmadiyya and Other Religions, which seeems to be just an argument that the Quran supports Ahmadiyya views of Jesus. Paul B ( talk) 13:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
There is some debate as to whether this "reincarnation researcher" meets either the WP:GNG or WP:PROF. Please see the talk page. Verbal chat 17:02, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Mr. Spock demonstrates Dim Mak, a long-forgotten management technique from 21st century Earth. The fringe theory that Dim Mak, based on TCM principles, will allow a skilled practitioner to kill you by causing your qi to stagnate is ruling the roost at Dim Mak. Eyes needed. Simonm223 ( talk) 19:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
this isn't a "fringe theory" in the classical sense. It is a medieval Chinese myth. We don't treat myths and legends as "fringe theories". -- dab (𒁳) 14:56, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
a google books search seems to confirm what Simonm says. I find no reference to "dim mak" predating 1969, and then in a reply to a letter to a martial arts journal, debunking a book on Dim Mak by one Count Dante. [12] So, I am willing to assume that this is indeed a 1960s Wuxia urban legend. -- dab (𒁳) 16:05, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Touch of Death is currently reasonably under control. It appears that Dim Mak is indeed an invention of the 1950s, although it does of course build on older tenets of TCM.
But this was only the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. I am not surprised that there is an Indian version of this, at Varma Kalai, where we learn, among other things, that
Now that's what I call advanced martial arts!
The article supposed to discuss this field encyclopedically would be pressure point, and it could also do with some attention. As is well known to all regulars on this board, there is also a huge pile of articles on Chinese esotericism which are practically beyond repair. E.g. Tui na, but I do not have the heart to look deeper into that particular abyss. -- dab (𒁳) 13:51, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Sorry if this is in the wrong place. For the last several days a variety of IPs and a single purpose account have been attempting to add details of the July 2009 Ürümqi riots to this article, generally based on this single source or related statements. The source does not say the riots were a terrorist incident, and the majority of neutral coverage (ie, non-Chinese state propaganda) describes the ongoing problems as riots, civil unrest and ethnic unrest. Myself and another editor believe that to claim this is a terrorist incident is a fringe view at best, would others agree? O Fenian ( talk) 00:53, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
At the moment the problem is over inclusion of what I gather is some obsolete notions of Leibnitz. Anyway, there's an RFC on this which can be gone over here, for those with the stamina to do so. Mangoe ( talk) 14:33, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
This is a truly amazing case. It illustrates how you can quibble about a very simple thing until the matter is so confused that it is impossible to state what the dispute is even about. -- dab (𒁳) 14:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
This article is not based on any serious research work and makes claims solely to insert Persian to historical contexts where it simply does not belong. For example, it's well known in scholarship that Timur (the grandson of Genghiz Khan) was a Turko-Mongol, whilst the article attempts to claim him or his dynasty Turko-Persian. The argument used in justification of this fringe theory is that Persian was spoken in some of the Turko-Mongol courts, but that's not an argument for identity association. For example, French was broadly spoken in Russian court and many Russian writers used this language. It does not mean Russia is Russo-French now. Americans eat pizza and sing opera in Italian, it does not mean U.S. is Anglo-Italian society. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 15:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Another example of this radical ethno-nationalism removal of the large number of referenced material, day's worth of work, in favor of an unsourced OR, fringe nationalist theory that Azeris and Uzbeks are Persians. It seems that people just have nothing else to do, but to pervert history. Yet another example Safavid Dynasty, which was originally called "Dowlat-e Safaviyye" (The Safavid State), now has Safavid Persian Empire stamped all over the article and removing/rescinding any kind of reference to Azeri/Turkic, while the founder of the kingdom even wrote poems and diplomatic letters in this language. This is called historical revisionism and reinventing identity at the expense of it, and with Persian case, it's gotten completely out of control. Atabəy ( talk) 18:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Looks like Dbachmman took care of the issue by redirecting a fork article to Turco-Persian tradition. About the term [ [13]]. For example René Grousset , not a Persian nationalist calls the Seljuqs a Turko-Persian empire. However that article was written poorly and was a fork.
However, I believe the above user is trying to fish around and cannot claim to be unbiased. His record is clear. Atabek has been topic banned from several regionals topics by the admin Moreshchi and has been in two arbcomms and is under 1rr. He recently had a scuffle with another established ubiased user here: [14] because legitimate sources call Alparslan Türkeş a fascist. Thus he claims the user was Turko-phobic.
His claim about Safavids are wrong [15] and there are books " http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Safavid+Persian+empire%22"(Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian empire). That is written by a scholar and there are dozens of such sources. It is a common geographical designation. I gave a detailed response on the usage of Iran/Persia for Safavids for the user here: [16] from both primary and secondary sources. However any European travel logue and map from the era names the country Persia. However just look at European maps of the era, and it is called Persia. And Safavids used 'Ajam (Persia) and Iran in their own official letters. As per the origin of the dynasty, Roger Savory says the concensus is Safavid origin was from Kurdistan and they later adopted Azeri-Turkic. This is reflected in the article and we have allowed various theories in the article, since users did not reach a concensus. As far as I can tell all statements from the article are sourced. Dbachmman should not mistake a poor article and generalize. I note again that Moreschi whom Dbachmann respects actually topic banned this user from some areas. So one should not say he has a neutral attitude here. He just found a badly written fork article and is looking to make all Iranian users look bad. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 18:49, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Huh? Since when are the academic projects of Columbia University ( Encyclopedia Iranica) and Safavid scholars such as Roger Savory considered "Persian sources"? I have worked on many of these pages with User:Folantin whom I have a great deal of respect for, and assisted him against the different types of Persian nationalists, so Folantin knows my stands on these issues very well. Take my word as you will, User:Atabəy should be the last person to talk about "radical ethno-nationalism" on Wikipedia, he is the worst manifestation of that problem here. A courtesy look at his attempts to white-wash the negative aspects of Alparslan Türkeş's character, some ultra-nationalist Turkish politician who favored his party members to wear Hitler style haircut and mustache, and advocated Nazi racist doctrines, while at the same time raving on the talk page about "Turkophobia" and how Reza Shah, a mild nationalist compared to Alparslan Türkeş, was a Nazi, will tell you all you need to know about Atabəy's real concerns. Eliminating ethno-racial-nationalist POV is the least of Atabəy`s worries, the neutral editors here should be careful not to fall into his trap. He knows how to game the system, and he is essentially fishing here, trying to play on the concerned editors's fear of nationalism, citing some random badly-written POV fork that was rightfully redirected by Dbachmann, to further his own nationalist agenda elsewhere. Sorry about the blunt language, but you gotta call a spade, a spade! -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 22:56, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, evidence of nationalist/racist POV as presented, additionally focusing on personality than on topics as usual. Below are just a few of numerous Google Books references that never make it into Safavid article due to this POV:
Now, I ask readers to dare to add any of this to Safavid dynasty and enjoy the action of Persian nationalist POV pushing, based on Pan-Iranism and ethnocentric political propaganda in encyclopedia to make own conclusions. Atabəy ( talk) 23:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
However, look at the third source you brought, it is about their Turkocmen followers not Safavids. Roger Savory has written more than 100 aritcles and books on Safavids. "From the evidence available at the present time, it is certain that the Safavid family was of indigineous Iranian stock, and not of Turkish ancestry as it is sometimes claimed." (History of Humanity-Scientific and Cultural Development: From the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century", Taylor & Francis. 1999). Why can't you quote any Western Safavid expert that agrees with you? Mathee says the same about their Kurdish origin. Kathryn Babayan (another Safavid expert) states:" Kathryn Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran , Cambridge , Mass. ; London : Harvard University Press, 2002. pg 143: “It is true that during their revolutionary phase (1447–1501), Safavi guides had played on their descent from the family of the Prophet. The hagiography of the founder of the Safavi order, Shaykh Safi al-Din Safvat al-Safa written by Ibn Bazzaz in 1350-was tampered with during this very phase. An initial stage of revisions saw the transformation of Safavi identity as Sunni Kurds into Arab blood descendants of Muhammad.”". Now who are the authors of your sources with regards to Safavid studies and how many publications they have on history of the area and Safavids? Still you have a section "Turkish component" and you can put whatever source you want, since your refusal to accept Safavid scholars has lead to the present situation. Encyclopedia Islam (Brill) clearly states the concensus is Safavids where from Kurdistan. However it is you that has made the article low quality, because when someone like Savory states: "From the evidence available at the present time, it is certain that the Safavid family was of indigineous Iranian stock, and not of Turkish ancestry " you go quote an out of the blue source like "History of Iranian literature". Look at another source you brought: [19]. It is called Firearms (a general book on firearms). So I think it is obvious who is pushing nationalistic POV and finding any non-expert source to claim anything. And yes complaining against Iranian nationalism while being blocked multiple times, under two arbcomm, under 1rr striction and also topic banned from some Armenian related articles does not really make you neutral user. Feel free to add those sources to the Turkish section on Safavids, no one has deleted them. Wikipedia is generally about WP:RS and WP:verifiability. So go ahead and put a source on firearms and Iranian literature on the origin of Safavids in the Turkish component section. However those sources such as "firearm", "Iranian literature" (general book on 1200 years of Iranian literature" and etc. are not really Safavid related books. Safavids experts are Savory, Mathee, Babayan, Melville, Roemer, and etc. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
If Nepaheshgar is involved, that's an instant warning sign that crank fringe theories are being pushed somewhere... -- ChrisO ( talk) 23:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes dear Atabəy, those ethnocentric/nationalist/racist/propagandist Iranians, how dare they don not let you use the highly-acclaimed expert academic sources such as "Iran: A Travel Guide By Vijeya Rajendra", "The fragmentation of Afghanistan", "Firearms`", "History of Iranian literature", "An outline of Turkish architecture in the Middle Ages". Oh the humanity, all these expert sources about Safavids are being ignored, for the likes of Roger Savory who know nothing about Safavids, this is clearly a violation of WP:Fringe and WP:RS. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 23:42, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
(Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes, (Rutgers University Press, 1991), 161,164)..they mean the empire as a whole was Turko-Persian. The culture, administration of these empires were Persian but the ruling elite and military was Turkic. As Dbachman says, this part of Iranian and Turkish history overlap and so it is good if some people with expertise like Folantin help balance any article that needs balancing. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 00:36, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, I guess the discussion subject was Turco-Persian article, which was a piece of nationalist invention and utter WP:OR. The issue was addressed by a redirect, further revealing (not by me) the extent of Persian nationalist POV pushing in Wikipedia. The rest of political propaganda and racist hogwash fed to non-Persian Iranians on daily basis can be moved to Safavid talk page. And by the way, the so much defamed Firearms source actually quotes the 17th century French traveler at Safavid court, as cited from Gandjei, "Turkish in the Safavid Court of Isfahan", p. 314. So yet another POV push exposed, and I am glad to see that I am not the only one seeing it clearly. If you have doubts, check out this and this articles at Persian nationalist portal, see if the propaganda described in first and fed in the second is any different, if not word-to-word quoted above. And I guess the recent edit [20] devoting portion of Pan-Iranism article to Pan-Turkism is yet another POV push, with a flavor of traditional Turcophobia. Atabəy ( talk) 00:58, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Especially so, following your relentless attempts to discount Pan-Iranism- Nazi connection
I'm amazed you were capable of finding that reference. Since you seemed completely lost when it came to Arpaslan Turkes' racist views!
More WP:SOAPBOX. I never claimed Uzbeks or Azeris were Persians. That is why I removed Uzbek and modified the sentence. It has nothing to do with anything you edit or said. It was there before I edited the article and I take credit for removing it. So no need to take credit for something you didn't do. I am not going to continue responding to you here as your rants are what gave you your Wikipedia record. I am not interested in having such a record and the next WP:SOAPBOX and WP:FORUM comment will be reported to admins who will give warnings and after that if it continues, it will get more. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 01:49, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
This template and its contents seek to put forward some baseless historical claims and advocate an irredentist political doctrine, well described by this reference (see the bold part):
There is no source that refers to the listed countries as "Greater Iran", moreover, there was never a country or a region by such name including all the countries listed. To my knowledge, no such equivalent exists in other cases.
I am not sure if templates are covered by WP:FRINGE, but this one is being inserted all over Wikipedia articles. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 22:51, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I would invite everyone to view the edit of the above user in pan-Iranism where he calls any scholar he does not like as a pan-Iranist. When a term gets about 500-600 hits in google books, then he should use the search tools to find history sources for the term.
It is the same here. The word "greater Iran" has nothing to do with any sort of political concepts. Rather the country called "Iran" is only part of the territory that was called Iran during various dynasties.
Richard Nelson Frye defines Greater Iran as including "much of the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, with cultural influences extending to China, western India, and the Semitic speaking world." According to Frye, "Iran means all lands and peoples where Iranian languages were and are spoken, and where in the past, multi-faceted Iranian cultures existed." [2]
Note the above user used Richard Frye in Safavids to push his viewpoint, but he simply ignores such a scholarly sources.
Richard Foltz states: "It is often assumed that various people of "greater Iran" - a cultural area that streched from Mesopotamia and the Caucasus into Khwarizm, Transoxiana, Bactria, and the Pamirs and included Persians, Medes, Parthians and Sogdians among others--were all "Zoroastrians" in in pre-Islamic times [3]. To the Greeks, Greater Iran ended at the Indus [4]
According to J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams most of Western greater Iran spoke SW Iranian languages in the Achaemenid era while the Eastern territory spoke Eastern Iranian languages related to Avesta [5].
George Lane also states that after the dissolution of mongol empire, the Ilkhanids became rulers of greater Iran [6] and Öljaitü according to Judith G. Kolbas was the ruler of this expanse between 1304-1317 A.D. [7]
Same source: "Abu Sa'id Last effective Mongol khan of Greater Iran" [8].
Or for example Amelie Kuhrt [ [25]].
Or UNESCO book on history edited by Sir Edmod Bosworth [ [26]].
Primary sources including Timurid historian Mir Khwand define Iranshahr (Greater Iran) as from the Euphrates to the Oxus [9]
So for examples Ilkhanids or Safavids or Sassanids or etc. had a territory for their name which was Iran. So scholars use the term greater Iran for dynasties who ruled modern Iran and its outlying regions. And also per definition of Frye. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:03, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Turkey is not a historical term. Mongolia was a single empire for one time and has a template. So your comparisons are not valid. Persia/Iran had various empires (Medes, Achaemenids, Parthians, Sassanids, Ilkhanids, Safavids, Qajars and etc.). These empire ruled outside of modern Iran and thus the term greater Iran by such qualified scholars as J.P. Mallory and Richard Frye. Islamic sources as well as modern specialist sources still use the term Iran for a vast expanse of the Seljuq empire. So have scholars [ [27]] [ [28]]. They do not use "greater Turkey". As far as I can see, the template is not making any political advocation and that is your WP:OR linking an unrelated statement about pan-Iranism to a template which has nothing to do with it. But as scholars I brought state: Same source: "Abu Sa'id Last effective Mongol khan of Greater Iran" [10]. Or Richard Frye, Cambridge history of Iran and Mallory and etc. The Qajar empire which included various territories outside of modern Iran was also called Iran, not Turkey or Arabia or etc. So overall it has the dual meaning which is used by Frye (which you have quoted in other articles). And obviously having a history template for what a term many scholars have used is common in Wikipedia. If you find major scholars like J.P. Mallory and Richard Frye and etc. use such a term as "greater Turkey", then go make a template for the history of that land. Else your comparison is invalid. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:21, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
And how about 437 Google Books results for Greater Turkey or whatever applies to Turkic cultural region? Or 440 Google books results for Greater Arabia? What about citing the magnitude of sources showing the extent of Greater Mongol Empire. Is this a reason to reference MODERN! countries or regions as part of "Greater Iran"? Atabəy ( talk) 23:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Greater Arabia can have a template since Islamic sources refer to Saudia Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, UAE, and etc. as Greater Arabia. However which SCHOLAR (turcologist) has used the term "Greater Turkey" for a span of 2000-3000 years of history? If the problem is a modern countries, sure the template should be up to the Qajar era. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I would also like to bring to administrators attention that the user above has been making nothing but battle field edits in the past week and calling scholars he does not like Touraj Atabaki as "pan-Iranist turkophobes" without absolutely any 3rd party source! This behaviour has not only be done with scholars, but even non-Iranian users whom he calls "Turkophones" [29]. Two arbcomms, 1rr restriction and some topic bans was simply not enough to get the point across that Wikipedia is not a battle field. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 23:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Why do you keep focusing on user instead of topic? Please, WP:AGF, I haven't violated any rule by opening a thread and requesting something per rules. I presented you with books. Scholars talked about historical cultural concept, not a historical region including modern countries and regions. Abuse of this is called irredentism, which is how Pan-Iranism and the whole thing with Greater Iran is properly named by scholars. Let's create a template for Greater England for any country speaking English. This is nonsense, but I will let the reviewers decide on that. All your arguments are relevant to Template talk:History of Greater Iran, so discuss there instead of opening another WP:FORUM here. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 23:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Template:History of Greater Iran which I request to be looked at is different from Template:History of Iran, which I find appropriate. My concern is not with name Iran or Persia, but with usage of the word "Greater" including existing foreign nations. That's a political doctrine. Atabəy ( talk) 00:00, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
I think if the name is a problem, Kurdo77's suggestion of Persia (modern Iran is part of what is known as ancient Persia and Persian empires) is good. Another suggestion is Iranshahr. However I note the term "Greater Iran" (despite the way it might sound) has been used by major scholars of Iranology as both a cultural and historical /territory concept. We can then put it on the footnote that it is also called "Greater Iran" by scholars. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 00:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Kurdo, I think your suggestion is alright. And moving to History of Persia would be helpful, or merger with History of Iran template. The Greater thing is just too POV. Nepaheshgar, please, do not engage in WP:BATTLE on Pan-Turkism with this sort of edits. Atabəy ( talk) 00:51, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Iran and Persia are the two names used for the same country. There is no such thing as "Greater Iran" in either geographical or political context, neither Afghanistan nor Uzbekistan are Iran. Atabəy ( talk) 01:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
I am still expecting administrator's decision as to the name Template:History of Greater Iran, which I think is irredentist, WP:POV and based solely on Iranian claims (as are Persian words, Iranzamin and Iranshahr, unfit to describe a concrete contemporary geographic region in English-language Wikipedia). Atabəy ( talk) 01:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
So that explains the recent edit warring on several articles. And note, my edit on pan-Turkism is not a retaliation but an article that needs improvement. So WP:AGF. -- Nepaheshgar ( talk) 02:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Again, take a look at Aryanism: The earliest epigraphically-attested reference to the word arya occurs in the 6th century Behistun inscription, which describes itself to have been composed "in arya [language or script]" (§ 70). As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, the arya of the inscription does not signify anything but "Iranian".
If I was to promote pan-Turkism ideology, I would not keep the criticism section in the article. Yes, I removed your POV/OR on Armenian genocide relation to pan-Turkism, because the ideology started in Russian Empire and most of it origins have to do with non-Ottoman part. Additionally, the claim that pan-Turkism was a cause for 1915 events is a claim of few Armenian scholars, only based on the fact that CUP was in favor of pan-Turkic views. However, CUP also cooperated with Armenian Revolutionary Federation in governing the empire, is this a ground to claim that ARF was involved in 1915 events as party responsible of Armenian deaths? Hence your edit seems to be driven by a nationalist passion, WP:BATTLE and Turcophobic opinion. Because the discussion was about Pan-Iranian irredentism and "Greater Iran" nonsense. The fact that pan-Turkism is even brought up here, ONLY due to my claimed ethnic background and absolutely nothing else, reveals the WP:BATTLE approach on your behalf rather than a sincere debate on the topic. I hope the admins take note of that. Atabəy ( talk) 15:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Nepaheshgar, the thread is dedicated to Template:History of Greater Iran, which included Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, i.e. contemporary non-Iranian nations. The issue was partially addressed by Kurdo, and I thank him for that, though not fully. I think the template should be merged with Template:History of Iran as it's pretty much the same thing. Again, all of your emotional outbreaks and attacks against me, violating WP:NPA, on Armenian issue, Pan-Turkism, etc. are irrelevant to the subject of this thread. If you want to further debate on it, please, switch to talk pages of the relevant articles, instead of your WP:FORUM and WP:SOAPBOX here. Go ahead say the final word, as I see there is no other way to let admins review this thread. Atabəy ( talk) 16:16, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Atabəy, why are you dragging this on and on? You said that your main concern was the modern section, and I removed the entire section in question. If your problem is now with the name of the template, that can be addressed too, by renaming the page to "Template:History of Persa" with a formal request on the talk page. But the template shouldn't be merged with "Template:History of Iran" as this is the English Wikipedia and in English language and literature, modern state of Iran is merely a part of, and not the same thing as, ancient Persia. There were many dynasties whose center of power was located outside of modern Iran, but called their state Iran (in English Persia) nonetheless. Merging these two templates would be like merging a template about Prussia with a template about Germany. That's just my opinion. If you disagree, I would urge you to request such merger, through the formal channels, on the article's talk page. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 22:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Take a look at the discussion here Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Admins_vs_contributors which should be of interest to almost everyone here even if they aren't interested in the specific article. Dougweller ( talk) 19:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
...but as we are merely suggesting a few topics for the reader's meditation, let us inquire, what was the type of that ancient Egyptian race which linked Africa with Asia? This interrogatory has given rise to enless discussions, nor can it, even now, be regarded as absolutely answered. For many centuries prior to the present, as readers of Rollin and of Volney may remember, the Egyptians were reputed to be Negroes and Egyptian civilization was believed to have descened the Nile from Ethiopia! Champollion, Rosseline, and others, while unanimous in overthrowing the former, to a great extent consecrated the latter of these errors, which could hardly be considered as fully refuted until the appearance of Gliddon's Chapters on Ancient Egypt, in 1843, and of Morton's Crania Aegyptiaca in 1844.
unindent; it should be clear that CoM is part of the problem, not of the solution. [35] Yes, the question of the "race of the Ancient Egyptians" would have been a viable question in 1840 to 1930 scientific racism. The question is today kept alive by racists who apparently have their mental home in the pre-WWII period. We can and do discuss scientific racism, no problem, but these articles aren't intended as being written by racists in defence of racism, per WP:TIGERS. Anyone who has difficulties understanding this after being kindly made aware of the fact five times over is either trolling, or a walking illustration of Hanlon's razor. It doesn't matter which, because either case will result in a ban. -- dab (𒁳) 12:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
(unindent) Perhaps newly arrived editors to Ancient Egyptian race controversy should acquire more skills in locating secondary sources. I made a search on google scholar for "egyptian" and "afrocentrism". The following mainstream academic book, published after a major conference in 2000 at University College London, seems to be an excellent secondary source:
The contributors are all established academics. There is an article by John North on "Attributing colour to the ancient egyptians", another by Bernal and a long general introduction by the two editors. The fact that no article in this book has been cited is problematic; amongst other things the book specifically deals with afrocentrism and egyptology. Mathsci ( talk) 08:37, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
After reading the comments in this thread, I see now the position that some have against the "black-egyptian" (BE)theory, even though I still believe they were black. Some indicating that BE is a fringe theory have a belief that it’s about black people making Ancient Egypt an expression of black pride. But that is not the purpose of BE contributors. In the Vikings example further up this thread, "Ancient Egypt and Black Pride". It is exactly as eccentric as "Vikings and White Pride". Yes it is eccentric, but what is NOT eccentric is this: Vikings were white. Pride or not, we cannot escape the notion that the Vikings were as white ethnically as modern day white people. So perhaps the notion that the terms “black” and “white” are not acceptable terms to describe ancient people? Ok fine. How then do we express the fact that the Ancient Egyptians shared traits that are found in black people today? Because the BE contributors and BE believers in general see a tactic that is very disrespectful. We see that the Ancient Egyptians (AE), when their own representations show characteristics found exclusively or primarily in modern day black people, those traits are explained with other anti-BE theories (Marfan's Syndrome, Dynastic Race Theory, wigs, etc). Secondly, the characteristics are not rare, they are the most common. Average AE people had kinky hair, brown skin, etc. This is the only group of ancients mind you that has these traits that are somehow classified AS Caucasoids. Then to argue against this is fringe? No, that's impossible. You can basically take it like this: Ancient Egyptians, if you took one from the past, and placed him/her here today, they would be viewed not as white/Caucasian (even if they do have some skeletal traits), they would at least be viewed as biracial (black/white) and more often than not as black. With the "Caucasoid" designation, this is also a bait and switch. Why? Caucasoid deals exclusively with skeletal designation. I am sure that a large chunk of African-Americans who otherwise are considered black by every understanding, if you took their skeletons, measured them, they would be reclassified as Caucasoid. Caucasoid itself has morphed from a clear expression of white racial classification to now a grouping meant to politically link white people with ancient societies that they otherwise have NO connection to. Ethiopians, classified as Caucasoids, but they have zero historical connection with Caucasoids in Europe, and Ethiopians have far more connected with Negroids in Africa, Black Africans throughout the continent. So to say that the Ancient Egyptians, a Nilotic people by the way, are not black and to paint the BE theory as fringe is simply out of touch with the facts. Unless you redefine every other noun in a way to exclude them of course. Negroid, Black, Caucasoid, Afro-Asiatic, etc... if you redefine those nouns to exclude the black presence and to forge links to white ancestors, then yes, you could then paint it as fringe. But that is an elaborate POV tactic, and the BE contributors see it, and that is why we react so strongly. Not because we are trying to express black pride. Please, stop relating to us as if we are child minded and unsophisticated in the art of objectivity. When we see this POV tactic is attempted and we point it out, we get talked down to about the rules. It is insulting and partly why we react uncivil. We know the rules, we are pointing out how others are breaking them without consequences to push the anti-BE POV. It's time to move past that. The Ancient Egyptian BE theory is not fringe and as you can see has a large contributive body. -- Panehesy ( talk) 02:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Second comment. My grammar above is disjointed. I understand that. I want to add also that the issue here goes beyond Ancient Egypt. Articles about black people, skin color for example are designed to maintain POV that is inaccurate. the skin color article is still using a scale that overempathizes the very small variations in skin tone between white people, while painting in a broad stereotype the far more diverse skin color among black people. This method, an actual reverse of reality, is maintined BY contributors in the article for reasons that lack common sense. Read their comments! They push a skin color scale that is now debunked and is now fringe, yet it has such prominence in the article itself. -- Panehesy ( talk) 03:03, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Strong campaign by IPs to try and insist, contra sources, that the father wasn't human. Please watchlist this, and be liberal with the revert button. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Ice Cold Beer ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) topic banned five editors from the race controversy article. Claims of support and opposition to the bans involve claims about NPOV and fringe theories. Thus, it would be invaluable if some experienced regulars from this noticeboard participate in the review of the topic bans at: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Ancient Egyptian race controversy ban review. Thank you. -- Vassyana ( talk) 01:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I see no reason to "review" stuff. This is just wikilawyering, just keep nagging people until you get your way. I don't see why anyone in their right mind would think of rewarding this kind of approach with their attention. -- dab (𒁳) 17:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Lots of criticism has been removed from this article recently and an NPOV tag added. Some criticisms of t being a quotefarm looks justified, but due to the nature of the article I'd like to request more eyes to review the changes and watchlist this and related pages. (I hope racism is a fringe position!) Verbal chat 07:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
In the George Trenholm biography, an editor inserted his fringe theory that the fictitious character Rhett Butler in the novel Gone with the Wind is modeled after George Trenholm.
I tagged, challenged and removed the fringe theory almost one year ago. There are simply no reliable sources on this subject, other than the self-published book by the creator of this theory. Just recently, another editor believed the theory should be included in the biography, and inserted:
It is claimed that novelist Margaret Mitchell patterned her fictional character, Rhett Butler, on the life of Trenholm
The references given are:
This has lead to an edit war, as the references given are not solid enough to be included in an historical figure biography. The references are repeating hearsay/rumors and do not go into explanation on the matter. The 3O who is trying to assist is on the fence, but cited WP:UNDO and the claim/rumor should be dropped if no WP:RS could be cited.
Discussion here: Talk:George_Trenholm Jim ( talk) 11:31, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
In an article about the intelligent design book Darwin's Black Box, is it appropriate to mention that the book made it onto the National Review "100 Best Non-Fiction Books Of The Century" list? This is being discussed at Talk:Darwin's Black Box#Inclusion of National Review ranking.-- Arxiloxos ( talk) 19:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Alfonzo Green ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is attempting to present Rupert Sheldrake ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) as a legitimate scientist, and his claims as legitimate theoretical biology and morphogenesis research. Greater scrutiny would be welcome. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 07:12, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
it is funny how people like Sheldrake in retrospect have a huge "1980s" stamped right across their foreheads. The 80s were a crazy decade which is only beginning to emerge from the shadow of the 60s and 70s to which it was long taken as being a kind of dull epilogue. -- dab (𒁳) 09:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Green is now attempting to recreate Wolpert-Sheldrake Genome Wager as The Genome Wager (still with nary a third party source in cite). Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 10:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
This article came up on a list of stuff to do. I don't want to touch it because I can't maintain NPOV. in 2006 he wanted to remove from public view some very important fossils. here's link to sort of reliable uk paper guardian observer http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/sep/10/theobserver.kenya hope someone can help with at least the ref for the hiding fossils thing NotAnIP83:149:66:11 ( talk) 23:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
less abysmal than the recently addressed Science and the Bible but still worth a look. -- dab (𒁳) 11:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
The article on Thomas (à) Becket (1118-1170) claims that the often used "à" in his name is and always has been incorrect. The only source given for this claim is John Strype's 1694 work Memorials of Thomas Cranmer. This book was written over 500 years after Becket's death, and it was written about Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), not Becket. It does not seem like this source is credible or relevant enough to override all of the sources who use the "à", including: the Oxford Dictionary of English, the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, and Chambers Biographical Dictionary (all given in the Becket article).
This article is having problems with its lead at the moment, with an editor insisting on inserting peacock terms into the lead, puffery, and minimising the conclusion that his work was not accepted by the scientific community. The article has got a lot better, but it shouldn't be allowed to turn into a whitewash. More eyes please, Verbal chat 10:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
We have what could develop into a severe problem here. An admin has showed up, declaring that other people are violating ArbCom sanctions and insinuating that she's going to get them blocked. At the same time she is demanding that no article can mention the term "pseudoscientific" (of which she says "please believe me, is a completely meaningless term" and that those using it "are only displaying their own ignorance") despite the fact that the two ArbCom decisions behind WP:FRINGE explicitly approve of the use of the term. When we have someone misrepresenting a decision like this and taking a very aggressive stance -- especially considering the admin in question has been known to make rather unorthodox decisions on her own in the past -- I think it's important that a broad range of editors including other admins watch what's going on in case it escalates beyond mere bluff and bluster. DreamGuy ( talk) 16:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Can more people please review recent activities at Ian Stevenson, including a rather longwinded talk page discussion. I'm worried about the neutrality of the article which has attracted some WP:SPA activity. (Previous comment removed by me following justified criticism: diff) Verbal chat 17:05, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Claimed as "Islamic scholar" in the early 1800s USA. From what I can tell his situation is more ambiguous than this; the references in the article say that he converted to Christianity in 1820. He's being used to prop up diversity-minded FRINGE/UNDUE notions about Islam among African-American slaves; see also the section on Islam in Religion in the United States, which got mauled at some point as well. This is probably not an ongoing issue but could use some attention at this time. Mangoe ( talk) 11:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
This article gives far too much emphasis to the fringe theory that Edward II survived past 1327. It is also unduly critical of the standard account of the method of his execution. *** Crotalus *** 20:21, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Race and crime, which was a coatrack for racist POV and OR (by presentation of raw statistics with discussion and analysis begin supressed or coming from recognised hate groups), was merged into Anthropological criminology by consensus some time ago, and Race and crime was protected as a redirect. A new editor is trying to revive the article by posting across multiple noticeboards, suggests sources that clearly fail WP:RS, and has recently recreated the article at Relationship between race and crime. More eyes on all these articles please, and please join in the discussions. I'm not against well sourced analysis from good sources, but I don't want to see the implied racism reappearing. Thanks, Verbal chat 09:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
well, Race and crime was deleted on grounds of being WP:SYNTH, not because the topic is inherently invalid. There appears to be a bona fide attempt at encyclopedic coverage at Talk:Anthropological_criminology#Race_and_crime_statistics. But, for the moment, it will be sufficient to just introduce a "race and crime" section within Anthropological criminology. Once such a section has been introduced and proven stable, it can still be branched out as a WP:SS {{ main}} article. At that point, and only then, should Race and crime become unprotected. This is just a matter of proper procedure, not of WP:FRINGE.
It is my view that we should not put up unreasonable hoops to jump through for people wishing to document this particular topic in good faith. This would have a nasty smell of censorship (we're not comfortable with statistics on race and crime, hence we're going to make this very difficult for you). The people who want to compile this article must make a reasonable effort of avoiding SYNTH and OR, but it stops there. If they can point to valid resources discussing the question, they are free to write an article about it. I am obviously on the same page as Verbal that "discussion and analysis being supressed or coming from recognised hate groups" isn't convincing as a bona fide effort. But instead of going to lengths to establish that valid analysis is being "suppressed", people could just insert such analysis. It's a wiki. -- dab (𒁳) 16:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
Anthropological criminology doesn't seem an appropriate merge target for this topic. Some kind of variant of Race and crime should exist in this encyclopedia - it is a topic that is notable and readers should expect to learn about. Raw stats are a no-no, and it'll need watching for racist POV pushers and vandals, but to suppress this article entirely seems like an overreaction. Fences& Windows 19:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure why you addressed that concern to me, Hrafn, since obviously I am also of the opinion that this cannot be about dumping "raw statistics". I am talking about an actual "coverage of expert discussion of the potential underlying statistical relationships". If somebody wants to write that article, let them. If they insist on just dumping raw statistics, tell them to stuff their statistics and present some coherent secondary source discussing the statistics.
People are extremely touchy about discussing race issues openly. I realize that this is due to the rather recent history of racial discriminatino in the USA, and everybody still feels kind of bad about that. But this shouldn't interfere with our project of writing an encyclopedia. I am actually investing great hopes in President O. and his candid and above-the-board approach to the matter that this situation is going to vastly improve over the next years or even months.
Obama is telling racial minorities to stop blaming colonial slave trade if they drop out of school. We have the same effect on Wikipedia, people whining about historical discrimination if their crappy edits are reverted. Perhaps they need to start considering the possibility that their crappy edits were reverted because the were crappy and not because of some WASP cabal behind Wikipedia. Now that was a rant about the "Afrocentrism" hubbub further up on this page, but you can see how it relates to this point here. We just need to grow out of this sort of thing, its the only way to a better (and for Wikipedia that is: more encyclopedic) future. -- dab (𒁳) 21:49, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
The POV pushing over there by some dedicated SPA editors (might need to do some sock checks soon, come to think of it) is still ongoing,l despite repeated notices here. The editors in question insist upon presenting this person's reincarnation beliefs as science at its best and do so based upon very selective choice of sources and WP:SYNTHESIS. They are also wikilawyering klike nobody's business to remove all mention taht reliable sources has explicitly named his work as an example of pseudoscience. Apparently the main argument now is that being mentioned by name as making flawed arguments in a paragraph discussing specific instances of pseudoscience in a section discussing a pseudoscientific topic in the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience is somehow conveniently not actually calling his research pseudoscience because they do not see the actual word "pseudoscience" in the sentence mentioning the individual. This is wikilawyering at its most absurd, and clearly doing so to censor the majority scientific view while enthusiastically giving WP:UNDUEWEIGHT to an extreme WP:FRINGE view. It'd be nice if some sane people showed up over there to help out again. It's clear that unless the POV pushers in question get blocked that they will never give up on this article. DreamGuy ( talk) 15:16, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
All the "alternative" causes [37] of ADHD are fringe theories with regards to the Causes of ADHD. Causes would mean what theories would best explain the causes of ADHD. This is best determined by scientists and none of these theories have true scientific backing. Theories in Causes section of the article include, the social construct theory of ADHD. This theory believes that ADHD is a fabrication of society and is a philosophy often expounded by anti-psychiatrists. Neurodiversity is another philosophy not based on science. The Hunter vs. farmer theory has a popular following but is not based on science. This theory believes that those with ADHD carry the Hunter genes while the rest of the population carries the farmer genes. Finally the low arousal theory explains symptoms and not causes. This theory may have been created to sell product.-- scuro ( talk) 19:01, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm thinking that there's some problems here. For example, it looks like there's some POV forking going on, there shouldn't need to be so many articles. With the exception of Neurodiversity, the other articles are all begin by centering in on ADHD as the topic. Perhaps they should be merged into the main article? I'm proposing that. Irbisgreif ( talk) 06:27, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
See this edit, adding Viera Scheibner who said that 95% of sudden death of infants was caused by vaccines. See discussion in talk page. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 02:31, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I added some information which counters the prevailing (Western mainstream) view that homosexuality is immutable, but someone deleted the material even though it was referenced; there's even an article about the organization which provides the information. Is this a case of a "fringe" view being unworthy of inclusion, or what? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 21:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Reducing the statement "sexual orientation may not be immutable" to "zomg Conservapedia Nazis bible-thumping brainwashers" strikes me as a bit of an over-reaction. I have not researched this, but the claim that sexual orientation may change in the course of an individual's life does not necessarily have anything to do with homophobia, or brainwashing. It entails, much rather, that somebody may start out as a homosexual in their teens and switch to being hetero at some later date, or, equally, as a hetero teen that may turn homosexual at some later point. I am sure there are plenty of case studies for either direction of such "re-orientations", even omitting the rather large field of "neiher, or both", and I do not think it is helpful to reduce this discussion to one on ideology from the outset. The question whether such a change in either direction is in any way desirable is a completely different issue, and necessarily subjective. -- dab (𒁳) 18:09, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Serious attention is needed... the article is full of OR (especially the section: Examination of Apollo Moon photographs#Accusation that NASA uploaded doctored pictures to website, currently the subject of a dispute). Blueboar ( talk) 22:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
This is definitely going to need more hands... Stubborn POV warrior is refusing to listen to explanations of what is wrong. Simply reverts to "his" version. Blueboar ( talk) 21:51, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
As I figured would happen... the AfD has has resulted in a Keep. Unfortunately, no rational was given for the result, but most of the comments in favor of keeping were WP:ILIKEIT type votes... and I think many of those arguing for keep did not fully understand that we were NOT talking about the main Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories article but the more specific Examination of Apollo Moon photographs. In any case... the article still has a LOT of problems and we need some people who understand WP:FRINGE, WP:NOR, WP:UNDUE, WP:RS and WP:V to address them. Please help. Blueboar ( talk) 21:21, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Read all about it here. Mangoe ( talk) 13:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
I wonder if those who run Wikipedia might consider updating WP:UNDUE to indicate that, although giving undue weight to the claims of actual Holocaust deniers is, of course, a good example of what this policy is trying to prevent, it nevertheless is bad Wikipedia etiquette to imply that a person who is advancing a claim thought to be WP:UNDUE is somehow a supporter of Holocaust denial or engaging in anything akin to Holocaust denial. What I'm concerned about is that some editors invoke this in order to put a chill on debate on the Talk pages, e.g., "No one believes that but you, you're just like a Holocaust denier." A Holocaust denier is someone who wants to spread the manifest falsehood that millions of people were murdered. The average person whose edits manifest a potential issue over WP:UNDUE are people who have merely not sufficiently demonstrated that a substantial minority of people agree with some specific statement. I'm okay with the principle of WP:UNDUE, it's the tenor of the discussion that I have a problem with. We shouldn't be here to belittle people's edits, but to tell them what will fly and what won't. In the specific case I've confronted (on the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis page) I've found that some elements first criticized as WP:UNDUE turned out not to be as reliable sources began to report on those elements in more detail. In other words, the "Holocaust deniers" turned out to be people trying to report a dimension of the crisis but simply not having enough evidence yet to make their point. It was legitimate of people to make edits citing WP:UNDUE until those sources emerged. It was not legitimate of those people to compare their adversaries in an editing dispute to the Nazis. Is there something that can be added to this policy to make it clear that name-calling and guilt by association are not okay according to WP:UNDUE? Zachary Klaas ( talk) 21:40, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
A user has requested more sources and evidence of notability for this work. I'm sure people here can provide some. This seems to be related to the Jim Tucker/ Ian Stevenson/ Reincarnation research debates. Reviews, sources, citations all requested! Thanks, Verbal chat 13:04, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
The asrticle on Robert Todd Carroll seems like a rich source of potential references that could be used to bring the The Skeptic's Dictionary to the point where it meets WP:N. I'm not entiurely sure why I mention this, since form the evidence of the last few days conversation you lot are far too lazy and useless to do it and I'll end up doing it myself. Artw ( talk) 02:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Armenian patriotism galore. After all these months, this article still hasn't gone past the mandatory handful of diehard nationalists pushing Soviet era propaganda. Many more encyclopedist's eyes needed. -- dab (𒁳) 17:26, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
hello? There are at least three nationalist kids between them "owning" the article. We either need enough bona fide editors to keep the article under control, or an admin with balls to show them the door. -- dab (𒁳) 07:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
ahem. I am willing to absorb as many personal attacks as I have to, but the issue of the Moses article pushing pseudohistory still remains. So, the sooner you switch from taking potshots at me to reacting to the actual problem at hand, the better you will pobably look to the outside observer.-- dab (𒁳) 16:05, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
I totally agree with dab. The article is taken over by a group of editors, who prevent others to add any info. If anyone tries to add any info that contradicts the 5th century claim, it gets instantly reverted, no matter how reliable the source you are referring is. The discussions are being stonewalled, and the progress is extremely slow. After many months of discussions I managed to achieve a consensus only on 2 short sections. In general, the article attaches an undue weight to the opinion of the Armenian scholarship, while the western scholarship is being suppressed. Mahe and Traina mentioned above are among the few international scholars who agree with the 5th century dating. Most of the 5th century dating supporters are the scholars in Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, as described by politologist Razmik Panossian: [39] Something needs to be done to bring the article to neutrality, and fairly represent both opinions on dating. Grand master 05:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I removed a section from the article, and there is a very unhappy editor complaining about this on the talk page. If anyone else is interested in this I'd appreciate it if they'd take a look. Maybe some of it should go back, but it was a lot of SPS stuff and I may have missed some relevance that would mean that some of it should go back. Dougweller ( talk) 17:19, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
A group editors advocating Armenian POV in Wikipedia is persistently attempting to either remove or obscure a reference to the Georgian origins of the name of this Turkish city - [40], [41], [42] (initially removed by a sock [43]). While the city may have been associated with Armenia at some point in history, it is not now, and there is no reliable reference as to either the meaning of "Kars" in Armenian or to the fact that the origin of the name is Armenian, whilst a reference that clearly says the name is Georgian. Can you please, look at the issue and decide whether Armenian transliteration should even appear in this case, when Georgian is not being allowed. Thanks. Atabəy ( talk) 00:31, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
There needs to be a definitive policy about the purpose of listing alternative names for a location. Is there one? In his edits, I think Atabəy was quite conciously distorting the common-sense usage, which would be to list the historical name(s) for a place that has changed its name, or to list the native name(s) where the name commonly used in English is not the same as the native name(s). Atabəy is trying to introduce into the first sentence of the article a specific theory (one of several) about the etymological origin of the name "Kars"
[45] and
[46]. Those controversial edits form the background to this edit conflict. They are controversial for three reasons. Firstly, there is no evidence that the settlement of Kars was ever called "Karsi". If the alternative names are there to list historical names then his addition is not valid at that location within the article. Secondly, the Georgian word "karsi" is just one possible etymological origin for the word "Kars", and there are other theories - so inserting just that theory is POV. Actually, the concept that every placename must mean something and that that something can be deduced with certainty, is wrong. Thirdly, the core reason behind Atabəy's edits are to remove the Armenian name that appears on the first sentence. That Armenian name is justified because it is a real alternative name, an historical name which differs from the curent name.
Meowy 16:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
There seems to be only some shaky evidence for this, and while I'm no longer convinced it's a blatant hoax, I'd like some more people to take a look. Irbisgreif ( talk) 15:15, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Lots of nonsense in here.
The worst bit: "Chi Kung practiced at the mind level cures any disease, including diseases considered by some as incurable, such as cancer, diabetes, ulcers and cardiovascular disorders."
Please see its AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shaolin Wahnam Institute. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 00:28, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Viktor Suvorov is a former low-level GRU officer-cum-amateur historian, who argues without sources and from extremely circumstantial evidence that Hitler's 22 June 1941 invasion of Soviet Union was desperate pre-emptive strike against Communist juggernaut about to attack him (in accordance with long-held Stalinist master plan of world takeover.) He has found extremely hostile reception among professional historians, although a few have made vaguely sympathetic though noncommittal reviews.
Suvorov article as of now is highly promotional. Worst problem: It conflates "Suvorov thesis," which is about disposition of Soviet ground troops in Spring/Summer 1941, with various "Stalin's psychology and ideology" debates, which revolve around his committment to Socialism in One Country versus his possible sympathy for Permanent revolution achieved by military force (ie, Soviet invasions / subversions of other countries.) So you have a lot of legitimate authors saying "Stalin was maybe more aggressive than some people realize," and they have no time for Suvorov, yet they are presented as allies supporting Suvorov's fringe theory. Careful attention has been lavished on accumulation of book and scholarly journal sources, but of those I have checked, many are being blatantly misused.
Suvorov's own article is worst. Soviet offensive plans controversy is about his thesis and looks OK though disproportionate space in text given to his few allies, overall framing makes clear his idea is non-mainstream to say the least. Suvorov influence is apparent in other articles though. He has other wild ideas in relation to not just 1941, for example, he claims that all estimates of Soviet military equipment are wildly distorted by Monkey model bias (that article should probably be AfDd) and his ideas are liberally sprinkled through articles relating to various pieces of USSR military equipment. 74.14.70.54 ( talk) 18:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Spinning off from the discussion regarding The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience I did a quick survey of articles relating to the feild of skeptisism and found quite a number that currently fail WP:N.
Given their expertise in this field I'm assuming members of WP:FTN will want to do search for third party reliable sources and add them to these pages where they can be found. I'm assuming them will be no brainers, but it does need to be done if WP:N is to be met.
Note that removal of the notability tag without providing sources is not particularly helpful: It is an informational tag that describes steps required to keep an article within Wikipedia, so assuming you don't want to see an article deleted or merged before someone has a chance to fix it you probably want to leave that tag on there. Artw ( talk) 06:03, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
many of these should just be merged without further ado, e.g. Voodoo science into pseudoscience, or Derek Colanduno into Skepticality. -- dab (𒁳) 16:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
The follow also need a little work, mostly bringing references in line, to make it clear that WP:N is met, though I beleive from the various links and references on the page that they do:
Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations Julia Sweeney Martin Gardner Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Gene-centered view of evolution Richard Wiseman Randy Cassingham The Blank Slate
(Again, this is a pretty meandering and informal survery of articles, so some of these are only indirectly skeptisism related ( Gene-centered view of evolution is by way of Dawkins, that sort of thing) and by nomeans should it be considered a complete list. Artw ( talk) 23:24, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
I didn't see any stated procedure anywhere for removing a ((notability)) tag, so I've added 11 footnotes (cited in 17 different spots) to Ray Hyman and went ahead and removed the tag on that article. Let me know if there's an issue. -- Krelnik ( talk) 04:05, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
The list is laughable. I just grabbed an article title at random (China Association for Science and Technology,) put it into Google, and got a BBC article about the president of China speaking at their 50th anniversary dinner. Yes, maybe Derek from Skepticality shouldn't have his own article. But The Skeptic's Dictionary? It's been reviewed in New Scientist, the BBC, etc etc. James Oberg is the foremost Western expert on the Soviet space program and the chief space reporter for MSNBC (and not even particularly well-known as a skeptic.) You're obviously using some strange criteria to make this list and certainly not the WP:N policy you've cited. 69.159.60.55 ( talk) 00:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
James Oberg not notable? A clear case of WP:POINT. NVO ( talk) 02:32, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
This is just User:Artw disrupting Wikipedia to make a WP:POINT again. I would suggest that WP:DENY applies here. DreamGuy ( talk) 12:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I've nominated a number of these articles that do not appear likely to be improved for deletion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dakshina Kannada Rationalist Association
no doubt an extremely important artefact, but it would appear the article has been written by people who want it to be aged 20,000 years, not 9,000 years. That's a huge difference, and raises WP:REDFLAGs. Also the speculative, question-marked "interpretations" seem rather far-fetched. Also raises further {{ notability}} issues for the Alexander Marshack and Claudia Zaslavsky articles linked. The lakeside Ishango population of 20,000 years ago may have been one of the first counting societies, but it lasted only a few hundred years before being buried by a volcanic eruption sounds like cheap fiction of the Lost World kind. In any case. my WP:FRINGE detectors went off with this article and perhaps somebody else wants to take a look. Also check out Lebombo bone which imo is a clear case of a ghost-artefact. -- dab (𒁳) 08:39, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
An editor is attempting to push opinion of Harold Lief, a self-described "close friend and indeed an admirer" of Ian Stevenson, that "Either he is making a colossal mistake, or he will be known ... as 'the Galileo of the 20th century'" into the lead of that article. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 09:32, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
Honestly, someone needs to get out the ban stick for that article. The dedicated determination of the POV pushers there is crazy. And anybody looked into sockpuppet concerns yet, both in general and for banned users? The strategy of civil POV pushing and gaming the system demonstrated there are way beyond what anyone can in good faith expect from newbie accounts. DreamGuy ( talk) 12:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The topic area is plagued by POV pushing and personal commentary. I am currently attempting to help mediate the dispute. The current stage of the mediation is focused on identifying serious issues and soliciting uninvolved outside input. I have invited some experienced uninvolved editors to take part in the editorial process, in an attempt to help steer things back on track. However, further specialized outside input would be invaluable. If some of the regulars from this noticeboard could review the main Falun Gong articles for fringe theories and severe undue weight violations, it would be sincerely appreciated. Providing a review at the main article talk page and/or correction of the problems would be particularly helpful. Thanks! -- Vassyana ( talk) 05:11, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
We have a new editor, ArXivist who doesn't quite get WP:NPOV on WP:Fringe topics. Me and several other editors have tried explaining it to him, but without much success. Our 9/11 conspiracy theories article might need some extra attention. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 01:11, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Is it necessary to quote works in English to prove that a theory is not a fringe theory,Can foreign works be used too ? If a publication claims that their book is Academy reviewed or peer reviewed can the publishers word be taken as true ? -- Gnosisquest ( talk) 00:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, Gnosisquest, I suppose the easiest would be for you to just present your case with what sources you have and see how people react, and things will develop from there. -- dab (𒁳) 20:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
This article is again undergoing edits that change whether Stevenson's research is accepted or rejected at large, possible mischaraterisations and misrepresentations of sources, peacocking, etc. Please take a look. The discussion on the talk page is repetitive and tedious, unfortunately. Verbal chat 13:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Now sourced information is being removed as it's 'unfair'. Sheesh. Verbal chat 18:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Question being considered here: Should this article have the pseudoscience tag and template? It's also home to a lot of fringe POV pushing generally, so a good one to add to watch lists. Thanks, Verbal chat 08:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)