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Another promotional fringe article. Doug Weller talk 17:40, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
A one-line sentence in the article claims that Flowers has produced a number of translations from other languages. This may be his actual claim to fame. Dimadick ( talk) 19:44, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Hello all. A while back (actually, now that I look, it was over 2 months ago!) I submitted an edit request to remove the humorism link from template: alternative medicine sidebar, which was swiftly rejected as I had not established consensus before making my request. Fair enough, that's the procedure. Now I'd like to see what the consensus actually is, and this place seems as good as any. You can still see my original request here, but it's a little overwrought, so I'll just state my thoughts plainly right here:
Of course, if everyone disagrees with me, then I won't raise a fuss about it staying, but at first glance it seems pretty out of place to me. - 165.234.252.11 ( talk) 19:59, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
Fringe novel with fringe science claims in the article. I've already deleted a quote that was very misleading (about the Maurya empire being anti-science). Doug Weller talk 11:42, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Enneagram of Personality ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
It would be appreciated to watchlist this. I added some information about the lack of validation which was unceremonious removed for lack of a page number. I put in the page number. Let's see what the next excuse is. jps ( talk) 04:12, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
I think requesting a page number is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Give the other writer a chance to provide it. However, removing a statement that is sourced to a book because it doesn't have a page number, such as what was done to me, is indicative of a different kind of cynicism that it is very hard to assume is done in good faith. jps ( talk) 13:51, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I've been asked if I know one by someone from the website Hall of Ma'at. [1] Doug Weller talk 14:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Input requested at Talk:Goop_(company)#Relevant. thx Jytdog ( talk) 23:41, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I was looking at the use in our articles [2] of New Dawn magazine [3] and came across this dreadful article. Doug Weller talk 16:00, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
"awakening of spiritual energy in the heart" What the heck does this signify? Dimadick ( talk) 19:40, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Let's see where this goes: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Victoria LePage. jps ( talk) 18:34, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
More eyes welcome to ensure that this is not fringe POV-pushing in disguise. It seems to me that it suggests that climate change and vaccines are "gateway beliefs", with consensus being "obedience", rather than acknowledgement/understanding of working science, etc. I'm still catching up with my holyday watchlist backlog and admit not having read it all yet. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate – 15:23, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Montanabw has been going against consensus on various agriculture-related articles. JackpottedPlant ( talk) 21:46, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
This fringe publishing house is cited an astonishing 148 times ( Special:Search), often for fringe promotion. Does anyone want to assist me in lowering this number? Neutrality talk 04:59, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
"A few veterinarians hold views about pet vaccines that have stirred concern among their peers. Rosemary Manziano, a homeopathic veterinarian in New Jersey, advocates that in lieu of vaccinating your dog against distemper, you can simply take your pet to the park..." [4] -- Guy Macon ( talk) 14:53, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
WCCasey ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be pushing some sort of weird pseudohistory concerning the California Republic. His most recent attempts have been on the José Castro page.
Previous discussion: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 December 27#Help me stop fake California history
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 06:04, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks to Guy Macon for finding an appropriate forum for this discussion. Yes, there are two different "California Republic" narratives. One is that an 1836 coup in Monterey succeeded in creating an independent California. Repeated edits to several pages, including Jose Castro Juan Bautista Alvarado and List of Governors of California before 1850#Sovereignty, attempt to promote this narrative, but the Alvarado-Castro coup was unsuccessful as an independence movement. California remained part of Mexico, but Alvarado became the next appointed governor. Castro also remained an important figure.
The problems with California Republic have been different, arising from occasional attempts to portray a local rebellion, a declaration, and a homemade flag as an established independent Republic. Some editors have attempted to fuse these two stories together into an independent California that lasted from 1836 until the Mexican-American War. The California Republic article is good right now (I hadn't looked in a while) - my thanks to the editors who have cleaned it up. WCCasey ( talk) 00:38, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
A bit hard to tell whether this is a notable woo idea or not. Mangoe ( talk) 15:18, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Inventor of the "Multiple Wave Oscillator" that he claimed could treat cancer. There are a number of Russian references, so fluency in Russian would be helpful. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some paid editing or socking of some sort going on as well. -- Ronz ( talk) 18:17, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
"CBC under fire for documentary that says first humans to colonize New World sailed from Europe". This discusses some of the racist users of the hypothesis. It's likely to bring new editors to the page who have little understanding of the subject or Wikipedia, plus hopefully some who do. I see the Haplogroup X argument is in the documentary, although you'd think they might have given up on that. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
See WP:RSN#Frisland reliable sources.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller ( talk • contribs)
Edzard Erns't recent piece prompted me to see whether we had a Dorn method article. We do. Oy. Alexbrn ( talk) 22:09, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
This is about [7], namely verifying the dating of the Bible to a book by Richard Carrier, who peddles the fringe Christ myth theory. We had a longer discussion about it at User talk:Tgeorgescu. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 22:35, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
In short, it is not some crazy rant, it's part of the scholarly literature in the field.You mean to say it's "...barely not some crazy rant." Carrier's views on the historicity of Jesus have moved him to the furthest fringes of scholarship, and he has a crap reputation, except with parts of the Atheist movement. And for the record: books like that are not subject to a peer-review process unless and until they are reprinted in a journal, which to my knowledge, this work has not. You keep claiming it's peer-reviewed, but his peers only reviewed it after it was published, and they did not have very good things to say about it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:58, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Portraying Carrier as 'peddling' the Christ myth theory is perjorative and inaccurateCongrats, IP: You've just eliminated any remaining vestige of credibility you once possessed. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:00, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
This whole discussion is frankly bizarre. "Fringe" applies to *ideas* not *people*, and I'm not citing Carrier for any fringe belief (like Mythicism). Consider one of the elements I cite him for: "Consensus is that Luke and Acts are written by the same author..." That's not a fringe belief at all - it's completely mainstream in NT studies. (Not unquestioned, but definitely the consensus). This whole conversation is going off the rails - it shouldn't be about whether Carrier holds any fringe beliefs, it should be about whether what he's being cited for is fringe or not, and whether the *book* (not the person) can be considered reliable for accurately summarizing the scholarship in that particular area. (Which, given the book is peer reviewed, and the material it's being cited for is purely scholarly review of the relevant facts, not original research by the author, shouldn't have any problems in being found reliable *on this limited question*). I agree, if I was trying to cite Carrier's arguments for mythicism (in a section not devoted to that), then it would qualify as fringe. But I'm not trying to do that. -- 2602:306:CFEA:E360:987C:301:C455:C8EE ( talk) 08:42, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm honestly not sure how Ehrman's book criticize's Carrier's book on dating, when it predates it by 2 yearsCarrier has been talking and writing about dating since well before he wrote that book. Again; if you're not well-versed in the issue, you're not going to get any traction here.
Please see Talk:David_Wolfe_(entrepreneur)#Scienceblogs Jytdog ( talk) 04:12, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Ryan Buell ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ryan Buell
I think more people from this board might be able to help with this difficult to decide situation. Although I !voted delete, I can see the other side, but remain unconvinced.
jps ( talk) 16:48, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
A user repeatedly added a paragraph describing the history of Ukraine in the 5th century. I reverted this couple of times as original research, and then they returned with a reference [10] (this is Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Could someone please have a look whether the edit is ok? I doubt very much Hrushevsky could know anything about the area before the 9th century, as there are no sources available, but may be we need to write "In Hrushevsky's opinion" or smth like this? Thanks.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 13:33, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
The Wikipedia published an article about Reactive multi-layer foil - /info/en/?search=Reactive_multi-layer_foil On the website of the company Indium Corporation, Dr. Andy Mackie reports about very simple extremely exothermic (heat-generating) stoichiometrically reaction
Al+2Ni -> AlNi2 http://www.indium.com/blog/nanofoilr-nanotech-comes-to-indium-corporation.php This is either a mistake or fake. Or is it real-the discovery of a new compound of Nickel with aluminium? It's necessary to supplement the chemistry textbooks and encyclopedias. Wikipedia about Nickel aluminide - /info/en/?search=Nickel_aluminide Publications about NanoFoil® technology initiated funding similar receach worldwide.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.227.70.9 ( talk) 11:01, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
And of course the Ark had a nuclear reactor, but you knew that, right? [11] Doug Weller talk 19:27, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
somewhat related Humor — Paleo Neonate – 11:15, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
Totally different subject but equally insane: a new bonkers conspiracy theory called "The Storm" [13], [14], [15], [16], [17] making the rounds of the kookosphere. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 17:40, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
"But Trump is on to all of this and he’s going to break up the pedophile ring, arrest ... wealthy members of the Illuminati"
The Illuminati went defunct in 1785. Is Trump going to exhume 18th-century human remains and arrest them? Dimadick ( talk) 09:15, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
AfD going on here. Personally I object to the relevant articles being deleted, but they need seriously cleansed of woo and possibly merged. Famousdog (woof) (grrr) 13:06, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
I just noticed a bit about someone named Brian Stubbs (although not in the text) being enhanced to include his all but dissertation work. The text is "One Mormon linguist, a specialist in the Native American Uto-Aztecan language family and graduate level studies in Near East language, has recently published works on similarities between Uto-Aztecan and Afro-Asiatic languages (specifically Egyptian and Semitic languages). [1] [2] [3] "
I have a couple of problems with this. He's got one journal article, something by "Grover Publications Provo Utah" for which I can find no details although a few other books list it, and the latest one isn't published but simply printed by a printing company. Details on the article talk page. This is all in-universe and I can't find any mainstream sources commenting on this major claim that there is serious linguistic link between Uto-Aztecan languages and Egyptian/Semitic languages. Isn't this WP:UNDUE? I haven't had the stomach yet to look at the rest of the article. Doug Weller talk 16:52, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
References
There have been previous attempts to connect language families of the Old and New World. For example the Nostratic languages hypothesis groups together the Afroasiatic languages with almost every language family in the Northern Hemisphere. The Borean languages hypothesis is even wider. Dimadick ( talk) 09:29, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
There was a brief discussion at RSN about him a while ago. [19] Use of him seems to have crept back in, or perhaps was never entirely removed. Genetics and the Book of Mormon, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Scot and Maurine Proctor, Endowment (Mormonism), Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, Mormonism and Freemasonry, Danite and Polytheism show up with a Wikipedia search, and an external links search [20] turns up others. I note that his article claims he has published in a peer reviewed journal, The Interpreter. But that states "Reviewers are generally of the LDS faith, but are not required to be. It is required that the reviewer not be hostile to LDS truth claims and that they are supportive of the Interpreter Foundation’s mission statement. Quite honestly, most reviewers are LDS simply because the majority of non-LDS scholars don’t have the source-level expertise required to provide a peer review of LDS-oriented scholarship." [21] so I'm removing it from his article. Doug Weller talk 13:49, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
This AfD of a parapsychologist may be of interest to the community here. XOR'easter ( talk) 18:42, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Do Large (Magnitude ≥8) Global Earthquakes Occur on Preferred Days of the Calendar Year or Lunar Cycle? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:29, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Input on this discussion is welcome. Thank you. Narutolovehinata5 t c csd new 13:09, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Racism is creeping back into mainstream science – we have to stop it – That's the title of an article in The Guardian today. [23] It starts with "University College London has been unwittingly hosting an annual conference attended by race scientists and eugenicists for the past few years. This might have come as a shock to many people. But it is only the latest instalment in the rise of “scientific” racism within academia." It discusses " Race realism", Mankind Quarterly, Richard Lynn, etc. Doug Weller talk 11:11, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
an article in The Guardian todayis somewhat misleading. The page in question is an opinion piece by Angela Saini in "Comment Is Free" (the user-generated-content section of the Grauniad), not an actual article by a Guardian employee. That's not to say it's necessarily wrong, but it needs to be borne in mind that Saini currently has a book to promote called What Are You? The Mad Science of Race – and Its Fatal Return and consequently an obvious vested interest in making "racism is on the rise in the sciences!!!" sound like a big deal. ‑ Iridescent 15:18, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
Suffice it to say that editors wanting to help in this area could usefully add Race and intelligence to their watchlist as a start. Alexbrn ( talk) 15:27, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
I think the point is that pseudoscientists can be found in surprising places, including legitimate scientific conferences [24], and they can have real academic qualifications [25]. This is obviously hazardous for Wikipedia's "verifiability not truth" model of epistemology. It requires a level of vigilance, and sometimes even competence, that I doubt many editors are capable of. But awareness is a useful first step. Geogene ( talk) 16:40, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
:::::::::I updated the section title, and moved the quote of the external article's title to the body of the section – didn't seem too difficult. @ Doug Weller: please get your priorities right on what "simply isn’t important enough": I followed this yesterday and can only conclude that you're in no position to lecture others on what is important and what isn't, like you did on my talk page. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 06:27, 24 January 2018 (UTC) |
There are fringe theories that relate to the topic area you care about. Someone may try to give them undue weight. Place any articles in the topic area on your watchlist.
There... now everyone is alerted to the potential danger, and they know the appropriate action to take. Perhaps we can now move on and discuss specific cases where fringe material is actually being added to articles? Blueboar ( talk) 17:21, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
In my opinion we are best served by holding in abeyance convictions about the possible distinctions between people based groupings—whether that be by race or any other criteria.Your opinion is noted and promptly discarded in favor of the scientific consensus. I never thought I'd see an established editor actively defending racism on this noticeboard, but they do say there's a first time for everything.
The top of this page says:
It does not, as is implied above, say that this page is only to discuss specific cases where fringe material is actually being added to specific articles.
ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants is being criticized when he didn't do anything wrong. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 19:55, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
I hate racism, me. - Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 14:20, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Besides the fact that most if not all of the IP edits just now need reverting, this looks as that needs a general cleanup. And can anyone remind me where it’s appropriate to use the title “Sri” and when it’s not? Doug Weller talk 08:27, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
I hope it's not too far out of context to ask editors here to check the thread at User talk:Remember the dot#hoax → sting. We're talking about the Sokal affair and List of scholarly publishing stings. Remember the dot made a few moves/redirects/edits that I questioned, even though we're in general agreement. Needs more eyes. — jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 08:42, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
Of possible interest:
Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(events)#RfC_about_a_new_sentence_in_WP:SENSATION
jps ( talk) 22:10, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
"Veterinarians successfully used alternative medical treatments such as acupuncture on three wild animals burned in the Southern California wildfires, although one patient — a 5-month-old mountain lion — did keep eating his fish-skin and corn-husk bandages, vets at the University of California, Davis said Wednesday."
"Peyton and her colleagues used some of the alternative methods she already employs with other animals, including acupuncture, chiropractic treatment, and cold-laser therapy. Many health-insurance companies consider some of the treatments experimental or unproven, and do not always cover their costs in human patients."
"Another form of treatment seemed most helpful of all for the bears, vets said. The California vets stitched the fish skins to the animals' burned paws, then wrapped the treated feet with bandages of rice paper and corn husks, after reading about trials on human burn victims in Brazil that placed treated skins from tilapia, a ubiquitous species of fish, on burn victims to soothe pain and promote healing." --Source: Bears burned in California wildfires go holistic for pain
(Wikilinks added.) -- Guy Macon ( talk) 18:26, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
"treated skins from tilapia, a ubiquitous species of fish"
Possibly an error in the source above. Tilapia is not a species. It is an entire group of species within the tribe of Tilapiine cichlid. They are wide-spread in Africa and the Middle East. Dimadick ( talk) 18:47, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
I have a proposal. If someone writes something on the Fringe theories noticeboard that you find to be objectionable, go to their talk page, explain your objection, and ask them to edit and/or strike the comment. Be open to getting a response that convinces you that your objection is invalid. Only if you cannot reach a resolution on the user's talk page should you open up a meta discussion here with the usual associated drama. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 02:12, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
There seems to be some PROFRINGE tendentious editing going on there. I am INVOLVED so my superhero tool kit is unavailable. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 01:05, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
"I've watchlisted" I have it on my watchlist for a few days, mostly because it is a British-related article which had never been tagged by any of the British-related WikiProjects. One of the problems with the article are the nature of the sources in the "Sceptical analysis" section. One of them is Ian Ridpat's personal website, the either is a podcast. It is rather unclear whether they do count as reliably-published sources. Dimadick ( talk) 19:21, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Checking my biases here. One user wants to treat NVIC as a normal nonprofit and include the mission and slogan, which are:
Obviously this is NVIC. The "informed consent" they promote is actually misinformed dissent, per multiple reliable sources, and the "choice" to endanger your children and others by wilfully refusing immunisation based on lies and misrepresentations is, as a matter of law, one which the state has every right to overrule.
That said, should we treat NVIC as a normal nonprofit and include these? Or maybe remove the infobox altogether? Guy ( Help!) 16:41, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
That said, should we treat NVIC as a normal nonprofit and include these?My gut says yes, but that the article (ABSOLUTELY INCLUDING THE LEDE) should clearly spell out the problems with this org. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:43, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
I was doing a bit of research about the following two positions, trying to determine which best describes NVIC.
The first is pure pseudoscience. The second is a legitimate but somewhat unpopular political position. Alas, some organizations that really take the first position often pretend to take the second. I believe that this describes the NVIC.
While researching this, I ran into the following two papers which may be of interest:
http://jme.bmj.com/content/44/1/37
http://jme.bmj.com/content/43/11/792
Does anyone know of a non-paywall site where I can access the tesx of these two papers? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 16:42, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
In some cases, it is unclear what the "fringe theory" is. Apparently this organization was formed with the idea that "whole cell pertussis" vaccines had significant medical side-effects. While this is apparently not true, the method has been abandoned in the United States in favor of "acellular pertussis vaccines".
Also in the case of pertussis vaccines in general, the effectiveness of the vaccination is questionable. The illness is having a 21st-century resurgence, in part because old vaccines no longer have the desired effects: "The 21st-century resurgences in pertussis infections are attributed to a combination of waning immunity and bacterial mutations that elude vaccines. ... Immunization does not confer lifelong immunity; a 2011 CDC study indicated that protection may only last three to six years. " Dimadick ( talk) 20:17, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
The article Rendlesham Forest incident is extensively, but UFO's or contact with extraterrestrial beings is still unproven. Thus, such an article serves mere speculation, and should be deleted. prokaryotes ( talk) 19:15, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Just curious for you guys, but how do you think my David Meade article looks? I think it meets C-class but I just would like to know what you think about the article. -- LovelyGirl7 talk 16:38, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
This is better than C-class. I've bumped it to B-class. C-class articles are much worse than this, typically. jps ( talk) 15:08, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
I made a peer review for my David Meade article here. If anyone wants to give feedback on that page your welcome to do so. -- LovelyGirl7 talk 20:07, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Conception chart. XOR'easter ( talk) 22:07, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
A post at the "Wikipedia We Have A Problem" blog (I'd link it but naturally it is blacklisted) is soliciting readers to go edit two articles that have figured in past fringe-related edit wars and attempt to relitigate past battles on the talk page. The first request is to go to Rupert Sheldrake and ask about the word biologist in the first sentence (despite the fact that it is already right there in the second sentence). The second request is to go to Deepak Chopra and ask about "why he isn't listed as an MD", again despite the fact that this is right there in the second paragraph. If you are not familiar, this blog is written by someone who has been the subject of several bans and sock puppet investigations, specifically regarding activity on those two articles. Also attn Roxy the dog you are mentioned by name in the article (as am I). -- Krelnik ( talk) 20:58, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
Are either Sheldrake or Chopra still active in the field? The article on Sheldrake dates his last employment as a biologist to the 1970s, and the one on Chopra his last employment as a a medical doctor to the 1980s. Both men are in their 70s. Dimadick ( talk) 19:01, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
I suppose that "why is there inertia?" is a legitimate question that one could write about from a philosophy-of-physics perspective ( Mach's principle and all), but when an editor puts Harold E. Puthoff, Bernard Haisch and James F. Woodward on a level with Mach, Feynman and Einstein, and when their references include a blog post about a magical space drive, and when they persistently fail to get why Wikipedia needs secondary sources... it doesn't go well. I'm stepping away for a bit to attend to the day job and to avoid becoming needlessly antagonistic. XOR'easter ( talk) 16:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Recently expanded, apparently from at least one editor with a coi, from what was previously a stub. Looks too much like so many other poor alt-med bios:
After being sick for years with health problems from allergies to more severe respiratory problems and taking various medications, she realized that sugar addiction was at the root cause of her symptoms.
Drawing on childhood experiences, she wrote her dissertation titled “An Alternative to the Germ Theory”, and in the 1970s she started lecturing on the dangers of sugar and the role diet plays in a person’s health.
Suicide by Sugar - published in 2009, links over 140 health symptoms to sugar consumption, with the bulk of its research coming directly from medical journals.
Lots of puffery and advertising too, but I thought the alt-med claims should be reviewed. -- Ronz ( talk) 00:27, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There is bias by skeptics on parapsychology articles. Wikipedia and Wikiversity have both deleted positive evidence for the paranormal. Wikipedia have attacked many parapsychologists that include everybody from
J. B. Rhine,
Dean Radin (in spite of the support given him by the Nobel laureate Brian Josephson) to people in the 1800s like FWH Myers (in spite of their importance in early psychology, which can be well documented). I decided to, on the behalf of living and deceased researchers and due to the importance of the subject if not obfuscated, take upon the task of accumulating information giving their side of the story since the beginnings of research in this field.
I have set the record strait on a new wiki.
[31],
[32] and at archive
[33]. There is a tendency to suppress this information on Wikipedia but it will never be deleted.
Defending Rhine (
talk) 14:43, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
I just happened to see the Robert Vancina ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article which has been edited by a COI account. The article itself was created by an account which appears to be a paid editor. On top of the unreliable sources, advert issues etc., the article uses sources that promote cold fusion (see this source) and the subject of the article appears to be researching LENR. Can any of the regulars of this noticeboard please check this BLP? Thank you. Dr. K. 04:46, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
Editor Trutheyeness recently added rebuttals (somewhat repetitive rebuttals) to the various skeptical criticisms of Stevenson's work on the Reincarnation page. At Ian Stevenson, it looks like the WP stance is that this was fringe research. The whole addition feels like a mess to me, but I don't want to edit based on feelings. Anyone else have a stronger constitution for dealing with it? — jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 07:13, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
The Book of Psalms was written by human beings. None of these people wrote after death, yet a claim to that effect -- Based on King David's death in 837 BCE, all of the psalms had to have been written by then. -- was reverted as being unsourced.
I did have a source, www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/48936837.html (title=History of King David), which says "King David is one of the most important figures in Jewish history. Born in 907 BCE, he reigns as king of Israel for 40 years, dying at age 70 in 837 BCE."
A second attempt, with more source material and also details in the TALK page, was reverted as WP:OR (as if Wiki's policy of allowing common sense, e.g. the dead don't compose, isn't enough).
When I rewrote the sentence as "King David's writing was accomplished before the end of 837 BCE." (with sourcing) it was reverted as FRINGE. It is not FRINGE - it is basic material taught (even) in "Modern" Orthodox schools.
Start with the year of the first temple's destruction. Subtract how many years it stood. It wasn't built by King Solomon right away, after King David's passing. Convert the date from since-creation to common era, and we're done: 3338 = destruction, stood = 410 years, 3338 minus 410 = 2928.
3760 is the factor for AM to BCE: 2928 minus 3760 = -832, meaning 832 bce (Before Common Era).
Since King Solomon didn't complete it the same year (832 bce), "837 BCE" (from the AISH.com source, and others) is consistant with the cited sources.
I added a subsection named "Jewish calculations" the first 2 times and then tried "Jewish viewpoint."
Those who don't accept these teachings have their right to believe what they want, but to label a part of the Jewish belief system as FRINGE is a violation of NPOV and also of the fact that the article DOES have separate labels elsewhere for different religions, on a different subtopic.
Pi314m (
talk) 10:31, 6 February 2018
Direct attribution of all the Psalms to David is eye-rollingly problematic at best (and definitely fringe). Report on the traditional attribution, sure, but don't go beyond that. jps ( talk) 15:35, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
This article, on a creature from Maori mythology, cites a Blogspot 'essay' as a source. [34] Which in of itself would fail to pass WP:RS. Even worse, this ridiculous essay claims that "taniwha are not just mythological beings without any basis in reality, but that they are based on real dinosaur sightings", based on pseudoscientific creationist drivel. Clearly none of this belongs in the article. but rather than deleting it, it would probably be worth trying to find some better sources. Māori mythology is a subject deserving of proper scholarly coverage, and I am quite sure that such material can be found to support the article, without it being used as a platform for halfwitted hogwash imported from elsewhere. 86.130.97.5 ( talk) 10:51, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
Kensington Runestone history and Johan Andreas Holvik history. And a little comment at my talk after I reverted their unsourced additions. Could probably use some extra eyes. He iro 19:11, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
Emil Kirkegaard's article was recently created. There has been some controversy recently about him in a number of newspapers for his advocacy of child rape and Nazi views. On his personal twitter he seems to have posted a comment recently telling his friends to delete sources on his article. It be best if there were some eyes on the article. As this guy is currently in the news, it may be a magnet for edit-warring or meat-puppetry. Rebecca Bird ( talk) 20:23, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
The discussion is at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 February 3. — Paleo Neonate – 18:45, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
IP edit warring. Adding unsourced claim that Gobekli Tepe shows that the Sphinx could be 10000 years old. [36] They insist that Hawass and others were claiming that there is no sign of any civilization before Egyp, whole obviously they aren't. Doug Weller talk 21:22, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
See Talk:Power factor#Greater than -1. This particular editor has been pushing his crackpot theory for years. It's a shame, really, because he does good work when he gets away from his hobbyhorse. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:30, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
We have a new SAQ-article, and per COI-statement [37] it´s written by the originator of the idea. Eyes and edits could be useful. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 13:19, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Errm, so does all this stuff:
Hang off William 'Bill' Corbett's self-published book, which Wikipedia is effectively being used to publicise? Alexbrn ( talk) 14:02, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Jean-Pierre Petit ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
French astrophysicist/cosmologist with a section of fringe and conspiracy views that are not explicitly identified as fringe or conspiracy. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 14:55, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Theories-Secret-Societies-Dummies/dp/0470184086/ -- Guy Macon ( talk) 17:04, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Don't know how this got on my watchlist, but I think it needs a fringe veteran's eye. - Roxy, the dog. barcus 22:01, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
https://www.sfgate.com/weird/article/NASA-No-we-don-t-have-child-slave-colonies-on-11259620.php -- Guy Macon ( talk) 04:27, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
Robert David Steele ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Whaddya think? BLP notable? jps ( talk) 20:44, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert David Steele (2nd nomination). jps ( talk) 16:18, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
A new editor has made a major change to Drake's Plate of Brass and included an odd image of supposed "silversmithing tools" used to make the plate. Their edit summary was "This is a major change. The truth about Drake's, Plate of Brass is now being shown, I will complete my edit tomorrow". More images can be seen at Image sets from Wiki Science Competition 2017 in the United States. I'm concerned this is fringe material.-- Auric talk 13:50, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
This time the usual attempts to cast doubt on the circumstances of her death are popping up on List of unsolved deaths. I have removed the entry and there is an ongoing discussion at the article talk page here. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 20:39, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
An RfC relevant to this project has been opened at:
Interested editors are invited to participate. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 01:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
nothing stopping you from posting notifications on the "WP:NPOVN or WP:VP" talk pages, or anywhere else for that matter, to involve as much of the community as possible. I assume various noticeboards qualify as "as much community as possible". -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 02:46, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
Just noticed this. I have no idea if he is or isn't. Doug Weller talk 21:22, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
An SPA keeps adding Dorothy Kilgallen to the List of unsolved deaths, even though their own unsourced edits show that a modern re-examination affirmed the original conclusion that there was "no evidence of murder". [41] [42] [43] Various JFK assassination conspiracy theorists have threied to claim that Kilgallen's death was suspicious, and this appears to be another attempt. Edward321 ( talk) 01:35, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
"Various JFK assassination conspiracy theorists have threied to claim that Kilgallen's death was suspicious"
I have across a few conspiracy theories concerning Kilgallen myself, but the ones I am familiar with do not include JFK. They find it peculiar that she reportedly had a "blood alcohol level of 0.15" (see: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/death4.htm), but that she was still able to read in bed. "Miss Kilgallen died in her sleep. She was found by a maid and a hairdresser who came to the home to keep a 12:15 p.m. appointment. Alongside her bed was a book which she apparently had been reading before falling asleep."
The ones favouring Kilgallen's death as a suicide, claim that she was affected by her husband Richard Kollmar's financial situation. Kollmar used to be a notable actor and to own a supper club. By the time of Kilgallen's death, his acting career had ended, his club had closed, and he was unemployed. Dorothy was the only one still earning an income. Dimadick ( talk) 16:08, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
See here. Probably mostly ok, but not all. Doug Weller talk 15:06, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
This page has been discussed here before so I bring to your attention:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suzanne Olsson (3rd nomination)
This AfD appears to have arisen out of a complaint to BLPN ( [44]) that is typical of the demands made previously by her socks and proxies, though the specific issue raised in the nom is WP:BLP1E. Agricolae ( talk) 00:01, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
The article David Meade (author) is currently a GA article nominee and I’m ready for it to be reviewed. If anybody would like to review it, feel free to do so. — LovelyGirl7 talk 14:19, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Flatwoods monster ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
The sources look truly terrible. I clicked on one citation called "various newspapers" and found jpg's of sensational headlines (colored bright red) framed by a quote disparaging skepticism and encouraging belief. The rest of the sources seem to be UFO sites and Fortean books. There is a sort of ghettoized criticism section cited to single article by CSICOP. The topic itself is notable, but I'm having a hard time coming up with WP:FRIND sources that might help fix it. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 16:13, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
"a trashy new movie" According to the link provided, it is just a documentary film by Small Town Monsters, a production company that reportedly focuses on "small town folklore" for its documentary films. It seems unlikely to generate much publicity. Dimadick ( talk) 15:35, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
Oh man, I remember hearing about this thing growing up. Yes, it's a local legend, like the Mothman, Jersey Devil or Kelly-Hopkinsville aliens, covered in cryptozoology & UFO related matters. But it's been around enough to be covered by the West Virginia Division of Culture & History. If I can free up some time, I may try to find more reliable sources for it. — The Hand That Feeds You: Bite 14:36, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
I have opened an RfC on Talk:Faith healing#RfC about inserting content and category about pseudoscience. Feel free to share your views. Raymond3023 ( talk) 18:29, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Square of Nine may be notable woo; other articles on its inventor and his other notions may need checking. I'm dubious that we need to say that using astrology to time your investing is questionable. Mangoe ( talk) 22:32, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
FrancisGrant ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - I find these edits troubling, but is it just me being paranoid? Guy ( Help!) 13:54, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
93.230.59.192 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
This guy is using a reference that doesn't even cite a single conducted study to support his claim that antipsychotics (and he wrote this on the atypical antipsychotics page, which is a class of antipsychotics that improve both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia) do not improve schizophrenia in the long term, despite an overwhelming weight of evidence to the contrary. I added some references to the article section in question to that effect. He re-added his edit claim despite my removing it with the evidence I collected and presented. His reference talks about some critical review, with no link or information on it, having been conducted that schizophrenia patients should not be maintained on antipsychotics, though it's easy to find a multitude of references reporting, sometimes severe, patient decompensation when antipsychotic dosage is reduced or abruptly discontinued. Maybe a warning for unconstructive editing is due? Reixus [Talk] [Contribs] 10:00, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
I have doggy biscuits with which to celebrate. - Roxy, the dog. barcus 13:29, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/03/06/conspiracy-theorists-arrested-harassing-sutherland-springs-pastor/ -- Guy Macon ( talk) 18:39, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
The pair have spent months stalking families of victims and their communities in a failed attempt to prove the November 2017 mass shooting in Texas was a "false flag."7&6=thirteen ( ☎) 21:37, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius. XOR'easter ( talk) 19:29, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
On this article is a section about race and penis size. A user repeatedly is trying to blank content. He claims "There is no need to specify one race over others." Which is not quite accurate. The paper in question is a paper from the British Journal of Urology that reported that "there is no scientific background to support the alleged ‘oversized’ penis in black people". (Mondaini, Nicola; Gontero, Paolo (2007). "Idiopathic short penis: myth or reality?". British Journal of Urology. 95 (1): 8–9.) - I see no reason why this paper should be removed. Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 07:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
{{
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help); Unknown parameter |editors=
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suggested) (
help)Doesn't belong here.
Article states:
Fringe theory
Larger junk
full of bunk.
That's what I thunk.
7&6=thirteen (
☎) 20:15, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
A couple single-purpose accounts at
Na+/K+-ATPase are adding material along the lines of Some individuals dispute the proposed function of the sodium-potassium pump, based on both experimental and theoretical studies in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics
, which appears innocuous enough but is a pretty extreme fringe claim. Is this worth keeping? -
165.234.252.11 (
talk) 18:32, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
DOUBTS ABOUT THE SODIUM-POTASSIUM PUMPARE NOT PERMISSIBLE IN MODERN BIOSCIENCEbecause of what is said in the last point of WP:REDFLAG. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 19:07, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
From the lead: "Stephen G. Bassett is the first extraterrestrial life (ET), disclosure (ufology) lobbyist in the United States, executive director and treasurer of the political action committee Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee and executive director[1] of Paradigm Research Group (PRG)[2] that says it wants end to end the governments imposed truth embargo regarding the facts of extraterrestrials engaging the human race." Doug Weller talk 19:23, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Not sure what to make of THIS, and this yet, but it appears the person accusing him of fraud Eberhard Zangger has some issues of his own. But if accurate will have to be addressed at the Çatalhöyük and James Mellaart articles at some point. And this article from a few years ago seems to support something, although I am not sure what. He iro 07:37, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
At Talk:Andrew Wakefield. - Roxy, the dog. barcus 09:48, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Here we go again. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 15:45, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
{{
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help); Unknown parameter |editors=
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help)Matters have now turned to trying to characterize it as "alternative medicine" in the first sentence. That would be news to the vast majority of Christendom. Mangoe ( talk) 17:36, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
{{
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help)Alexbrn ( talk) 18:25, 12 March 2018 (UTC)A form of alternative or unvonventional medicine that functions on the belief that illness can be arrested and even cured by faith alone, such as by prayer or the intercession of a supernatural power.
Yeah, but I think that in most forms of contemporary practice it is done as a religious practice. You no longer go down to your local Christian Science Reading Room and ask them to take care of your miasmas, as was the case in Twain's time. jps ( talk) 18:36, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
As I've been reading a lot on this subject over the last two days, I've come to realize that there are aspects of "faith healing" which land firmly in the alternative medicine camp [54]. I guess this shouldn't have surprised me. Is it lede-worthy? Hard to say. Ugh. jps ( talk) 18:50, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
This article seems to be grossly imbalanced; it lends far more credence to the fringe theory that there's a concrete correlation between race and intelligence than RSes do. I'm not the only one to notice this: The SPLC explicitly calls it out in a new article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:58, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I had to "sign up" (6 free articles per month, they say) to read this article, but it was worth it. [55].
"And it’s not just science and evolution that have been made kosher. Even generic, otherwise uncontroversial articles are required to become “modest” – an ultra-Orthodox euphemism for a prohibition on any images of women. Thus, for example, the entry about the current Israeli government, which includes ultra-Orthodox parties, has all the female ministers cropped out – a warped perspective eerily evident in the doctored image." Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 08:55, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Clairvoyance ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Recent work by
GoatGod in the
Clairvoyance article has used a Huffington post editorial - that includes the question Why is the existing literature on psi phenomena routinely dismissed by the scientific community and virtually ignored within the broader academic community?
- to completely overturn the sense of the article so that clairvoyance now has scientific support. A skeptical reference has been discarded (though not all uses of it were removed) as biased. Anyone want to engage on this?
— jmcgnh
(talk)
(contribs) 21:08, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
I found this over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Skepticism. YouTube will be inserting links to WP into conspiracy theory videos in an effort to debunk them. So prepare for a flood of True Believers. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:25, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
O Govinda is a Hare Krishna editor who is obviously a believer in reincarnation. He has done mass edits on Ian Stevenson's page. His source is mostly James Matlock a parapsychologist. Does not look like a reliable source. I reverted some of his material but the Stevenson article is rife with fringe sources. Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 05:21, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Article has been dominated by a user Josezetabal who is a believer in the paranormal interpretation of NDEs. This user does not like naturalistic neuroscientific explanations for the NDE and prefers the research of Bruce Greyson or Sam Parnia. This user has added 'limitation' sections for every neuroscientific or psychology theory for the NDE. I have not seen this on any other articles. Now POV editing the lead, for example "However, this model lacks robust data", "their model remains speculative due to the lack of data" etc inserted right into the direct lead. The article now reads stupid. Not interested in engaging this individual but someone else may want to revert the lead to how it was before the fringe edits. Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 23:21, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Deletion discussion underway concerning this miracle material. Survival seems likely; hoaxiness of material seems equally likely, so may need some of our loving care. Mangoe ( talk) 13:54, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Quantum neuron recoding GMG talk 17:32, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Could use additional opinions at the Ark Encounter talk page. Regards the conditions for when the term pseudoscience is used and the sourcing required. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:35, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
It's good to have a record here. This is as good a place as any. jps ( talk) 18:19, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Note this nonsense. Yeah, it's good to keep the pseudoscience POV-pushers in check, I guess. jps ( talk) 17:16, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Bill Nye really gets their goat, apparently. jps ( talk) 17:25, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
A few pages kinda come a bit close to treating some South African farm attacks as evidence for the White genocide conspiracy theory. A South African far-right survivalist group seems to be tying the two together. The Peter Dutton almost treats them as mainstream.
Not to pretend that nothing's going on there, but at the very least, those pages in question seem to be treating the subject a little too simply, in a way that could be interpreted as giving credence to a white supremacist conspiracy theory. Ian.thomson ( talk) 06:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
This might be a thing to look at. I'm not really good at deciding whether I should revert and face 3RR, but I do see the contribs by a few IP editors aren't supported by sources. Things are calm at the article right now, but you might want to keep an eye on it. byteflush Talk 06:31, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reality Sandwich
Please comment.
jps ( talk) 19:21, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, numerous newspapers and websites (some more serious than others) published opinion pieces claiming (based largely on the journalist Said K. Aburish's 2000 book Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge) that the CIA had aided the 1963 coup that overthrew Abd al-Karim Qasim and first brought Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party to power. Chief among these was "A Tyrant Forty Years in the Making," which appeared—clearly labelled "opinion"—in The New York Times on March 14, 2003 (only days before the invasion). These claims have been largely ignored since that time, but several academics have scrutinized them and concluded that they are unsupported by evidence. These include the following:
Declassified U.S. government documents offer no evidence to support these suggestions.
However, a careful examination of a wide range of documents and interviews raises important questions about the veracity of these claims as to whether the CIA was behind the 1963 B'athist coup. ... In sum, barring the release of new information, the preponderance of evidence substantiates the conclusion that the CIA was not behind the February 1963 B'athist coup.( Salim Yaqub cites Gibson as
"the most detailed and comprehensive study to date of U.S.–Iraqi relations from the late 1950s to the 1970s".)
Although the United States did not initiate the 14 Ramadan coup, at best it condoned and at worst it contributed to the violence that followed.(emphasis added)
Aburish was not a historian, but a journalist that relied on anonymous "contacts in the Arab world." This has led scholars to avoid relying on his work. For example,
Wolfe-Hunnicutt (Stanford, 2011, pp 27–28) cautions: "The most sensational claims have been based largely on the work of journalist Said Aburish. In his book, Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge Aburish claims that the 1963 coup 'represented one of the most elaborate CIA operations in the history of the Middle East' (55–56). His account furnishes a great deal of detail, but very little documentation as it based largely on interviews with former Ba'thists."
Aburish's Nasser: The Last Arab (2004) was similarly
savaged in the
International Journal of Middle East Studies: "Methodologically, the most serious flaw in the book is the (mis)use of sources. Aburish has ignored new sources on Nasser and Nasserism based on declassified archival material that has been published in revent years ... Instead, Aburish has relied on old, well-known biographies and outdated studies as well as several biased interviews, which he accepts at a face value."
Yet
NYCJosh is now spamming
this garbage into several articles:
CIA activities in Iraq,
United States involvement in regime change, and
Ramadan Revolution. He appears to be completely unaware of the academic debate on this topic over the past decade. One of his sources—
an "Exclusive" April 10, 2003 UPI report by Richard Sale making the related claim that the famous 1959 assassination attempt on Qasim involving Saddam—which was endlessly restaged on Iraqi television for decades under Saddam's rule—was somehow supported by the CIA was never corroborated, was ignored by every other media outlet, and has been universally dismissed by all other sources—including Aburish! (The claim is based entirely on the fact that Egypt provided sanctuary to Saddam after the attempt failed, which could indicate the culpability of Egyptian intelligence in the attack, and warming relations between the U.S. and Egypt at the time—which of course must mean that the U.S. was involved, too—along with Sale's "anonymous sources", speaking in 2003.) Wolfe-Hunnicutt 2011 dismisses Sale in a footnote on p. 42, but it is again Gibson 2015 (pp. 25–26) that provides the most thorough debunking: "The body of evidence available does not suggest that the United States was directly complicit in the attempted assassination ... Indeed, documents from the period leading up to the attempt all suggest that, while the United States was aware of several plots against Qasim, it had still adhered to its nonintervention policy."
NYCJosh appears to believe that Wikipedia's only sourcing policy is WP:V. He does not seem to understand that opinion pieces cannot be used for statements of fact in Wikipedia's voice. There is not a single reliable source for these claims in any of his edits, whereas he has previously been cautioned by other editors (e.g., Snooganssnoogans here) for actively removing academic sources that contradict his views (also in the area of U.S.–Iraq relations). Are not academic historians more reliable than opinion columnists? Given the available scholarship, could NYCJosh's additions be any more WP:FRINGE?
It seems to me that it would reflect very badly on Wikipedia if the lack of expertise among Wikipedia editors allows FRINGE garbage like this to proliferate. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 21:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
It is his favored opinion which is the minority view, not NYCJosh's. He is clearly aware of this since this he quotes from precisely the same page, page xvii, in Gibson that I am quoting from. - GPRamirez5 ( talk) 23:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
References
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References
Is it just me, or does Hyperdiffusionism in archaeology ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) give undue importance to a crank theory in the lead? Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 16:24, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Hyperdiffusionism in general is a fringe theory. It traces cultural developments across the planet to a single, "superior" civilization of the past. (With supporters arguing as to which one it is.) It rejects the idea that two or more cultures may have independently developed similar writing methods, technology, or architecture. And opposes the idea that Trans-cultural diffusion may involve changes in any of the cultures involved in it. Dimadick ( talk) 16:50, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
It definitely doesn't give due importance to consistent use of grammatical singular-vs-plural tense: "Hyperdiffusionism are hypotheses . . .". Seriously, though, at a minimum the lead needs to include the fact that it does not represent mainstream scholarly consensus in most cases, and that there is significant criticism of both the historical and cultural implications of this line of 'reasoning'. Agricolae ( talk) 17:59, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Universal Medicine ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) There's a number of new IP editors adding information to this article that are not paying attention to reliable sourcing. I've reverted some already, but some oversight from more experienced eyes than mine would be appreciated. 79616gr ( talk) 20:40, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dewey Bernard Larson.
jps ( talk) 23:43, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Draft:Remote Neural Monitoring ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Conspiracy claim of mind control supported by WP:OR will never qualify to be used in article space. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 02:36, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
https://boingboing.net/2018/03/25/flat-earth-preaching-rocketeer.html
"You likely read about "Mad" Mike Hughes in the news last year – you know, when you weren't busy stockpiling canned goods and potassium Iodide tablets to help deal with the existential dread that's currently gripping the planet. Hughes is the flat-earth loving, paradoxical science-hating DIY rocket designer who stated that he'd blast himself into the sky in a steam-powered, homemade rocket to prove that the earth isn't round..."
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 05:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Read all about it at Mike Hughes.-- Auric talk 20:19, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael E. Zimmerman.
Please comment. jps ( talk) 23:50, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
IP editwarring at Iolo Morganwg ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to make it state his works weren't forgeries and that the Coelbren alphabet is genuine. Doug Weller talk 09:22, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Imagine the following situation:
Would it be OK to add text to Politician A's article that says "Politician A falsely claimed that Barack Obama was born in Kenya"? Or would this be considered WP:SYNTHESIS? Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 02:03, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
WP:ASSERT. Barack Obama was not born in Kenya. If someone is quoted as saying that, it is okay to state in Wikipedia's voice that Barack Obama was not born in Kenya. How you go about doing that is an editorial decision, but as along as we don't mislead the reader, there is no problem. jps ( talk) 17:23, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Proposed Shroud of Turin topic ban for Pernimius -- Guy Macon ( talk) 12:32, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Could use some help from editors experience with FRINGE matters.
An editor want to remove https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4540 as a reference completely, and after being pointed to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_112#skeptoid.com the editor states, "no consensus was reached to allow an exception to the general policy that blogs are not reliable sources".
The PARITY elements from the lede have been substantially reduced [57]. -- Ronz ( talk) 03:31, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
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Another promotional fringe article. Doug Weller talk 17:40, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
A one-line sentence in the article claims that Flowers has produced a number of translations from other languages. This may be his actual claim to fame. Dimadick ( talk) 19:44, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Hello all. A while back (actually, now that I look, it was over 2 months ago!) I submitted an edit request to remove the humorism link from template: alternative medicine sidebar, which was swiftly rejected as I had not established consensus before making my request. Fair enough, that's the procedure. Now I'd like to see what the consensus actually is, and this place seems as good as any. You can still see my original request here, but it's a little overwrought, so I'll just state my thoughts plainly right here:
Of course, if everyone disagrees with me, then I won't raise a fuss about it staying, but at first glance it seems pretty out of place to me. - 165.234.252.11 ( talk) 19:59, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
Fringe novel with fringe science claims in the article. I've already deleted a quote that was very misleading (about the Maurya empire being anti-science). Doug Weller talk 11:42, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Enneagram of Personality ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
It would be appreciated to watchlist this. I added some information about the lack of validation which was unceremonious removed for lack of a page number. I put in the page number. Let's see what the next excuse is. jps ( talk) 04:12, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
I think requesting a page number is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Give the other writer a chance to provide it. However, removing a statement that is sourced to a book because it doesn't have a page number, such as what was done to me, is indicative of a different kind of cynicism that it is very hard to assume is done in good faith. jps ( talk) 13:51, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I've been asked if I know one by someone from the website Hall of Ma'at. [1] Doug Weller talk 14:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Input requested at Talk:Goop_(company)#Relevant. thx Jytdog ( talk) 23:41, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I was looking at the use in our articles [2] of New Dawn magazine [3] and came across this dreadful article. Doug Weller talk 16:00, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
"awakening of spiritual energy in the heart" What the heck does this signify? Dimadick ( talk) 19:40, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Let's see where this goes: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Victoria LePage. jps ( talk) 18:34, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
More eyes welcome to ensure that this is not fringe POV-pushing in disguise. It seems to me that it suggests that climate change and vaccines are "gateway beliefs", with consensus being "obedience", rather than acknowledgement/understanding of working science, etc. I'm still catching up with my holyday watchlist backlog and admit not having read it all yet. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate – 15:23, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Montanabw has been going against consensus on various agriculture-related articles. JackpottedPlant ( talk) 21:46, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
This fringe publishing house is cited an astonishing 148 times ( Special:Search), often for fringe promotion. Does anyone want to assist me in lowering this number? Neutrality talk 04:59, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
"A few veterinarians hold views about pet vaccines that have stirred concern among their peers. Rosemary Manziano, a homeopathic veterinarian in New Jersey, advocates that in lieu of vaccinating your dog against distemper, you can simply take your pet to the park..." [4] -- Guy Macon ( talk) 14:53, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
WCCasey ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be pushing some sort of weird pseudohistory concerning the California Republic. His most recent attempts have been on the José Castro page.
Previous discussion: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 December 27#Help me stop fake California history
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 06:04, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks to Guy Macon for finding an appropriate forum for this discussion. Yes, there are two different "California Republic" narratives. One is that an 1836 coup in Monterey succeeded in creating an independent California. Repeated edits to several pages, including Jose Castro Juan Bautista Alvarado and List of Governors of California before 1850#Sovereignty, attempt to promote this narrative, but the Alvarado-Castro coup was unsuccessful as an independence movement. California remained part of Mexico, but Alvarado became the next appointed governor. Castro also remained an important figure.
The problems with California Republic have been different, arising from occasional attempts to portray a local rebellion, a declaration, and a homemade flag as an established independent Republic. Some editors have attempted to fuse these two stories together into an independent California that lasted from 1836 until the Mexican-American War. The California Republic article is good right now (I hadn't looked in a while) - my thanks to the editors who have cleaned it up. WCCasey ( talk) 00:38, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
A bit hard to tell whether this is a notable woo idea or not. Mangoe ( talk) 15:18, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Inventor of the "Multiple Wave Oscillator" that he claimed could treat cancer. There are a number of Russian references, so fluency in Russian would be helpful. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some paid editing or socking of some sort going on as well. -- Ronz ( talk) 18:17, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
"CBC under fire for documentary that says first humans to colonize New World sailed from Europe". This discusses some of the racist users of the hypothesis. It's likely to bring new editors to the page who have little understanding of the subject or Wikipedia, plus hopefully some who do. I see the Haplogroup X argument is in the documentary, although you'd think they might have given up on that. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
See WP:RSN#Frisland reliable sources.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller ( talk • contribs)
Edzard Erns't recent piece prompted me to see whether we had a Dorn method article. We do. Oy. Alexbrn ( talk) 22:09, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
This is about [7], namely verifying the dating of the Bible to a book by Richard Carrier, who peddles the fringe Christ myth theory. We had a longer discussion about it at User talk:Tgeorgescu. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 22:35, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
In short, it is not some crazy rant, it's part of the scholarly literature in the field.You mean to say it's "...barely not some crazy rant." Carrier's views on the historicity of Jesus have moved him to the furthest fringes of scholarship, and he has a crap reputation, except with parts of the Atheist movement. And for the record: books like that are not subject to a peer-review process unless and until they are reprinted in a journal, which to my knowledge, this work has not. You keep claiming it's peer-reviewed, but his peers only reviewed it after it was published, and they did not have very good things to say about it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:58, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Portraying Carrier as 'peddling' the Christ myth theory is perjorative and inaccurateCongrats, IP: You've just eliminated any remaining vestige of credibility you once possessed. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:00, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
This whole discussion is frankly bizarre. "Fringe" applies to *ideas* not *people*, and I'm not citing Carrier for any fringe belief (like Mythicism). Consider one of the elements I cite him for: "Consensus is that Luke and Acts are written by the same author..." That's not a fringe belief at all - it's completely mainstream in NT studies. (Not unquestioned, but definitely the consensus). This whole conversation is going off the rails - it shouldn't be about whether Carrier holds any fringe beliefs, it should be about whether what he's being cited for is fringe or not, and whether the *book* (not the person) can be considered reliable for accurately summarizing the scholarship in that particular area. (Which, given the book is peer reviewed, and the material it's being cited for is purely scholarly review of the relevant facts, not original research by the author, shouldn't have any problems in being found reliable *on this limited question*). I agree, if I was trying to cite Carrier's arguments for mythicism (in a section not devoted to that), then it would qualify as fringe. But I'm not trying to do that. -- 2602:306:CFEA:E360:987C:301:C455:C8EE ( talk) 08:42, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm honestly not sure how Ehrman's book criticize's Carrier's book on dating, when it predates it by 2 yearsCarrier has been talking and writing about dating since well before he wrote that book. Again; if you're not well-versed in the issue, you're not going to get any traction here.
Please see Talk:David_Wolfe_(entrepreneur)#Scienceblogs Jytdog ( talk) 04:12, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Ryan Buell ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ryan Buell
I think more people from this board might be able to help with this difficult to decide situation. Although I !voted delete, I can see the other side, but remain unconvinced.
jps ( talk) 16:48, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
A user repeatedly added a paragraph describing the history of Ukraine in the 5th century. I reverted this couple of times as original research, and then they returned with a reference [10] (this is Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Could someone please have a look whether the edit is ok? I doubt very much Hrushevsky could know anything about the area before the 9th century, as there are no sources available, but may be we need to write "In Hrushevsky's opinion" or smth like this? Thanks.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 13:33, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
The Wikipedia published an article about Reactive multi-layer foil - /info/en/?search=Reactive_multi-layer_foil On the website of the company Indium Corporation, Dr. Andy Mackie reports about very simple extremely exothermic (heat-generating) stoichiometrically reaction
Al+2Ni -> AlNi2 http://www.indium.com/blog/nanofoilr-nanotech-comes-to-indium-corporation.php This is either a mistake or fake. Or is it real-the discovery of a new compound of Nickel with aluminium? It's necessary to supplement the chemistry textbooks and encyclopedias. Wikipedia about Nickel aluminide - /info/en/?search=Nickel_aluminide Publications about NanoFoil® technology initiated funding similar receach worldwide.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.227.70.9 ( talk) 11:01, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
And of course the Ark had a nuclear reactor, but you knew that, right? [11] Doug Weller talk 19:27, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
somewhat related Humor — Paleo Neonate – 11:15, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
Totally different subject but equally insane: a new bonkers conspiracy theory called "The Storm" [13], [14], [15], [16], [17] making the rounds of the kookosphere. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 17:40, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
"But Trump is on to all of this and he’s going to break up the pedophile ring, arrest ... wealthy members of the Illuminati"
The Illuminati went defunct in 1785. Is Trump going to exhume 18th-century human remains and arrest them? Dimadick ( talk) 09:15, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
AfD going on here. Personally I object to the relevant articles being deleted, but they need seriously cleansed of woo and possibly merged. Famousdog (woof) (grrr) 13:06, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
I just noticed a bit about someone named Brian Stubbs (although not in the text) being enhanced to include his all but dissertation work. The text is "One Mormon linguist, a specialist in the Native American Uto-Aztecan language family and graduate level studies in Near East language, has recently published works on similarities between Uto-Aztecan and Afro-Asiatic languages (specifically Egyptian and Semitic languages). [1] [2] [3] "
I have a couple of problems with this. He's got one journal article, something by "Grover Publications Provo Utah" for which I can find no details although a few other books list it, and the latest one isn't published but simply printed by a printing company. Details on the article talk page. This is all in-universe and I can't find any mainstream sources commenting on this major claim that there is serious linguistic link between Uto-Aztecan languages and Egyptian/Semitic languages. Isn't this WP:UNDUE? I haven't had the stomach yet to look at the rest of the article. Doug Weller talk 16:52, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
References
There have been previous attempts to connect language families of the Old and New World. For example the Nostratic languages hypothesis groups together the Afroasiatic languages with almost every language family in the Northern Hemisphere. The Borean languages hypothesis is even wider. Dimadick ( talk) 09:29, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
There was a brief discussion at RSN about him a while ago. [19] Use of him seems to have crept back in, or perhaps was never entirely removed. Genetics and the Book of Mormon, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Scot and Maurine Proctor, Endowment (Mormonism), Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, Mormonism and Freemasonry, Danite and Polytheism show up with a Wikipedia search, and an external links search [20] turns up others. I note that his article claims he has published in a peer reviewed journal, The Interpreter. But that states "Reviewers are generally of the LDS faith, but are not required to be. It is required that the reviewer not be hostile to LDS truth claims and that they are supportive of the Interpreter Foundation’s mission statement. Quite honestly, most reviewers are LDS simply because the majority of non-LDS scholars don’t have the source-level expertise required to provide a peer review of LDS-oriented scholarship." [21] so I'm removing it from his article. Doug Weller talk 13:49, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
This AfD of a parapsychologist may be of interest to the community here. XOR'easter ( talk) 18:42, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Do Large (Magnitude ≥8) Global Earthquakes Occur on Preferred Days of the Calendar Year or Lunar Cycle? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:29, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Input on this discussion is welcome. Thank you. Narutolovehinata5 t c csd new 13:09, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Racism is creeping back into mainstream science – we have to stop it – That's the title of an article in The Guardian today. [23] It starts with "University College London has been unwittingly hosting an annual conference attended by race scientists and eugenicists for the past few years. This might have come as a shock to many people. But it is only the latest instalment in the rise of “scientific” racism within academia." It discusses " Race realism", Mankind Quarterly, Richard Lynn, etc. Doug Weller talk 11:11, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
an article in The Guardian todayis somewhat misleading. The page in question is an opinion piece by Angela Saini in "Comment Is Free" (the user-generated-content section of the Grauniad), not an actual article by a Guardian employee. That's not to say it's necessarily wrong, but it needs to be borne in mind that Saini currently has a book to promote called What Are You? The Mad Science of Race – and Its Fatal Return and consequently an obvious vested interest in making "racism is on the rise in the sciences!!!" sound like a big deal. ‑ Iridescent 15:18, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
Suffice it to say that editors wanting to help in this area could usefully add Race and intelligence to their watchlist as a start. Alexbrn ( talk) 15:27, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
I think the point is that pseudoscientists can be found in surprising places, including legitimate scientific conferences [24], and they can have real academic qualifications [25]. This is obviously hazardous for Wikipedia's "verifiability not truth" model of epistemology. It requires a level of vigilance, and sometimes even competence, that I doubt many editors are capable of. But awareness is a useful first step. Geogene ( talk) 16:40, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
:::::::::I updated the section title, and moved the quote of the external article's title to the body of the section – didn't seem too difficult. @ Doug Weller: please get your priorities right on what "simply isn’t important enough": I followed this yesterday and can only conclude that you're in no position to lecture others on what is important and what isn't, like you did on my talk page. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 06:27, 24 January 2018 (UTC) |
There are fringe theories that relate to the topic area you care about. Someone may try to give them undue weight. Place any articles in the topic area on your watchlist.
There... now everyone is alerted to the potential danger, and they know the appropriate action to take. Perhaps we can now move on and discuss specific cases where fringe material is actually being added to articles? Blueboar ( talk) 17:21, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
In my opinion we are best served by holding in abeyance convictions about the possible distinctions between people based groupings—whether that be by race or any other criteria.Your opinion is noted and promptly discarded in favor of the scientific consensus. I never thought I'd see an established editor actively defending racism on this noticeboard, but they do say there's a first time for everything.
The top of this page says:
It does not, as is implied above, say that this page is only to discuss specific cases where fringe material is actually being added to specific articles.
ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants is being criticized when he didn't do anything wrong. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 19:55, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
I hate racism, me. - Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 14:20, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Besides the fact that most if not all of the IP edits just now need reverting, this looks as that needs a general cleanup. And can anyone remind me where it’s appropriate to use the title “Sri” and when it’s not? Doug Weller talk 08:27, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
I hope it's not too far out of context to ask editors here to check the thread at User talk:Remember the dot#hoax → sting. We're talking about the Sokal affair and List of scholarly publishing stings. Remember the dot made a few moves/redirects/edits that I questioned, even though we're in general agreement. Needs more eyes. — jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 08:42, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
Of possible interest:
Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(events)#RfC_about_a_new_sentence_in_WP:SENSATION
jps ( talk) 22:10, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
"Veterinarians successfully used alternative medical treatments such as acupuncture on three wild animals burned in the Southern California wildfires, although one patient — a 5-month-old mountain lion — did keep eating his fish-skin and corn-husk bandages, vets at the University of California, Davis said Wednesday."
"Peyton and her colleagues used some of the alternative methods she already employs with other animals, including acupuncture, chiropractic treatment, and cold-laser therapy. Many health-insurance companies consider some of the treatments experimental or unproven, and do not always cover their costs in human patients."
"Another form of treatment seemed most helpful of all for the bears, vets said. The California vets stitched the fish skins to the animals' burned paws, then wrapped the treated feet with bandages of rice paper and corn husks, after reading about trials on human burn victims in Brazil that placed treated skins from tilapia, a ubiquitous species of fish, on burn victims to soothe pain and promote healing." --Source: Bears burned in California wildfires go holistic for pain
(Wikilinks added.) -- Guy Macon ( talk) 18:26, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
"treated skins from tilapia, a ubiquitous species of fish"
Possibly an error in the source above. Tilapia is not a species. It is an entire group of species within the tribe of Tilapiine cichlid. They are wide-spread in Africa and the Middle East. Dimadick ( talk) 18:47, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
I have a proposal. If someone writes something on the Fringe theories noticeboard that you find to be objectionable, go to their talk page, explain your objection, and ask them to edit and/or strike the comment. Be open to getting a response that convinces you that your objection is invalid. Only if you cannot reach a resolution on the user's talk page should you open up a meta discussion here with the usual associated drama. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 02:12, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
There seems to be some PROFRINGE tendentious editing going on there. I am INVOLVED so my superhero tool kit is unavailable. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 01:05, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
"I've watchlisted" I have it on my watchlist for a few days, mostly because it is a British-related article which had never been tagged by any of the British-related WikiProjects. One of the problems with the article are the nature of the sources in the "Sceptical analysis" section. One of them is Ian Ridpat's personal website, the either is a podcast. It is rather unclear whether they do count as reliably-published sources. Dimadick ( talk) 19:21, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Checking my biases here. One user wants to treat NVIC as a normal nonprofit and include the mission and slogan, which are:
Obviously this is NVIC. The "informed consent" they promote is actually misinformed dissent, per multiple reliable sources, and the "choice" to endanger your children and others by wilfully refusing immunisation based on lies and misrepresentations is, as a matter of law, one which the state has every right to overrule.
That said, should we treat NVIC as a normal nonprofit and include these? Or maybe remove the infobox altogether? Guy ( Help!) 16:41, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
That said, should we treat NVIC as a normal nonprofit and include these?My gut says yes, but that the article (ABSOLUTELY INCLUDING THE LEDE) should clearly spell out the problems with this org. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:43, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
I was doing a bit of research about the following two positions, trying to determine which best describes NVIC.
The first is pure pseudoscience. The second is a legitimate but somewhat unpopular political position. Alas, some organizations that really take the first position often pretend to take the second. I believe that this describes the NVIC.
While researching this, I ran into the following two papers which may be of interest:
http://jme.bmj.com/content/44/1/37
http://jme.bmj.com/content/43/11/792
Does anyone know of a non-paywall site where I can access the tesx of these two papers? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 16:42, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
In some cases, it is unclear what the "fringe theory" is. Apparently this organization was formed with the idea that "whole cell pertussis" vaccines had significant medical side-effects. While this is apparently not true, the method has been abandoned in the United States in favor of "acellular pertussis vaccines".
Also in the case of pertussis vaccines in general, the effectiveness of the vaccination is questionable. The illness is having a 21st-century resurgence, in part because old vaccines no longer have the desired effects: "The 21st-century resurgences in pertussis infections are attributed to a combination of waning immunity and bacterial mutations that elude vaccines. ... Immunization does not confer lifelong immunity; a 2011 CDC study indicated that protection may only last three to six years. " Dimadick ( talk) 20:17, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
The article Rendlesham Forest incident is extensively, but UFO's or contact with extraterrestrial beings is still unproven. Thus, such an article serves mere speculation, and should be deleted. prokaryotes ( talk) 19:15, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
Just curious for you guys, but how do you think my David Meade article looks? I think it meets C-class but I just would like to know what you think about the article. -- LovelyGirl7 talk 16:38, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
This is better than C-class. I've bumped it to B-class. C-class articles are much worse than this, typically. jps ( talk) 15:08, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
I made a peer review for my David Meade article here. If anyone wants to give feedback on that page your welcome to do so. -- LovelyGirl7 talk 20:07, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Conception chart. XOR'easter ( talk) 22:07, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
A post at the "Wikipedia We Have A Problem" blog (I'd link it but naturally it is blacklisted) is soliciting readers to go edit two articles that have figured in past fringe-related edit wars and attempt to relitigate past battles on the talk page. The first request is to go to Rupert Sheldrake and ask about the word biologist in the first sentence (despite the fact that it is already right there in the second sentence). The second request is to go to Deepak Chopra and ask about "why he isn't listed as an MD", again despite the fact that this is right there in the second paragraph. If you are not familiar, this blog is written by someone who has been the subject of several bans and sock puppet investigations, specifically regarding activity on those two articles. Also attn Roxy the dog you are mentioned by name in the article (as am I). -- Krelnik ( talk) 20:58, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
Are either Sheldrake or Chopra still active in the field? The article on Sheldrake dates his last employment as a biologist to the 1970s, and the one on Chopra his last employment as a a medical doctor to the 1980s. Both men are in their 70s. Dimadick ( talk) 19:01, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
I suppose that "why is there inertia?" is a legitimate question that one could write about from a philosophy-of-physics perspective ( Mach's principle and all), but when an editor puts Harold E. Puthoff, Bernard Haisch and James F. Woodward on a level with Mach, Feynman and Einstein, and when their references include a blog post about a magical space drive, and when they persistently fail to get why Wikipedia needs secondary sources... it doesn't go well. I'm stepping away for a bit to attend to the day job and to avoid becoming needlessly antagonistic. XOR'easter ( talk) 16:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Recently expanded, apparently from at least one editor with a coi, from what was previously a stub. Looks too much like so many other poor alt-med bios:
After being sick for years with health problems from allergies to more severe respiratory problems and taking various medications, she realized that sugar addiction was at the root cause of her symptoms.
Drawing on childhood experiences, she wrote her dissertation titled “An Alternative to the Germ Theory”, and in the 1970s she started lecturing on the dangers of sugar and the role diet plays in a person’s health.
Suicide by Sugar - published in 2009, links over 140 health symptoms to sugar consumption, with the bulk of its research coming directly from medical journals.
Lots of puffery and advertising too, but I thought the alt-med claims should be reviewed. -- Ronz ( talk) 00:27, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There is bias by skeptics on parapsychology articles. Wikipedia and Wikiversity have both deleted positive evidence for the paranormal. Wikipedia have attacked many parapsychologists that include everybody from
J. B. Rhine,
Dean Radin (in spite of the support given him by the Nobel laureate Brian Josephson) to people in the 1800s like FWH Myers (in spite of their importance in early psychology, which can be well documented). I decided to, on the behalf of living and deceased researchers and due to the importance of the subject if not obfuscated, take upon the task of accumulating information giving their side of the story since the beginnings of research in this field.
I have set the record strait on a new wiki.
[31],
[32] and at archive
[33]. There is a tendency to suppress this information on Wikipedia but it will never be deleted.
Defending Rhine (
talk) 14:43, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
I just happened to see the Robert Vancina ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article which has been edited by a COI account. The article itself was created by an account which appears to be a paid editor. On top of the unreliable sources, advert issues etc., the article uses sources that promote cold fusion (see this source) and the subject of the article appears to be researching LENR. Can any of the regulars of this noticeboard please check this BLP? Thank you. Dr. K. 04:46, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
Editor Trutheyeness recently added rebuttals (somewhat repetitive rebuttals) to the various skeptical criticisms of Stevenson's work on the Reincarnation page. At Ian Stevenson, it looks like the WP stance is that this was fringe research. The whole addition feels like a mess to me, but I don't want to edit based on feelings. Anyone else have a stronger constitution for dealing with it? — jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 07:13, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
The Book of Psalms was written by human beings. None of these people wrote after death, yet a claim to that effect -- Based on King David's death in 837 BCE, all of the psalms had to have been written by then. -- was reverted as being unsourced.
I did have a source, www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/48936837.html (title=History of King David), which says "King David is one of the most important figures in Jewish history. Born in 907 BCE, he reigns as king of Israel for 40 years, dying at age 70 in 837 BCE."
A second attempt, with more source material and also details in the TALK page, was reverted as WP:OR (as if Wiki's policy of allowing common sense, e.g. the dead don't compose, isn't enough).
When I rewrote the sentence as "King David's writing was accomplished before the end of 837 BCE." (with sourcing) it was reverted as FRINGE. It is not FRINGE - it is basic material taught (even) in "Modern" Orthodox schools.
Start with the year of the first temple's destruction. Subtract how many years it stood. It wasn't built by King Solomon right away, after King David's passing. Convert the date from since-creation to common era, and we're done: 3338 = destruction, stood = 410 years, 3338 minus 410 = 2928.
3760 is the factor for AM to BCE: 2928 minus 3760 = -832, meaning 832 bce (Before Common Era).
Since King Solomon didn't complete it the same year (832 bce), "837 BCE" (from the AISH.com source, and others) is consistant with the cited sources.
I added a subsection named "Jewish calculations" the first 2 times and then tried "Jewish viewpoint."
Those who don't accept these teachings have their right to believe what they want, but to label a part of the Jewish belief system as FRINGE is a violation of NPOV and also of the fact that the article DOES have separate labels elsewhere for different religions, on a different subtopic.
Pi314m (
talk) 10:31, 6 February 2018
Direct attribution of all the Psalms to David is eye-rollingly problematic at best (and definitely fringe). Report on the traditional attribution, sure, but don't go beyond that. jps ( talk) 15:35, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
This article, on a creature from Maori mythology, cites a Blogspot 'essay' as a source. [34] Which in of itself would fail to pass WP:RS. Even worse, this ridiculous essay claims that "taniwha are not just mythological beings without any basis in reality, but that they are based on real dinosaur sightings", based on pseudoscientific creationist drivel. Clearly none of this belongs in the article. but rather than deleting it, it would probably be worth trying to find some better sources. Māori mythology is a subject deserving of proper scholarly coverage, and I am quite sure that such material can be found to support the article, without it being used as a platform for halfwitted hogwash imported from elsewhere. 86.130.97.5 ( talk) 10:51, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
Kensington Runestone history and Johan Andreas Holvik history. And a little comment at my talk after I reverted their unsourced additions. Could probably use some extra eyes. He iro 19:11, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
Emil Kirkegaard's article was recently created. There has been some controversy recently about him in a number of newspapers for his advocacy of child rape and Nazi views. On his personal twitter he seems to have posted a comment recently telling his friends to delete sources on his article. It be best if there were some eyes on the article. As this guy is currently in the news, it may be a magnet for edit-warring or meat-puppetry. Rebecca Bird ( talk) 20:23, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
The discussion is at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 February 3. — Paleo Neonate – 18:45, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
IP edit warring. Adding unsourced claim that Gobekli Tepe shows that the Sphinx could be 10000 years old. [36] They insist that Hawass and others were claiming that there is no sign of any civilization before Egyp, whole obviously they aren't. Doug Weller talk 21:22, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
See Talk:Power factor#Greater than -1. This particular editor has been pushing his crackpot theory for years. It's a shame, really, because he does good work when he gets away from his hobbyhorse. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:30, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
We have a new SAQ-article, and per COI-statement [37] it´s written by the originator of the idea. Eyes and edits could be useful. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 13:19, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Errm, so does all this stuff:
Hang off William 'Bill' Corbett's self-published book, which Wikipedia is effectively being used to publicise? Alexbrn ( talk) 14:02, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Jean-Pierre Petit ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
French astrophysicist/cosmologist with a section of fringe and conspiracy views that are not explicitly identified as fringe or conspiracy. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 14:55, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Theories-Secret-Societies-Dummies/dp/0470184086/ -- Guy Macon ( talk) 17:04, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Don't know how this got on my watchlist, but I think it needs a fringe veteran's eye. - Roxy, the dog. barcus 22:01, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
https://www.sfgate.com/weird/article/NASA-No-we-don-t-have-child-slave-colonies-on-11259620.php -- Guy Macon ( talk) 04:27, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
Robert David Steele ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Whaddya think? BLP notable? jps ( talk) 20:44, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert David Steele (2nd nomination). jps ( talk) 16:18, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
A new editor has made a major change to Drake's Plate of Brass and included an odd image of supposed "silversmithing tools" used to make the plate. Their edit summary was "This is a major change. The truth about Drake's, Plate of Brass is now being shown, I will complete my edit tomorrow". More images can be seen at Image sets from Wiki Science Competition 2017 in the United States. I'm concerned this is fringe material.-- Auric talk 13:50, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
This time the usual attempts to cast doubt on the circumstances of her death are popping up on List of unsolved deaths. I have removed the entry and there is an ongoing discussion at the article talk page here. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 20:39, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
An RfC relevant to this project has been opened at:
Interested editors are invited to participate. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 01:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
nothing stopping you from posting notifications on the "WP:NPOVN or WP:VP" talk pages, or anywhere else for that matter, to involve as much of the community as possible. I assume various noticeboards qualify as "as much community as possible". -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 02:46, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
Just noticed this. I have no idea if he is or isn't. Doug Weller talk 21:22, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
An SPA keeps adding Dorothy Kilgallen to the List of unsolved deaths, even though their own unsourced edits show that a modern re-examination affirmed the original conclusion that there was "no evidence of murder". [41] [42] [43] Various JFK assassination conspiracy theorists have threied to claim that Kilgallen's death was suspicious, and this appears to be another attempt. Edward321 ( talk) 01:35, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
"Various JFK assassination conspiracy theorists have threied to claim that Kilgallen's death was suspicious"
I have across a few conspiracy theories concerning Kilgallen myself, but the ones I am familiar with do not include JFK. They find it peculiar that she reportedly had a "blood alcohol level of 0.15" (see: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/death4.htm), but that she was still able to read in bed. "Miss Kilgallen died in her sleep. She was found by a maid and a hairdresser who came to the home to keep a 12:15 p.m. appointment. Alongside her bed was a book which she apparently had been reading before falling asleep."
The ones favouring Kilgallen's death as a suicide, claim that she was affected by her husband Richard Kollmar's financial situation. Kollmar used to be a notable actor and to own a supper club. By the time of Kilgallen's death, his acting career had ended, his club had closed, and he was unemployed. Dorothy was the only one still earning an income. Dimadick ( talk) 16:08, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
See here. Probably mostly ok, but not all. Doug Weller talk 15:06, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
This page has been discussed here before so I bring to your attention:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suzanne Olsson (3rd nomination)
This AfD appears to have arisen out of a complaint to BLPN ( [44]) that is typical of the demands made previously by her socks and proxies, though the specific issue raised in the nom is WP:BLP1E. Agricolae ( talk) 00:01, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
The article David Meade (author) is currently a GA article nominee and I’m ready for it to be reviewed. If anybody would like to review it, feel free to do so. — LovelyGirl7 talk 14:19, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Flatwoods monster ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
The sources look truly terrible. I clicked on one citation called "various newspapers" and found jpg's of sensational headlines (colored bright red) framed by a quote disparaging skepticism and encouraging belief. The rest of the sources seem to be UFO sites and Fortean books. There is a sort of ghettoized criticism section cited to single article by CSICOP. The topic itself is notable, but I'm having a hard time coming up with WP:FRIND sources that might help fix it. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 16:13, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
"a trashy new movie" According to the link provided, it is just a documentary film by Small Town Monsters, a production company that reportedly focuses on "small town folklore" for its documentary films. It seems unlikely to generate much publicity. Dimadick ( talk) 15:35, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
Oh man, I remember hearing about this thing growing up. Yes, it's a local legend, like the Mothman, Jersey Devil or Kelly-Hopkinsville aliens, covered in cryptozoology & UFO related matters. But it's been around enough to be covered by the West Virginia Division of Culture & History. If I can free up some time, I may try to find more reliable sources for it. — The Hand That Feeds You: Bite 14:36, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
I have opened an RfC on Talk:Faith healing#RfC about inserting content and category about pseudoscience. Feel free to share your views. Raymond3023 ( talk) 18:29, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Square of Nine may be notable woo; other articles on its inventor and his other notions may need checking. I'm dubious that we need to say that using astrology to time your investing is questionable. Mangoe ( talk) 22:32, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
FrancisGrant ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - I find these edits troubling, but is it just me being paranoid? Guy ( Help!) 13:54, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
93.230.59.192 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
This guy is using a reference that doesn't even cite a single conducted study to support his claim that antipsychotics (and he wrote this on the atypical antipsychotics page, which is a class of antipsychotics that improve both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia) do not improve schizophrenia in the long term, despite an overwhelming weight of evidence to the contrary. I added some references to the article section in question to that effect. He re-added his edit claim despite my removing it with the evidence I collected and presented. His reference talks about some critical review, with no link or information on it, having been conducted that schizophrenia patients should not be maintained on antipsychotics, though it's easy to find a multitude of references reporting, sometimes severe, patient decompensation when antipsychotic dosage is reduced or abruptly discontinued. Maybe a warning for unconstructive editing is due? Reixus [Talk] [Contribs] 10:00, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
I have doggy biscuits with which to celebrate. - Roxy, the dog. barcus 13:29, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/03/06/conspiracy-theorists-arrested-harassing-sutherland-springs-pastor/ -- Guy Macon ( talk) 18:39, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
The pair have spent months stalking families of victims and their communities in a failed attempt to prove the November 2017 mass shooting in Texas was a "false flag."7&6=thirteen ( ☎) 21:37, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius. XOR'easter ( talk) 19:29, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
On this article is a section about race and penis size. A user repeatedly is trying to blank content. He claims "There is no need to specify one race over others." Which is not quite accurate. The paper in question is a paper from the British Journal of Urology that reported that "there is no scientific background to support the alleged ‘oversized’ penis in black people". (Mondaini, Nicola; Gontero, Paolo (2007). "Idiopathic short penis: myth or reality?". British Journal of Urology. 95 (1): 8–9.) - I see no reason why this paper should be removed. Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 07:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
{{
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help)Doesn't belong here.
Article states:
Fringe theory
Larger junk
full of bunk.
That's what I thunk.
7&6=thirteen (
☎) 20:15, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
A couple single-purpose accounts at
Na+/K+-ATPase are adding material along the lines of Some individuals dispute the proposed function of the sodium-potassium pump, based on both experimental and theoretical studies in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics
, which appears innocuous enough but is a pretty extreme fringe claim. Is this worth keeping? -
165.234.252.11 (
talk) 18:32, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
DOUBTS ABOUT THE SODIUM-POTASSIUM PUMPARE NOT PERMISSIBLE IN MODERN BIOSCIENCEbecause of what is said in the last point of WP:REDFLAG. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 19:07, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
From the lead: "Stephen G. Bassett is the first extraterrestrial life (ET), disclosure (ufology) lobbyist in the United States, executive director and treasurer of the political action committee Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee and executive director[1] of Paradigm Research Group (PRG)[2] that says it wants end to end the governments imposed truth embargo regarding the facts of extraterrestrials engaging the human race." Doug Weller talk 19:23, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Not sure what to make of THIS, and this yet, but it appears the person accusing him of fraud Eberhard Zangger has some issues of his own. But if accurate will have to be addressed at the Çatalhöyük and James Mellaart articles at some point. And this article from a few years ago seems to support something, although I am not sure what. He iro 07:37, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
At Talk:Andrew Wakefield. - Roxy, the dog. barcus 09:48, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Here we go again. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 15:45, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
{{
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help)Matters have now turned to trying to characterize it as "alternative medicine" in the first sentence. That would be news to the vast majority of Christendom. Mangoe ( talk) 17:36, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
{{
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help)Alexbrn ( talk) 18:25, 12 March 2018 (UTC)A form of alternative or unvonventional medicine that functions on the belief that illness can be arrested and even cured by faith alone, such as by prayer or the intercession of a supernatural power.
Yeah, but I think that in most forms of contemporary practice it is done as a religious practice. You no longer go down to your local Christian Science Reading Room and ask them to take care of your miasmas, as was the case in Twain's time. jps ( talk) 18:36, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
As I've been reading a lot on this subject over the last two days, I've come to realize that there are aspects of "faith healing" which land firmly in the alternative medicine camp [54]. I guess this shouldn't have surprised me. Is it lede-worthy? Hard to say. Ugh. jps ( talk) 18:50, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
This article seems to be grossly imbalanced; it lends far more credence to the fringe theory that there's a concrete correlation between race and intelligence than RSes do. I'm not the only one to notice this: The SPLC explicitly calls it out in a new article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:58, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I had to "sign up" (6 free articles per month, they say) to read this article, but it was worth it. [55].
"And it’s not just science and evolution that have been made kosher. Even generic, otherwise uncontroversial articles are required to become “modest” – an ultra-Orthodox euphemism for a prohibition on any images of women. Thus, for example, the entry about the current Israeli government, which includes ultra-Orthodox parties, has all the female ministers cropped out – a warped perspective eerily evident in the doctored image." Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 08:55, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Clairvoyance ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Recent work by
GoatGod in the
Clairvoyance article has used a Huffington post editorial - that includes the question Why is the existing literature on psi phenomena routinely dismissed by the scientific community and virtually ignored within the broader academic community?
- to completely overturn the sense of the article so that clairvoyance now has scientific support. A skeptical reference has been discarded (though not all uses of it were removed) as biased. Anyone want to engage on this?
— jmcgnh
(talk)
(contribs) 21:08, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
I found this over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Skepticism. YouTube will be inserting links to WP into conspiracy theory videos in an effort to debunk them. So prepare for a flood of True Believers. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:25, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
O Govinda is a Hare Krishna editor who is obviously a believer in reincarnation. He has done mass edits on Ian Stevenson's page. His source is mostly James Matlock a parapsychologist. Does not look like a reliable source. I reverted some of his material but the Stevenson article is rife with fringe sources. Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 05:21, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Article has been dominated by a user Josezetabal who is a believer in the paranormal interpretation of NDEs. This user does not like naturalistic neuroscientific explanations for the NDE and prefers the research of Bruce Greyson or Sam Parnia. This user has added 'limitation' sections for every neuroscientific or psychology theory for the NDE. I have not seen this on any other articles. Now POV editing the lead, for example "However, this model lacks robust data", "their model remains speculative due to the lack of data" etc inserted right into the direct lead. The article now reads stupid. Not interested in engaging this individual but someone else may want to revert the lead to how it was before the fringe edits. Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 23:21, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Deletion discussion underway concerning this miracle material. Survival seems likely; hoaxiness of material seems equally likely, so may need some of our loving care. Mangoe ( talk) 13:54, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Quantum neuron recoding GMG talk 17:32, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Could use additional opinions at the Ark Encounter talk page. Regards the conditions for when the term pseudoscience is used and the sourcing required. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:35, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
It's good to have a record here. This is as good a place as any. jps ( talk) 18:19, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Note this nonsense. Yeah, it's good to keep the pseudoscience POV-pushers in check, I guess. jps ( talk) 17:16, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Bill Nye really gets their goat, apparently. jps ( talk) 17:25, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
A few pages kinda come a bit close to treating some South African farm attacks as evidence for the White genocide conspiracy theory. A South African far-right survivalist group seems to be tying the two together. The Peter Dutton almost treats them as mainstream.
Not to pretend that nothing's going on there, but at the very least, those pages in question seem to be treating the subject a little too simply, in a way that could be interpreted as giving credence to a white supremacist conspiracy theory. Ian.thomson ( talk) 06:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
This might be a thing to look at. I'm not really good at deciding whether I should revert and face 3RR, but I do see the contribs by a few IP editors aren't supported by sources. Things are calm at the article right now, but you might want to keep an eye on it. byteflush Talk 06:31, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reality Sandwich
Please comment.
jps ( talk) 19:21, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, numerous newspapers and websites (some more serious than others) published opinion pieces claiming (based largely on the journalist Said K. Aburish's 2000 book Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge) that the CIA had aided the 1963 coup that overthrew Abd al-Karim Qasim and first brought Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party to power. Chief among these was "A Tyrant Forty Years in the Making," which appeared—clearly labelled "opinion"—in The New York Times on March 14, 2003 (only days before the invasion). These claims have been largely ignored since that time, but several academics have scrutinized them and concluded that they are unsupported by evidence. These include the following:
Declassified U.S. government documents offer no evidence to support these suggestions.
However, a careful examination of a wide range of documents and interviews raises important questions about the veracity of these claims as to whether the CIA was behind the 1963 B'athist coup. ... In sum, barring the release of new information, the preponderance of evidence substantiates the conclusion that the CIA was not behind the February 1963 B'athist coup.( Salim Yaqub cites Gibson as
"the most detailed and comprehensive study to date of U.S.–Iraqi relations from the late 1950s to the 1970s".)
Although the United States did not initiate the 14 Ramadan coup, at best it condoned and at worst it contributed to the violence that followed.(emphasis added)
Aburish was not a historian, but a journalist that relied on anonymous "contacts in the Arab world." This has led scholars to avoid relying on his work. For example,
Wolfe-Hunnicutt (Stanford, 2011, pp 27–28) cautions: "The most sensational claims have been based largely on the work of journalist Said Aburish. In his book, Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge Aburish claims that the 1963 coup 'represented one of the most elaborate CIA operations in the history of the Middle East' (55–56). His account furnishes a great deal of detail, but very little documentation as it based largely on interviews with former Ba'thists."
Aburish's Nasser: The Last Arab (2004) was similarly
savaged in the
International Journal of Middle East Studies: "Methodologically, the most serious flaw in the book is the (mis)use of sources. Aburish has ignored new sources on Nasser and Nasserism based on declassified archival material that has been published in revent years ... Instead, Aburish has relied on old, well-known biographies and outdated studies as well as several biased interviews, which he accepts at a face value."
Yet
NYCJosh is now spamming
this garbage into several articles:
CIA activities in Iraq,
United States involvement in regime change, and
Ramadan Revolution. He appears to be completely unaware of the academic debate on this topic over the past decade. One of his sources—
an "Exclusive" April 10, 2003 UPI report by Richard Sale making the related claim that the famous 1959 assassination attempt on Qasim involving Saddam—which was endlessly restaged on Iraqi television for decades under Saddam's rule—was somehow supported by the CIA was never corroborated, was ignored by every other media outlet, and has been universally dismissed by all other sources—including Aburish! (The claim is based entirely on the fact that Egypt provided sanctuary to Saddam after the attempt failed, which could indicate the culpability of Egyptian intelligence in the attack, and warming relations between the U.S. and Egypt at the time—which of course must mean that the U.S. was involved, too—along with Sale's "anonymous sources", speaking in 2003.) Wolfe-Hunnicutt 2011 dismisses Sale in a footnote on p. 42, but it is again Gibson 2015 (pp. 25–26) that provides the most thorough debunking: "The body of evidence available does not suggest that the United States was directly complicit in the attempted assassination ... Indeed, documents from the period leading up to the attempt all suggest that, while the United States was aware of several plots against Qasim, it had still adhered to its nonintervention policy."
NYCJosh appears to believe that Wikipedia's only sourcing policy is WP:V. He does not seem to understand that opinion pieces cannot be used for statements of fact in Wikipedia's voice. There is not a single reliable source for these claims in any of his edits, whereas he has previously been cautioned by other editors (e.g., Snooganssnoogans here) for actively removing academic sources that contradict his views (also in the area of U.S.–Iraq relations). Are not academic historians more reliable than opinion columnists? Given the available scholarship, could NYCJosh's additions be any more WP:FRINGE?
It seems to me that it would reflect very badly on Wikipedia if the lack of expertise among Wikipedia editors allows FRINGE garbage like this to proliferate. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 21:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
It is his favored opinion which is the minority view, not NYCJosh's. He is clearly aware of this since this he quotes from precisely the same page, page xvii, in Gibson that I am quoting from. - GPRamirez5 ( talk) 23:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
References
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References
Is it just me, or does Hyperdiffusionism in archaeology ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) give undue importance to a crank theory in the lead? Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 16:24, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Hyperdiffusionism in general is a fringe theory. It traces cultural developments across the planet to a single, "superior" civilization of the past. (With supporters arguing as to which one it is.) It rejects the idea that two or more cultures may have independently developed similar writing methods, technology, or architecture. And opposes the idea that Trans-cultural diffusion may involve changes in any of the cultures involved in it. Dimadick ( talk) 16:50, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
It definitely doesn't give due importance to consistent use of grammatical singular-vs-plural tense: "Hyperdiffusionism are hypotheses . . .". Seriously, though, at a minimum the lead needs to include the fact that it does not represent mainstream scholarly consensus in most cases, and that there is significant criticism of both the historical and cultural implications of this line of 'reasoning'. Agricolae ( talk) 17:59, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Universal Medicine ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) There's a number of new IP editors adding information to this article that are not paying attention to reliable sourcing. I've reverted some already, but some oversight from more experienced eyes than mine would be appreciated. 79616gr ( talk) 20:40, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dewey Bernard Larson.
jps ( talk) 23:43, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Draft:Remote Neural Monitoring ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Conspiracy claim of mind control supported by WP:OR will never qualify to be used in article space. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 02:36, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
https://boingboing.net/2018/03/25/flat-earth-preaching-rocketeer.html
"You likely read about "Mad" Mike Hughes in the news last year – you know, when you weren't busy stockpiling canned goods and potassium Iodide tablets to help deal with the existential dread that's currently gripping the planet. Hughes is the flat-earth loving, paradoxical science-hating DIY rocket designer who stated that he'd blast himself into the sky in a steam-powered, homemade rocket to prove that the earth isn't round..."
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 05:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Read all about it at Mike Hughes.-- Auric talk 20:19, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael E. Zimmerman.
Please comment. jps ( talk) 23:50, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
IP editwarring at Iolo Morganwg ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to make it state his works weren't forgeries and that the Coelbren alphabet is genuine. Doug Weller talk 09:22, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Imagine the following situation:
Would it be OK to add text to Politician A's article that says "Politician A falsely claimed that Barack Obama was born in Kenya"? Or would this be considered WP:SYNTHESIS? Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 02:03, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
WP:ASSERT. Barack Obama was not born in Kenya. If someone is quoted as saying that, it is okay to state in Wikipedia's voice that Barack Obama was not born in Kenya. How you go about doing that is an editorial decision, but as along as we don't mislead the reader, there is no problem. jps ( talk) 17:23, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Proposed Shroud of Turin topic ban for Pernimius -- Guy Macon ( talk) 12:32, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Could use some help from editors experience with FRINGE matters.
An editor want to remove https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4540 as a reference completely, and after being pointed to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_112#skeptoid.com the editor states, "no consensus was reached to allow an exception to the general policy that blogs are not reliable sources".
The PARITY elements from the lede have been substantially reduced [57]. -- Ronz ( talk) 03:31, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
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