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1		Identifying fringe theories
  1.1	Spectrum of fringe theories
2	Reliable sources
3	Unwarranted promotion of fringe theories
4	Notability
5	Evaluating and describing claims
6	Notability versus acceptance
7	Sourcing and attribution (with subsections)
8	Treatment of living persons
9	Mentions in other articles

This article presents "chemophobia" as if it's a psychological phenomenon or diagnosable condition, whereas it is certainly not at all supported by any relevant psychology literature. Therefore it's pseudoscience promoted by a small group, sort of the very definition of "fringe", isn't it? This is not a thing described by "mainstream" psychology to my knowledge, only by very "fringy" sources. SageRad ( talk) 12:19, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

That misrepresents what the article actually says. Alexbrn ( talk) 13:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Eh? The article pretty blatantly says it is *not* a psychological issue (per other phobia's like arachnaphobia, agoraphobia etc) but in general is used as a term for people who dont like/dont want to use chemicals. Not those who are psychologically unable to. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 09:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

• Are you saying there are no people who don't want to use chemicals because of scare stories and the article is bunk? Staszek Lem ( talk) 17:37, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

There's really no problem. The article is crystal clear. Dbrodbeck ( talk) 12:19, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The article directly says it is a non-clinical condition, isn't it what you are trying to say with "This is not a thing ..."? Staszek Lem ( talk) 17:37, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Hey folks. I'd like to draw your attention to the ever problematic list of cryptids, specifically here on the talk page. There's a user there pushing that cryptid has entered general usage beyond the domain of cryptozoology. I see this as blatant WP:SYNTH and WP:OR as none of the "sources" provided are secondary and some may have been influenced by Wikipedia. On top of that, none of the provided "sources" make the claim that they're supposed to back—none are secondary. Given how such a problem this and related articles have been, I'd appreciate some extra eyes on this from users used to dealing with fringe and pseudoscience. :bloodofox: ( talk) 00:00, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

The (in)famous anti-Catholic bigot and purveyor of fringe conspiracy theories has passed over. His article is dreadfully unbalanced and supported almost exclusively by Chick affiliated sources. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 04:09, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, that needs major cleanup, potentially a complete rewrite. I'll clean some of it up later. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:05, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

This article is overwhelmingly coming from FRINGE sources and there are some editors on the talk page who do not see this as a problem. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 23:02, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

No it is not "overwhelmingly coming" from FRINGE sources. And no I don't see the problem in saying e.g., that Chuck believes that Catholic Church created Islam (other than that this and other similar claims were written without proper referencing.) We have articles about crazier weirdos than that. If there are problems, why are not handling them yourself? In the talk page I asked you to indicate specific problems. As a reply I got a panic rant how bad the article and Chuck are. Staszek Lem ( talk) 23:43, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

At the time of my above post most of the article was sourced to Chick Publications which as I noted on the talk page cannot be seen as an RS source. That said, the article looks much improved. Referencing still leaves something to be desired but it is not as bad as it was and the FRINGE content has been removed. What articles we have on other "weirdos" is not my immediate concern, though I would hope we aren't relying too heavily on their own stuff for referencing.

Speaking of FRINGE theories, the Cubs seem to be living up to their curse :-( - Ad Orientem ( talk) 05:20, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Chick Publications are a reliable source, for Jack Chick's views and biographical information (absent anything contradictory). Jack Chick's views on various religions have been self-expressed many many times. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 08:06, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

The article appears balanced as of right now. I've read almost all the tracts; they are supposed to be funny. They're comics, according to a literal interpretation of what comics are. They're meant to be fictional stories that convey some message, in a way that Chick found humorous.

Not all of Chick's views are FRINGE; many are pure opinion, and a claim of material, factual accuracy is necessary for a view to be FRINGE. Religious concepts are neither testable nor falsifiable. Some situations where FRINGE does apply include Chick's opposition to evolution and his theories about Catholicism and Islam. The article does not presently make FRINGE claims. It only states what Chick's views were, without specifying any arguments Chick used to advance those views.

This would be a FRINGE claim: "Chick stated that the letters IHS on Catholic communion wafers stood for Isis, Horus and Seth<reference to The Death Cookie>." It would require "according to <source>, the Christogram IHS is derived from IHΣΟΥΣ, the Greek spelling of Jesus<reference>." The way the anti-Catholic views are handled in the article — balancing opinion with opinion — is, I think, the correct approach. Roches ( talk) 00:39, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Please weigh in at the AFD I just posted for 7th Floor Group. Thanks! —PermStrump (talk) 02:24, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm looking for examples of best practice for BLP articles about a FRINGE promoter/practitioner. I don't think there are any WP:GA (I've looked many times), but I'd expect there are B-class ones. Anyone know of any or have suggestions on how to search for them? -- Ronz ( talk) 16:58, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Rupert Sheldrake, John Edward and Joseph Mercola are class B. Vani Hari, Alex Jones (radio host) and Deepak Chopra are class C. -- Krelnik ( talk) 17:24, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Aleister Crowley and Wilhelm Reich are GAs; the rest of the first dozen or so names that came to my mind were Bs and Cs.— Odysseus 147 9 01:18, 29 October 2016 (UTC) P.S. Jack Parsons is a FA.—01:25, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

To nitpick a bit, Ronz asked about BLPs - the L stands for Living. Crowley, Reich and Parsons are all dead. -- Krelnik ( talk) 12:36, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have read more carefully.— Odysseus 147 9 05:22, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

David Icke is living and listed as a GA. —PermStrump (talk) 12:43, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

I resent the implication that the FACT we are ruled by a race of lizardpeople in human disguises is a FRINGE issue. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 12:21, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

#Censorship. The most recent edit is funny. Someone had to remove an unsourced IP claim: "...though his theory that 'Jesus was made of ham' theory was most credible". —PermStrump (talk) 13:46, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

You'll struggle to find this in the usual Wikipedia article rating scheme, as fans tend to splatter tags all over articles that are neutral, for obvious reasons. Guy ( Help!) 14:19, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

2006 O'Hare International Airport UFO sighting (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This was probably a case of mass hysteria and mistaking a low-lying lenticular cloud for a metal disk. There is no evidence beyond anecdote, but our article dutifully documents a number of breathless and baseless arguments about the dereliction of duty on the part of the FAA to investigate. Sources are woefully difficult to locate.

Thoughts?

jps ( talk) 12:46, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't know how it's possible not to have photos of such a thing. I say redirect it to UFO Hunters#Season 2 (2008–09) or List of reported UFO sightings#21st century.- Mr X 13:35, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Support the move/redirect proposal. Roches ( talk) 21:55, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Hydrogen water stick just appeared on our doorstep. Apparently hydrogen water has medical benefits, much like the highly touted Magnetic water treatment. Is this something that is accepted by the medical science?- Mr X 13:04, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Check Molecular Hydrogen Foundation (probable fringe source) for an actually-valid discussion of the amount of hydrogen in natural water versus the amount of hydrogen in water at the saturation point with respect to hydrogen. It is possible for water to contain high amounts of hydrogen. The reaction of magnesium metal with water, on the other hand, is slow. I don't know how slow, but see this video: reaction of magnesium and water. The demonstrator heats a piece of magnesium in water with phenolphthalein indicator. Note how long it takes for hot water to turn pink, which happens at about pH 8.2. Therefore, the reaction claimed on the page would not take place to an appreciable extent at room temperature in the time required for water to pass through a filter, at least not enough to make the water alkaline.

The saturation point for hydrogen in water at 25 degrees Celsius is 0.78 mmol/L. This corresponds to about 19 mg of magnesium per litre of water, which is typical for the range found in tap water. So this contrivance won't hurt anyone. But I suspect it does not produce water with enough hydrogen to be beneficial even if it is true that hydrogen is beneficial.

Conclusion/tl;dr: Magnesium can be used to add hydrogen to water, but my opinion is that whoever developed this device did not critically evaluate their proposal with scientific rigor. The article provides no sources to support the notion the product actually does what it claims to do. So I would support an AfD nomination. Roches ( talk) 21:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

All the sources failed WP:MEDRS, so I've boldly turned the article into a redirect to Magnetic water treatment. Alexbrn ( talk) 21:56, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Roches for the detailed explanation and Alexbrn for the bold edit. I'm not sure the article should be redirected to Magnetic water treatment though. I only mentioned it as related because they both have water and pseudoscience in common. Maybe the article should be sent to AfD since it doesn't seem to be a notable subject, in addition to making claims that apparently violate WP:MEDRS.- Mr X 22:08, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Wrong redirect: nothing magnetic. No need to keep nonsense here: even a redirect is undue promotion of snake oil. Perfect for db-G11, what I did. Staszek Lem ( talk) 23:51, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

There's a discussion at Talk:Archaeology and the Book of Mormon which seems very relevant to fringe issues, as it is about the types of sources that can be used for a fringe article (or rather this specific article which of course is fringe). Doug Weller talk 14:10, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Before I go and look at this, does this in any fashion involve Silverberg? Only in death does duty end ( talk) 14:24, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

This template is being applied to a number of articles that deal with medical quackery. (Two examples... [1] [2]) I don't want to cry foul over this but I also noticed (and reverted) the removal [3] of some see also links that might be seen by some as critical of medical quackery. Maybe I am just getting paranoid and looking for PROFRINGE under my bed, but I am not sure I am real comfortable with some of this. Other eyes and opinions would be welcome. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 16:40, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

• Update After looking at the See Also list for Quackery I found and removed a number of links that were already in the article or template above. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 17:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at ANI that may be relevant to the subject of this noticeboard. Interested editors can find that discussion here. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 22:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

That thread needs to be shut down for being a content dispute. But the (logically, if not realistically) final word has already been said there: Numerous RS's call it a pseudoscience. Therefore, we call it a pseudoscience. Where do we call it a pseudoscience? Well, right where we define it, which is the first sentence. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 23:55, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

I just tweaked the Template:Alternative medicine sidebar to clearly identify one of the sections as Fringe Medicine and Science. Do I have to go back and reload the template on every page it has been attached to? - Ad Orientem ( talk) 16:50, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

It will automatically update in a few hours. If you want to make it go faster you can WP:purge the pages, though that is mostly a waste of time. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 16:55, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Excellent and thank you. I deifnitely have better things to do with my time. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 17:19, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

The article on hyponosis is a disgrace. Not once is the term alternative medicine mentioned, and barely at all is it mentioned that hypnosis is generally disproven. I don't even know where to start, but this needs to be purged, badly. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 16:57, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

You probably want to take a stab at Hypnotherapy which is the medical application of 'Hypnosis'. Hypnosis is not 'alternative medicine'. It may be used as alternative medicine as part of Hypnotherapy, but be warned, hypnosis is far from being a cut and dried alternative medicine/fringe subject. There have been many many scientific studies into it over the years with varying results. It is very far from being 'generally disproven' (unlike the related neuro-linguistic programming). Only in death does duty end ( talk) 17:16, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Well parts of it are definitely disproven, the article doesn't explain this very well. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 17:31, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Very poor article about a possible Arctic explorer who sailed from Japan to Portugal through the Arctic Ocean. Doug Weller talk 06:40, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

The newspaper sources seem like the only good ones (and one of them didn't work), so it looks like it needs to be trimmed down to a stub. I'm not sure this is "fringe" per se, but it's certainly not a part of mainstream history. I couldn't turn up any English language web sources on him other than the WP article. But I've watched the page, and when I get home tonight, I'll do some work on it. The writing on the article is simply atrocious. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:14, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Looks like fringe. The Portuguese were expelled in 1639, no ships allowed to enter, so in 1660 he couldn't have been in Japan. I've added that and User:Staszek Lem did some trimming, etc. Doug Weller talk 19:32, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Good point. I'm looking to see if there's anything more for me to do there, now. Probably not, but it can't hurt. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 00:29, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Could use eyeballs. Jytdog ( talk) 18:40, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

The Fulvic Acid article promotes fulvic acid as a natural chelation therapy. Pure quackery, as far as I can tell.

Mduvekot Thanks for the heads up. A quick internet search confirms your suspicions. I have sent it to AfD. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 16:40, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Meanwhile I pruned 90% of the article as irrelevant, unreferenced and not confirmed by sources cited, to make afd decisions easier. Staszek Lem ( talk) 17:47, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 20:13, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

There is currently an open RfC at Talk:Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories#Request for comment on previous topic regarding whether certain claims made in the article regarding fringe theories can be neutrally described as false. All comments are appreciated. Ergo Sum 03:40, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Why is that even an article? I don't see articles about other false rumors, like McCain's illegitimate black child, Bush paying for an underage girl's abortion, Trump running for president to increase Hillary's chances, witnesses against Bill Clinton dying mysteriously... Prevalence 09:32, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Since the discussion involves what I would consider fringe sources, I believe it's appropriate to leave a note here:

• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Sources_at_Artur_Phleps_article

Thank you. K.e.coffman ( talk) 22:47, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to describe Frank Gaffney as a "conspiracy theorist" or should we maintain the current consensus of describing him as a "proponent of conspiracy theories"? A discussion is active here. LavaBaron ( talk) 02:29, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain this is not a well respected theory of human evolution. Scaldwell17 ( talk) 22:24, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Maunus ( talk · contribs) redirected it to race and intelligence. The latter article does not even have word "cold". I agree that the theory is fringe. It may be just as well that it does not belong to the R&I article at all per WP:UNDUE/ WP:FRINGE. Therefore IMO it is better to AfD it. What do you think? Staszek Lem ( talk) 23:05, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

The theory is a creation of J. Philippe Rushton and it could be redirected to his biography as well. Rushton's work, and implicitly the "cold winter theory" of intelligence, is described both in his article and in the R&I article and either could be the target of redirection. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:37, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Not well respected among the media or scientists in general, no. No hereditarian model is. However, the point of Wikipedia is not to cover things that are generally well respected, but things that are notable. Wikipedia covers quite a lot of fringe science already that is almost unanimously rejected by the scientific community. As an example think of the recent claims by Bem et al., which are covered in the precognition article. As this article's creator, I thought it suitable that Wikipedia should cover a well known theory in this area. Note, this area concerns differences in cognitive ability between human populations, not human evolution in general for which this theory is not very well known (as noted above). As an example of the notability, consider the discussion (p. 443ff) of this model in Earl Hunt's 2010 textbook, the latest comprehensive textbook in this field (532 pp.). Earl Hunt is quite critical of this model and instead prefers Diamond's model. He refers to them both as just so stories given their speculativeness. Hunt himself published a paper back in 2006 criticizing the results put forward by Templer and Arikawa. ^{[1] [2]} As an alternative, I did consider putting this model under a person. The problem is that the model has been supported or positively discussed by a number of different authors over the years, making it difficult to place it under a single author. Rushton, Lynn, Arikawa, Templer, Hart, Jensen, Kanazawa and probably others. Thus, it seemed a bit difficult to place it under any of them. As Hunt remarks in his discussion, neither of these authors were the first to propose such a model, Herodotus was (p. 444). Should it be placed under him? That seems seriously misfitting. Thus, it seems to me that this model is notable enough to be included, and it is difficult to place under one particular person. I can think of two remaining options: 1) leave it where it is as a stand-alone article, and 2) add the content to the Race and Intelligence article. One could also consider the nations and intelligence article, but the model isn't really about nations, but about populations. Some nations happen to map fairly well to the populations that have been living there for some time, while in other cases (North America, Australia/New Zealand, South Africa), this isn't so. -- Deleet ( talk) 23:37, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

• Isolation Techniques (Individual) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A relatively new article, the current and previous contents of the talk page make it sound like a great deal of original research without regard to WP:FRINGE. I'm not sure what to do with it. Maybe AfD? -- Ronz ( talk) 01:12, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

• Definitely original research, but not WP:FRINGE. However the subject is valid. I am tagging it. Staszek Lem ( talk) 21:27, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

• By the way, there is a horrible Social isolation, which requires major cleanup and is actually a merge target. Staszek Lem ( talk) 21:31, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

• Looking at author's contribs I have found an even worse article: Face (sociological concept) - a valid subject, but terribly neglected article. Staszek Lem ( talk) 21:27, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

• I put it up for AFD yesterday: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Isolation_Techniques_(Individual). I today explored the idea of a merge to Social isolation but it is not credible. I have drafted new User:Penbat/Isolation to facilitate abuse which is actually an important topic, salvaging some material from Isolation Techniques (Individual) and adding new material. Isolation Techniques (Individual) now just needs binning.-- Penbat ( talk) 20:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

We need a lot more eyes on this article, both BLP-savvy and FRINGE-savvy. The subject is the President-elect's choice to handle transition at EPA, and is an activist opposing efforts to combat man-caused climate change. He denies that it's a real problem. Conversation on the talk page wasn't exemplary to start with, but it's degenerating further. I've just reverted one partisan's significant changes to the article and I expect that to heat things up further, although I explained my reasons, which I believe to be policy-compliant, in my edit summary and on the talk page. Your assistance would be most welcome. David in DC ( talk) 22:33, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

It's covered by 3 sets of discretionary sanctions - American politics, climate change and BLP. It is now subject to 1RR and consensus required to reinstate material, and I've added an edit notice to the article that is visible when it is edited, and a notice at the top of the talk page. This of course applies to everyone. Doug Weller talk 11:04, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. David in DC ( talk) 15:45, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

No thanks for keeping that hit piece in the line. The words "moron" and "jackass" are still on the talkpage, in the meanwhile we got as well the likes of killer, crazy, lunatic fringe criminal and of cause various versions of denialist. Charles Manson has a less biased article. Technically, will say climate sensitivity range wise, even Ebell is most probably within the IPCC range. That said, fringe is - again - part of a political smear campaign. Polentarion Talk 18:04, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the "moron" and "jackass" comments were over a decade old. They are now archived. I didn't see any similar comments that were made recently. Manul ~ talk 11:11, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Also, while on the specific point of climate sensitivity Ebell might be within the IPCC range ^{citation needed}, numerous sources show he claims that global warming isn't a problem, is a Good Thing, or more fossil fuel consumption is the best answer. As a layman repeatedly quoted or interviewed as an "alternative view" to science, he is clearly fringe, a leading figure in a political smear campaign against scientists. . . dave souza, talk 12:17, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I doubt you have a genuine scientific base for your point, but use said press clippings for the assessement of fringe. The IPCC CS range itself well includes positions as Ebells, the very term of climate sensitivity was invented to do so and the actual range never changed for decades. (see e.g. doi: 10.1177/030631298028002004). A CS of about 1,5 is quite sufficient to be much more at ease. For the GWPF sceptical assessement, see Judith Curry on Lewis and Croke. I would therefore assume that range as well for Ebell. Polentarion Talk 00:07, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Polentarion, an April 1998 Social Studies of Science paper isn't a good basis for defining the current consensus, Judith Curry's blog isn't a reliable source for anything, and the Global Warming Policy Foundation is just another climate change denial think tank. Neither mention Ebell, so your synthesis doesn't even have that foundation. Multiple good sources cited in the article show that Ebell promotes climate change denial, by definition a fringe position. . dave souza, talk 17:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

My rather generic point is that any serious skeptic, (Ebell of cause included) is within the IPCC CS range and of cause as well within the famous 97 percent of science consensus. And the Social science paper of 1998 conclusions are still valid, the range of CS hasn't changed (the recent values point to the lower edge, Curry has a say there in the real world). That said, the consensus is useless: No climate scientist is able or qualified to adress the prevailing political questions and priority issues. Ebell has been working on with those in the states, and now in a leading position. I am not at all in line with all of his standpoints, but I have read them and I take them serious. If just dismiss them as unscientific or fringe and try to ignore them in WP, you fail to cover aspects of the real world. WP deserves better. Polentarion Talk 17:58, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

"No climate scientist is able or qualified to adress [sic] the prevailing political questions and priority issues." What? Are you saying that politicians, who are addressing the concerns of their constituents (mostly the coal and oil companies), and couldn't care less about the environment, are more qualified on these issues than climate scientists? If you think that nothing has changed in climate science since 1998, you are as delusional as the climate denier politicians. WP should certainly include their position, as long as it explains why it has nothing to do with science and everything to do with money. DoctorJoeE  ^{review transgressions}/ _{talk to me!} 22:00, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

A certain Mr. Lincoln once said that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth". Still valid, and has not been changed to neither "government of science, by scientists" nor "government of money, by money." Thank God. My point was about priority issues - no climate scientist has a clue or is to decide wether certain policies are more effective or which country should skip its fossil fuels first or wether other (regional) issues are more important than climate change. That is to be done by governments, an I, as a German, highly prefer elected ones. The 1998 paper is about the role of climate sensitivity both for the academic and the policy realm. The focal point is about the Climate sensitivity range never be changing for decades. It had not changed till then - and never did ever since, the main conclusions about the socio-political role of CS are in so far still valid. That is less about an Exxon cabal but about actual policy problems. The article is currently a sort of biased hit piece against Mr. Ebell. The way an actual political controversy is being reduced here to "its either us, the science, or the paid shills" reminds me of Bush junior of axis of evil fame. You won't be able to solve the actual controversy by downgrading an BLP article to a propaganda outlet. Wikipedia won't win on credibility either. Polentarion Talk 21:11, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

IP, in the name of fixing a POV problem, has inserted claims that the criticisms of mainstream scholars have been refuted by the subject himself and other Velikovskians. See the IPs comments on the talk page. 'Refuted' of course means disproved, and that's nonsense. Doug Weller talk 10:56, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

I've reverted them and replied on talk. Bishonen | talk 13:03, 13 November 2016 (UTC).

"Nonsense"? No, the material was cited on the talk page, before Dougweller blanked it. Both Dougweller Bishoned have blanked material from the article, material from the discussion page and/or "citation needed" tags, referring to how they ar e"not needed", and repeatedly making disparaging remarks about Heinsohn. Clearly Dougweller and Bishonen are NOT going for a "neutral point of view", as they have blanked relevant material, and stated that the article "doesn't need" to be improved, while simultaneously blanking material placed on the discussion page that can be used to improve article, and give it more of a neutral point of view.

No, it's nonsense, whoever you are, since you didn't sign your post. Read WP:POV. DoctorJoeE  ^{review transgressions}/ _{talk to me!} 15:20, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Almost 800 words of copyright material even on a talk page isn't acceptable. I've cut it to about 240, which is. Neither User:Bishonen or I have said it didn't need improving, although I did say that the IP had slightly improved it. I've also removed some unsourced material which the IP fact tagged because I'm pretty convinced you can't say that most mainstream historians were critical of Heinsohn as virtually all of them have simply ignored him. Love the bit where the IP wrote that the article is "something one would expect from some sort of fascist dictatorship". Doug Weller talk 15:31, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, considering both you and Bishonen blank material, and push "pov", one would think so. Likewise, DoctorJoeE simply dismissing something as "No, it's nonsense", without anything more speaks volumes. How is "No, it's nonsense" NOT "pov"? And even if it WAS simply "nonsense", shouldn't Wikipedia STILL portray a neutral, balanced viewpoint where both sides are presented fairly, rather than multiple criticisms, blanket comments about "Heinsohn's problems" and "almost all professional historians", and constant blanking of anything to the contrary?

Bizarre. I removed "but is generally being rejected by mainstream historians." and "These critiques have been ignored by Heinsohn. ^{citation needed} Because of the problems with his methodology ^{citation needed} almost all ^{citation needed} professional ancient historians, Egyptologists, Assyriologists, archaeologists, and specialists in scientific dating methods reject Heinsohn's claims." but the IP restored both claims, sourcing the first one for some odd reason to works by Heinsohn, which I'd also removed. Even more oddly, the IP's rationale was "reinstated citation needed tags. If they can't be verified, then these comments should be deleted." I'm not keen to revert again right now. It is possible that the 6 sources, mainly Heinsohn pdfs and not properly referenced (take a look at the mess) were meant to source Heinsohn and not the statement that they now source, but even so they're OTT. And "neutral, balanced viewpoint" probably means something different to the IP than it does here. Doug Weller talk 19:14, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Rather bizarre, I agree. A biography article would deal with his life and activities. The article is a pretext to present Heinsssons publications, starting with the chronology (which is achronological, since he started relatively late in the Volokovsky / Illig realm). While I (see Ebell) fully agree with a quick walkthrough presenting the positions of a person, this is way too much at Heinsson's entry, not in line with his actual biography and scholarly career. Btw, Heinsson is an emeritus now, and his institute ceased to exist. That said, another case for WP:BLP and a complete rework of the article. Polentarion Talk 06:39, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Markshaw a prolific author whose subjects include various fringe conspiracy theories recently added some overtly self promotional and PROFRINGE material to Dorothy Kilgallen which I reverted. After which I took a look at their contrib history and discovered that every single edit made by this account was also self promotional and/or PROFRINGE. Many had already been removed and I took care of the other ones I found. Additionally I stubbed the author's Wikipedia article which was almost completely unsourced and promotional. As of right now I don't think any additional action is required but it might be helpful if other eyes occasionally took a glance at this one's editing. I left a caution on their talk page about using Wikipedia for self promotion. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 19:59, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I think you might want to take this to ANI. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 00:25, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

If there is any more trouble that will be my next stop. I am one of those people who believes that ANI should not be the first stop with a problem editor unless there is something that just requires immediate attention. But yeah, I won't put up with any more of this. He has been warned twice on his talk page, once here and once on an admin's talk page. That's enough. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 03:27, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I am one of those people who believes that ANI should not be the first stop with a problem editor unless there is something that just requires immediate attention. I suppose I have to agree with that, given the de facto use of ANI as a "request for sanctions" forum. I wish it were more of an "incidents requiring admin assistance with" forum, which is how I've tried to use it a few times, to no avail. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 01:00, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I saw that latest attempt, and was a little disappointed with the response; I do think worth trying again, should circumstances arise, fwiw. -Roxy the dog. bark 01:34, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

It's a shame, to be sure. But to be fair, admins have talk pages that can be used for that. I wasn't locked out of getting an admin's assistance so much as locked out of using that particular venue for it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 02:28, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm not surprised to see this has arrived. It's extremely promotional, badly written, possibly needs stubbing and starting again. There's an archaeology Facebook page [6] that has discussed his work quite a bit as well as other sites, etg [ [7] [8] - Andy White's probably the expert on the sword. Doug Weller talk 19:49, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Article assessed and tagged. John Carter ( talk) 20:31, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

and stubbed. I don't see any way to salvage what was there. Mangoe ( talk) 21:22, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

and now deleted. John Carter ( talk) 22:44, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

and back at Oak Island

This has become something of a run-on and jumbled mess and needs to be made to look like it wasn't hacked at by several dozen random editors. Mangoe ( talk) 21:43, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

"Jumbled mess" strikes me as being waaay too kind of a description of this. If given a few days, I can try to find a good travel guide or other reference work to Nova Scotia which covers the topic, and maybe use that as an indicator of what our content should have and how much weight to give it. Or, alternately, if anyone else wanted to do that first, they are of course free to do so. John Carter ( talk) 21:51, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Wow, this is real WP:RANDY stuff. I removed it. Guy ( Help!) 00:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Anyone interested is more than welcome to take part in the discussion at Talk:Deism#Contemporary deism revisited regarding the amount of weight given to contemporary deism in our main deism article. John Carter ( talk) 20:58, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

The article, during the process for deletion, was edited and changed (but still not renamed to Bulaqs) topic from a refuted theory to extinct Turkic tribe Bulaqs. The information about the theory was reduced because it is not the main topic and had undue weight. In the current revision the section "Confusion with Vlachs" still uses the most text space. The theory, supported by few Hungarian scholars (6 of them, of which 5 died between 1915-2000), was never endorsed and accepted by the scholarship, not even in Hungary (according to editor Borsoka in the Korai magyar történeti lexicon (9-14. század) [Enncyclopedia of the Early History of the Hungarians (9th-14h Centuries)], ISBN  963-05-6722-9, 1994, is concluded that further evidence is needed to substantiate the theory). According to modern scholars and sources (2000-2009) by Alexandru Madgearu, István Vásáry and Victor Spinei, there's no etymological, historical or archaeological indication and evidence (even explanation for further issues it rise) by which is supported, every argument speaks againts it, being an "abortive attempt that cannot be proved". However, even after tiresome discussions in the talk page, some editors still can't accept and understand the reality of both WP:NPOV (and WP:WEIGHT) as well the theory. Thus it resulted with somekind of edit-war by which very related and important information is constantly removed, while added redundant information about the theory, or even etymology of the Vlachs name which is totally out of scope.

Is the current revision neutral enough? Should more information about the refuted and minor theory be re-added to the article? Whether more information should be summarized?-- Crovata ( talk) 17:21, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

More eyes on fringe physicist Jacob Barnett would be appreciated. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:31, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

There is a confusion about the proper application of WP:PSCI and WP:FRINGE/PS that could use some clarifying at the discussion page. Is claiming to have disproven relativity theory in a YouTube video (the primary reason the subject is notable) appropriately characterized as pseudoscience? Please opine at Talk:Jacob Barnet#Pseudoscience. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 15:36, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

It's borderline. I remember watching the kid and having a similar reaction that Scott had. Smart kid, should be encouraged. The over-the-top-i-tude is more-or-less the media's fault. I don't even really blame his mother as she, admittedly, was not able to evaluate what he was saying. jps ( talk) 17:52, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

For reference, this version is the one that mentions the pseudoscientific view, and in this version, the views are just labelled as "false". Both were reverted by editor User:Viewfinder. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 16:02, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think that we shouldn't go out of our way to label here as we are talking about a BLP. Much of Barnett's actual exposition is perfectly fine. Some of his speculations and calculations are incorrect, but that's hardly encyclopedic. Lots of people have ideas that don't turn out correct and it would be unfortunate to trumpet someone as a pseudoscientist on the basis of their fanciful exploration of mathematics at the young age of 12. jps ( talk) 17:52, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

AfD on a doctor who specializes in Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and seems to have enjoyed media coverage based on promotional activity associated with the release of her books, rather than coverage of her as a person. Further input required. Delta13C ( talk) 08:03, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

• Barry Sears (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Zone diet (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I noticed there was some coatracking about the Zone diet (a.n.other fad diet) at Barry Sears, but wonder - if the unsourced and self-sourced content is stripped away - whether Sears in fact merits a standalone article? May need eyes in any case. Alexbrn ( talk) 08:41, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Starts by saying it doesn't work, as it should. Overall I think having a separate article about the person behind this does more good than harm. I think it should stay. Roches ( talk) 05:48, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

• Lövheim cube of emotion (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This looks fringe-y to me, not least because most of the substantive content is source to papers authored by Lövheim. What do people think? Guy ( Help!) 00:14, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

• I'm a bit out of my depth here and can't really help. However I have taken the liberty of dropping a note on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science. Maybe someone who passes CIR can chime in. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 04:30, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Can not talk about the article subject, but the editing pattern is somewhat suspicious, with a article about a proposed theory from 2012 created in 2012 by a editor that made few more edits. That looks like someone found a theory they liked (or created) and got to advertising it. On the other hand, there are later references from 2015 and 2016 (which I did NOT checked) of this being used. Still looks pretty thin to me. - Nabla ( talk) 10:04, 4 December 2016 (UTC) PS: I passed on your request to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cognitive science.

According to Web of Science, the Lovheim 2012 article has been cited just 19 times. (For comparison, Plutchik 1980, which the WP article suggests is comparable, as been cited 163 times.) The journal Medical Hypotheses is reputable but not very influential; WoS puts its impact in the 4th quartile. I would conclude that this is not a crackpot theory, but neither is it influential or especially notable. Cnilep ( talk) 01:24, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree, it is not fringe (or at least, not any more fringe than most of cognitive so-called "science", but that's a different kettle of fish). Sławomir Biały ( talk) 15:24, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

This has been discussed here twice before:

• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_39#Biocentric_universe_and_Robert_Lanza in Dec 2013
• Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_51#Biocentric_nonsense just this August

Is almost entirely sourced to a book and articles by the originators and the reception is WP:GEVAL, citing praise from Chopra cited to a press release, etc. Jytdog ( talk) 00:31, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

This looks to me like one of the better instances we have out there of what might be called purely conjectural " theoretical physics." A similar case, I suppose, might be the subject of religious views of specific and general evolution. Basically, what do we call an idea which at this point has no evidence one way or another to support or oppose it, and how to we make that clear? Might there be some way to group together all these topics, which propose ideas which are not yet examinable, in some sort of specific grouping? At least some of them might, I suppose, maybe be found to have some sort of basis if and when we ever get to the point of developing ways to examine them, but, in a lot of cases, on many sides, I tend to think that a lot of these arguments are, basically, just examples of changing one discredited point with one which can't yet be examined, and thus basically keeping a possibly discredited idea alive by obfuscation. John Carter ( talk) 17:15, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Might this basically be considered something along the lines of a thought experiment, and, if so, might describing it as such be useful? John Carter ( talk) 17:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

It's overhyped speculation, basically. I don't understand what it's doing in Wikipedia. It doesn't seem to have received independent evaluation notwithstanding the peculiar media attention it has garnered. I think the media's obsession with novelty often means they end up promoting WP:FRINGE way beyond their actual notability within the scholarly community that matters. This is such an example. jps ( talk)

I think it's time we had this discussion in the context of our current hardline with regards to identifying notable ideas in articlespace: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biocentric universe (2nd nomination). I expect a lively discussion. jps ( talk) 19:54, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

the folks who love chopra love this stuff - the whole wooly headed What the Bleep Do We Know!? crowd that wants to gussy up their spirituality with scienciness. Jytdog ( talk) 21:39, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

This does seem to me to maybe be a case of "shifting goalposts" in a sense for some variation on the anthropic principle. As a matter of philosophy, maybe, that position might well merit more than one article, but I think it might be best to if possible have someone review the state of academic opinion on that topic area before spinning out too many articles on variations on that theme. John Carter ( talk) 21:45, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Linda and Terry Jamison (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Bloated and really awful. Much WP:OR used to support the twins predictions. And tons of puffery sourced to Youtube videos and fringe websites. Needs chopping. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 22:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

The "Biography" section, which seems to me to be unduly late in the article, doesn't look too bad to me. Maybe move that up to the top, add a short section on some of their predictions, if there are sources for them, and short sections on books and/or media appearances thereafter? John Carter ( talk) 22:13, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I've tried to remove some of the worst crap, some of which reeks of cut-and-paste from press releases or TV listings. -- Orange Mike | Talk 00:02, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

I tried to clean it up, but so much of it was sourced to YouTube vids, their own book and other unreliabel sources, and so much of it was folksy "they moved to X without a penny to their name" guff that I concluded this is a WP:TNT job and sent it to WP:CSD#G11. Guy ( Help!) 00:16, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

That CSD was sorta overblown, deleting the pic as well. Point is, they actually work as psychics, so do not claim the job doesnt exist. The WP:category exists and is applicable ;) Someone may design as well horoscopes or do Tarot readings, and make a living out of it, even if you assume foretelling is not possible. I like John Carter's approach. Polentarion Talk 05:09, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

I want their Book and Filmography section back. They have appeared on all the listed programs. I don't believe it's all crap either! They make a living out of acting, appearances and their predictions. I will take suggestions on how to add back. Maybe add the a section 'Appearances in the media'. If I don't hear anything it's going back the way it was. Thisandthem ( talk) 09:38, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

They may have appeared on all the listed programs but WP is not a resume, nor a vehicle for promotion and puffery. And we cannot accept TV guide listings and WP:SENSATIONal tabloid coverage as citations. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 14:28, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

In general, to include material about media appearances, some sort of source indpendent of the production itself and the individuals who appear in it discussing those appearances is generally wanted for their inclusion. And if the apparent threat made by @ Thisandthem: is acted upon, and the removed material is restored without any consensus from others as per WP:CONSENSUS, that restoration would probably be counted as a violation of WP:TE or WP:DE and potentially make the individual restoring that material subject to sanctions. John Carter ( talk) 16:35, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I added some material to the lede regarding the accuracy of their predictions, which has since been removed from the lede. I note that the template I added regarding expanding the lede has also been removed, with the lede currently only two sentences long. I think both of those changes could be seen as problematic, but would prefer if someone else looked into it. John Carter ( talk) 21:13, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think a short lead is a problem if the entire article itself is less than four paragraphs long. In the case of a big article, sure, you'd want the lead to cover the important points made in the body of the article. But given the shortness of this article, asking people to expand the lead so it summarizes the main points of the article would result in needless redundancy. As for mentioning the accuracy of their predictions in the lead, I see no problem with that. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 21:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Universal intelligence (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I... don't know what to do with this article. It is a true mess of fringe nonsense.

jps ( talk) 17:40, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

This styles itself as a spinoff from the article on Chiropractic, which is is not particularly long. I'd suggest a merge across - and drastic trimming along the way. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 19:16, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Universal intelligence. jps ( talk) 11:56, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

at Electromagnetic hypersensitivity Talk:Electromagnetic hypersensitivity, Jbhunley is re-inserting WP:PROFRINGE content and invoking [9] an OTRS ticket as a basis for it. May need eyes. Alexbrn ( talk) 18:00, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

All I said is that, based on discussions with the editor via OTRS, that I believe their post on the talk page is a good faith attempt to discuss material. It was initially removed as "obvious sock puppet" without any link to a master or SPI.

The editors there are free to engage with this editor or not. Open an SPI or not. My opinion begins and ends with the fact that I believe they made a good faith edit to the talk page. Jbh ^Talk 18:05, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

The concern is the invocation of OTRS. How is that meant to bear usefully on the discussion given then non-OTRS folk have no access to it? Alexbrn ( talk) 18:17, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

The "invocation of OTRS" as you put it is simply a link to the "why" I think it was a good faith edit and not a sock as mentioned in the removal of the talk page section. I am not allowed to say anything about my discussions with people at OTRS unless they give me permission.

I do not see why this is even a question for FTN - there were no edits to the article. I explained to the editor that did the initial removal, Steelpillow why I rv'd [10] and, by looking at the ticket and OTRS agent can review the ticket and judge if my opinion and action was reasonable or not. If you do not want to discuss the material with the editor then ignore it and let it archive off of the page. Jbh ^Talk 18:39, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

The invocation of OTRS equates to saying "I have a secret reason why this is okay" - which is distinctly unhelpful and smells of trying to pull rank. With the history of OTRS volunteer over-reach we have seen here, this is troubling. Alexbrn ( talk) 19:16, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, yes. That is precicely what it is. I had confidential information, provided via email to OTRS, that gave me reasonable cause to believe that it was a good faith talk page edit. That is how the system works. I made no representation about the content nor anything about the editor beyond my belief that there were not a sock of an unnamed and unidentified master. You are more than welcome to ask someone with access to the OTRS queue to review 2016111510018082 or to go over to meta, ask for OTRS access, sign the confidentiality agreement and read it yourself. Jbh ^Talk 19:26, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I tend to think that we should let things go on talkpages. If the concern is that someone is going to mistake the comment for consensus, just put in a note indicating that the discussion has been had and the conclusions that came from that discussion aren't changed by that comment. jps ( talk) 18:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

That said, the loooong comment was pretty disruptive and arguably a violation of something like WP:FAKEARTICLE. I collapsed it with a note. jps ( talk) 18:47, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Jbh ^Talk 19:15, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Forgive me for not knowing what OTRS means. After a long period of quiescence, a fringe editor pops up [11], they are rejected and two brand new SPIs suddenly take up the challenge [12] [13]. So we have apparent sockpuppetry by a fringe editor. Forgive me for describing this as the bleedin' obvious, but can we deal with the actual editing issue here? Alexbrn ( talk · contribs) has it right. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 19:01, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

OTRS is, essentially, Wikipedia's confidential public facing email based help system (it does other stuff too). People who handle OTRS tickets are Wikipedia editors and volunteers. Even when people give us permission to acknowledge on-wiki that they have opened a ticket we are not permitted to discuss anything further about that ticket without their express permission. We provide the ticket number so other OTRS volunteers, who also have signed the confidentiality agreement, can review the matter if needed ex. an admin with OTRS access at SPI. Jbh ^Talk 19:15, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

>speechless< Have a nice day. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 19:34, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I'd have given him a polite dismissive reply. I know it's hard to get rid of cranks from OTRS tickets, but his attempt to change content is doomed and it's best to patiently explain that. I can't remember the canned reply, but I usually used to custom reply anyway. Guy ( Help!) 14:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Eight-circuit model of consciousness (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - I added a note that it was not advanced with scientific evidence, another editor keeps removing this and calling it a "hypothesis model". More eyes would probably be good - David Gerard ( talk) 10:20, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Leary proposed this exactly because he thought it was digressive and humorous. The whole point was for it not to be a "hypothesis". jps ( talk) 11:45, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

If you can cite that, that would be excellent. I linked the archive.org copy of the book on the talk page - David Gerard ( talk) 14:11, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I tried to locate the talk where he made this point and failed. I'll keep trying though. jps ( talk) 02:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#globalsecurity.org

Please do not confuse the site with globalresearch.ca That said, I still contend that the website has problems that people who monitor this board might be able to comment upon.

jps ( talk) 10:55, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Note that this source is routinely used by the New York Times and other purveyors of "conspiracy theories". And note that non-neutral notifications may be violations of WP:CANVASS. Collect ( talk) 15:51, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Collect, you're being rude. If you think that this is non-neutral, explain how. I was clear what was my opinion and as it involves issues related to conspiracy theories, there are people who watch this noticeboard who might have expertise in how to address this question. jps ( talk)

Your language is right above my comment. It appears to maybe, possibly, imply that the website "has problems" and I humbly suggest that the CANVASS rules imply that you should in no way present your own opinions in any notifications. Your mileage appears to vary a great deal from mine. Collect ( talk) 13:40, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The language in question doesn't imply anything; it clearly states that jps contends that it has problems. Also, nowhere in WP:CANVASS is it suggested that presenting one's own opinion when asking for outside opinions is to be avoided. Indeed, it's a pretty ridiculous suggestion, as anyone who is liable to be swayed can be just as easily swayed by the opinions at the original discussion. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:01, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

An anonymous woo-monger and one proper editor want to change Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to describe it as a peer-reviewed medical journal. Given that one of the editors is Dean Radin, and the current issue pimps Chopralalia, Emotional Freedom Techniques and some utter wibble, I think this is a contentious description. Guy ( Help!) 01:10, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

It's peer-reviewed in the sense that Elsevier requires it to follow the peer-review process, but the issue is that the editorial board only contains believers in alternative medicine (I just went through the entire list), and so they are using editorial discretion as a means to bypass the typical process that would accompany a normal journal. Obscure trade journals such as this are a dime-a-dozen and I think that the sole mention by Gorski doesn't qualify this journal as being at all notable. Delete perhaps?

I also will be calling Elsevier about this on Monday. It's an interesting case, indeed. jps ( talk) 16:12, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Also, let's have a more reasonable discussion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing (2nd nomination). The last one had a lot of people claiming the journal passed WP:NJournal simply because it was indexed(!) and published by Elsevier(!). That's not what the criteria actually are for notable journals! jps ( talk) 16:19, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

We've have edit-warring for a while on the RF resonant cavity thruster (aka emdrive), the perpetual-motion machine machine that can ostensibly produce reactionless thrust in a vacuum, recently tested by the NASA Eagleworks lab; it would be good to have additional eyes on it. Rolf H Nelson ( talk) 00:18, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

The major problem is that proponents are seizing on every positive finding and crowbarring it into the article. Wikipedia has never been good with breaking stories, it will be years before this is finally settled one way or the other (if it ever is, there are still people who swear blind that cold fusion is a thing). Guy ( Help!) 09:38, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

IP editors have been adding or re-adding a substantial amount of unreliable or promotional commentatory, including fringe-promotional content, to this article (which is currently at AfD, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Seaman (journalist)). The article subject, an Internet blogger who apparently promotes various political conspiracy theories, apparently made a three-minute "call to arms" style about his article and its proposed deletion, broadcasting it to his followers.

The latest IP addition is text describing Seaman as "investigating" Pizzagate (conspiracy theory). IP editors also keep adding/re-adding unreliable sources ("Zero Hedge," "Morning News USA," an op-ed in a campus newspaper, etc.).

More eyeballs and hands are needed. Neutrality ^talk 01:44, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Geez this Pizzagate thing is a headache. Add this article and the Pizzagate article to your watchlist and grab some popcorn. Sigh. -- Krelnik ( talk) 17:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

An update: this article was deleted today, read the finalized discussion here. I should expect his followers to try to recreate it. -- Krelnik ( talk) 12:31, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Article uses American tabloid/clickbait websites as "reliable sources" to call Cleopatra a non-white (an anachronistic tag anyway). This is against general academic consensus that Cleopatra was from a heavily inbred Greek family, and also plays into the fringe Afrocentric theories of Egypt and the Jews, per the sources.

The sources to include Cleopatra are not academic, they are four American tabloids making clickbait lists.

First: Huffington Post using evidence cited from the Daily Mail, a notorious British tabloid http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1095043/Sorry-Liz-THIS-real-face-Cleopatra.html

Second: Complex calls Cleopatra a "woman of color", a phrase which didn't exist 100 years ago never mind 2,000 years ago. Probable echoing of Afrocentric meme http://uk.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/04/25-minority-characters-that-hollywood-whitewashed/cleopatra

Third: US News: "The British-American actress (she had dual citizenship) doesn't look even remotely Egyptian or North African. " Not an argument, Cleopatra was Greek. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/06/12/white-actors-portraying-people-of-color-in-hollywood

Fourth: Madame Noire. An ethnocentric website claiming that both the Egyptians and Hebrews were black, both of which are discredited fringe theories. http://madamenoire.com/496138/cast-non-blacks-in-black-roles/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.18.9.247

I think we have been through this before a few times - there are some conflicting issues.

• Cleopatra has been criticised/discussed often as an example of 'whitewashing' in film, due to the casting of Taylor (a white woman) in a role that many felt should have been a North African/Black role role.
• The basis for this criticism/discussion is completely wrong as any half-decent Eqyptian scholar (as well as the Egyptians themselves) know that Cleopatra was of significantly pure/inbred/limited Greek racial stock and in no way resembled the 'black' African race that the fringe want to claim Cleopatra should have been.
• There are few sources that address both issues due to scholars not wasting time refuting rubbish.

So we end up with 'yes there are sources that Cleopatra is an example of Whitewashing', 'yes there are sources that state unequivacably that Cleopatra not black/african' and nothing to link the two. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 13:56, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

"Cleopatra was black", if that's what the article is saying, is the least of its problems. It's come up before, but I think the article is terminally broken. There are probably a lot more "reliable sources" claiming that Iron Man 3 was white-washed, but that missed the point that casting an Asian actor to play a "traditional" Mandarin character would have been much worse. The simple fact is that any source that calls the either of these films white-washed is, even if it generally meets the criteria laid out in WP:RS, unreliable for the specific claim that the films are white-washed because it gets the relevant facts wrong and ignores context. It's quite common in modern American popular culture to claim that "the pharaohs were black, and have historically been whitewashed", but that misses the point that "the pharaohs" were not a single homogeneous dynasty reigning unbroken for thousands of years. Cleopatra was descended from Greek or Macedonian immigrants, so anyone claiming that a film is an example of "white-washing" because she is portrayed by a white actress is almost certainly doing so because of ignorance of the specific historical context in which she lived. (Living in Ireland at the time, I remember people ridiculing Oliver Stone's Alexander because the lead and several of those around him sounded like they were from north Dublin, but it never would have occurred to me that the main problem with the film was that Alexander and his generals were actually supposed to be black.)

"Cleopatra was black" doesn't even really qualify as a fringe theory. It's just an inaccurate claim found in some sources written by people who aren't really interested in the historical Cleopatra so much as modern American films, so this thread more properly belongs on RSN than here.

Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 04:53, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

There is an enormous history debating Cleopatra being portrayed as white. Google Books shows even more pertinent results when one searches for Cleopatra and whitewashing. Instead of pretending that there has never been a debate about the film, the listing should be expanded with the proper in-text attributions. These are films that have been criticized for whitewashing. The criticism should be included, and the counter-criticism should also be included. Erik ( talk |  contrib) ^{( ping me)} 13:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• WP:NJournal
• Wikipedia talk:Notability (academic journals)

I made a change to the descriptions of how to evaluate criteria for academic journal notability. Previously, the guideline stated that simply being indexed by certain selective indexing services as well as merely having an impact factor was enough to establish notability. Wow! That's simply ridiculous. However, I expect some pushback from those who would like to see their pet journals written about at Wikipedia. So if you have some ideas about this opinion of mine, please offer them.

Here is the diff.

jps ( talk) 16:46, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Things are going poorly. I think that the essay is unsalvageable because the gatekeepers don't seem to understand why it's a problem to simply declare that the existence of an impact factor is what makes a journal notable. As such Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Notability_(academic_journals). jps ( talk) 20:20, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Things are going poorly indeed. There's a little bit more to this discussion than WoKrKmFK3lwz8BKvaB94 indicates here (I mean, this post on my talk page, this AfD for an article that was kept just a month ago, and this attempt to modify NJournals to obtain their desired outcome in said AfD. As for the IF thing: about 10,000 journals have been selected for inclusion in the Journal Citation Reports, out of an estimated 80,000 to 200,000 existing academic journals. Seems rather selective to me. -- Randykitty ( talk) 08:48, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

what are the criteria for inclusion in JCR? Might the mere fact that Elsevier publish it have an influence on that inclusion? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 11:00, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Inclusion in JCR is automatic for journals included in one of the three main citation indexes of Thomson Reuters (Science Citation Index, Social SCI, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index), so the question becomes what the criteria for those three indexes are. Those criteria are multiple (is the journal cited regularly by reputable other journals, is the editorial board diverse geographically and composed of specialists in the area, are those specialists themselves well cited, etc). The criteria are more explicitly listed on the TR website (see here). Being published by Elsevier is certainly not an immediate pass. For example, I recently was at a conference and was informed that Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences had been rejected by Thomson Reuters for inclusion in their citation indexes. -- Randykitty ( talk) 11:44, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I just looked through TR and I can find no Elsevier Journal that is more than five years old that is not indexed. This in spite of the fact that many of these journals are not close to what we would consider reliable sources. Longevity is enough for TR, seriously. There is no evidence that they actually try to evaluate whether the editorial board is broad enough to promote proper peer review. In the case of Explore, we know that this is plainly not the case. jps ( talk) 12:17, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Of course it is because it's published by Elsevier. But we have WP:Randy in Boise here to explain to us how he knows best. Hooray! jps ( talk) 11:37, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the disagreement boils down to how one sees WP, as a summary of accepted knowledge or as a repository of information. I favour the former view, and find it hard to see how it is possible to summarize accepted knowledge about this journal, because none exists AFAICS in the kinds of source WP needs. Alexbrn ( talk) 11:41, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

We are not DMOZ. I think that WP:RS has to be respected. Being indexed and having an impact factor is enough to have an article on Wikipedia according to people using this essay to argue about the notability of journals. This is a wide open door for fringe journals to be advertised. If I didn't know any better, I would think that this was the work of people hoping to promote their obscure, fringe journals here in Wikipedia. I couldn't design a better campaign to do this, myself. jps ( talk) 12:13, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I find it really unfortunate that many AfD discussions hinge on counting things like ghits and indices, rather than addressing the question of whether the subject warrants an encyclopedia article. This is not just a problem with journals. I've also seen it in biographical articles of academics. Researchers in fringe areas are able to game the system, and inflate their own google citation numbers. Here is a particularly over the top example. Commentators in AfD discussions can then unthinkingly present evidence like "Keep. h-index of 30." While indices are certainly a useful indicator of notability, I strongly object to their use as prima facie evidence of notability. I'm guessing the same is true for fringe journals, whose indices are buoyed mostly by self-citations. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 14:43, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I think we have to bear in mind that 99% of academic journals are perfectly worthy, ultra-cautious and boring. We should not skew discussion of notability or reliability just because of a handful of what I would call pseudo-journals. I don't normally see citation index as the main way of distinguishing real journals from pseudo ones. The first thing I look at is whether it is published by one of the mainstream publishers like Taylor & Francis or Sage. If not, that's a red light. Then the institutional affiliations of the editors. Usually you see a whole lot of people who are obviously distinguished experts, even if it's a really obscure field. Most normal journals are minor ones, but that is only a problem when an article is used to make claims beyond what it can support. For example if a journal of nursing education reported from a small survey of student nurses their opinions of obesity. That could be perfectly fine to cite as research on opinions of obesity but is obviously no use at all on the causes of obesity. We see that kind of misuse a lot. Itsmejudith ( talk) 12:25, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I very much doubt that 99% of academic journals are perfectly worthy (in their field), if we count by number. If we count by readers or "copies sold" (electronically) or something similar, then probably. Either way, we have no way of knowing, which is the big problem. Tigraan ^{Click here to contact me} 19:20, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• Well, I have been against the current criteria and their application; in particular, I think Scopus should not be considered selective enough to keep a journal.

This being said, Itsmejudith is spot on. As I see it, our Sacred Mission as Repository of the Sum of Human Knowledge (sound the trumpets) means our criteria for inclusion should be much less stringent for hard science than for (e.g.) celebrity scandals. The point of WP:GNG is to have an objective criterion to use to decide whether something is part of the Sum of Human Knowledge; it makes sense to decide that arid technical work that 99.999% of the world population has never heard of is still something the collective mind of humans knows and values, because "well-known" is not the same as "widely-known". There are already convoluted additions to GNG (e.g. WP:PERSISTENCE) for the other end of the spectrum, so it is not shocking in itself to have a separate evaluation of notability for technical topics, as long as it is objective and reliable.

While indexes and other metrics are only a presumption of notability, can be manipulated etc. etc. 99% of the time they will be the only data available online when the article reaches AfD. The current state of things, where NJOURNAL is an essay but with tremendous weight, looks good to me - being an essay avoids the "sacred cow" status guidelines tend to reach where not a single comma will ever be changed even in the face of problems, while it has objective criteria that are enforced consistently and are the least worse objective criteria available.

For the record, while I tend to think the JCR is enough, I strongly disagree with Randykitty's reasoning above (about 10,000 journals have been selected (...) out of an estimated 80,000 to 200,000 existing academic journals. Seems rather selective to me.) - selectivity is not about trimming down by a certain percentage, it is about having criteria that guarantee some threshold of noteworthiness/quality, no matter whether 99.99%, 50% or 0.01% of examined subjects eventually pass. If 99% of journals are demonstrably publishing whatever unreviewed crap authors pay them to, then the JCR is not selective enough to use it as a notability indicator. If 99% of journals are about niche topics but well-reviewed, then the JCR is more than selective enough. Tigraan ^{Click here to contact me} 13:11, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

There is an edit war going over what appears to be an effort to water down some of the language in the template. Extra eyes are requested. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 15:55, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I have opened a discussion on the talk page. Input from other interested editors would be much appreciated. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 17:15, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

One of the worst of the "List of reportedly haunted locations in..." articles. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 20:52, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

That is really bad. I was going to pull one example from it but the entire thing is written like a paranormal travel guide. —DIY Editor ( talk) 02:35, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

We might need to completely rewrite it. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:07, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Regarding "paranormal travel guide"s, I wonder if maybe we might contact wikivoyage and see if they think at least some of the material might be more appropriate there. John Carter ( talk) 17:10, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

The user who created this article is making a version which is just a bigger WP:FRINGE violation, see here. I left a message on his talk page. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:21, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Regarding this article, I just only copied the contents from its source article List of reportedly haunted locations, because I want to make that article shorter. But if it appears to violate Wikipedia's policy of Fringe Theories (and even Reliable Sources), I may suggest the following options: complete rewriting, removing source citations that are blogs etc, or a complete deletion of this article. if deletion is the consensus, I would agree. Regarding my sandbox, I created it because I want to sort all entries of this article via provinces. During the creation of this sandbox, I came up across a website that lists numerous places in PH reportedly haunted. I included them all in the sandbox. However, I did not realize that what I did to the sandbox would might make matters even more worse. I would need much help, because I don't know how to summarize it. But I'm considering the possibility of deleting this sandbox by myself, and suggesting the feasibility of province-sorted format on the article's talk page instead. If deleting this sandbox is the consensus, I would agree, but I would need help on how to delete it (or if I would make a request to administrators for a speedy deletion of the sandbox). JWilz12345 ( talk) 22:54, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• I'm leaning towards deletion here. I don't think any of the listed "hauntings" are independently notable and the list appears to violate PROFRINGE. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 23:09, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I might need the result of the discussion to determine if my sandbox constitutes a serious violation of Wikipedia's policies, and if so, I would consider a request for an urgent and irreversible speedy deletion. JWilz12345 ( talk) 04:16, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

It needs to be phrased as to reflect that the reports are not verified facts. This article and your sandbox aren't the only examples of haunted locations lists. —DIY Editor ( talk) 04:36, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there is anything especially urgent here. Let's get some more input and if there is a consensus we can either send the list to AfD or just treat it as an uncontroversial deletion via PROD. I doubt your sandbox poses an urgent threat. If you wanted to, you can always just blank it. It is your sandbox. Also it is not in the mainspace so I really don't see the need to get too worked up. As for the other lists we can look at those on a case by case basis. Not everything that's fringey is non-notable. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 04:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I should've made it clear that I didn't think the content topic itself was inappropriate for an article. It just needs careful rewrites to have the proper tone. —DIY Editor ( talk) 06:18, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I created the article List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh (which was taken from the article List of reportedly haunted locations, without adept knowledge of Wikipedia's Fringe Theories policy), because I thought it was appropriate and would not cause some trouble. It was because another article, Ghosts in Bengali culture (which I once visited and browsed), also lists those essentially same locations, on same tone and style, and same reference sources, that was why I though my new article "List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh" would comply WP's standards. JWilz12345 ( talk) 12:04, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I've cleaned the "mother article" Ghosts in Bengali culture#Alleged_haunted_places of unsourced material and everything cited to blogspot blogs, YouTube videos, fringe sites, etc. as well as dramatic and credulous descriptions...and have been reverted by an IP - LuckyLouie ( talk) 16:36, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I reverted the IP. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 13:56, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Note that Ramlalaa ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an account devoted entirely to introducing credulous descriptions of the supernatural in similar articles. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 16:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• I have finally made up my mind: I'll accept deletion of this article List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh or it be merged into the article Ghosts in Bengali culture. As for my sandbox, I'll rewrite it meticulously - to the extent of my ability and capacity. JWilz12345 ( talk) 04:30, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
• I've finally decided. I've replaced "Template:Notability" at the article List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh with "Template:Merge", to be merged to Ghosts in Bengali culture. i've provided the discussion space at Talk:List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh#Merge to Ghosts in Bengali culture. Everyone, including those users involved in this discussion, is welcome at the talk page. JWilz12345 ( talk) 11:20, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

• Neal D. Barnard (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Got a fresh account removing critical material etc. Could use more eyes. Alexbrn ( talk) 16:33, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Definitely could use more eyes. Attempting to remove low-quality sources. This biography is currently not balanced or in agreement with Wikipedia's Biographies of Living Persons Policies, which states that "the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all." Eventualism does not apply to biographies. ReinaPohl ( talk) 17:52, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

... looks wooish to me, but what do I know? Roxy the dog. bark 18:10, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

What makes you think so? TylerDurden8823 ( talk) 19:04, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I suspect the process induces a mild microwave burn and "microwave skin tightening" is not something people would flock to a clinic for. Note how the article doesn't say what frequency or power is used, just "radio frequency." As a start, I removed the irrelevant radio spectrum template and stated on the talk page that the article must include the frequencies used, and it requires reliable sources for the "side effects" section. Roches ( talk) 01:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Those seem like very reasonable changes and suggestions. TylerDurden8823 ( talk) 02:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Microwaves would penetrate too deep imo. I think it uses high frequency alternating current, also used in electrosurgery (100 kHz to 5 MHz). The (appropriately named) skin effect would limit the penetration depth. Prevalence 06:47, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Am working on cleaning this up and unsurprisingly being met with advocates. More eyes would be useful. Jytdog ( talk) 03:05, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Always feels good to be told via edit comment that an edit which removes a false equivalence between science and tabloid journalism is "not neutral": [17]. jps ( talk) 09:48, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

More eyes for what? Youre being met with advocates for near death experience? I didnt see anything on the talk page. - 55378008a ( talk) 09:33, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

• Dental amalgam controversy (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Looking at this I'm surprised to see the whole article lede couched in a on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand manner. Is there really a serious dispute about the safety of dental amalgam, or is this a big WP:GEVAL problem? Alexbrn ( talk) 15:35, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Short answer, there isn't a serious dispute regarding the science, but it is commonplace on Teh Internetz. Quack dentists offer treatments, at great profit to themselves I assume. a certain 'Health Danger' and many like him, re-inforce what appears to me to be a meme repeated over and again, and traction has been gained for it. Aargh. In my experience in the backwoods of illness specific forums, you will always find somebody who cured themselves of the incurable by having the amalgam replaced, and they get believed by people who are desperate, ffs. Do I need to mention Thimersol? Tis the same thing. As regards our article, I started to get angry when I read some of the history there, so I've taken a break. Roxy the dog. bark 16:13, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Some of the lede seems to me truly strange, like the material from the WHO. That, in particular, doesn't seem to be about dental amalgams per se, but the processing of them, which is a different matter entirely. Agree with Roxy that this seems to be another of the rather run of the mill "lets bilk the bozos for some big, or mid-size, bucks by trying to scare them into doing something unnecessarily, but profitable, for us." Also think that at the very least the material about the WHO should probably be stricken from the lede as it seems to me to be not a controversy about dental amalgam per se, but rather hazardous waste processing. That material might be more directly relevant to some article on hazardous waste processing or mercury poisoning. John Carter ( talk) 20:41, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Yep, I would vote for removing most or all of that paragraph. DoctorJoeE  ^{review transgressions}/ _{talk to me!} 21:26, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with removing the WHO data. It should also be noted that the dental amalgam issue is a First World issue, but the WHO's observations are global. It is likely that much of the mercury from dental offices is in developing countries where the cheapest filling (amalgam) is more likely the filling of choice. Also, dental offices in developing countries would be less likely to use amalgam separators; the sentence about separators makes the allusion that dental offices use much more of the world's mercury supply than they appear to, and this may not be true.

Strictly speaking, while the controversy is exactly analogous to thimerosal, they are chemically different. Thimerosal is an organomercury compound given in trivial doses, while amalgam is a type of alloy, a mixture of two metals. Elemental mercury as found in amalgam is less toxic (see mercury poisoning) than organic or positively charged mercury. Roches ( talk) 10:01, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

It is well you should point out the indisputable truth that one sort of mercury should be more or less 'toxic' than another. Heres another: no one has an 80 billion dollar specfrometer, much less do they make one small enough to stick in your mouth, to check what sort has been used, or more commonly nowadays Im sure, the insurance has been billed for. I'm also pretty sure no one is going to coat an unidentified substance with gold just to see if it has mercury. Doesnt most gold have mercury anyway, because, well, mining? Admittedly, if the fillings dont get you, the older girl with the oreo will. Incidentally, being shamed for 'not drying between your fingers' is not going to help, or solve the problem. - 55378008a ( talk) 09:39, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

A new user, Carlos Danger ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), seems to want to change denier to skeptic in articles, without discussion. left a warning but can others look at this too please? Guy ( Help!) 09:37, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Seems to be a (in some cases, relatively, admittedly) new trend of users with no user page so they appear redlinked, maybe to make you think they dont exist anymore but then theyre talk and contrib pages are still active. Heres another one: Chuntuk ( talk). Me, I went the other route and went ahead and blew off the 'thou shalt not put a giant picture of a spider in a web on your user page' commandment that you have to scroll around forever before you find the spider. Just want to say thanks, whoever took that picture. I presume you made sure the lizard was ok? Well done. I'm sure in Australia you just ring round 002 for lizard rescue or something? I notice another, and this is creeping in at the BBC too, and thats putting the punctuation outside the quotes. Anyone know if this is some more chicago style but, like with the starting sentences with conjunctions? I see also goigle is insisting perniciously its pleaded and not pled, even though no ones ever pleaded out. Incidentally (not sure this is enough to start a new section) looks like what we got us here is a denier that children (or even us humans generally, less peripherally, cats) want to do what they see on television. I'll check out Mr. Danger for you, hope hes not the type that believes global warming is caused by democrats. Sheesh, then where would we be. - 55378008a ( talk) 09:22, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Nothing sinister about not having a user page, I just didn't have anything I wanted to put on one. I still don't, but my username should now be blue. Chuntuk ( talk) 11:05, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Sure enough. Turns out we have a guideline in MOS:LQ: "If the quotation is a single word or fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside." I always thought the user page was created automagically, so I must have just subconsciously assumed anyone that didn't have one had a direct line to the dark arts, at the very least. How wrong I was. - 55378008a ( talk) 12:11, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Carlos_Danger. Sigh. jps ( talk) 12:38, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Indriði Indriðason (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The icelandic medium Indridi Indridason is very pro sympathetic in favour of the medium. I have seen the wikipedia article favourably cited on paranormal websites to argue the medium was genuine and never caught in fraud. Most of the articles source is a favourable biography co-written in 1997 by a parapsychologist Loftur Reimer Gissurarson who has defended the medium in several other publications. The article seems to have fringe issues. Let me know what should be done with it?

A concerned user ( talk) 22:42, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the article points in the direction of reporting (both pro and con) the existence of an historical person and surrounding facts and controversies. I don't read it in the manner stated, but I can understand how readers might make the inference. We can't control the minds of our readers. 7&6=thirteen ( ☎) 17:56, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

The article treats reports of supposed levitation, dematerialization, contact with the dead, etc. credulously. The majority of the article is cited to the text of Icelandic Spiritualism: Mediumship and Modernity in Iceland, which a reviewer notes "is an important addition to both Icelandic studies and religious scholarship – as long as it is read with a skeptical eye and a critical mind". Clearly this advice has been ignored. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 16:26, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I've made initial edits to the article in order to bring it into line with WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 17:10, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion on the talk page concerning whether or not to add the recent book by Mark Shaw to the bibliography and whether or not it is PROFRINGE. Input from interested editors is kindly requested. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 16:37, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

The Wash. Post has pulled a Newsweek and published this article by Raphael Lataster on the 18th: Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn’t add up. Keep an eye out. Mangoe ( talk) 13:42, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Could someone who's better than me at talking down well-intentioned but persistent pushers of fringe theories take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Red Square Nebula Explanation and try to talk the editor in question down? I really don't want to even consider blocking him—this is clearly someone well-intentioned who thinks they have a duty to spread The Truth that the sun is actually powered by electricity and this fact is being covered up by people who have vested interests in perpetuating a misguided belief in fusion reactions—but I can tell he's going to be persistent, and I can feel myself beginning to lose my temper so had probably better withdraw. ‑  Iridescent 21:53, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Motherboard has an article on this theory. Might be worth a read for anyone else who's never heard of this before. Definitely fits the definition of fringe. clpo13_{( talk)} 22:38, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Fifty bucks says this ends up at ANI before all is said and done. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:50, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I watchlist a lot of stuff that appears on this noticeboard, but this is out of my league and insane. Sorry. Roxy the dog. bark 00:38, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

@ Roxy the dog: I immediately thought of this when I read your comment. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 01:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Laughter at bedtime. Cant go wrong. Roxy the dog. bark 01:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

That editor is not long for this world, I should think - they've already drawn a temporary block this week, and they keep edit warring and threatening people. They're clearly here to right great wrongs, never a good idea. -- Krelnik ( talk) 16:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, this editor will probably get to ANI eventually, as MjolnirPants said. After the article inevitably gets deleted, he'll probably keep ranting about The Truth, and get blocked. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) ^{Happy Holidays} 16:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I left him a message. It's probably pointless, but I'd rather see him willingly stop editing, instead of being forced to block him. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) ^{Happy Holidays} 16:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

And he's edit-warring on the Red Square Nebula page. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) ^{Happy Holidays} 14:50, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Maybe it's some sort of reaction against increased scrutiny on fake news sites have been getting in the public eye recently, but I've been noticing more editors (and some of them not just drive-by IPs but editors who have been here for years but avoided these kinds of topics) trying to argue that Alex Jones isn't a conspiracy theorist and that InfoWars isn't a fake news site because... it's only mainstream sources that say so, he disagrees; or it's "only" the cited sources. Some have also tried saying "oh, we just need to attribute it," when we have US News and World Report and a different news article citing a communications professor supporting the description of the site as a fake news site.

Has WP:RS recently changed so that US News and World Report is unreliable, but InfoWars is? Ian.thomson ( talk) 11:44, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I think some of these are probably good faith editors who have noticed all the attention that "fake news" sites have gotten lately. Perhaps they feel that some readers would easily brush off the label "conspiracy theory" site but find "fake news" more malicious in nature? If so then they probably believe they are helping warn folks off of Jones. Just a thought. -- Krelnik ( talk) 12:28, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

It's not that. There are users who are trying to get rid of the conspiracy theorist label, and there are users who are trying to get rid of the fake news label. Sources support both labels. Meant to say or it's "only" the cited sources' opinions, sorry. Ian.thomson ( talk) 12:31, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Ah ok, I didn't dig deep into the history. Added Jones to my watchlist though. -- Krelnik ( talk) 12:34, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I've noticed that failed attempts to whitewash topics labeled as conspiracy theories are often followed by attempts to change the conspiracy theory article to be more favorable to conspiracy theories. Which is why Conspiracy theory should be on everyone's watchlist. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 14:34, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I added conspiracy theory to my list. We could also use extras eyes on Snopes.com.-- Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 02:39, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

• Somatic experiencing (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Needs cleanup per PSCI. oy Jytdog ( talk) 00:55, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

There is an RfC at Template talk:Alternative medicine sidebar concerning the use of the term pseudomedicine. Interested editors are encouraged to join the discussion. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 18:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Interesting. One editor has been trying for nearly two months to remove this term. Guy ( Help!) 01:44, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Is "psuedomedicine" as a term used enough to be featured like this? I thought quackery was a more common term of art. jps ( talk) 12:35, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I think quackery refers to the practice of it, rather than the thing-in-itself. It's a tricky area partly because the proponents seem to want to keep the terminology in flux ("integrative" is currently popular). Finding a neutral wording is quite hard. There was lots of argument at (e.g.) List of ineffective cancer treatments until it settled on being List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments. So maybe we should be calling this "Unproven and disproven medicine". Personally I quite like "Bogus medicine" but I can't see that flying. Alexbrn ( talk) 12:46, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

My personal preference of 'List of things to waste your last money and time on' is sadly not going to gain acceptance. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 13:08, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Like. Guy ( Help!) 16:50, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Oh, it seems that user:Clean Copy is formerly user:Hgilbert, a Waldorf teacher and proponent of homeopathy. That explains the visceral hatred of the scientific consensus on alternative medicine, I guess. Guy ( Help!) 01:26, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

please see above; needs cleanup. Jytdog ( talk) 03:53, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

See above where? All the stuff I thought was here is gone, so I'll put this here: I would say it seems like the concept of banning wikilurkers who revert legitimate material without a notice of objection and some time to comply from editing this particular article should be given some serious attention. That is to say editors monopolizing this particular article to the exclusion of all other contributions seems to be a much larger concern than I had considered possible. Specifically, I made the mistake of adding a link to semaphore because I thought readers might like to consider it as an alternative to the borderline illegal 'mother-child bonding-communication' referenced heavily in the article and boy did they ever come unglued. Apparently suddenly everything I've ever done in my life is a travesty and no they're not going to have the decency to tell me why they waited until now to tell me. 55378008a ( talk) 16:22, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Looks like a coatrack for Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories. Thoughts? - Ad Orientem ( talk) 02:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Going through the page history it looks like Location made a mighty effort to weed out some of the worst stuff. Perhaps this is as good as we are likely to get it. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 02:53, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

• Brain fingerprinting (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Lawrence Farwell (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Lawrence Farwell ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Brainf ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Brainfingerprinting ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Neuroscientist1 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Brain fingerprinting is a technique invented by Lawrence Farwell. It is not accepted for use in court, as far as I can tell. The article has substantial input fomr a number of WP:SPAs notably those listed above, all of which suggest that they are, or are associated with, the inventor.

The article cites 33 references. Of these, over half are primary sources written by Farwell, or are hosted on his website.

Bluntly, this article reads as blatant advertising. I am fairly sure it is an unrecognised and questionable technique. You could not tell that from the article. Guy ( Help!) 18:37, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

You say bluntly, I say kindly. This is just another example of the rank pseudoscience of polygraphy, but it is only promoted by a single snake oil salesperson so seems to have flown under our radar. Unfortunately, law enforcement has a history of being duped by polygraphy schemes, and it appears that there are instances where this has happened (even making its way into being admitted in courtroom evidence). This is actually a really difficult case for WP:FRINGE to handle. I see some noise on the talkpage of people who have argued that they can help, but it looks like not much has been done. SMH jps ( talk) 19:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. I have stubbed it and redirected Lawrence Farwell to this article, as there is only one subject and both articles had the same problems. Guy ( Help!) 19:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

You "forgot" to mention what connection you have with Farwell. I have no dog in this fight, you very obviously have one, the only remaining question is whether you *are* the dog. Guy ( Help!) 01:20, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

• So, user:Neuroscientist1 is user:Lawrence Farwell, the originator of the theory and the principal author of all the text about it anywhere on Wikipedia. Colour me unsurprised. Guy ( Help!) 09:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Jack Sarfatti (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Super bloated turning into a press release. I don't have the patience to try to trim it down.

jps ( talk) 19:07, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Perennial problem with that one. Guy ( Help!) 20:28, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

• P. N. Oak (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The chap was a notorious fringe theorist and our article seems to present that fact, in a more nuanced form. Of late I've seen some of his dubious claims getting removed from the article as they are fringey and not based in fact. The claims are just attributed to him. Not sure how this kind of stuff is usually handled, clearly most of his theories are pure unadulterated nonsense but at the same time, he is known for the nonsense so should that be documented (as nonsense)? I have no particular interest in the article, it just happens to be on my watchlist and I've often wondered whether protection might be necessary. — Spaceman Spiff 00:35, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Generally that is the case. Where fringe person has numerous fringey/crank ideas, the more notable/insane ones tend to get covered. There is no requirement to cover all their beliefs in detail. Usually the ones that have actually gathered notice/comment by other parties get covered. Using what is there as an example: his views on Christianity and the Taj Mahal have got coverage elsewhere due to the quite visible and controversial nature in India (one involved a court case). On the other hand his views on the Kaaba have not. The first two you would expect to be covered, albeit briefly, in his biography, the last is entirely unneccessary. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 12:06, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

An editor has removed any suggestion that she was a conspiracy theorist stating that there are no sources. I see a number on Google books and have linked them at Talk:Cathy O'Brien (conspiracy theorist). Doug Weller talk 06:27, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I do not see any discussion on the talk page. I notice the Criticism section was removed, but criticism is better incorporated into the relevant sections of the article. Instead of saying in "Assertions," "she alleges to have suffered as part of Project Monarch," then saying in "Criticism" that there is no record of such a project, combine the two statements in the same section. TFD ( talk) 07:54, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

It was user:Petrarchan47. Did O'Brien make reference to GMOs? That's his most frequent (though by no means only) target. Guy ( Help!) 10:48, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Can't find one. Doug Weller talk 14:25, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

What's to be done with Owlman? I went through the article today to root out the usual cryptozoology pseudoscience and find the core of the matter (usually articles of this sort are hijacked topics from folklore with some commentary out there from folklorists) but I'm not finding anything beyond the chatter of a bunch of fringe figures. I'm just finding pseudoscience on top of pseudoscience, layers of Jonathan Downes and Karl Shuker. Any suggestions here? Should this just go to articles for deletion? :bloodofox: ( talk) 19:44, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• Lionel Fanthorpe has covered it for Countryfile, which suggests notability: [18]. Guy ( Help!) 23:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Good catch. if we can get some decent sources on it like that, then it'd be a fun article. I see you've already started gutting some of the worst of it out. Note that the Countryfile article doesn't mention cryptozoology at all, so maybe there is in fact a folk tradition to build an article around. :bloodofox: ( talk) 01:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

We're getting an unusual number of SPAs at Talk:Sheela_na_gig#Star_Goode_.22Dark_Goddess.22_Book, most of them just dropping in to add one or two line advertising blurbs for a book that appears to fail WP:RS. I'm starting to suspect WP:MEAT or off-site canvassing to promote the book. Ian.thomson ( talk) 06:49, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Could use more input, especially from anyone familiar with Russian sources. Doug Weller talk 17:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Q Valda is a knowledgeable professional, a member or an employee of the Committee on Pseudoscience of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He sometimes pushes too much, but he definitely knows what he is talking about.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 20:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

However, if it is true, then his biased and unneutral POV in the talk page, as well editing of the article, which not one editor noticed, is more than explained. Due to editor's activity I must ask - is it related to WP:CONFLICT, WP:PSCOI, Wikipedian in residence? -- JoyceWood ( talk) 05:07, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

User:JoyceWood, everyone has a pov. Wikipedia itself is biased towards mainstream science and against fringe science. And I don't think it's related to any of those acronyms, but I think someone else should comment on that. Doug Weller talk 08:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• This article is on my radar too, citations to predatory open access journals keep appearing in it. Guy ( Help!) 09:58, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

In the article there is none nor appear any cite to the predatory open access journals.-- JoyceWood ( talk) 12:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• The Cambridge Diet (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

With a New Year comes those resolutions to lose weight, our fringe diet articles seem to get particular attention from advocates. I've requested page protection for this article which in particular has been mauled. More eyes on it would be good. Alexbrn ( talk) 18:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Is Augmentative and alternative communication a euphemism for Facilitated communication? —PermStrump (talk) 04:32, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

As framed, it includes legit techniques such as Hawking's voice synthesiser. However, the article reads as distinctly WP:SYN and relies on a lot of cites from a small number of authors. Guy ( Help!) 10:16, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Ugh. This is complicated to clean up. It seems like respected organizations like the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association do use the term AAC as an umbrella term for literally anything other than oral communication that helps people communicate, but they're also opposed to the use of facilitated communication [19] [20], so I can't tell whether or not AAC technically applies to FC. The caption in the lead image says, "An AAC user indicates a series of numbers on an eye gaze communication board in order to convey a word", which sounds like code for FC. I came across AAC via these two BLPs ( Sue Rubin and Amy Sequenzia) that glorify FC and I'm not even sure what to do that those BLPs, or now AAC. —PermStrump (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Looking for feedback on appropriate treatment of fringe earthquake prediction theories at this article.

Talk:Earthquake_prediction#RfC_on_Earthquake_prediction_2 JerryRussell ( talk) 23:53, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Rolfing (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

There has been a recent influx of WP:SPAs at this article (recruitment somewhere?) and a concerted effort to water down critical content. Could use more eyes. Alexbrn ( talk) 18:51, 7 January 2017 (UTC) (add) And if this is right, suddenly the article got 180,000 page views yesterday? Alexbrn ( talk) 07:40, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

That was me !! Roxy the dog. bark 07:49, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

FYI Jytdog ( talk) 06:19, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Wawel Chakra

Linked in the above: it could use some clean-up. Mangoe ( talk) 14:27, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• Acupuncture (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Just a quick heads-up, the trypanophiles have been talking to one or both of the recently topic banned users and have set their sights yet again on the acupuncture article, with a change.org petiton and an op-ed in the BMJ. The bone of contention is, as usual, the statement that acupuncture is pseudoscientific. I have a certain amount of sympathy with that: I think it's a pseudo-religious cult, and that study of acupuncture is mostly pseudoscientfic. But unlike the trypanophiles, I recognise that my view takes second place to the reliable sources. I think acupuncture may be the second most widely discussed example of pseudoscience after homeopathy. Guy ( Help!) 00:16, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Petitions? Seriously? Okay, WP:Lunatic charlatans (which JzG wrote) applies here. It looks like this is going to get a lot of disruptive editing in the future, but thankfully it's semi-protected. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:35, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Linky. I don't know whether to be confused or amused that comments and pings are closed on that blogpost. In any case, I am rather surprised as to how much of an improvement the acupuncture article is over the last time I looked at it. It took us 10 years to get to the point where we could distinguish between the efficacy claims from Cochrane reviews as being the only metric to an acknowledgment that there is a steady reliance on qigong speculation in deciding where and how to needle (much like reflexology). The particular "Western acupuncture" argument which is that there is no mechanism beyond somatic stimulation and the meridians are all just empirically developed correlates from ancient times was well-debunked, I think, by recent popular press articles which illustrated that much of what is considered acupuncture today was invented in the mid-20th century by pseudoacademics and outright charlatans. jps ( talk) 15:51, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

It's pretty rum the acupuncturists are complaining about "anonymous" editors (in fact several FTN regulars aren't), when it's clear now that the anonymous activity recently giving rise to problems was from people with an undeclared involvement with the Acupuncture Now Foundation [21]. With the recent NICE un-recommendation of acupuncture [22] I think the tide is turning and acupuncture is now where homeopathy already has been for some years: on the skids. Over the next years I think the discomfort from the profession is likely to increase and we can expect a torrid time as the money starts drying up. Alexbrn ( talk) 16:26, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

• Sees blog by person with vested interest in pseudosciene - looks at comments - comments closed. Generally I give zero weight to someone who has a monetary interest in a thing that is unwilling to be at least open to comments/feedback on their money-informed opinions. Given the quality of that, how does the BMJ justify associating with it? Its basically an opinion piece by someone associated with Quackery. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 09:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

• They justify it through appeal to the bottom line. Acupuncture in Medicine is a mediocre journal published under the auspices of BMJ whose editorial board is populated entirely by acupuncturists. The former editor-in-chief (who still sites on the editorial board) is the author of the post. jps ( talk) 14:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
• Speaking of which: [23]. jps ( talk) 09:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

There are multiple reference works on the topic of pseudoscience, and I think chiropractic is included in almost if not in fact all the ones I've checked. That being the case, the argument that chiropractic might not qualify in the broad field of pseudoscience would seem to be a very uphill one, if it is in fact one of the best known and most widely discussed examples of pseudoscience. John Carter ( talk) 16:13, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

I was doing some cleanup work on acupuncture-related journals this morning (there are a huge number of terrible ones listed at Wikipedia with ZERO sources) when I cam across this list:

Category:Alternative and traditional medicine journals.

I am not amused. How many of these do you all think should be included here? I note that most of them are stubs curated by Randykitty and not likely to go anywhere. Is it time to write about publications in WP:FRINGE? It looks like backdoor coatracks by having stub articles about fringe subjects is the new thing. "Look, ma! The journal has a Wikipedia article. It MUST be legitimate!" Never mind that no one has ever heard of the publishing group that is run out of the back of a trailer in upstate New York. SMH.

jps ( talk) 10:43, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• Where on Earth did you get the idea that most of them are stubs created by Randykitty"?? I went through the first 10 articles in that cat and found exactly 1 that I have created. -- Randykitty ( talk) 11:46, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I meant to say "curated". My apologies. It looks like you culled all the ones that didn't have impact factors but kept the ones that did. jps ( talk) 13:37, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• That's correct. If something doesn't meet WP:NJournals or WP:GNG, I PROD it or take it to AfD (and not just in this rather small category, either). And I know you think NJournals is too permissive, but if you follow Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Article alerts (or browse through its archives), you'd be surprised how much effort I usually have to make to get a journal deleted that doesn't meet NJournals (let alone GNG). If journals in this category are unreliable/fringe/whatever, then find good sources for that and add those to the articles. -- Randykitty ( talk) 14:27, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• But for the vast majority of these journals, there are basically NO INDEPENDENT SOURCES that I can find besides the impact factor/citation reports. Instead, I find myself hamstrung in reporting that, in fact, the editorial board is populated by [known pseudoscientists] which is borderline WP:OR. Occasionally, there are off-hand mentions of journals, but who writes extensive source material about journals anyway? Maybe there are trade publications that discuss them, but if we go by the promotional material fed to us by the publisher, we're sunk in WP:FRIND-land. It's not that I think WP:NJOURNALS is too permissive: it's that I think it is too categorical in what it says is notable. It feels to me to be much the same as if we had a rule at WP:BK that a book was notable simply because it made it into the Library of Congress. jps ( talk) 14:39, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

BTW, since when is having a WP article a seal of approval? ("Look, ma! The journal has a Wikipedia article. It MUST be legitimate!") Ted Bundy has an article, that doesn't mean canibalism is OK. And, yes, stating that "its editors are selected only from people who are practitioners of acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and other forms of related alternative medicine", with as only reference their editorial board listing is indeed OR, so I have removed that. -- Randykitty ( talk) 15:19, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I think one issue with fringe journals is that if we don't have independent sources, chances are we only have sources affiliated with the journal i.e partisan and probably promotional/profringe sources. And promotional/profringe sources lead to promotional/profringe articles. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 15:51, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that, and obscurity is part of the features of the fringe by definition. Ted Bundy is (in)famous and so finding adequate sourcing to describe is (in)fam[e|y] is straightforward. An article on an obscure fringe journal which merely says, "The Journal of Blah is a peer-reviewed, quarterly journal published by the Society for the Promulgation of Blah. It is indexed by Scholarly Index 34 and Journal Citation Reports gives it an impact factor of 1.0" lends to the Journal of Blah a cache that many fringe proponents desperately seek. The reason that WP:FRINGE was invented was because extremely early on Wikipedia attracted fringe promoters who rightly viewed this open platform as an opportunity to improve their visibility. Having a Wikipedia page is a measure of success (rightly or wrongly) for those struggling with obscurity. There is no easy remedy for this. One approach is to include absolutely everything. The other approach is to include subjects at an article-level when it is possible to write a decent article on the subject beyond the stub. Otherwise, you know, merge and redirect, as they say. I see that the journals area has adopted more of a kitchen sink approach which clashes with much of the rest of the academic content on Wikipedia and thus serves as a "seal of approval" in spite of the intentions of those who argue for such a standard being something quite different. jps ( talk) 17:06, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Crazy idea: Consider inclusion in the Jeffrey Beall questionable journal list as a criterium for notability for fringe journals. Of course, such needs to be mentioned in the article. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 17:10, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

That's not a crazy idea at all, but actually current practice. Beall's blog, despite recurrent challenges from people like OMICS, is generally considered a RS here on WP. If a predatory journal or publisher screws up enough to become notable that way and have an article, we invariable include listing on Beall's list. Note that journals on Beall's list rarely (if ever) make it in one of Thomson Reuters major citation indexes (but their Emerging Sources Citation Index contains quite a few and is generally not considered to be selective enough to confer any notability. We don't have many articles on predatory publishers/journals, because generally they don't meet either GNG or NJournals. The journals in the category mentioned here often are not only included in things like Scopus, but also in MEDLINE. The article that I mentioned above for which I created a stub ( Acupuncture & Electro-Therapeutics Research) is even included in the highly selective Index Medicus, a database curated by specialist librarians at the United States National Library of Medicine and supposed to include the most important medical journals. If they think something is notable enough to be included in their database, I'm not going to second-guess them... -- Randykitty ( talk) 17:45, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Welcome tot he world of quackademic medicine... Guy ( Help!) 18:28, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

That's not a crazy idea at all, but actually current practice. - well, I don't see it on WP:NJOURNALS... Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 18:31, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Why should it be in NJournals? There are many possible reliable sources, can't list them all. And BEall's list is not that often important for writing articles on journals, because, as I said, most predatory journals gloriously fail both GNG and NJournals. It's only the really bad ones that cause waves because of being bad that become notable. Anyway, I'd have no problem with including Beall's list in a note there, either. -- Randykitty ( talk) 18:36, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I would settle for NJournals being less strident in its wording. The problem I have is that not everything inclined in highly selective indices is necessarily worthy of an article on Wikipedia because, crucially, a lot of fringe journals are promulgating closed-door conversations about ideas outside the WP:MAINSTREAM. Librarians, journal publishers, and even well-meaning epistemologists allow for an epistemic closure to take place on a grand scale. We've seen it with parapsychology, alternative medicine, and even fringe physics. Conversations about the horrible-ness of this or that journal take place at an informal level because, who wants to bother being rigorous in identifying bullshit? No one. So it survives and gets stamps of approval but not much more. This is the problem. The predatory journals are just the bottom of the barrel of the worst of the worst. What I'm talking about is basically the publication industry's equivalent of a WP:Walled garden. jps ( talk) 20:01, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• NJournals is an essay and has zero weight given the standard rationale for keeping essays at MFD is 'Its an essay, no one cares'. Seriously, try and get a well-written but basically flawed essay deleted, its impossible unless its actively harmful. Essay's have absolutely no standing in a consensus discussion due to not demonstrating any wider community agreement. So ignore it. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 20:05, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I think that "standard rationales" do not apply at AfDs about journals. There, this essay rules the day as though it were policy. This is because there are ~3 to 4 editors who faithfully will opine that any journal with an impact factor in Journal Citation Reports is notable due to the categorical claim in WP:NJOURNALS (which I note that as of today no longer is categorical but instead is simply, "usually" -- interesting). Pretty much the definition of a "racket". jps ( talk) 21:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
• Indeed. I skip these AfDs because it's too difficult to get a grasp what the expected standards are. My suggestion to list the Jeffrey Beall blacklist as a notability criterium was meant for a proper guideline. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 21:56, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment. WP:NJOURNALS is not gospel, and it seems to me that WP:NPOV trumps that essay in any case. If a fringe journal doesn't meet GNG, then we shouldn't have an article about it. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 22:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: And how do we decide whether something is a fringe journal? By polling the opinions of WP editors? No, of course not. We determine that by looking for reliable sources that state that a journal is a fringe one. And then we have reliable sources, so it meets GNG. Just as we cannot say in a biography that somebody is a quack unless we have good sources for that. -- Randykitty ( talk) 08:19, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: How about we just stop having individual articles for journals where the sole reliable source is Journal Citation Reports and the mean fact that it is indexed? If you prefer blue links, why not redirect to the publisher or the index for a list of journals? jps ( talk) 11:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• For the simple reason that a redirect to the publisher doesn't tell anything about the journal, and because neutral information (who's the editor, what's the ISSN, what's the scope, etc) can easily be provided. And if it's in JCR, it's almost always in other databases, too, meaning that rarely will the JCR be the sole reason that something is notable. Has nothing to do with not liking red links and everything to do with presenting information. -- Randykitty ( talk) 11:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

If NPOV is in conflict with an essay like NJOURNALS, then NPOV wins. If it's really so hard to tell whether a journal is fringe, then we shouldn't have articles on journals if the sole source is journal citation reports. However, chances are that it actually is usually pretty evident when a journal is on a fringe subject, and when it is in a mainstream scholarly area. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 12:26, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

This is a card catalogue entry, then. The problem is that perma-stubs such as this are not supposed to be in Wikipedia. There is no particular reason why you cannot make a table with Name, Publisher, Editor, Scope, ISSN, Impact Factor. Why not subsume into lists? jps ( talk) 12:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• If all info can be included in lists, what's the difference with splitting it out in more handy stubs? And lists are very difficult to maintain, this procedure would make it exceedingly easy to insert information on non-notable journals (or even seedy, predatory ones). And the longer a journal exists, the likelier it will be that sources can be found and added to that stub. -- Randykitty ( talk) 12:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

• How are articles "more handy" than lists? The advantage of lists is that we are up front with the inclusion criteria. Right now, a reader has no information as to what makes a journal notable. Oh, "impact factor of 0.5? MUST BE NOTABLE!" jps ( talk) 17:15, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

More fun-and-games with pseudoscience journals in perma-stub states: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. jps ( talk) 19:24, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

On the broad question of whether the category should exist, I seem to remember seeing the description (or something very like it) included in the descriptions of journals in one of the reference works on periodicals, so I guess I can see that the term might be used legitimately, and possibly even with sourcing. Establishing the notability of such journals could, not unreasonably, be seen as being difficult but perhaps still possible, particularly given the staggering number of all sorts of other journals and periodicals and sources out there which might discuss them. John Carter ( talk) 16:18, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Can someone please take a look at this? The article has been warned that it will be blocked if vandalism continues. The issue is about the section Twelve Major Planets. See my comments on the talk page and at User talk:Lhyx. Pinging @ Jim1138: who also commented there. Doug Weller talk 07:32, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Also the characteristic astrological symbols have been replaced with Chinese characters. Rather unusual for "Western astrology". I deleted the section as it wasn't sourced. Now it is sourced apparently from astrological books. Jim1138 ( talk) 08:38, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I've reverted. Even though astrology is wrong, there's still a right way to be that kind of wrong. Ian.thomson ( talk) 08:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I suspect copyvio or just copying a source mindlessly, as "Hone (1978), p. 144" with no clue as to what this is suggests the reference was simply found elsewhere and copied. Doug Weller talk 09:44, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

First, I am less than certain the lede is accurate in stating that it is just a single system of astrology. Beyond that, I have to say that I agree with Ian. There are a lot of reference works dealing with this topic, and it might be that one or more of them can help establish what the scope or title of this article should be. Give me a few days to check. John Carter ( talk) 16:22, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

A journalist of cold fusion "fame"(?): Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steven Krivit.

jps ( talk) 11:22, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I thought you all might benefit from learning that Steven Krivit e-mailed the dean of a major university to claim that this action of nominating his article page for deletion was "online vandalism" on my part. The complaint didn't go very far, but just be aware that there is potential nastiness in this topic area. jps ( talk) 18:07, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Posting here because this particular article has been discussed here before, and it is in fact one of those prior discussions which got me to watchlist the page. Anyone want to comment, preferably on the article's talk page, about the recent restoration of media appearances by the subjects in the article, and the ongoing failure to discuss the questionable accuracy of their predictions in the lede? John Carter ( talk) 18:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

There was some discussion on my Talk page, which I have moved to Talk:Linda and Terry Jamison. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 19:38, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

I had a cordial exchange with another editor at an AfD I nominated for Forefront.TV. I am under the impression that this article is based on sources that do not establish notability, possibly due to reliability issues. The best one is a 395-word article in Variety, and the others are in NewMediaRockStars. More opinions are needed to help determine if these sources added up to meet GNG. Thanks! Delta13C ( talk) 21:46, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

There is nothing particularly FRINGE about that topic - no pseudoscience or pseudohistory or whatever. Just typical badly sourced spammy content. Jytdog ( talk) 21:55, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

There is an WP:ONEWAY problem at [24]: mentioning the WP:FRINGE NoFap movement in a mainstream medical subject. Also, the Chinese medical source fails WP:MEDRS. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 02:09, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I'll note that the same article mentions Rites of passage of New Guinean and Philippine tribes, which presumably have fewer members than the contemporary NoFap movement. So, while it is a "fringe" movement, it is of considerable current cultural relevance (about .75m hits on Google), and has passed the test of notability. I don't see how WP:ONEWAY applies, since the fringe theory "may be mentioned in the text of other articles only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way." There are many such sources among the .75m hits (around .25m hits for the query string "nofap masturbation"). My efforts to add links that give further evidence of this connection are defeated by Tgeorgescu's deletions. It's odd that he refers to masturbation as a medical subject, when I have made the changes in the "Cultural views and practices" subsection (where we also find the tribal practices mentioned). Arided ( talk) 02:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

It's NoFap itself which frames masturbation as a medical subject, also confirmed by the medical claim of increased testosterone due to abstinence. NoFap frames abstinence as healing (medically and psychologically) and also as a source of "superpowers" (see the sources cited in the NoFap article). Tgeorgescu ( talk) 02:34, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu, I'm not entirely sure where the goal-posts are in this discussion currently. Yes, I think you are correct that NoFap frames masturbation as a medical subject. Its users certainly spend a lot of time sharing their anecdotal (basically, phenomenological) experiences about energy levels, feelings, habits and so forth. In this sense the community's practices are very data-driven. I've attempted to give fair play to their critics in the text I that introduced, and I'm sure there's more to be said on that topic. As I see it the best way to proceed would be for you to add text that rounds out the NPOV, rather than deleting what I've added. Not only have my edits been made in good faith, I have spent quite a bit of time incorporating your suggestions. How about you do some of the heavy lifting and try to improve the section into something you would find acceptable? Arided ( talk) 02:59, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

My revert was about turning an article upon a mainstream subject into a WP:COATRACK for a fringe subject. I don't know if NoFap is notable enough for having a Wikipedia article, anyway mentioning a marginal cultural-medical movement in an article about a habit that 97% of men and 80% of women have practiced (data from the Merck Manual) seems like an attempt at WP:SOAP. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 03:06, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

See comments above about "rites of passage". One tribe happens to have the view that "Semen is considered in the same line as mothers' milk." That's interesting, if a bit odd. I don't see how including some discussion about abstaining from masturbation is any more of a "fringe subject" than the beliefs of some random tribe of people from PNG. The NoFap folks have lots of anecdotal discussion about their experiences abstaining from masturbation (or trying) and lots of opinions on what it means in contemporary society. Again, this is interesting, if somewhat different-from-mainstream. Perhaps it would be better to frame it with a section "Abstaining from masturbation", and include other documentation of other groups (e.g., clerics, maybe?) who have advocated that point of view. At the moment, the word "abstinence" is mentioned only once on the article. "Religious views" are mentioned briefly, and Kant is given some play with a pretty limited philosophical argument. Why not include the topic of NoFap, which at least has some empirical basis? Arided ( talk) 03:58, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

According to WP:NOTNEUTRAL Wikipedia takes a mainstream view on anything. So, the reply would be: anthropology is mainstream (meaning not that tribe but its scholarly study), but NoFap isn't mainstream. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 04:23, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

For the record, regarding Anthropology: "Sociocultural anthropology has been heavily influenced by structuralist and postmodern theories, as well as a shift toward the analysis of modern societies." Here I hasten to add that I'm not claiming that the Masturbation article is a work of anthropological research, only that discussing obscure tribes in preference to modern online communities is bog standard Orientalism. There is actually a bit of research about NoFap. I don't know if any of it would pass the {{medrs}} criterion, it may well pass criteria for inclusion as cultural research.

• Eliminate Chronic Internet Pornography Use to Reveal Its Effects, Gary Wilson, Addicta: The Turkish Journal On Addictions, 2016.
• Nudge, Don't Thrust: The Application of Behavioral Law and Economics to America's Porn Addiction, A Harrison, Tex. Rev. L. & Pol. 19(337) (2014-2015)
• A New Classification Model for Sex Addiction, Paula Hall, Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity: The Journal of Treatment & Prevention 20(4), 2013
• The Click Trap, Gilad Visotsky, Royal College of Art (MA Dissertation), 2015

Anyway, given that the NoFap page exists already, I'm not sure why there should be so much debate about summarising it and linking to it from another related page. If it's mainstream enough for inclusion in Wikipedia, why shouldn't it be mainstream enough for cross-referencing? Arided ( talk) 15:01, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh, one other reply here: I just did the math, and if I got it right, your Merck stats say that 88.364% of the population has practised masturbation. In terms of "non-mainstream": some 11.636% of people would fall into the non-masturbator category. On this basis let's say that approximately 11% of the masturbation article should be devoted to abstinence, for whatever reason. So I'll repeat the suggestion above: Perhaps it would be better to frame it with a section "Abstaining from masturbation". This is a suggestion towards a possible consensus, namely that NoFap on its own is "fringe" but still worth mentioning in the article if it is suitably contextualised. Arided ( talk) 15:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

It is a ONEWAY issue and an article about a core encyclopedic topic ( masturbation) should not be used to highlight some ephemeral internet interest ( NoFap). Johnuniq ( talk) 04:31, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you describe NoFap as "ephemeral" -- given that it's been around since 2011 and has over 200,000 subscribers, as far as internet interests go it seems to have some staying power. It's been around as long as Snapchat for example, and the English Wikipedia has only 119,000 active editors. Even if NoFap was to disappear tomorrow, I think it would still be of historical interest. Arided ( talk) 15:31, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Rank pseudoscience has no place in the article. I said rank. Oh, and srsly? the photos can go. There are serious artistic depictions, nobody needs a photo to know what wanking looks like. Guy ( Help!) 09:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Guy, I've copied in the text under discussion to the talk page: /info/en/?search=Talk:Masturbation#The_text_we.27re_debating -- as far as I can see it doesn't make scientific or pseudoscientific aims, but attempts to describe an existing and reasonably large online community. Arided ( talk) 15:01, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Except that it isn't. It's a fringe group of no evident significance. In fact I thought it was a hoax, the "fappy the anti-masturbation dolphin" meme. Guy ( Help!) 16:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

These people know it doesn't count if they do it in the arse, don't they?. Roxy the dog. bark 16:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

It's mentioned here: /info/en/?search=Pornography_addiction#Support_groups and is included in /info/en/?search=Template:Addiction - so it seems that some Wikipedians have found it significant. It seems to be in some way significant for the 200000 subscribers on Reddit. Granted, it is less popular than /r/cats and /r/The_Donald, but that doesn't mean it's insignificant. It's more popular than /r/woodworking, /r/writing, /r/gardening, and /r/lego. For another comparison, the Masturbation article currently talks about the Sambia tribe which is presumably also a fringe group, given that their culture revolves around ritual homosexual pedophilia and that in 1989 the tribe had some 2700 members [25]. The Masturbation article also mentions the contemporary Masturbate-a-thon, though according to the main page on that topic Masturbate-a-thon 3 in 2014 was cancelled due to lack of registrations. All things considered, your dismissive and off-topic comments about a legitimate attempt to improve the article would seem to say a bit more about you than it says about the topic. Arided ( talk) 20:31, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• I've opened an RfC on this on the article talk page. FYI I came to this from a post at RFPP asking for help in stopping an edit war. So I'm wearing my admin hat and remaining strictly neutral/unINVOLVED. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 04:01, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

James H. Fetzer (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

IP edit warring removal of lead text from bio of high profile conspiracy theorist. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 15:37, 10 January 2017 (UTC)