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Does this even reach the level of "Disputed science", like the sidebox prominently labels it? Adam Cuerden talk 09:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
the problem is with {{ Infobox Pseudoscience}}. I am doubtful about this template. Can we treat pseudoscience as a topic of taxonomy, neatly labelling it with infoboxes? If we want to use this template, it should say "pseudoscience". But perhaps the template should be deleted, or turned into something else? dab (𒁳) 12:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Also, what about Wikipedia:WikiProject Pseudoscience? It doesn't give any parentage. Shouldn't it be merged with Wikipedia:WikiProject Rational Skepticism, and perhaps with Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative Views and Wikipedia:WikiProject Paranormal? Wikiprojects are supposed as a platform for editors interested in the same group of topics, they are not supposed to separate these editors sorted by their opinion or point of view. dab (𒁳) 12:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Why is it that I have such difficulty trying to get these members to understand that it is unacademic to allow the article in discussion to assume the guilt of a certain part even though no court case has ever proved so? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trek mambo ( talk • contribs) 01:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
...God, this article is AWFUL. Adam Cuerden talk 04:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the company may now be dead, many of the links are dead. I removed some sourced claims but there's a ton of work to do on this one. Mostly I think it should be trimmed, there's just too much weight given to the "theory" futurebird ( talk) 06:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
On the articles Political status of Taiwan and Legal status of Taiwan, there are a series of external links to sites that argue that Taiwan is technically an occupied territory of the United States. In the political status article, a section describes the attempt by certain individuals to have the US judiciary declare it as such. Now, I think the argument is clever but wrong (when one considers oppsing arguments it becomes obvious :-) ). The question is to what degree is it fringe and to what extent are the links producing weight issues. (A few months ago, I queried the people at WikiProject Taiwan, who noted that the links belong only at the political and legal status pages.) Their sheer number though still seems to produce weight issues. (1) Should the links exist at all? and (2) if so, should they be trimmed? Advice appreciated. Ngchen ( talk) 05:21, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
A new user is trying to push his view that info-gap is completely wrong, even though he agrees that his view is a minority opinion, supported by a single paper which he wrote himself. There is currently an RfC about this, but there seems to be fairly little interest in the article right now. I would appreciate another voice telling him that WP is not intended for POV-pushing. Thanks. -- Zvika ( talk) 05:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The is an on-going dispute over if the view, espoused by Front Page Magazine that Kwanzaa "is a racist holiday" is notable or fringe. Thus far, no solid mainstream sources have been offered, but now there is an NPOV tag on the article because of this. futurebird ( talk) 18:02, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, Zenwhat. But, I noticed you took out Ann's name, I think it's more neutral if her ideas are attributed directly to her. Ie. Coulter writes that... blah blah blah etc. (Since she's not an expert on holidays or anything I still wonder if it's notable, but as long as we give the source properly it's not that big of a deal provided we don't give undue weight to these things.) futurebird ( talk) 21:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
There is ongoing discussion on the talk page of the above page, as part of an ongoing RfC, regarding the amount of weight which should be given to the subject's adherence to the Mormon faith, and at least in my eyes some very serious questions raised about how much material should be included. One party has already indicated that the article should include references to Mormon underwear and indicate which planet the subject will, according to Mormon doctrine, possibly rule in a future life. Any reasonable input would be more than welcome. John Carter ( talk) 14:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Lots of attempts to push a pilot study into this article, claiming it proves homeopathy works, after it got rejected over at the better monitored Homeopathy. Adam Cuerden talk 07:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Still on your mission then, Adam [3] [4], still pushing your POV. The study published in Chest journal is entirely reputable and notable and should be kept. It does not attempt to prove homeopathy works, as you allege, it merely shows Potassium dichromate has been studied in a trial and the result published in a reputable mainstream medical journal. You clearly have no idea how difficult that article would have been to get published, or how rigorously the study would have been reviewed in order even to get published? Yet again you have no idea what you are talking about and the study should remain in the Potassium dichromate article. Yet again you have showed that you have no remorse and have learned nothing from this RfC or the arbcom. Peter morrell 08:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Prominently? are you serious? 10.5 lines out of over 80 lines. That is less than 15%. I would hardly call that prominent. Peter morrell 14:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
This is going again over old ground...read the edit history and talk page and you will see. Peter morrell 16:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
In Domestic sheep, it claims that homeppathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and herbalism have been proven to work for some ailments, citing a statement in a couple books. I checked the scientific literature, and found this which says veterinary homeopathy has not been proven, and so deleted the statement that it had been.
It's been restored. What now? Adam Cuerden talk 07:25, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
On what basics are theories added to 9/11 conspiracy theories , the whole article seems to be WP:OR , WP:NPOV and WP:Nonsense Gnevin ( talk) 15:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
The article is an absolute mess. Roughly 90% of the article is nonsense and I know veracity isn't Wikipedia's standard, WP:RS and WP:V are. But of course, since these claims are false, they either aren't cited or poorly cited.
Examples:
Who wrote this article? Pat Robertson? I suspect this article was pretty decent in the past. Somebody just needs to dig through its history, find it, and then revert all this silliness.
For one thing, the article fails to note that many claim that so-called "anti-christian discrimination" is invoked when freedom of religion is upheld. You work at Macy's and you don't say, "Merry Christmas," and you're automatically a bigot. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 10:36, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I renamed the article Anti-Christian sentiment. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 22:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I think this is a hoax. But the background is amusing, involving another page of dubious quality.
I'm not sure how to proceed. AfD for Brahmanical See seems pretty clear cut, but what to do about the disinformation on the Maharaj page? rudra ( talk) 10:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
It's been a while, we probably have a chance at fixing this article at the moment. Adam Cuerden talk 05:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
My gods, this could practically stand as a POV-fork of Homeopathy at several points. Lots ofdubious facts and aggrandisement. Adam Cuerden talk 17:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I have nominated The China Study for deletion on notability grounds and because it may constitute the unwarranted promotion of fringe theories. The article presents only one source/POV--that of the book's authors. The fringe theory issues come from the authors' advocacy of strict veganism in association with claims such as:
Also, there are the remarks of Chris Masterjohn, a principal critic of The China Study. Here's an example (emphasis added):
Only 39 of 350 pages are actually devoted to the China Study. The bold statement on page 132 that “eating foods that contain any cholesterol above 0 mg is unhealthy,”5 is drawn from a broad—and highly selective—pool of research. Yet chapter after chapter reveals a heavy bias and selectivity with which Campbell conducted, interpreted, and presents his research.
I want to be clear that I don't consider veganism to be a "fringe theory" per se. Please consider commenting on the AfD page here. -- DieWeisseRose ( talk) 06:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Futurebird, it is incorrect that "the findings of this book were reviewed" in Nutrition Research. The article you linked to was published in 2002 and The China Study was published in 2005. If that were not enough, there is no mention of the book or the study in the abstract or keywords. It is also very interesting to me that The China Study is not included among the numerous publications listed on the China Project web site. -- DieWeisseRose ( talk) 23:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I asked third opinions in many places on removing tags issues in it. But no comments/consensus formed yet. Please verify the article & leave your comments. -- Avinesh Jose T 08:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
To establish consensus, this AfD discussion needs additional input. Thank you. ScienceApologist ( talk) 20:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Fruitful discussion seems to have stalled on the What the Bleep Do We Know!? article, and I'm looking for some suggestions as to what to do. We're getting into what I think are strange arguments about scientific philosophy (mainstream science being labeled authoritarian, among other things) regarding a relative straightforward content disagreement. We've put out RfCs to relevant wikiprojects, including totally orthogonal groups (wp:film, for example), but there hasn't been much real outside involvement. Any thoughts for how to proceed? I don't know if this is the best place to ask this question, but it's a place I'm familiar with so I thought I'd bring it up here. Ante lan talk 19:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Seriously, Kww can have most everything he wants besides saying that Bleep mis-represents science without any attribution. That is the sticking point, in addition to phrasing and arrangement that just underhandedly tries to bias. But basically, that is the main dispute. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, well, I forgot he wants to call it dirty names- can't have that either (: —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
The sticking point is WP:ATT. A sentence like "Bleep has been criticized as pseudoscience by scientists such as X and by other scientific reviewers" would be fine. The entire problem is those wishing to make absolute statements. But we can't do that here.
Kww: I meant words like "balderdash." Read WP:ATT your other questions are directly and explicitly addressed there. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I seriously think editors would do well to credit their readers with some intelligence. For all of the versions under discussion, it is clear that any readers who haven't their head stuck in a bucket of molecularly altered water will realize that this movie is so much shiny nonsense. Any one who refuses to admit as much, will do so no matter what our article says. dab (𒁳) 11:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Guys, sheesh. I've linked prominently to Ramtha and JZ Knight, both useful articles, what more do you need? Our readers are not fools - we provide with the relevant links/info and they will work this one out. No need to unduly strain the point. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 21:53, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I am going to begin a concerted effort to remove homeopathy from mainstream science articles per WP:WEIGHT and WP:FRINGE. There is no reason why we cannot have mention in pages that discuss homeopathy as a pathological science the various implications for substances they use, but for the most part, such uses do not belong on the articles' pages themselves. This is the so-called "one-way linking principle" that was first delineated in discussions of mainstream astronomy versus fringe ideas. Succinctly, it is perfectly legitimate for a fringe theory to link to a mainstream article. However, in order for a mainstream article to link to a fringe theory, it needs to be established that there is enough mainstream notice of the fringe theory in reference to the mainstream topic. In other words, in the article about onion we should not be mentioning homeopathic remedies since the vast majority of sources that have information on onions do not include homeopathic remedies in their discussions. Only in cases where homeopathy has actually been mentioned in the mainstream discussions (for example, the malaria article) should the idea be mentioned. I would appreciate any and all help I can get with this mammoth task. ScienceApologist ( talk) 16:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Holy cow, this kind of thing is long overdue. < eleland/ talk edits> 21:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
the conflict of interest noticeboard. Please comment. I think this user may not be aware of WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV issues. He has now reverted my removal of homeopathic uses for various plants and chemicals twice with the claim that such were "POV edits". The more people that can coach this user the better. ScienceApologist ( talk) 00:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Generally considered pseudoscience et seq., is homeopathy generally considered pseudoscience, or just questionable science? MilesAgain ( talk) 12:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Anthon01 says that serious scientists are investigating. Should they have any new conclusions which contradict the established duck Test results, then we might revisit this, but I think that mucking with the definition of Pseudoscience to exclude one Fringe topic means opening the floodgates to any Fringe science, which I doubt even the supporters of homoepathy want. ThuranX ( talk) 06:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Compare and contrast:
Which is the strongest statement? which is more acurate? Indeed which is more scientific? Which is likely to boost the credibility of wikipedia? -- Salix alba ( talk) 12:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
A new Wiki for paranormal topics is available here. I think all interested editors and readers should consider strongly contributing there.-- Filll ( talk) 05:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I was involved in these articles a while ago when there was some very intense POV-pushing by a now-banned sockpuppeteer, but I never quite felt I knew what I was doing. One is a BLP of the editor of the other. Both really need attention from more editors who understand how to deal with very controversial issues. Dalit Voice probably qualifies as an extremist source, so should be "handled with care" even in the article about itself. I'm not quite sure what that care should be. It is incredibly easy to trawl through its online archive and pull out statements on all kinds of issues, much harder to do that in any systematic or balanced way. Itsmejudith ( talk) 10:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
is this a full-fledged crackpot theory, or a respectable, if eccentric, academic minority hypothesis? dab (𒁳) 13:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
<undent>My impression is that it is controversial, but of historical interest and was quite influential in some circles. It still is influential among those who suffer from "hearing voices syndrome", since it is sort of one of their bibles. If I remember correctly from a documentary I heard, more and more people are turning up who "hear voices" but few of these are actually bothered by the voices or pay attention to them, and therefore are not classified as psychotic. With the internet, these people can find each other and network and form support groups, leading some academics to study them. And this bicameral mind material features prominently in the therapies of those who "hear voices" and is referred to by those in these support groups as a way to "explain" this symptom (probably the wrong explanation, but oh well).-- Filll ( talk) 13:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
The whole article needs better sourcing anyway, but this appears to have generated quite a flurry at some time, so that shouldn't be too hard. To me this looks like an eccentric development of oldish theories proposing a drastic split down the middle in the functions of the human brain, an idea which is, AFAIK, not nearly as influential as it once was. Lateralization looks to explain this quite well. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 21:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
There is an ongoing difference of opinion as to how to interpret this on the article Waterboarding. Most editors are in favour of stating in the lead: Waterboarding is a form of torture. As I understand it the views on this are:
Regarding the above I am interested to hear how to interpret this. Do we, as in Intelligent Design, start with the consensus among experts (it is torture) and continue to explain in the article body what a notable minority thinks? Does opposing a similar stance as with ID violate WP:FRINGE/ WP:WEIGHT? Respectfully Nomen Nescio Gnothi seauton 16:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
(moved here from talk page Nomen Nescio Gnothi seauton 21:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC))
There is an issue that the term "torture" is defined through humanistic rather than materialistic constraints. The key here is the legal definition and precedent: if courts have ruled waterboarding to be "torture" and no court has ruled to the contrary, then you are in business for applying WP:FRINGE to the idea that waterboarding is not torture, for example. ScienceApologist ( talk) 14:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
One of the problems at Waterboarding is that one group of editors seems to think that any questioning that involves the use of water is both waterboarding and torture, since they can find many sources that do this confounding, while others object to this confounding and want the article to be about the specific (if vague) topic of waterboarding. htom ( talk) 17:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Why isn't it a fringe issue if the scholarly opinion on the matter is fairly clear? (I know nothing of the issue, but I get the sense that this is yet another instance of a lively "popular" debate being mistaken for scholarly disagreement. We can't use the "debate in media" to gauge if an issue is settled among experts. Lots of things are debated publicly about which the experts see little need for debate. Could that be the case here?) futurebird ( talk) 19:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
←This is not an issue of WP:FRINGE, which applies to fringe theories of science, including social and political sciences. The policy that covers the issue you asked about is WP:NPOV, and in particular the section on undue weight, found here: WP:UNDUE.
After reviewing the article, my first impression was that the coverage space given to people saying it's not torture is out of proportion, because the vast majority of sources say that it is torture. But then I saw the poll that found 29% of Americans polled did not think it's a form of torture. Wow, that's an eye-opener! So I read the article about the poll, on CNN's website. Clearly it's a reliable source, so with 30% that's not a tiny minority, it's a significant minority and their views are relevant to the article in some way. But it should be in proportion - and, as someone above mentioned, it should only be in the part of the article about policy/legal debate.
There's no dout that the majority of sources defining it as torture among scientists and academics turns out to be much larger than 70%, so the minority view among the population in general that it's not torture should not receive undue weight. If you need stronger references, try using Google Books and Google Scholar, with search terms like "Waterboarding +torture +history" and other combinations. Instead of leaving the references on this to the popular press or political magazines, find some scholars to make it clear that there is no question about it being a form of torture, in any forum other than political debates where it is not truly a debate about the truth of what waterboarding is, the debate there is actually about whether or not the method can continue to be used. The only way it can be used is if it's not called "torture"; that's a clouding technique being used in the public forum and does nto apply to the actual definition of the procedure. That's why I suggest finding scholars discussing this from outside the present day policy arguments.
Here's a few sources I found that may be helpful - there are many more in the searches:
If the pages with the details don't come up in the link, just search for the term inside the book and they will appear. Apparently in Latin America, the call the technique "the Submarine". Good luck with the article. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 19:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
It should be noted that this issue has been accepted by ArbCom. — BQZip01 — talk 05:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
There's a number of really horrible articles on this, but they're in horrible shape. This isn't a "fringe theory" persay, but editors are operating with the same essential modus operandi of POV-pushing, so I thought I'd post it here for you folks to comment.
Some good info, but POV fork:
Need to be merged\distinguished:
Other relevant articles:
Also, the article on gun politics is bad, too. Not POV for gun control. On the contrary, it's cluttered with dozens of bad sources with the intent of opposing gun control. Somebody posted on WP:RSN and I commented in the talkpage about it. Check it out.
☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 01:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Tparameter, it doesn't particularly matter which POV prevails, only that all POVs are removed and the article reflects the NPOV, based on reliable, verifiable sources. The fact that you'd ask such a question is absurd. To answer, though: there is POV-pushing on both sides. As noted above, overall, there are several Wikipedia articles that were apparently written by some Europeans, "Oh! Those horrible Americans and their horrible guns!" But then, on the other hand, on gun politics, you have some gun nuts typing "gun rights" into Google and flooding the article with the first articles they come across. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 19:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
User:Gregalton brought this to my attention.
From the article [15]:
Additionally, one notable myth debunker documents how the Federal Reserve system is audited and cites numerous instances of independent inspection of financial documents by private accounting firms and the Government Accountability Office. {{Cited in Geocities This debunker's website then also lists the legal exemptions to outside audit, "Exemptions to the Scope of GAO Audits:The Government Accounting Office does not have complete access to all aspects of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Banking Agency Audit Act (31 USCA §714) stipulates the following areas are to be excluded from GAO inspections: "(2) deliberations, decisions, or actions on monetary policy matters, including discount window operations, reserves of member banks, securities credit, interest on deposits, open market operations." The same author also can be quoted in one related article as saying "in terms of monetary policy, the most important power is ... open market operations." The GAO certainly does have the power to conduct audits, but one author noted that 'the GAO audit is extremely limited: it can only examine the Fed’s 'administrative expenses.'" {{False citation [[http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-0305100-180653/unrestricted/Ch.5.pdf here} see page 142}} As the New York Times summarized in 1989, "such transactions are now shielded from outside audit, although the Fed influences interest rates through the purchase of hundreds of billions of dollars in Treasury securities." {{Okay citation in the New York Times''', but a little silly and somewhat used improperly with the rest of the paragraph above}}
On that last source, newspapers themselves have occasionally played up monetary crankery to sell papers and generate ratings. A boring lecture on the Federal Reserve isn't all that scary and is actually better if it's independent doesn't catch your attention, like, "THE BIG EVIL BANKERS ARE PRINTING MONEY AND STEEEEEEEEEALING IT FROM YOU! WE MUST TAKE AMERICA BACK! RON PAUL, 2008"
Similarly, you sometimes see newspapers misrepresenting science by implying in some of their stories that there is a genuine "debate" over intelligent design and global warming. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 20:01, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
My biggest issue is the use of a (credible) ecological economist's paper -- not on monetary policy -- to support a statement that is both loaded and obscure on monetary policy. Now, with all due respect to ecological economics, it is not mainstream, and certainly not notable on monetary policy. There has been an RfC, but few straigthforward comments that in a discussion about monetary policy, ecological economcs is hardly a core reliable source.-- Gregalton ( talk) 20:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Well ... this one is easy. If the NY Times article is in question, then we can quash that right now. Quoting from WP:V, "Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text. The policy strongly implies that, if there is a conflict or contradiction here, then the best that should be done is to include any conflicting view. The wiki article already (somewhat) attempts to do this (although I highly doubt that any reliable source states that monetary policy transactions have ever been verifiably audited by any independent party). I make no mention of it in the wiki article for NPOV reasons, but even the Fed's own Office of the Inspector General serves only at the leisure of the Board, unlike the "true" OIGs imposed onto other agencies of the government. BigK HeX ( talk) 04:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
One particular editor continues to dispute the usage of a source from Herman Daly, even though the source was academically vetted and published reliably. No editor involved in the dispute has provided a conflicting "mainstream" view, so WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE would not seem to apply yet. As posed in the RSN page, does a person's vigorous support of a non-mainstream theory, 'taint' everything else that an otherwise acknowledged expert ever says in his field of work, even when not related to his fringe theories? BigK HeX ( talk) 04:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Marx was not a trained and qualified economist. Neither is LaRouche. Wjhonson ( talk) 23:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know enough about economics to follow this dispute very well, but a citation in the blockquote at the top of the section appears to be from a doctoral dissertation: [17]. It's cited in the current version of the article as footnote #42. Doctoral dissertations are not really peer-reviewed publications, and in general shouldn't be used as sources in Wikipedia articles. --Akhilleus ( talk) 01:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
{{
citation}}
: External link in |title=
(
help).On List of conspiracy theories:
The Federal Reserve is a plot to bankrupt the United States
Please see my posting on WP:ANI. [18]
On the talkpage, he admits to being blatantly biased and fooled by fringe sources. Then when his behavior is challenged, he suddenly accuses others of attacking his "reliable sources" in order to "censor" him.
Now, he manages to dig up one heterodox economist to prove the fringe claim that the Federal Reserve is a conspiracy (see WP:SYNTH). When he did this, he gave the reference the inflammatory title "slamdunk_bwhahaha_booyah" [19]. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 09:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
BigK Hex, that was based on your own comments on the talkpage here. After being accused of pushing fringe sources, you cited WP:Disrupt:
So, if you truly belive that I am pushing a fringe opinion with undue weight, then the guidelines suggest that "Sometimes well-meaning editors may be misled by fringe publications or make honest mistakes when representing a citation. Such people may reasonably defend their positions for a short time, then concede the issue when they encounter better evidence..."
If that was not an acknowledgment of your own blatantly horrible use of sources, then his accusation of bad-faith was justified. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 12:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
(OD) Let's all try to refrain from personal attacks and focus on discussing the argument. I'm sure you are all aware that even reasonable people can read two different sources differently. Hitting other editors with a club doesn't make them see the light. Have a great day! Wjhonson ( talk) 20:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a big problem in the article that I have no idea what to do about. Someone keeps inserting wild, unsourced assertions about House's supposed involvemen in various illicit and subversive plots. Several of us have tried to correct these but they keep coming back. This is the sort of thing that leads many scholars to reject Wikipedia out of hand.
Let me see if I can explain this well because it's a confusing mashup and hard to weed through. There is a religious movement called Spiritualism (religious movement) that was really popular between 1840 and 1920. It's still around today, and has spin-offs in Spiritism. Defining characteristic of the movement is a belief in communicating with spirits through seances and mediumship. That's one third of the equation. Second part: "Spiritualism" is often synonymous to, especially in Europe, the philosophy of Idealism, by far a more mundane philosophical thought that is pretty much just a belief in the supernatural and spirits. So already we have a problem because in America the popular use of the term "spiritualism" is to refer to the religious movement and in Europe it's to refer to "idealism". Which gets top billing, and which one is disambig, and should idealism mention "spiritualism" or is that giving fringe weight to the religion? Big mess, and I haven't even gotten to the third part. Third part: Often "spiritualism" is synonymously used to refer to animism and shamanism practices.
That third part is what brought me here looking for help in sorting out an article. A few editors split the spiritualism article into two articles, one for the religion and one (presumably) for "other uses". Well, an enterprising editor came in and filled the "other" article up -- Spiritualism (beliefs) -- with what appears to be WP:SYNTH that takes Western philosophy (idealism called spiritualism), mixes it with the religion, and mashes in Eastern mysticism, shamanism, animism, spiritism, and occultism in an attempt to write an article about some sort of universal ground to all spirituality which would be less dubious if the editor didn't say, "So what is your point? Spiritualistic phenomenon manifests itself worldwide ... and is referred to as that. The topic is very well referenced" when I called them on it.
What's more, is that I found at least one section that they wrote called "Mediumship in Tibet" that was completely bogusly sourced. [20] I looked the book up at Google Books, searched inside the book, and it said nothing whatsoever about "mediumship" or "spiritualism".
I don't know what's WP:OR, what's WP:SYNTH, or what's legit in the article Spiritualism (beliefs). I'm also concerned that it's trying to equate the Western philosophy of idealism with less popular practices like shamanism, mediumship, and seances to make it appear that those practices are more widespread than they actually are (which is why I'm at the WP:FRINGE noticeboard).
Anyone familiar with these topics that can hop over and help sort out the mess, I'd really appreciate it. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 08:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
It's important to note that philosophy and religion are not necessarily distinct concepts. They have historically been considered opposed in western history, but this is not true in the east. A lot of westerners who have absolutely no education in either philosophy or eastern religion continue to have this blatant misunderstanding. To see what I mean, see Talk:Eastern_philosophy#Merger_proposal.
The founders of Spiritualism themselves seemed to mix philosophy with religion, just as Deists did. So, I don't really see anything objectionable about the article, just that its sources need to be checked.
Spiritualism (beliefs) certainly seems to overlap a lot with Spiritualism (beliefs), though, and an investigation into the matter may yield the fact that they're the same idea. Historians tend not to be very good scientists. In my opinion, they largely have a tendency to just make stuff up as they go along, so they aren't very consistent and will have very absurd categorizations, like this. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 04:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I admit I don't really know much about it. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 10:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a long, slow burning conflict on that page between opponents and proponents of including extensive information from a book called Gold Warriors by Sterling & Peggy Seagrave. The claim is that a massive Imperial Japanese hoard of looted gold was secretly discovered during the Cold War and used as the lynch-pin of American "dirty tricks" and CIA activities in Asia for decades. The Seagraves provide enormous volumes of documentation, none of which actually proves their key claims, which might as well be sourced to "that guy, what was his name, Dave I think?, in the airport bar at 2 AM." And they literally claim that the conspirators are out to kill them. < eleland/ talk edits> 18:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the novel has a poor reputation for fact checking. In the same “glowing review” in the London Review of Books, it is noted: “The Seagraves’ narrative is comprehensive, but they are not fully reliable as historians”…"The book is full of errors that could easily be corrected by a second-year student of the language” and “One of the Seagraves’ more controversial contentions is that the looting…”
Oddly enough, the same book review that applauds this single-source conspiracy theory…also condemns the “reliable source” reference. Not fully reliable as historians, the book is full of language errors and controversial contentions should qualify as questionable sources. Therefore, your suggestion is to include the material in the article, and then argue within the article the validity of the material. That would probably work IF the article were about the Seagraves’ publications. However, it is not. Jim ( talk) 11:53, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
no comment necessary. dab (𒁳) 09:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
To save people time, you should clarify that it's specifically about Origin theories of Christopher Columbus#Portugese theory. The whole page isn't a fringe theory, just the contentious edits a few users have been making to that one section.
It's such patent nonsense that it doesn't even really belong here. I sent it over to
WP:ANI as
patent nonsense.
☯
Zenwhat (
talk) 10:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Seeing how as Moreschi already sees it, sending it over to WP:ANI would be counterintuitive. So, I removed my posting there. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 08:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
An IP editor is campaigning against genetics research included in Palestinian people, which relates to a particular genetic marker "167delT, which appears specific to Israeli Ashkenazi and Palestinian populations."
This user is arguing an originally researched reason why this information is not valid; he attempts to discuss population genetics but does not appear have the slightest idea of what he is talking about (see above.)
The article has been the subject of Israeli-Palestinian POV wars but I don't even know which side this guy's on, if any. It's just a matter of science versus fringe theories. Please keep an eye and make sure the information doesn't get suppressed by an Internet kook. < eleland/ talk edits> 08:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this is a classic anti-semitic conspiracy theory. It's true that Ashkenazi Jews have a lot of non-semitic caucasian DNA (hence the reason why Iraqi and Iranian Jews look so little like Ashkenazi Jews). However, using that to push the claim "they're not real Jews," is absurd, because their still genetically of partially semitic origin. The claim "they're not real Jews," is generally used as a basis to support anti-semitism. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 01:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, though, one thing I would add: The entire section on genetics should be deleted. Scientists do not recognize the idea of a "race" based on genetics and genetics are occasionally used by Kahanists and anti-Arab racists, too, to argue "There's no such thing as a Palestinian people."
Well, yes. This is true. But based on the same data, there is no such thing as a Jewish people. It's all based mostly on social convention, not DNA. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 01:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
DNA Clues section are found in many other wiki articles, and banning it in Palestinian People confirm the suspition being rumered in the internet that wikipedia is not a so called Free encyclopedia but run by zionists or at least controlled media ( one sided media that uses double standards.
a claim suppoted by more than one reference ( scientific research that is repitable ) is not to be deleted according to wiki riles. I demand that any such statements that are scientifically firmly reliabe as mentioned above should stay and any counter statements should be also stated if more than one study prove it.
As my referenced studies are mostly made by academically strong jewish scientists and the strongest DNA testing to date (autosomal), the counter objectors should rather find and search for good scientific evidence to support their claims and anxieties( seems to me they are inable to do that)So far their requests are politically and racially motivated since they are unable to refute (scientifically) different referenced statements 75.72.88.121 ( talk) 07:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC) Also, there is no such thing as fringe theory or original research in my contributions. All my words are taken to the letter from other proven-scientific websites! 75.72.88.121 ( talk) 07:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I've prodded this article because (a) the subject does not assert it to be a notable fringe theory, (b) the article is still a mess almost 3 years after creation, (c) the article cites no sources, and (d) it gives undue weight to the theory. The creator of the article has been notified, and I will notify other users who have made significant edits to the article. Bearian ( talk) 16:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Hilarious.
The GUCT is the Grand Unifying / Unified Conspiracy Theory (a play on Grand Unified Theory) and is a disparaging term used by doubters to refer to supposed links drawn between one or more conspiracy theories, for example, chemtrail theory, JFK's assassination, the Apollo landing hoax, the Bilderbergers, free energy suppression, and water fluoridation are all part of some overarching plot (probably by aliens).
In the edit-history, at one point somebody added a mythology stub, another person added "see also -- vast right-wing conspiracy." As time went on, people also added to the article, by tacking on new, different conspiracy theories. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 02:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Is economic support for the theoretical advantages of "full-reserve banking" considered to be non-mainstream? (Disregarding the practicalities, I suppose.)
The criticisms of fractional-reserve banking seem to have wide support, including:
there are allegations of pushing of fringe theories I find difficult to evaluate. Sumerophile ( talk · contribs) appears to take any comparison of Sumerian and Biblical flood stories as implying the claim that they refer to some "real" historical flood. That is, it appears this user is reading fringe claims that nobody ever intended to submit. But maybe I am missing something. See here, and Talk:Ziusudra. dab (𒁳) 12:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
another loopy theory that escaped notice. I have done some preliminary cleanup, but this article clearly needs to be surveyed (if not deleted or merged as unnotable kookery). dab (𒁳) 13:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Notable in the sense of? None of the uncertainty in mainstream views is about African contact. The basic arguments about how and when Native Americans arrived from Asia. There is one hypothesis (put forward for testing that is) which is very minority that some may have come from Iberia (the Solutrean suggestion). I have no idea what TV programme you have in mind and I'd be very interested in what scholarly book you have, even just the name would be useful. Thanks.-- Dougweller ( talk) 15:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
note that I am not opposed to keeping this article around (or I would just have AfDd it): Wikipedia articles are justified by notability, not by sanity of their subjects. The point is that the article needs to make clear that although notable, these theories have no merit. dab (𒁳) 16:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I've just ordered it from Amazon. -- Dougweller ( talk) 17:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Check out the various articles related to Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. In particular there is Social cycle theory of Sarkar. Progressive utilization theory, Microvitum, Neo-humanism, Ananda Marga, Ananda Marga Tantra, and AMGK. Do we really need all these articles? ScienceApologist ( talk) 23:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
“ | P. R. Sarkar was born on a full moon day, likely on 21 May, 1921, in the small town of Jamalpur, Bihar, India. Although known as a bright child in his youth, he showed few signs of the mystical and largely controversial life that lay ahead of him, aside from the fact that even at a very young age, many of his family members recall seeing him perform long meditations in the middle of the night. | ” |
good catch, ScienceApologist :) dab (𒁳) 15:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Category:Uhuru Movement, surrounding Omali Yeshitela. An entire category of articles without a single citation that would establish notability. Omali Yeshitela himself may be notable (some 10,000 google hits), but the remaining articles accreting around him clearly are not. dab (𒁳) 15:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I've done some merging/redirecting. The remaining problem articles are African Socialist International, Omali Yeshitela and Chernoh Bah. dab (𒁳) 18:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Where a controversial 'historian' (who has no formal education in history and makes claims that have gained no acceptance in the academic historical community) is widely described as a "pseudohistorian" and has had his work widely criticised by legitimate historians, is it reasonable to note these facts in the article lead? This seems to be authorised by WP:LEAD when it states: "It should establish context, summarize the most important points, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describe its notable controversies, if there are any." [My emphasis] There is another editor who is trying to move all mention of this characterisation and criticism out of the lead to the end of the article. Hrafn Talk Stalk 14:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Royal Rife, particularly the talk page: there are no active content issues, but the talk page is an absolute mess of conspiracy theories and the like, and has drifted quite a ways from anything relevant to improving the associated Wikipedia article. I'd just like some outside review of the talk page with an eye toward the talk page guidelines and moving it away from Conspiracypedia and back toward discussion of concrete improvements to the actual article. MastCell Talk 20:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
In the "Criticism of atheism" article (which btw has a pretty pro-atheist slant but thats not the point of my discussion) there is a section detailing a Christian writer noting that "Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic". There's a 'rebuttal' by Sam Harris that goes "The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions." That kind've avoids the point, but again, this my POV so I'm not going to add it into the article. So far it contains two cited arguments.
Now this was followed up by "Further, this criticism is simply a poisoning the well fallacy variant, as well as a strawman of atheism. It is clear that not all communists are atheists (see Christian Communism), not all atheists are communists (see Ayn Rand), and attacking atheism via communism attempts to paint atheists in a negative light initially so as to discredit anything they may say." which I removed as uncited POV. The user who added it, Knight of BAAWA, reverted it back saying it was a fallacy and thus did not need a source. The wikilink to " straw man" was enough. At the very least, they needed a quote from someone stating that argument.
Now a second user, Deus Ex Machina, has added it back saying "The source is already there" without adding any. I reverted, it saying that I didn't see a source.
Now this paragraph doesn't seem to be in align with any of WP's policies, but if someone with more experience could run in that would be great.-- CyberGhostface ( talk) 15:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
that would be blockable as disruption. dab (𒁳) 15:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
ok, we have some minor problems with Albanian nationalists at Talk:Pelasgians, Talk:Chaonians in case anyone is interested. See also Origin of the Albanians, Albanian nationalism, Dodona ( talk · contribs), PelasgicMoon ( talk · contribs). Things are generally under control, but more eyes are welcome. dab (𒁳) 15:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
This discussion on WP:RS/N is trying to obfuscate some fringe-y POV-pushing regarding the origins of Carnatic music, pitting a bunch of Tamil chauvinists against an equally fractious lot of Kannadigas (who usually are the most sensitive to their neighbors' antics) over the WP:RS status of a website. This could get bloody. rudra ( talk) 04:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
There is currently a proposal to merge the Galactic Confederacy article into the main Scientology article on the basis that the Galactic Confederacy qualifies as "fictional" at Talk:Scientology#Merge proposal.. Any input as to whether this apparently acknowledged belief of Scientologists qualifies as "fiction" would be more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter ( talk) 16:47, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Request assistance on BLP-article on John Zizioulas, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Pergamon. The page has been protected due to an edit war (see Talk:John_Zizioulas) over the inclusion of fringe-group material and references accusing Zizioulas of being 'deceitful', 'heterodox' and at odds with 'traditional Orthodoxy', which had been occupying half the article. Seminarist ( talk) 00:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
for everyone battle-hardened on the homeopathy front, you may be interested in looking at Research and innovations in Ayurveda and similar articles.
dab (𒁳) 18:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi everybody, a proposal is being made to ease the current restrictions on questionable sources in the verifiability policy. I think editors with experience of dealing with such issues on this noticeboard might have a useful viewpoint on this proposal. See Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability. Tim Vickers ( talk) 21:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
For the last several months; on the Vaishnava section. There is a Hare Krishna/ISKON person maintaining a very strong Hare Krishna/ISKON slant and bias to that section. Others and myself, have been contending and arguing with this person to put our vaishnava groups information section. We have all editted, and he would come and re-edit what we have done. I have emailed Wikipedia about the situation three times already and they have not been helpful. This person has written the whole section with a definite ISKON/Hare Krishna slant. He has a strangle hold on the whole section. I will be taking this to wikipedia one more time. If they have done nothing to resolve the problem...
this is difficult because it isn't about "fringe theories" as such, but about the relative weight a valid sub-sect ( Gaudiya Vaishnavism) should be given in the treatment of a larger movement ( Vaishnavism). It's a case of WP:UNDUE, but there will be room for bona fide disagreement. dab (𒁳) 09:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Maybe not the best place to post this, but an editor has expressed concerns elsewhere that the above mentioned article is becoming overly reliant upon and probably giving undue weight to the belief that many of the claims of satanic ritual abuse are valid. Anyone with any knowledge of the subject, particularly if they can contributed sourced information regarding the consensus who tend to discount the majority of these claims, is more than welcome to do so. John Carter ( talk) 13:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Satanic ritual abuse ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is currently in horrible shape. It presents the clear majority view the Satanic ritual abuse does not exist as an actual conspiracy as a minority view. It busies itself with presenting apologetics in favor of the fringe conspiracy theory, much of it in an "absence of evidence does not indicate evidence of absence" fashion that likely violates WP:SYN and WP:UNDUE. Some feedback and extra eyes would be appreciated. Vassyana ( talk) 20:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
not again. Enough time has been wasted in futile debates with conspiracy mongers who are obviously not interested in a neutral report on mainstream opinions. Good faith has been stretched to ridiculous lengths. This article needs to be put on Wikipedia:Article probation, and probably also needs to be semi-protected. Before we go any further here, it needs to be reverted to the last sane version. After this, uninvolved admins should clamp down on any editor trying to push an agenda or spin the article into suggesting conspiracy mongery. dab (𒁳) 13:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Bulgars#Iranian_theory: Comparable to the Albanian frolicking above, here we have expounded an apparent fringe theory popular in 1990s Bulgarian nationalism. Wikipedia is very vulnerable to this sort of thing. I tend to file these cases under Category:Origin hypotheses of ethnic groups: reviewing that category will raise your hair, and give you an inexhaustible field of fringe cleanup work. dab (𒁳) 14:09, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I think what we've got to start doing with fringe theories like this is to give the reasons why they arise and why they become so popular. For instance, it's not really going out on a limb to speculate that the "Iranian origin of the Bulgars" theory caught on because of the anti-Turkish campaigns in Bulgaria in the 1980s and 90s when it became politically undesirable for the Bulgars to have been Turkic. If we can find a scholarly source explaining this we should add it. -- Folantin ( talk) 10:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
sure, we have dedicated articles for this sort of stuff. Macedonism. Illyrian Movement. Albanian nationalism. Armenian nationalism. National awakening of Bulgaria. Rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire. Indigenous Aryans. National myth. Nationalism and ancient history. Strangely enough, the nationalist zealots never seem interested in adding material to these. dab (𒁳) 11:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Postscript: in fact, I've just blocked the author of Aryan invasion theory (Europe) indefinitely as a result of Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Goldenhawk 0. Hats off to Dieter for spotting the socks here. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 09:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure this has come up before; it's one of the most ridiculous, embarrasing young-earth-Creationist fantasies ever promulgated. To the point where Answers in Genesis rails against it. But not Wikipedia! :-)
The ground penetration radar yielded a regular internal structure as documented in a report to the Turkish government. Fasold and the team measured the length of the formation 538 ft (164 m), close to the 300 cubits (157 m, 515 ft) of the Noah's Ark [...] so-called drogue (anchor) stones that they believed were once attached to the ark were investigated. These very large stones have in common a hole cut on a radius at one end (so as not to chafe an attached rope). Such stones are alluded to in Babylonian accounts of the ark.[10]
< eleland/ talk edits> 07:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
ok, I have redirected David Fasold as a coatrack fork on the same topic, but I found myself reverted by Tuckerresearch ( talk · contribs). dab (𒁳) 19:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Have a look at the ridiculous "Scientific evidence" secrtion Dana Ullman added, and which homeopaths are fighting at all costs to keep in the article. Adam Cuerden talk 00:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Adam, I respect what you're doing a lot. You should already know that. However, to avoid clutter, can we make a main Homeopathy section on this noticeboard and when you find multiple articles, then create sub-sections? There's the same kind of clutter at WP:RSN on Islam and it makes using the noticeboards difficult. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 12:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Adam, I don't mean to sound like Jimbo here, but if they're cherry-picked studies, then dig out references to dispute them. Yes, I know it's tedious but it's policy, so w\e. You can't claim, "Such and such is not reliable," on your own basis, because all claims about sources have to be cited in sources, themselves, in accordance with WP:NPOV. If you think something is disputable, you can get rid of it while you try to find stuff to verify it, but you can't just remove it if it looks like a reliable source without having an additional source to back up your claim.
The only exception is the really wild fringe theories where there won't even be any papers on mainstream journals ridiculing it. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 23:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
The relevant standard here would appear to be WP:V#Exceptional claims require exceptional sources -- claiming experimental scientific validity for a concept that gives every appearance of violating all known theoretical science would appear to be sufficiently "exceptional" to require absolutely bulletproof substantiation. Hrafn Talk Stalk 02:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
FYI: Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Infobox_Pseudoscience. ScienceApologist ( talk) 21:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Minor tussle. A number of the editors asserting ownership of this article are obvious fans of quantum mysticism and don't like having the science rug wisked out from under them. A few voices of reason could be helpful here even while the article is protected. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
There has been a recent upsurge in AIDS-denialist agenda-account activity. Specific pages involved include:
Since AIDS-denialist groups have in the past coordinated "attacks" on Wikipedia, I'd just ask for eyes on these articles and any others which turn up (I could list a bunch of other former POV forks and walled gardens of AIDS denialism, but that would violate WP:BEANS). MastCell Talk 22:10, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
From Mescaline:
Users typically experience visual hallucinations and radically altered states of consciousness, often experienced as pleasurable and illuminating but occasionally is accompanied by feelings of anxiety or revulsion. Like most psychedelic hallucinogens, mescaline is not physically addictive. Mescaline-containing cacti can induce severe vomiting and nausea, which adds an important part to traditional Native-American or Shaman ceremonies as it is considered cleansing.
From Psychedelic psychotherapy:
Psychedelic psychotherapy in the broadest possible sense of the term is likely as old as humanity's ancient knowledge of hallucinogenic plants itself. Though usually viewed as predominantly spiritual in nature, elements of psychotherapeutic practice can be recognized in the entheogenic rituals of many cultures.
Then there's also the nonsense I dealt with a while back on Cannabis. Cannabis-related articles, including the various "strains" on Template:Cannabis resources need to be cleaned up (some strains may need to be deleted) and Portal:Cannabis needs to be made encyclopedic.
On Portal:Cannabis:
Did you know that cannabis is considered a soft drug, and it can not cause physical addiction, as opposed to ethanol ('alcohol') and nicotine.
Also:
I agree with that assessment of cannabis as a soft drug, but it's still OR, because governments and scientists of the world (despite their distorted view of cannabis) do not share that view. Because Wikipedia's standard is verifiability, not truth, it doesn't matter that the mainstream view of cannabis is wrong. The fringe view should not be given undue weight, regardless.
Regarding other psychadelics, like mescaline -- just imagine if some kid reads this material on Wikipedia, then goes out and OD's on some psychadelic drug, like MDMA, because he read on Wikipedia that it was harmless.
So, yeah, a broad variety of articles related to psychedelic drugs needs to be given a closer look. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 18:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
This relates to the issues of WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE. What happens if a paper is cited that can unequivocally be demonstrated to contain unreliable information, albeit that it is from a peer-reviewed journal which is regarded at Wikipedia as WP:RS by definition? [25] This resembles a converse of the "oneway linking principle"- The mainstream will ignore many fringe ideas especially when we get into the minute details of that fringe idea so the mainstream does not bother to create a WP:RS refutation of that fringe WP:RS. One might hope that when discussion on a Talk page has revealed that the cited sources are unreliable a well-intentioned editor acting in good faith would accept the need to withdraw them. But, I cannot see an route by which to insist that such Fringe information should be held away from a main Article page especially when the Article is already in a Fringe area and the effect of WP:WEIGHT is less strong. In the current instance, there is no way that the Mainstream would have created a detailed refutation of a 20-year old research paper in an obscure journal and a 14-yr old meta-analysis in a similarly low-quality journal. How can their inclusion in an Article be challenged, or at least balanced especially when another editor refuses to accept the refutation of his sources' ideas? OffTheFence ( talk) 13:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
A useful policy in this regard is WP:REDFLAG. It should be used more forcefully throughout talkpage discussions. ScienceApologist ( talk) 18:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be a consensus that bad studies can either be removed or have their deficiencies shown in a main article- sacrificing WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR in favour of WP:UNDUE and WP:REDFLAG, and probably WP:IAR, amongst others. But with the whole of homeopathy under "probation", if I edit the main Article don't I still find myself subject to being complained against, because no consensus has been reached? None of this should be necessary if editors acted in good faith and withdrew source material that has been shown to be unreliable or appeared open to qualifying any account given of it in the main Article, but that is where we are. I feel that the principle is important enough to take it up the decision chain to establish a proper precedent. Where does it go next? OffTheFence ( talk) 08:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, AGF...and thanx OffTheFence for that explanation...but the point here is that Jonas and Linde are highly regarded physicians/scientists/evaluators of research, and they are known to critique their own work. In THIS case, however, they have not done so. They published in a RS; they made comments about their research in a very high impact journal. The information stands on this. Your information, while interesting (and not as humorous as I once had thought), is good OR for the talk page. DanaUllman Talk 19:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
← I'm sorry; it's no longer clear to me what's being discussed here. MastCell Talk 19:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
There is an ongoing dispute at this page regrading an editor's inclusion of certain non-standard interpretations of historical events, shown in the second paragraph here. I'm not certain this is the correct noticeboard, but posting elsewhere has been ineffective in resolving the dispute. I would aprreciate any suggestions other editors may have on the proper course of action. Thank you. Coemgenus 13:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't have the time to deal with this. These may be any of: returning banned user, socks, or independent pov-pushers. Someone should deal with this or we'll once again have our entire coverage of "Armenian antiquity" in an unrecognizable mess within no time. dab (𒁳) 19:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
How about this one? First and second edits, within minutes of account creation; user boxes; a bogus correction(see [33]); another one; some wikilinking; more userboxes; and then, to business. (And still nothing from any of these warriors on Talk:Mitanni). rudra ( talk) 20:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Hosnnan38 is indef blocked as a sock of Ararat arev. Any other ducks out there? --Akhilleus ( talk) 22:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
we can well leave most of the articles affected semi-protected: the possibility of their being improved by a passing anon is practically zero. Since the vandal is using AT&T Texas, a wide rangeblock isn't an option. I realize that it could make sense to make IP blocks article-specific. There would be next to no collateral damage in blocking everyone using AT&T from Richardson TX from editing Mitanni and Armenia (name) specifically. Here is a list of articles affected by this particular troll (probably incomplete):
The tenacity of this one long after he must have realized he has no chance is a striking illustration that nationalism to nationalists is a surrogate of religion. dab (𒁳) 17:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Just one more: Military history of Armenia. Moreschi ( talk) 17:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
This is a case for Wikipedia:Long term abuse. This doesn't require any "fringe recognition" skills, and Wikipedia's RCP is a force to be reckoned with. We should take this off our shoulders and hand it to the dedicated vandal fighters. dab (𒁳) 18:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I'll write up a subpage at LTA. Usually I'm reluctant to do so, but WP:DENY is really not relevant to Ararat arev. Moreschi ( talk) 18:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Ararat arev is a start, at least. Moreschi ( talk) 16:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I have to be away for most of the next two weeks — but I'm worried that a number of proposals on the 9/11 and 9/11 conspiracy theories articles will compromise their neutrality and insert fringe material or wording. I'm requesting some more eyes on the articles while I'm away, since this might be a problem for this board. Take a look at the talk pages, and you'll see what I mean. Good luck! -- Haemo ( talk) 22:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
For nearly a month, a single editor Geir Smith has been grafting a large amount of original research and probably fringe theory into the article Battle of Baghdad (1258). The editor has inserted a considerable volume of material connecting the the Mongol sack of the city to some barely comprehensible concept from Tibetan Buddhist cosmology. At least I think that is what he is writing about: his prose is rambling, discursive, and misspelled. This editor has produced similar work in the past which has been deleted (examples: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gyalpo, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jalpo, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Kalachakra, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kalachakra King, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Buddha Online Library). The task of removing this material would be fairly easy if not for some recent post to the talkpage ( here). These comments by editor Dominique Boubouleix or Dr Boubouleix, particularly the personal attacks on Elonka, squarely connect the tendentious editing in Battle of Baghdad (1258) to an open Arbcom case in which I have submitted evidence. In short, I would appreciate help removing the nonsense to avoid accusations of partisan behavior. Thank you. Aramgar ( talk) 17:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I thought that other editors ought to be aware that per Geir Smith's website, the posting of a comment on the talkpage of the Battle of Baghdad (1258) is part of how one becomes a "Warrior of Shambhala." Does this violate some Wikipedia policy? Aramgar ( talk) 21:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I haven't made heads or tails of this yet, but it looks like a great candidate for WP:BJAODN if anyone is still updating that :) dab (𒁳) 18:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I've posted a clear warning on his talkpage. This case is so far out that I will take it upon myself to implement an indef block without further prancing around if this continues. This is simply too silly even for us fringecruft-addicts to waste more time on. dab (𒁳) 11:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, fine. I've blocked Edward lonesome Wolf ( talk · contribs) indefinitely as a disruptive meatpuppet account. Dab's made it quite clear to Geir Smith he's on his last chance. If the same nonsense is being pushed at fr.wiki, someone should probably contact the admins there. A review of Geir Smith ( talk · contribs)'s contributions may be in order, as he'd been doing this sort of thing for a while on some fairly obscure articles and not all of his material may have been reverted at the time.
I suppose congratulations to Geir Smith are in order. Such egregious folly as this smacks of sheer genius. A lesser mind would be incapable of it :) Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 14:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
The Albert Schweitzer International University works with the World International Distributed University, which looks like a diploma mill: [39] [40] [41] but some of the people associated with the ASIU seem quite legitimate academics. There seems to be a whole network here, all linked together. Lord Hearntown sounds like some sort of joke, I can't find anything about 'Hearntown'.-- Dougweller ( talk) 16:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
ah, my dear people, Wikithanks to everyone involved, I am really enjoying this greatly. This is just excellent. The link to a BUY A DEGREE AND GET THE WAGES YOU DESERVE joint adds flavour. The Franco-Mongol arbitration case has been opened three weeks ago. PHG is an involved party, and it transpires that he is embraced as a brother in arms by the Warriors of Shambhala because he is in dispute with Elonka. I am sure he will be nonplussed to learn of his popularity among the Immortals. dab (𒁳) 16:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
And here is a web page on the World International Distributed University website complaining about being called a diploma mill. After all, it says, "To award the all degrees to scientists of European Countries the AEI and WIDU use the Accreditation and the licensing, given those by the AIS which are registered in San Marino" [42]. So, what is the AIS? It has its own Wikipedia article, Akademio Internacia de la Sciencoj San Marino which needs to be either deleted or better yet made NPOV and written in something more resembling English than it does now. I can't find any other comments but I did find its website - the English version is at [43]-- Dougweller ( talk) 16:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Amazingly, Dr. Dominique Albert André Boubouleix was featured in the minor but apparently legit "International Journal of Tantric Studies" in 1998. [44] Geir Smith announces that he will, "when confirmed to full Warrior", Dominique Boubouleix Lord of Hearntown "will be given the rank of General of the Army". Besides being Lord of Hearntown, Dr Bobouleix is apparently decorated with four knighthoods: of the "International World Order of SCIENCE, EDUCATION, CULTURE" [45], of "the British BVA", of "St Constantine the Great" and of St Isidore Membre Spirituel -- plus, apparently, member of the Brotherhood of the Blessed Gérard [46]. dab (𒁳) 17:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Lol, I've found the "Ecole d'Anthropology" [51] [52] (published since 1974??). It appears to be run by S.A. Locch Chancchai Apaiwongs de Battambang, and the Vénérable Phra Eric Xayabandith besides Boubouleix. It was apparently cobbled together around 1998, just in time for Dr. Boubouleix' only known academic paper (the ITJS one). The impressive bit is that all these unlikely sounding names do in fact exist. Mr. Smith must been having a lot of fun with his internet connection :) dab (𒁳) 17:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
The Human Bioethics Treaty Organisation is another one of these weird organisations. Look here: Euclid University Consortium. This seems to have taken over the Human Bioethics Treaty Organisation in some way as the linke I had to the HBTO was to www.hbto.org/hbto/ which is now Euclid. Then there is this guy Laurent Cleenewerck who I suspect has created his own web page -- which is just a PR piece, can we do anything about that? -- Dougweller ( talk) 19:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
bruaha, Wikipedia est vraiment une encyclopédie rédigée par des ânes incultes, sans background universitaire -- it's a fair cop. This very page is living testimony of the fact. My theory at the moment is that Dr Boubouleix and Geir Smith are two real, bona fide cranks, one collecting bogus academic titles and knighthoods, the other building the kingdom of Shambhala, who have managed to impress one another. Dr Boubouleix wanted to collect another fancy title, and Geir Smith was overjoyed to have such a distinguished gentleman apply for his outfit. dab (𒁳) 19:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
And yes, I think they are two real people, there's too much evidence that they are not the same person.-- Dougweller ( talk) 21:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) Sakya, Sakya Trizin and Sakya Pandita also contain information "generally occulted or omitted in history books," some of which was added by Mr. Smith and some from 88.141.184.146, whose additions in general are curiously similar to Mr. Smith's. Kafka Liz ( talk) 02:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Over at the forum Violent War of words erupts on faiths, Kalachakra, between Christians and Buddhists online there are complaints that we, and specifically Elonka, are hacking people's computers!-- Dougweller ( talk) 06:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
The good doctor now intends to take legal action against me....he is so funny! [55]-- Dougweller ( talk) 13:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Vigilance is necessary, but this issue is resolved. Thank you for all the help. Aramgar ( talk) 18:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
ok, now it is resolved. With a view to his latest postings to phayul.com, I have indefblocked Geir Smith for disruption and off-site calls for vandalism. Unless a reviewing admin undoes my block, this should conclude the episode. dab (𒁳) 09:46, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
not bad... fr-wiki admins have locked down the talkpage now. I don't think I've ever seen this on en-wiki. The Boubouliex article has just been deleted. On phayul.com, geir is vowing revenge. dab (𒁳) 21:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
And Boubouliex actually left me a polite message suggesting I email him, quite a reversal.-- Dougweller ( talk) 22:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I've just read this section for the first time. I think I may have broken a rib laughing. Relata refero ( talk) 00:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
At one point I could find it in the history.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 15:02, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
Does this even reach the level of "Disputed science", like the sidebox prominently labels it? Adam Cuerden talk 09:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
the problem is with {{ Infobox Pseudoscience}}. I am doubtful about this template. Can we treat pseudoscience as a topic of taxonomy, neatly labelling it with infoboxes? If we want to use this template, it should say "pseudoscience". But perhaps the template should be deleted, or turned into something else? dab (𒁳) 12:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Also, what about Wikipedia:WikiProject Pseudoscience? It doesn't give any parentage. Shouldn't it be merged with Wikipedia:WikiProject Rational Skepticism, and perhaps with Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative Views and Wikipedia:WikiProject Paranormal? Wikiprojects are supposed as a platform for editors interested in the same group of topics, they are not supposed to separate these editors sorted by their opinion or point of view. dab (𒁳) 12:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Why is it that I have such difficulty trying to get these members to understand that it is unacademic to allow the article in discussion to assume the guilt of a certain part even though no court case has ever proved so? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trek mambo ( talk • contribs) 01:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
...God, this article is AWFUL. Adam Cuerden talk 04:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the company may now be dead, many of the links are dead. I removed some sourced claims but there's a ton of work to do on this one. Mostly I think it should be trimmed, there's just too much weight given to the "theory" futurebird ( talk) 06:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
On the articles Political status of Taiwan and Legal status of Taiwan, there are a series of external links to sites that argue that Taiwan is technically an occupied territory of the United States. In the political status article, a section describes the attempt by certain individuals to have the US judiciary declare it as such. Now, I think the argument is clever but wrong (when one considers oppsing arguments it becomes obvious :-) ). The question is to what degree is it fringe and to what extent are the links producing weight issues. (A few months ago, I queried the people at WikiProject Taiwan, who noted that the links belong only at the political and legal status pages.) Their sheer number though still seems to produce weight issues. (1) Should the links exist at all? and (2) if so, should they be trimmed? Advice appreciated. Ngchen ( talk) 05:21, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
A new user is trying to push his view that info-gap is completely wrong, even though he agrees that his view is a minority opinion, supported by a single paper which he wrote himself. There is currently an RfC about this, but there seems to be fairly little interest in the article right now. I would appreciate another voice telling him that WP is not intended for POV-pushing. Thanks. -- Zvika ( talk) 05:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The is an on-going dispute over if the view, espoused by Front Page Magazine that Kwanzaa "is a racist holiday" is notable or fringe. Thus far, no solid mainstream sources have been offered, but now there is an NPOV tag on the article because of this. futurebird ( talk) 18:02, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, Zenwhat. But, I noticed you took out Ann's name, I think it's more neutral if her ideas are attributed directly to her. Ie. Coulter writes that... blah blah blah etc. (Since she's not an expert on holidays or anything I still wonder if it's notable, but as long as we give the source properly it's not that big of a deal provided we don't give undue weight to these things.) futurebird ( talk) 21:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
There is ongoing discussion on the talk page of the above page, as part of an ongoing RfC, regarding the amount of weight which should be given to the subject's adherence to the Mormon faith, and at least in my eyes some very serious questions raised about how much material should be included. One party has already indicated that the article should include references to Mormon underwear and indicate which planet the subject will, according to Mormon doctrine, possibly rule in a future life. Any reasonable input would be more than welcome. John Carter ( talk) 14:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Lots of attempts to push a pilot study into this article, claiming it proves homeopathy works, after it got rejected over at the better monitored Homeopathy. Adam Cuerden talk 07:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Still on your mission then, Adam [3] [4], still pushing your POV. The study published in Chest journal is entirely reputable and notable and should be kept. It does not attempt to prove homeopathy works, as you allege, it merely shows Potassium dichromate has been studied in a trial and the result published in a reputable mainstream medical journal. You clearly have no idea how difficult that article would have been to get published, or how rigorously the study would have been reviewed in order even to get published? Yet again you have no idea what you are talking about and the study should remain in the Potassium dichromate article. Yet again you have showed that you have no remorse and have learned nothing from this RfC or the arbcom. Peter morrell 08:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Prominently? are you serious? 10.5 lines out of over 80 lines. That is less than 15%. I would hardly call that prominent. Peter morrell 14:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
This is going again over old ground...read the edit history and talk page and you will see. Peter morrell 16:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
In Domestic sheep, it claims that homeppathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and herbalism have been proven to work for some ailments, citing a statement in a couple books. I checked the scientific literature, and found this which says veterinary homeopathy has not been proven, and so deleted the statement that it had been.
It's been restored. What now? Adam Cuerden talk 07:25, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
On what basics are theories added to 9/11 conspiracy theories , the whole article seems to be WP:OR , WP:NPOV and WP:Nonsense Gnevin ( talk) 15:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
The article is an absolute mess. Roughly 90% of the article is nonsense and I know veracity isn't Wikipedia's standard, WP:RS and WP:V are. But of course, since these claims are false, they either aren't cited or poorly cited.
Examples:
Who wrote this article? Pat Robertson? I suspect this article was pretty decent in the past. Somebody just needs to dig through its history, find it, and then revert all this silliness.
For one thing, the article fails to note that many claim that so-called "anti-christian discrimination" is invoked when freedom of religion is upheld. You work at Macy's and you don't say, "Merry Christmas," and you're automatically a bigot. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 10:36, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I renamed the article Anti-Christian sentiment. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 22:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I think this is a hoax. But the background is amusing, involving another page of dubious quality.
I'm not sure how to proceed. AfD for Brahmanical See seems pretty clear cut, but what to do about the disinformation on the Maharaj page? rudra ( talk) 10:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
It's been a while, we probably have a chance at fixing this article at the moment. Adam Cuerden talk 05:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
My gods, this could practically stand as a POV-fork of Homeopathy at several points. Lots ofdubious facts and aggrandisement. Adam Cuerden talk 17:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I have nominated The China Study for deletion on notability grounds and because it may constitute the unwarranted promotion of fringe theories. The article presents only one source/POV--that of the book's authors. The fringe theory issues come from the authors' advocacy of strict veganism in association with claims such as:
Also, there are the remarks of Chris Masterjohn, a principal critic of The China Study. Here's an example (emphasis added):
Only 39 of 350 pages are actually devoted to the China Study. The bold statement on page 132 that “eating foods that contain any cholesterol above 0 mg is unhealthy,”5 is drawn from a broad—and highly selective—pool of research. Yet chapter after chapter reveals a heavy bias and selectivity with which Campbell conducted, interpreted, and presents his research.
I want to be clear that I don't consider veganism to be a "fringe theory" per se. Please consider commenting on the AfD page here. -- DieWeisseRose ( talk) 06:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Futurebird, it is incorrect that "the findings of this book were reviewed" in Nutrition Research. The article you linked to was published in 2002 and The China Study was published in 2005. If that were not enough, there is no mention of the book or the study in the abstract or keywords. It is also very interesting to me that The China Study is not included among the numerous publications listed on the China Project web site. -- DieWeisseRose ( talk) 23:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I asked third opinions in many places on removing tags issues in it. But no comments/consensus formed yet. Please verify the article & leave your comments. -- Avinesh Jose T 08:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
To establish consensus, this AfD discussion needs additional input. Thank you. ScienceApologist ( talk) 20:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Fruitful discussion seems to have stalled on the What the Bleep Do We Know!? article, and I'm looking for some suggestions as to what to do. We're getting into what I think are strange arguments about scientific philosophy (mainstream science being labeled authoritarian, among other things) regarding a relative straightforward content disagreement. We've put out RfCs to relevant wikiprojects, including totally orthogonal groups (wp:film, for example), but there hasn't been much real outside involvement. Any thoughts for how to proceed? I don't know if this is the best place to ask this question, but it's a place I'm familiar with so I thought I'd bring it up here. Ante lan talk 19:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Seriously, Kww can have most everything he wants besides saying that Bleep mis-represents science without any attribution. That is the sticking point, in addition to phrasing and arrangement that just underhandedly tries to bias. But basically, that is the main dispute. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, well, I forgot he wants to call it dirty names- can't have that either (: —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
The sticking point is WP:ATT. A sentence like "Bleep has been criticized as pseudoscience by scientists such as X and by other scientific reviewers" would be fine. The entire problem is those wishing to make absolute statements. But we can't do that here.
Kww: I meant words like "balderdash." Read WP:ATT your other questions are directly and explicitly addressed there. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I seriously think editors would do well to credit their readers with some intelligence. For all of the versions under discussion, it is clear that any readers who haven't their head stuck in a bucket of molecularly altered water will realize that this movie is so much shiny nonsense. Any one who refuses to admit as much, will do so no matter what our article says. dab (𒁳) 11:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Guys, sheesh. I've linked prominently to Ramtha and JZ Knight, both useful articles, what more do you need? Our readers are not fools - we provide with the relevant links/info and they will work this one out. No need to unduly strain the point. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 21:53, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I am going to begin a concerted effort to remove homeopathy from mainstream science articles per WP:WEIGHT and WP:FRINGE. There is no reason why we cannot have mention in pages that discuss homeopathy as a pathological science the various implications for substances they use, but for the most part, such uses do not belong on the articles' pages themselves. This is the so-called "one-way linking principle" that was first delineated in discussions of mainstream astronomy versus fringe ideas. Succinctly, it is perfectly legitimate for a fringe theory to link to a mainstream article. However, in order for a mainstream article to link to a fringe theory, it needs to be established that there is enough mainstream notice of the fringe theory in reference to the mainstream topic. In other words, in the article about onion we should not be mentioning homeopathic remedies since the vast majority of sources that have information on onions do not include homeopathic remedies in their discussions. Only in cases where homeopathy has actually been mentioned in the mainstream discussions (for example, the malaria article) should the idea be mentioned. I would appreciate any and all help I can get with this mammoth task. ScienceApologist ( talk) 16:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Holy cow, this kind of thing is long overdue. < eleland/ talk edits> 21:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
the conflict of interest noticeboard. Please comment. I think this user may not be aware of WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV issues. He has now reverted my removal of homeopathic uses for various plants and chemicals twice with the claim that such were "POV edits". The more people that can coach this user the better. ScienceApologist ( talk) 00:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Generally considered pseudoscience et seq., is homeopathy generally considered pseudoscience, or just questionable science? MilesAgain ( talk) 12:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Anthon01 says that serious scientists are investigating. Should they have any new conclusions which contradict the established duck Test results, then we might revisit this, but I think that mucking with the definition of Pseudoscience to exclude one Fringe topic means opening the floodgates to any Fringe science, which I doubt even the supporters of homoepathy want. ThuranX ( talk) 06:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Compare and contrast:
Which is the strongest statement? which is more acurate? Indeed which is more scientific? Which is likely to boost the credibility of wikipedia? -- Salix alba ( talk) 12:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
A new Wiki for paranormal topics is available here. I think all interested editors and readers should consider strongly contributing there.-- Filll ( talk) 05:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I was involved in these articles a while ago when there was some very intense POV-pushing by a now-banned sockpuppeteer, but I never quite felt I knew what I was doing. One is a BLP of the editor of the other. Both really need attention from more editors who understand how to deal with very controversial issues. Dalit Voice probably qualifies as an extremist source, so should be "handled with care" even in the article about itself. I'm not quite sure what that care should be. It is incredibly easy to trawl through its online archive and pull out statements on all kinds of issues, much harder to do that in any systematic or balanced way. Itsmejudith ( talk) 10:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
is this a full-fledged crackpot theory, or a respectable, if eccentric, academic minority hypothesis? dab (𒁳) 13:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
<undent>My impression is that it is controversial, but of historical interest and was quite influential in some circles. It still is influential among those who suffer from "hearing voices syndrome", since it is sort of one of their bibles. If I remember correctly from a documentary I heard, more and more people are turning up who "hear voices" but few of these are actually bothered by the voices or pay attention to them, and therefore are not classified as psychotic. With the internet, these people can find each other and network and form support groups, leading some academics to study them. And this bicameral mind material features prominently in the therapies of those who "hear voices" and is referred to by those in these support groups as a way to "explain" this symptom (probably the wrong explanation, but oh well).-- Filll ( talk) 13:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
The whole article needs better sourcing anyway, but this appears to have generated quite a flurry at some time, so that shouldn't be too hard. To me this looks like an eccentric development of oldish theories proposing a drastic split down the middle in the functions of the human brain, an idea which is, AFAIK, not nearly as influential as it once was. Lateralization looks to explain this quite well. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 21:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
There is an ongoing difference of opinion as to how to interpret this on the article Waterboarding. Most editors are in favour of stating in the lead: Waterboarding is a form of torture. As I understand it the views on this are:
Regarding the above I am interested to hear how to interpret this. Do we, as in Intelligent Design, start with the consensus among experts (it is torture) and continue to explain in the article body what a notable minority thinks? Does opposing a similar stance as with ID violate WP:FRINGE/ WP:WEIGHT? Respectfully Nomen Nescio Gnothi seauton 16:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
(moved here from talk page Nomen Nescio Gnothi seauton 21:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC))
There is an issue that the term "torture" is defined through humanistic rather than materialistic constraints. The key here is the legal definition and precedent: if courts have ruled waterboarding to be "torture" and no court has ruled to the contrary, then you are in business for applying WP:FRINGE to the idea that waterboarding is not torture, for example. ScienceApologist ( talk) 14:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
One of the problems at Waterboarding is that one group of editors seems to think that any questioning that involves the use of water is both waterboarding and torture, since they can find many sources that do this confounding, while others object to this confounding and want the article to be about the specific (if vague) topic of waterboarding. htom ( talk) 17:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Why isn't it a fringe issue if the scholarly opinion on the matter is fairly clear? (I know nothing of the issue, but I get the sense that this is yet another instance of a lively "popular" debate being mistaken for scholarly disagreement. We can't use the "debate in media" to gauge if an issue is settled among experts. Lots of things are debated publicly about which the experts see little need for debate. Could that be the case here?) futurebird ( talk) 19:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
←This is not an issue of WP:FRINGE, which applies to fringe theories of science, including social and political sciences. The policy that covers the issue you asked about is WP:NPOV, and in particular the section on undue weight, found here: WP:UNDUE.
After reviewing the article, my first impression was that the coverage space given to people saying it's not torture is out of proportion, because the vast majority of sources say that it is torture. But then I saw the poll that found 29% of Americans polled did not think it's a form of torture. Wow, that's an eye-opener! So I read the article about the poll, on CNN's website. Clearly it's a reliable source, so with 30% that's not a tiny minority, it's a significant minority and their views are relevant to the article in some way. But it should be in proportion - and, as someone above mentioned, it should only be in the part of the article about policy/legal debate.
There's no dout that the majority of sources defining it as torture among scientists and academics turns out to be much larger than 70%, so the minority view among the population in general that it's not torture should not receive undue weight. If you need stronger references, try using Google Books and Google Scholar, with search terms like "Waterboarding +torture +history" and other combinations. Instead of leaving the references on this to the popular press or political magazines, find some scholars to make it clear that there is no question about it being a form of torture, in any forum other than political debates where it is not truly a debate about the truth of what waterboarding is, the debate there is actually about whether or not the method can continue to be used. The only way it can be used is if it's not called "torture"; that's a clouding technique being used in the public forum and does nto apply to the actual definition of the procedure. That's why I suggest finding scholars discussing this from outside the present day policy arguments.
Here's a few sources I found that may be helpful - there are many more in the searches:
If the pages with the details don't come up in the link, just search for the term inside the book and they will appear. Apparently in Latin America, the call the technique "the Submarine". Good luck with the article. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 19:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
It should be noted that this issue has been accepted by ArbCom. — BQZip01 — talk 05:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
There's a number of really horrible articles on this, but they're in horrible shape. This isn't a "fringe theory" persay, but editors are operating with the same essential modus operandi of POV-pushing, so I thought I'd post it here for you folks to comment.
Some good info, but POV fork:
Need to be merged\distinguished:
Other relevant articles:
Also, the article on gun politics is bad, too. Not POV for gun control. On the contrary, it's cluttered with dozens of bad sources with the intent of opposing gun control. Somebody posted on WP:RSN and I commented in the talkpage about it. Check it out.
☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 01:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Tparameter, it doesn't particularly matter which POV prevails, only that all POVs are removed and the article reflects the NPOV, based on reliable, verifiable sources. The fact that you'd ask such a question is absurd. To answer, though: there is POV-pushing on both sides. As noted above, overall, there are several Wikipedia articles that were apparently written by some Europeans, "Oh! Those horrible Americans and their horrible guns!" But then, on the other hand, on gun politics, you have some gun nuts typing "gun rights" into Google and flooding the article with the first articles they come across. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 19:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
User:Gregalton brought this to my attention.
From the article [15]:
Additionally, one notable myth debunker documents how the Federal Reserve system is audited and cites numerous instances of independent inspection of financial documents by private accounting firms and the Government Accountability Office. {{Cited in Geocities This debunker's website then also lists the legal exemptions to outside audit, "Exemptions to the Scope of GAO Audits:The Government Accounting Office does not have complete access to all aspects of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Banking Agency Audit Act (31 USCA §714) stipulates the following areas are to be excluded from GAO inspections: "(2) deliberations, decisions, or actions on monetary policy matters, including discount window operations, reserves of member banks, securities credit, interest on deposits, open market operations." The same author also can be quoted in one related article as saying "in terms of monetary policy, the most important power is ... open market operations." The GAO certainly does have the power to conduct audits, but one author noted that 'the GAO audit is extremely limited: it can only examine the Fed’s 'administrative expenses.'" {{False citation [[http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-0305100-180653/unrestricted/Ch.5.pdf here} see page 142}} As the New York Times summarized in 1989, "such transactions are now shielded from outside audit, although the Fed influences interest rates through the purchase of hundreds of billions of dollars in Treasury securities." {{Okay citation in the New York Times''', but a little silly and somewhat used improperly with the rest of the paragraph above}}
On that last source, newspapers themselves have occasionally played up monetary crankery to sell papers and generate ratings. A boring lecture on the Federal Reserve isn't all that scary and is actually better if it's independent doesn't catch your attention, like, "THE BIG EVIL BANKERS ARE PRINTING MONEY AND STEEEEEEEEEALING IT FROM YOU! WE MUST TAKE AMERICA BACK! RON PAUL, 2008"
Similarly, you sometimes see newspapers misrepresenting science by implying in some of their stories that there is a genuine "debate" over intelligent design and global warming. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 20:01, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
My biggest issue is the use of a (credible) ecological economist's paper -- not on monetary policy -- to support a statement that is both loaded and obscure on monetary policy. Now, with all due respect to ecological economics, it is not mainstream, and certainly not notable on monetary policy. There has been an RfC, but few straigthforward comments that in a discussion about monetary policy, ecological economcs is hardly a core reliable source.-- Gregalton ( talk) 20:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Well ... this one is easy. If the NY Times article is in question, then we can quash that right now. Quoting from WP:V, "Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text. The policy strongly implies that, if there is a conflict or contradiction here, then the best that should be done is to include any conflicting view. The wiki article already (somewhat) attempts to do this (although I highly doubt that any reliable source states that monetary policy transactions have ever been verifiably audited by any independent party). I make no mention of it in the wiki article for NPOV reasons, but even the Fed's own Office of the Inspector General serves only at the leisure of the Board, unlike the "true" OIGs imposed onto other agencies of the government. BigK HeX ( talk) 04:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
One particular editor continues to dispute the usage of a source from Herman Daly, even though the source was academically vetted and published reliably. No editor involved in the dispute has provided a conflicting "mainstream" view, so WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE would not seem to apply yet. As posed in the RSN page, does a person's vigorous support of a non-mainstream theory, 'taint' everything else that an otherwise acknowledged expert ever says in his field of work, even when not related to his fringe theories? BigK HeX ( talk) 04:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Marx was not a trained and qualified economist. Neither is LaRouche. Wjhonson ( talk) 23:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know enough about economics to follow this dispute very well, but a citation in the blockquote at the top of the section appears to be from a doctoral dissertation: [17]. It's cited in the current version of the article as footnote #42. Doctoral dissertations are not really peer-reviewed publications, and in general shouldn't be used as sources in Wikipedia articles. --Akhilleus ( talk) 01:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
{{
citation}}
: External link in |title=
(
help).On List of conspiracy theories:
The Federal Reserve is a plot to bankrupt the United States
Please see my posting on WP:ANI. [18]
On the talkpage, he admits to being blatantly biased and fooled by fringe sources. Then when his behavior is challenged, he suddenly accuses others of attacking his "reliable sources" in order to "censor" him.
Now, he manages to dig up one heterodox economist to prove the fringe claim that the Federal Reserve is a conspiracy (see WP:SYNTH). When he did this, he gave the reference the inflammatory title "slamdunk_bwhahaha_booyah" [19]. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 09:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
BigK Hex, that was based on your own comments on the talkpage here. After being accused of pushing fringe sources, you cited WP:Disrupt:
So, if you truly belive that I am pushing a fringe opinion with undue weight, then the guidelines suggest that "Sometimes well-meaning editors may be misled by fringe publications or make honest mistakes when representing a citation. Such people may reasonably defend their positions for a short time, then concede the issue when they encounter better evidence..."
If that was not an acknowledgment of your own blatantly horrible use of sources, then his accusation of bad-faith was justified. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 12:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
(OD) Let's all try to refrain from personal attacks and focus on discussing the argument. I'm sure you are all aware that even reasonable people can read two different sources differently. Hitting other editors with a club doesn't make them see the light. Have a great day! Wjhonson ( talk) 20:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a big problem in the article that I have no idea what to do about. Someone keeps inserting wild, unsourced assertions about House's supposed involvemen in various illicit and subversive plots. Several of us have tried to correct these but they keep coming back. This is the sort of thing that leads many scholars to reject Wikipedia out of hand.
Let me see if I can explain this well because it's a confusing mashup and hard to weed through. There is a religious movement called Spiritualism (religious movement) that was really popular between 1840 and 1920. It's still around today, and has spin-offs in Spiritism. Defining characteristic of the movement is a belief in communicating with spirits through seances and mediumship. That's one third of the equation. Second part: "Spiritualism" is often synonymous to, especially in Europe, the philosophy of Idealism, by far a more mundane philosophical thought that is pretty much just a belief in the supernatural and spirits. So already we have a problem because in America the popular use of the term "spiritualism" is to refer to the religious movement and in Europe it's to refer to "idealism". Which gets top billing, and which one is disambig, and should idealism mention "spiritualism" or is that giving fringe weight to the religion? Big mess, and I haven't even gotten to the third part. Third part: Often "spiritualism" is synonymously used to refer to animism and shamanism practices.
That third part is what brought me here looking for help in sorting out an article. A few editors split the spiritualism article into two articles, one for the religion and one (presumably) for "other uses". Well, an enterprising editor came in and filled the "other" article up -- Spiritualism (beliefs) -- with what appears to be WP:SYNTH that takes Western philosophy (idealism called spiritualism), mixes it with the religion, and mashes in Eastern mysticism, shamanism, animism, spiritism, and occultism in an attempt to write an article about some sort of universal ground to all spirituality which would be less dubious if the editor didn't say, "So what is your point? Spiritualistic phenomenon manifests itself worldwide ... and is referred to as that. The topic is very well referenced" when I called them on it.
What's more, is that I found at least one section that they wrote called "Mediumship in Tibet" that was completely bogusly sourced. [20] I looked the book up at Google Books, searched inside the book, and it said nothing whatsoever about "mediumship" or "spiritualism".
I don't know what's WP:OR, what's WP:SYNTH, or what's legit in the article Spiritualism (beliefs). I'm also concerned that it's trying to equate the Western philosophy of idealism with less popular practices like shamanism, mediumship, and seances to make it appear that those practices are more widespread than they actually are (which is why I'm at the WP:FRINGE noticeboard).
Anyone familiar with these topics that can hop over and help sort out the mess, I'd really appreciate it. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 08:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
It's important to note that philosophy and religion are not necessarily distinct concepts. They have historically been considered opposed in western history, but this is not true in the east. A lot of westerners who have absolutely no education in either philosophy or eastern religion continue to have this blatant misunderstanding. To see what I mean, see Talk:Eastern_philosophy#Merger_proposal.
The founders of Spiritualism themselves seemed to mix philosophy with religion, just as Deists did. So, I don't really see anything objectionable about the article, just that its sources need to be checked.
Spiritualism (beliefs) certainly seems to overlap a lot with Spiritualism (beliefs), though, and an investigation into the matter may yield the fact that they're the same idea. Historians tend not to be very good scientists. In my opinion, they largely have a tendency to just make stuff up as they go along, so they aren't very consistent and will have very absurd categorizations, like this. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 04:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I admit I don't really know much about it. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 10:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a long, slow burning conflict on that page between opponents and proponents of including extensive information from a book called Gold Warriors by Sterling & Peggy Seagrave. The claim is that a massive Imperial Japanese hoard of looted gold was secretly discovered during the Cold War and used as the lynch-pin of American "dirty tricks" and CIA activities in Asia for decades. The Seagraves provide enormous volumes of documentation, none of which actually proves their key claims, which might as well be sourced to "that guy, what was his name, Dave I think?, in the airport bar at 2 AM." And they literally claim that the conspirators are out to kill them. < eleland/ talk edits> 18:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the novel has a poor reputation for fact checking. In the same “glowing review” in the London Review of Books, it is noted: “The Seagraves’ narrative is comprehensive, but they are not fully reliable as historians”…"The book is full of errors that could easily be corrected by a second-year student of the language” and “One of the Seagraves’ more controversial contentions is that the looting…”
Oddly enough, the same book review that applauds this single-source conspiracy theory…also condemns the “reliable source” reference. Not fully reliable as historians, the book is full of language errors and controversial contentions should qualify as questionable sources. Therefore, your suggestion is to include the material in the article, and then argue within the article the validity of the material. That would probably work IF the article were about the Seagraves’ publications. However, it is not. Jim ( talk) 11:53, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
no comment necessary. dab (𒁳) 09:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
To save people time, you should clarify that it's specifically about Origin theories of Christopher Columbus#Portugese theory. The whole page isn't a fringe theory, just the contentious edits a few users have been making to that one section.
It's such patent nonsense that it doesn't even really belong here. I sent it over to
WP:ANI as
patent nonsense.
☯
Zenwhat (
talk) 10:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Seeing how as Moreschi already sees it, sending it over to WP:ANI would be counterintuitive. So, I removed my posting there. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 08:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
An IP editor is campaigning against genetics research included in Palestinian people, which relates to a particular genetic marker "167delT, which appears specific to Israeli Ashkenazi and Palestinian populations."
This user is arguing an originally researched reason why this information is not valid; he attempts to discuss population genetics but does not appear have the slightest idea of what he is talking about (see above.)
The article has been the subject of Israeli-Palestinian POV wars but I don't even know which side this guy's on, if any. It's just a matter of science versus fringe theories. Please keep an eye and make sure the information doesn't get suppressed by an Internet kook. < eleland/ talk edits> 08:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this is a classic anti-semitic conspiracy theory. It's true that Ashkenazi Jews have a lot of non-semitic caucasian DNA (hence the reason why Iraqi and Iranian Jews look so little like Ashkenazi Jews). However, using that to push the claim "they're not real Jews," is absurd, because their still genetically of partially semitic origin. The claim "they're not real Jews," is generally used as a basis to support anti-semitism. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 01:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, though, one thing I would add: The entire section on genetics should be deleted. Scientists do not recognize the idea of a "race" based on genetics and genetics are occasionally used by Kahanists and anti-Arab racists, too, to argue "There's no such thing as a Palestinian people."
Well, yes. This is true. But based on the same data, there is no such thing as a Jewish people. It's all based mostly on social convention, not DNA. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 01:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
DNA Clues section are found in many other wiki articles, and banning it in Palestinian People confirm the suspition being rumered in the internet that wikipedia is not a so called Free encyclopedia but run by zionists or at least controlled media ( one sided media that uses double standards.
a claim suppoted by more than one reference ( scientific research that is repitable ) is not to be deleted according to wiki riles. I demand that any such statements that are scientifically firmly reliabe as mentioned above should stay and any counter statements should be also stated if more than one study prove it.
As my referenced studies are mostly made by academically strong jewish scientists and the strongest DNA testing to date (autosomal), the counter objectors should rather find and search for good scientific evidence to support their claims and anxieties( seems to me they are inable to do that)So far their requests are politically and racially motivated since they are unable to refute (scientifically) different referenced statements 75.72.88.121 ( talk) 07:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC) Also, there is no such thing as fringe theory or original research in my contributions. All my words are taken to the letter from other proven-scientific websites! 75.72.88.121 ( talk) 07:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I've prodded this article because (a) the subject does not assert it to be a notable fringe theory, (b) the article is still a mess almost 3 years after creation, (c) the article cites no sources, and (d) it gives undue weight to the theory. The creator of the article has been notified, and I will notify other users who have made significant edits to the article. Bearian ( talk) 16:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Hilarious.
The GUCT is the Grand Unifying / Unified Conspiracy Theory (a play on Grand Unified Theory) and is a disparaging term used by doubters to refer to supposed links drawn between one or more conspiracy theories, for example, chemtrail theory, JFK's assassination, the Apollo landing hoax, the Bilderbergers, free energy suppression, and water fluoridation are all part of some overarching plot (probably by aliens).
In the edit-history, at one point somebody added a mythology stub, another person added "see also -- vast right-wing conspiracy." As time went on, people also added to the article, by tacking on new, different conspiracy theories. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 02:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Is economic support for the theoretical advantages of "full-reserve banking" considered to be non-mainstream? (Disregarding the practicalities, I suppose.)
The criticisms of fractional-reserve banking seem to have wide support, including:
there are allegations of pushing of fringe theories I find difficult to evaluate. Sumerophile ( talk · contribs) appears to take any comparison of Sumerian and Biblical flood stories as implying the claim that they refer to some "real" historical flood. That is, it appears this user is reading fringe claims that nobody ever intended to submit. But maybe I am missing something. See here, and Talk:Ziusudra. dab (𒁳) 12:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
another loopy theory that escaped notice. I have done some preliminary cleanup, but this article clearly needs to be surveyed (if not deleted or merged as unnotable kookery). dab (𒁳) 13:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Notable in the sense of? None of the uncertainty in mainstream views is about African contact. The basic arguments about how and when Native Americans arrived from Asia. There is one hypothesis (put forward for testing that is) which is very minority that some may have come from Iberia (the Solutrean suggestion). I have no idea what TV programme you have in mind and I'd be very interested in what scholarly book you have, even just the name would be useful. Thanks.-- Dougweller ( talk) 15:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
note that I am not opposed to keeping this article around (or I would just have AfDd it): Wikipedia articles are justified by notability, not by sanity of their subjects. The point is that the article needs to make clear that although notable, these theories have no merit. dab (𒁳) 16:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I've just ordered it from Amazon. -- Dougweller ( talk) 17:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Check out the various articles related to Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. In particular there is Social cycle theory of Sarkar. Progressive utilization theory, Microvitum, Neo-humanism, Ananda Marga, Ananda Marga Tantra, and AMGK. Do we really need all these articles? ScienceApologist ( talk) 23:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
“ | P. R. Sarkar was born on a full moon day, likely on 21 May, 1921, in the small town of Jamalpur, Bihar, India. Although known as a bright child in his youth, he showed few signs of the mystical and largely controversial life that lay ahead of him, aside from the fact that even at a very young age, many of his family members recall seeing him perform long meditations in the middle of the night. | ” |
good catch, ScienceApologist :) dab (𒁳) 15:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Category:Uhuru Movement, surrounding Omali Yeshitela. An entire category of articles without a single citation that would establish notability. Omali Yeshitela himself may be notable (some 10,000 google hits), but the remaining articles accreting around him clearly are not. dab (𒁳) 15:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I've done some merging/redirecting. The remaining problem articles are African Socialist International, Omali Yeshitela and Chernoh Bah. dab (𒁳) 18:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Where a controversial 'historian' (who has no formal education in history and makes claims that have gained no acceptance in the academic historical community) is widely described as a "pseudohistorian" and has had his work widely criticised by legitimate historians, is it reasonable to note these facts in the article lead? This seems to be authorised by WP:LEAD when it states: "It should establish context, summarize the most important points, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describe its notable controversies, if there are any." [My emphasis] There is another editor who is trying to move all mention of this characterisation and criticism out of the lead to the end of the article. Hrafn Talk Stalk 14:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Royal Rife, particularly the talk page: there are no active content issues, but the talk page is an absolute mess of conspiracy theories and the like, and has drifted quite a ways from anything relevant to improving the associated Wikipedia article. I'd just like some outside review of the talk page with an eye toward the talk page guidelines and moving it away from Conspiracypedia and back toward discussion of concrete improvements to the actual article. MastCell Talk 20:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
In the "Criticism of atheism" article (which btw has a pretty pro-atheist slant but thats not the point of my discussion) there is a section detailing a Christian writer noting that "Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic". There's a 'rebuttal' by Sam Harris that goes "The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions." That kind've avoids the point, but again, this my POV so I'm not going to add it into the article. So far it contains two cited arguments.
Now this was followed up by "Further, this criticism is simply a poisoning the well fallacy variant, as well as a strawman of atheism. It is clear that not all communists are atheists (see Christian Communism), not all atheists are communists (see Ayn Rand), and attacking atheism via communism attempts to paint atheists in a negative light initially so as to discredit anything they may say." which I removed as uncited POV. The user who added it, Knight of BAAWA, reverted it back saying it was a fallacy and thus did not need a source. The wikilink to " straw man" was enough. At the very least, they needed a quote from someone stating that argument.
Now a second user, Deus Ex Machina, has added it back saying "The source is already there" without adding any. I reverted, it saying that I didn't see a source.
Now this paragraph doesn't seem to be in align with any of WP's policies, but if someone with more experience could run in that would be great.-- CyberGhostface ( talk) 15:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
that would be blockable as disruption. dab (𒁳) 15:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
ok, we have some minor problems with Albanian nationalists at Talk:Pelasgians, Talk:Chaonians in case anyone is interested. See also Origin of the Albanians, Albanian nationalism, Dodona ( talk · contribs), PelasgicMoon ( talk · contribs). Things are generally under control, but more eyes are welcome. dab (𒁳) 15:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
This discussion on WP:RS/N is trying to obfuscate some fringe-y POV-pushing regarding the origins of Carnatic music, pitting a bunch of Tamil chauvinists against an equally fractious lot of Kannadigas (who usually are the most sensitive to their neighbors' antics) over the WP:RS status of a website. This could get bloody. rudra ( talk) 04:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
There is currently a proposal to merge the Galactic Confederacy article into the main Scientology article on the basis that the Galactic Confederacy qualifies as "fictional" at Talk:Scientology#Merge proposal.. Any input as to whether this apparently acknowledged belief of Scientologists qualifies as "fiction" would be more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter ( talk) 16:47, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Request assistance on BLP-article on John Zizioulas, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Pergamon. The page has been protected due to an edit war (see Talk:John_Zizioulas) over the inclusion of fringe-group material and references accusing Zizioulas of being 'deceitful', 'heterodox' and at odds with 'traditional Orthodoxy', which had been occupying half the article. Seminarist ( talk) 00:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
for everyone battle-hardened on the homeopathy front, you may be interested in looking at Research and innovations in Ayurveda and similar articles.
dab (𒁳) 18:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi everybody, a proposal is being made to ease the current restrictions on questionable sources in the verifiability policy. I think editors with experience of dealing with such issues on this noticeboard might have a useful viewpoint on this proposal. See Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability. Tim Vickers ( talk) 21:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
For the last several months; on the Vaishnava section. There is a Hare Krishna/ISKON person maintaining a very strong Hare Krishna/ISKON slant and bias to that section. Others and myself, have been contending and arguing with this person to put our vaishnava groups information section. We have all editted, and he would come and re-edit what we have done. I have emailed Wikipedia about the situation three times already and they have not been helpful. This person has written the whole section with a definite ISKON/Hare Krishna slant. He has a strangle hold on the whole section. I will be taking this to wikipedia one more time. If they have done nothing to resolve the problem...
this is difficult because it isn't about "fringe theories" as such, but about the relative weight a valid sub-sect ( Gaudiya Vaishnavism) should be given in the treatment of a larger movement ( Vaishnavism). It's a case of WP:UNDUE, but there will be room for bona fide disagreement. dab (𒁳) 09:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Maybe not the best place to post this, but an editor has expressed concerns elsewhere that the above mentioned article is becoming overly reliant upon and probably giving undue weight to the belief that many of the claims of satanic ritual abuse are valid. Anyone with any knowledge of the subject, particularly if they can contributed sourced information regarding the consensus who tend to discount the majority of these claims, is more than welcome to do so. John Carter ( talk) 13:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Satanic ritual abuse ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is currently in horrible shape. It presents the clear majority view the Satanic ritual abuse does not exist as an actual conspiracy as a minority view. It busies itself with presenting apologetics in favor of the fringe conspiracy theory, much of it in an "absence of evidence does not indicate evidence of absence" fashion that likely violates WP:SYN and WP:UNDUE. Some feedback and extra eyes would be appreciated. Vassyana ( talk) 20:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
not again. Enough time has been wasted in futile debates with conspiracy mongers who are obviously not interested in a neutral report on mainstream opinions. Good faith has been stretched to ridiculous lengths. This article needs to be put on Wikipedia:Article probation, and probably also needs to be semi-protected. Before we go any further here, it needs to be reverted to the last sane version. After this, uninvolved admins should clamp down on any editor trying to push an agenda or spin the article into suggesting conspiracy mongery. dab (𒁳) 13:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Bulgars#Iranian_theory: Comparable to the Albanian frolicking above, here we have expounded an apparent fringe theory popular in 1990s Bulgarian nationalism. Wikipedia is very vulnerable to this sort of thing. I tend to file these cases under Category:Origin hypotheses of ethnic groups: reviewing that category will raise your hair, and give you an inexhaustible field of fringe cleanup work. dab (𒁳) 14:09, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I think what we've got to start doing with fringe theories like this is to give the reasons why they arise and why they become so popular. For instance, it's not really going out on a limb to speculate that the "Iranian origin of the Bulgars" theory caught on because of the anti-Turkish campaigns in Bulgaria in the 1980s and 90s when it became politically undesirable for the Bulgars to have been Turkic. If we can find a scholarly source explaining this we should add it. -- Folantin ( talk) 10:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
sure, we have dedicated articles for this sort of stuff. Macedonism. Illyrian Movement. Albanian nationalism. Armenian nationalism. National awakening of Bulgaria. Rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire. Indigenous Aryans. National myth. Nationalism and ancient history. Strangely enough, the nationalist zealots never seem interested in adding material to these. dab (𒁳) 11:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Postscript: in fact, I've just blocked the author of Aryan invasion theory (Europe) indefinitely as a result of Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Goldenhawk 0. Hats off to Dieter for spotting the socks here. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 09:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure this has come up before; it's one of the most ridiculous, embarrasing young-earth-Creationist fantasies ever promulgated. To the point where Answers in Genesis rails against it. But not Wikipedia! :-)
The ground penetration radar yielded a regular internal structure as documented in a report to the Turkish government. Fasold and the team measured the length of the formation 538 ft (164 m), close to the 300 cubits (157 m, 515 ft) of the Noah's Ark [...] so-called drogue (anchor) stones that they believed were once attached to the ark were investigated. These very large stones have in common a hole cut on a radius at one end (so as not to chafe an attached rope). Such stones are alluded to in Babylonian accounts of the ark.[10]
< eleland/ talk edits> 07:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
ok, I have redirected David Fasold as a coatrack fork on the same topic, but I found myself reverted by Tuckerresearch ( talk · contribs). dab (𒁳) 19:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Have a look at the ridiculous "Scientific evidence" secrtion Dana Ullman added, and which homeopaths are fighting at all costs to keep in the article. Adam Cuerden talk 00:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Adam, I respect what you're doing a lot. You should already know that. However, to avoid clutter, can we make a main Homeopathy section on this noticeboard and when you find multiple articles, then create sub-sections? There's the same kind of clutter at WP:RSN on Islam and it makes using the noticeboards difficult. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 12:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Adam, I don't mean to sound like Jimbo here, but if they're cherry-picked studies, then dig out references to dispute them. Yes, I know it's tedious but it's policy, so w\e. You can't claim, "Such and such is not reliable," on your own basis, because all claims about sources have to be cited in sources, themselves, in accordance with WP:NPOV. If you think something is disputable, you can get rid of it while you try to find stuff to verify it, but you can't just remove it if it looks like a reliable source without having an additional source to back up your claim.
The only exception is the really wild fringe theories where there won't even be any papers on mainstream journals ridiculing it. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 23:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
The relevant standard here would appear to be WP:V#Exceptional claims require exceptional sources -- claiming experimental scientific validity for a concept that gives every appearance of violating all known theoretical science would appear to be sufficiently "exceptional" to require absolutely bulletproof substantiation. Hrafn Talk Stalk 02:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
FYI: Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Infobox_Pseudoscience. ScienceApologist ( talk) 21:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Minor tussle. A number of the editors asserting ownership of this article are obvious fans of quantum mysticism and don't like having the science rug wisked out from under them. A few voices of reason could be helpful here even while the article is protected. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
There has been a recent upsurge in AIDS-denialist agenda-account activity. Specific pages involved include:
Since AIDS-denialist groups have in the past coordinated "attacks" on Wikipedia, I'd just ask for eyes on these articles and any others which turn up (I could list a bunch of other former POV forks and walled gardens of AIDS denialism, but that would violate WP:BEANS). MastCell Talk 22:10, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
From Mescaline:
Users typically experience visual hallucinations and radically altered states of consciousness, often experienced as pleasurable and illuminating but occasionally is accompanied by feelings of anxiety or revulsion. Like most psychedelic hallucinogens, mescaline is not physically addictive. Mescaline-containing cacti can induce severe vomiting and nausea, which adds an important part to traditional Native-American or Shaman ceremonies as it is considered cleansing.
From Psychedelic psychotherapy:
Psychedelic psychotherapy in the broadest possible sense of the term is likely as old as humanity's ancient knowledge of hallucinogenic plants itself. Though usually viewed as predominantly spiritual in nature, elements of psychotherapeutic practice can be recognized in the entheogenic rituals of many cultures.
Then there's also the nonsense I dealt with a while back on Cannabis. Cannabis-related articles, including the various "strains" on Template:Cannabis resources need to be cleaned up (some strains may need to be deleted) and Portal:Cannabis needs to be made encyclopedic.
On Portal:Cannabis:
Did you know that cannabis is considered a soft drug, and it can not cause physical addiction, as opposed to ethanol ('alcohol') and nicotine.
Also:
I agree with that assessment of cannabis as a soft drug, but it's still OR, because governments and scientists of the world (despite their distorted view of cannabis) do not share that view. Because Wikipedia's standard is verifiability, not truth, it doesn't matter that the mainstream view of cannabis is wrong. The fringe view should not be given undue weight, regardless.
Regarding other psychadelics, like mescaline -- just imagine if some kid reads this material on Wikipedia, then goes out and OD's on some psychadelic drug, like MDMA, because he read on Wikipedia that it was harmless.
So, yeah, a broad variety of articles related to psychedelic drugs needs to be given a closer look. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 18:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
This relates to the issues of WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE. What happens if a paper is cited that can unequivocally be demonstrated to contain unreliable information, albeit that it is from a peer-reviewed journal which is regarded at Wikipedia as WP:RS by definition? [25] This resembles a converse of the "oneway linking principle"- The mainstream will ignore many fringe ideas especially when we get into the minute details of that fringe idea so the mainstream does not bother to create a WP:RS refutation of that fringe WP:RS. One might hope that when discussion on a Talk page has revealed that the cited sources are unreliable a well-intentioned editor acting in good faith would accept the need to withdraw them. But, I cannot see an route by which to insist that such Fringe information should be held away from a main Article page especially when the Article is already in a Fringe area and the effect of WP:WEIGHT is less strong. In the current instance, there is no way that the Mainstream would have created a detailed refutation of a 20-year old research paper in an obscure journal and a 14-yr old meta-analysis in a similarly low-quality journal. How can their inclusion in an Article be challenged, or at least balanced especially when another editor refuses to accept the refutation of his sources' ideas? OffTheFence ( talk) 13:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
A useful policy in this regard is WP:REDFLAG. It should be used more forcefully throughout talkpage discussions. ScienceApologist ( talk) 18:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be a consensus that bad studies can either be removed or have their deficiencies shown in a main article- sacrificing WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR in favour of WP:UNDUE and WP:REDFLAG, and probably WP:IAR, amongst others. But with the whole of homeopathy under "probation", if I edit the main Article don't I still find myself subject to being complained against, because no consensus has been reached? None of this should be necessary if editors acted in good faith and withdrew source material that has been shown to be unreliable or appeared open to qualifying any account given of it in the main Article, but that is where we are. I feel that the principle is important enough to take it up the decision chain to establish a proper precedent. Where does it go next? OffTheFence ( talk) 08:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, AGF...and thanx OffTheFence for that explanation...but the point here is that Jonas and Linde are highly regarded physicians/scientists/evaluators of research, and they are known to critique their own work. In THIS case, however, they have not done so. They published in a RS; they made comments about their research in a very high impact journal. The information stands on this. Your information, while interesting (and not as humorous as I once had thought), is good OR for the talk page. DanaUllman Talk 19:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
← I'm sorry; it's no longer clear to me what's being discussed here. MastCell Talk 19:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
There is an ongoing dispute at this page regrading an editor's inclusion of certain non-standard interpretations of historical events, shown in the second paragraph here. I'm not certain this is the correct noticeboard, but posting elsewhere has been ineffective in resolving the dispute. I would aprreciate any suggestions other editors may have on the proper course of action. Thank you. Coemgenus 13:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't have the time to deal with this. These may be any of: returning banned user, socks, or independent pov-pushers. Someone should deal with this or we'll once again have our entire coverage of "Armenian antiquity" in an unrecognizable mess within no time. dab (𒁳) 19:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
How about this one? First and second edits, within minutes of account creation; user boxes; a bogus correction(see [33]); another one; some wikilinking; more userboxes; and then, to business. (And still nothing from any of these warriors on Talk:Mitanni). rudra ( talk) 20:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Hosnnan38 is indef blocked as a sock of Ararat arev. Any other ducks out there? --Akhilleus ( talk) 22:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
we can well leave most of the articles affected semi-protected: the possibility of their being improved by a passing anon is practically zero. Since the vandal is using AT&T Texas, a wide rangeblock isn't an option. I realize that it could make sense to make IP blocks article-specific. There would be next to no collateral damage in blocking everyone using AT&T from Richardson TX from editing Mitanni and Armenia (name) specifically. Here is a list of articles affected by this particular troll (probably incomplete):
The tenacity of this one long after he must have realized he has no chance is a striking illustration that nationalism to nationalists is a surrogate of religion. dab (𒁳) 17:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Just one more: Military history of Armenia. Moreschi ( talk) 17:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
This is a case for Wikipedia:Long term abuse. This doesn't require any "fringe recognition" skills, and Wikipedia's RCP is a force to be reckoned with. We should take this off our shoulders and hand it to the dedicated vandal fighters. dab (𒁳) 18:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I'll write up a subpage at LTA. Usually I'm reluctant to do so, but WP:DENY is really not relevant to Ararat arev. Moreschi ( talk) 18:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Ararat arev is a start, at least. Moreschi ( talk) 16:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I have to be away for most of the next two weeks — but I'm worried that a number of proposals on the 9/11 and 9/11 conspiracy theories articles will compromise their neutrality and insert fringe material or wording. I'm requesting some more eyes on the articles while I'm away, since this might be a problem for this board. Take a look at the talk pages, and you'll see what I mean. Good luck! -- Haemo ( talk) 22:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
For nearly a month, a single editor Geir Smith has been grafting a large amount of original research and probably fringe theory into the article Battle of Baghdad (1258). The editor has inserted a considerable volume of material connecting the the Mongol sack of the city to some barely comprehensible concept from Tibetan Buddhist cosmology. At least I think that is what he is writing about: his prose is rambling, discursive, and misspelled. This editor has produced similar work in the past which has been deleted (examples: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gyalpo, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jalpo, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Kalachakra, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kalachakra King, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Buddha Online Library). The task of removing this material would be fairly easy if not for some recent post to the talkpage ( here). These comments by editor Dominique Boubouleix or Dr Boubouleix, particularly the personal attacks on Elonka, squarely connect the tendentious editing in Battle of Baghdad (1258) to an open Arbcom case in which I have submitted evidence. In short, I would appreciate help removing the nonsense to avoid accusations of partisan behavior. Thank you. Aramgar ( talk) 17:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I thought that other editors ought to be aware that per Geir Smith's website, the posting of a comment on the talkpage of the Battle of Baghdad (1258) is part of how one becomes a "Warrior of Shambhala." Does this violate some Wikipedia policy? Aramgar ( talk) 21:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I haven't made heads or tails of this yet, but it looks like a great candidate for WP:BJAODN if anyone is still updating that :) dab (𒁳) 18:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I've posted a clear warning on his talkpage. This case is so far out that I will take it upon myself to implement an indef block without further prancing around if this continues. This is simply too silly even for us fringecruft-addicts to waste more time on. dab (𒁳) 11:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, fine. I've blocked Edward lonesome Wolf ( talk · contribs) indefinitely as a disruptive meatpuppet account. Dab's made it quite clear to Geir Smith he's on his last chance. If the same nonsense is being pushed at fr.wiki, someone should probably contact the admins there. A review of Geir Smith ( talk · contribs)'s contributions may be in order, as he'd been doing this sort of thing for a while on some fairly obscure articles and not all of his material may have been reverted at the time.
I suppose congratulations to Geir Smith are in order. Such egregious folly as this smacks of sheer genius. A lesser mind would be incapable of it :) Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 14:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
The Albert Schweitzer International University works with the World International Distributed University, which looks like a diploma mill: [39] [40] [41] but some of the people associated with the ASIU seem quite legitimate academics. There seems to be a whole network here, all linked together. Lord Hearntown sounds like some sort of joke, I can't find anything about 'Hearntown'.-- Dougweller ( talk) 16:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
ah, my dear people, Wikithanks to everyone involved, I am really enjoying this greatly. This is just excellent. The link to a BUY A DEGREE AND GET THE WAGES YOU DESERVE joint adds flavour. The Franco-Mongol arbitration case has been opened three weeks ago. PHG is an involved party, and it transpires that he is embraced as a brother in arms by the Warriors of Shambhala because he is in dispute with Elonka. I am sure he will be nonplussed to learn of his popularity among the Immortals. dab (𒁳) 16:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
And here is a web page on the World International Distributed University website complaining about being called a diploma mill. After all, it says, "To award the all degrees to scientists of European Countries the AEI and WIDU use the Accreditation and the licensing, given those by the AIS which are registered in San Marino" [42]. So, what is the AIS? It has its own Wikipedia article, Akademio Internacia de la Sciencoj San Marino which needs to be either deleted or better yet made NPOV and written in something more resembling English than it does now. I can't find any other comments but I did find its website - the English version is at [43]-- Dougweller ( talk) 16:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Amazingly, Dr. Dominique Albert André Boubouleix was featured in the minor but apparently legit "International Journal of Tantric Studies" in 1998. [44] Geir Smith announces that he will, "when confirmed to full Warrior", Dominique Boubouleix Lord of Hearntown "will be given the rank of General of the Army". Besides being Lord of Hearntown, Dr Bobouleix is apparently decorated with four knighthoods: of the "International World Order of SCIENCE, EDUCATION, CULTURE" [45], of "the British BVA", of "St Constantine the Great" and of St Isidore Membre Spirituel -- plus, apparently, member of the Brotherhood of the Blessed Gérard [46]. dab (𒁳) 17:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Lol, I've found the "Ecole d'Anthropology" [51] [52] (published since 1974??). It appears to be run by S.A. Locch Chancchai Apaiwongs de Battambang, and the Vénérable Phra Eric Xayabandith besides Boubouleix. It was apparently cobbled together around 1998, just in time for Dr. Boubouleix' only known academic paper (the ITJS one). The impressive bit is that all these unlikely sounding names do in fact exist. Mr. Smith must been having a lot of fun with his internet connection :) dab (𒁳) 17:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
The Human Bioethics Treaty Organisation is another one of these weird organisations. Look here: Euclid University Consortium. This seems to have taken over the Human Bioethics Treaty Organisation in some way as the linke I had to the HBTO was to www.hbto.org/hbto/ which is now Euclid. Then there is this guy Laurent Cleenewerck who I suspect has created his own web page -- which is just a PR piece, can we do anything about that? -- Dougweller ( talk) 19:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
bruaha, Wikipedia est vraiment une encyclopédie rédigée par des ânes incultes, sans background universitaire -- it's a fair cop. This very page is living testimony of the fact. My theory at the moment is that Dr Boubouleix and Geir Smith are two real, bona fide cranks, one collecting bogus academic titles and knighthoods, the other building the kingdom of Shambhala, who have managed to impress one another. Dr Boubouleix wanted to collect another fancy title, and Geir Smith was overjoyed to have such a distinguished gentleman apply for his outfit. dab (𒁳) 19:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
And yes, I think they are two real people, there's too much evidence that they are not the same person.-- Dougweller ( talk) 21:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) Sakya, Sakya Trizin and Sakya Pandita also contain information "generally occulted or omitted in history books," some of which was added by Mr. Smith and some from 88.141.184.146, whose additions in general are curiously similar to Mr. Smith's. Kafka Liz ( talk) 02:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Over at the forum Violent War of words erupts on faiths, Kalachakra, between Christians and Buddhists online there are complaints that we, and specifically Elonka, are hacking people's computers!-- Dougweller ( talk) 06:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
The good doctor now intends to take legal action against me....he is so funny! [55]-- Dougweller ( talk) 13:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Vigilance is necessary, but this issue is resolved. Thank you for all the help. Aramgar ( talk) 18:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
ok, now it is resolved. With a view to his latest postings to phayul.com, I have indefblocked Geir Smith for disruption and off-site calls for vandalism. Unless a reviewing admin undoes my block, this should conclude the episode. dab (𒁳) 09:46, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
not bad... fr-wiki admins have locked down the talkpage now. I don't think I've ever seen this on en-wiki. The Boubouliex article has just been deleted. On phayul.com, geir is vowing revenge. dab (𒁳) 21:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
And Boubouliex actually left me a polite message suggesting I email him, quite a reversal.-- Dougweller ( talk) 22:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I've just read this section for the first time. I think I may have broken a rib laughing. Relata refero ( talk) 00:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
At one point I could find it in the history.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 15:02, 1 March 2008 (UTC)