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Just came across Ayurvastra. Using clothes coloured this way will "cure a range of diseases like diabetes, skin infections, eczema, hypertension, high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, psoriasis, rheumatism and paralysis". As far as I can see it will not protect me from -40 C/F weather. Looks like it could do with some work. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 04:09, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
These articles may benefit from additional attention. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate – 06:34, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
RfC on inclusion of the full list of awardees (virtually all of which are redlinked or unlinked and sourced only to the institute's own website). Guy ( help!) 10:31, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Eg "The two-three primary current editors, Doug Weller and Gråbergs Gråa Sång took over and dominated the Roza Bal page years ago. This is why and when the edit wars, especially against Suzanne Olsson, began. These editors inserted derogatory and prejudicial remarks, mis-information, and negative reviews about the ‘Jesus in India’ theories intending to mislead readers, and conform to fundamentalist Christian beliefs" and more like it. It's all bull- I'm pretty sure no one here thinks I'm a Fundamentalist Christian, but it muddies the waters on the talk page and I don't see why User:Gråbergs Gråa Sång should have to put up with it, especially as it's the sort of nonsense that gets used off-Wiki to attack people. User:Sunami70 has been here only two weeks and has made only 27 edits, and has confined themselves to the talk page since their edits were reverted, so I'm willing to think that their talk pages posts are not malicious even though they are at best gross distortions of the facts.
I don't plan to reply right now if ever, I've got more important things to do than defend myself, but if anyone can do anything to ameliorate the situation it would be appreciated. Thanks. -- Doug Weller talk 09:57, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Eg Pearl of Great Price (Mormonism), Book of Moses Book of Joseph (Latter Day Saints), Book of Abraham and Critical appraisal of the Book of Abraham. The latter is probably the best of them all. The others are all to a very great extent use sources related in some way to the church. I've more oe less given up on the Anachronisms article. [4]. Doug Weller talk 13:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
This needs a look at Seeds of Destruction (book). Slatersteven ( talk) 15:36, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I think that Civilization state could use another pair of eyes. The article's focus could be roughly described as "China as civilization-state" as opposed to an account of the history of the theory itself, and most of the sources appear to either be limited to the analysis of a few authors, or possibly SYNTH-y inferences. Based on a Scholar search, it seems like "civilization state" has some traction as a concept in Chinese academia, but it's not clear that the current uncritical presentation of the theory is warranted (consider Nation state's composition for contrast). Of note, the primary editor of the article was banned for sockpuppeting following several investigations of pro-PRC POV editing. signed, Rosguill talk 21:21, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
See Talk:Gunpowder#India - The real inventor of Gunpowder - MrOllie ( talk) 17:21, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Yesterday I started watching the not-so-great tv adaptation of The City & the City, which indirectly called to mind the invisible ships myth. I'm sure you've heard it, as it's much beloved by a wide range of pseudoscience peddlers and New Age self-help gurus. I think the first time I heard it was in What the Bleep Do We Know!?, and it goes something like this: when Columbus/Cook/Magellan sailed close to North/South America/Australia, the natives couldn't see the ships as they approached because it was so foreign to them or otherwise didn't match anything in their experience. It's a myth that comes up all over the place so I figured I'd look into starting an article about it. I've started a draft in userspace (not really worth looking at at this point), but for a myth that's so often referenced, I haven't yet been able to find much by way of good sources about it. I'm familiar with most of the concepts behind it, but I'm looking for sources that make those connections. This seems like something many of you who watch this board may be able to help with, so here I am. Apologies if this is not a good use of this noticeboard. If there's a clearly better place for this, I have no objection to someone moving the thread there. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:28, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
Someone experienced with MEDRS needs to look at the studies and journals being added touting health benefits of cow urine. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 11:48, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
This is about [7]. Please chime in. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 16:40, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I have an edit notice that people see when they try to email me that says "ill generally keep all emails sent to me in confidence, however, I reserve the right to publically post, some or all of any email correspondence you send on my talk page or any other other applicable page, or email it to any person. I may do this without informing you, or without seeking your approval." In this case he's requested a favor so it seems sensible to make it public. He thinks the Esquire article is a hatchet job and an unreliable source.
I'm trying to reduce my watch list - I've gotten it under 19,000 (plus talk pages) and that's one that I would have taken off the list the next time it came up. I don't seem to be able to edit my list, I always get an error notice.
Anyway, if anyone thinks there's any merit to this, should it be taken to BLPN? Thanks. -- Doug Weller talk 18:56, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
There is a proposal to add Natural News to the spam blacklist on the reliable sources noticeboard. If you are interested, please participate at WP:RSN § Natural News. — Newslinger talk 22:38, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
A perennial favourite is back, with WP:PROFRINGE attempts to advocate for this BS in the lede. As ever, fringe-savvy eyes welcome on this problematic article. Alexbrn ( talk) 22:16, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
User is now blocked indefinitely. jps ( talk) 19:03, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
These have been fairly common in the past, but the Tamil government archaeology dept has published a book dating Tamil writing 3 centuries earlier than the conventional 3rd c BCE, so there's a flurry of edits in a variety of articles.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller ( talk • contribs) 19:01, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
See Talk:Spygate (conspiracy theory)#Conspiracy theory? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 16:56, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
Collapsing arguments about politics, unrelated to encyclopedia-content.
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To be clear, there are some conspiracy theories that are more popular on the Team Blue side than the Team Red side (e.g.
GMO conspiracy theories), but it is true that there is an imbalance right now in which team supports more conspiracy theories.
jps (
talk) 11:24, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
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Can anyone have a look at the Creationist stuff in this article? The University and Steven Collins are Creationist. Doug Weller talk 18:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Someone keeps trying to soften the climate change denialism language at PragerU. Extra eyes needed. Simonm223 ( talk) 13:46, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
More than a few fringe theories being promoted with little in the form of supporting evidence. Someone with some time and patience may want to read through the list. Some of these entries are not unsolved in the same plane of reality where the Earth is round and fluoridated water is not a communist plot. Apparently rumors and unsubstantiated conjecture are enough to get your death on this list.
Courtesy ping Davidgoodheart I know you do a lot of work on this list. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 06:14, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
WP:AN/I#Snak2f: centuries old map disproves modern archaeology?
Probably dealt with shortly but just in case. Mangoe ( talk) 23:24, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
A new POV warrior adding pro-Bigfoot argumentation to the article. Tried to reason with them here on the Talk page, but...it's not going well. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 20:11, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Check this guy out. This is what his article looked like before I got there. Lovaas beat autistic children and shocked them with cattle prods in attempt to make them "normal". He reported great success, finding that 47% of autistic children became "indistinguishable from their peers" and their IQs even went up. However, all this is based off one study. The study contained fewer than thirty people, and he didn't even bother to randomize his trials, which allowed him to put all of the kids that were destined to improve in the treatment group and those that were not in the control group. He did basically the same thing to gay people too. He also claimed to have cured the gay children, and he presided over a bunch of gay conversion clinics, some of which are still in use today. Even though his claims were thoroughly debunked, they are cited as facts by his supporters, which even include a former US general surgeon. His methods are still in use today (but adapted to be legal), and form the basis for most early autism interventions.
Lovaas always said that his interest in psychology was inspired by the nazis. It shows. This is going to take some major clean-up.
Note-- The article has been reverted to its previous state by User:Alexbrn. Here is the pre-revert version.
There are likely more articles affected by this problem. If you find them, feel free to edit my comment and add them to the list.
-- Wikiman2718 ( talk) 01:31, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Oh dear, it's all gone full WP:GODWIN. I had a quick look at this "nazi" thing and see some problems in our article. It says Lovaas was a "farm worker" in the 1940s, and that he "often said that the nazis had sparked his interest in human behavior". Yet from the source [10] it seems he (aged 13 in 1940) and his whole family were forced to work on a farm by the nazis during the occupation of Norway, and this is the context in which his interest was sparked (the source also says Lovaas thought "he could have turned Adolf Hitler into a nice man had he gotten him to UCLA by age 4 or 5"). Incidentally, it's a problem that sections of the source are copy/pasted verbatim into our article, let alone that this is done out of context in a way which spins the source.
It seems to me the fringe problem here might be in Wikiman2718's stance towards this topic, rather than the topic itself, for which there appears to be plenty of sober RS (e.g. [11] - from which it seems Wikipedia is buying into the popular press "oversimplification" of his work, even going to far as to include copyright pictures from a sensational piece in Life magazine which this obituary mentions was seen as misrepresenting his work). The whole thing savours of WP:RGW. Alexbrn ( talk) 04:01, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Lovaas always said that his interest in psychology was inspired by the nazis. It shows.[my emphasis]. When it seems in fact his interest inspired by the nazis was how to stop such human behaviour. The article should make this clear. Your calling his obituary a "a complete whitewash of his work" rather shows you have a POV here, and by golly have you pushed it in the article! Alexbrn ( talk) 04:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
In view of the sensationalism, source misrepresentation, original research and copyright violation I'm seeing, I have performed a major rewind [12] of this article back to a prior state. I dispute the POV approach Wikiman2718 has taken. More eyes welcome. Alexbrn ( talk) 05:10, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Could some editors please take a look at the Reincarnation article? I think that much of the last couple sections seems quite credulous, and for instance they also contain semi-approving statements cited to Carl Sagan and Sam Harris which I doubt are a complete or accurate summary of their views. Sunrise ( talk) 05:49, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Relevant discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Template:Effective_altruism - more eyes needed from outside the EA/LessWrong/transhumanist subcultures - David Gerard ( talk) 08:57, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
From looking at some sources I don't think EA can be classed as fringe. However, it does look like our article suffers from some POV issues: from reading it (and especially the lede) one doesn't get the impression - which I got from RS - that this movement is seen as in some senses problematic. Our articles packs the criticism away in a WP:CRITS at the end of the article, a hallmark of POV. To get a flavour of what I'd be expecting to see in a more neutral article, see https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12176 (which is cited, but not in a way which brings out its argument):
[While EA is] understood as broadly welfarist, consequentialist, and scientific in its outlook, the movement is vulnerable to the claim that it overlooks the importance of justice and rights, is methodologically rigoristic, and fails to isolate the activities likely to have the greatest impact overall. In most cases, I have shown that effective altruists are able respond to these objections, though sometimes this would mean changing their modus operandi in significant ways.
Alexbrn ( talk) 12:13, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
South African doctor noted for early sports/diet work later expounding more controversial views about diet and dipping a toe in vaccination issues. An IP from Johannesburg has been adding content about antivax saying that Noakes "simply raises questions where appropriate and based on the scientific evidence, about the safety and efficacy of certain vaccines". [13] Also some BLP issues. More eyes welcome. Alexbrn ( talk) 12:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Gorski that is. - Roxy, the dog. wooF 13:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
a Quote. - Roxy, the dog. wooF 13:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Final Demand for Removal of “Biography of Gary Null” from Wikipedia
Related:
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 14:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
The below report discussing "Ritual ears" at the Tiwanaku Site appeared in the Tiwanaku article at Revision as of 11:47, 14 October 2019.
Arnaiz-Villena, A., Alonso-Rubio, J. and Ruiz-del-Valle, V., 2013. Tiwanaku (Titikaka Lake, Bolivia) and Alberite Dolmen (Southern Spain) ritual “ears”. International Journal of Modern Anthropology, 1(6), pp.61-76. Paul H. ( talk) 21:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
I have asked this editor to stop their mass changes until I could get advice here. Roxy, the dog. wooF 00:12, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Category:Pseudoscience is confusing, because diverse topics characterized as pseudoscience (i.e. Alternative medicine), concepts related to pseudoscience (i.e. Charlatan), explanation about pseudoscience (i.e. History of pseudoscience) are mixed. There is also an advice "Pages in this category should be moved to subcategories where applicable. This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should directly contain very few, if any, pages and should mainly contain subcategories." in the article Category:Pseudoscience. I just followed this advice.-- Y-S.Ko ( talk) 00:49, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Dietary supplement marketed as a supposed "nootropic" and as a treatment for Alzheimer's (attracting the ire of the FDA). Got some disagreement over categorization which could use more eyes. Alexbrn ( talk) 11:13, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Time to let others chime in. Slatersteven ( talk) 11:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
References
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In assessing sources for medical content, competence in critiquing published reviews is required: WP:CIR which states: "Editors should familiarize themselves with Wikipedia's guidance on identifying reliable sources and be able to decide when sources are, and are not, suitable for citing in articles." Accepting refs 1-3 above as reliable MEDRS sources is plain gullibility and inability to see the studies included in the reviews as poor science unpublishable in rigorous journals. -- Zefr ( talk) 15:45, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Please take this to ANI, I think there is a two way issue. Slatersteven ( talk) 16:37, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
References
Some dispute about the intersection of WP:BLP and this article's content (see also section at WP:BLP/N#Bastyr University). I think there are WP:FRINGE issues here which need careful handling ... Alexbrn ( talk) 13:47, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Christopher Langan ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
I am trying to delicately write about this person who has been concerned with Wikipedia's treatment of him for more than a decade. In particular, he is famous for claims of a very high IQ which, of course, is something that is notoriously hard to verify because tails of the distribution and so-on. How we explain this in plain NPOV language seems to be hard to figure out [16]. Help doing so would be appreciated.
jps ( talk) 13:27, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Because of some ongoing health issues, I have been forced to limit how much time I spend editing Wikipedia. One of my essays ( WP:YWAB is becoming popular, so I am asking for help in fixing obvious problems in some of the pages that essay links to. In particular, I would ask for help improving:
So that they no longer need cleanup templates at the top.
Any help with these or any other pages I link to in my essay would be very much appreciated. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 04:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
I was reading the The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia article, and it struck me as promoting potentially fringe ideas. I don't know very much about the subject, so I came here to ask what other people think of the article? Thanks, Darthkayak ( talk) 07:49, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Annular Theory (Vailan Theory) is currently a PROD. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 12:52, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
"Retraction Watch Database is designed expressly for finding out whether any given study is still legit. The next time you read an article or hear someone say, "studies show that talking is bad for you," you can head over to the site and see what's what."
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 07:48, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Article takes the stance that Blackmore's reasoning is wrong, because someone disagrees with it. Should it? Does anybody here know more about this? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 06:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
William Lane Craig ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
After a heated few months, it looks like the interlocutors arguing about this article have settled down or burnt out. Our mediator had some health problems and seems to be waiting for some considerations of how to move forward. Perhaps this is a good time to ask you all for feedback. So far, we've worked on the infobox, lede, and the sections of the article down to "Molinism". There is still work to be done, but a lot of the concerns about this article may have been addressed, if perhaps badly. Input or help moving forward Talk:William Lane Craig/Mediation would be very welcome.
jps ( talk) 16:22, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
There is an ongoing move discussion regarding whether to move Great Replacement → Great replacement conspiracy theory. The discussion currently only has 4 participants, and has been relisted. Additional input would be helpful. Nblund talk 16:48, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
See Talk:Intelligent design#Orange box overkill? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 14:32, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Biochemist who later became famous for a supposed "anti-cancer" diet. Article appears to be under attack from a mini sock farm. Could use eyes. Alexbrn ( talk) 19:22, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Requesting input at Astrology (talk discussion here). The issue under dispute is whether the article should be in Category:Pseudoscience. Thanks, Sunrise ( talk) 02:52, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Edit warring to add personal commentary to the lead, watering down mainstream viewpoints, redefining Occam's Razor, etc. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 11:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Is it just me or is there something wrong with this article? Doug Weller talk 08:02, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
De-prod'ed by the page creator without explanation. I suspect that it is not a wiki-notable fringe theory, as fringe theories go. XOR'easter ( talk) 14:34, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
There's an editing dispute at the article Pyramid power involving User:Elspru, User:Roxy the dog and myself over Russian research supposedly proving pyramid power. Looking into this I ran into Alexander Golod whose article is all about his work on pyramid power> Doug Weller talk 15:29, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I didn't say it proving, I said there is scientific research in favour of it. and linked the references Elspru ( talk) 16:33, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I did not link any Alexander Holed you can if you like. Elspru ( talk) 16:36, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Alekbrn so you denigrate minorities and deny the evidence? This is Science not reneissance philosophy. Science is based on Scientific Method. You are in denial if you are attacking me with baseless labels. Elspru ( talk) 17:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
We've discussed Dhul-Qarnayn before. I'm hoping that some people here are familiar with it, because User:Aminamin1 is changing it radically. Despite my warnings they are adding material to sourced text that doesn't seem to be in the text, adding unsourced material with pov language, etc. I've reverted them before and may again when I finish this, but they don't seem to care. Here's the diff since they started - take a look at what happened to the reference {{sfn|Wheeler|2013|p=16}} - it now is attached to completely different text and the original text it sourced has been deleted. Doug Weller talk 19:35, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Other problematic articles created by the same user SERGEJ2011
I could list twenty more, but I will stop there. This is also a long-term abuse issue. 81.147.137.6 ( talk) 20:26, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Quackwatch has been removed from this article List of food faddists. See talk-page. 81.147.137.6 ( talk) 22:40, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
WP:CRYBLP. The goal of BLP protections is to make sure that poorly sourced material is not added to articles. Making a determination that a particular source is poor or, in this case, an WP:SPS is an editorial decision like any other. In this case, it seems clear that the consensus is that QW is not such a source, so there is no problem using it. I take a very dim view of people who WP:CRYBLP to hide their editorial bent. jps ( talk) 10:40, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Declined prod; seems not wiki-notable (and having a conference be notable is an uphill task to start with, I'd say). People who have experience in religion/science overlap material might want to weigh in. XOR'easter ( talk) 19:22, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
SPA rewriting history. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 21:12, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I am seeing a lot of press about "Immune Amnesia". We don't seem to have an article on it. Should we? It seems like it might be an effective argument against antivax.
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 15:31, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Some here might be interested in joining the following discuissions:
(A third discussion here would be Another Wrong Place...) -- Guy Macon ( talk) 01:28, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
[39] Doug Weller talk 18:37, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Is Sohini Sastri a type of articles we usually keep? Would an AfD stand a chance?-- Ymblanter ( talk) 10:05, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Basically about a fringe claim concerning carved stones in Puerto Rico that may be connected to the O"ld World." I see a recent rewrite relies heavily on such sources as hits [41] article by a free lance journalist which is behind a pay wall. This [42] is also heavily used, a recent English article in the same newspaper. A very large number of references (over 60) are from a YouTube video [43] of a conference talk by this person. [44] I'm pretty sure we don't use conference speeches as sources. This Haaretz article is also a source. [45] as the University of Haifa materials lab recently studied them. Doug Weller talk 10:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
See Talk:Old Testament#Dogmatic stance. Please chime in. IMHO, the sources I have offered are impeccable. For the record, I was accused of WP:FRINGE for saying that "covenant=contract". My sources are:
and presumably (I did not check it):
At this juncture, however, God is entering into a "treaty" with the Israelites, and hence the formal need within the written contract for the grace of the sovereign to be documented.30 30. Mendenhall and Herion, "Covenant," p. 1183.
There is a RfC [46] on the Mark Levin page about whether to include Levin's promotion of Soros conspiracy theories on the Trump-Ukraine scandal. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 14:36, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lipid therapy may be of interest. XOR'easter ( talk) 17:43, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Bringing this here as it is tagged as under wikiproject skepticism - is there anyone who can review these edits [47] to see if there is anything worth keeping? This is a clearly enthusiastic editor with no understanding of ours sources policy. Doug Weller talk 08:14, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Someone versed in physics and cosmology needed to review coverage of Tipler’s fringe theory, and recent IP edits. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 21:15, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I have seem a lot of Flat Earth websites, but this one is especially entertaining:
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 04:17, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
There is a request for comment on whether Quackwatch is a self-published source. This RfC also concerns the application of WP:BLP § Avoid self-published sources ( WP:BLPSPS) to content from Quackwatch. If you are interested, please participate at WP:RSN § RfC: Quackwatch. — Newslinger talk 00:04, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
There is a proposal to shorten the lead of Homeopathy ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), see Talk:Homeopathy § The lead. Guy ( help!) 19:37, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
This is about [48] and [49]. Please chime in. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 09:25, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Theanswerman63 ( talk) 11:36, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
There is an open deletion discussion on Ritual Violence that may be of interest to editors here.
The current text of the article focuses heavily on fringe theories related to Satanic ritual abuse and recovered memory therapies, but it's possible that there are reputable sources in anthropology or sociology that discuss actual forms of ritualized violence scientifically. If editors are aware of good sources and want to take a crack at trimming the crap and adding good content, that would be helpful as well. Nblund talk 17:54, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Rashidi was a close colleague of Ivan Van Sertima. Yesterday a South African IP remmoved "Heis also part of an afrocentric movement where he teaches Ivan Van Sertima's pseudohistory." from the article. I reverted but changed it to "Heis also part of an afrocentric movement where he teaches Ivan Van Sertima's pseudohistory. [1]" Now someone from Temple University has changed my wording to "He is also part of an afrocentric Afrocentric movement where he supports the work of people like Ivan Van Sertima's". On the talk page they've written "You know adding negative labels to scholars is not NPOV. Now I am no fan of Runoko But that is my belief. I still think he deserves a fair article. And this is why Africans distrust what goes on here. Can't you restrain yourself? Look at the rest of the talk page. Clearly some agenda at work. Ivan Van sertima has a page. Why is he walking around with the title Pseudo historian? in the lead of Runoko? yet all those race and intelligence scholars pushing rubbish are exempt." On a different but still fringe issue the IP removed the book Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam from Pre-Islamic Arabia. I'm not sure whether that was a good call or not.
References
Doug Weller talk 11:09, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
There is an RfC at Talk:Sharyl Attkisson § RfC on self-sourcing, an issue previously discussed here. Guy ( help!) 09:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
New article, created by a possible single-purpose account, referenced to a preprint put online a few months ago and not officially published yet. Opinions welcome. XOR'easter ( talk) 03:00, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
This feels a little advertisementy, and also as if it's kind of sidestepping around the issues. The presence of Uri Geller in a film that purports to be about "interviews with renowned scientists and authors" to explain consciousness makes one suspect it. Adam Cuerden ( talk)Has about 7.4% of all FPs 03:33, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Craig Loehle ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Please comment.
jps ( talk) 10:50, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
The project that is the subject of this post is WP:ARS has been brought to the Village Pump for discussion by a regular here. I had no idea it existed until I saw this. Its purpose seems to be to WP:CANVASS wiki eds to AfD discussions, and prodded articles to deprod, or ivote "Keep". I think people here might be interested. - Roxy, the dog. Esq. wooF 12:29, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
This user, User:Eohsloohcs seems to intend adding List of scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on global warming to the "See also" paragraphs of all the scientists in the list. I see no encyclopedic purpose to that. What do others think? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 16:12, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
I feel like a lot of this list is suffering from holywood-inspired idea that "science" is a single field and that all scientists are equally qualified to opine on any "science" topic. ApLundell ( talk) 23:51, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Might I ask that you discuss at the deletion discussion rather than reinforcing your clique mentality here. Dmcq ( talk) 16:10, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Promotion of an idea that has had no discernable influence within the scientific community.In other words, because it is not notable, as demonstrated by the lack of citations. XOR'easter ( talk) 21:22, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
How much discussion was there on the talk page with interested editors before the AfD?
.
WP:RTFA. Amirite? There's nothing to stop you from putting up snarky notices onto talk pages for us, darling
User:Dmcq. We love you greatly!
jps (
talk) 23:54, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm really confused here. In general editors watch-list articles and notice boards as I do here with this notice board. That way I can take part or not dependent on my interest. Generally, no one is notified. Sometimes if a discussion moves from an article talk page too a NB then a notice may be left on that article talk page notifying all editors that a discussion has moved. In my experience, in very few instances would anyone actually alert individual editors. AfD is a discussion but not specifically a vote. When discussion is closed discussion points and arguments will be weighed by the closer to determine consensus. Consensus is not determined by a vote count. There are real issues with the kind of list we are discussing in my opinion. I'm sure editors here will tell you that I, at least, am not a member of some inner circle. Quite the contrary. I can understand your frustration but this is the way Wikipedia works. Littleolive oil ( talk) 03:37, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
FWIW: I watch this page along with a number of articles on topics that are covered here. I sometimes agree with a post claiming that a page like the list in question is problematic, I sometimes disagree, and sometimes I express an opinion one way but then change my mind after reading a well reasoned point. It is understandable to me that someone that doesn't participate here regularly might see participants' activity as "piling on" but in my experiene there is more diversity of opinion here than some of the criticism above implies. I took the time to review this list and I honestly would have commented in the same critical manner had I not seen a post here. My participation in this forum is motivated by a desire to improve (and if necessary recommend removal of) material that veers outside of policy. I stand by my early comments on this list and I find the recent "keep" comments unpersuasive in changing my mind. -- mikeu talk 16:21, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Even at ANI there is no requirement to post a notification when you talk about the content of a page. Instead it says:
When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on the editor's talk page.
The use of ping or the notification system is not sufficient for this purpose.
You may use {{
subst:
ANI-notice}} ~~~~
to do so.
Dmcq, I haven't given it much thought, but right off of the top of my head I have no objection to a new rule saying that we should post a notification on the talk page of the article being discussed, but it would be a new rule, so you need to get consensus for it by posting an RfC. Until you do that, please stop haranguing editors for not following a rule that doesn't exist.
BTW, we have a way of discussing things in private. It is called "e-mail". -- Guy Macon ( talk) 20:38, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Well, if you were asking that all noticeboards have some direction that notification should be placed on the talkpage of articles that they were talking about, that would at least alleviate the concerns of singling out particular noticeboards over others. It wouldn't alleviate instruction creep concerns, however, so perhaps you could show exactly why not having this notification on various noticeboards (not just this one) has caused problems. Demonstrating those clearly would cause me to support such a proposal. Absent that, I do admit to not seeing a problem except for, perhaps, a disdain for certain active community groups. And it's okay to be disdainful of active community groups, but in that case it might help to explain why you think these suggestions might offer some chance for "reform" (which I have yet to see explained clearly). jps ( talk) 11:12, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
I suppose I should not have been surprised that most of the entries in this list had garbage sources (e.g. homeoint.org). Also no surprise that once the garbage is removed, the majority of the article has no sources at all. I guess the question is whether we should even have a list of things that homeopaths use: essentially there's nothing they don't use (including excrementum tauri, shipwreck and the light of Venus) but perhaps it could be pared down to the ones notably covered by reliable sources? Marsh's owl, for example? Would we also include the real and fake diseases they claim to cure with them? Or is the whole thing just too fringe to be salvageable? Guy ( help!) 15:07, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
Appears to be a WP:POVFORK of Conspiracy theory that gives primary weight to opinions that express the idea that conspiracy theories shouldn't be denigrated because, philosphically speaking, it's possible some are not unwarranted. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 23:05, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
The Skeptical Inquirer is a biased source which uses cherry-picked examples. I’ve replaced it with a much better source, which has a much more nuanced conclusion based on a much sounder methodology.That sounds like a reasonable complaint to me, even though I would regard CSICOP publications reliable sources by default and would have taken a different course of action. XOR'easter ( talk) 15:51, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
The closing admin made some pretty outlandish accusations about this noticeboard: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philosophy of conspiracy theories. I suggest a WP:DRV be filed as the discussion was cut off for what seems to me to be arbitrary reasons. jps ( talk) 10:52, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Seems to me that people here just don't like what qualified academia has to say on the matter. 80.111.44.144 ( talk) 22:06, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
I have some concerns about this article though I haven't had a chance to wade through the sources. I did however find this reference which claims that "...many scholars have taken a relatively charitable attitude toward conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theorising in recent years." (I assume that "scholars" is specifically referring to philosophers.) I haven't read enough on this topic to decide if the article is biased or if the philosophers are contrarian, compared to what I've seen published in psychology and sociology. Below is an extended quote for those who can't get through the paywall. -- mikeu talk 23:32, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
"What's Epistemically Wrong with Conspiracy Theorising?"
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In the above discussion, LuckyLouie said something important that I would like to focus on:
I think LuckyLouie hit the nail on the head.
Let's look at the definition on our Conspiracy theory page:
Notice how different the above is from what we see at Philosophy of conspiracy theories#Definitions of conspiracy theory? Did you notice that the difference is pretty much exactly as LuckyLouie described?
I am also seeing a pattern here. First, a conspiracy theorist redefines the phrase "Conspiracy Theory" in a way that goes against what 99% of English speakers means when they use the phrase. The usual redefinition is "any theory about a conspiracy, no matter how strong or weak the evidence is." Then the conspiracy theorist acts as if they are completely unaware of the standard definition. Finally they put together an argument based upon their redefinition, and having knocked down the straw man that they created, declare victory.
It hinders communication when you don't use the ordinatry definition for common phrases. Yes, you can use non-standard fleemishes and the reader can still gloork the meaning from the context, but there ix a limit; If too many ot the vleeps are changed, it becomes harder and qixer to fllf what the wethcz is blorping, and evenually izs is bkb longer possible to ghilred frok at wifx. Dnighth? Ngfipht yk ur! Uvq the hhvd or hnnngh. Blorgk? Blorgk! Blorgkity-blorgk!!!! -- Guy Macon ( talk) 17:04, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Dictionary definitions
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...but of course we are an encyclopedia, not a dictionary, so please see:
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-- Guy Macon ( talk) 19:29, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Please see: Talk:Philosophy of conspiracy theories#Requested move 24 November 2019. -- mikeu talk 12:42, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
DISC assessment seems to be based on a number of questionable and irrelevant sources. I suspect that this page has been amped up because one of the companies used as a source is actually a vendor of a software product based on this obsolete theory in psychology. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 09:50, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Could someone more familiar with the topic please review the sources in Quebec Coalition for Homeopathy. Thanks, — Insertcleverphrasehere ( or here)( click me!) 01:37, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
... is a state endorsed quack in Germany. We have an article (a stub) that was recently replaced by a translation of the german wiki article. I have twice now reverted to the stub, because I feel that the stub is better than the translation, which is far far away from our P&G. Could somebody take a look and tell me if I'm being over critical? Thanks. - Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 18:45, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
The long way: [70]
Then go to The SAA Archaeological Record Table of Contents, click on "Digital Edition" in "Number 5, November Digital Edition."
They make in quite complicated. Or you can download it from: [71]!
He's discussed in:
Y Not a Pacific Migration? Misunderstandings of Genetics inService to Pseudoscience by Jennifer A. Raff
The Cerutti Mastodon, Professional Skepticism, and the Public Carl Feagans
Whitewashing American Prehistory Jason Colavito
The Mysterious Origins of Fringe 21 John W. Hoopes
America Before as a Paranormal Charter 26 Jeb J. Card
“I Don’t Believe, I Know”: The Faith of Modern Pseudoarchaeology David S. Anderson
Doug Weller
talk 14:05, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Buck Nelson ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
I started to clean up this article on mobile but quickly moved to a desktop after seeing how much nonsense there is. But frankly looking at the sources I'm not sure if there's any point. Should we just send it to AfD? Nil Einne ( talk) 11:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Paul Hellyer (he was Canada's Defense Minister - scary) and To the Stars (company). Doug Weller talk 09:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
Greta Thunberg has a 19th-century doppelganger, so naturally people think she's a time traveler
Look at [79]. She even braids her hair the same. I'm just saying. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:10, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
From Welcome to the fringe theories noticeboard at the top of this page:
95% of my contributions have an emphasis on material that can be useful for creating new articles or improving existing articles. If you want to outlaw the occasional lighthearted post about silly fringe theories, post an RfC and see if the community want to change the rules. Until you get consensus, your complaints are more disruptive than what you are complaining about. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 17:29, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
FWIW, I occasionally check out this noticeboard. One of the thing that discourages me from doing so, is that I don't particularly like what I see here. By no means do I suggest me not checking it out is a loss, but I do wonder if others may feel the same and so this sort of stuff is actually harming the noticeboard.
Of all the noticeboards I sometimes check out, this seems to be the only one that welcomes so many IMO offtopic posts. I personally consider any post which doesn't directly relate to suggestions of improving (including protecting) an article to be off-topic. By which I mean, if you open a discussion, because you genuinely feel there is some risk that nonsense has been, or will be added to an article, then fine. Likewise if you feel that we need to add something to some article. If you just found something which you feel is funny and want to share it then yes it is offtopic in my opinion. I find it particularly funny since the RD, not a noticeboard, also gets a lot of criticism for this sort of thing but it seems to be well tolerated here.
I'm all for criticising and mocking pseudoscience and other such nonsense in the appropriate place. But wikipedia is almost never the place for personal mocking, and criticism should mostly only arise when it directly related to an article. I'm not suggesting people never be allowed to do so, IMO it's fine when it arises organically in a discussion one something on-topic. Likewise I'm all for allowing people reasonable leeway in personal discussions i.e. on their own talk pages. And I don't know what sort of stuff goes on in Wikiprojects, maybe it's quite common there. Since such projects have far more of a community building aspect than noticeboards do, IMO it's far more tolerable there again within limits. (If what I've seen in the article rescue squad is any indication, maybe they go way overboard in ignoring wikipedia norms.) But this isn't supposed to be a wikiproject, in fact people from here have just pointed out, correctly, in WPP that it isn't. So none of these leeway considerations arise.
I'm particularly concerned with the way many of these discussions are troubling from a WP:BLP standpoint. While they don't generally mention the person involved, often they do seem to focus on the rambling "theories" of one person. Again there are plenty of places where mocking such people is fine, just that wikipedia isn't generally one of them. Rationalwiki is one place where it is welcome, which I sometimes (admittedly not much recently) check out precisely for that reason.
Besides that, and one of the other key reasons for my earlier point about not checking this board. While this is not so much of a problem now, one time when I visited it looked like maybe 1/5 of the posts here were this sort of offtopic stuff with some discussion. I don't know the frequency of such posts, I can't imagine it's really that high so to some extent it was also likely a bad time for the board. Anyway there were a bunch of ontopic posts most of which seem to have been ignored. Again not really much of a problem at the moment.
And "seem" because the lack of replies doesn't mean that nothing happened. It's easily possible that editors here edited the article or left comments on the talk page or whatever without mentioning it here which is mostly a good thing. (I did check out 2 or 3 and I think maybe 1 had something happened, but wasn't intending to analyse.) I check out WP:BLP/N a lot recently after a long time where my involvement mostly ceased and one of the changes from when I was last active which I'm now also very guilty of is there's way too much discussion on the noticeboard meaning split and confusing discussions. In other words, I recognise and agree that the primary purpose of the noticeboard should be to alert editors to something and there is often no need for much discussion in the board itself unless it affects multiple articles and it's felt it's a decent place to centralise it. If this noticeboard is still mostly doing that, it's a good thing.
So to some extent, this is separate from the off-topic concerns, in fact I recall some somewhat recent discussion where this arose i.e. the lack of any follow up on the board (don't recall which board) left an editor thinking it was useless. One thing separate from the offtopic concerns, which would help would be a brief comment here, either when the issue seems to be resolved or if you're working on it. Doesn't have to be everyone, but if at least one editor comments then you don't get the impression that posting here is probably useless.
But IMO the offtopic posts do come into play. I'm not suggesting that these offtopic posts are distracting editors here from actually working on the issues. But when you visit a board and a resonable percentage of it seems to me just people making fun about some pseudoscience, i.e. something that has nothing really to do with improving wikipedia and many of the posts which do have to do with improving wikipedia seem to have been ignored, it's easy to come to the conclusion that the board has completely lost sight of it's purpose and it's not something you want to use or check out.
IMO this also feeds into the perception that this board, it's participants, and the topic area gets special treatment since as I said, this doesn't really arise in any other noticeboard that I've noticed. I'm not so much concerned about those who are extremely into pseudoscience since they're a lost cause but those who are more neutral or even somewhat opposed to pseudoscience who see this board and go WTF?
Note that I'm opposed to banning posts like these since that will do more harm than good. Both because bans create a lot of confusion in enforcement and also because I'm not so much concerned if this was really only happening once in a blue moon. I am only suggesting that editors consider whether they should change how they operate. And I accept that some editors have directly improved articles as a result of these off-topic posts. IMO, if editors really want to continue this stuff at the current frequency, it would be better if this happens somewhere other than this notice board, perhaps some wikiproject. In case it's not clear, I've had these feeling for a few months now, I've never bothered to mention them since I doubted there would actually be any useful result but since the issue came up I guess I might as well.
please take a look at the edit summaries. It's a new editor and I've reverted twice and am off to bed soon. Doug Weller talk 21:26, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
References
More eyes welcomed on recent edits to Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, per Talk:Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence - David Gerard ( talk) 17:24, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Pro-paramilitary advocacy I think could well fall under WP:FRINGE, especially when the groups are considered to be terrorist organisations... but there is a degree of controversy as some people view these groups as freedom fighters and not terrorists. Thus this deletion discussion might be of interest to people here: wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Queerly_Bohemian/Userboxes/FreedomFighters.-- Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:45, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Should legendary miracles be described as facts in that article? My deletion was reverted. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 17:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
I hear the pitter-patter of webbed feet. See Talk:Siddha medicine. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:05, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Some recent activity here could use more eyes. (Add: digging around, it seems that BEMER Group distributes these products through a MLM scheme but, as so often, its hard to find sources confirming the MLM status. Anybody know more?) Alexbrn ( talk) 14:39, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Hey, folks, recently over at cryptozoology a user has been promoting a rather nuclear notion of cryptozoology as some kind of literary genre by cobbling together various sources that mention cryptozoology, but nowhere explicitly even discuss cryptozoologists in fiction. Here's the edit they're edit-warring to estate: [83].
While we could use a "cryptozoology in fiction" section about how cryptozoologists are portrayed in, say, novels with a source that explicitly discusses this topic, the user appears to be attempting to hijack the article to represent her or his own theories by way of classic WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. None of the sources the user has provided seem to discuss cryptozoology in fiction at all, Talk:Cryptozoology/Archive 6#Cryptids_in_fiction as I discuss extensively here. :bloodofox: ( talk) 23:57, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
I thought I remembered there having been an RfC or something about stand-alone articles for cryptids, but maybe I imagined it. Editors familiar with WP:NFRINGE may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gambo (carcass). – Leviv ich 03:40, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
At Talk:Vaccine hesitancy#Title there is a discussion about the title of the article, and on questions of neutrality, that fringe-savvy editors may be interested in. Alexbrn ( talk) 07:44, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Existence of the conspiracy theory that Melania Trump has left or been disposed of and replaced with a double clearly not a "blatant hoax" as it is well reported in reliable sources. For example: South China Morning Post, " ‘Fake Melania’ conspiracy theory about body double is ‘deranged’, says Donald Trump"; Esquire, " The 'Fake Melania' Conspiracy Theory is Back"; several others were in the draft. Reality of theory itself is irrelevant to whether theory exists.
@ RHaworth and Govvy: Hyperbolick ( talk) 14:48, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Melania Trump replacement theory is a conspiracy theory that First Lady of the United States Melania Trump was replaced by a body double, and that the "real" Melania is either dead or gone from public life.
It appears that the World Health Organization has been hijacked by Quacks, but our article appears to be silent on the matter. See:
I am good at editing engineering articles, but I really suck at editing anything having to do with health or medicine. Who here is willing to step up to the plate and add an appropriate section to the WHO page (not to be confused with The Who page...) -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:08, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
User:Slatersteven, please let me be as I clean up our UFO articles. KThanxbye.
jps ( talk) 16:52, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Question: does anyone think that there is enough disruption to justify a topic ban? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 19:49, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Ongoing "corrections" made to the article...in the form of some rather fringy narratives involving spirits and demons, stated in WPs voice [86]. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 04:30, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
Ravensclaw1 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) removed a well-sourced statement", it spreads myths about the risks of vaccines and contributes to vaccine hesitancy, which has been identified by the World Health Organization as one of the top ten global health threats of 2019, with parents delaying or declining some or all vaccinations. " replacing it with " educates the public about the potential risks of vaccines." Doug Weller talk 18:00, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
Finnish Air Force sighting ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Check out this article. I tried to clean it up, but it is not clear to me that the sourcing is there to justify its existence.
jps ( talk) 17:12, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Stub article that begins: Randall Carlson is an Architect, his academic background is in geology and astronomy. Carlson founded Sacred Geometry International, an organization from which he participates in cutting edge research into Earth’s cyclical history. Carlson's theories have not been peer-reviewed or published in any scientific journals, and are generally dismissed by researchers.
The article should probably just be deleted, but I thought editors here might know where to find sources that might demonstrate notability. -- Ronz ( talk) 23:35, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page. |
Just came across Ayurvastra. Using clothes coloured this way will "cure a range of diseases like diabetes, skin infections, eczema, hypertension, high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, psoriasis, rheumatism and paralysis". As far as I can see it will not protect me from -40 C/F weather. Looks like it could do with some work. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 04:09, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
These articles may benefit from additional attention. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate – 06:34, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
RfC on inclusion of the full list of awardees (virtually all of which are redlinked or unlinked and sourced only to the institute's own website). Guy ( help!) 10:31, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Eg "The two-three primary current editors, Doug Weller and Gråbergs Gråa Sång took over and dominated the Roza Bal page years ago. This is why and when the edit wars, especially against Suzanne Olsson, began. These editors inserted derogatory and prejudicial remarks, mis-information, and negative reviews about the ‘Jesus in India’ theories intending to mislead readers, and conform to fundamentalist Christian beliefs" and more like it. It's all bull- I'm pretty sure no one here thinks I'm a Fundamentalist Christian, but it muddies the waters on the talk page and I don't see why User:Gråbergs Gråa Sång should have to put up with it, especially as it's the sort of nonsense that gets used off-Wiki to attack people. User:Sunami70 has been here only two weeks and has made only 27 edits, and has confined themselves to the talk page since their edits were reverted, so I'm willing to think that their talk pages posts are not malicious even though they are at best gross distortions of the facts.
I don't plan to reply right now if ever, I've got more important things to do than defend myself, but if anyone can do anything to ameliorate the situation it would be appreciated. Thanks. -- Doug Weller talk 09:57, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Eg Pearl of Great Price (Mormonism), Book of Moses Book of Joseph (Latter Day Saints), Book of Abraham and Critical appraisal of the Book of Abraham. The latter is probably the best of them all. The others are all to a very great extent use sources related in some way to the church. I've more oe less given up on the Anachronisms article. [4]. Doug Weller talk 13:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
This needs a look at Seeds of Destruction (book). Slatersteven ( talk) 15:36, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I think that Civilization state could use another pair of eyes. The article's focus could be roughly described as "China as civilization-state" as opposed to an account of the history of the theory itself, and most of the sources appear to either be limited to the analysis of a few authors, or possibly SYNTH-y inferences. Based on a Scholar search, it seems like "civilization state" has some traction as a concept in Chinese academia, but it's not clear that the current uncritical presentation of the theory is warranted (consider Nation state's composition for contrast). Of note, the primary editor of the article was banned for sockpuppeting following several investigations of pro-PRC POV editing. signed, Rosguill talk 21:21, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
See Talk:Gunpowder#India - The real inventor of Gunpowder - MrOllie ( talk) 17:21, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Yesterday I started watching the not-so-great tv adaptation of The City & the City, which indirectly called to mind the invisible ships myth. I'm sure you've heard it, as it's much beloved by a wide range of pseudoscience peddlers and New Age self-help gurus. I think the first time I heard it was in What the Bleep Do We Know!?, and it goes something like this: when Columbus/Cook/Magellan sailed close to North/South America/Australia, the natives couldn't see the ships as they approached because it was so foreign to them or otherwise didn't match anything in their experience. It's a myth that comes up all over the place so I figured I'd look into starting an article about it. I've started a draft in userspace (not really worth looking at at this point), but for a myth that's so often referenced, I haven't yet been able to find much by way of good sources about it. I'm familiar with most of the concepts behind it, but I'm looking for sources that make those connections. This seems like something many of you who watch this board may be able to help with, so here I am. Apologies if this is not a good use of this noticeboard. If there's a clearly better place for this, I have no objection to someone moving the thread there. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:28, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
Someone experienced with MEDRS needs to look at the studies and journals being added touting health benefits of cow urine. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 11:48, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
This is about [7]. Please chime in. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 16:40, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I have an edit notice that people see when they try to email me that says "ill generally keep all emails sent to me in confidence, however, I reserve the right to publically post, some or all of any email correspondence you send on my talk page or any other other applicable page, or email it to any person. I may do this without informing you, or without seeking your approval." In this case he's requested a favor so it seems sensible to make it public. He thinks the Esquire article is a hatchet job and an unreliable source.
I'm trying to reduce my watch list - I've gotten it under 19,000 (plus talk pages) and that's one that I would have taken off the list the next time it came up. I don't seem to be able to edit my list, I always get an error notice.
Anyway, if anyone thinks there's any merit to this, should it be taken to BLPN? Thanks. -- Doug Weller talk 18:56, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
There is a proposal to add Natural News to the spam blacklist on the reliable sources noticeboard. If you are interested, please participate at WP:RSN § Natural News. — Newslinger talk 22:38, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
A perennial favourite is back, with WP:PROFRINGE attempts to advocate for this BS in the lede. As ever, fringe-savvy eyes welcome on this problematic article. Alexbrn ( talk) 22:16, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
User is now blocked indefinitely. jps ( talk) 19:03, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
These have been fairly common in the past, but the Tamil government archaeology dept has published a book dating Tamil writing 3 centuries earlier than the conventional 3rd c BCE, so there's a flurry of edits in a variety of articles.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller ( talk • contribs) 19:01, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
See Talk:Spygate (conspiracy theory)#Conspiracy theory? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 16:56, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
Collapsing arguments about politics, unrelated to encyclopedia-content.
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To be clear, there are some conspiracy theories that are more popular on the Team Blue side than the Team Red side (e.g.
GMO conspiracy theories), but it is true that there is an imbalance right now in which team supports more conspiracy theories.
jps (
talk) 11:24, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
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Can anyone have a look at the Creationist stuff in this article? The University and Steven Collins are Creationist. Doug Weller talk 18:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Someone keeps trying to soften the climate change denialism language at PragerU. Extra eyes needed. Simonm223 ( talk) 13:46, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
More than a few fringe theories being promoted with little in the form of supporting evidence. Someone with some time and patience may want to read through the list. Some of these entries are not unsolved in the same plane of reality where the Earth is round and fluoridated water is not a communist plot. Apparently rumors and unsubstantiated conjecture are enough to get your death on this list.
Courtesy ping Davidgoodheart I know you do a lot of work on this list. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 06:14, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
WP:AN/I#Snak2f: centuries old map disproves modern archaeology?
Probably dealt with shortly but just in case. Mangoe ( talk) 23:24, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
A new POV warrior adding pro-Bigfoot argumentation to the article. Tried to reason with them here on the Talk page, but...it's not going well. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 20:11, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Check this guy out. This is what his article looked like before I got there. Lovaas beat autistic children and shocked them with cattle prods in attempt to make them "normal". He reported great success, finding that 47% of autistic children became "indistinguishable from their peers" and their IQs even went up. However, all this is based off one study. The study contained fewer than thirty people, and he didn't even bother to randomize his trials, which allowed him to put all of the kids that were destined to improve in the treatment group and those that were not in the control group. He did basically the same thing to gay people too. He also claimed to have cured the gay children, and he presided over a bunch of gay conversion clinics, some of which are still in use today. Even though his claims were thoroughly debunked, they are cited as facts by his supporters, which even include a former US general surgeon. His methods are still in use today (but adapted to be legal), and form the basis for most early autism interventions.
Lovaas always said that his interest in psychology was inspired by the nazis. It shows. This is going to take some major clean-up.
Note-- The article has been reverted to its previous state by User:Alexbrn. Here is the pre-revert version.
There are likely more articles affected by this problem. If you find them, feel free to edit my comment and add them to the list.
-- Wikiman2718 ( talk) 01:31, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Oh dear, it's all gone full WP:GODWIN. I had a quick look at this "nazi" thing and see some problems in our article. It says Lovaas was a "farm worker" in the 1940s, and that he "often said that the nazis had sparked his interest in human behavior". Yet from the source [10] it seems he (aged 13 in 1940) and his whole family were forced to work on a farm by the nazis during the occupation of Norway, and this is the context in which his interest was sparked (the source also says Lovaas thought "he could have turned Adolf Hitler into a nice man had he gotten him to UCLA by age 4 or 5"). Incidentally, it's a problem that sections of the source are copy/pasted verbatim into our article, let alone that this is done out of context in a way which spins the source.
It seems to me the fringe problem here might be in Wikiman2718's stance towards this topic, rather than the topic itself, for which there appears to be plenty of sober RS (e.g. [11] - from which it seems Wikipedia is buying into the popular press "oversimplification" of his work, even going to far as to include copyright pictures from a sensational piece in Life magazine which this obituary mentions was seen as misrepresenting his work). The whole thing savours of WP:RGW. Alexbrn ( talk) 04:01, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Lovaas always said that his interest in psychology was inspired by the nazis. It shows.[my emphasis]. When it seems in fact his interest inspired by the nazis was how to stop such human behaviour. The article should make this clear. Your calling his obituary a "a complete whitewash of his work" rather shows you have a POV here, and by golly have you pushed it in the article! Alexbrn ( talk) 04:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
In view of the sensationalism, source misrepresentation, original research and copyright violation I'm seeing, I have performed a major rewind [12] of this article back to a prior state. I dispute the POV approach Wikiman2718 has taken. More eyes welcome. Alexbrn ( talk) 05:10, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Could some editors please take a look at the Reincarnation article? I think that much of the last couple sections seems quite credulous, and for instance they also contain semi-approving statements cited to Carl Sagan and Sam Harris which I doubt are a complete or accurate summary of their views. Sunrise ( talk) 05:49, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Relevant discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Template:Effective_altruism - more eyes needed from outside the EA/LessWrong/transhumanist subcultures - David Gerard ( talk) 08:57, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
From looking at some sources I don't think EA can be classed as fringe. However, it does look like our article suffers from some POV issues: from reading it (and especially the lede) one doesn't get the impression - which I got from RS - that this movement is seen as in some senses problematic. Our articles packs the criticism away in a WP:CRITS at the end of the article, a hallmark of POV. To get a flavour of what I'd be expecting to see in a more neutral article, see https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12176 (which is cited, but not in a way which brings out its argument):
[While EA is] understood as broadly welfarist, consequentialist, and scientific in its outlook, the movement is vulnerable to the claim that it overlooks the importance of justice and rights, is methodologically rigoristic, and fails to isolate the activities likely to have the greatest impact overall. In most cases, I have shown that effective altruists are able respond to these objections, though sometimes this would mean changing their modus operandi in significant ways.
Alexbrn ( talk) 12:13, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
South African doctor noted for early sports/diet work later expounding more controversial views about diet and dipping a toe in vaccination issues. An IP from Johannesburg has been adding content about antivax saying that Noakes "simply raises questions where appropriate and based on the scientific evidence, about the safety and efficacy of certain vaccines". [13] Also some BLP issues. More eyes welcome. Alexbrn ( talk) 12:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Gorski that is. - Roxy, the dog. wooF 13:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
a Quote. - Roxy, the dog. wooF 13:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Final Demand for Removal of “Biography of Gary Null” from Wikipedia
Related:
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 14:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
The below report discussing "Ritual ears" at the Tiwanaku Site appeared in the Tiwanaku article at Revision as of 11:47, 14 October 2019.
Arnaiz-Villena, A., Alonso-Rubio, J. and Ruiz-del-Valle, V., 2013. Tiwanaku (Titikaka Lake, Bolivia) and Alberite Dolmen (Southern Spain) ritual “ears”. International Journal of Modern Anthropology, 1(6), pp.61-76. Paul H. ( talk) 21:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
I have asked this editor to stop their mass changes until I could get advice here. Roxy, the dog. wooF 00:12, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Category:Pseudoscience is confusing, because diverse topics characterized as pseudoscience (i.e. Alternative medicine), concepts related to pseudoscience (i.e. Charlatan), explanation about pseudoscience (i.e. History of pseudoscience) are mixed. There is also an advice "Pages in this category should be moved to subcategories where applicable. This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should directly contain very few, if any, pages and should mainly contain subcategories." in the article Category:Pseudoscience. I just followed this advice.-- Y-S.Ko ( talk) 00:49, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Dietary supplement marketed as a supposed "nootropic" and as a treatment for Alzheimer's (attracting the ire of the FDA). Got some disagreement over categorization which could use more eyes. Alexbrn ( talk) 11:13, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Time to let others chime in. Slatersteven ( talk) 11:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
References
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help)
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help)
In assessing sources for medical content, competence in critiquing published reviews is required: WP:CIR which states: "Editors should familiarize themselves with Wikipedia's guidance on identifying reliable sources and be able to decide when sources are, and are not, suitable for citing in articles." Accepting refs 1-3 above as reliable MEDRS sources is plain gullibility and inability to see the studies included in the reviews as poor science unpublishable in rigorous journals. -- Zefr ( talk) 15:45, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Please take this to ANI, I think there is a two way issue. Slatersteven ( talk) 16:37, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
References
Some dispute about the intersection of WP:BLP and this article's content (see also section at WP:BLP/N#Bastyr University). I think there are WP:FRINGE issues here which need careful handling ... Alexbrn ( talk) 13:47, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Christopher Langan ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
I am trying to delicately write about this person who has been concerned with Wikipedia's treatment of him for more than a decade. In particular, he is famous for claims of a very high IQ which, of course, is something that is notoriously hard to verify because tails of the distribution and so-on. How we explain this in plain NPOV language seems to be hard to figure out [16]. Help doing so would be appreciated.
jps ( talk) 13:27, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Because of some ongoing health issues, I have been forced to limit how much time I spend editing Wikipedia. One of my essays ( WP:YWAB is becoming popular, so I am asking for help in fixing obvious problems in some of the pages that essay links to. In particular, I would ask for help improving:
So that they no longer need cleanup templates at the top.
Any help with these or any other pages I link to in my essay would be very much appreciated. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 04:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
I was reading the The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia article, and it struck me as promoting potentially fringe ideas. I don't know very much about the subject, so I came here to ask what other people think of the article? Thanks, Darthkayak ( talk) 07:49, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Annular Theory (Vailan Theory) is currently a PROD. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 12:52, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
"Retraction Watch Database is designed expressly for finding out whether any given study is still legit. The next time you read an article or hear someone say, "studies show that talking is bad for you," you can head over to the site and see what's what."
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 07:48, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Article takes the stance that Blackmore's reasoning is wrong, because someone disagrees with it. Should it? Does anybody here know more about this? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 06:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
William Lane Craig ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
After a heated few months, it looks like the interlocutors arguing about this article have settled down or burnt out. Our mediator had some health problems and seems to be waiting for some considerations of how to move forward. Perhaps this is a good time to ask you all for feedback. So far, we've worked on the infobox, lede, and the sections of the article down to "Molinism". There is still work to be done, but a lot of the concerns about this article may have been addressed, if perhaps badly. Input or help moving forward Talk:William Lane Craig/Mediation would be very welcome.
jps ( talk) 16:22, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
There is an ongoing move discussion regarding whether to move Great Replacement → Great replacement conspiracy theory. The discussion currently only has 4 participants, and has been relisted. Additional input would be helpful. Nblund talk 16:48, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
See Talk:Intelligent design#Orange box overkill? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 14:32, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Biochemist who later became famous for a supposed "anti-cancer" diet. Article appears to be under attack from a mini sock farm. Could use eyes. Alexbrn ( talk) 19:22, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Requesting input at Astrology (talk discussion here). The issue under dispute is whether the article should be in Category:Pseudoscience. Thanks, Sunrise ( talk) 02:52, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Edit warring to add personal commentary to the lead, watering down mainstream viewpoints, redefining Occam's Razor, etc. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 11:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Is it just me or is there something wrong with this article? Doug Weller talk 08:02, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
De-prod'ed by the page creator without explanation. I suspect that it is not a wiki-notable fringe theory, as fringe theories go. XOR'easter ( talk) 14:34, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
There's an editing dispute at the article Pyramid power involving User:Elspru, User:Roxy the dog and myself over Russian research supposedly proving pyramid power. Looking into this I ran into Alexander Golod whose article is all about his work on pyramid power> Doug Weller talk 15:29, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I didn't say it proving, I said there is scientific research in favour of it. and linked the references Elspru ( talk) 16:33, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I did not link any Alexander Holed you can if you like. Elspru ( talk) 16:36, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Alekbrn so you denigrate minorities and deny the evidence? This is Science not reneissance philosophy. Science is based on Scientific Method. You are in denial if you are attacking me with baseless labels. Elspru ( talk) 17:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
We've discussed Dhul-Qarnayn before. I'm hoping that some people here are familiar with it, because User:Aminamin1 is changing it radically. Despite my warnings they are adding material to sourced text that doesn't seem to be in the text, adding unsourced material with pov language, etc. I've reverted them before and may again when I finish this, but they don't seem to care. Here's the diff since they started - take a look at what happened to the reference {{sfn|Wheeler|2013|p=16}} - it now is attached to completely different text and the original text it sourced has been deleted. Doug Weller talk 19:35, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Other problematic articles created by the same user SERGEJ2011
I could list twenty more, but I will stop there. This is also a long-term abuse issue. 81.147.137.6 ( talk) 20:26, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Quackwatch has been removed from this article List of food faddists. See talk-page. 81.147.137.6 ( talk) 22:40, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
WP:CRYBLP. The goal of BLP protections is to make sure that poorly sourced material is not added to articles. Making a determination that a particular source is poor or, in this case, an WP:SPS is an editorial decision like any other. In this case, it seems clear that the consensus is that QW is not such a source, so there is no problem using it. I take a very dim view of people who WP:CRYBLP to hide their editorial bent. jps ( talk) 10:40, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Declined prod; seems not wiki-notable (and having a conference be notable is an uphill task to start with, I'd say). People who have experience in religion/science overlap material might want to weigh in. XOR'easter ( talk) 19:22, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
SPA rewriting history. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 21:12, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I am seeing a lot of press about "Immune Amnesia". We don't seem to have an article on it. Should we? It seems like it might be an effective argument against antivax.
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 15:31, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Some here might be interested in joining the following discuissions:
(A third discussion here would be Another Wrong Place...) -- Guy Macon ( talk) 01:28, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
[39] Doug Weller talk 18:37, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Is Sohini Sastri a type of articles we usually keep? Would an AfD stand a chance?-- Ymblanter ( talk) 10:05, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Basically about a fringe claim concerning carved stones in Puerto Rico that may be connected to the O"ld World." I see a recent rewrite relies heavily on such sources as hits [41] article by a free lance journalist which is behind a pay wall. This [42] is also heavily used, a recent English article in the same newspaper. A very large number of references (over 60) are from a YouTube video [43] of a conference talk by this person. [44] I'm pretty sure we don't use conference speeches as sources. This Haaretz article is also a source. [45] as the University of Haifa materials lab recently studied them. Doug Weller talk 10:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
See Talk:Old Testament#Dogmatic stance. Please chime in. IMHO, the sources I have offered are impeccable. For the record, I was accused of WP:FRINGE for saying that "covenant=contract". My sources are:
and presumably (I did not check it):
At this juncture, however, God is entering into a "treaty" with the Israelites, and hence the formal need within the written contract for the grace of the sovereign to be documented.30 30. Mendenhall and Herion, "Covenant," p. 1183.
There is a RfC [46] on the Mark Levin page about whether to include Levin's promotion of Soros conspiracy theories on the Trump-Ukraine scandal. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 14:36, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lipid therapy may be of interest. XOR'easter ( talk) 17:43, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Bringing this here as it is tagged as under wikiproject skepticism - is there anyone who can review these edits [47] to see if there is anything worth keeping? This is a clearly enthusiastic editor with no understanding of ours sources policy. Doug Weller talk 08:14, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Someone versed in physics and cosmology needed to review coverage of Tipler’s fringe theory, and recent IP edits. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 21:15, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I have seem a lot of Flat Earth websites, but this one is especially entertaining:
-- Guy Macon ( talk) 04:17, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
There is a request for comment on whether Quackwatch is a self-published source. This RfC also concerns the application of WP:BLP § Avoid self-published sources ( WP:BLPSPS) to content from Quackwatch. If you are interested, please participate at WP:RSN § RfC: Quackwatch. — Newslinger talk 00:04, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
There is a proposal to shorten the lead of Homeopathy ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), see Talk:Homeopathy § The lead. Guy ( help!) 19:37, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
This is about [48] and [49]. Please chime in. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 09:25, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Theanswerman63 ( talk) 11:36, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
There is an open deletion discussion on Ritual Violence that may be of interest to editors here.
The current text of the article focuses heavily on fringe theories related to Satanic ritual abuse and recovered memory therapies, but it's possible that there are reputable sources in anthropology or sociology that discuss actual forms of ritualized violence scientifically. If editors are aware of good sources and want to take a crack at trimming the crap and adding good content, that would be helpful as well. Nblund talk 17:54, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Rashidi was a close colleague of Ivan Van Sertima. Yesterday a South African IP remmoved "Heis also part of an afrocentric movement where he teaches Ivan Van Sertima's pseudohistory." from the article. I reverted but changed it to "Heis also part of an afrocentric movement where he teaches Ivan Van Sertima's pseudohistory. [1]" Now someone from Temple University has changed my wording to "He is also part of an afrocentric Afrocentric movement where he supports the work of people like Ivan Van Sertima's". On the talk page they've written "You know adding negative labels to scholars is not NPOV. Now I am no fan of Runoko But that is my belief. I still think he deserves a fair article. And this is why Africans distrust what goes on here. Can't you restrain yourself? Look at the rest of the talk page. Clearly some agenda at work. Ivan Van sertima has a page. Why is he walking around with the title Pseudo historian? in the lead of Runoko? yet all those race and intelligence scholars pushing rubbish are exempt." On a different but still fringe issue the IP removed the book Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam from Pre-Islamic Arabia. I'm not sure whether that was a good call or not.
References
Doug Weller talk 11:09, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
There is an RfC at Talk:Sharyl Attkisson § RfC on self-sourcing, an issue previously discussed here. Guy ( help!) 09:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
New article, created by a possible single-purpose account, referenced to a preprint put online a few months ago and not officially published yet. Opinions welcome. XOR'easter ( talk) 03:00, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
This feels a little advertisementy, and also as if it's kind of sidestepping around the issues. The presence of Uri Geller in a film that purports to be about "interviews with renowned scientists and authors" to explain consciousness makes one suspect it. Adam Cuerden ( talk)Has about 7.4% of all FPs 03:33, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Craig Loehle ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Please comment.
jps ( talk) 10:50, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
The project that is the subject of this post is WP:ARS has been brought to the Village Pump for discussion by a regular here. I had no idea it existed until I saw this. Its purpose seems to be to WP:CANVASS wiki eds to AfD discussions, and prodded articles to deprod, or ivote "Keep". I think people here might be interested. - Roxy, the dog. Esq. wooF 12:29, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
This user, User:Eohsloohcs seems to intend adding List of scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on global warming to the "See also" paragraphs of all the scientists in the list. I see no encyclopedic purpose to that. What do others think? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 16:12, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
I feel like a lot of this list is suffering from holywood-inspired idea that "science" is a single field and that all scientists are equally qualified to opine on any "science" topic. ApLundell ( talk) 23:51, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
Might I ask that you discuss at the deletion discussion rather than reinforcing your clique mentality here. Dmcq ( talk) 16:10, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Promotion of an idea that has had no discernable influence within the scientific community.In other words, because it is not notable, as demonstrated by the lack of citations. XOR'easter ( talk) 21:22, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
How much discussion was there on the talk page with interested editors before the AfD?
.
WP:RTFA. Amirite? There's nothing to stop you from putting up snarky notices onto talk pages for us, darling
User:Dmcq. We love you greatly!
jps (
talk) 23:54, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm really confused here. In general editors watch-list articles and notice boards as I do here with this notice board. That way I can take part or not dependent on my interest. Generally, no one is notified. Sometimes if a discussion moves from an article talk page too a NB then a notice may be left on that article talk page notifying all editors that a discussion has moved. In my experience, in very few instances would anyone actually alert individual editors. AfD is a discussion but not specifically a vote. When discussion is closed discussion points and arguments will be weighed by the closer to determine consensus. Consensus is not determined by a vote count. There are real issues with the kind of list we are discussing in my opinion. I'm sure editors here will tell you that I, at least, am not a member of some inner circle. Quite the contrary. I can understand your frustration but this is the way Wikipedia works. Littleolive oil ( talk) 03:37, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
FWIW: I watch this page along with a number of articles on topics that are covered here. I sometimes agree with a post claiming that a page like the list in question is problematic, I sometimes disagree, and sometimes I express an opinion one way but then change my mind after reading a well reasoned point. It is understandable to me that someone that doesn't participate here regularly might see participants' activity as "piling on" but in my experiene there is more diversity of opinion here than some of the criticism above implies. I took the time to review this list and I honestly would have commented in the same critical manner had I not seen a post here. My participation in this forum is motivated by a desire to improve (and if necessary recommend removal of) material that veers outside of policy. I stand by my early comments on this list and I find the recent "keep" comments unpersuasive in changing my mind. -- mikeu talk 16:21, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Even at ANI there is no requirement to post a notification when you talk about the content of a page. Instead it says:
When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on the editor's talk page.
The use of ping or the notification system is not sufficient for this purpose.
You may use {{
subst:
ANI-notice}} ~~~~
to do so.
Dmcq, I haven't given it much thought, but right off of the top of my head I have no objection to a new rule saying that we should post a notification on the talk page of the article being discussed, but it would be a new rule, so you need to get consensus for it by posting an RfC. Until you do that, please stop haranguing editors for not following a rule that doesn't exist.
BTW, we have a way of discussing things in private. It is called "e-mail". -- Guy Macon ( talk) 20:38, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Well, if you were asking that all noticeboards have some direction that notification should be placed on the talkpage of articles that they were talking about, that would at least alleviate the concerns of singling out particular noticeboards over others. It wouldn't alleviate instruction creep concerns, however, so perhaps you could show exactly why not having this notification on various noticeboards (not just this one) has caused problems. Demonstrating those clearly would cause me to support such a proposal. Absent that, I do admit to not seeing a problem except for, perhaps, a disdain for certain active community groups. And it's okay to be disdainful of active community groups, but in that case it might help to explain why you think these suggestions might offer some chance for "reform" (which I have yet to see explained clearly). jps ( talk) 11:12, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
I suppose I should not have been surprised that most of the entries in this list had garbage sources (e.g. homeoint.org). Also no surprise that once the garbage is removed, the majority of the article has no sources at all. I guess the question is whether we should even have a list of things that homeopaths use: essentially there's nothing they don't use (including excrementum tauri, shipwreck and the light of Venus) but perhaps it could be pared down to the ones notably covered by reliable sources? Marsh's owl, for example? Would we also include the real and fake diseases they claim to cure with them? Or is the whole thing just too fringe to be salvageable? Guy ( help!) 15:07, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
Appears to be a WP:POVFORK of Conspiracy theory that gives primary weight to opinions that express the idea that conspiracy theories shouldn't be denigrated because, philosphically speaking, it's possible some are not unwarranted. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 23:05, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
The Skeptical Inquirer is a biased source which uses cherry-picked examples. I’ve replaced it with a much better source, which has a much more nuanced conclusion based on a much sounder methodology.That sounds like a reasonable complaint to me, even though I would regard CSICOP publications reliable sources by default and would have taken a different course of action. XOR'easter ( talk) 15:51, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
The closing admin made some pretty outlandish accusations about this noticeboard: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philosophy of conspiracy theories. I suggest a WP:DRV be filed as the discussion was cut off for what seems to me to be arbitrary reasons. jps ( talk) 10:52, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Seems to me that people here just don't like what qualified academia has to say on the matter. 80.111.44.144 ( talk) 22:06, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
I have some concerns about this article though I haven't had a chance to wade through the sources. I did however find this reference which claims that "...many scholars have taken a relatively charitable attitude toward conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theorising in recent years." (I assume that "scholars" is specifically referring to philosophers.) I haven't read enough on this topic to decide if the article is biased or if the philosophers are contrarian, compared to what I've seen published in psychology and sociology. Below is an extended quote for those who can't get through the paywall. -- mikeu talk 23:32, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
"What's Epistemically Wrong with Conspiracy Theorising?"
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In the above discussion, LuckyLouie said something important that I would like to focus on:
I think LuckyLouie hit the nail on the head.
Let's look at the definition on our Conspiracy theory page:
Notice how different the above is from what we see at Philosophy of conspiracy theories#Definitions of conspiracy theory? Did you notice that the difference is pretty much exactly as LuckyLouie described?
I am also seeing a pattern here. First, a conspiracy theorist redefines the phrase "Conspiracy Theory" in a way that goes against what 99% of English speakers means when they use the phrase. The usual redefinition is "any theory about a conspiracy, no matter how strong or weak the evidence is." Then the conspiracy theorist acts as if they are completely unaware of the standard definition. Finally they put together an argument based upon their redefinition, and having knocked down the straw man that they created, declare victory.
It hinders communication when you don't use the ordinatry definition for common phrases. Yes, you can use non-standard fleemishes and the reader can still gloork the meaning from the context, but there ix a limit; If too many ot the vleeps are changed, it becomes harder and qixer to fllf what the wethcz is blorping, and evenually izs is bkb longer possible to ghilred frok at wifx. Dnighth? Ngfipht yk ur! Uvq the hhvd or hnnngh. Blorgk? Blorgk! Blorgkity-blorgk!!!! -- Guy Macon ( talk) 17:04, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Dictionary definitions
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...but of course we are an encyclopedia, not a dictionary, so please see:
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-- Guy Macon ( talk) 19:29, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Please see: Talk:Philosophy of conspiracy theories#Requested move 24 November 2019. -- mikeu talk 12:42, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
DISC assessment seems to be based on a number of questionable and irrelevant sources. I suspect that this page has been amped up because one of the companies used as a source is actually a vendor of a software product based on this obsolete theory in psychology. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 09:50, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Could someone more familiar with the topic please review the sources in Quebec Coalition for Homeopathy. Thanks, — Insertcleverphrasehere ( or here)( click me!) 01:37, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
... is a state endorsed quack in Germany. We have an article (a stub) that was recently replaced by a translation of the german wiki article. I have twice now reverted to the stub, because I feel that the stub is better than the translation, which is far far away from our P&G. Could somebody take a look and tell me if I'm being over critical? Thanks. - Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 18:45, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
The long way: [70]
Then go to The SAA Archaeological Record Table of Contents, click on "Digital Edition" in "Number 5, November Digital Edition."
They make in quite complicated. Or you can download it from: [71]!
He's discussed in:
Y Not a Pacific Migration? Misunderstandings of Genetics inService to Pseudoscience by Jennifer A. Raff
The Cerutti Mastodon, Professional Skepticism, and the Public Carl Feagans
Whitewashing American Prehistory Jason Colavito
The Mysterious Origins of Fringe 21 John W. Hoopes
America Before as a Paranormal Charter 26 Jeb J. Card
“I Don’t Believe, I Know”: The Faith of Modern Pseudoarchaeology David S. Anderson
Doug Weller
talk 14:05, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Buck Nelson ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
I started to clean up this article on mobile but quickly moved to a desktop after seeing how much nonsense there is. But frankly looking at the sources I'm not sure if there's any point. Should we just send it to AfD? Nil Einne ( talk) 11:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Paul Hellyer (he was Canada's Defense Minister - scary) and To the Stars (company). Doug Weller talk 09:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
Greta Thunberg has a 19th-century doppelganger, so naturally people think she's a time traveler
Look at [79]. She even braids her hair the same. I'm just saying. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:10, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
From Welcome to the fringe theories noticeboard at the top of this page:
95% of my contributions have an emphasis on material that can be useful for creating new articles or improving existing articles. If you want to outlaw the occasional lighthearted post about silly fringe theories, post an RfC and see if the community want to change the rules. Until you get consensus, your complaints are more disruptive than what you are complaining about. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 17:29, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
FWIW, I occasionally check out this noticeboard. One of the thing that discourages me from doing so, is that I don't particularly like what I see here. By no means do I suggest me not checking it out is a loss, but I do wonder if others may feel the same and so this sort of stuff is actually harming the noticeboard.
Of all the noticeboards I sometimes check out, this seems to be the only one that welcomes so many IMO offtopic posts. I personally consider any post which doesn't directly relate to suggestions of improving (including protecting) an article to be off-topic. By which I mean, if you open a discussion, because you genuinely feel there is some risk that nonsense has been, or will be added to an article, then fine. Likewise if you feel that we need to add something to some article. If you just found something which you feel is funny and want to share it then yes it is offtopic in my opinion. I find it particularly funny since the RD, not a noticeboard, also gets a lot of criticism for this sort of thing but it seems to be well tolerated here.
I'm all for criticising and mocking pseudoscience and other such nonsense in the appropriate place. But wikipedia is almost never the place for personal mocking, and criticism should mostly only arise when it directly related to an article. I'm not suggesting people never be allowed to do so, IMO it's fine when it arises organically in a discussion one something on-topic. Likewise I'm all for allowing people reasonable leeway in personal discussions i.e. on their own talk pages. And I don't know what sort of stuff goes on in Wikiprojects, maybe it's quite common there. Since such projects have far more of a community building aspect than noticeboards do, IMO it's far more tolerable there again within limits. (If what I've seen in the article rescue squad is any indication, maybe they go way overboard in ignoring wikipedia norms.) But this isn't supposed to be a wikiproject, in fact people from here have just pointed out, correctly, in WPP that it isn't. So none of these leeway considerations arise.
I'm particularly concerned with the way many of these discussions are troubling from a WP:BLP standpoint. While they don't generally mention the person involved, often they do seem to focus on the rambling "theories" of one person. Again there are plenty of places where mocking such people is fine, just that wikipedia isn't generally one of them. Rationalwiki is one place where it is welcome, which I sometimes (admittedly not much recently) check out precisely for that reason.
Besides that, and one of the other key reasons for my earlier point about not checking this board. While this is not so much of a problem now, one time when I visited it looked like maybe 1/5 of the posts here were this sort of offtopic stuff with some discussion. I don't know the frequency of such posts, I can't imagine it's really that high so to some extent it was also likely a bad time for the board. Anyway there were a bunch of ontopic posts most of which seem to have been ignored. Again not really much of a problem at the moment.
And "seem" because the lack of replies doesn't mean that nothing happened. It's easily possible that editors here edited the article or left comments on the talk page or whatever without mentioning it here which is mostly a good thing. (I did check out 2 or 3 and I think maybe 1 had something happened, but wasn't intending to analyse.) I check out WP:BLP/N a lot recently after a long time where my involvement mostly ceased and one of the changes from when I was last active which I'm now also very guilty of is there's way too much discussion on the noticeboard meaning split and confusing discussions. In other words, I recognise and agree that the primary purpose of the noticeboard should be to alert editors to something and there is often no need for much discussion in the board itself unless it affects multiple articles and it's felt it's a decent place to centralise it. If this noticeboard is still mostly doing that, it's a good thing.
So to some extent, this is separate from the off-topic concerns, in fact I recall some somewhat recent discussion where this arose i.e. the lack of any follow up on the board (don't recall which board) left an editor thinking it was useless. One thing separate from the offtopic concerns, which would help would be a brief comment here, either when the issue seems to be resolved or if you're working on it. Doesn't have to be everyone, but if at least one editor comments then you don't get the impression that posting here is probably useless.
But IMO the offtopic posts do come into play. I'm not suggesting that these offtopic posts are distracting editors here from actually working on the issues. But when you visit a board and a resonable percentage of it seems to me just people making fun about some pseudoscience, i.e. something that has nothing really to do with improving wikipedia and many of the posts which do have to do with improving wikipedia seem to have been ignored, it's easy to come to the conclusion that the board has completely lost sight of it's purpose and it's not something you want to use or check out.
IMO this also feeds into the perception that this board, it's participants, and the topic area gets special treatment since as I said, this doesn't really arise in any other noticeboard that I've noticed. I'm not so much concerned about those who are extremely into pseudoscience since they're a lost cause but those who are more neutral or even somewhat opposed to pseudoscience who see this board and go WTF?
Note that I'm opposed to banning posts like these since that will do more harm than good. Both because bans create a lot of confusion in enforcement and also because I'm not so much concerned if this was really only happening once in a blue moon. I am only suggesting that editors consider whether they should change how they operate. And I accept that some editors have directly improved articles as a result of these off-topic posts. IMO, if editors really want to continue this stuff at the current frequency, it would be better if this happens somewhere other than this notice board, perhaps some wikiproject. In case it's not clear, I've had these feeling for a few months now, I've never bothered to mention them since I doubted there would actually be any useful result but since the issue came up I guess I might as well.
please take a look at the edit summaries. It's a new editor and I've reverted twice and am off to bed soon. Doug Weller talk 21:26, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
References
More eyes welcomed on recent edits to Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, per Talk:Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence - David Gerard ( talk) 17:24, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Pro-paramilitary advocacy I think could well fall under WP:FRINGE, especially when the groups are considered to be terrorist organisations... but there is a degree of controversy as some people view these groups as freedom fighters and not terrorists. Thus this deletion discussion might be of interest to people here: wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Queerly_Bohemian/Userboxes/FreedomFighters.-- Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:45, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Should legendary miracles be described as facts in that article? My deletion was reverted. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 17:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
I hear the pitter-patter of webbed feet. See Talk:Siddha medicine. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:05, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Some recent activity here could use more eyes. (Add: digging around, it seems that BEMER Group distributes these products through a MLM scheme but, as so often, its hard to find sources confirming the MLM status. Anybody know more?) Alexbrn ( talk) 14:39, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Hey, folks, recently over at cryptozoology a user has been promoting a rather nuclear notion of cryptozoology as some kind of literary genre by cobbling together various sources that mention cryptozoology, but nowhere explicitly even discuss cryptozoologists in fiction. Here's the edit they're edit-warring to estate: [83].
While we could use a "cryptozoology in fiction" section about how cryptozoologists are portrayed in, say, novels with a source that explicitly discusses this topic, the user appears to be attempting to hijack the article to represent her or his own theories by way of classic WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. None of the sources the user has provided seem to discuss cryptozoology in fiction at all, Talk:Cryptozoology/Archive 6#Cryptids_in_fiction as I discuss extensively here. :bloodofox: ( talk) 23:57, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
I thought I remembered there having been an RfC or something about stand-alone articles for cryptids, but maybe I imagined it. Editors familiar with WP:NFRINGE may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gambo (carcass). – Leviv ich 03:40, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
At Talk:Vaccine hesitancy#Title there is a discussion about the title of the article, and on questions of neutrality, that fringe-savvy editors may be interested in. Alexbrn ( talk) 07:44, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Existence of the conspiracy theory that Melania Trump has left or been disposed of and replaced with a double clearly not a "blatant hoax" as it is well reported in reliable sources. For example: South China Morning Post, " ‘Fake Melania’ conspiracy theory about body double is ‘deranged’, says Donald Trump"; Esquire, " The 'Fake Melania' Conspiracy Theory is Back"; several others were in the draft. Reality of theory itself is irrelevant to whether theory exists.
@ RHaworth and Govvy: Hyperbolick ( talk) 14:48, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Melania Trump replacement theory is a conspiracy theory that First Lady of the United States Melania Trump was replaced by a body double, and that the "real" Melania is either dead or gone from public life.
It appears that the World Health Organization has been hijacked by Quacks, but our article appears to be silent on the matter. See:
I am good at editing engineering articles, but I really suck at editing anything having to do with health or medicine. Who here is willing to step up to the plate and add an appropriate section to the WHO page (not to be confused with The Who page...) -- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:08, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
User:Slatersteven, please let me be as I clean up our UFO articles. KThanxbye.
jps ( talk) 16:52, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Question: does anyone think that there is enough disruption to justify a topic ban? -- Guy Macon ( talk) 19:49, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Ongoing "corrections" made to the article...in the form of some rather fringy narratives involving spirits and demons, stated in WPs voice [86]. - LuckyLouie ( talk) 04:30, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
Ravensclaw1 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) removed a well-sourced statement", it spreads myths about the risks of vaccines and contributes to vaccine hesitancy, which has been identified by the World Health Organization as one of the top ten global health threats of 2019, with parents delaying or declining some or all vaccinations. " replacing it with " educates the public about the potential risks of vaccines." Doug Weller talk 18:00, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
Finnish Air Force sighting ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Check out this article. I tried to clean it up, but it is not clear to me that the sourcing is there to justify its existence.
jps ( talk) 17:12, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Stub article that begins: Randall Carlson is an Architect, his academic background is in geology and astronomy. Carlson founded Sacred Geometry International, an organization from which he participates in cutting edge research into Earth’s cyclical history. Carlson's theories have not been peer-reviewed or published in any scientific journals, and are generally dismissed by researchers.
The article should probably just be deleted, but I thought editors here might know where to find sources that might demonstrate notability. -- Ronz ( talk) 23:35, 17 December 2019 (UTC)