This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page.

The geoglyph itself isn't fringe, but recent additions are[ https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Paracas_Candelabra&action=history]

Suddenly this Peruvian geoglyph is being edited to claim it was made by "Lord Indra". 3 IPs add this, then a brand new editor adding copyvio, then another IP followed by an editor who's been here since 2009 but this is only their 65th edit. So I'm wandering into content edit-warring country myself trying to deal with this fringe as except for User:Discospinster I'm the only one reverting. Doug Weller talk 09:28, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

That article has some pretty noticeable issues even without the weirdness from the IPs and copyvios. Looking now, the history section cites not a single source for any of its statements. 50.234.188.27 ( talk) 13:48, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, I've been looking hard for sources for months. Doug Weller talk 16:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Scott Wolter Says He Won't Reveal Oak Island Secrets without a Big TV Payday] Doug Weller talk 16:10, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Hopefully they won't pay up, and he'll keep his 'secrets' to himself, thus leaving Wikipedia with less credulous bullshit to deal with. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 16:20, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I mean, they call it the "money pit" for a reason, I guess, just not then one we thought. Dumuzid ( talk) 17:47, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Max Lugavere has put out recent public statements on his Facebook and Twitter account telling his keto and paleo diet fan-base to edit his article because it is biased against him. We now have new IPs and accounts inserting a NPOV template on the article. This is a false consensus. I am not convinced this should be added only if we have a valid consensus decision on the talk-page. Psychologist Guy ( talk) 16:54, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Are sources that uncritically present an in-universe view of religious events reliable? For example:

1. Sources saying that Jesus did raise Lazarus, rather than that Christian believe that Jesus raised Lazarus
2. Sources saying that Muhammad traveled to Jerusalem in a single night on the back of the winged steed Burak, rather than that Muslims believe that he did
3. Sources saying that an alien dictator committed genocide in Earths volcano's, rather than that Scientologists believe he did
4. Sources saying that Mormon scripture originated in ancient times, rather than that Mormons believe it did

I don't believe they are; sources that push positions that have widely been discredited is a strong indication that they are unreliable. Further, it is an indication they are unreliable for the rest of the content in their work, such as on matters of faith that have received less coverage in serious sources.

However, I believe this position is somewhat controversial, so I want to see if I am alone in holding it, and if not how we can get it written down somewhere - perhaps on WP:RSP? BilledMammal ( talk) 21:51, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Said sources should be treated as non-independent and hence to be used sparingly and not to demonstrate notability, IMO. There's a lot of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS about this versus other Christian and religious analysis, but we're not a theologic work; if sources independent of a church hierarchy isn't talking about stuff, it shouldn't be included, and if the only sources talking about it do so with an "in-universe" standpoint (analysis of the Lazarus story that asserts its truth) they should be discarded when crafting the overall structure of an article. Specifically to the LDS stuff it'd be best to get this discussed at RSN/listed at RSP because otherwise it's going to be a talk page/merge discussion/AfD piecemeal effort that's going to get nowhere. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 22:00, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I made this point a couple times and just got pushback from the same editors with claims that BYU/LDS authors are just as NPOV regarding LDS topics as non-adherents, and that a book by an adherent constitutes "mainstream secular attention" if it's published by a non-LDS publisher (and that having such a publisher transforms a non-independent source into an independent one!). JoelleJay ( talk) 23:02, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

BYU is a very interesting case. On most matters, they are completely mainstream scholars, but their honor code means their scholars of religion and history don't have full academic freedom. On LDS history, they're Bob Jones, not Havard Divinity. Feoffer ( talk) 08:27, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Given BYU biology prof Michael Whiting's statements on Native American genealogy, we might want to expand that list of fields lacking academic freedom... JoelleJay ( talk) 11:37, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

As an attempt to draft an RfC on this, how does the following wording look?:

Sources that present an in-universe view of religious events should be considered reliable only for what adherents of the relevant religion believe, and should not be considered independent of the religion.

I'm concerned it may get shot down as too broad? BilledMammal ( talk) 23:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I think the first clause is OK, and the second is problematic and ought to be dropped because it tends to imply that outsider sources are independent, which is rather frequently not true (an awful lot of them are frankly adversarial). This isn't going to solve the notability issue, though. In @ JoelleJay:'s examples, it seems to me that the problem is that these aren't important figures even within LDS theology, not that nobody outside the church has head of these people. And of course narratives taken from a single source need make it clear it's the source that's talking, a principle which applies to all texts, not just religious ones.

I looked at our article on the raising of Lazarus (which is actually a section of the article on Lazarus himself) and note that the narrative is entirely "sourced" to the KJV, which surely counts as a primary source on this. Be that as it may, the theological import is entirely sourced to believers. And that is as it should be; any outsider cited had better be sourcing reliable believer authorities in order to be credible. Mangoe ( talk) 23:20, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't see that implication about outsider sources; it makes no comment on them, and their independence would need to be assessed separately. Can you explain further why you see otherwise?

I also think this will solve the notability issue, because if we assess these sources as either not being independent or not being reliable they won't count towards WP:GNG.

Looking at that article on Lazarus it seems to say he was risen by Jesus, not that Christians believe he was; I've added an NPOV tag. BilledMammal ( talk) 23:26, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

BilledMammal, would you comment on an example here? The article Nahom came up on this noticeboard awhile back. It's probably a pretty important concept within Mormon scholarship, probably something that WP should cover, but once an individual editor goes out and creates an article like that the set of sources get pretty limited. There are a bunch of your "in universe" sources, and only Dan Vogel and Jerald and Sandra Tanner as "independent". Vogel is just a single footnote, and the Tanners are probably a good example of JoelleJay's "outsider" sources which should not be cited. S. Kent Brown does a fair job of laying out the problems and here he says what should be made very clear to the reader for that article:

For those who believe that Nephi’s narrative is authentically ancient, the possibility of a connection between the area of the NHM tribe in south Arabia and the Nahom of Nephi’s narrative is credible. For those who do not believe that the narrative of First Nephi authentically goes back to a record written in the early sixth century B.C., any proposed link will lack merit. It is a matter, in my view, of one’s beginning assumptions. Since I believe...

But that is just some post he made and the URL is expired. I doubt (but don't know for sure) if he would publish that remark in one of the journals in question, either it's just WP:BLUESKY or maybe not something he would say to the audience reading those publications.
For Nahom, to write the "excellent article" per jps below i think pretty much requires the "in universe" sources (and some allowance for original research). An Afd based on your GNG argument is probably unlikely to work. Maybe a merge to a parent article such as Proposed Book of Mormon geographical setting would be appropriate, but offhand that article looks to have quite a few problems itself. fiveby( zero) 16:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I think that the Wikipedia principles we already have outlined work fine (though it is absolutely clear to me that there are a lot of editors here -- even fairly well established ones -- that are confused by this). It is true that there are some articles on some religious beliefs which stray from best practices. We encounter them from time-to-time on this board and elsewhere. But best-practiced scholarship does not really lend itself to hard-and-fast principles. I have no doubt that it is entirely possible to write excellent articles on Mormon beliefs using many Mormon sources (yes, even scriptural or devotional ones!) with an appropriate framing provided by secondary and tertiary contextual commentary to establish WP:PROMINENCE, notability, and the like. This approach seems to have been lost at many of our articles on Mormonism in favor of a weird "Professor So-and-so at BYU says that this verse in the book of Mormon is about Jesus." Wikipedia should be documenting how widely held such beliefs are and what the consequences of such beliefs are. For example, Mitt Romney was only asked pointed questions about his beliefs a few times on the campaign trail and there is a fascinating thread to follow from that to declaration of the LDS church clarifying (or muddying the waters, according to some) what "strong drinks" were which coincided with a proliferation of self-made soda stations in Utah and now the Stanley cup fad, apparently. Wild stuff -- well documented by third-party sources. There are discussions of Mormon eschatology that sprung up around Mitt Romeny's presidency as well which provide a glorious way of describing how Mormons match and diverge from classic low church beliefs in the same. Oh, there is plenty of excellent article fodder to be had about these topics for Wikipedia. I think our fundamental principles let us know that this is a good approach to these subjects and, indeed, most subjects about religion. jps ( talk) 23:49, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I have no doubt that it is entirely possible to write excellent articles on Mormon beliefs using many Mormon sources (yes, even scriptural or devotional ones!) with an appropriate framing provided by secondary and tertiary contextual commentary to establish WP:PROMINENCE, notability, and the like. This approach seems to have been lost at many of our articles on Mormonism in favor of a weird "Professor So-and-so at BYU says that this verse in the book of Mormon is about Jesus." Agreed with this. What we need is to ensure that these topics can be contextualized by non-adherent perspectives, both to comply with NPOV and FRINGE and to demonstrate notability through attention from independent sources. For the same reasons we can't write an article on an ayurveda or Scientology topic sourced only to reliably-published works by practitioners/adherents, we shouldn't be relying only on LDS authors for appraisal of LDS content or its broad notability. JoelleJay ( talk) 00:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

So where would that leave transubstantiation? There are barely any sources which aren't religious, and the rest are histories of religious movements. It's importance is because of its importance in Catholicism and its general rejection in the rest of Christendom. It doesn't matter whether it's a subject of interest to anyone else.

Conversely, I think we can look at (for example) these obscure figures from the BoM and determine that, even within Mormon circles, they are unimportant. My notability test can be summed up as "why should I care?" and the article ideally should give such a reason. When someone writes an article on one of these figures and can't give more than a summary of the textual narrative, the "so what?" light starts blinking and I suspect that the passage has no import in actual Mormon religion. But I don't need non-Mormon sources for that; indeed, it would be Mormon sources that would sway my verdict, or at least sources citing Mormon sources. Mangoe ( talk) 02:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@ Mangoe: You wrote: My notability test can be summed up as "why should I care?" and the article ideally should give such a reason. Based on this statement, I believe you have provided a very good notability test that can be applied generally. In the future, if I come across a Wikipedia article and find that the "so what?" light starts blinking, then it's time to start critically assessing sources in that article. Regards, Steve Quinn ( talk) 03:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

What's wrong with sourcing to histories of religious movements? And again I think it's fine to source to Catholic scholars (even the actual church orgs can be used to the extent that any primary sources are allowed), there just has to be some broader, independent interest in the topic that treats it dispassionately. The concept of transubstantiation has been a central part of major historical events in human history and is well-documented and discussed by modern non-religious historians, as are the interpretations of and writings on it by Catholics hundreds of years ago. Those are both elements that provide additional distance between modern scholarship and straight exegesis of scripture, something that is much more lacking in new religious movements like LDS. JoelleJay ( talk) 05:14, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with JoelleJay. New religious movements like LDS just don't have the scholarship that surrounds Catholicism (for example). Obviously, this due to the very short existence of LDS. I think sourcing to LDS's history as a religious movement make sense. Off-handedly, I think using non-LDS and non-adherent sources for this history are best. As an aside, I didn't know that transubstantiation has historical importance, nor did I know that it is discussed in modern scholarship. When I have come across transubstantiation I have thought of it as simple symbolic act and nothing more than that. I guess it is more interesting and somehow has more impact than a simple symbolic act. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 07:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

One problem to note, re: Mormonism, is that there are a lot of articles on characters from the Book of Mormon, many of which are of very questionable notability. It's one thing to have an article on Nephi, son of Lehi, who I gather is a key figure in the book and who seems to have attracted a fair bit of analysis—a lot of the sources in that article are Mormon-affiliated, but not all. It's another to have an article on Nephi, son of Helaman, whose article is nothing but a summary of the Book of Mormon narrative. A. Parrot ( talk) 15:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I actually tagged Nephi, son of Helaman for notability a while back... It was removed by this questionable edit [24] (the added source which allegedly supports notability is not independent so doesn't actually count towards notability... Just more bad scholarship from inside the walled garden). Thats a classic pattern in fringe topic area. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 16:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• There seems to be a lot of strawmanning in these discussions, with new religionists invoking a non-existent version of Wikipedia where Jesus is 'allowed' to have been resurrected, or Muhamed is 'allowed' to have flown on a horse. In fact, Wikipedia's (settled) religious article tend to split beliefs from scholarship; for example we even split Authorship of the Bible and Biblical inspiration as distinct articles. In other words, we say what adherents believe as one thing, and what scholars/historians say as another thing. The problem with the current Mormonism discussion is that some proponents seem to want to set intermingle, rather than separate, such aspects of the topic. So, for example they want Wikipedia to say that maybe Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, but maybe it was written by God. This is not good as encyclopedic, or any sort, or writing.
  As far as WP:FRINGE goes, when "what adherents believe" spills over into explicit claims made about the real world, Wikipedia will call out nonsense. It happens all the time with (for example) young earth creationism or faith healing. Bon courage ( talk) 07:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  If religious material is presented with in text attribution (ie “adherents believe that…” or something similar) then a source written by a note-worthy adherent can be very reliable - as a primary source for that belief. What we need to look out for are authors who hold fringe beliefs within the religion. Blueboar ( talk) 12:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, there's that too. A lot of problems can be swerved by avoiding primary texts and relying on the WP:BESTSOURCES (surprise surprise!). Bon courage ( talk) 13:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Sure... but also almost certainly undue unless it gets mentioned by a secondary source, after all by definition their opinion isn't noteworthy unless a reliable independent secondary source find it worthy of note. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 15:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not a source that establishes truth on these matters. Notability is established by there being a number of reliable sources on the matter. In general NPOV policy helps guide through these kinds of claims. In general, attribution helps so that the claims rest on the sources, not wikipedia's voice. For these things, secondary sources, introductions from textbooks or even tertiary sources like handbooks help separate the views of the laity and scholars, which sometimes overlap and other times diverge. Scholarship fluctuates and is not static, and religious traditions also vary through time. Ramos1990 ( talk) 01:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is a source that only reports in Wikipedia's voice the truth of these matters. If it is not correct, it should not be in Wikipedia's voice, should be attributed to the person who is making the claim, and explained that it is not true. jps ( talk) 16:08, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• The answer to OP's question depends on context. Our reliable sources guideline states that " The very same source may be reliable for one fact and not for another". To speak by way of example, the historian Mark Noll writes about Christianity and the Bible and his books are favorably reviewed as reliable. Noll also has said that as part of his religion he believes in the virgin birth of Jesus. Does the latter make the former become unreliable? No; it just means reliability varies in different contexts. It would be entirely wrong to cite Noll to assert something about immaculate conception in Wikipedia's pregnancy article, or to aver in the Jesus article that he was actually virginally born. By contrast, it's entirely appropriate and relevant to cite what Noll reports about the Christianity, Christians, and the Bible in the relevant articles Hydrangeans ( she/her | talk | edits) 07:05, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  Of course we can cite Noll et al's work in articles. The problem here is when Noll et al are the only scholars citable for a topic. If there's no discussion of it from a mainstream perspective by mainstream sources, we have no idea at all if Noll et al's coverage actually is NPOV and we have no way of contextualizing it without committing OR. JoelleJay ( talk) 16:09, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  when Noll et al are the only scholars citable for a topic. If there's no discussion of it from a mainstream perspective by mainstream sources

  To obtain that mainstream perspective, I look at publishers and coverage in reliable sources. Noll's In the Beginning Was the Word and his The Civil War as Theological Crisis were published by Oxford University Press and the University of North Carolina Press, respectively. These mainstream, scholarly publishers provide a filtering effect: if Noll's findings were fringe, his manuscripts would have been rejected and not published. As for coverage, to continue with this example, Noll's A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada was published by Eerdmans, a publisher of histories that have received positive reviews but also a religiously affiliated Christian press; to determine with dueness and utility of the coverage, the review in Reading Religion, a review outlet run by the secular American Academy of Religion, provides such mainstream context. Hydrangeans ( she/her | talk | edits) 16:51, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  Mainstream publishers do not change the context or perspective of a work. It's perfectly reasonable for a reliable mainstream publisher to publish an academic book by an ayurveda practitioner surveying the modern practice of ayurveda, but such works absolutely cannot be the only sources on the topic because they will not appropriately address the mainstream consensus that ayurveda is nationalist pseudoscience. People's beliefs are a valid subject of research, but when those beliefs necessitate a fringe understanding of the world, scholarship on them by believers is inherently non-NPOV and therefore must not be the sole source. JoelleJay ( talk) 21:20, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  Mainstream publishers do not change the context or perspective of a work. If publishers were this irrelevant, we'd have no reason for guidelines like WP:SPS. A practitioner who writes about their practice for a mainstream or academic press is expected to check their beliefs sufficiently to speak to, with, and within the mainstream/academic conversation. To use another example, Hannah Gresh's Habbakuk: Remembering God's Faithfulness when God Seems Silent and Mark Noll's In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life are both books about the Bible written by Christians, but the former is a Sunday School manual published by the Moody Bible Institute, and the latter is an academic reception history published by Oxford University Press. To treat these as somehow similarly "fringe" because their authors both happen to be Christian without considering the publisher as a valid context that selects and shapes content—without considering that Oxford University Press would not publish a book that Moody would—is to misunderstand both books. Hydrangeans ( she/her | talk | edits) 22:52, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  Publishing through a reliable mainstream publisher does not confer anything beyond reliability to a source. It does not transform a work from non-independent to independent, or primary to secondary. Simply being reliably published does not make a biased work NPOV. Publishers readily work with content written from biased and even fringe perspectives (e.g. OUP and this manual on acupuncture or anything in their "integrative medicine" series), they are catering to specific audiences, not trying to maintain a comprehensive and neutral corpus aimed at the general public. There are plenty of academically-published books about the history of CAM written by CAM apologists, publishers certainly aren't rewriting them to reflect the mainstream scientific view because that's not what these books are for. It's when they are being used in what is supposed to be a neutral, mainstream treatment of a topic, where readers don't know the biases of the underlying sources, that we have to provide context from the mainstream perspective. JoelleJay ( talk) 04:26, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  We seem unlikely to persuade each other about the relationship between publisher and publication or about how to interpret WP:IS. And with Ad Orientem having pointed out below that OP's question and controversial position (to use OP's words) were launched in the wrong thread, I think we won't be served by further reiterating ourselves. Hydrangeans ( she/her | talk | edits) 05:45, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  Publishing by a mainstream publisher does not necessarily mean it is reliable. It's unusual but I've seen wildly fringe material published by reliable publishers. Doug Weller talk 07:15, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I deeply regret that I missed this discussion, which is now fairly along. The subject is outside the purview of this forum and belongs on WP:RSN. This noticeboard deals with fringe beliefs that contradict established science or historical fact (i.e. Flat Eartherism or Holocaust denial). Religion, which deals with a belief in the supernatural, is by its very nature something that cannot be proven or disproven through the ordinary processes of examination of historic and scientific facts. As such it is a topic that is almost never appropriate for this forum. I generally close religious discussions when I find them here and point the concerned parties to the correct forum. Unfortunately, this discussion is probably too far along for that. Mea culpa mea culpa... - Ad Orientem ( talk) 23:09, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Something weird going on here with all these new editors. [25] Doug Weller talk 17:52, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I love this comment: "...which is ad hominem (i.e., a logical fallacy)"! Deb ( talk) 17:59, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

• Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch

Getting consistent attention from IPs removing the pseudoscience designation for the pseudoscience-specific bits of the training. Could use eyes. Bon courage ( talk) 15:08, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• It's happening again. Should Wikipedia just give this up? Bon courage ( talk) 22:55, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Ummm... no? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 10:19, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• John C. Sanford ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch

ID proponent. "Intelligent design" does not sound like a pseudoscience to people unfamiliar with it, which is why we usually (correctly) mention that it is. Some people do not like that. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 16:46, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• The Saturn Myth ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch

Just noticed this. Completely unsourced since 2018. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 06:27, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

• Anatoly Fomenko ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch

IP edit-warring WP:FALSEBALANCE stuff in. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 08:09, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

There's an IP at the talk page complaining about lack of sources. It looks as though it needs more and may be slightly tilted towards his views. Doug Weller talk 17:23, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems that his assertions about how the pyramids were built might be discussed by other sources in the article. I think the question is, does the mention or discussion in the sources amount to significant coverage? I started a discussion on the talk page if anyone is interested in helping to analyze the sources. Also, is there evidence that Davidovits received the Ordre national du Mérite? --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 02:50, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I've removed that. Doug Weller talk 13:35, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I have been looking at what publications exist in terms of reliable, third-party, sources that review the idea that the pyramids / great pyramids of Egypt consisting of blocks of casts geopolymer. So far, I have found a deafening lack of recent third-party reviews. The main peer-reviewed sources consists of parts of a "pro" and "con" discussion that was published during 1992 and 1993 in the Journal of Geological Education. Subsequently, there is a 2007 conference paper and a report by Dipayan Jana that dispute this concept. On the "pro" side, there are several conference papers; a few papers in ceramic / material engineering journals; and numerous self-published articles and books all by a very small handful of supporters of this idea.

After 1992 and 1993, I have so far been able to find very few publications by a third-party archeologist, geoarchaeologist, or geologist who have recently published anything about this idea. The publications citing the publications of the "pro" side of use of polymers in building the pyramids, seem to be in the introduction to ceramic and material engineering papers that only state so-and-so proposed that the pyramids are constructed by blocks of geopolymers and go on to discuss other unrelated aspects of geopolymers. Outside of the proponents of fringe ideas, it seems after 2012-2013, the only people interested in this concept have been a small group of its supporters. Finding reliable, third-party, commentary and reviews of the pyramid - geopolymers connection might be problem as there seems to be a lack of interest in this topic by third-party archeologists, geoarchaeologists, and geologists. Paul H. ( talk) 18:32, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Paul H.@ Johnprovis@ Steve Quinn Thanks to Paul for finding this which looks like a brilliant source which discusses Davidovits... [26] Dietrich Klemm, Rosemarie Klemm THE STONES OF THE PYRAMIDS Provenance of the Building Stones of the Old Kingdom Pyramids of Egypt/ Doug Weller talk 13:26, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Paul. The dearth of discussion in sources probably means that this hypothesis has gained no traction in the mainstream scientific community. It most likely a hypothesis or a theory with a potpourri of shortcomings. And of course the theory has a certain aura about it because it connects with the pyramids of Gaza. And that kind of aura often leads to unsound and even irrational ideas outside the scientific community, if you get my meaning.--- Steve Quinn ( talk) 16:46, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Geopolymer

Who wrote that? returns "JDavidovits (talk | contribs) added this on 18 January 2013 10:36 AM. I have replace the old content with a new one that is an actual update and represents the wishes of the geopolymer scientists community.+27,571 They have written 61.0% of the page. Found that at Talk:Joseph Davidovits#Adding details on my scientific career — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller ( talk • contribs) 13:39, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Where can we post this to get people who know about geopolymer? Doug Weller talk 16:12, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Doug Weller. Offhand I am thinking of the WikiProject Engineering talk page. But I am wondering if it would be OK to post at the Village Pump for more visibility. What do you think about the Village Pump? Too over the top? --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 17:07, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know,which one? Doug Weller talk 17:37, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Let me take a look over at the Village Pump and see if this fits into a section over there. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 19:50, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Anyone else who has a suggestion, please chime in. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 19:50, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

@ Doug Weller:, I think this will be OK in the Village Pump Miscellaneous section. Do you want to open the thread there because you know what you are asking? Or do you want me to open the thread? If I do then you will have let me know what you want to ask, because I am not entirely sure. It seems you are concerned that JDavidovits wrote 61.0 percent of that page. So you want editors who know about geopolymers to judge the accuracy of the page or to edit or something else? --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 20:03, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

@ Steve Quinn judge the accuracy, sources, pov. If you could do it that would be great, I’m off to sleep. Thanks very much. Doug Weller talk 20:49, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

@ Doug Weller: - I don't mind doing it. But it will be in about a day or so. I want to take a closer look at this article and the Joseph Davidovits biography. In the meantime please rest as much as you need. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 22:55, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

@ Doug Weller:. Sorry to ping you again. Just want to let you know I might have found someone to help out. I haven't tried the Village Pump yet, but I discovered this editor who may be able to help. I left a message on his talk page. Here is the link: [27]. If they don't respond in a few days I will send them an email. And we still have the Village Pump option if this doesn't pan out. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 00:12, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Also, if you have more to add over at their talk page feel free to do so.---- Steve Quinn ( talk) 00:21, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I just tagged the article for factual accuracy based on the talk page discussions and the fact that Davidovits edited 61 per cent of the article. He was indefinitely blocked in 2016. However, while he was editing on that article he had some serious WP:OWNership issues, among other issues. That's what I gather from the talk page discussions. I am tempted to simply stubify it and start over. If I knew about Geopolymers I certainly would do that. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 01:39, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

He also edited with a sock. Subbing may be necessary or maybe a merge with Geopolymer cement. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 08:21, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

OK. I will look at stubifying or a merge. Either of these may be the best solution at this time.--- Steve Quinn ( talk)

I am linking to the sock investigation for reference: JDavidovits sock investigation results. ---- Steve Quinn ( talk) 09:42, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

This article really does need a lot of work (it's got some major scientific flaws as well as some more broadly misleading or weird content), but there was a huge bunfight last time I tried to do anything about it - I'm a researcher who works on these materials (and have done so for 20 years or so - https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1mwmcwYAAAAJ&hl=en), which someone last time around said was too much of a conflict of interest for me to be doing much editing on the article?

I'm happy to put some time into it if it's appropriate, though - please let me know.

Either way, I think merging is definitely worth doing. Johnprovis ( talk) 12:03, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Johnprovis:, @ Doug Weller:, I changed the article back to its February 13, 2016 version. In that edit summary Joheprovis Undid revision 704588689 by JDavidovits and wrote: "You can't just revert a year's editing by all sorts of people (not just me) - needs to go through appropriate dispute resolution." Here is the diff for that: [28]. And here is the diff for today's revert: [29]. I am guessing this is the most accurate version available at this time.

John, if you think a merge is the best option then I agree with you. Doug also suggested a merge as an option. So this what I recommend. John, do you remember who told you that editing that article would be a conflict of interest? We may need to have a discussion about that before the merge. I don't want you to get into trouble. And yet, you are the most capable of doing the merge. So let's just take it one step at a time. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 13:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Johnprovis@ Steve Quinn A merge makes sense. I've just deleted more material, eg from something called the "Australian Geopolymer Alliance" that doesn't even exist any more. John, being an expert definitely does not give you a conflict of interest. Repeatedly adding your own articles might, or something that you get paid to do, but not just expertise. Doug Weller talk 14:00, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Doug Weller: - John, I agree with Doug. I don't think you have a conflict of interest. Being an expert does not mean you have a COI. I believe that is a misunderstanding on someone else's part. ---- Steve Quinn ( talk) 14:07, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'll start bashing at it then - this is actually quite a major class of cements and needs a proper Wikipedia article. As a starting point, I've run through the Geopolymer Cement article and retrieved the text of the one section there that wasn't already a duplicate of stuff that's here (on "Workability issues"), and pasted that in - which is fairly painless as far as a merge goes.... I think the Geopolymer Cement article can safely be deleted now by someone who knows properly how to do this? (I'm not really up to speed on that side of things, so sorry if there's any lack of Wikipedia etiquette/process/acronyms/etc. that come up here).

And it's been long enough that I can't even remember who commented on the conflict of interest thing, but if you don't think it's an issue then I'll happily start progressing a few edits. It won't happen overnight, but hopefully some helpful improvements will be visible before long... and if it's possible to enlist other interested folks as you mentioned about the Village Pump, that would also be handy, I think. Johnprovis ( talk) 16:23, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Doug Weller: Doug, see John's post just above. @ Johnprovis: Thanks very much, John. This is much appreciated. I will post something over at the Village Pump in a day or so. Also, if you have any problems, please feel free to let me or Doug know so that, hopefully, we can smooth things out if necessary. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 17:10, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Johnprovis@ Steve Quinn Thanks. I think just turning it into a redirect might be ok? Not sure we need to go to the VP. Doug Weller talk 17:33, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Doug Weller: I agree that a redirect will do. I also agree that maybe we don't need to go to the VP. Let's see how things go from here. ---- Steve Quinn ( talk) 19:42, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Doug Weller:, @ Johnprovis:. I just want to let you know I made the article a stub plus the recently merged material [30]. I got tired of trying to ferret out the POV and blatant self promotion. For edits regarding the removal of self promotion, prior to creating this stub - see the article history. I also removed more material from the lead as too technical and so on. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 14:04, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Steve Quinn Much appreciated. Sorry I've been too busy to do much recently. Doug Weller talk 14:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Doug Weller: This is not a problem. The issues here are straightforward. I don't mind doing this. Self-promoting-sock editing is worth removing from this project space. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 14:41, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Steve Quinn Could you post to the talk page saying where you merged the material from? Normally that would be in an edit summary. It's necessary to be able to trace attribution. Thanks Doug Weller talk 14:20, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Doug Weller: The merge was accomplished by John a couple of days ago, and it is in the edit summary. Here is the diff [31]. I did not merge the material. And the diff says where it was merged from. Regards, --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 14:28, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I've just wandered by to have a look at things to make a start on editing, and it looks like almost the whole article has been removed except for the section I shifted across from "geopolymer cement" - which wasn't my intention in grabbing that, I was just copying it across because it was the only part of that article that wasn't already in the main Geopolymer one. If the original text has been deemed unsalvageable and a full rewrite is needed, that's ok and I can try to rebuild something, but it would be easier to do this by working from the (admittedly not very good) old version than from a blank page, if it's possible to restore the text to edit please? I suspect I could probably figure out how to do this, but also suspect that the chance of me messing up the entire thing via a fat-finger error is higher than I'm keen to risk... thanks! Johnprovis ( talk) 19:25, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@ Johnprovis: I have restored the old version as you have requested. It's not that it was unsalvageable. It was just a question of what was tainted with violations of WP:NPOV and self-promotion. From an overview of the whole article it was hard to tell. Anyway, I am glad to restore to this version so you can work on the old version rather than a blank page. And, again, your efforts are very much appreciated. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 21:09, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Johnprovis ( talk) 08:41, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I had been editing and improving this page and another editor recently made a bold edit to improve neutrality to remove the NPOV banner that had been there for over 10 years and it was a massive improvement.

There is false balance being pushed on that page now by someone who has reverted all the edits and is pushing irrelevant citations in talk. Science denial by saying false memories are not a valid psych concept when this is a well-established concept and has been for years.

Moreover, this page is about the foundation, not a well-established phenomenon. ← 𝐋𝐞𝐟𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 13:24, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to the noticeboard's attention @ Lefthandedlion. I was the one that rewrote the article a few days ago. We need to remember that this article is about the Foundation not the discussion of FMS is pseudoscience or not. That will have to wait for a rewrite of the FMS article. I see that you and Donna have been having some good discussions while I was sleeping, just waking up now and reading it over. I'm hopeful that we can get that taken care of quickly, all the gossip needs to go IMHO. Sgerbic ( talk) 16:08, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

• Nano-ayurvedic medicine ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch

Full of dubious claim. Author reverted redirecting to a better article. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 09:02, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

"This combination allows for targeted delivery of herbal remedies at the cellular level," Oh boy. So they strongly dilute something to make it more efficent? Isn't it difficult to get a herb into a cell? Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 09:18, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

As long as the herb is around the size of a protein molecule it shouldn't be hard. That's how homeopathy works, right? By making the herb so dilute it fits through the channels in the cell membrane? Seriously though, if an ayurvedic remedy had an appreciable effect on any specific part of the body, this could be a decent method of delivery. All that needs doing is the secondary sources. Recon rabbit 13:14, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Wrong about homeopathy. That works with dilutions so extreme that not a single molecule of the active ingredient remains. The solvent is supposed to "remember" it. Magic, in other words. Zero ^talk 13:53, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Use of nanoparticles for drug delivery is mainstream, but this combination with herbal medicine is fringe and only seems to be promoted by its True Believers. The article, if it is notable enough to be kept at all, needs a WP:TNT. Zero ^talk 11:16, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

The article has been moved to Draft:Nano-ayurvedic medicine.-- Gronk Oz ( talk) 12:00, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I had BLARred and have now draftified. Many (maybe all) of the sources do not meet WP:MEDRS, and there are entirely unsourced sections, including §Potential Benefits. If there are strong sources out there about nano-Ayurvedic medicine, I would hope to see them summarized at Ayurveda. If we end up with too much about it, we can then split. Firefangledfeathers ( talk / contribs) 12:07, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

This draft just seems like incomprehensible word salad to me. It is not likely to be ready for articlespace any time soon. Partofthemachine ( talk) 19:45, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

A merge seems the obvious solution. Slatersteven ( talk) 12:10, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Looks like a bait-and-switch. Only one of the sources uses the term "nano-Ayurvedic", and even that is just talking about using chemicals from herbs that are used in Ayurveda rather than "the principles of Ayurveda", and the others are just talking about phytochemicals delivered by nanotechnology. I really don't think there's an article here at present, and possibly nothing much to merge without indulging in WP:SYN. Brunton ( talk) 18:04, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

• Young blood transfusion ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch

New Talk section: Pseudoscience or not?

Is anybody still watching this? Main contributors on the Talk page seem to have been Jytdog and Roxy the dog, both of which are indeffed. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 15:24, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Allais effect (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This obscure alleged physics phenomenon seems to give the concept more credit then the academic literature gives it. Lots of poor sourcing to conference abstracts, etc, though there doesn't seem to be much better out there on this topic. Could do with a substantial reworking/trim Hemiauchenia ( talk) 21:34, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

• Naftalan oil ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch

After User:Naftalan Products edits the article, Naftalan oil stops being pseudoscience and helps against ailments. Maybe medical experts know if that is justified. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 07:55, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

• And now the socking's started. Is there an admin watching who could take a look? Bon courage ( talk) 12:27, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Naftalan oil again (or just scroll down three sections). -- Guy Macon Alternate Account ( talk) 17:19, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

Our article at Naftalan oil pushes the decidedly fringe view that sitting up to your neck in crude oil and thus breathing in high concentrations of naphthalene fumes is beneficial to your health. The reality is that exposure to large amounts of naphthalene vapor is very dangerous, which the current article does not make clear.

The last time I looked into this (See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Naftalan oil and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 346#Croatian source for for claims about the medical effects of bathing in high-naphthalene-content crude oil), I determined that a lot of money was being made selling these crude-oil baths, and that local sources (and possibly editors who have edited this page and few others) are likely to have a conflict of interest.

From the New York Times: [32]

"Naftalan crude contains about 50 percent naphthalene, a hydrocarbon best known as the stuff of mothballs. It is also an active ingredient in coal tar soap."

From our article on mothballs:

"Exposure to naphthalene mothballs can cause acute hemolysis (anemia) in people with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. IARC classifies naphthalene as possibly carcinogenic to humans and other animals (see also Group 2B). IARC points out that acute exposure causes cataracts in humans, rats, rabbits, and mice. Chronic exposure to naphthalene vapors is reported to also cause cataracts and retinal hemorrhage... In addition to their cancer risks, mothballs are known to cause liver and kidney damage... Mothballs containing naphthalene have been banned within the EU since 2008."

-- Guy Macon Alternate Account ( talk) 16:49, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Erm, you seem to have ignored all the comments Mike Turnbull left in Talk:Naftalan oil. Apparently the reason why these weird things don't kill people en masse is documented in scientific articles - those baths do not actually contain that much carcinogenic matter. We continue to document the newspaper articles saying they do, as well as some of those scientific articles. Please take some time to try to read the updates at the Talk page. -- Joy ( talk) 19:16, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Please don't confuse "I read the comments on the talk page and still think bathing in crude oil is harmful" with "I ignored/didn't bother to read the comments". I assure you that I have read all of the comments and all of the references, and that we are all trying to improve the article even if we disagree, so please dial down the agression and casting of aspersions a bit, OK?

Of course bathing in crude oil doesn't result in immediate mass deaths. They would never have opened the petroleum spas in the city of Naftalan if that were true (you don't see spas anywhere where the customers bath in lava, for example). That says nothing either way about any long term health effects. -- Guy Macon Alternate Account ( talk) 02:38, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Um, there is no aggression to dial down, or aspersions. I find these accusations very troubling as you're the one who stopped engaging on the talk page and instead went to this noticeboard immediately.

Yes, it's a legitimate risk to tell readers that there's something out there which could be harmful and not explain the full extent of the harm. At the same time, having the article say something apparently completely untrue is likewise legitimately wrong. How about we try to actually find some pertinent information about those long-term health effects and document them, as opposed to all this scaremongering?

You literally used the previous noticeboard discussion as pretext to censor the inclusion of a scientific article that said they did a 10-year study on health effects. At the same time, the unsubstantiated one-sentence claim about 50% napththalene from the NYT article was allowed to stand, which another person now says it's utterly false. I don't see how this behavior is helpful to our readers. -- Joy ( talk) 06:57, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I do think for Wikipedia to say something is/is not/might be cancer-causing, strong WP:MEDRS is necessary. Bon courage ( talk) 07:17, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and let's try to focus on finding those. In the meantime I noticed Guy posted on the article talk page, which is helpful. There's a few sentences in the linked naphthenic acids article that are cause for concern, and now we need to get to the bottom of how exactly they relate to this topic.

As advised by the WP:MEDRS guideline, we should try to compose a health effects section with current and accurate biomedical information. Right now all we have is a bunch of weird novelty in the lead, and a very cautious history section that mentions information from 700, 100, 50 and 15 years ago. All of this seems reasonably well sourced as general information, but it still might give the average reader the impression of "this is pretty old so therefore maybe it's just fine". Instead of making them have to deduce anything of the sort, we should find current high-quality references that support or refute that. -- Joy ( talk) 07:38, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

From a quick look there doesn't seem to be anything. It may be best just to omit anything about health effects in that case. Bon courage ( talk) 08:22, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

have you tried looking at the effects of contact with oil in general? the biochemistry should be almost identical (though I suspect most of those studies will be about long term contact in small doses rather than a big dose all at once) -- Licks-rocks ( talk) 08:49, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

(noting here that yes, this means what guy says above is perfectly useable in my eyes, provided we have MEDRS to support the claim about mothballs) -- Licks-rocks ( talk) 08:50, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Several journalists seem to have confused napthalene with naphthene long before the Wikipedia article was created in 2014. If editors would give me a couple of more days to work on the article, we can return here about its "fringeness" then. There are lots of interesting things to say about naftalan oil without Wikipedia needing to include anything requiring WP:MEDRS sources. Meanwhile those who think that medications can't be made out of the chemical mixtures found in oil products should read coal tar. Mike Turnbull ( talk) 09:40, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The problem with the mothballs claims is that it was never clear that they fully apply, because the other 'Naftalan' hospital in Croatia has been functioning under the auspices of an EU member country for over a decade now, so either we in Wikipedia have accidentally uncovered a huge medical scandal, or we aren't operating with the full set of information. -- Joy ( talk) 11:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

either we in Wikipedia have accidentally uncovered a huge medical scandal Pff. Pseudomedicine is rampant everywhere, and most people ignore it. Propaganda for all sorts of quackery is everywhere, homeopathy is still paid for by health insurance in parts of Europe, India has its own pro-quackery ministry, the US NIH has a pro-quackery institute ( NCCIH), and so on. Medicine that does not work should be a scandal, but it is not. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 12:54, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Sigh. Let's then just make that we uphold our own standards and apply the appropriate amount of rigor based on the available information, as opposed to us acting on newspaper hearsay, which hasn't worked out great so far. There's been a steady stream of some sort of scientific-looking research done on this topic for decades now, we should examine to which level it satisfies quality guidelines like WP:MEDASSESS and at least be able explain to the readers if e.g. these are all just primary studies. It would also probably be beneficial for someone with knowledge of Russian biomedical science to assess the status of those works, as one of the Croatian articles cited mentions a large volume of that but doesn't delve deeper. -- Joy ( talk) 14:13, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

User:Cornelius Benedictus is unhappy with my revert here and User:Firefangledfeathers here. It doesn't help that it was me who warned them and didn't mention I didn't do both reverts. My bad. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

In fact, I mistakenly assumed both the warning received and the NPOV issue were all about the the second mentioned edition, which was not the case, since the second one was only about the sources' verifiability issue. Even though my edition does not fall short of the policy stated at Wikipedia: Verifiability: Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves at the second edition, and this is not the issue of the first edition, I apologise for the misunderstanding and thank User:Doug Weller. Cornelius Benedictus ( talk) 16:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• Gokhale Method ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch
• Previous FTN discussion: [33]

An interesting one this, maybe one of those cases where it's not possible to write a neutral article on a (probably) FRINGE subject as there is no neutral/mainstream sourcing.

An editor has raised concerns that the scientific sourcing cited in this article is not relevant to the subject, and they may well be right. Removing it would leave no independent assessment of the method's claims. What to do? Bon courage ( talk) 09:24, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

There is a dearth of scientific literature to refute her claims of back pain not existing in industrialized societies, mainly because ergonomic studies try to identify the source of injuries when they are occuring. E.g., drivers in Bangladesh, factory workers in Taiwan. Nothing especially professional has been written in the literature I can find about Gokhale (though there is an embarrassingly promotional article in Biofeedback). The best I think we can do right now is to try and steer the article towards a neutral POV and pointedly attribute the various claims. Recon rabbit 20:56, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

• Andrew Huberman ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch

is a very hot topic [34] at the moment, especially with recent published material referring to his podcast as containing pseudoscience/ More wise eyes could help. Bon courage ( talk) 14:53, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I doubt the usefulness of including David Berson's input on this guy's podcast in the end there. Recon rabbit 18:49, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah but it's in the WP:RS and the Huberman fans go rabid if you only cite the negatives from a source. It's better to throw them a bone than encourage edit warring. A few additional watchers on the article are good though. Zenomonoz ( talk) 03:20, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

If 'you only cite the negatives from a source', you are engaged in cherry-picking, and all Wikipedians with a good-faith understanding of WP:NPOV should oppose such. --Animalparty! ( talk) 02:26, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

That's a misreading of NPOV. We are not required to balance "positive" and "negative" parts of a source. — The Hand That Feeds You: ^Bite 18:58, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• Untick of interest here with Weilins warring in health claims sourced to primary research, even including Huberman's stuff about 'deep relaxation states' cited to a preprint. Bon courage ( talk) 20:29, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  None of the sources in the paragraph on yoga nidra warrant the "enhanced neuroplasticity" claims. We need to wait for a review, not a preprint and an article from The Times. Also concerned about how often that Stanford Magazine article is cited; the author Deni Ellis Béchard is not an authority on medical subjects. Recon rabbit 21:36, 12 April 2024 (UTC)