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I hesitate to bring this up, because it is such a big article, but it is an important article that is a complete mess. Major sections of it are completely unsourced. The most completely unsourced sections are the introduction and exactly those sections that try to explain what New Age means and its origin. The article includes under the name a large collection of unrelated movements, and individuals, that have nothing in common but the name New Age.
Has anyone taken a look at it, and have some ideas about what how it could be improved? Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 22:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
User:Jack-A-Roe, User:PetraSchelm and User:SqueakBox have together removed a link to Skeptic's Dictionary from Hystero-epilepsy 5 times. They have justified this by characterizing the link as self-published, link-cruft, questionable, non-expert, and a profit-generating ad revenue scrape site. Given Jack-A-Roe's history of civil POV warring, however, I suspect the link is actually being removed because it tangentially mentions "repressed memory" therapists in a negative light, and itself links to an article critical of Dissociative Identity Disorder. A third opinion would be nice. -- AnotherSolipsist ( talk) 20:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It is sort of surprising that AnotherSolipsist appeared on that very obscure article to revert my change, when he's not edited that article or anything related to it previously. I wondered about that; then decided not to worry about it unless it continued to happen.
Putting that curiousity aside, regarding the use of the Skeptic's Dictionary website as an external link: there are two issues about that. It's not a reliable source, it's not a book, it's a self-published website. There is also a book by that title, that includes a subset of the website content - the book was published by a third party, increasing its reliability. I don't know if hystero-epilepsy is in the book or not - if it were, that would add reliability and encourage its use as an in-line footnote. The website is self-published and represents the author's biased views (he does not claim otherwise in his about-himself section on the site). This has been discussed on the reliable sources noticeboard because various editors have wanted to use it in various articles; while there has not been a definitive decision, doubt was expressed about its reliability and the general agreement was that if the site is used as an inline citation, the opinions of Carroll should be attributed and not generalized. So, if it were used as an inline reference, it could be phrased "According to Tom Carroll, author of Skeptic's Dictionary... etc". That approach is from the RS noticeboard recommendation.
In this situation though, as an external link, it's even less appropriate, because it does not meet the qualifications for what should be linked - external links are used only for websites that include information that can't be included directly in Wikipedia for various reasons, such as official websites of organizations that are the topic of the articles, or websites with extensive resources on a topic that go far beyond the level of detail Wikipedia can provide. For more on that see WP:EL . But those qualifications doesn't apply in this situation - it's a one-page article on a self-published website. If any of the information there is valid and usable - there is no reason to advertise his website as an external link when the info can be paraphrased and carefully used with attribution and an in-line footnote. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 23:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Hystero-epilepsy is an alleged disease "discovered" by 19th-century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.[1] It is considered a famous example of iatrogenic artifact, or a disease created by doctors. The disease was considered a combination of hysteria and epilepsy. Charcot housed his "hystero-epilepsy" patients in the same ward as patients with epilepsy, because both were considered "episodic" diseases. At the time, both hysteria and epilepsy were believed to be neuroses; and diseases caused by the conversion of psychological distress into physical distress. Symptoms included "convulsions, contortions, fainting, and transient impairment of consciousness." Joseph Babinski convinced Charcot that he was inducing the symptoms in his patients because of his treatment regimen. [2] I'm sorry--where exactly is the POV in this five sentence article?- PetraSchelm ( talk) 07:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
we should avoid having full blown debates on this page that aren't directly addressing the question of "fringe theories". This is a question of WP:EL. External links are selected on a pragmatic basis, with a view to their utility to the readers. We do not require watertight WP:RS quality for them. As Jack-A-Roe says, this is wiki business as usual, to be addressed on article talkpages. I would encourage everyone to post links to such debates on this noticeboard, but to avoid replicating the full debate here. dab (𒁳) 06:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I honestly see nothing in this link that violates the EL policy. J*Lambton T/ C 21:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Brand new template. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 17:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
A movement of 1970s to 1980s US second wave feminism. we have:
That's not so bad, but tends to attract rather far out opinion pieces. I've removed what seemed to fall under WP:SNOW here and here, and I suppose some of these articles should be merged to allow a discussion of the topic in context, most likely Thealogy belongs merged into Goddess movement. I am not sure whether Goddess worship should be merged into Goddess. All of this isn't at all terrible, it's just a little walled garden in need of cleanup. I am not disputing the topic's notability at all. dab (𒁳) 09:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I have been removing some links from articles that clearly fail as reliable sources, plus some trivia, etc. These are Nephilim (role-playing game), Nephilim, Paleolithic Continuity Theory, Lemuria (continent) and Mu (lost continent) user:Majeston, who is upset with me because of edits on the Urantia article, is following me around (maybe, maybe he just watches them all) and reverting my edits with no reason given. He is also removing requests for citations, eg on the Maya society article. I've just noticed he also reverted an edit of mine at Paper folding which he has never edited, so maybe he is following me around. Any advice as to what to do? Thanks.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 10:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
huge {{ essay-entry}}. impinges on the race of Ancient Egyptians and Aryan cans of worms. Meanwhile, "pharaonist" trolling continues at Egyptians. I don't have the heart for this right now. Ah, yes, and there is also Genetics of the Ancient World. dab (𒁳) 10:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I got this edit passed to me for review. The edit removed almost the entire section "Points of contention" from this revision.
The edit summary states "None of this anything beyond fringe theories" but reading the text it looks incorrect. In fact this seems crucial material for the article - a summary of the fringe theories and their mainstream objections/concerns, presented in a well balanced manner, and all seemingly cited.
Can others take a look, see if this is being removed as a misunderstanding of FRINGE/WEIGHT, or if in fact it is that? Thanks. FT2 ( Talk | email) 01:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
A sort of idiosyncratic definition is being used, and then widely extrapolated. Considerable overlap between articles. - PetraSchelm ( talk) 01:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pederasty
Or, perhaps the most god-awful article on a fringe topic on Wikipedia.
The lead contains one sentence of weak criticism. It then has 20 sections of pure praise and promotion. There's then a criticism section, containing the weakest claims ever. When it actually stooped to make a brief hard criticism, [2] they... synthed data from extreme fringe journals and used this OR to rebut it.
Poor Emily Rosa, notable in her own right as the youngest researcher to be published in a major peer-review journal, is, of course, left out.
In short, an article that bends over backwards in order to avoid making any relevant criticism. HELP! Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 22:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
...By all the gods!!!! Several... HUNDRED articles on one bit of alt-med? Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 03:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Neutral and sourced description of popular religious belief mixed up with recent non-notable speculative stuff. I don't know how to start to disentangle, would appreciate further eyes. Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
The idea's been around for a long time, as a folk belief among Ladakhi Buddhists, as Ahmadiyya tradition, and as random speculation from otherwise acceptable scholars. We had better get this article in order before the movie that this Guardian article anticipates comes out. I note the article quotes Dr. Hassnain, who appears to be a scholar of Buddhism...-- Relata refero ( disp.) 21:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Sory to bring this up again, but there is an AfD currently going on that might interest people concerned with fringe theories. Dysgenics (people) has been named for AfD and wider input would be appreciated. Being an involved party to the debate myself, I can't say more than I've just said, but invite others who might be interested to drop by the article and express their opinion on the AfD if they so wish.-- Ramdrake ( talk) 14:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
This article could do with some eyes. Apart from a WP:LAME slow edit war whether Jerusalem is in "Israel" or "Palestine" (which should perhaps be addressed by removing all flag icons from the article...), we get constant additions of various neolithic sites, most persistently an anonymous user, presumably of Bulgarian origin, who keeps adding archaeological sites in Bulgaria. Obviously, the list isn't intended as a "list of neolithic sites", but evidence of continuous habitation would need to be presented. That's often disputed, but we would require at least some evidence that it is even disputed. dab (𒁳) 12:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
in this context, let me also point to
all of them tagged for merge or cleanup for ages now. -- dab (𒁳) 13:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I know. But "oldest continuously inhabited city" is still a meme in the real world (a bit like oldest tree), and we have to deal with it somehow. dab (𒁳) 21:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
We need a third opinion at Talk:Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma) that involves a fringe theory. I do not feel the article is currently pushing the theory, and is appropriately neutral and proportionate to weight, but another editor does not even want it mentioned at all, even though it seems to meet the standards of RS in multiple publications. Thanks, Til Eulenspiegel ( talk) 14:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, here we go again. There's a constant, low-intensity fight at this article about whether it's a fringe theory or not. The article has several statements from prominent scholars stating that the idea is not accepted by mainstream scholarship, but this doesn't convince everybody.
There's an RFC. Partipation from those interested in questions of fringe theories welcome. --Akhilleus ( talk) 17:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Malcolm, you seem to have started editing the article only recently, so perhaps you're unfamiliar with the subject, but the Jesus myth hypothesis is specifically the argument that there was no historical Jesus. Maccoby believed that there was a historical Jesus, and that the Gospels could be used to reconstruct his biography. Ergo, he is not a advocate of the JM theory.
Chomsky's political views are a good analogy here, actually. Even if you like Chomsky's ideas, you'd have to agree that in the context of U.S. politics, where only a fairly narrow range of ideas are "mainstream," that Chomsky is considered to be outside the mainstream. An article about him would have to note that. Similarly, Jesus myth hypothesis must note that the theory is rarely discussed within the academic fields of religious studies and ancient history (and we have copious citations that say exactly this). --Akhilleus ( talk) 23:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
You guys really don't get it. The problem is not that there are different points of view, or who is right in this issue. The problem is the dismissive know-it-all attitude I am seeing from some editors here. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 11:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
You are talking about the history of a particular article, and I am talking about the attitude of some editors on this noticeboard. But the problem certainly is spread thought Wikipedia, because many editors are working on articles in which they are psychologically invested in their own POV. This is a problem that can not be eliminated, but but needs recognition because, if editors feel justified in blowing away the 'opposition', an effort to achieve neutrality much more difficult. This does not refer to those who take your position, or my position, but applies all around and is the reason that know-it-all attitudes are so destructive to the process of writing articles. (Of course I have absolutly no expectation of change, but rather expect a continuing of dismissive attitudes and edit wars.) Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 12:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Since the discussion has become circular, I will end my participation at this point. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 14:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Itsmejudith, the division between "minority" and "fringe" is a sliding scale. This is something to be established in detail in the article itself. For the purposes of this noticeboard, it is sufficient to note that the article has a history of attempts to inflate the theory's notability. That's really it. This has nothing to do with "know-it-all" or "dismissive" attitudes, but is simple practical wisdom born from experience of how these things work on Wikipedia. -- dab (𒁳) 15:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok, the latest gambit seems to be that committed Christians are unreliable sources. See [3]. This article still requires attention. --Akhilleus ( talk) 12:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
A little situation with a Biblical literalist who seems to insist that because the Hebrew Bible is the inspired word of God, there is no way "incorrect cosmology" like the notion of a flat Earth can figure in the text.
interestingly, they stop short of claiming knowledge of a spherical earth was directly "inspired" by God, but rather resort to speculations that theories of a spherical Earth may already have emerged by perfectly natural means in 26th century BC Egypt, citing a website debunking scriptural foreknowledge [5]. I would be interested in this claim of Old Kingdom notions of a spherical earth, but that would be for History of astronomy since it has nothing to do with the Hebrew Bible.
I note we also have Biblical cosmology. dab (𒁳) 05:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
yes, let's see. We have:
dab (𒁳) 12:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Islamic science doesn't parallel Science and the Bible. "The Bible" here is the Hebrew Bible, for the most part compiled in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Islamic science otoh is medieval science and should be contrasted with Science in Medieval Western Europe, not with Iron Age proto-science. -- dab (𒁳) 14:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The exact parallel is Qur'an and science, to which I've added a few decent references. That article discusses the makers of various claims and their political and theological significance rather than listing the arguments for them. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 20:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Someone keeps deleting a section of this, see [6].-- Doug Weller ( talk) 19:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I need some help at Talk:Parapsychology. There is very clear consensus in the academic community that this subject is pseudoscience, but there are a lot of supporters of this subject that are arguing vociferously that such a statement about this consensus is not sourced (despite there being about 1/2 dozen sources which explicitly state this) and arguable. I need help both with sourcing and with fighting POV-pushers. Thanks. ScienceApologist ( talk) 14:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
The sources we used when writing the article were carefully selected. Most references to parapsychological journals were dumped in favor of mainstream academic journals like the Psychological Bulletin. When something was pulled from a journal such as The Journal of Parapsychology, it was typically the skeptical view such as that of Ray Hyman. It's difficult to imagine you actually examined the sources when you say we cited third-rate journals written by a parapsychologist, because the combination of parapsychologists in parapsychology journals covers uncontroversial statements, historical statements, critical statements, or fully attributed views of the parapsychologists themselves. There's no flat facts cited to any parapsychologist in this article (or at least there were none when I reviewed it last). The parapsychology journals are treated not as third-party peer reviewed, but as primary sources, and treated correctly as primary sources through attributed statements. You refer to WP:PARITY, but that's the exact concept used here. It's also hard to imagine that you reviewed the sources when you say "no institutional affiliation". Every parapsychologist sourced had academic affiliations. Not that it matters, of course, because they were treated as if they had no affiliations at all.
For you poor souls who don't want to read the whole talk page, ScienceApologist himself presented sources, for instance the following:
JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE 20 (1): 182-192 JAN 2008: Samuel T Moulton
Where the abstract says:
Abstract: Parapsychology is the scientific investigation of apparently paranormal mental phenomena (such as telepathy, i.e., "mind reading"), also known as psi.
So he's fighting a losing battle here, as his own sources contradict him. Even James Randi objects to calling parapsychology pseudoscience. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I want to point out a beautiful red herring that gets a lot of paranormal true believers all worked up. The claim that "scientific investigation" is somehow indicative of a subject being a science.
"Scientific investigation" is a methodology, but in order for the subject to be a "science" there has to be something beyond a null hypothesis that has positive results. This is what separates science from non-science. Saying that some subject or another involves "scientific investigation" is not the same thing as saying that subject is "a science".
ScienceApologist ( talk) 06:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Let me state up front that the topic of Krishnaism is valid and encyclopedic. But, with the recent WP:KRISHNA project, the objective seems to be to "own" as many articles as possible, never mind how stubby, never mind WP:CFORK.
It appears that "Krishnaism" is the term for Gaudiya Vaishnavism when discussed in comparison with Christianity in particular. It gets around a hundred hits on google scholar, and its notability as a standalone term (with what definition?) seems somewhat questionable. The Krishnaism article doesn't establish anything else, but is content to replicate selected material from Krishna, Bhakti movement, Vaishnavism and Gaudiya Vaishnavism. I am really in doubt whether this is the way to go. Wikidas ( talk · contribs) also enjoys to create as many stubs on "aspects of Krishna" as he can, armed with a quote from Klaus Klostermaier's 2005 Survey of Hinduism, and generally displaying considerable belligerence (criticism of his approach apparenty amounts to an insult to his religion on principle). Thus, we get Bala Krishna, Vasudeva Krishna and Radha Krishna, Govinda, liberally sprinkled with {{ underconstruction}} tags.
I am certainly glad to see an effort towards a good coverage of "Krishnaism", but it seems some editorial assistance at least is needed here. -- dab (𒁳) 11:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC) See also:
Wikidās - ॐ 12:54, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Once again - Scope is defined by the link below and the discussion that happened on WikiProjects board and is kept for record on the project talk page.
See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Krishnaism/Bibilography Clearly This discussion is moved to an appropriate place: Wikidās - ॐ 13:23, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
The article on Rupert Sheldrake, whose parapsychological work is frequently described as pseudoscience (and which has been flagged for some time for relying mainly on Sheldrake's own writings/website), has just had a considerable amount of new, and favourable, material on his second book, The Presence of the Past, added. We've also got an editor who appears to be attempting to claim a respectable profile for him. A small amount has been added to the (separate) 'Criticism' section, but I don't think it balances out. I'm not sufficiently familiar with this particular scientific 'fringe' to be able to do too much about it (I work mostly in the area of Creationism). The article on his claims of Morphic fields, and those on Mae-Wan Ho & William McDougall (psychologist), who he cites as support might also bear looking at. Hrafn Talk Stalk 08:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
A 1969 book claiming that "the precession of the axis was discovered long before the accepted date of the Greek discovery, and that this was discovered by an ancient (perhaps around 4000 BCE) civilization of unsuspected sophistication". Now the Hamlet's Mill article duly puts this in perspective as fringy nonsense, but interestingly the book finds stout defenders at Talk:Viktor Rydberg, for the somewhat contorted rationale that Hamlet's Mill endorses some of Rydberg's speculations, and if you can show that Hamlet's Mill has some academic credibility, you have also shown that Rydberg isn't completely discredited. dab (𒁳) 10:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Just happened across this mess. Seems not to be actively edited at the moment, was once an FA, but hardly meets NPOV, RS, or NOR in its present state. An excerpt:
"The traditional view of the codes further asserts that the "information" encoded in the Torah cannot be used to predict the future, and that at best the codes provide evidence of an all-knowing creator whose knowledge of the Universe and all of its possibilities spans both space and time. In this view, (from an information theoretical viewpoint) the letter-sequence of the Torah is to the Universe as the DNA sequence is to the human body, useful for understanding how the universe works on a macro scale, and illustrative of the "Grand Design" which encompasses all possible events, but nonetheless utterly unreliable for prediction of what specific combinations of micro-scale events will occur to create the 'reality' of human history.
The traditional view conflicts with the more recent and highly sensationalized views suggesting that the Codes may be valuable as tools of prediction. These views of the codes first emerged in popular culture with the book The Bible Code by journalist Michael Drosnin, which suggests that the codes can be analyzed by computer to provide warnings for the future.
The traditional view can be compared to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Physics in which, at the quantum level, the very act of measuring an information system in a state of quantum uncertainty can cause that system to "collapse" into a certain state around the potentiality that the observer was looking for. According to this view, the very act of searching the code for one possible future outcome, such as an assassination, hence "measuring" the event that may happen in the future, can cause the event itself to happen. In that same paradoxical way that Schrödinger's cat is said to be both dead and alive, and neither dead nor alive until the measurement is made."
Words fail. Woonpton ( talk) 07:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
See Talk:Naturopathic_medicine#Is_naturopathic_medicine_CAM.3F. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Happening at Talk:Chiropractic too. ScienceApologist ( talk) 18:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems everyone but the most die-hard SRA apologists have lost interest in this and the information establishing that this is to 99% a topic of "anti-cult" moral panic is being unconspicuously shoved out of the article... dab (𒁳) 10:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Someone's added a reference to the Urantia book in the Crucifixion article. I removed it and they got very shirty with me on my talk page, accusing me of being personally motivated and saying they'd take it up with the 'appropriate persons'. They put it back. Am I out of line thinking it is inappropriate there? And, anyone else noticing IP editors adding Velikovsky stuff to Egyptology articles? 2 additions (at least) yesterday from different IP addresses.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 04:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
The The Urantia Book is obviously not a quotable source for any sort of historical discussion. Making mention of it outside articles that clearly deal with New Age topics is completely WP:UNDUE. dab (𒁳) 07:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
"a tag team of Urantia stalkers forming" -- that I call a self-fulfilling prophecy :) first misbehave, and then act surprised when "the cabal" clamps down on you. dab (𒁳) 16:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Hello,
I mentioned a traditional story, which I do not claim is true, that has several sources from 1893, 1931, and 1957. The story appears to have come down through three seperate groups of people, the Jesuits, Washington's slaves and their descendants and through one line of Washington's relations.
I have only mentioned this story under Leonard Neales article because he is the main person the story focuses on. The existance of this story has been proved. It has also been proved to go back to over one hundred years ago, and if you search the internet the story persists and is still of interest. Since the story has been proven to exist for over a century even though it is not taken as truth by many people and since I do not assert that this traditional story is true I feel that it does not fall under an exceptional claim or a fringe theory.
The story is that in the night during George Washington's death a friend of his a Jesuit priest named Leonard Neale was called for over the river. He spends some time with the dying president and when he returns to his lodgings across the river in Maryland he intimates that Washington was given the last rites and died a Catholic. Some of Washington's slaves cried that he was taken by "the Scarlet Lady" of Rome. A first cousin three times removed reported that her grandmother passed down that Washington had a death-bed conversion.
I'd like to keep mention of this traditional story and have tried to work out compromises with one editor who is bent on removing it even though I allowed him to remove information from the story that he did not like, I made no complaints when he added the proviso that many of Washington's biographys make no mention of this story and I have answered all his requests for sources and details and explanations. But he still wants to remove it now claiming it is an exceptional claim.
If some other editors could take an unbiased look at the mention of this story and the sources and help resolve this situation I'd be very grateful. Dwain ( talk) 22:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
This issue was taken up by this board two months ago, involving the same editors; here's the discussion in the archives. Woonpton ( talk) 13:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
a lot of suggestive prancing around about yet another ancient sunken civilization. I've removed the worst bits (terraforming...), but closer inspection this seems to be all due to the ravings of one Masaaki Kimura who "argues that Yonaguni is the site of a city at least 5,000 years old which sunk 2,000 years ago". dab (𒁳) 11:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
The "pyramid" structures are referred to as architectonic, but if you'll look at that article (and especially its talk page), you'll see a complete mess. I am pretty sure that the Yonaguni structures aren't so described to say that they are like Mies van de Rohe's buildings, though. Mangoe ( talk) 13:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not very familiar with this noticeboard or how it works, so I'll just mention that I think it would be a good idea for editors here to take a look at Wikipedia:Ani#Steven_M._Greer and the related article where it looks like three single-purpose accounts are pushing a fringe theory -- Steven J. Anderson ( talk) 20:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Cancer#Complementary_and_alternative This falls over itself to cast Complementary and alternative treatments in as good of a light as possible. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 23:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
David Rohl's "New Chronology" has its own article now. I have serious doubts this deserves a standalone article. It appears to have no credibility whatsoever and would probably belong as a section or paragraph in Rohl's own article. dab (𒁳) 07:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Can someone please look at Talk:Davenport Tablets and tell me if I've got the wrong end of the stick or of the IP editor simply doesn't understand what Wikipedia (or 'this group' as he says) wants in the way of reliable sources? Thanks. Doug Weller ( talk) 19:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Please take a look at Whole-Earth decompression dynamics and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whole-Earth decompression dynamics The article promotes the speculations of J. Marvin Herndon and is referenced essentially solely to his work. No valid reliable secondary sources have been produced on the afd discussion. Subject needs more eyes and input. Vsmith ( talk) 02:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Ongoing concerns relating to conspiracy theories that the former (a French TV journalist) had faked the death of the latter (a Palestinian boy) in a shooting incident in 2000. The conspiracy theories are a distinctly minority POV that have been promoted mainly by a handful of activists and bloggers. This has been the subject of a recent French libel trial brought against one such activist, so there are significant and active BLP issues in this case. Some new/IP/single-purpose editors have sought to give them undue weight, state them as fact or to claim that the French courts have supported them (they didn't). A discussion is currently taking place on Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah; it would be helpful if uninvolved editors could provide an opinion. -- ChrisO ( talk) 12:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Also worth noting that Julia1987 ( talk · contribs) was previously Southkept ( talk · contribs)...that is, linking back to the recent CAMERA drama. Moreschi ( talk) ( debate) 12:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
An informal mediation on the above has now begun on Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah, with the help of Elonka. It would be helpful if editors with experience of dealing with fringe theories (and their proponents) could participate. -- ChrisO ( talk) 08:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I was going to clean up abduction phenomenon. Then I discovered ufology, and its child articles like List of alleged UFO-related extraterrestrials and List of alleged UFO-related locations. Then I gave up and cried for a bit. There are serious fringe issues with all these articles. Jack Sarfatti, for example, is glowingly referenced for a "repulsive anti-gravity field 'dark energy'" mode of transport in ufology. David Icke is given equal billing with slightly more respectable individuals such as Carl Sagan. Not only that, the writing style often switches between in-universe batshittiness (c.f. Ufology#Atmosphere_beast_hypothesis) and promising yet undercited sobriety (( Ufology#Psychology). I don't even know where to start - disentangling the fringe, skeptical, and folklore/psychology aspects would be an obvious goal - so I bring it here for assistance. Skinwalker ( talk) 01:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Theories on the origin of Croats is still around, duplicating the same material at Croats. This seems to be part of attempts to say that modern-day Croats are not the descendants of the Slavs who migrated into the area, but are, instead, the descendants of the indigenous inhabitants of the area. Which might be fringy. This has probably been up on this noticeboard before, but it would be nice to get it finally cleared up. Moreschi ( talk) ( debate) 13:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at his edits: [19] including what he's done to ScienceApologists page. He's not a newbie, that's for sure. Doug Weller ( talk) 18:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't mind being blamed for all sorts of general mayhem - I am the only person to have claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks after all - but I'll be fucked if I'm going to stand back and let you accuse me of being the kind of person who would use the word "ya'll". [20] Kindly strike through your scandalous attack sir! Davvvkal ( talk) 14:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure that this is the proper forum for my issue, but I could use some eyes on the above article. It came to my attention while I was reviewing the edit history of Phalanxpursos ( talk · contribs), who had taken to leaving talk page posts connecting 9/11 with Nazi Germany. My attempts to clean up this article, accompanied by explanation of my edits on the talk page, have been reverted. I don't want to break 3RR, but I don't see how statements like Two-way communications Radio contact with Aliens has been established in 1929, the Majestic 12 (MJ-12) is an Ultra Top Secret Research and Development Intelligence Operation of Extraterrestrial contact can be stated as fact, even when they are sourced to a Geocities page. I've attempted to communicate with the user directly, with no response. Any assistance would be appreciated. // Chris (complaints)• (contribs) 21:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I think this article would benefit from the attention of some editors who watch this noticeboard. -- Steven J. Anderson ( talk) 04:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Please consider if poorly sourced neo-Nazi views HAVE to be kept on a Hinduism mythology article of major importance to that religion.
I was referred here by an experienced editor from whom I asked for help who told me that this clearly is a case of a Fringe Theory being given undue weight and should be brought up here. Kalki is the awaited 10th avatar of Vishnu of orthodox Hinduism as described in the Garuda Purana. For a long time User:Ghostexorcist has insisted on maintaining inclusion of a fringe theory by a French neo-Nazi writer named Savitri Devi (1905-1982) who fused Naziism and Hinduism and said that Adolf Hitler was the Kalki avatar of Hinduism. There are no Hindus that believe this that I am aware of. It has been pointed out to Ghostexorcist that this is undue weight and he was pointed to the policy at Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight, [21] (see edit summary box) but he says to exclude this would be a "personal slant" and he is being impartial to keep it. "I don't own this page at all, I'm just protecting it from people who try to slant the page towards their own point of view." [22] He also insists on keeping another Nazi from Argentina Alejandro Biondini (no article and no English language citation) listed on the Kalki page. His reference is in Italian and placed within-text ( http://pnt.libreopinion.com/) even though he has been twice questioned by User:Hoverfish about this kind of referencing.
In addition there is no clear citation that the Nazi writer Savitri Devi actually said Hitler was Kalki specifically. The reference given is this link: http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/SavitriDevi.html which says nothing about Kalki. However, even if a citation for this could be produced, this is certainly undue weight to an extremely fringe view that no one that I am aware of holds. Suggestions to have another article with people who have been said to be Kalki have been rejected as unworkable. [23] It has also been pointed out to Ghostexorcist that his section title " Modern variations of the Kalki prophesy" makes no sense in a Hindu context. Kalki is from old Hindu scriptures and "modern variations" would really not be the Hindu prophesy at all. Also no other version of the prophesy is given under this heading.
Ghostexorcist's history of reverting any changes. [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]
Note that all attempts to discuss with Ghostexorcist are simply followed by a lecture from him. Please consider if poorly sourced neo-Nazi views HAVE to be kept on a Hinduism mythology article of major importance to that religion. Vedantahindu ( talk) 15:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Should it not then at least be added that this view is not held by Hindus and is not part of Hindu teaching in India? Also the name of the article is Modern Versions. Where are these versions? He names a person who held a view. Also, what about this Argentinian with no article and an Italian language reference? Certainly that is not notable. I don't think that you understand that Ghostexorcist will not allow any change at all. Vedantahindu ( talk) 16:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Suggestion: if it really freaks you out/the article is being overloaded with crufty stuff, create a separate List of modern claims to be Kalki, or something similar, and link it from the main article. Moreschi ( talk) ( debate) 16:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Didn't you read in the discussion where Ghostexorcist says such a page will be deleted immediately by an admin. Also, it is not so much freaky as unverfied trivia. His reference for the French writer (when you read it) does not say that she wrote he was Kalki. Nor does the article on her. His reference for the Argentina man is in Italian. These have been brought up to him. So these have to stay because Ghostexorcist says they are true with no English reference? Vedantahindu ( talk) 16:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry, but this is about a mythological topic. By the nature of mythology, this makes it very different from paranormal/homeopathic claims and the like. It doesn't make sense to ask if it is "true" that Kalki "is" an avatar of Vishnu, that's just the myth. The Kalki myth is a feature of Puranic Hinduism. Savitri Devi ostensibly isn't part the Puranic canon: this is why she is mentioned in the "modern" section. I don't think it is necessary to point out that mainstream Hindus have nothing to do with her any more than it would be necessary to point out that Geoffrey of Monmouth never endorsed the Excalibur movie. dab (𒁳) 16:37, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
The Hitler-as-Kalki meme is fairly common among esoteric Hitlerists such as Miguel Serrano and others. It has an entire chapter in Black Sun, the canonical work on neo-Nazi ideology. It inspired a novel by Gore Vidal. Certainly encyclopaedic. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 22:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
A lot of quantum blather at Meaning_of_life#Scientific_questions_about_the_mind. Other "scientific" bits in this article also need some sceptical review. dab (𒁳) 18:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Could someone take a look at this and see what they think of the recent edit? I've just had a real set to with this editor on the Cahokia Mounds (see the talk page, he called an editor of a scholarly book fringe & racist, and the book "entirely about petty arguments and opinions" despite its getting rave reviews in scholarly journals -- all because the book suggests some people were buried alive), and I'd rather not go through that again. Doug Weller ( talk) 05:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Minor fracas over at Electrical sensitivity ( talk). The page is now temporarily protected, but it would be nice to have on the talk page some more editors experienced with due weight. At least one of the editors there has been pushing non-mainstream theories in a number of electricity and health related articles, and I am not going to be around this weekend if the page protection just pushes the assertions to a different article. - Eldereft ( cont.) 22:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
This is Walam Olum again. I don't know what to do about this editor, who (here and in other articles) misinterpets NPOV (which he is now claiming applies to a book), 'reliable sources', 'verifiability (which he thinks means if he disagrees with a statement in a book it must be verified by some other source), etc. Since Oestreicher showed that the Walam Olum is a hoax in 1994, a large number of scholars have published books and articles agreeing with him and quite a lot of work shows no one disagreeing with him. Take a look at the talk page and the edit history of the article. Despite calling me and the author NPOV, in fact he is preventing the article from being NPOV and insists that a space reporter's self-published book not cited in scholarly sources somehow 'trumps' anything else. (There's also another argument in that Oestreicher says an author named Joe Napora changed his mind, and Marburg72 claims I've misinterpreted what is a very clear statement but again refuses to explain). Thanks. Doug Weller ( talk) 04:14, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
We finally have a group of editors committed to fixing up Unidentified flying object and related articles. Already accomplished:
We currently are asking whether Identified flying object should be merged. In many ways, I think much of the content at "IFO" should be given the most weight at UFO, but that's only my opinion. Things are looking up there and soon we can begin the process of tearing down the walls of this garden of woo.
Come join us.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 04:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
On the UFO front, I've been meaning to work on Clyde Tombaugh's article for a while, as the biographic information is rather truncated (he had a significant later career). I haven't had time to do him justice. In the meantime, however, his article is about 50% WP:UNDUE about him having seen a UFO and riffing on from there. If someone would like to take a look at cutting that back to something more reasonable, I'd appreciate it. Mangoe ( talk) 15:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm involved in editing an article in which a conspiracy theory plays a large part. Another editor is proposing to expand the article to cover a wide range of issues that have been raised by the conspiracy theorists. Given that the article is not specifically about the conspiracy theory, how much detailed exposition is appropriate in cases such as this? -- ChrisO ( talk) 22:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Have a look here, if you like. There's lots of Proof by assertion that ScienceApologist is a problematic editor, no evidence at all being provided. MartinPhi seems to be getting ignored in favour of a massive "I a-hate him!" against SA. Can someone step in there and add some sanity? Either provide actual hard evidence against SA, or try and pull it away from the "Bash SA" hour? Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Good editors are extremely problematic. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 16:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Article on a Japanese new religious movement has had multiple problems for a long while. There are some scholarly accounts but I don't have access to them. Now a newbie has arrived to add unsourced or poorly sourced material from a Christian debunking POV. He has decided I am a supporter of the NRM. I have been very civil, honest! Itsmejudith ( talk) 20:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
This "newbie" included a reference to the Goseigen, the Sukyo Mahikari bible of teachings for its founder, where the quotes were lifted from. If you go back to the reference list you deleted, you can look up the ISBN number. The exact same books are used as legitimate references on the general Mahikari page, so why delete mine? I can understand that you may disagree with the original likne to letusreason.org -- that is NOT my site. I sent the link as a way to keep the text shortened on the page. After I posted that link, everything else I posted was deleted -- even when properly sourced and referenced. Yes, I may be new but frankly instead of just deleting topics my understanding was that Wiki editors actually took the time to DISCUSS before changing? I didn't delete previous author's entries to the very biased, pro-Mahikari SM page when I first posted--I just added on. Why did these editors not single out previous authors for their bias????? Honestyisbestpolicy ( talk) 17:18, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I never got any response for my request for help on this article (See Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_4#Bates_method). We're making some good progress, but we still need lots of help as the majority of editors working on it are WP:SPAs with little experience on how to deal with problems common to such articles. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:26, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Look at my last two diffs [31] [32] for some garbage I just cleaned up. There is likely a lot of this crap. Start with Guru or Category:New religious movements and you'll find a plethora of cults POV-pushing or uploading false information. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 16:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi, i really wasnt sure how to do this, i wanted to avoid some of the more viewed notice boards to avoid the usual drama. There is an editer "CadenS" who is promoting a fringe theory on talk pages that is actually quite offensive. He calls it the " Homosexual Agenda", which is a right wing way of saying "gays are plotting against the world". I have listed just ten examples below, there are many many more edits like this by the user. He called one user who is a member of the LGBT community "Heterophobic" for not agreeing with him. I know that the editer was very offended by the comment. Now being conservative and christain is fine with me, but this is going too far, i see these unhealthy ideas spouted on Conservapedia and honestly its dangerous.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 - im guessing "this" means homosexuality?
If this is the wrong place for this report i apologise and would appreciate it if you could redirect me. Cheers. Realist2 ( Come Speak To Me) 15:57, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Tell him to try out Conservapedia, assuming he's not there already. Moreschi ( talk) ( debate) 22:02, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
telling a user "you must be blind" in the context of a dispute isn't a personal attack, be reasonable. I agree that homophobic rants have no place on Wikipedia, but that's already by virtue of being rants ( WP:SOAP). This isn't urgent. Warn the user to get his act together, and if he persists, block him. There is really no need to compile a legalistic case from varied guidelines: if the user clearly isn't here to write an encyclopedia, well, he has no business editing. Jesus, I am really tired of "Wikiquette alerts" and people giving me grief over WP:CIVIL because I told them they are wrong. Which results in nice venomous messages such as this one, chastising me for reacting with sarcasm in the face of a user who exploded in ungrammatical rants over my using the term "Transcaucasian highland". I wish all the Wikiquette and CIVIL vigilantes would remember that we are here to write an encyclopedia. Yes, this means we should block people who are here for homophobic ranting. But it also means that our serious contributors shouldn't be expected to keep smiling and babysit confused single-topic accounts.
On the content side, I meekly submit that Wikipedia could do with a little bit of moderate homophobia criticism of the homosexual agenda. "LBGT" topics have a very strong lobby on Wikipedia, and this often results in rather surreal presence of "homosexuality" links. The Ancient Greek topics are littered with them. Yes, the ancient Greeks practiced "ephebophilia". No, this doesn't mean the fact needs to be featured prominently in every article on Ancient Greece. Links to
Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies are found in the most unlikely places. I mean, ok, so
Viktor Rydberg once had a male lover. He was also a philologist, a poet and a scholar. How does he qualify as a subject of "LBGT studies" any more than your average boring married-with-children biography qualifies for "hetero sexology studies"? I am saying, I can muster a degree of understanding for the people rolling their eyes at "gay Wikipedia". I have issues with the very concept of "LBGT" categorization. How is it
WP:NPOV to treat female (L) and male (G) homosexuality implicitly as "the same topic" as bisexuality (B) and "transgender" (T)? "
LBGT" is a political term that deserves its own Wikipedia article, but which shouldn't be used for categorization any more than, say "ACF" should be used to categorize "Anarchists, Capitalists and Fascists", or "SPR" should be used for "Satanists, Pagans and Roman Catholics".
dab
(𒁳) 06:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems this fringe historian's views (his last book apparently had a print run of around 700 copies and unknown in the West) is being given undue weight in the article The Soviet Story. The article already has sections " Positive assessments" and " Negative responses", so it is fairly balanced already without the addition of the section " Disputed points of Alexander Dyukov". Martintg ( talk) 21:14, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
The situtaion here is becoming derganged beyond words. User:RajivLal, User:Jookti and User:Padan keep reverting my edits. I have no doubt that they are sockpuppets, certainly of RajivLal, who has already been convicted of socking. [33] Most likely they are all avatars of User:DWhiskaZ who seems to have been fringe-bombing this page and others (eg Mahound) for months with his proof that Muhammad was predicted by all world scriptures. What is most bizarre is the fact that the reversion started when I cleaned up the prose of this editor. I didn't even change the meaning, but raised it for discussion on the talk page. The various users keep reverting to the incoherent version, apparently being too stupid to realise that my initial intention was simply to improve their edits. I guess they just assume that any changes must be designed to conceal The Truth. In a few minutes I will be away from Wikipedia for several days, so can't pursue this further. Paul B ( talk) 22:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm sort of picking up where
User:Paul Barlow left off (and I hope Paul will pick this up once again when he returns from his trip). I've been wrestling with the User that Paul mentions (i.e., "Rajivlal/Padan") for a few days now on this issue. As Paul mentions, this user is obsessed with linking Mohammad with the Bhavishya Purana, which is a fringe theory at best (and this user has been pursuing an edit war over this). I'd like to add some additional information here that I've added elsewhere but perhaps can consolidate in this space regarding the fringe theory that "links" Mohammad and the Bhavishya Purana.
I should add first and in passing that User:Padan aka Rajivlal is pretty clearly the same person as (or is linked with) user:DWhiskaZ (who was similarly obsessed with Mohammad and the Bhavishya Purana and similarly posted from Univ of Toronto under a variety of sockpuppets and was subsequently banned for that, see here for details on DWhizkaZ's history). In the last 2 days I came across two dozen wikipedia articles (including the Bhavishya Purana article and articles related to topics in Hinduism and in the Bible) where User:Padan has inserted the paragraphs about Mohammad/Bible and the Bhavishya Purana, either citing nothing or citing only the missionary/activist Abdul Haque (see below), and presenting the "link" as if it were an uncontroversial or authoritative statement, giving no indication of the fringe nature of the interpretation. He also seems to have a poor understanding of what "scholarly sources" means. I proceeded to revert them only to find that he promptly undid my reverts and launched an edit war (which Paul also experienced before I came upon the scene) which culminated in my reporting User:Padan to WP:AIAV and his reporting me to WP:ANI. This edit (and admin reporting) war aside, some details on the fringe theory in question follow below.
First, the question of fringe politics: User Padan aka Rajivlal (aka DWhiskaZ) is promoting the views of a certain Muslim Ahmadiyya missionary named Abdul Haq Vidyarthi ( aka Dr. Haq; google him) and indeed User Padan produces Haq's (decidedly political) book as the only "source" for this repeated insertion in these and other articles. Abdul Haque argues that the Bhavishya Purana "foretold" the arrival of Islam, of Mohammad the prophet, (and even foretold the Genesis story, and foretold Queen Victoria and the arrival of the English). Abdul Haque promotes this view for a variety of reasons that have to do with his particular missionary activism, to argue that in foretelling the arrival of the Prophet Mohammad the Bhavishya Purana (taken as part of "hindu scripture") thus validates Islam as Hinduism's successor religion, and also to argue that "every religion has been already warned" of abandoning idolatry.
The Bhavishya Purana itself has an interesting manuscript history which makes such politicking possible (even if on the fringe margins of fundamentalist interpretations). It was a politicized document from the moment it was discovered since it was never found in an untampered manuscript. It was found with a host of obviously modern insertions into the ancient text, such as mentioning Queen Victoria and the arrival of English traders along with an extensive and detailed summary of the story of Genesis and mentions of Mohammad. There has been considerable theorizing in academe about who made these insertions and what their motives (political, religious, etc) might have been. As Nagendra Kumar Singh in the "Encyclopaedia of Hinduism" suggests, there were apparently multiple sources of these accretions in the text, some by Hindu attempts to coopt or respond to western threats, others by Christian missionary attempts to coopt Hindu texts (compare with the invented text, the "Ezourvedam", of the Jesuit Roberto de Nobili), and Muslim missionaries (like Haque) motivated similarly by attempts to coopt Hindu texts: suggesting multiple sources and moments in these accretions, as opposed to just one person or group being responsible.
However - and this is the point - no modern scholar disputes that these are in fact modern and recent insertions and not part of the historical text (Winternitz, who is often mentioned and quoted in this regard, and is a bonafide scholarly source, dimisses that notion out of hand as the current Bhavishya Purana page itself mentions and sources in footnote 11). Nagendra Kumar Singh similarly in the Encyclopaedia of Hinduism mentioned above, readily acknowledges the modernity of these insertions in analyzing the Bhavishya Purana.
And this is not what User:Padan (and Abdul Haque) would have the reader believe.
So my point is simply this: If a discussion of the manuscript history of the Bhavishya Purana is to be inserted (why would it be? and why only for this Purana? etc) then above all else it would need to properly contextualize the different interpretations in the politicization of this manuscript and not simply pass off one particular fringe interpretation as if it were either authoritative, or mainstream, or scholarly. It would also have to bear the burden of proof that it is not a fringe interpretation and as such be inappropriate for this wikipedia article. Jak68 ( talk) 06:46, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Category:Nations by haplogroups (Y-DNA) and subcategories are an exceptionally bad idea that can only be explained by innocence of any knowledge of population genetics. So the English people are a "nation belonging to haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA)". Source?? Source, not so much for that "fact", but for the meaning of the notion of a "nation" "belonging" to a haplogroup in the first place? Categorization hell looms. Probably belongs on CfD. If not speedied as blatant racialist (or just blatant) nonsense. dab (𒁳) 17:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I've put it on CfD. Please comment. dab (𒁳) 07:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
I think this article could use a few more sets of eyes on it. It has several regular single-topic editors who are evidently fans of the theory, and want to relegate any mention of it being mostly ignored by physicists—despite Scientific American saying exactly that—to a long-winded opinion section. (That section is, possibly, original research in and of itself.) Thanks! -- SCZenz ( talk) 19:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I've never understood why people take this seriously. Anyway, here we have an editor adding OR (and pov) nonsense about Egyptians needing steel saws. I've reverted it, he's put it back saying of course that I have a clear POV reason for reverting him. The article could use some attention. Thanks. -- Doug Weller ( talk) 16:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:Fringe_theories#Particular_attribution_POV - this really needs more voices, at the moment it's just MartinPhi/ScienceApologist and a couple friends. I don't know the merits of the case, I haven't had time to look into it. I did see that Martinphi - consciously or unconsciously, I don't know - included text in his version that bolstered his view in an ongoing dispute. It needs sane heads to look into the problem and come up with good policy, which isn't going to happen if it becomes a front in the Martinphi/ScienceApologist war. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 22:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
There is currently a dispute at soy milk on whether or not a controversial claim made in a commercial advertisement is encyclopedic material. There is currently a RfC under progress concerning this issue among others. Please help resolve this dispute. Thank you. Cydevil38 ( talk) 00:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Reich's theory was regarded as pseudoscience when it was published and has been labeled as such ever sense. There is a ton of psychobabble and other issues with the article but I am trying to move one step at a time. I am just trying to get the fact that this is pseudoscience into the lead. I have collected way more references than are needed yet a single user is constantly reverting.I have attempted a RFC but that doesn't seem to be working out. I am not sure where best to post this so I am trying here. I don't think it is at the stage yet that requires formal mediation but maybe it is close. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Tmtoulouse ( talk) 18:18, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
A statement. I am currently engaged on improving articles relating to medical and biological thought in the early 20thC. I have worked substantially on Hans Driesch, Teleology, Vitalism, Alexander Gurwitsch, Morphogenetic field, Biophoton, Hans Spemann, Paul Alfred Weiss, Wilhelm Roux, Theory of recapitulation, Ross Granville Harrison, Harold Saxton Burr, L-field.
I am particularly interested in how Theosophical thought was influenced by and influenced thinking at that time, so have also contributed to articles such as Energy (esotericism), Astral Body and so forth, usually in a bid to introduce historicism and secondary sources.
However I note that a few such pages, such as this orgone, are included in some kind of gospel of pseudoscience, and hence are under persistent edit-attack. Wiki requires a solid reference for a consensus of pseudoscience. This has been requested by me time and again. I have introduced into the lede all kinds of compromises (Journalists call this pseudoscience, vitalism is considered superseded etc) and all have been removed, citations and tags discarded to be replaced with identical improperly-sourced "pseudoscience" statements by a string of different editors. I have several times explained the need for a proper historically-aware overview, but my interlocutors simply do not know anything about the history of biology and psychology. Since there has been no constructive discussion or editing from the other side, and since all editors represent the same dogmatic POV, all repetitive unsourced edits, having been removed to the talk page, are now being reverted without notice since this cadre is clearly intent upon damaging the prospect of any coherent user-understanding of this aspect of 20thC thought. Redheylin ( talk) 23:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
PS BWHAHAHA!! or words to that effect. Come on guys, get on the case, before a doctor comes. Redheylin ( talk) 01:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Orgone medically classed as putative vital energy.
In contrast, putative energy fields (also called biofields) have defied measurement to date by reproducible methods. Therapies involving putative energy fields are based on the concept that human beings are infused with a subtle form of energy. This vital energy or life force is known under different names in different cultures, such as qi.., and elsewhere as prana, etheric energy, fohat, orgone, odic force, mana, and homeopathic resonance.3 Vital energy is believed to flow throughout the material human body, but it has not been unequivocally measured by means of conventional instrumentation. Nonetheless, therapists claim that they can work with this subtle energy, see it with their own eyes, and use it to effect changes in the physical body and influence health. http://nccam.nih.gov/health/backgrounds/energymed.htm
People who talk like that are going to feel condescended to. I mean, anybody could rise above that kind of talk even if they was falling down a lift shaft. Redheylin ( talk) 22:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
The war on Talk:Orgone is continuing to rage, albeit in a somewhat more civil manner than before. The problem I have is that fundamentally, orgone can be objectively shown to be a pseudoscience by virtue of the fact that its observations remain unconfirmed in the broader scientific field, yet its proponents continue to present it as a science. Others, particulary User:Martinphi, have been insisting on attribution under WP:OR and WP:V; under the circumstances, I feel this is like requiring someone to reference a multiplication table to prove that 2*3=6, and that the continued insistence on a reference to something that is, by definition, obvious on its face, is against the spirit of WP:POINT and WP:IAR. Haikupoet ( talk) 19:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Could someone drop by Talk:Jesus myth hypothesis#Euhemerization and offer some outside input? --Akhilleus ( talk) 20:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be some kind of effort to promote this chain of limestone shoals as actually being an ancient megastructure, built no doubt by the same hyper-advanced Hindu civilization that built an enormous civilzation in the Gulf of Cambay. Or, alternatively, the shoals are clearly Allah's handiwork. Um, yeah. Textbook case of WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. < eleland/ talk edits> 08:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I think all that needs to be said on this has already been said back in October. -- dab (𒁳) 09:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
There's a new RfC at Dysgenics which might interest some of the editors here. It is related to the RfC that took place at the same article a couple months ago.-- Ramdrake ( talk) 10:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Someone added a large new section on an argument put forward by an Italian professor which if true reverses the sequence of two Pharaohs. The source is an online archive at Cornell University [38] where anyone registered can deposit a paper, it is simply a storage facility and the article has not been published (it's also described in the Great pyramid complex article as inter-disciplinary although Magli seems to be the only article). In other words, it hasn't been published. I've seen some casual dismissal of it in various forums as ignoring almost everything we know about the Giza pyramids. I don't think it even deserves a mention, but it is now over 1/3 of the article. I removed it, with an edit summary saying " (this is only published on line, not yet significant, let's wait until it is formally published to even mention it, take to talk page if anyone disagrees". It was then replaced from an IP address with the edit summary "rv edit by Mr. Da' goal, la' Key. rv back to edit by Kelvin Case". (is that just gibberish or does it mean something?). I removed it again. Another IP editor (again, no history of contributions) replaced it with the edit summary 'rvv'. I don't know if these are the original editor (see his talk page, he seems to think he should have special exceptions), or what, but obviously I will run into 3RR if this continues. Thanks. Doug Weller ( talk) 05:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
I've created this myself, and in spite of the catchy title, the claims made in the sources discussed do not seem extravagant to me. But WP:FRINGE has been called upon the article (if by a notorious problem editor), and I would like to offer the status of the article for review. Merging is a possibility, of course, but I think the article could be expanded and would quickly become too heavy for a section at origin of religion. dab (𒁳) 09:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Fringe editor Marburg72 has added something here that includes "A prominent feature of the pictorial art of the Algonquians around Lake Superior and Michigan is the use of an hourglass shape to portray the human form. There are many examples of it on birch bark records and in drawings made by Indian Informants. They seem to be derived ultimately from the upper paleolithic figures."
Note the shape 'hourglass' is key to this. Now I have the entire article from Current Archaeology which includes a number of rebuttals (probably the reason Greeman's arguments in 1963 rarely ever surfaced again accept in fringe media). The hourglass argument is specifically refuted, and I added that refutation. Twice he has removed my addition, saying "take the argument against the to the hourglass page. Your argument against Greenman is irreleveant to this topic and so is hourglass.)" (I have no idea what he means by 'against the to'.). Maybe someone can explain why the hourglass shape is relevant when it is used to prove cultural connections with the European Upper Paleolithic, but when I point out that the same article says "A detailed analysis of the comparisons and the accompanying illustrations show Greenman to be even more incorrect. I shall only discuss some critical facts on rock-painting and engraving. The hourglass shape has nothing to do with palaeolithic art," an argument that the hourglass shape shows no such thing is irrelevant?-- Doug Weller ( talk) 19:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
This article is in a bit of a state. There is excessive peacockery of anyone that supports PK, while the scope of Psychokinesis has been enlarged to encompass almost any non-physical phenomenon or fringe belief (for example, levitation, miracles, and resurrection (eg. of Lazurus) are included.) There is also a dispute as to whether scientific criticisms should be referred to as "skeptics" and whether their views should be prominent. I think this article could do with more educated eyes on it - especially the list of references, which is longer than the article itself. -- SesquipedalianVerbiage ( talk) 12:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
This trio of related (yet unlinked) articles are in desperate need of some attention. Second event theory appears to be a self published theory of Chris Busby, championed by his organisation: The Low Level Radiation Campaign. The articles are a mess of un-encyclopaedic writing and self published references, with poor style throughout. The Chris Busby article has definite BLP problems, while the LLRC article is massive, but mostly seems to be about Chris Busby and Second event theory. The second event theory article intro is huge and poorly written, and doesn't give any idea as to whether this theory is even remotely entertained by mainstream science. I'm not even sure that the LLRC meets the notability criteria for inclusion, and the same can be said for Second event theory. This might be a big job - any takers to give me a hand/advice? I'll look again tomorrow. -- SesquipedalianVerbiage ( talk) 21:57, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
This seems to consist mostly of fringe theories. Peter jackson ( talk) 16:10, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Please forgive me if I am posting in the wrong location. I am looking for suggestions and input regarding an edit I have attempted to make and defend. I attempted to place two sentences in the Nietzsche article, in the section entitled " Nietzsche's Reading". The sentences read as follows:
"It is also possible that he read and was significantly influenced by Max Stirner. However, this theory has a long and controversial history and, while such influence cannot be ruled out, it appears impossible to conclusively establish."
One editor on the page suggested that these two sentences gave undue weight to the theory of Stirner influence on Nietzsche and removed them. He or she also suggested these two sentences constituted support for a Fringe Theory. I provided some 20 citations on the talk page. These citations showed that the theory has a long history, a controversial history, and that it has been debated in both popular and academic settings. At least of six of these references showed clearly that the idea that Nietzsche was influenced by Stirner is still current, though it is a view held by a significant minority (including such well known figures as Deleuze).
I do not feel that the inclusion of one sentence mentioning the possibility of influence, and another providing caveats about controversy and the fact that it cannot be established conclusively constitutes undue weight. I also feel that the suggestion that this is a fringe theory is disingenuous. Can anyone provide me with suggestions or guidance here regarding determining whether or not these two sentences constitute undue weight or if they are improperly endorsing a "fringe theory"? Thank you. -- Picatrix ( talk) 22:35, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I see an incipient edit war over Philadelphia Church of God, where anonymous users are asserting that Herbert W. Armstrong is proven to have been a false prophet whose beliefs were proven to be false doctrines. I would hate to be blocked for edit warring when I am simply saying (repeatedly) that these types of statements are inherently not verifiable and therefore cannot be presented as factual statements. -- Orlady ( talk) 21:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
{{ tone}}, WP:TRUTH. The classification as "false prophet" can never be neutral, already because it implies that there is such a thing as a "true prophet". -- dab (𒁳) 09:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Discussion at Talk:Petroleum#Abiogenic_Petroleum_Origin.
An editor ( Wikkidd ( talk · contribs)) has begun a campaign to expand the section of the petroleum article which discusses abiogenic oil. He claims that other editors are vandalizing his attempts to push his POV, and will not accept that this issue has been badgered to death many times before (some threads listed at the discussion above, but also at Talk:Peak oil and Talk:Abiogenic petroleum origin, among others).
The abiogenic petroleum origin hypothesis is fringe (some of the most important evidence includes the facts that all oil so far extracted has biomarkers which are assumed to prove a biological origin, and the progression towards petroleum is clearly visible in bogs->methane->peat->coal->petroleum). Scientific consensus clearly supports a biological origin of petroleum, and this is what the petroleum article presents, using sources which state as much. Any assistance would be appreciated as folks at wp:AIV don't want to touch this (Wikkid has removed sections of sourced content from several articles during the past 24 hours). Thanks, NJGW ( talk) 23:03, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Lyn Redwood - the very model of fringe theory propoganda. Presumes that autism causes mercury, and isolates the subject from any and all criticism. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 03:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
This article has been messed up by an unregistered editor who seems to be fanatically devoted to the idea that the Papez circuit (a set of brain structures) was actually discovered by somebody else before Papez. It would be okay to mention this, but since it is a minority viewpoint only supported by a single publication, it shouldn't dominate the article. Attempts at discussion has been ignored. Looie496 ( talk) 20:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Looie496 ( talk) 17:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
A real dustbin of "how to", unreliable sources, irrelevancies, etc. Gordonofcartoon ( talk) 14:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
This article seems to have some huge neutrality and conflict of interest problems, as well as being in need of a good copy edit. Anyone care to help? -- SesquipedalianVerbiage ( talk) 18:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Can I request some outside eyes on Lyme disease? There have been a handful of agenda accounts, at least one with a real-life COI, intent on inserting material suggesting that Lyme disease resulted from a biowarfare experiment gone awry. Of course, there are no reliable sources supporting this conclusion being cited - just evidence that some people who have researched Lyme have also worked in biodefense - but this is apparently an ongoing issue which could use additional eyes. MastCell Talk 18:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
This fringe theory article is being hijacked by a user who insists that the article is slanted due to the scientific view being presented as the majority view. He is now tagging the page as POV, without giving any justification, while he accuses all editors who disagree with him of being the same person. He refuses to discuss his changes on the talk page, and is increasingly rude to other editors. He appears to be a single purpose account, apart from one recent edit to another article that was vandalism [40]. Could a few people have a look at the page and weigh in with their thoughts on the discussion page? Thanks. -- CaneryMBurns ( talk) 09:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion on the talk page of the above article as to whether the article should be exclusively devoted to content regarding the Jewish perspective on the books in question, or whether it should deal with the books from the perspectives of all interested parties. As the subject relates to basically deal roughly with the idea of undue weight, which is the primary interest of this noticeboard, I thought that some of the editors here might be interested in offering their opinions on the article's talk page. Thank you. John Carter ( talk) 21:21, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
after a prolongued period of peace, we have a few Hindu zealots raising their heads once again (remember autumn 2005 anyone?)
As you can see on Talk:Hinduism, the matter at present revolves around WP:LEAD ( Wikipedia:Lead fixation -- and WP:ENC I suppose). Some pious editors insist hook and crook on presenting the frequently-repeated pious sentiment that "Hinduism is the oldest religion" in the lead of Hinduism, as a fact stated in Wikipedia's voice. As a compromise, I offered mentioning the notion as one "often held by Hindus". Of course, blanket revert warring ensued. This is one of an increasing number of "Hindu incidents" under way at present. The cast at this moment are Tripping Nambiar ( talk · contribs) and Wikidas ( talk · contribs), but these accounts come and go over the months of course, and in my experience it doesn't pay to separate the meat from the socks.
I will insist on resolving this by the letter because (a) Hinduism is a top importance article and we cannot allow its very lead to become a platform for muddle-headed hype and (b) the case is exemplary for constant, unidirectional (pro-hype) degradation of hundreds and hundreds of lesser-watched articles on Hindu topics. dab (𒁳) 18:46, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Re the "obvious pseudoscience" and "ridiculuous notion": I have provided enough references to establish that Vedism and Hinduism are considered separate religions, just like Judaism and Christianity are considered separate.
Both essays I just cited are unequivocally academic, and give a fair picture of scholarly thinking on the matter. How about you (gasp) read them. And how about this:
Vedism and Babylonian polytheism are pre- Axial. Hinduism and Christianity are post-Axial. Our Hinduism and History of Hinduism articles will reflect the fact. The Gayatri mantra is a pre-Axial verse that was adopted into post-Axial Hindu liturgy. Just like the pre-Axial Pentateuch is still considered a sacred text in post-Axial Christianity. The fact that bits of the Christian Old Testament may date back to the Early Iron Age doesn't make Christianity a religion of the Early Iron Age. Just as survival of a Rigvedic verse into modern Hinduism doesn't make modern Hinduism part of Rigvedic religion. dab (𒁳) 18:07, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I glanced at the Hinduism talk page, saw how lengthy the discussion was, and came back here. No one's suggesting it's simply "the oldest religion in the world" are they? Obviously there are older religions, for example in Ancient Egypt. There'd have to be substantial context. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 19:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I will assume that you are just trying to annoy at this point, in order not to insult your intelligence. If you can show that the "majority of researchers" include Vedism as part and parcel of "Hinduism", the problem will be solved. But then not even Britannica does that, much less the academics I have just cited, so I suppose the rest of your "argument" simply collapses along with that claim. The reference to Babylon is a simile to make you understand the problem (assuming that you are actually trying). Obviously Vedism is "in religious tradition of Hinduism", the very same way that Babylonian religion is "in the religious tradition of Judaism and Christianity". Does that make Christianity 4,000 years old? No. And now, by the miracle of human cognition, you might understand that neither is Hinduism aged 7,000 years just because it is in the "tradition of Proto-Indo-European religion". The burden is on you to show there is any mainstream consensus on such a ludicrous idea. I have shown a number of academic and encyclopedic sources that do not take that view as a matter of course. Hence the case is closed. You are still free to point out that "some authors" have claimed this or that quaint notion regarding Hinduism. dab (𒁳) 20:44, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
A poster/admin lurks/edits/reverts etc on articles related to Hinduism-vedic literature, people of vedic period (or aryans as westerners like to call them), the aryan invasion theory ETC. This poster blatantly subscribes to the point of view that all the vedic people or aryans have european ancestry via the scythians or descendants of the arctic region; that vedic religion(?) or vedas are exclusive creations of these peoples and vehemently insists that vedic religion is far from modern day Hinduism as far as (gasp) christinaity is from babylonian religion no less, even though none of the actual practitioners of Hindu religion in India subscribe to this POV. Why does this poster (gone wild with admin rights) insist on breaking the link between the great vedic tradition, vedas and the associated religious practices with the people of modern day India who call themselves Hindus and have upheld their traditions for millenia and insists on associating it exclusively with europeans? Why? Anyone have any idea? hmmmmm? Do you smell that?
This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page. |
I hesitate to bring this up, because it is such a big article, but it is an important article that is a complete mess. Major sections of it are completely unsourced. The most completely unsourced sections are the introduction and exactly those sections that try to explain what New Age means and its origin. The article includes under the name a large collection of unrelated movements, and individuals, that have nothing in common but the name New Age.
Has anyone taken a look at it, and have some ideas about what how it could be improved? Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 22:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
User:Jack-A-Roe, User:PetraSchelm and User:SqueakBox have together removed a link to Skeptic's Dictionary from Hystero-epilepsy 5 times. They have justified this by characterizing the link as self-published, link-cruft, questionable, non-expert, and a profit-generating ad revenue scrape site. Given Jack-A-Roe's history of civil POV warring, however, I suspect the link is actually being removed because it tangentially mentions "repressed memory" therapists in a negative light, and itself links to an article critical of Dissociative Identity Disorder. A third opinion would be nice. -- AnotherSolipsist ( talk) 20:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It is sort of surprising that AnotherSolipsist appeared on that very obscure article to revert my change, when he's not edited that article or anything related to it previously. I wondered about that; then decided not to worry about it unless it continued to happen.
Putting that curiousity aside, regarding the use of the Skeptic's Dictionary website as an external link: there are two issues about that. It's not a reliable source, it's not a book, it's a self-published website. There is also a book by that title, that includes a subset of the website content - the book was published by a third party, increasing its reliability. I don't know if hystero-epilepsy is in the book or not - if it were, that would add reliability and encourage its use as an in-line footnote. The website is self-published and represents the author's biased views (he does not claim otherwise in his about-himself section on the site). This has been discussed on the reliable sources noticeboard because various editors have wanted to use it in various articles; while there has not been a definitive decision, doubt was expressed about its reliability and the general agreement was that if the site is used as an inline citation, the opinions of Carroll should be attributed and not generalized. So, if it were used as an inline reference, it could be phrased "According to Tom Carroll, author of Skeptic's Dictionary... etc". That approach is from the RS noticeboard recommendation.
In this situation though, as an external link, it's even less appropriate, because it does not meet the qualifications for what should be linked - external links are used only for websites that include information that can't be included directly in Wikipedia for various reasons, such as official websites of organizations that are the topic of the articles, or websites with extensive resources on a topic that go far beyond the level of detail Wikipedia can provide. For more on that see WP:EL . But those qualifications doesn't apply in this situation - it's a one-page article on a self-published website. If any of the information there is valid and usable - there is no reason to advertise his website as an external link when the info can be paraphrased and carefully used with attribution and an in-line footnote. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 23:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Hystero-epilepsy is an alleged disease "discovered" by 19th-century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.[1] It is considered a famous example of iatrogenic artifact, or a disease created by doctors. The disease was considered a combination of hysteria and epilepsy. Charcot housed his "hystero-epilepsy" patients in the same ward as patients with epilepsy, because both were considered "episodic" diseases. At the time, both hysteria and epilepsy were believed to be neuroses; and diseases caused by the conversion of psychological distress into physical distress. Symptoms included "convulsions, contortions, fainting, and transient impairment of consciousness." Joseph Babinski convinced Charcot that he was inducing the symptoms in his patients because of his treatment regimen. [2] I'm sorry--where exactly is the POV in this five sentence article?- PetraSchelm ( talk) 07:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
we should avoid having full blown debates on this page that aren't directly addressing the question of "fringe theories". This is a question of WP:EL. External links are selected on a pragmatic basis, with a view to their utility to the readers. We do not require watertight WP:RS quality for them. As Jack-A-Roe says, this is wiki business as usual, to be addressed on article talkpages. I would encourage everyone to post links to such debates on this noticeboard, but to avoid replicating the full debate here. dab (𒁳) 06:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I honestly see nothing in this link that violates the EL policy. J*Lambton T/ C 21:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Brand new template. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 17:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
A movement of 1970s to 1980s US second wave feminism. we have:
That's not so bad, but tends to attract rather far out opinion pieces. I've removed what seemed to fall under WP:SNOW here and here, and I suppose some of these articles should be merged to allow a discussion of the topic in context, most likely Thealogy belongs merged into Goddess movement. I am not sure whether Goddess worship should be merged into Goddess. All of this isn't at all terrible, it's just a little walled garden in need of cleanup. I am not disputing the topic's notability at all. dab (𒁳) 09:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I have been removing some links from articles that clearly fail as reliable sources, plus some trivia, etc. These are Nephilim (role-playing game), Nephilim, Paleolithic Continuity Theory, Lemuria (continent) and Mu (lost continent) user:Majeston, who is upset with me because of edits on the Urantia article, is following me around (maybe, maybe he just watches them all) and reverting my edits with no reason given. He is also removing requests for citations, eg on the Maya society article. I've just noticed he also reverted an edit of mine at Paper folding which he has never edited, so maybe he is following me around. Any advice as to what to do? Thanks.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 10:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
huge {{ essay-entry}}. impinges on the race of Ancient Egyptians and Aryan cans of worms. Meanwhile, "pharaonist" trolling continues at Egyptians. I don't have the heart for this right now. Ah, yes, and there is also Genetics of the Ancient World. dab (𒁳) 10:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I got this edit passed to me for review. The edit removed almost the entire section "Points of contention" from this revision.
The edit summary states "None of this anything beyond fringe theories" but reading the text it looks incorrect. In fact this seems crucial material for the article - a summary of the fringe theories and their mainstream objections/concerns, presented in a well balanced manner, and all seemingly cited.
Can others take a look, see if this is being removed as a misunderstanding of FRINGE/WEIGHT, or if in fact it is that? Thanks. FT2 ( Talk | email) 01:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
A sort of idiosyncratic definition is being used, and then widely extrapolated. Considerable overlap between articles. - PetraSchelm ( talk) 01:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pederasty
Or, perhaps the most god-awful article on a fringe topic on Wikipedia.
The lead contains one sentence of weak criticism. It then has 20 sections of pure praise and promotion. There's then a criticism section, containing the weakest claims ever. When it actually stooped to make a brief hard criticism, [2] they... synthed data from extreme fringe journals and used this OR to rebut it.
Poor Emily Rosa, notable in her own right as the youngest researcher to be published in a major peer-review journal, is, of course, left out.
In short, an article that bends over backwards in order to avoid making any relevant criticism. HELP! Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 22:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
...By all the gods!!!! Several... HUNDRED articles on one bit of alt-med? Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 03:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Neutral and sourced description of popular religious belief mixed up with recent non-notable speculative stuff. I don't know how to start to disentangle, would appreciate further eyes. Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
The idea's been around for a long time, as a folk belief among Ladakhi Buddhists, as Ahmadiyya tradition, and as random speculation from otherwise acceptable scholars. We had better get this article in order before the movie that this Guardian article anticipates comes out. I note the article quotes Dr. Hassnain, who appears to be a scholar of Buddhism...-- Relata refero ( disp.) 21:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Sory to bring this up again, but there is an AfD currently going on that might interest people concerned with fringe theories. Dysgenics (people) has been named for AfD and wider input would be appreciated. Being an involved party to the debate myself, I can't say more than I've just said, but invite others who might be interested to drop by the article and express their opinion on the AfD if they so wish.-- Ramdrake ( talk) 14:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
This article could do with some eyes. Apart from a WP:LAME slow edit war whether Jerusalem is in "Israel" or "Palestine" (which should perhaps be addressed by removing all flag icons from the article...), we get constant additions of various neolithic sites, most persistently an anonymous user, presumably of Bulgarian origin, who keeps adding archaeological sites in Bulgaria. Obviously, the list isn't intended as a "list of neolithic sites", but evidence of continuous habitation would need to be presented. That's often disputed, but we would require at least some evidence that it is even disputed. dab (𒁳) 12:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
in this context, let me also point to
all of them tagged for merge or cleanup for ages now. -- dab (𒁳) 13:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I know. But "oldest continuously inhabited city" is still a meme in the real world (a bit like oldest tree), and we have to deal with it somehow. dab (𒁳) 21:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
We need a third opinion at Talk:Turkey Mountain (Oklahoma) that involves a fringe theory. I do not feel the article is currently pushing the theory, and is appropriately neutral and proportionate to weight, but another editor does not even want it mentioned at all, even though it seems to meet the standards of RS in multiple publications. Thanks, Til Eulenspiegel ( talk) 14:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, here we go again. There's a constant, low-intensity fight at this article about whether it's a fringe theory or not. The article has several statements from prominent scholars stating that the idea is not accepted by mainstream scholarship, but this doesn't convince everybody.
There's an RFC. Partipation from those interested in questions of fringe theories welcome. --Akhilleus ( talk) 17:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Malcolm, you seem to have started editing the article only recently, so perhaps you're unfamiliar with the subject, but the Jesus myth hypothesis is specifically the argument that there was no historical Jesus. Maccoby believed that there was a historical Jesus, and that the Gospels could be used to reconstruct his biography. Ergo, he is not a advocate of the JM theory.
Chomsky's political views are a good analogy here, actually. Even if you like Chomsky's ideas, you'd have to agree that in the context of U.S. politics, where only a fairly narrow range of ideas are "mainstream," that Chomsky is considered to be outside the mainstream. An article about him would have to note that. Similarly, Jesus myth hypothesis must note that the theory is rarely discussed within the academic fields of religious studies and ancient history (and we have copious citations that say exactly this). --Akhilleus ( talk) 23:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
You guys really don't get it. The problem is not that there are different points of view, or who is right in this issue. The problem is the dismissive know-it-all attitude I am seeing from some editors here. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 11:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
You are talking about the history of a particular article, and I am talking about the attitude of some editors on this noticeboard. But the problem certainly is spread thought Wikipedia, because many editors are working on articles in which they are psychologically invested in their own POV. This is a problem that can not be eliminated, but but needs recognition because, if editors feel justified in blowing away the 'opposition', an effort to achieve neutrality much more difficult. This does not refer to those who take your position, or my position, but applies all around and is the reason that know-it-all attitudes are so destructive to the process of writing articles. (Of course I have absolutly no expectation of change, but rather expect a continuing of dismissive attitudes and edit wars.) Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 12:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Since the discussion has become circular, I will end my participation at this point. Malcolm Schosha ( talk) 14:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Itsmejudith, the division between "minority" and "fringe" is a sliding scale. This is something to be established in detail in the article itself. For the purposes of this noticeboard, it is sufficient to note that the article has a history of attempts to inflate the theory's notability. That's really it. This has nothing to do with "know-it-all" or "dismissive" attitudes, but is simple practical wisdom born from experience of how these things work on Wikipedia. -- dab (𒁳) 15:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok, the latest gambit seems to be that committed Christians are unreliable sources. See [3]. This article still requires attention. --Akhilleus ( talk) 12:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
A little situation with a Biblical literalist who seems to insist that because the Hebrew Bible is the inspired word of God, there is no way "incorrect cosmology" like the notion of a flat Earth can figure in the text.
interestingly, they stop short of claiming knowledge of a spherical earth was directly "inspired" by God, but rather resort to speculations that theories of a spherical Earth may already have emerged by perfectly natural means in 26th century BC Egypt, citing a website debunking scriptural foreknowledge [5]. I would be interested in this claim of Old Kingdom notions of a spherical earth, but that would be for History of astronomy since it has nothing to do with the Hebrew Bible.
I note we also have Biblical cosmology. dab (𒁳) 05:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
yes, let's see. We have:
dab (𒁳) 12:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Islamic science doesn't parallel Science and the Bible. "The Bible" here is the Hebrew Bible, for the most part compiled in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Islamic science otoh is medieval science and should be contrasted with Science in Medieval Western Europe, not with Iron Age proto-science. -- dab (𒁳) 14:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The exact parallel is Qur'an and science, to which I've added a few decent references. That article discusses the makers of various claims and their political and theological significance rather than listing the arguments for them. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 20:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Someone keeps deleting a section of this, see [6].-- Doug Weller ( talk) 19:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I need some help at Talk:Parapsychology. There is very clear consensus in the academic community that this subject is pseudoscience, but there are a lot of supporters of this subject that are arguing vociferously that such a statement about this consensus is not sourced (despite there being about 1/2 dozen sources which explicitly state this) and arguable. I need help both with sourcing and with fighting POV-pushers. Thanks. ScienceApologist ( talk) 14:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
The sources we used when writing the article were carefully selected. Most references to parapsychological journals were dumped in favor of mainstream academic journals like the Psychological Bulletin. When something was pulled from a journal such as The Journal of Parapsychology, it was typically the skeptical view such as that of Ray Hyman. It's difficult to imagine you actually examined the sources when you say we cited third-rate journals written by a parapsychologist, because the combination of parapsychologists in parapsychology journals covers uncontroversial statements, historical statements, critical statements, or fully attributed views of the parapsychologists themselves. There's no flat facts cited to any parapsychologist in this article (or at least there were none when I reviewed it last). The parapsychology journals are treated not as third-party peer reviewed, but as primary sources, and treated correctly as primary sources through attributed statements. You refer to WP:PARITY, but that's the exact concept used here. It's also hard to imagine that you reviewed the sources when you say "no institutional affiliation". Every parapsychologist sourced had academic affiliations. Not that it matters, of course, because they were treated as if they had no affiliations at all.
For you poor souls who don't want to read the whole talk page, ScienceApologist himself presented sources, for instance the following:
JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE 20 (1): 182-192 JAN 2008: Samuel T Moulton
Where the abstract says:
Abstract: Parapsychology is the scientific investigation of apparently paranormal mental phenomena (such as telepathy, i.e., "mind reading"), also known as psi.
So he's fighting a losing battle here, as his own sources contradict him. Even James Randi objects to calling parapsychology pseudoscience. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I want to point out a beautiful red herring that gets a lot of paranormal true believers all worked up. The claim that "scientific investigation" is somehow indicative of a subject being a science.
"Scientific investigation" is a methodology, but in order for the subject to be a "science" there has to be something beyond a null hypothesis that has positive results. This is what separates science from non-science. Saying that some subject or another involves "scientific investigation" is not the same thing as saying that subject is "a science".
ScienceApologist ( talk) 06:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Let me state up front that the topic of Krishnaism is valid and encyclopedic. But, with the recent WP:KRISHNA project, the objective seems to be to "own" as many articles as possible, never mind how stubby, never mind WP:CFORK.
It appears that "Krishnaism" is the term for Gaudiya Vaishnavism when discussed in comparison with Christianity in particular. It gets around a hundred hits on google scholar, and its notability as a standalone term (with what definition?) seems somewhat questionable. The Krishnaism article doesn't establish anything else, but is content to replicate selected material from Krishna, Bhakti movement, Vaishnavism and Gaudiya Vaishnavism. I am really in doubt whether this is the way to go. Wikidas ( talk · contribs) also enjoys to create as many stubs on "aspects of Krishna" as he can, armed with a quote from Klaus Klostermaier's 2005 Survey of Hinduism, and generally displaying considerable belligerence (criticism of his approach apparenty amounts to an insult to his religion on principle). Thus, we get Bala Krishna, Vasudeva Krishna and Radha Krishna, Govinda, liberally sprinkled with {{ underconstruction}} tags.
I am certainly glad to see an effort towards a good coverage of "Krishnaism", but it seems some editorial assistance at least is needed here. -- dab (𒁳) 11:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC) See also:
Wikidās - ॐ 12:54, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Once again - Scope is defined by the link below and the discussion that happened on WikiProjects board and is kept for record on the project talk page.
See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Krishnaism/Bibilography Clearly This discussion is moved to an appropriate place: Wikidās - ॐ 13:23, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
The article on Rupert Sheldrake, whose parapsychological work is frequently described as pseudoscience (and which has been flagged for some time for relying mainly on Sheldrake's own writings/website), has just had a considerable amount of new, and favourable, material on his second book, The Presence of the Past, added. We've also got an editor who appears to be attempting to claim a respectable profile for him. A small amount has been added to the (separate) 'Criticism' section, but I don't think it balances out. I'm not sufficiently familiar with this particular scientific 'fringe' to be able to do too much about it (I work mostly in the area of Creationism). The article on his claims of Morphic fields, and those on Mae-Wan Ho & William McDougall (psychologist), who he cites as support might also bear looking at. Hrafn Talk Stalk 08:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
A 1969 book claiming that "the precession of the axis was discovered long before the accepted date of the Greek discovery, and that this was discovered by an ancient (perhaps around 4000 BCE) civilization of unsuspected sophistication". Now the Hamlet's Mill article duly puts this in perspective as fringy nonsense, but interestingly the book finds stout defenders at Talk:Viktor Rydberg, for the somewhat contorted rationale that Hamlet's Mill endorses some of Rydberg's speculations, and if you can show that Hamlet's Mill has some academic credibility, you have also shown that Rydberg isn't completely discredited. dab (𒁳) 10:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Just happened across this mess. Seems not to be actively edited at the moment, was once an FA, but hardly meets NPOV, RS, or NOR in its present state. An excerpt:
"The traditional view of the codes further asserts that the "information" encoded in the Torah cannot be used to predict the future, and that at best the codes provide evidence of an all-knowing creator whose knowledge of the Universe and all of its possibilities spans both space and time. In this view, (from an information theoretical viewpoint) the letter-sequence of the Torah is to the Universe as the DNA sequence is to the human body, useful for understanding how the universe works on a macro scale, and illustrative of the "Grand Design" which encompasses all possible events, but nonetheless utterly unreliable for prediction of what specific combinations of micro-scale events will occur to create the 'reality' of human history.
The traditional view conflicts with the more recent and highly sensationalized views suggesting that the Codes may be valuable as tools of prediction. These views of the codes first emerged in popular culture with the book The Bible Code by journalist Michael Drosnin, which suggests that the codes can be analyzed by computer to provide warnings for the future.
The traditional view can be compared to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Physics in which, at the quantum level, the very act of measuring an information system in a state of quantum uncertainty can cause that system to "collapse" into a certain state around the potentiality that the observer was looking for. According to this view, the very act of searching the code for one possible future outcome, such as an assassination, hence "measuring" the event that may happen in the future, can cause the event itself to happen. In that same paradoxical way that Schrödinger's cat is said to be both dead and alive, and neither dead nor alive until the measurement is made."
Words fail. Woonpton ( talk) 07:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
See Talk:Naturopathic_medicine#Is_naturopathic_medicine_CAM.3F. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Happening at Talk:Chiropractic too. ScienceApologist ( talk) 18:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems everyone but the most die-hard SRA apologists have lost interest in this and the information establishing that this is to 99% a topic of "anti-cult" moral panic is being unconspicuously shoved out of the article... dab (𒁳) 10:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Someone's added a reference to the Urantia book in the Crucifixion article. I removed it and they got very shirty with me on my talk page, accusing me of being personally motivated and saying they'd take it up with the 'appropriate persons'. They put it back. Am I out of line thinking it is inappropriate there? And, anyone else noticing IP editors adding Velikovsky stuff to Egyptology articles? 2 additions (at least) yesterday from different IP addresses.-- Doug Weller ( talk) 04:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
The The Urantia Book is obviously not a quotable source for any sort of historical discussion. Making mention of it outside articles that clearly deal with New Age topics is completely WP:UNDUE. dab (𒁳) 07:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
"a tag team of Urantia stalkers forming" -- that I call a self-fulfilling prophecy :) first misbehave, and then act surprised when "the cabal" clamps down on you. dab (𒁳) 16:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Hello,
I mentioned a traditional story, which I do not claim is true, that has several sources from 1893, 1931, and 1957. The story appears to have come down through three seperate groups of people, the Jesuits, Washington's slaves and their descendants and through one line of Washington's relations.
I have only mentioned this story under Leonard Neales article because he is the main person the story focuses on. The existance of this story has been proved. It has also been proved to go back to over one hundred years ago, and if you search the internet the story persists and is still of interest. Since the story has been proven to exist for over a century even though it is not taken as truth by many people and since I do not assert that this traditional story is true I feel that it does not fall under an exceptional claim or a fringe theory.
The story is that in the night during George Washington's death a friend of his a Jesuit priest named Leonard Neale was called for over the river. He spends some time with the dying president and when he returns to his lodgings across the river in Maryland he intimates that Washington was given the last rites and died a Catholic. Some of Washington's slaves cried that he was taken by "the Scarlet Lady" of Rome. A first cousin three times removed reported that her grandmother passed down that Washington had a death-bed conversion.
I'd like to keep mention of this traditional story and have tried to work out compromises with one editor who is bent on removing it even though I allowed him to remove information from the story that he did not like, I made no complaints when he added the proviso that many of Washington's biographys make no mention of this story and I have answered all his requests for sources and details and explanations. But he still wants to remove it now claiming it is an exceptional claim.
If some other editors could take an unbiased look at the mention of this story and the sources and help resolve this situation I'd be very grateful. Dwain ( talk) 22:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
This issue was taken up by this board two months ago, involving the same editors; here's the discussion in the archives. Woonpton ( talk) 13:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
a lot of suggestive prancing around about yet another ancient sunken civilization. I've removed the worst bits (terraforming...), but closer inspection this seems to be all due to the ravings of one Masaaki Kimura who "argues that Yonaguni is the site of a city at least 5,000 years old which sunk 2,000 years ago". dab (𒁳) 11:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
The "pyramid" structures are referred to as architectonic, but if you'll look at that article (and especially its talk page), you'll see a complete mess. I am pretty sure that the Yonaguni structures aren't so described to say that they are like Mies van de Rohe's buildings, though. Mangoe ( talk) 13:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not very familiar with this noticeboard or how it works, so I'll just mention that I think it would be a good idea for editors here to take a look at Wikipedia:Ani#Steven_M._Greer and the related article where it looks like three single-purpose accounts are pushing a fringe theory -- Steven J. Anderson ( talk) 20:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Cancer#Complementary_and_alternative This falls over itself to cast Complementary and alternative treatments in as good of a light as possible. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 23:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
David Rohl's "New Chronology" has its own article now. I have serious doubts this deserves a standalone article. It appears to have no credibility whatsoever and would probably belong as a section or paragraph in Rohl's own article. dab (𒁳) 07:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Can someone please look at Talk:Davenport Tablets and tell me if I've got the wrong end of the stick or of the IP editor simply doesn't understand what Wikipedia (or 'this group' as he says) wants in the way of reliable sources? Thanks. Doug Weller ( talk) 19:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Please take a look at Whole-Earth decompression dynamics and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whole-Earth decompression dynamics The article promotes the speculations of J. Marvin Herndon and is referenced essentially solely to his work. No valid reliable secondary sources have been produced on the afd discussion. Subject needs more eyes and input. Vsmith ( talk) 02:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Ongoing concerns relating to conspiracy theories that the former (a French TV journalist) had faked the death of the latter (a Palestinian boy) in a shooting incident in 2000. The conspiracy theories are a distinctly minority POV that have been promoted mainly by a handful of activists and bloggers. This has been the subject of a recent French libel trial brought against one such activist, so there are significant and active BLP issues in this case. Some new/IP/single-purpose editors have sought to give them undue weight, state them as fact or to claim that the French courts have supported them (they didn't). A discussion is currently taking place on Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah; it would be helpful if uninvolved editors could provide an opinion. -- ChrisO ( talk) 12:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Also worth noting that Julia1987 ( talk · contribs) was previously Southkept ( talk · contribs)...that is, linking back to the recent CAMERA drama. Moreschi ( talk) ( debate) 12:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
An informal mediation on the above has now begun on Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah, with the help of Elonka. It would be helpful if editors with experience of dealing with fringe theories (and their proponents) could participate. -- ChrisO ( talk) 08:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I was going to clean up abduction phenomenon. Then I discovered ufology, and its child articles like List of alleged UFO-related extraterrestrials and List of alleged UFO-related locations. Then I gave up and cried for a bit. There are serious fringe issues with all these articles. Jack Sarfatti, for example, is glowingly referenced for a "repulsive anti-gravity field 'dark energy'" mode of transport in ufology. David Icke is given equal billing with slightly more respectable individuals such as Carl Sagan. Not only that, the writing style often switches between in-universe batshittiness (c.f. Ufology#Atmosphere_beast_hypothesis) and promising yet undercited sobriety (( Ufology#Psychology). I don't even know where to start - disentangling the fringe, skeptical, and folklore/psychology aspects would be an obvious goal - so I bring it here for assistance. Skinwalker ( talk) 01:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Theories on the origin of Croats is still around, duplicating the same material at Croats. This seems to be part of attempts to say that modern-day Croats are not the descendants of the Slavs who migrated into the area, but are, instead, the descendants of the indigenous inhabitants of the area. Which might be fringy. This has probably been up on this noticeboard before, but it would be nice to get it finally cleared up. Moreschi ( talk) ( debate) 13:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at his edits: [19] including what he's done to ScienceApologists page. He's not a newbie, that's for sure. Doug Weller ( talk) 18:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't mind being blamed for all sorts of general mayhem - I am the only person to have claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks after all - but I'll be fucked if I'm going to stand back and let you accuse me of being the kind of person who would use the word "ya'll". [20] Kindly strike through your scandalous attack sir! Davvvkal ( talk) 14:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure that this is the proper forum for my issue, but I could use some eyes on the above article. It came to my attention while I was reviewing the edit history of Phalanxpursos ( talk · contribs), who had taken to leaving talk page posts connecting 9/11 with Nazi Germany. My attempts to clean up this article, accompanied by explanation of my edits on the talk page, have been reverted. I don't want to break 3RR, but I don't see how statements like Two-way communications Radio contact with Aliens has been established in 1929, the Majestic 12 (MJ-12) is an Ultra Top Secret Research and Development Intelligence Operation of Extraterrestrial contact can be stated as fact, even when they are sourced to a Geocities page. I've attempted to communicate with the user directly, with no response. Any assistance would be appreciated. // Chris (complaints)• (contribs) 21:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I think this article would benefit from the attention of some editors who watch this noticeboard. -- Steven J. Anderson ( talk) 04:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Please consider if poorly sourced neo-Nazi views HAVE to be kept on a Hinduism mythology article of major importance to that religion.
I was referred here by an experienced editor from whom I asked for help who told me that this clearly is a case of a Fringe Theory being given undue weight and should be brought up here. Kalki is the awaited 10th avatar of Vishnu of orthodox Hinduism as described in the Garuda Purana. For a long time User:Ghostexorcist has insisted on maintaining inclusion of a fringe theory by a French neo-Nazi writer named Savitri Devi (1905-1982) who fused Naziism and Hinduism and said that Adolf Hitler was the Kalki avatar of Hinduism. There are no Hindus that believe this that I am aware of. It has been pointed out to Ghostexorcist that this is undue weight and he was pointed to the policy at Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight, [21] (see edit summary box) but he says to exclude this would be a "personal slant" and he is being impartial to keep it. "I don't own this page at all, I'm just protecting it from people who try to slant the page towards their own point of view." [22] He also insists on keeping another Nazi from Argentina Alejandro Biondini (no article and no English language citation) listed on the Kalki page. His reference is in Italian and placed within-text ( http://pnt.libreopinion.com/) even though he has been twice questioned by User:Hoverfish about this kind of referencing.
In addition there is no clear citation that the Nazi writer Savitri Devi actually said Hitler was Kalki specifically. The reference given is this link: http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/SavitriDevi.html which says nothing about Kalki. However, even if a citation for this could be produced, this is certainly undue weight to an extremely fringe view that no one that I am aware of holds. Suggestions to have another article with people who have been said to be Kalki have been rejected as unworkable. [23] It has also been pointed out to Ghostexorcist that his section title " Modern variations of the Kalki prophesy" makes no sense in a Hindu context. Kalki is from old Hindu scriptures and "modern variations" would really not be the Hindu prophesy at all. Also no other version of the prophesy is given under this heading.
Ghostexorcist's history of reverting any changes. [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]
Note that all attempts to discuss with Ghostexorcist are simply followed by a lecture from him. Please consider if poorly sourced neo-Nazi views HAVE to be kept on a Hinduism mythology article of major importance to that religion. Vedantahindu ( talk) 15:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Should it not then at least be added that this view is not held by Hindus and is not part of Hindu teaching in India? Also the name of the article is Modern Versions. Where are these versions? He names a person who held a view. Also, what about this Argentinian with no article and an Italian language reference? Certainly that is not notable. I don't think that you understand that Ghostexorcist will not allow any change at all. Vedantahindu ( talk) 16:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Suggestion: if it really freaks you out/the article is being overloaded with crufty stuff, create a separate List of modern claims to be Kalki, or something similar, and link it from the main article. Moreschi ( talk) ( debate) 16:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Didn't you read in the discussion where Ghostexorcist says such a page will be deleted immediately by an admin. Also, it is not so much freaky as unverfied trivia. His reference for the French writer (when you read it) does not say that she wrote he was Kalki. Nor does the article on her. His reference for the Argentina man is in Italian. These have been brought up to him. So these have to stay because Ghostexorcist says they are true with no English reference? Vedantahindu ( talk) 16:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry, but this is about a mythological topic. By the nature of mythology, this makes it very different from paranormal/homeopathic claims and the like. It doesn't make sense to ask if it is "true" that Kalki "is" an avatar of Vishnu, that's just the myth. The Kalki myth is a feature of Puranic Hinduism. Savitri Devi ostensibly isn't part the Puranic canon: this is why she is mentioned in the "modern" section. I don't think it is necessary to point out that mainstream Hindus have nothing to do with her any more than it would be necessary to point out that Geoffrey of Monmouth never endorsed the Excalibur movie. dab (𒁳) 16:37, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
The Hitler-as-Kalki meme is fairly common among esoteric Hitlerists such as Miguel Serrano and others. It has an entire chapter in Black Sun, the canonical work on neo-Nazi ideology. It inspired a novel by Gore Vidal. Certainly encyclopaedic. -- Relata refero ( disp.) 22:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
A lot of quantum blather at Meaning_of_life#Scientific_questions_about_the_mind. Other "scientific" bits in this article also need some sceptical review. dab (𒁳) 18:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Could someone take a look at this and see what they think of the recent edit? I've just had a real set to with this editor on the Cahokia Mounds (see the talk page, he called an editor of a scholarly book fringe & racist, and the book "entirely about petty arguments and opinions" despite its getting rave reviews in scholarly journals -- all because the book suggests some people were buried alive), and I'd rather not go through that again. Doug Weller ( talk) 05:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Minor fracas over at Electrical sensitivity ( talk). The page is now temporarily protected, but it would be nice to have on the talk page some more editors experienced with due weight. At least one of the editors there has been pushing non-mainstream theories in a number of electricity and health related articles, and I am not going to be around this weekend if the page protection just pushes the assertions to a different article. - Eldereft ( cont.) 22:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
This is Walam Olum again. I don't know what to do about this editor, who (here and in other articles) misinterpets NPOV (which he is now claiming applies to a book), 'reliable sources', 'verifiability (which he thinks means if he disagrees with a statement in a book it must be verified by some other source), etc. Since Oestreicher showed that the Walam Olum is a hoax in 1994, a large number of scholars have published books and articles agreeing with him and quite a lot of work shows no one disagreeing with him. Take a look at the talk page and the edit history of the article. Despite calling me and the author NPOV, in fact he is preventing the article from being NPOV and insists that a space reporter's self-published book not cited in scholarly sources somehow 'trumps' anything else. (There's also another argument in that Oestreicher says an author named Joe Napora changed his mind, and Marburg72 claims I've misinterpreted what is a very clear statement but again refuses to explain). Thanks. Doug Weller ( talk) 04:14, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
We finally have a group of editors committed to fixing up Unidentified flying object and related articles. Already accomplished:
We currently are asking whether Identified flying object should be merged. In many ways, I think much of the content at "IFO" should be given the most weight at UFO, but that's only my opinion. Things are looking up there and soon we can begin the process of tearing down the walls of this garden of woo.
Come join us.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 04:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
On the UFO front, I've been meaning to work on Clyde Tombaugh's article for a while, as the biographic information is rather truncated (he had a significant later career). I haven't had time to do him justice. In the meantime, however, his article is about 50% WP:UNDUE about him having seen a UFO and riffing on from there. If someone would like to take a look at cutting that back to something more reasonable, I'd appreciate it. Mangoe ( talk) 15:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm involved in editing an article in which a conspiracy theory plays a large part. Another editor is proposing to expand the article to cover a wide range of issues that have been raised by the conspiracy theorists. Given that the article is not specifically about the conspiracy theory, how much detailed exposition is appropriate in cases such as this? -- ChrisO ( talk) 22:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Have a look here, if you like. There's lots of Proof by assertion that ScienceApologist is a problematic editor, no evidence at all being provided. MartinPhi seems to be getting ignored in favour of a massive "I a-hate him!" against SA. Can someone step in there and add some sanity? Either provide actual hard evidence against SA, or try and pull it away from the "Bash SA" hour? Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Good editors are extremely problematic. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 16:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Article on a Japanese new religious movement has had multiple problems for a long while. There are some scholarly accounts but I don't have access to them. Now a newbie has arrived to add unsourced or poorly sourced material from a Christian debunking POV. He has decided I am a supporter of the NRM. I have been very civil, honest! Itsmejudith ( talk) 20:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
This "newbie" included a reference to the Goseigen, the Sukyo Mahikari bible of teachings for its founder, where the quotes were lifted from. If you go back to the reference list you deleted, you can look up the ISBN number. The exact same books are used as legitimate references on the general Mahikari page, so why delete mine? I can understand that you may disagree with the original likne to letusreason.org -- that is NOT my site. I sent the link as a way to keep the text shortened on the page. After I posted that link, everything else I posted was deleted -- even when properly sourced and referenced. Yes, I may be new but frankly instead of just deleting topics my understanding was that Wiki editors actually took the time to DISCUSS before changing? I didn't delete previous author's entries to the very biased, pro-Mahikari SM page when I first posted--I just added on. Why did these editors not single out previous authors for their bias????? Honestyisbestpolicy ( talk) 17:18, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I never got any response for my request for help on this article (See Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_4#Bates_method). We're making some good progress, but we still need lots of help as the majority of editors working on it are WP:SPAs with little experience on how to deal with problems common to such articles. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:26, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Look at my last two diffs [31] [32] for some garbage I just cleaned up. There is likely a lot of this crap. Start with Guru or Category:New religious movements and you'll find a plethora of cults POV-pushing or uploading false information. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 16:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi, i really wasnt sure how to do this, i wanted to avoid some of the more viewed notice boards to avoid the usual drama. There is an editer "CadenS" who is promoting a fringe theory on talk pages that is actually quite offensive. He calls it the " Homosexual Agenda", which is a right wing way of saying "gays are plotting against the world". I have listed just ten examples below, there are many many more edits like this by the user. He called one user who is a member of the LGBT community "Heterophobic" for not agreeing with him. I know that the editer was very offended by the comment. Now being conservative and christain is fine with me, but this is going too far, i see these unhealthy ideas spouted on Conservapedia and honestly its dangerous.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 - im guessing "this" means homosexuality?
If this is the wrong place for this report i apologise and would appreciate it if you could redirect me. Cheers. Realist2 ( Come Speak To Me) 15:57, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Tell him to try out Conservapedia, assuming he's not there already. Moreschi ( talk) ( debate) 22:02, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
telling a user "you must be blind" in the context of a dispute isn't a personal attack, be reasonable. I agree that homophobic rants have no place on Wikipedia, but that's already by virtue of being rants ( WP:SOAP). This isn't urgent. Warn the user to get his act together, and if he persists, block him. There is really no need to compile a legalistic case from varied guidelines: if the user clearly isn't here to write an encyclopedia, well, he has no business editing. Jesus, I am really tired of "Wikiquette alerts" and people giving me grief over WP:CIVIL because I told them they are wrong. Which results in nice venomous messages such as this one, chastising me for reacting with sarcasm in the face of a user who exploded in ungrammatical rants over my using the term "Transcaucasian highland". I wish all the Wikiquette and CIVIL vigilantes would remember that we are here to write an encyclopedia. Yes, this means we should block people who are here for homophobic ranting. But it also means that our serious contributors shouldn't be expected to keep smiling and babysit confused single-topic accounts.
On the content side, I meekly submit that Wikipedia could do with a little bit of moderate homophobia criticism of the homosexual agenda. "LBGT" topics have a very strong lobby on Wikipedia, and this often results in rather surreal presence of "homosexuality" links. The Ancient Greek topics are littered with them. Yes, the ancient Greeks practiced "ephebophilia". No, this doesn't mean the fact needs to be featured prominently in every article on Ancient Greece. Links to
Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies are found in the most unlikely places. I mean, ok, so
Viktor Rydberg once had a male lover. He was also a philologist, a poet and a scholar. How does he qualify as a subject of "LBGT studies" any more than your average boring married-with-children biography qualifies for "hetero sexology studies"? I am saying, I can muster a degree of understanding for the people rolling their eyes at "gay Wikipedia". I have issues with the very concept of "LBGT" categorization. How is it
WP:NPOV to treat female (L) and male (G) homosexuality implicitly as "the same topic" as bisexuality (B) and "transgender" (T)? "
LBGT" is a political term that deserves its own Wikipedia article, but which shouldn't be used for categorization any more than, say "ACF" should be used to categorize "Anarchists, Capitalists and Fascists", or "SPR" should be used for "Satanists, Pagans and Roman Catholics".
dab
(𒁳) 06:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems this fringe historian's views (his last book apparently had a print run of around 700 copies and unknown in the West) is being given undue weight in the article The Soviet Story. The article already has sections " Positive assessments" and " Negative responses", so it is fairly balanced already without the addition of the section " Disputed points of Alexander Dyukov". Martintg ( talk) 21:14, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
The situtaion here is becoming derganged beyond words. User:RajivLal, User:Jookti and User:Padan keep reverting my edits. I have no doubt that they are sockpuppets, certainly of RajivLal, who has already been convicted of socking. [33] Most likely they are all avatars of User:DWhiskaZ who seems to have been fringe-bombing this page and others (eg Mahound) for months with his proof that Muhammad was predicted by all world scriptures. What is most bizarre is the fact that the reversion started when I cleaned up the prose of this editor. I didn't even change the meaning, but raised it for discussion on the talk page. The various users keep reverting to the incoherent version, apparently being too stupid to realise that my initial intention was simply to improve their edits. I guess they just assume that any changes must be designed to conceal The Truth. In a few minutes I will be away from Wikipedia for several days, so can't pursue this further. Paul B ( talk) 22:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm sort of picking up where
User:Paul Barlow left off (and I hope Paul will pick this up once again when he returns from his trip). I've been wrestling with the User that Paul mentions (i.e., "Rajivlal/Padan") for a few days now on this issue. As Paul mentions, this user is obsessed with linking Mohammad with the Bhavishya Purana, which is a fringe theory at best (and this user has been pursuing an edit war over this). I'd like to add some additional information here that I've added elsewhere but perhaps can consolidate in this space regarding the fringe theory that "links" Mohammad and the Bhavishya Purana.
I should add first and in passing that User:Padan aka Rajivlal is pretty clearly the same person as (or is linked with) user:DWhiskaZ (who was similarly obsessed with Mohammad and the Bhavishya Purana and similarly posted from Univ of Toronto under a variety of sockpuppets and was subsequently banned for that, see here for details on DWhizkaZ's history). In the last 2 days I came across two dozen wikipedia articles (including the Bhavishya Purana article and articles related to topics in Hinduism and in the Bible) where User:Padan has inserted the paragraphs about Mohammad/Bible and the Bhavishya Purana, either citing nothing or citing only the missionary/activist Abdul Haque (see below), and presenting the "link" as if it were an uncontroversial or authoritative statement, giving no indication of the fringe nature of the interpretation. He also seems to have a poor understanding of what "scholarly sources" means. I proceeded to revert them only to find that he promptly undid my reverts and launched an edit war (which Paul also experienced before I came upon the scene) which culminated in my reporting User:Padan to WP:AIAV and his reporting me to WP:ANI. This edit (and admin reporting) war aside, some details on the fringe theory in question follow below.
First, the question of fringe politics: User Padan aka Rajivlal (aka DWhiskaZ) is promoting the views of a certain Muslim Ahmadiyya missionary named Abdul Haq Vidyarthi ( aka Dr. Haq; google him) and indeed User Padan produces Haq's (decidedly political) book as the only "source" for this repeated insertion in these and other articles. Abdul Haque argues that the Bhavishya Purana "foretold" the arrival of Islam, of Mohammad the prophet, (and even foretold the Genesis story, and foretold Queen Victoria and the arrival of the English). Abdul Haque promotes this view for a variety of reasons that have to do with his particular missionary activism, to argue that in foretelling the arrival of the Prophet Mohammad the Bhavishya Purana (taken as part of "hindu scripture") thus validates Islam as Hinduism's successor religion, and also to argue that "every religion has been already warned" of abandoning idolatry.
The Bhavishya Purana itself has an interesting manuscript history which makes such politicking possible (even if on the fringe margins of fundamentalist interpretations). It was a politicized document from the moment it was discovered since it was never found in an untampered manuscript. It was found with a host of obviously modern insertions into the ancient text, such as mentioning Queen Victoria and the arrival of English traders along with an extensive and detailed summary of the story of Genesis and mentions of Mohammad. There has been considerable theorizing in academe about who made these insertions and what their motives (political, religious, etc) might have been. As Nagendra Kumar Singh in the "Encyclopaedia of Hinduism" suggests, there were apparently multiple sources of these accretions in the text, some by Hindu attempts to coopt or respond to western threats, others by Christian missionary attempts to coopt Hindu texts (compare with the invented text, the "Ezourvedam", of the Jesuit Roberto de Nobili), and Muslim missionaries (like Haque) motivated similarly by attempts to coopt Hindu texts: suggesting multiple sources and moments in these accretions, as opposed to just one person or group being responsible.
However - and this is the point - no modern scholar disputes that these are in fact modern and recent insertions and not part of the historical text (Winternitz, who is often mentioned and quoted in this regard, and is a bonafide scholarly source, dimisses that notion out of hand as the current Bhavishya Purana page itself mentions and sources in footnote 11). Nagendra Kumar Singh similarly in the Encyclopaedia of Hinduism mentioned above, readily acknowledges the modernity of these insertions in analyzing the Bhavishya Purana.
And this is not what User:Padan (and Abdul Haque) would have the reader believe.
So my point is simply this: If a discussion of the manuscript history of the Bhavishya Purana is to be inserted (why would it be? and why only for this Purana? etc) then above all else it would need to properly contextualize the different interpretations in the politicization of this manuscript and not simply pass off one particular fringe interpretation as if it were either authoritative, or mainstream, or scholarly. It would also have to bear the burden of proof that it is not a fringe interpretation and as such be inappropriate for this wikipedia article. Jak68 ( talk) 06:46, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Category:Nations by haplogroups (Y-DNA) and subcategories are an exceptionally bad idea that can only be explained by innocence of any knowledge of population genetics. So the English people are a "nation belonging to haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA)". Source?? Source, not so much for that "fact", but for the meaning of the notion of a "nation" "belonging" to a haplogroup in the first place? Categorization hell looms. Probably belongs on CfD. If not speedied as blatant racialist (or just blatant) nonsense. dab (𒁳) 17:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I've put it on CfD. Please comment. dab (𒁳) 07:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
I think this article could use a few more sets of eyes on it. It has several regular single-topic editors who are evidently fans of the theory, and want to relegate any mention of it being mostly ignored by physicists—despite Scientific American saying exactly that—to a long-winded opinion section. (That section is, possibly, original research in and of itself.) Thanks! -- SCZenz ( talk) 19:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I've never understood why people take this seriously. Anyway, here we have an editor adding OR (and pov) nonsense about Egyptians needing steel saws. I've reverted it, he's put it back saying of course that I have a clear POV reason for reverting him. The article could use some attention. Thanks. -- Doug Weller ( talk) 16:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:Fringe_theories#Particular_attribution_POV - this really needs more voices, at the moment it's just MartinPhi/ScienceApologist and a couple friends. I don't know the merits of the case, I haven't had time to look into it. I did see that Martinphi - consciously or unconsciously, I don't know - included text in his version that bolstered his view in an ongoing dispute. It needs sane heads to look into the problem and come up with good policy, which isn't going to happen if it becomes a front in the Martinphi/ScienceApologist war. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 22:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
There is currently a dispute at soy milk on whether or not a controversial claim made in a commercial advertisement is encyclopedic material. There is currently a RfC under progress concerning this issue among others. Please help resolve this dispute. Thank you. Cydevil38 ( talk) 00:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Reich's theory was regarded as pseudoscience when it was published and has been labeled as such ever sense. There is a ton of psychobabble and other issues with the article but I am trying to move one step at a time. I am just trying to get the fact that this is pseudoscience into the lead. I have collected way more references than are needed yet a single user is constantly reverting.I have attempted a RFC but that doesn't seem to be working out. I am not sure where best to post this so I am trying here. I don't think it is at the stage yet that requires formal mediation but maybe it is close. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Tmtoulouse ( talk) 18:18, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
A statement. I am currently engaged on improving articles relating to medical and biological thought in the early 20thC. I have worked substantially on Hans Driesch, Teleology, Vitalism, Alexander Gurwitsch, Morphogenetic field, Biophoton, Hans Spemann, Paul Alfred Weiss, Wilhelm Roux, Theory of recapitulation, Ross Granville Harrison, Harold Saxton Burr, L-field.
I am particularly interested in how Theosophical thought was influenced by and influenced thinking at that time, so have also contributed to articles such as Energy (esotericism), Astral Body and so forth, usually in a bid to introduce historicism and secondary sources.
However I note that a few such pages, such as this orgone, are included in some kind of gospel of pseudoscience, and hence are under persistent edit-attack. Wiki requires a solid reference for a consensus of pseudoscience. This has been requested by me time and again. I have introduced into the lede all kinds of compromises (Journalists call this pseudoscience, vitalism is considered superseded etc) and all have been removed, citations and tags discarded to be replaced with identical improperly-sourced "pseudoscience" statements by a string of different editors. I have several times explained the need for a proper historically-aware overview, but my interlocutors simply do not know anything about the history of biology and psychology. Since there has been no constructive discussion or editing from the other side, and since all editors represent the same dogmatic POV, all repetitive unsourced edits, having been removed to the talk page, are now being reverted without notice since this cadre is clearly intent upon damaging the prospect of any coherent user-understanding of this aspect of 20thC thought. Redheylin ( talk) 23:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
PS BWHAHAHA!! or words to that effect. Come on guys, get on the case, before a doctor comes. Redheylin ( talk) 01:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Orgone medically classed as putative vital energy.
In contrast, putative energy fields (also called biofields) have defied measurement to date by reproducible methods. Therapies involving putative energy fields are based on the concept that human beings are infused with a subtle form of energy. This vital energy or life force is known under different names in different cultures, such as qi.., and elsewhere as prana, etheric energy, fohat, orgone, odic force, mana, and homeopathic resonance.3 Vital energy is believed to flow throughout the material human body, but it has not been unequivocally measured by means of conventional instrumentation. Nonetheless, therapists claim that they can work with this subtle energy, see it with their own eyes, and use it to effect changes in the physical body and influence health. http://nccam.nih.gov/health/backgrounds/energymed.htm
People who talk like that are going to feel condescended to. I mean, anybody could rise above that kind of talk even if they was falling down a lift shaft. Redheylin ( talk) 22:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
The war on Talk:Orgone is continuing to rage, albeit in a somewhat more civil manner than before. The problem I have is that fundamentally, orgone can be objectively shown to be a pseudoscience by virtue of the fact that its observations remain unconfirmed in the broader scientific field, yet its proponents continue to present it as a science. Others, particulary User:Martinphi, have been insisting on attribution under WP:OR and WP:V; under the circumstances, I feel this is like requiring someone to reference a multiplication table to prove that 2*3=6, and that the continued insistence on a reference to something that is, by definition, obvious on its face, is against the spirit of WP:POINT and WP:IAR. Haikupoet ( talk) 19:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Could someone drop by Talk:Jesus myth hypothesis#Euhemerization and offer some outside input? --Akhilleus ( talk) 20:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be some kind of effort to promote this chain of limestone shoals as actually being an ancient megastructure, built no doubt by the same hyper-advanced Hindu civilization that built an enormous civilzation in the Gulf of Cambay. Or, alternatively, the shoals are clearly Allah's handiwork. Um, yeah. Textbook case of WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. < eleland/ talk edits> 08:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I think all that needs to be said on this has already been said back in October. -- dab (𒁳) 09:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
There's a new RfC at Dysgenics which might interest some of the editors here. It is related to the RfC that took place at the same article a couple months ago.-- Ramdrake ( talk) 10:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Someone added a large new section on an argument put forward by an Italian professor which if true reverses the sequence of two Pharaohs. The source is an online archive at Cornell University [38] where anyone registered can deposit a paper, it is simply a storage facility and the article has not been published (it's also described in the Great pyramid complex article as inter-disciplinary although Magli seems to be the only article). In other words, it hasn't been published. I've seen some casual dismissal of it in various forums as ignoring almost everything we know about the Giza pyramids. I don't think it even deserves a mention, but it is now over 1/3 of the article. I removed it, with an edit summary saying " (this is only published on line, not yet significant, let's wait until it is formally published to even mention it, take to talk page if anyone disagrees". It was then replaced from an IP address with the edit summary "rv edit by Mr. Da' goal, la' Key. rv back to edit by Kelvin Case". (is that just gibberish or does it mean something?). I removed it again. Another IP editor (again, no history of contributions) replaced it with the edit summary 'rvv'. I don't know if these are the original editor (see his talk page, he seems to think he should have special exceptions), or what, but obviously I will run into 3RR if this continues. Thanks. Doug Weller ( talk) 05:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
I've created this myself, and in spite of the catchy title, the claims made in the sources discussed do not seem extravagant to me. But WP:FRINGE has been called upon the article (if by a notorious problem editor), and I would like to offer the status of the article for review. Merging is a possibility, of course, but I think the article could be expanded and would quickly become too heavy for a section at origin of religion. dab (𒁳) 09:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Fringe editor Marburg72 has added something here that includes "A prominent feature of the pictorial art of the Algonquians around Lake Superior and Michigan is the use of an hourglass shape to portray the human form. There are many examples of it on birch bark records and in drawings made by Indian Informants. They seem to be derived ultimately from the upper paleolithic figures."
Note the shape 'hourglass' is key to this. Now I have the entire article from Current Archaeology which includes a number of rebuttals (probably the reason Greeman's arguments in 1963 rarely ever surfaced again accept in fringe media). The hourglass argument is specifically refuted, and I added that refutation. Twice he has removed my addition, saying "take the argument against the to the hourglass page. Your argument against Greenman is irreleveant to this topic and so is hourglass.)" (I have no idea what he means by 'against the to'.). Maybe someone can explain why the hourglass shape is relevant when it is used to prove cultural connections with the European Upper Paleolithic, but when I point out that the same article says "A detailed analysis of the comparisons and the accompanying illustrations show Greenman to be even more incorrect. I shall only discuss some critical facts on rock-painting and engraving. The hourglass shape has nothing to do with palaeolithic art," an argument that the hourglass shape shows no such thing is irrelevant?-- Doug Weller ( talk) 19:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
This article is in a bit of a state. There is excessive peacockery of anyone that supports PK, while the scope of Psychokinesis has been enlarged to encompass almost any non-physical phenomenon or fringe belief (for example, levitation, miracles, and resurrection (eg. of Lazurus) are included.) There is also a dispute as to whether scientific criticisms should be referred to as "skeptics" and whether their views should be prominent. I think this article could do with more educated eyes on it - especially the list of references, which is longer than the article itself. -- SesquipedalianVerbiage ( talk) 12:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
This trio of related (yet unlinked) articles are in desperate need of some attention. Second event theory appears to be a self published theory of Chris Busby, championed by his organisation: The Low Level Radiation Campaign. The articles are a mess of un-encyclopaedic writing and self published references, with poor style throughout. The Chris Busby article has definite BLP problems, while the LLRC article is massive, but mostly seems to be about Chris Busby and Second event theory. The second event theory article intro is huge and poorly written, and doesn't give any idea as to whether this theory is even remotely entertained by mainstream science. I'm not even sure that the LLRC meets the notability criteria for inclusion, and the same can be said for Second event theory. This might be a big job - any takers to give me a hand/advice? I'll look again tomorrow. -- SesquipedalianVerbiage ( talk) 21:57, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
This seems to consist mostly of fringe theories. Peter jackson ( talk) 16:10, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Please forgive me if I am posting in the wrong location. I am looking for suggestions and input regarding an edit I have attempted to make and defend. I attempted to place two sentences in the Nietzsche article, in the section entitled " Nietzsche's Reading". The sentences read as follows:
"It is also possible that he read and was significantly influenced by Max Stirner. However, this theory has a long and controversial history and, while such influence cannot be ruled out, it appears impossible to conclusively establish."
One editor on the page suggested that these two sentences gave undue weight to the theory of Stirner influence on Nietzsche and removed them. He or she also suggested these two sentences constituted support for a Fringe Theory. I provided some 20 citations on the talk page. These citations showed that the theory has a long history, a controversial history, and that it has been debated in both popular and academic settings. At least of six of these references showed clearly that the idea that Nietzsche was influenced by Stirner is still current, though it is a view held by a significant minority (including such well known figures as Deleuze).
I do not feel that the inclusion of one sentence mentioning the possibility of influence, and another providing caveats about controversy and the fact that it cannot be established conclusively constitutes undue weight. I also feel that the suggestion that this is a fringe theory is disingenuous. Can anyone provide me with suggestions or guidance here regarding determining whether or not these two sentences constitute undue weight or if they are improperly endorsing a "fringe theory"? Thank you. -- Picatrix ( talk) 22:35, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I see an incipient edit war over Philadelphia Church of God, where anonymous users are asserting that Herbert W. Armstrong is proven to have been a false prophet whose beliefs were proven to be false doctrines. I would hate to be blocked for edit warring when I am simply saying (repeatedly) that these types of statements are inherently not verifiable and therefore cannot be presented as factual statements. -- Orlady ( talk) 21:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
{{ tone}}, WP:TRUTH. The classification as "false prophet" can never be neutral, already because it implies that there is such a thing as a "true prophet". -- dab (𒁳) 09:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Discussion at Talk:Petroleum#Abiogenic_Petroleum_Origin.
An editor ( Wikkidd ( talk · contribs)) has begun a campaign to expand the section of the petroleum article which discusses abiogenic oil. He claims that other editors are vandalizing his attempts to push his POV, and will not accept that this issue has been badgered to death many times before (some threads listed at the discussion above, but also at Talk:Peak oil and Talk:Abiogenic petroleum origin, among others).
The abiogenic petroleum origin hypothesis is fringe (some of the most important evidence includes the facts that all oil so far extracted has biomarkers which are assumed to prove a biological origin, and the progression towards petroleum is clearly visible in bogs->methane->peat->coal->petroleum). Scientific consensus clearly supports a biological origin of petroleum, and this is what the petroleum article presents, using sources which state as much. Any assistance would be appreciated as folks at wp:AIV don't want to touch this (Wikkid has removed sections of sourced content from several articles during the past 24 hours). Thanks, NJGW ( talk) 23:03, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Lyn Redwood - the very model of fringe theory propoganda. Presumes that autism causes mercury, and isolates the subject from any and all criticism. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 03:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
This article has been messed up by an unregistered editor who seems to be fanatically devoted to the idea that the Papez circuit (a set of brain structures) was actually discovered by somebody else before Papez. It would be okay to mention this, but since it is a minority viewpoint only supported by a single publication, it shouldn't dominate the article. Attempts at discussion has been ignored. Looie496 ( talk) 20:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Looie496 ( talk) 17:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
A real dustbin of "how to", unreliable sources, irrelevancies, etc. Gordonofcartoon ( talk) 14:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
This article seems to have some huge neutrality and conflict of interest problems, as well as being in need of a good copy edit. Anyone care to help? -- SesquipedalianVerbiage ( talk) 18:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Can I request some outside eyes on Lyme disease? There have been a handful of agenda accounts, at least one with a real-life COI, intent on inserting material suggesting that Lyme disease resulted from a biowarfare experiment gone awry. Of course, there are no reliable sources supporting this conclusion being cited - just evidence that some people who have researched Lyme have also worked in biodefense - but this is apparently an ongoing issue which could use additional eyes. MastCell Talk 18:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
This fringe theory article is being hijacked by a user who insists that the article is slanted due to the scientific view being presented as the majority view. He is now tagging the page as POV, without giving any justification, while he accuses all editors who disagree with him of being the same person. He refuses to discuss his changes on the talk page, and is increasingly rude to other editors. He appears to be a single purpose account, apart from one recent edit to another article that was vandalism [40]. Could a few people have a look at the page and weigh in with their thoughts on the discussion page? Thanks. -- CaneryMBurns ( talk) 09:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion on the talk page of the above article as to whether the article should be exclusively devoted to content regarding the Jewish perspective on the books in question, or whether it should deal with the books from the perspectives of all interested parties. As the subject relates to basically deal roughly with the idea of undue weight, which is the primary interest of this noticeboard, I thought that some of the editors here might be interested in offering their opinions on the article's talk page. Thank you. John Carter ( talk) 21:21, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
after a prolongued period of peace, we have a few Hindu zealots raising their heads once again (remember autumn 2005 anyone?)
As you can see on Talk:Hinduism, the matter at present revolves around WP:LEAD ( Wikipedia:Lead fixation -- and WP:ENC I suppose). Some pious editors insist hook and crook on presenting the frequently-repeated pious sentiment that "Hinduism is the oldest religion" in the lead of Hinduism, as a fact stated in Wikipedia's voice. As a compromise, I offered mentioning the notion as one "often held by Hindus". Of course, blanket revert warring ensued. This is one of an increasing number of "Hindu incidents" under way at present. The cast at this moment are Tripping Nambiar ( talk · contribs) and Wikidas ( talk · contribs), but these accounts come and go over the months of course, and in my experience it doesn't pay to separate the meat from the socks.
I will insist on resolving this by the letter because (a) Hinduism is a top importance article and we cannot allow its very lead to become a platform for muddle-headed hype and (b) the case is exemplary for constant, unidirectional (pro-hype) degradation of hundreds and hundreds of lesser-watched articles on Hindu topics. dab (𒁳) 18:46, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Re the "obvious pseudoscience" and "ridiculuous notion": I have provided enough references to establish that Vedism and Hinduism are considered separate religions, just like Judaism and Christianity are considered separate.
Both essays I just cited are unequivocally academic, and give a fair picture of scholarly thinking on the matter. How about you (gasp) read them. And how about this:
Vedism and Babylonian polytheism are pre- Axial. Hinduism and Christianity are post-Axial. Our Hinduism and History of Hinduism articles will reflect the fact. The Gayatri mantra is a pre-Axial verse that was adopted into post-Axial Hindu liturgy. Just like the pre-Axial Pentateuch is still considered a sacred text in post-Axial Christianity. The fact that bits of the Christian Old Testament may date back to the Early Iron Age doesn't make Christianity a religion of the Early Iron Age. Just as survival of a Rigvedic verse into modern Hinduism doesn't make modern Hinduism part of Rigvedic religion. dab (𒁳) 18:07, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I glanced at the Hinduism talk page, saw how lengthy the discussion was, and came back here. No one's suggesting it's simply "the oldest religion in the world" are they? Obviously there are older religions, for example in Ancient Egypt. There'd have to be substantial context. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 19:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I will assume that you are just trying to annoy at this point, in order not to insult your intelligence. If you can show that the "majority of researchers" include Vedism as part and parcel of "Hinduism", the problem will be solved. But then not even Britannica does that, much less the academics I have just cited, so I suppose the rest of your "argument" simply collapses along with that claim. The reference to Babylon is a simile to make you understand the problem (assuming that you are actually trying). Obviously Vedism is "in religious tradition of Hinduism", the very same way that Babylonian religion is "in the religious tradition of Judaism and Christianity". Does that make Christianity 4,000 years old? No. And now, by the miracle of human cognition, you might understand that neither is Hinduism aged 7,000 years just because it is in the "tradition of Proto-Indo-European religion". The burden is on you to show there is any mainstream consensus on such a ludicrous idea. I have shown a number of academic and encyclopedic sources that do not take that view as a matter of course. Hence the case is closed. You are still free to point out that "some authors" have claimed this or that quaint notion regarding Hinduism. dab (𒁳) 20:44, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
A poster/admin lurks/edits/reverts etc on articles related to Hinduism-vedic literature, people of vedic period (or aryans as westerners like to call them), the aryan invasion theory ETC. This poster blatantly subscribes to the point of view that all the vedic people or aryans have european ancestry via the scythians or descendants of the arctic region; that vedic religion(?) or vedas are exclusive creations of these peoples and vehemently insists that vedic religion is far from modern day Hinduism as far as (gasp) christinaity is from babylonian religion no less, even though none of the actual practitioners of Hindu religion in India subscribe to this POV. Why does this poster (gone wild with admin rights) insist on breaking the link between the great vedic tradition, vedas and the associated religious practices with the people of modern day India who call themselves Hindus and have upheld their traditions for millenia and insists on associating it exclusively with europeans? Why? Anyone have any idea? hmmmmm? Do you smell that?