This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 |
There is currently an RfC on whether or not to include a reference to NoFap in Masturbation. Interested editors can join the discussion here. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 02:43, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Please feel free to take part in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Place of power. Thank you. John Carter ( talk) 21:53, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
See discussion at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Organic_frequencies. OhNoitsJamie Talk 16:37, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I am still not really interested in returning to Wikipedia to undertake the sort of housecleaning here, but a constellation of pages regarding Werner Erhard, his EST organization and their descendants has some serious, serious, serious WP:NPOV issues. Recommend somebody with some knowledge of MLM and cults have a look to improve. Simonm223 ( talk) 17:32, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at WP:CFD that may be related to the topic of this wiki project. Interested editors are invited to join the discussion. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 16:21, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
What's going on? Did people move somewhere else?
Also, am I missing something or are there no archive for 2014 and 2015? Karlpoppery ( talk) 07:08, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
The 2013 archive actually covers 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016! Lots of projects have become less active with time. -- Bduke (Discussion) 07:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
First time I've posted here so not sure if this is where I need to post to get attention or not. I've just added a talk page and added a comment about the Ron Miscavige page that I'm questioning if it is noteworthy enough to stand alone from the book's page. Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me Please answer on the talk page for the individual. Sgerbic ( talk) 21:52, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
Over the past few days, I've assessed about 1000 previously unassessed articles that were stock in the backlog of this project, so that we now have a functioning quality and importance scale system. I've also redone the list of Top importance articles, so that it nows include 38 articles on things like objections to evolution, vaccine controversies, anecdotal evidence and homeopathy. I encourage anyone willing to try to improve these articles. We also have about 200 High-importance articles that should be given some attention. They include subjects like water fluoridation and ghost hunting.
If anyone plans to work on one of those articles, don't hesitate to talk about it on the project's talk page, and to steal experts from other projects.
I've removed most articles from the " needing attention" list, as some of them were there for years without being worked on. Some linked to dead articles, others to articles that had already received plenty of attention and were now fine. The 23 articles that remain are terrible and all have issues that are properly tagged. Anyone can click on any of these articles and fix them. It would be feasible to clear this backlog, so that the needing attention section would become usable. I believe this section should only be used for terrible pseudoscientific articles that need urgent attention, and that they should be removed after a few days at most, when the issue is fixed.
In addition, some sections of the project that were outdated and unusable have been updated. We now have a new to-do list that is shorter and make sense, and a new list of articles needing improvement. Don't hesitate to add articles to the to-do list if you intend to work on them.
I've also removed the mood killing inactive banner. Karlpoppery ( talk) 01:54, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I've put this as our next objective in the project's to-do list. Please comment if you agree, disagree or think of something better. Karlpoppery ( talk) 02:21, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Should the top two goals of this project really be about "creating new articles", as stated on the main page? This seems like a relic of an ancient time. Karlpoppery ( talk) 08:41, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I tried to improve the look of the project, and to update it a little. Please click around and tell me if I messed up anything! Karlpoppery ( talk) 00:37, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
Check it out here. It's a list of 50 articles that are regularly subject to problematic pseudoscientific edits. The whole list can be added to the user's watchlist in a few seconds. This is meant as a way to make cooperation between skeptical wikipedians more efficient.
The list can be found from the main page (monitoring section) and from the project resource section. Karlpoppery ( talk) 22:31, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Anusara School of Hatha Yoga has been added to the to-do list. — Paleo Neonate — 03:05, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Added " Aura (paranormal) - Complete rewrite" on the to do list. I'll spend a few day on this, obviously any help would be welcome! KarlPoppery ( talk) 21:24, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
I have no idea if this kind of topic is appropriate here. But I've expressed there (
Talk:Abraham#Baha.27i) something which others have also noticed, some have complained about this in the past as well. A mostly non-notable group (except on Wikipedia) has overwhelming coverage here, often in undue weight. Some Wikiprojects like the Jehovah's Witnesses one, (despite being a more notable group) don't allow this type of promotion when they encounter it.
In the above example, the Abraham article, covers major religions currents like Christianity, Judaism, Islam... suddenly, the very special variety of Islam that is Baha'i is presented like if it was one of those great religions. If the JWs were mentioned there it'd be under Christianity at most (and it's not mentioned at all), even if they too consider themselves a very special religion separate from the rest of Christianity. Even in templates, Baha'i is usually overrepresented as a major religion.
Some of the Bhai'i promotion, if not most of it, seems to be added by SPAs (like in the above case) which often have been recently created, suggesting that there may be a special effort to give that group prominence on Wikipedia.
It may also require a group effort to locate and ensure proper weight of those mentions (or remove them) everywhere, which is why I finally decided to post about this issue here. If this is not the right place to discuss this, I would be glad to know where it would be more appropriate. Thanks, —
Paleo
Neonate — 20:27, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I noticed the Popular pages bot has been resurrected, so I signed this project up to get a report from it. It runs reports on the 2nd of each month so we should get our first report on June 2nd. Unless I screwed it up, the report should appear at this page. -- Krelnik ( talk) 18:00, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Geist Group: skeptics or charlatans? (note: also see talk page). Thanks, — Paleo Neonate — 06:10, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
I would appreciate anyone's comments at Talk:Electromagnetic hypersensitivity#Reopening Sweden EHS matter -- papageno ( talk) 04:42, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Donald Yates is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donald Yates until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. — Paleo Neonate - 08:56, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
The discussion may be of interest to folks who hang out around here. XOR'easter ( talk) 19:58, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
Made a new WikiProject at WP:CHIRO if anyone else in this project is interested. Feel free to join! Just went active today. SEMMENDINGER ( talk) 22:36, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Hello, |
I've noticed that the article " Barnum effect" has been in queue for quite some time, awaiting to be reviewed through the GA process. The Barnum effect is a very interesting topic, and one that is key to understand nearly all brands of pseudoscience. If any of our members are experienced in the Good Articles review process, it would be a valuable use of your time to help user:Meatsgains by reviewing this article! KarlPoppery ( talk) 20:35, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Done Congrats to Meatsgains and Power~enwiki. — Paleo Neonate – 05:27, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seventh-day Adventist historicist interpretations of Bible prophecy (2nd nomination). James ( talk/ contribs) 05:03, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi, I would like to nominate the above article for deletion as a poorly written article that apparently duplicates Planetary objects proposed in religion, astrology, ufology and pseudoscience, but as an unregistered user I need someone to do this for me. 165.91.12.190 ( talk) 04:45, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I took it upon myself to downgrade the Dietary supplement article from B-class to C-class because in my opinion so much of it was incomplete, incoherent, off-topic, under-referenced, etc. I have since been editing the article. Anyone else wants to get involved - great. I have no intention of "owning" this article. At some point the collective changes may warrant upgrading to B-class. I do not intend to make that decision, as I am too close to the topic. David notMD ( talk) 17:06, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
If anyone wants to give feedback about my article, go to the peer review page and feel free to do so. -- LovelyGirl7 talk 22:40, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
I have nominated the Philipp Budeikin page for deletion. He is credited with creating the Blue Whale (game). The discussion has been resisted so I thought I might mention it here to drum up some interest, and hopefully get a consensus one way or another. The discussion is here 8==8 Boneso ( talk) 09:37, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
I wrote this article about a ghost-hunter turned skeptical activist, and it was almost immediately put up for deletion after I published it. Feel free to weigh-in on the matter:
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Kenny Biddle is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kenny Biddle until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. RobP ( talk) 01:06, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Note that no consensus was reached, and it has now been relisted "to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus."
There is also a discussion going on regarding the content of the article (photo inclusion, etc) here: [1] RobP ( talk) 05:19, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Hi all. I have written an article on Bob Nygaard which you may be interested in. He is a private investigator I heard about on Skepticality who specializes in the investigation of psychic fraud. Please take a look at it in my sandbox and offer any constructive criticism you may have. If there are minor errors (punctuation, typos...) feel free to fix them right in the sandbox, but for bigger stuff, let me know here please. (I wish I had a photo, but there is nothing in Commons!) Thanks! RobP ( talk) 20:58, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
Here we go again. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 15:44, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
I've been aware of this page for some time. I've kept an eye on it but not really had the energy to do major work on it. The problem is simple; she's a woo merchant but the entire page is carefully constructed to give an appearance of respectability (multiple invocations of "research", etc). I'm sorry to drop the problem in your lap but hope someone has the time to give it a going-over and chase up some cites to say this stuff is woo. Pinkbeast ( talk) 17:19, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Hello, I am trying to improve the article Fallacy, and as the first step I have restructured it (shuffled sections and paragraphs around). I would like to ask for some feedback on its talk page to see if I am going the right way. Thanks :) Petr Matas 15:49, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I have been working on recommending new members for your project for a while, and have sent some lists to PaleoNeonate who helped invite those recommended editors. I wonder if you mind me sending invitations directly for WikiProject Skepticism on your behalf to save time and efforts of yours? Thank you! Bobo.03 ( talk) 18:11, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Got into an argument at work with someone over Kinesio tape at work today. He looked up the article on WP, and it was pretty neutral which he took to mean it likely works. To hell with that. Got home and went nuclear on it. Added SBM and Skeptoid (and other critiques) to the article - and then mentioned that it is pseudoscience right in the lead. Also removed all the Further Reading material as it was original research type stuff from proponents. Tagged the article as Alt-Med too. Don't know if this all will stick. May need support on this one! RobP ( talk) 01:40, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Checking to see if people have seen this news. Not sure when it is going to launch.
I am looking into if it is possible to get a list of articles they plan to link to and a list of articles by number of pageviews coming from Youtube.
Wondering what others measures people think could help prevent any issues from occurring due to this? As most of these topics will be semi protected already I do not imagine many problems. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 20:05, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Glad that you guys saw this. I wasn't sure where to post it, so I did post about it on AN (thanks for sharing here Doc James). Also, this thread was just linked on Twitter by a Verge reporter not long ago -- TheSandDoctor ( talk) 22:54, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I just nominated this article for deletion. Check it out and weigh in if you are interested. RobP ( talk) 19:02, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
I have opened a discussion at Talk:Witchcraft#Witch and witchcraft: two Wikidata items, and a problem which is of relevance to this WikiProject. Narky Blert ( talk) 21:44, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
There is an RfC at the Sean Hannity article talk page members of this project might interested in taking part in here. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 17:20, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
This article I contributed to has been nominated for deletion. Feel free to give your opinion here: [2] RobP ( talk) 12:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Just listened to the new Skeptoid analysis of Environmental Working Groupand its annual Dirty Dozen food list. Both the main article and the Pesticides in the United States (containing the list) need Skeptical attention. As a minimum, the current criticism in the EWG article should be summarized in the lead. RobP ( talk) 12:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
The title says it all. Ill be in the material gathering process for a bit and then will get started on writing the thing. It'll be done in this particular sandbox.
If you have any thoughts, want to help, or anything really catch me here or the talk page for the construction space.
Cheers Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 19:44, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Would appreciate any support at the Talk page for Robert O. Becker, the section Request for consideration of article rewrite. -- papageno ( talk) 03:54, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
The article on zener cards needs skeptical attention and basically an entire rewrite. I've informed the talk page there and Im sandboxing the project presently. Help is, as always, welcome from all parties. Cheers. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 14:35, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
Dear everyone, I am a newbie on Wikipedia. I recently used an English site of German skeptic Holm Gero Hümmler to translate it to German. Both of the pages don't have enough references outside of the "skeptical bubble" yet. While I do have some links that I want to incorporate in both for references, sources and his publications and to improve the pages generally (especially the German page), I could absolutely use some help, as I'm quite inexperienced. So you can access both of the pages with the link above. If you are interested, I can always post the links and articles I do have here or on one of the Talk pages (German or English Talk page of him). Thanks in advance! Lluvia-aweiku ( talk) 19:50, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
I noticed that articles like John Edward and Tyler Henry have this template, which seems reasonable enough. The articles are, however, not in the template, no people are. Should we give people like this a section in the template, perhaps also people like Houdini and Randi, or leave things as they are? Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 19:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
And another thing. The template/sidebar is near invisible collapsed. How about a middleground like the Bible-sidebar in
The Bible and humor?
Gråbergs Gråa Sång (
talk) 22:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
For some reason Living dinosaur wasn't already tagged with WikiProject Skepticism (surprising given how long it's been struggling with cryptozoology content), so this didn't show up in the notifications. See: Talk:Living dinosaur if you wish to comment. -- tronvillain ( talk) 12:00, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.
Portals are being redesigned.
The new design features are being applied to existing portals.
At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{ Transclude lead excerpt}}.
The discussion about this can be found here.
Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.
On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.
Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.
So far, 84 editors have joined.
If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.
If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.
Thank you. — The Transhumanist 11:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
I was looking through Wanted Pages and I ran into Occult writers and antisemitism. It doesn't exist and has north of 5000 wikilinks to it, instant traffic and a topic that clearly has some interest as well as being relevant to this project. It's also one that a brief initial glance tells me there is enough out there to write something with some meat on it.
When I finish the initial draft I suspect Ill need some help tagging and categorizing the article properly and whatever else I don't know about for writing a brand new article. Cheers. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 15:57, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Discussion of a proposed consolidated Weapons of power in Hindu epics article is at Talk:Kurukshetra War#New article proposed - "Weapons of power in Hindu epics". -- Bejnar ( talk) 14:44, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
I wrote my first brand new article. I wandered into the topic through this project by taking a look at Freemen on the land (an article that I'll be doing some work on) and I noticed that it mentions the strawman idea but there was no article. Now Strawman theory has one.
I have it marked as needing attention on this project because it likely needs attention seeing as it's my first attempt at writing something that was not here before. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 19:29, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
I am glad to see that there was so much activity here when I as mostly gone in the last few months. I'll consider updating the bot archival rate if necessary. Although this page is no substitute for WP:FTN, it is likely the ideal place to discuss new articles and for noncontroversial editing collaboration, as was done above. I see new editors and new articles, keep up the good work! — Paleo Neonate – 20:39, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
So I've been over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative views starting the process of injecting skepticism and science into some of the articles they're collectively paying attention to and I came across comparative medicine, a little mess of a stub. I decided to expand it because it's a deep and broad topic and deserves more than what's there. I've got a very good start on getting that done and when I complete it I'll be sure to share it here.
So far I've covered History up to the Polio vaccine, ethics, translational issues (research being applicable in pre-clinical and clinical trials), the reproducibility crisis that is plaguing most branches of science at the moment, and I have found enough material to write a well sourced section on legal considerations.
The problem I'm having is that I can't find a good history to take my writing into the 21st century. Every book seems to get to polio and just move on. Is anyone able to locate a source (or several!) on the history of comparative medicine past the 1950's?
Cheers. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 19:36, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Confirmation bias is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, so I decided to ask for feedback here: Rune370 added a link from Confirmation bias to the newly created article " Synchromysticism", and I removed the link due to unclear relevance. (I searched for "synchromysticism" on Google Scholar and turned up only a few articles on "invented religions".) Rune370 has been creating related pages such as Template:Chaos magic and Gnosis (chaos magic) and Servitor (chaos magic) (which seems to me to be of very questionable notability) and linking some of them to more mainstream psychology articles. Any feedback on this would be appreciated: For example, does Servitor (chaos magic) appear notable? Thanks, Biogeographist ( talk) 13:26, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
"significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", and for a fringe theory, a topic
"is considered notable enough for a dedicated article if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers"it's not obvious that Servitor (chaos magic) meets notability. Of course, that doesn't apply to content within an article - one could easily have a section on "Servitors" within an article on chaos magic, but establishing notability for a stand-alone article is another matter entirely. -- tronvillain ( talk) 14:09, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
I'm tooling through the cleanup listing looking for something to work on and couldn't help but notice that its pretty inaccurate in a lot of places. I have no idea how to update it or what the criteria for doing so is but I'm willing to learn and take on at least some of that work. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 16:39, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi all, Wikimedia Foundation staff have been working with YouTube to learn more about the feature (called information panels) developed by their team which will link to Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica articles from videos about conspiracy theories on YouTube. This announcement was first made in March of this year, and the feature will be rolled out starting this week. (This was previously discussed onwiki here, here, and here, amongst other places). We wanted to let folks know about the rollout and share more information about articles that may be impacted by the new feature. We have been supplied with a list of the initial English Wikipedia articles that they are going to be linking to. Those articles are: Global warming, Dulce Base, Lilla Saltsjöbadsavtalet, 1980 Camarate air crash, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Kecksburg UFO incident, and MMR vaccine.
The Foundation staff who are in contact with YouTube about the feature spoke with a handful of admins leading up to the rollout. From those conversations, we do not anticipate this will create a substantial increase in vandalism on English Wikipedia, but we will be monitoring this with the YouTube team. If you have any questions, concerns, or notice an increase in negative behavior on those articles, please let me or GVarnum-WMF know.
You can find an overview of the announcement from YouTube in this section of their latest blog post. We will update you here if we have more new information. Cheers, Quiddity (WMF) ( talk) 17:16, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sasha Carrion. -- Marchjuly ( talk) 00:12, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Why is Black hole a WikiProject Skepticism article? Unless someone comes up with a good reason, I will remove this project from that article's Talk page. RobP ( talk) 19:38, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Hi all, I’m a little new here but I’ve created my first article. There was a consensus a while ago when I first put it up for review that it didn’t meet notability. I’ve done a lot of work since then, on advice from some experienced editors. Could I please ask you to read my page as it is now and tell me if it meets the notability standard before I publish? If it doesn’t, then I’d be happy to take any suggestions to strengthen it. /info/en/?search=User:330highflyer/sandbox2 Thanks, 330highflyer ( talk) 05:02, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks everybody for the feedback and help. And your comments have given me the confidence to publish. Very happy with the page now. 330highflyer ( talk) 20:45, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Hey so an article in your project ( Examination of Apollo Moon photographs) (and one I believe relevant to your interests) has been nominated for AfD by yours truly. Article has had issues related to POV, lack of reliable sources, use of original research, and a lack of wikipedia-like style for at least a decade. These issues have not been fixed. All useful and wikipedia-relevant content has already been merged into Moon landing conspiracy theories. The fact that this article exists at all on wikipedia reduces the overall reputation of the wiki. All relevant photographs already exist on the other page, all relevant citations already exist there, etc. So if you'd like to contribute to that discussion, go ahead and check out ---> Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Examination of Apollo Moon photographs (2nd nomination). Thanks!-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 19:43, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. -- Izno Repeat ( talk) 21:36, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
The Bigfoot hunter and Missing 411 conspiracy author David Paulides has posted to his blog here that his bio on WP needs correction. There have been multiple IP editors attempting to remove criticism - likely as a result. An interesting conversation is happening on the Talk page! Mostly, so far, just regarding attempts to remove the label cryptozoologist. RobP ( talk) 00:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Fans of Paulides are once again attempting to dilute criticism in his article. Please chime in! RobP ( talk) 12:32, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Hi all, I don't know if this is the right place, but these articles definitely need some attention. I'm just posting here to try and solicit help on revamping the many Anthroposophy-related articles. For many years, these articles have had pervasive POV issues mostly due to hyper-involved single-purpose editors with COIs. The articles in question are Anthroposophy, Waldorf education, Anthroposophic medicine, and Biodynamic agriculture. Most of these articles read like promotional material and desperately need our help. To get more specific Anthroposophic medicine is actually pretty good, but the others in that list are pretty good examples of WP:BROCHURE.
I could give you the diffs and the many ArbCom rulings, ANI postings, etc. (and will if asked) but suffice it to say that there is a very small group of editors who are themselves professionally linked to Anthroposophy and Waldorf education who are gatekeeping the articles so that all edits are filtered through their lens. As a result, many of the criticisms and less-favorable aspects of the history of this new age religion are dimmed in favor of excessive detail about the adherents' beliefs and positive praises of the subject material.
I of course want these articles to detail the beliefs of anthroposophists, no question about that. But overly favorable language and WP:WEASEL words are pretty rampant throughout. Then the many racist and unscientific views of adherents (anti-vax, anti-microbial theory of disease, their founder Steiner didn't believe in evolution, believed in racial "types", reincarnation, believed Jewish people should fully assimilate and abandon all Jewish identifiers, etc.) are minimized and reduced in size, book-ended with positive praise, and so on. Combine that with the overly wrought language and hyper-sophistry of the article text, and you have what we see today. I will tell you that if you agree to help me, you may become exhausted in the process. But if the wiki itself is less promotional in the process, it will have been worth it!!
Please don't come into this process with fiercely pro- or anti-Steiner views. The guy was just a random 19th century philosopher who had some interesting and crazy ideas. The only reason I'm interested in these articles is because of how clearly they are an example of what can happen when a very diligent, very obsessive, very biased group of editors are 99% of the edits on a set of controversial articles.
I personally am starting with the root article Anthroposophy and then hope to expand to revamp the daughter articles in the series. I've tried in the past to help bring these articles to NPOV, but was unsuccessful like many before me due to attrition, wiki-breaks, and a general dissatisfaction dealing with the very involved COI-editors. So I'm hoping that asking for help from more uninvolved editors will do the trick. Any takers? Thanks. -- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 17:58, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
I find the episode descriptions in ghost/paranormal TV show articles often riddled with extreme promotional hype, WP:COPYVIO, WP:V and WP:PROFRINGE problems. Here's just one example. This type of cleanup is fairly simple, but it does take time. Volunteers are appreciated at articles such as List of Ghost Adventures: Aftershocks episodes, Ghost Brothers and The Othersiders. Thanks, - LuckyLouie ( talk) 19:27, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Hello, this page is up for deletion and I think this group would be interested in it. Malcolm Kendrick has promoted conspiracy theories about cholesterol and statins. Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 03:27, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Closed with a delete. What a mess that was, but it is over. Sgerbic ( talk) 04:25, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Afd opened for Fat Head, an unscientific conspiracy theory documentary. Cannot find a single reliable source that mentions this documentary. Perhaps someone else can take a look? MatthewManchester1994 ( talk) 21:34, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
I am letting you know of an rfc to merge List of cryptids. Which ever way the wind blows you are welcome to join in. Fyunck(click) ( talk) 08:01, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
What categories should the Gaia,_Inc. article have added? The website's listed topics are here and include a range of pseudoscience and alt.medicine, so I'd recon similar categories to Natural_News and maybe Goop_(company)? Any options welcomed. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) talk 02:54, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
Members of WikiProject Skepticism might like to know that there is a discussion / vote going on at Talk:MMR vaccine controversy#Time to move about renaming that article. The basis is that there is no longer a legitimate controversy. So they are considering changing it to one of the following:
If you would like to contribute, please join in.-- Gronk Oz ( talk) 14:20, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Short version: I noticed that Category:Magicians and its subcats contain several people who are not illusionists but people who think (or claim) they can do real magic. They should have a separate category, but I do not know what name it should have.
The long version is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Paranormal, but I guess people here would be interested too. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 20:49, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
There is a dispute on the Havana Syndrome (See here) regarding the qualifications of Robert Bartholomew to state his expert opinion that the "sonic attacks" on Americans in Cuba and China are actually psychogenic in nature. Please take a look and comment if interested! RobP ( talk) 03:21, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
A discussion of interest to the members of this project can be found at Talk:Conspiracy theory#"Without credible evidence". Beyond My Ken ( talk) 01:05, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
This from the NY Times. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 23:01, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Editor input is requested at Talk:Conspiracy theory#Lead (RfC). Thank you. Leviv ich 20:19, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ethan Lindenberger - ya'all might be interested in this discussion. Sgerbic ( talk) 21:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Having an edit war over criticism an editor (Alexbrn) insists on removing based on MEDRS, claiming this applies to alt-med as well as med if it involves pain management. ("Reports of pain reduction fall under WP:MEDRS.") Opinions? RobP ( talk) 20:41, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
See: Template:ArbCom Pseudoscience and also Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans RobP ( talk) 21:00, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
The new article hydrogen water, a product apparently marketed with pseudoscience, could probably use review from someone from this WikiProject. Thank you. Peacock ( talk) 14:42, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
These pages need a lot of attention. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to upgrade them to "high" on the wikiproject-skepticism on my own. But they need that. In general, essential oils should also be a covered topic for us. You'd think it'd be covered by "herbalism" but I've encountered the argument that it is not under our purview DolyaIskrina ( talk) 19:18, 27 April 2019 (UTC).
I transcluded some articles discussing natural explanations for miracles to Modern criticism of the Catholic Church. There is currently a discussion of the merits of that and other efforts at Talk:Criticism of the Catholic Church, if any of you are interested in evaluating them.-- Epiphyllumlover ( talk) 03:44, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
There's a discussion about a possible User Group for STEM over at Meta:Talk:STEM_Wiki_User_Group. The idea would be to help coordinate, collaborate and network cross-subject, cross-wiki and cross-language to share experience and resources that may be valuable to the relevant wikiprojects. Current discussion includes preferred scope and structure. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) talk 02:56, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the reliability of Logically Fallacious by Bo Bennett on the reliable sources noticeboard. If you're interested, please participate at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Logically Fallacious by Bo Bennett. — Newslinger talk 21:28, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
Coast to Coast AM ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
It's the one outlet that has arguably done the most in the past century to promulgate pseudoscience. I have added a much-needed, independently sourced Criticism section. Since creation in 2005, the article has largely been curated by fans and believers. Hence, the previous "Criticism" section contained petty squabbling between hosts about ratings, but little to zero about pseudoscience. I hope a few people will put this article on their watchlist. Thanks, - LuckyLouie ( talk) 21:14, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
I think we should add these under pseudo-history:
They qualify for conspiracy theories and hoaxes. — Partytemple ( talk) 01:01, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
This page has come across my computer. What do you think? Seems like it needs some special attention. State atheism Sgerbic ( talk) 21:46, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Up for deletion Tito Mukhopadhyay - /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tito_Mukhopadhyay Sgerbic ( talk) 21:56, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Continuing with the discussion of people using Facilitated Communication - we have many Wikipedia pages that are in AfD including this one for Larry Bissonnette. Can Bissonnette's art stand alone without his words, enough that he is worthy of a Wikipedia page? Anything that is claimed he has said about his work, was not his voice but that of his facilitator. So how can we know what he feels about any of this attention. How does anyone know what his true intent is for his artwork if his artist statements are facilitated? /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Larry_Bissonnette Sgerbic ( talk) 22:11, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
The article on Ball lightning needs a more balanced viewpoint. I started a discussion on the talk page but so far there is no reponse. PopSci ( talk) 16:00, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once said:
So yes, we are biased.
We are biased towards
science and biased against
pseudoscience.
We are biased towards
astronomy, and biased against
astrology.
We are biased towards
chemistry, and biased against
alchemy.
We are biased towards
mathematics, and biased against
numerology.
We are biased towards
medicine, and biased against
homeopathic medicine.
We are biased towards
venipuncture, and biased against
acupuncture.
We are biased towards
cargo planes, and biased against
cargo cults.
We are biased towards
vaccination, and biased against
vaccine hesitancy.
We are biased towards
magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against
magnetic therapy.
We are biased towards
crops, and biased against
crop circles.
We are biased towards
laundry soap, and biased against
laundry balls.
We are biased towards
water treatment, and biased against
magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards
electromagnetic fields, and biased against
microlepton fields.
We are biased towards
evolution, and biased against
creationism.
We are biased towards the
scientific consensus on climate change, and biased against
global warming conspiracy theories.
We are biased towards
geology, and biased against
flood geology.
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in
double-blind
clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon
preying on the gullible.
We are biased towards
astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against
ancient astronauts.
We are biased towards
psychology, and biased against
phrenology.
We are biased towards
mendelism, and biased against
lysenkoism.
And we are not going to change. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 02:22, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
hum, ...could benefit, imo, from some unbiased tlc, per WP policies and guidelines. Tks, 86.172.7.182 ( talk) 20:37, 26 August 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)
Interested users may wish to join a requested move discussion at Talk:The Great Replacement that concerns this project. Thank you. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 09:03, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
update: there is a new move discussion regarding whether to move Great Replacement → Great replacement conspiracy theory Nblund talk 19:12, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.
We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma ( talk) 04:24, 27 October 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)
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.
WikiProject Alternative views and WikiProject Skepticism have substantially similar, if not identical, scopes. The description of WikiProject Alternative views appears to indicate a more favorable perspective on non-mainstream theories. However, having two WikiProjects with similar scopes and different outlooks means that one of them is a point of view fork, and should be removed.
Between these two projects, WikiProject Skepticism is more active, with more pageviews, higher talk page activity (here vs. Alternative views), and a more active assessment department ( Skepticism vs. Alternative views).
From this, I am proposing to merge WikiProject Alternative views into WikiProject Skepticism. — Newslinger talk 21:35, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello, |
This article had accumulated a lot of cruft from fringe authors such as Henry Stevens, Jim Marrs and Gerold Schelm. The topic is a classic WP:FRINGE theory (secret Nazi antigravity technology, occultism, flying saucers, etc.) and requires WP:FRIND independent sources in order to maintain an objective article. So I've cleaned out the fringe sourcing and expanded the WP:RS sourcing: Before. After.. Unfortunately, this article is a popular drive-by target for fantasy and fringe advocates, so I hope a few folks here will put it on their watchlist. Also, if anyone has access to CSI articles that may have been published on the topic, please let me know. Thanks, - LuckyLouie ( talk) 21:07, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
There is a noticeboard discussion regarding the use of Climate Feedback and InsideClimate News to describe the accuracy of claims made by proponents of climate change denial. If you are interested, please participate at WP:BLPN § Accuracy of claims made by climate change deniers. — Newslinger talk 10:49, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
There's an RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence#RfC about lede to Race and intelligence about NPOV in the first paragraph of the article. More editor input is needed. Thanks. NightHeron ( talk) 02:00, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Editors who watchlist the article Scientific racism might be interested in looking at the related article Race and intelligence, which has been an area of contentious debate and edit-warring. (It is currently locked down for 3 days.) While Scientific racism is, I think, a good example of how Wikipedia handles fringe, the article Race and intelligence has a very different tone and content, as is clear from the first paragraph of the lede. See also Race and intelligence#The Jensenism debates. I'm putting this notice on all the WikiProjects that list Scientific racism as of high importance, in the hope that more editors will participate in discussions at Talk:Race and intelligence and help make the article compliant with WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE. The problems at Race and intelligence were discussed off-wiki here: [12]. Thanks. NightHeron ( talk) 13:41, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place of whether to delete the article Race and intelligence, see [13]. NightHeron ( talk) 12:26, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
There's an RfC at Talk:Indigenous Aryans#Request for comment: IA/OoI is a fringe theory about the fringe status of Indigenous Aryans. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 09:08, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at the above article that may be relevant to the subject of this project. Interested editors are invited to join the discussion here. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 03:49, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I re-wrote the opening sentences of the Efficacy of prayer article. The aim was to make it more direct and accessible. I don't have a strong sense of what kinds of stylistic revisions are smiled upon, so if anyone wants to check it out and give me some thumbs up or down, please do. There's more work to be done on the article if anyone else wants to jump in. BillyGoatsGruff2020 ( talk) 13:08, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Race and intelligence#Requested move 4 March 2020, which is about an article that is within the scope of this WikiProject. Levivich dubious – discuss 19:58, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to review this article and to join the discussion at Talk:USS Theodore Roosevelt UFO incidents which is about an article that is within the scope of this WikiProject. Thanks! -- Gtoffoletto ( talk) 13:55, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
I have added evidence-based criticism to the article about this Netflix show. I expect push-back from Goop's loyal fans. Please monitor the situation! RobP ( talk) 15:23, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
Following up on the discussion RobP and I started on the The Goop Lab talk page, I tried another format for the criticism section. It still needs work, but Rob - and anyone else - please let me know what you think. Here's a link to the draft in my sandbox /info/en/?search=User:BillyGoatsGruff2020/sandbox . I hope I did this right! — Preceding unsigned comment added by BillyGoatsGruff2020 ( talk • contribs) 15:00, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
There's currently a debate in the talk section of this entry, about the cast list. I'm bringing it up here in the Skeptics WP because it concerns accessibility of information and accountability. A cast list was posted. It included everyone in the series (or it seemed to be heading toward that), and it was accurate. Then an editor deleted everyone on the list except for people with Wikipedia pages. The other editor replied "Of what value is a list of nobodys?" Regardless of that editor's personal feelings, those are the members of the cast, and it's not up to him to make up policy for Wikipedia. People do not need to have entries of their own in order to be mentioned in entries, and there are many cast lists on Wikipedia which include people who do not have Wikipedia entries. As the saying goes, Wikipedia isn't paper. I don't see any reason or rationale in the other editor's objection. And I don't see the need to make less accessible the names and job titles of the people who chose to participate in the series. The editor who objected to the cast list suggested that we let a consensus develop among editors. Two of us (other than the people who made the list) are in favor; s/he is the only one who objects. RobP and anyone else here, perhaps you would weigh in? /info/en/?search=Talk:The_Goop_Lab#Cast_List BillyGoatsGruff2020 ( talk) 07:57, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Ufo, which is about a template that is within the scope of this WikiProject. -- {{u| Gtoffoletto}} talk 01:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
I came across this bio article and thought it just isn't close to being a worthy WP subject. I have put it up for deletion. Please comment here if interested: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen T. Chang. RobP ( talk) 02:02, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
I just submitted this page for deletion - /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Athena_Starwoman Sgerbic ( talk) 16:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Hello, |
This article on the war-time German theory that the moon, earth and galaxy are all made of ice has been a disaster, and tagged as a disaster, for over a decade. I would appreciate help sourcing it, removing the worst bits and adding the necessary bits. Much thanks. 86.106.90.99 ( talk) 04:48, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Hello,
Since some editors are contesting existence of articles associating religions and religious communities to superstitions, One of the article which concerns this project/topic has been nominated for deletion. You can support or contest the deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Superstition in Judaism by putting forward your opinion.
Thanks and regards Bookku ( talk) 04:53, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
Thought I'd heard it all. See Street light interference phenomenon. What's the criterion for adding something to Category:Pseudoscience? Or, if they're not claiming a scientific basis, FRINGE? Mathglot ( talk) 01:35, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Editors may wish to help with this work in progress. Shemirani appears to be an up and coming conspiracy theory promoter, best known for her anti-vaccine views and promotion of conspiracy theories linking 5G with COVID-19. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 09:16, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
This is regarding the discussion here and the post here. Essentially, it's not a content dispute, but rather a dispute over the relevance of the opinions of the hypnotist mentioned in the last paragraph (Alex Tsander) and the reliability of the sources provided. I reverted the edits of the other editor after they deleted the last paragraph because I feel this is an opportunity to clean-up this part of the article rather than to remove it altogether. As an editor, my inclination is towards WP:PRESERVING something that has been in an article as-is for a number of years and fixing it if needed, rather than deleting it entirely without much discussion. I feel that what is being said in the paragraph is still relevant, and that better sources can be found that say essentially the same thing. Also, while there is some discussion on Talk:Stage hypnosis that the article may be skewed towards skepticism, I feel deleting this content altogether will skew things in the other direction. Not being anything close to an expert on hypnosis or the skepticism of it, I don't feel I'm the best person to find better sources and rewrite this paragraph. I thought some editors that are a part of this WikiProject might be able to weigh-in, even if it's just to say that I'm wrong and that this part of the article is not worth salvaging. Bmf 051 ( talk) 14:37, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Talk:Orgone § RfC about in/excluding sources on pseudoscience I dream of horses (Contribs) Please notify me after replying off my talk page. Thank you. 00:52, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
Please help by joining the discussion at Talk:Our Lady of Medjugorje. -- Governor Sheng ( talk) 16:49, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Superstitions in Muslim societies is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Superstitions in Muslim societies until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Bookku ( talk) 05:23, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
Pastoral care § Definition says: "
Spirituality in the context of pastoral care refers to the
human spirit, and is
genetic, measurable and heritable
", and cites as a source the book The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes. I am no expert on pastoral care, so I can't be bothered to spend time editing the content of this article, but since
God gene is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, I thought I would mention this here in case any project member is interested in considering whether
Pastoral care § Definition, and the quoted sentence in particular, could be improved.
Biogeographist (
talk) 13:21, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Please come participate in the discussion at Talk:Russian Academy of Natural Sciences#Dispute over legitimacy. Thank you. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:18, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
I have nominated Nostradamus for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Recently(re) created, may need attention. Possibly ( talk) 23:22, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
The article José Silva (parapsychologist) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
Unreferenced article with a slanted POV that has clearly not shown signs of improvement in years
While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your
edit summary or on
the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
will stop the
proposed deletion process, but other
deletion processes exist. In particular, the
speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and
articles for deletion allows discussion to reach
consensus for deletion.
I am notifying this since this falls under this WikiProject. Thank you.
Dege31 (
talk) 23:27, 14 February 2021 (UTC)Dege31
There is a noticeboard discussion on the reliability of McGill University's Office for Science and Society in the context of an article about JP Sears. If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § JP Sears. — Newslinger talk 08:09, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
The article The Dybbuk box has been proposed for deletion. If you are interested in lending an opinion, please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Dybbuk box.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rp2006 ( talk • contribs) 17:11, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 20:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
You might want to look at the article Psi wheel and add it to the project. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 21:05, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
Within the scope of this project I think, although unfortunately promotional and subject to COI editing. — Paleo Neonate – 06:34, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Category:Rational Skepticism articles needing expert attention has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Peaceray ( talk) 05:23, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
I am posting this here to make members of this group aware of a situation, and get involved if they decide it is worthy.
Years ago I reconstructed the page that is now titled Havana Syndrome. One of the things I did was add skeptical analysis of the predominant POV of the media and US gov't: that US citizens were under attack (first in Cuba, then in China, and now even in the US) by unspecified high-tech weaponry. Mass psychogenic illness experts, OTOH, looked at the data and all concluded the evidence points to nothing real whatsoever.
Over time the mainstream POV has been strengthened in the article, and the skeptical POC diminished, by editors who feel skeptics should have nothing to say on topics beyond Bigfoot and UFOs. (One actually said that on Talk.) One editor insists that Science-Based Medicine is not a WP:RS (despite it being specifically listed as such by WP) and removed valid criticism published there. (I just reinstated this item.)
Recently, I also noticed that all mention of skeptical analysis had been totally deleted from the lead. I just added something back, but it may be deleted again as the majority of editors active on this page seem to be of the mindset that the skeptical POV on this subject is Fringe and needs to be suppressed. RobP ( talk) 02:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
There is a new article on Henry Gobus which I think might warrant attention from the skeptical community, starting with its lede that says he is "... the only person who besides Charles Darwin has provided a complete and extensive process of evolution through his book...". The body of the article is largely taken up with blow-by-blow descriptions of disputes he had with subject experts. I can't see any evidence that his theory has undergone peer review, and there is a notable lack of references to any reliable sources. -- Gronk Oz ( talk) 12:48, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
This is one of those "how is there not a Wikipedia article on this already???" topics for me, because over the last few years as I've perused conspiracy-related content on social media, I very commonly see believers urge each other "go read up on The Finders." So in the past when I heard about it I just did some cursory googling, it seemed to be a Satanic Panic incident in the 1980s that didn't amount to too much, but the fact that people are still talking about it 30+ years later, and that it's been covered in a few RS's, lead me to conclude there should be a Wikipedia article on the topic.
Long story short, in 1987 two guys got arrested in Florida with six scruffy kids in their van, got accused of child abuse, turned out they were part of some weird absurdist commune, issue got resolved with no criminal charges, but some concerned citizen somehow got Congress and the DOJ involved, word got out that somehow the CIA had commented on the issue to DC Police, and so for decades now a portion of people are convinced these folks were a child-abusing cult protected by the government
In any case, I think it's a topic of relevance to anyone interested in Pizzagate and related issues, as part of the longer backstory, so I invite your participation to improve the brief article I've begun. MatthewVanitas ( talk) 23:52, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
There is info on the Thomas John Flanagan (TJ) page about a 2021 Spirit communication event for children which encountered harsh criticism once it was announced -- as being harmful to children. TJ did not cancel but went ahead, charging $400 for each of 8 children. The event was infiltrated by skeptics as reported on here. (Two of the kids were 'undercover agents', and were not discovered by TJ.) Do we think it's a good idea to add this info to that section, and maybe the lead? Or is the existing material sufficient? RobP ( talk) 05:11, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Panspermia#Case_studies says -
If we really had unequivocal evidence of extraterrestrial life, that would be the greatest news story of all time.
This claim (and possibly other statements in Panspermia) could use some skeptical attention.
Thanks - 2804:14D:5C59:8693:453D:A8A9:DE64:AD09 ( talk) 15:10, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
The following page has been nominated for deletion (again).
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (2nd nomination)-- Akrasia25 ( talk) 18:51, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
An editor has requested that Climate change denial be moved to a different name. Please join the discussion at Talk:Climate change denial#Requested move 8 July 2021. Thank you. -- Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 12:00, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
This Wikiproject may be interested in the noticeboard discussion about the statement "Neither qi nor meridians exist." in the Shiatsu article: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Do_qi_nor_meridians_exist?. MarshallKe ( talk) 00:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Satanic ritual abuse#Requested move 1 August 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 05:26, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Category:Anti-vaccination activists who died of COVID-19 has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- ke4roh ( talk) 15:21, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
For your own enlightenment and perhaps reflection: a critical essay by
Brian Martin that directly references this WikiProject, and some of the topics under its purview. Martin, Brian (12 April 2021).
"Policing orthodoxy on Wikipedia: Skeptics in action?". Journal of Science Communication. 20 (02): A09.
doi:
10.22323/2.20020209.{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link) Abstract: Wikipedia has been accused of being biased against challengers to scientific orthodoxy due to efforts by editors having affinities with the Skeptics movement. Examination of Wikipedia, including entries on fluoridation, the origin of AIDS and vaccination, reveals several characteristics typical of a Skeptics sensibility, including the definition of scepticism, lists of deviant ideas, derogatory labelling of heterodox viewpoints, and categories established without reference to reliable sources.
--Animalparty! (
talk) 00:55, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Major Arcana#Requested move 20 August 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 01:59, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Hi everyone,
A
recent deletion discussion on English Wikipedia has set an important precedent about the criteria that maps need to comply to in order to be used on English Wikipedia, and in which cases they may be removed from English Wikipedia per
WP:OR,
WP:UNSOURCED or
WP:SYNTH. I've written a new essay,
c:Commons:Evidence-based mapping, to help users to make accurate maps on Commons that will be acceptable for usage on (English) Wikipedia, to deal with existing inaccurate and unsourced maps on Commons, and to improve cooperation between users. I think some of you may be interested in reading this, because currently anyone can make a map based on no reliable sources whatsoever (and it cannot be easily deleted on Commons, unless it's an obvious hoax), and then used on any language version of Wikipedia, where they can easily mislead readers. Obviously we don't want maps without evidence to be misleading readers. If any of you think the essay can be improved further – especially where it pertains to the rules about reliable sources on English Wikipedia – feel free to make suggestions or corrections on the text here or its talk page. I hope this essay can be really helpful, and if many people agree, perhaps it can eventually be elevated to a guideline. Happy to receive your feedback! Cheers,
Nederlandse Leeuw (
talk) 17:29, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
There is a discussion at WP:RSN concerning this paper by Yuri Deigin and Rosana Segretto in Bioessays which may be of interest to the members of this WikiProject. See discussion here.
Segreto, R., & Deigin, Y. (2021). The genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin. BioEssays, 43, e2000240. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000240.
Thanks.— Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 23:50, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Greetings,
Requesting you to visit Draft:Irrational beliefs and Draft:Superstitions in Christian societies and help expand the same if the topics interest you.
Thanks and warm regards
Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' ( talk) 06:30, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Hello. In your project, Sean M. Carroll is rated C-class but the article has been expended vastly in the last 6 months. What about re-evaluating its class? -- 81.213.215.83 ( talk) 20:35, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
Evidence of absence needs work, esp. Proving a negative. I flagged the section, including adding CNs, and added it to this project. I also made a section on its Talk to discuss this. I found it because I got into an argument on Zoom about proving a negative (re god) due to absence of evidence - and the person points me at this WP article as proof you CAN prove such a negative... (So if you cannot prove god doesn't exist, he does). RobP ( talk) 01:11, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
Hello, |
I have opened an RfC on the Havana Syndrome talk page. Talk:Havana syndrome/Archive 4#RfC: Is "Science Vs" a Reliable Source and does it support the addition of my proposed text? DolyaIskrina ( talk) 03:34, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
An article related to this project, Michael Shermer, is being discussed at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Michael_Shermer. --Animalparty! ( talk) 22:14, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
Ok Skeptical folks... as years pass and and no indisputable evidence is uncovered proving the Havana Syndrome is the result of proposed but undiscovered sci-fi weapons, the likelihood that it is all due to mass psychogenic illness, the hypothesis put forward by the expert Robert Bartholomew, seems to be growing. YET, the Wikipedia page IMHO does not reflect this. And editors have kept this hypothesis totally out of the lead. What are we to do? RobP ( talk) 01:50, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Conspiracy theories seem to be hot now, so it's nice to see a show that treats them with the "respect" they deserve. I'm talking about the new Netflix animated series: Inside Job. It pokes fun at every fringe claim and conspiracy theory out there. This review takes a unique look at the show from a skeptical movement perspective. If anyone thinks it makes sense to add it to the Reception section, have at it. RobP ( talk) 06:26, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
Discussion ongoing...
Talk:Somatic experiencing § Proposed merge: Peter A. Levine → Somatic experiencing ––
Formal
talk 04:14, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
Your comments will be appreciated at Talk:Falsifiability#RfC:_Adding_a_challenging,_counterintuitive_but_instructive_and_well_sourced_example_in_the_lead. Dominic Mayers ( talk) 18:57, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Center for Inquiry Investigations Group until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.
Chess (
talk) (please use {{
reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 21:46, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:American political conspiracy theories#Requested move 19 November 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 14:07, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Alchemical literature is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted. The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alchemical literature. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 20:10, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
A discussion that may interest members of this project is occurring at Talk:The Bell Curve § Merger proposal. –– FormalDude talk 10:29, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Taner Edis until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.
Santacruz ⁂ Please tag me! 23:13, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
A repeatedly disruptive editor has what seem to me to be off-base ideas regarding what belongs in a WP article and what does not. And also what articles should be deleted. They keep targeting articles pertaining to skeptics for some reason, attempting (failed) deletions (see Taner Edis section above) as well as attempting making questionable cuts. The latest scuffle is on the Sharon A. Hill page. If interested, take a look at the edit history and Talk to see what this is about. Am I wrong? Rp2006 ( talk) 22:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
The article National Council Against Health Fraud reads almost completely like a de facto official website, showcasing what the organization has done or written, and hardly featuring anything that reliable secondary sources have written about the group. I think it could use a large amount of paring back to be less promotional, and while I haven't yet done a deep dive, the question of notability is undemonstrated. It appeared as a list entry on several directories of websites: that alone is not significant coverage. What do other people think? --Animalparty! ( talk) 22:42, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
A merge proposal is in the process of being drafted that may interest watchers of this talk page. For details please see Draft talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19 § About this article –– FormalDude talk 08:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
Sharon A. Hill has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 14:10, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Talk:Sharon A. Hill regarding possible removal of content. The thread is Discussion_on_her_opinion_piece_on_Paranormal_State. Thank you. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
No notification here about this? See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#User:Rp2006 and something at RSN about Skeptical Inquirer. Doug Weller talk 19:19, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
This project may be interested in Ceremonial stone landscape, a controversial concept in Native American archeology. Thriley ( talk) 04:10, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
Should be of interest. Doug Weller talk 20:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a discussion occurring at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Philosophy#Fallacy_articles that may interest members of this WikiProject. RapturousRatling ( talk) 22:32, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
I have nominated Green children of Woolpit for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. ( t · c) buidhe 22:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
WP:FTN#Eyes needed on some pseuodhistorian articles. Doug Weller talk 16:37, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
I have started a discussion over whether whether Wikipedia should describe psychics or mediums as "claimed", "self-purported", etc. Obviously, I do not think Wikipedia should be promoting fringe claims of individuals, but I am concerned that (a) the policy is being applied inconsistently here, and (b) co-ordinated editing, as related to the ongoing arb case regarding certain members of this WikiProject, may be influencing decisions here. However, I would greatly appreciate any other takes on the situation. Thank you. — AFreshStart ( talk) 14:33, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Of possible interest to members of this project; see this story in today's Guardian. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 15:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
In the recent ArbCom discussions it was made clear by several committee members that pseudoarcheology is covered by the fringe and pseudoscience discretionary sanctions. Doug Weller talk 08:15, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Sharon A. Hill has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 17:42, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
The article Protoscience has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
This article is just a wordy dictionary definition, it contains no significant encyclopedic material. It has been this way for at least sixteen years, see the talk page discussion on Delete the article. Per our policy on WP:NOTADICTIONARY, it has no business here.
While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your
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the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
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speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and
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consensus for deletion. — Cheers,
Steelpillow (
Talk) 14:46, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
I recently created a draft for anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss. There is currently controversy regarding her views about the return of Native American remains and the way her own institution treated her. I would appreciate some help from this project as it is a sensitive subject. Thriley ( talk) 00:07, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
I have nominated Truthiness for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. – Kavyansh.Singh ( talk) 08:51, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
There is an editorial disagreement on the dowsing pseudoscience article over whether fake bomb detectors are relevant. Some more eyes/views at Talk:Dowsing#Explosive Detectors would be appreciated. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 16:53, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
So this is it - I see we have a bunch of new people who have joined and expect more. I posted a couple days ago that I thought a themed subproject might be the way to get people checking in here often, and get us to know each other better and each other's talents. I tried and tried to find a group of pages that were skepticism related that needed work, but all I could find was science related pages. I want something we can dig our teeth into and spend a few months just digging into. I don't want to create a to-do list for someone else - that wouldn't motivate me. On Afrikaans Wikipedia every year they run an event to rewrite stubs, anything I think on any topic that was labeled a stub (they call them seeds which I think is a much better name because we want them to grow) so that's what I'm proposing a party to grow seeds (okay I'm not great with the naming stuff) Let me see if I can figure out how to make a subproject. No rules, but I propose we should shoot for June 1st, 2022. Sgerbic ( talk) 21:52, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
Here you go Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Skepticism Stub Sub-Project Project (SSSPP) Until June 1st, 2022. Sgerbic ( talk) 22:30, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm looking at the Blood stasis stub (BS) with the aim of re-writing it. I first cleaned up the dirty little stub and went to the chinese-language obituary and (Google) translated it to confirm its veracity. (It makes for interesting reading). I've found several journal articles written in support of BS, some of which I am planning to include. These were all written by scientists or clinicians involved with TCM and / or TCM institutions. I've also found some good counter-arguments at Science-Based Medicine with links to PubMed articles. Does anybody have any other ideas? Wyatt Tyrone Smith ( talk) 15:42, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
TCM practicioners believe it is an important underlying pathology-- Hob Gadling ( talk) 10:16, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
Jimminy crickets Wyatt! You have just finished this rewrite and I'm still fussing on my first one. Go ahead and make me look bad already. Actually go ahead and make me look bad. I have a busy day today and don't think I'll finish Fred, I'm at the point where I have a lot of reading to do. Sgerbic ( talk) 19:26, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
I've never heard of this man before - but it's mine. He married the daughter of a wealthy rancher in Salinas. That's my town! I'll try my hand at this radionic guy Fred J. Hart (businessman). I guess I'll be learning all about radionics and Albert Abrams. If anyone have comments to add, please comment here - will get full use of my Newspapers.com subscription (BTW Wikimedia library offers it free). Sgerbic ( talk) 22:59, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
Adding my sandbox (please don't edit without asking - but you are welcome to view) User:Sgerbic/sandbox Sgerbic ( talk) 23:05, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
I can't stand dealing with WMC - so hoping someone will have an answer for me about this. Working on this page I discovered that Hart ran for congress in 1944. This advertisement appeared and I would like to have it uploaded to WMC for use on his Wikipedia page. It's over 75 years old and is low rez. What are the rules for this, and if I can do it, how do I do it? [15] Sgerbic ( talk) 04:52, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
So finding out a lot using Newspapers.com - just trying to put it all in order. I'm currently wondering about how to use (or should I use) a description of him. I've come across a few that were written by reporters that wrote about him, one is on a book that quotes the reporter. They talk about his energy and size like "smart, peppy and gregarious go-getter" another says "a very large, strong, impressive-looking man" and another "impression of being an English prizefighter with lots of energy and reserve force" and so on. All these descriptions of Hart can be attributed, and I think that it helps the reader picture the man and understand why he seemed to be involved in so much and seemed to always be in charge. And because I don't have a photo, and am unlikely to find one, having this on the Wikipedia page would be helpful. But I'm not sure where to add it? It wouldn't be under career or early history (which I can't seem to find) maybe under personal life? Thoughts on this would be appreciated. Sgerbic ( talk) 20:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
I can't stand dealing with WMCI'd like to avoid it too now but cannot tell which WMC this is about. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 07:14, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
I sure wish that this content was available for use on WikiMedia Commons. A lot of good it's doing stuck in a carton that you have to go and look at in person and can't photograph. The papers on the reserach they were doing with low level radio frequency energy to cancerous mice and measured the size of the mice tumors is also included here. It says the information is restricted till 2019. I think I have read about this. [17] Sure wish the photos were uploaded at least. Sgerbic ( talk) 00:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
I should be done by now but it is so confusing. The years are all over the place. From what I can gather, Hart's wife Eva got breast cancer and had surgery and then was dying of it and Hart wanted to treat his wife with some medical device and the AMA shut him down. After Eva's death he opened up the National Health Foundation. This is all from the NHF website. But then it also says that Fred got interested in Abrams work in 1916 to cure her cancer. They only married in 1914 and had a daughter then. But she for sure didn't die till 1962 (I have her obit) so ???? I just emailed the NHF and asked them if the years on their website were correct. I'm hoping they will correct the website and not just email me back. I didn't tell them why I wanted to know, just that the way they worded the website it appears that everything even Eva's death happened in 1955. He was ordered by the AMA to stop treating Eva and others in 1955 (according to the NHF website) but according to his daughter's "papers", the daughter learned to use the machines and inherited the machines from her dad. So if Fred was shut down by the AMA in 1955, and still had the machines, and even his daughter knew how to use the machines, then why did he stop treating Eva privately at home? If he did and she lived till 1962 but was marked as "dying" in 1955, then that seems like something the foundation would be bragging about. At least now in 2022 they would mention this as everyone is now dead who could be in trouble. The website does say that he was busted in 1962 for using the machines. (I'll copy this over to the Hart talk page - but wanted to get your thoughts on this) Like what do I do if they email me the correct information but their website stays at 1916? Should I just only mention that on the talk page and leave the years out of it? But without the years it is even more confusing and does not fully tell the story of Fred Hart. I mean he was a successful businessman in real estate and was great with radio stations, why devote his life to radionics? Sgerbic ( talk) 00:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
Dear Skeptics: The article Frank Scully as currently written looks like a textbook example of how skeptics (or anybody) should NOT make a Wikipedia article. It devotes virtually the entire article to describing and "debunking" an aspect that was mentioned in a few columns and a book by someone most known for humor writing and screenplays. It appears that almost no effort has ever been made to examine the totality of sources and appropriate weight to grant any aspect, rather the lamentable trend of hyper focusing on the salacious and easily debunkable has been followed. Scully's relatively lengthy New York Times obituary gives all of three sentences to his (poorly received) writing on flying saucers. His brief obituary in Time magazine describes him as "Frank Scully, 72, author and columnist, who lost a leg to osteomyelitis and a lung to tuberculosis but made the most of his 30 years in and out of hospitals by writing Fun in Bed, Bedside Manna and Just What the Doctor Ordered, three bestsellers of the '30s that combined puzzles, good-humored jokes and vignettes for bedsore patients." No UFO mumbo jumbo. There are no BLP issues since the subject has been dead since the 60s, but keep this in mind when experiencing the urge to debunk a UFO proponent: the content found in skeptical/UFO-related literature may be a small, myopic fraction of the coverage in reliable sources. --Animalparty! ( talk) 01:46, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
Not sure I understand, reading this again - I thought that --Animalparty! was calling dibs on this rewrite, now that I read it again, I'm not sure that is true? Sgerbic ( talk) 00:24, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
Someone should do a rewrite? Well, I'm about to condense the article a bit, with some sourced boilerplate info added (not much is available, unfortunately) but retaining some of the flying saucer material. I will also remove the FBI memo stuff, as it might be of interest/relevance to some other pages but in this article seems a bridge too far. JoJo Anthrax ( talk) 17:01, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
While finishing up the Fred Hart page I stumbled on the Ruth Drown Wikipedia page. It's also someone found guilty of using one of these radio devices, except this one had even less moving parts, two wires, one went to the human. I like working on American's because I like to use Newspapers.com to find citations. I think this will be a lot quicker than Fred was, probably not as quick as Wyatt, but I'll give it a go. No photos could be found on WMC. So probably none. Sgerbic ( talk) 06:55, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
Caution: I was feeling frustrated when I wrote this so it might not be phrased as sweetly as I might normally. But I think the points are valid, so I left it as is. No offence intended.
I joined this WikiProject some time ago, but I still don't really understand how it is supposed to work. Who creates the list to do, for instance? Or does every member just add to it whatever they personally think is important? Or what is the purpose of the big list of articles on the main page - is that intended to be an exhaustive list of everything in scope of the WikiProject, and what are we supposed to do with those articles? The page of Resources is just as opaque - what does something like "Tagged articles changes database report" mean and what am I supposed to do with it, for example?
Frankly, some of these things look like an individual developed something for their own use, and just parked it here so they don't lose it. If they are meant for general use, then how can we find out what they are, when to use them, and what to do with them?-- Gronk Oz ( talk) 07:39, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
Hello all. Frustrated at clicking on articles in the Stubs category and finding the article is 10 paragraphs long, I went through all the stubs starting with A, re-assessing two-thirds of them. In the off chance that someone would like to check my work, I reassessed these as B-class: Bernard Acworth, Julia Belluz (ok doesn't start with A but did it anyway), Autologous blood therapy. C-class: 7 Wonders Museum, Affranchi (although I have no idea why it’s of interest to the project), Apostacon, Apport (paranormal), Arthur Findlay College. Start-class: After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond (redirected to authors's article). Also removed a bunch of old assessment notices from redirect pages and other admin thingies.
And I said I wouldn't do assessments... if it's ok, I'd like to keep going. Feedback welcome.
Robincantin ( talk) 23:38, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
Can anybody advise what the proper etiquette is here ... if I expand a Stub article, I have always avoided changing the classification myself (that would be like marking your own homework; I can't be objective). But if I just leave it, years could go by and nobody notices that it needs to be reclassified, and in the meantime it clutters up WikiProject lists, etc. Is there some way to flag an article as needing re-assessment?-- Gronk Oz ( talk) 05:49, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
I've done some work on the Estrogen dominance stub but there really isn't much there. Does anybody know of a reputable source that discusses it or the symptoms attributed to it? Wyatt Tyrone Smith ( talk) 18:56, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
I think I have just found my next stub rewrite. It checks all my favorite boxes, American, biography, old and very interesting. "Painting the mouse" I've not heard of that before - nor this person, but hopefully I can spend some time getting to know him. William Summerlin, nice to meet you. Sgerbic ( talk) 06:10, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
This is weird - I'm looking at this article [23] and it has four linked citation numbers at the beginning, I opened them up in another tab and they all were the same citation, the same one I was currently looking at. Sgerbic ( talk) 01:38, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
And this is DONE! Done I tell you! Anyway, so interesting - way more than I had thought when I stumbled across it. I'm going to leave my thoughts on the talk page and move on to something else. Thanks for your help all. Sgerbic ( talk) 00:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I've not heard of this person before - and I don't think he was ever a CSI Fellow - but he was on the Skepticism stub list. It looks like it might be interesting, so I'll give it a go. BTW I went though the stub category list and boy were there a lot that were rewritten some time ago but the stub tag wasn't removed. So now it is an even 200 items on the list that are awaiting a rewrite. Sgerbic ( talk) 06:58, 14 March 2022 (UTC) All done! I left my notes on the talk page. Looking for my next one now. Sgerbic ( talk) 05:13, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
I've looked at Michael W. Friedlander and the page has some potential to be rewritten, so I'm claiming it as my next project. Wyatt Tyrone Smith ( talk) 16:32, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
I removed all editors that had joined this project that have not edited English Wikipedia in over a year. We lost 77 people which is sad because looking at their interest I would have loved to have them here. I picked a year just because it seemed like it would be easy to figure out. I reviewed other Wikipedia projects to see how they manage their inactive members so we are in line with them. Of course if someone decides to start editing Wikipedia again and they notice that they have been marked "inactive" in this project, they can just move their name back to active. This appears to be the first time anyone has attempted to clean up the participants before. Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Participants So we went from 228 to 151, and there were many that haven't edited Wikipedia in 11 months, so we will probably loose more in the next few months.
My question is how do we let these remaining 151 know that we are attempting to Rejuvenate this project? If they have this page on their watchlist then that would be the obvious way (if they look at their watchlist that is). You would think that if they signed onto the project with the express goal of being on a team that focuses in this area and wants to be active they would be excited to come back and help out. There is a lot of work to be done. I know it is still early days, but I would hope to see their shiny happy faces here on talk sooner rather than later. Can we put out a notice somewhere? What is the protocol to tag people? Can we tag 150 people and let them know we are waiting for them? Your thoughts please. Sgerbic ( talk) 07:44, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
Wow - Wikipedia:WikiProject Astrology/Members "This is a manually compiled list. If you have constructively participated in this project, feel free to add yourself. You may also wish to list your specific interests or areas in which you would like to participate. Participants with no edits to pages within scope within the last year or who are inactive for 6 months may be removed from the list of active members." If we did this - our project would be down to about a dozen editors. Sgerbic ( talk) 19:26, 16 March 2022 (UTC)19:13, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for contacting me. It is good that you are trying to get the Project up and running again. I will try to help when I can, but I am 83 and my memory is not what it was. Good job I resigned as an admin!! -- Bduke ( talk) 07:00, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19 § RFC: How should we include allegations of undercounting?. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 13:11, 20 March 2022 (UTC) — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 13:11, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 |
There is currently an RfC on whether or not to include a reference to NoFap in Masturbation. Interested editors can join the discussion here. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 02:43, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Please feel free to take part in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Place of power. Thank you. John Carter ( talk) 21:53, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
See discussion at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Organic_frequencies. OhNoitsJamie Talk 16:37, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I am still not really interested in returning to Wikipedia to undertake the sort of housecleaning here, but a constellation of pages regarding Werner Erhard, his EST organization and their descendants has some serious, serious, serious WP:NPOV issues. Recommend somebody with some knowledge of MLM and cults have a look to improve. Simonm223 ( talk) 17:32, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at WP:CFD that may be related to the topic of this wiki project. Interested editors are invited to join the discussion. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 16:21, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
What's going on? Did people move somewhere else?
Also, am I missing something or are there no archive for 2014 and 2015? Karlpoppery ( talk) 07:08, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
The 2013 archive actually covers 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016! Lots of projects have become less active with time. -- Bduke (Discussion) 07:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
First time I've posted here so not sure if this is where I need to post to get attention or not. I've just added a talk page and added a comment about the Ron Miscavige page that I'm questioning if it is noteworthy enough to stand alone from the book's page. Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me Please answer on the talk page for the individual. Sgerbic ( talk) 21:52, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
Over the past few days, I've assessed about 1000 previously unassessed articles that were stock in the backlog of this project, so that we now have a functioning quality and importance scale system. I've also redone the list of Top importance articles, so that it nows include 38 articles on things like objections to evolution, vaccine controversies, anecdotal evidence and homeopathy. I encourage anyone willing to try to improve these articles. We also have about 200 High-importance articles that should be given some attention. They include subjects like water fluoridation and ghost hunting.
If anyone plans to work on one of those articles, don't hesitate to talk about it on the project's talk page, and to steal experts from other projects.
I've removed most articles from the " needing attention" list, as some of them were there for years without being worked on. Some linked to dead articles, others to articles that had already received plenty of attention and were now fine. The 23 articles that remain are terrible and all have issues that are properly tagged. Anyone can click on any of these articles and fix them. It would be feasible to clear this backlog, so that the needing attention section would become usable. I believe this section should only be used for terrible pseudoscientific articles that need urgent attention, and that they should be removed after a few days at most, when the issue is fixed.
In addition, some sections of the project that were outdated and unusable have been updated. We now have a new to-do list that is shorter and make sense, and a new list of articles needing improvement. Don't hesitate to add articles to the to-do list if you intend to work on them.
I've also removed the mood killing inactive banner. Karlpoppery ( talk) 01:54, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I've put this as our next objective in the project's to-do list. Please comment if you agree, disagree or think of something better. Karlpoppery ( talk) 02:21, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Should the top two goals of this project really be about "creating new articles", as stated on the main page? This seems like a relic of an ancient time. Karlpoppery ( talk) 08:41, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I tried to improve the look of the project, and to update it a little. Please click around and tell me if I messed up anything! Karlpoppery ( talk) 00:37, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
Check it out here. It's a list of 50 articles that are regularly subject to problematic pseudoscientific edits. The whole list can be added to the user's watchlist in a few seconds. This is meant as a way to make cooperation between skeptical wikipedians more efficient.
The list can be found from the main page (monitoring section) and from the project resource section. Karlpoppery ( talk) 22:31, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Anusara School of Hatha Yoga has been added to the to-do list. — Paleo Neonate — 03:05, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Added " Aura (paranormal) - Complete rewrite" on the to do list. I'll spend a few day on this, obviously any help would be welcome! KarlPoppery ( talk) 21:24, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
I have no idea if this kind of topic is appropriate here. But I've expressed there (
Talk:Abraham#Baha.27i) something which others have also noticed, some have complained about this in the past as well. A mostly non-notable group (except on Wikipedia) has overwhelming coverage here, often in undue weight. Some Wikiprojects like the Jehovah's Witnesses one, (despite being a more notable group) don't allow this type of promotion when they encounter it.
In the above example, the Abraham article, covers major religions currents like Christianity, Judaism, Islam... suddenly, the very special variety of Islam that is Baha'i is presented like if it was one of those great religions. If the JWs were mentioned there it'd be under Christianity at most (and it's not mentioned at all), even if they too consider themselves a very special religion separate from the rest of Christianity. Even in templates, Baha'i is usually overrepresented as a major religion.
Some of the Bhai'i promotion, if not most of it, seems to be added by SPAs (like in the above case) which often have been recently created, suggesting that there may be a special effort to give that group prominence on Wikipedia.
It may also require a group effort to locate and ensure proper weight of those mentions (or remove them) everywhere, which is why I finally decided to post about this issue here. If this is not the right place to discuss this, I would be glad to know where it would be more appropriate. Thanks, —
Paleo
Neonate — 20:27, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I noticed the Popular pages bot has been resurrected, so I signed this project up to get a report from it. It runs reports on the 2nd of each month so we should get our first report on June 2nd. Unless I screwed it up, the report should appear at this page. -- Krelnik ( talk) 18:00, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Geist Group: skeptics or charlatans? (note: also see talk page). Thanks, — Paleo Neonate — 06:10, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
I would appreciate anyone's comments at Talk:Electromagnetic hypersensitivity#Reopening Sweden EHS matter -- papageno ( talk) 04:42, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Donald Yates is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donald Yates until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. — Paleo Neonate - 08:56, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
The discussion may be of interest to folks who hang out around here. XOR'easter ( talk) 19:58, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
Made a new WikiProject at WP:CHIRO if anyone else in this project is interested. Feel free to join! Just went active today. SEMMENDINGER ( talk) 22:36, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Hello, |
I've noticed that the article " Barnum effect" has been in queue for quite some time, awaiting to be reviewed through the GA process. The Barnum effect is a very interesting topic, and one that is key to understand nearly all brands of pseudoscience. If any of our members are experienced in the Good Articles review process, it would be a valuable use of your time to help user:Meatsgains by reviewing this article! KarlPoppery ( talk) 20:35, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Done Congrats to Meatsgains and Power~enwiki. — Paleo Neonate – 05:27, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seventh-day Adventist historicist interpretations of Bible prophecy (2nd nomination). James ( talk/ contribs) 05:03, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi, I would like to nominate the above article for deletion as a poorly written article that apparently duplicates Planetary objects proposed in religion, astrology, ufology and pseudoscience, but as an unregistered user I need someone to do this for me. 165.91.12.190 ( talk) 04:45, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I took it upon myself to downgrade the Dietary supplement article from B-class to C-class because in my opinion so much of it was incomplete, incoherent, off-topic, under-referenced, etc. I have since been editing the article. Anyone else wants to get involved - great. I have no intention of "owning" this article. At some point the collective changes may warrant upgrading to B-class. I do not intend to make that decision, as I am too close to the topic. David notMD ( talk) 17:06, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
If anyone wants to give feedback about my article, go to the peer review page and feel free to do so. -- LovelyGirl7 talk 22:40, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
I have nominated the Philipp Budeikin page for deletion. He is credited with creating the Blue Whale (game). The discussion has been resisted so I thought I might mention it here to drum up some interest, and hopefully get a consensus one way or another. The discussion is here 8==8 Boneso ( talk) 09:37, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
I wrote this article about a ghost-hunter turned skeptical activist, and it was almost immediately put up for deletion after I published it. Feel free to weigh-in on the matter:
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Kenny Biddle is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kenny Biddle until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. RobP ( talk) 01:06, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Note that no consensus was reached, and it has now been relisted "to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus."
There is also a discussion going on regarding the content of the article (photo inclusion, etc) here: [1] RobP ( talk) 05:19, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Hi all. I have written an article on Bob Nygaard which you may be interested in. He is a private investigator I heard about on Skepticality who specializes in the investigation of psychic fraud. Please take a look at it in my sandbox and offer any constructive criticism you may have. If there are minor errors (punctuation, typos...) feel free to fix them right in the sandbox, but for bigger stuff, let me know here please. (I wish I had a photo, but there is nothing in Commons!) Thanks! RobP ( talk) 20:58, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
Here we go again. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 15:44, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
I've been aware of this page for some time. I've kept an eye on it but not really had the energy to do major work on it. The problem is simple; she's a woo merchant but the entire page is carefully constructed to give an appearance of respectability (multiple invocations of "research", etc). I'm sorry to drop the problem in your lap but hope someone has the time to give it a going-over and chase up some cites to say this stuff is woo. Pinkbeast ( talk) 17:19, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Hello, I am trying to improve the article Fallacy, and as the first step I have restructured it (shuffled sections and paragraphs around). I would like to ask for some feedback on its talk page to see if I am going the right way. Thanks :) Petr Matas 15:49, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I have been working on recommending new members for your project for a while, and have sent some lists to PaleoNeonate who helped invite those recommended editors. I wonder if you mind me sending invitations directly for WikiProject Skepticism on your behalf to save time and efforts of yours? Thank you! Bobo.03 ( talk) 18:11, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Got into an argument at work with someone over Kinesio tape at work today. He looked up the article on WP, and it was pretty neutral which he took to mean it likely works. To hell with that. Got home and went nuclear on it. Added SBM and Skeptoid (and other critiques) to the article - and then mentioned that it is pseudoscience right in the lead. Also removed all the Further Reading material as it was original research type stuff from proponents. Tagged the article as Alt-Med too. Don't know if this all will stick. May need support on this one! RobP ( talk) 01:40, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Checking to see if people have seen this news. Not sure when it is going to launch.
I am looking into if it is possible to get a list of articles they plan to link to and a list of articles by number of pageviews coming from Youtube.
Wondering what others measures people think could help prevent any issues from occurring due to this? As most of these topics will be semi protected already I do not imagine many problems. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 20:05, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Glad that you guys saw this. I wasn't sure where to post it, so I did post about it on AN (thanks for sharing here Doc James). Also, this thread was just linked on Twitter by a Verge reporter not long ago -- TheSandDoctor ( talk) 22:54, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I just nominated this article for deletion. Check it out and weigh in if you are interested. RobP ( talk) 19:02, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
I have opened a discussion at Talk:Witchcraft#Witch and witchcraft: two Wikidata items, and a problem which is of relevance to this WikiProject. Narky Blert ( talk) 21:44, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
There is an RfC at the Sean Hannity article talk page members of this project might interested in taking part in here. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 17:20, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
This article I contributed to has been nominated for deletion. Feel free to give your opinion here: [2] RobP ( talk) 12:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Just listened to the new Skeptoid analysis of Environmental Working Groupand its annual Dirty Dozen food list. Both the main article and the Pesticides in the United States (containing the list) need Skeptical attention. As a minimum, the current criticism in the EWG article should be summarized in the lead. RobP ( talk) 12:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
The title says it all. Ill be in the material gathering process for a bit and then will get started on writing the thing. It'll be done in this particular sandbox.
If you have any thoughts, want to help, or anything really catch me here or the talk page for the construction space.
Cheers Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 19:44, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Would appreciate any support at the Talk page for Robert O. Becker, the section Request for consideration of article rewrite. -- papageno ( talk) 03:54, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
The article on zener cards needs skeptical attention and basically an entire rewrite. I've informed the talk page there and Im sandboxing the project presently. Help is, as always, welcome from all parties. Cheers. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 14:35, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
Dear everyone, I am a newbie on Wikipedia. I recently used an English site of German skeptic Holm Gero Hümmler to translate it to German. Both of the pages don't have enough references outside of the "skeptical bubble" yet. While I do have some links that I want to incorporate in both for references, sources and his publications and to improve the pages generally (especially the German page), I could absolutely use some help, as I'm quite inexperienced. So you can access both of the pages with the link above. If you are interested, I can always post the links and articles I do have here or on one of the Talk pages (German or English Talk page of him). Thanks in advance! Lluvia-aweiku ( talk) 19:50, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
I noticed that articles like John Edward and Tyler Henry have this template, which seems reasonable enough. The articles are, however, not in the template, no people are. Should we give people like this a section in the template, perhaps also people like Houdini and Randi, or leave things as they are? Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 19:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
And another thing. The template/sidebar is near invisible collapsed. How about a middleground like the Bible-sidebar in
The Bible and humor?
Gråbergs Gråa Sång (
talk) 22:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
For some reason Living dinosaur wasn't already tagged with WikiProject Skepticism (surprising given how long it's been struggling with cryptozoology content), so this didn't show up in the notifications. See: Talk:Living dinosaur if you wish to comment. -- tronvillain ( talk) 12:00, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.
Portals are being redesigned.
The new design features are being applied to existing portals.
At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{ Transclude lead excerpt}}.
The discussion about this can be found here.
Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.
On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.
Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.
So far, 84 editors have joined.
If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.
If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.
Thank you. — The Transhumanist 11:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
I was looking through Wanted Pages and I ran into Occult writers and antisemitism. It doesn't exist and has north of 5000 wikilinks to it, instant traffic and a topic that clearly has some interest as well as being relevant to this project. It's also one that a brief initial glance tells me there is enough out there to write something with some meat on it.
When I finish the initial draft I suspect Ill need some help tagging and categorizing the article properly and whatever else I don't know about for writing a brand new article. Cheers. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 15:57, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Discussion of a proposed consolidated Weapons of power in Hindu epics article is at Talk:Kurukshetra War#New article proposed - "Weapons of power in Hindu epics". -- Bejnar ( talk) 14:44, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
I wrote my first brand new article. I wandered into the topic through this project by taking a look at Freemen on the land (an article that I'll be doing some work on) and I noticed that it mentions the strawman idea but there was no article. Now Strawman theory has one.
I have it marked as needing attention on this project because it likely needs attention seeing as it's my first attempt at writing something that was not here before. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 19:29, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
I am glad to see that there was so much activity here when I as mostly gone in the last few months. I'll consider updating the bot archival rate if necessary. Although this page is no substitute for WP:FTN, it is likely the ideal place to discuss new articles and for noncontroversial editing collaboration, as was done above. I see new editors and new articles, keep up the good work! — Paleo Neonate – 20:39, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
So I've been over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative views starting the process of injecting skepticism and science into some of the articles they're collectively paying attention to and I came across comparative medicine, a little mess of a stub. I decided to expand it because it's a deep and broad topic and deserves more than what's there. I've got a very good start on getting that done and when I complete it I'll be sure to share it here.
So far I've covered History up to the Polio vaccine, ethics, translational issues (research being applicable in pre-clinical and clinical trials), the reproducibility crisis that is plaguing most branches of science at the moment, and I have found enough material to write a well sourced section on legal considerations.
The problem I'm having is that I can't find a good history to take my writing into the 21st century. Every book seems to get to polio and just move on. Is anyone able to locate a source (or several!) on the history of comparative medicine past the 1950's?
Cheers. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 19:36, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Confirmation bias is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, so I decided to ask for feedback here: Rune370 added a link from Confirmation bias to the newly created article " Synchromysticism", and I removed the link due to unclear relevance. (I searched for "synchromysticism" on Google Scholar and turned up only a few articles on "invented religions".) Rune370 has been creating related pages such as Template:Chaos magic and Gnosis (chaos magic) and Servitor (chaos magic) (which seems to me to be of very questionable notability) and linking some of them to more mainstream psychology articles. Any feedback on this would be appreciated: For example, does Servitor (chaos magic) appear notable? Thanks, Biogeographist ( talk) 13:26, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
"significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", and for a fringe theory, a topic
"is considered notable enough for a dedicated article if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers"it's not obvious that Servitor (chaos magic) meets notability. Of course, that doesn't apply to content within an article - one could easily have a section on "Servitors" within an article on chaos magic, but establishing notability for a stand-alone article is another matter entirely. -- tronvillain ( talk) 14:09, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
I'm tooling through the cleanup listing looking for something to work on and couldn't help but notice that its pretty inaccurate in a lot of places. I have no idea how to update it or what the criteria for doing so is but I'm willing to learn and take on at least some of that work. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 16:39, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi all, Wikimedia Foundation staff have been working with YouTube to learn more about the feature (called information panels) developed by their team which will link to Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica articles from videos about conspiracy theories on YouTube. This announcement was first made in March of this year, and the feature will be rolled out starting this week. (This was previously discussed onwiki here, here, and here, amongst other places). We wanted to let folks know about the rollout and share more information about articles that may be impacted by the new feature. We have been supplied with a list of the initial English Wikipedia articles that they are going to be linking to. Those articles are: Global warming, Dulce Base, Lilla Saltsjöbadsavtalet, 1980 Camarate air crash, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Kecksburg UFO incident, and MMR vaccine.
The Foundation staff who are in contact with YouTube about the feature spoke with a handful of admins leading up to the rollout. From those conversations, we do not anticipate this will create a substantial increase in vandalism on English Wikipedia, but we will be monitoring this with the YouTube team. If you have any questions, concerns, or notice an increase in negative behavior on those articles, please let me or GVarnum-WMF know.
You can find an overview of the announcement from YouTube in this section of their latest blog post. We will update you here if we have more new information. Cheers, Quiddity (WMF) ( talk) 17:16, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sasha Carrion. -- Marchjuly ( talk) 00:12, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Why is Black hole a WikiProject Skepticism article? Unless someone comes up with a good reason, I will remove this project from that article's Talk page. RobP ( talk) 19:38, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Hi all, I’m a little new here but I’ve created my first article. There was a consensus a while ago when I first put it up for review that it didn’t meet notability. I’ve done a lot of work since then, on advice from some experienced editors. Could I please ask you to read my page as it is now and tell me if it meets the notability standard before I publish? If it doesn’t, then I’d be happy to take any suggestions to strengthen it. /info/en/?search=User:330highflyer/sandbox2 Thanks, 330highflyer ( talk) 05:02, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks everybody for the feedback and help. And your comments have given me the confidence to publish. Very happy with the page now. 330highflyer ( talk) 20:45, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Hey so an article in your project ( Examination of Apollo Moon photographs) (and one I believe relevant to your interests) has been nominated for AfD by yours truly. Article has had issues related to POV, lack of reliable sources, use of original research, and a lack of wikipedia-like style for at least a decade. These issues have not been fixed. All useful and wikipedia-relevant content has already been merged into Moon landing conspiracy theories. The fact that this article exists at all on wikipedia reduces the overall reputation of the wiki. All relevant photographs already exist on the other page, all relevant citations already exist there, etc. So if you'd like to contribute to that discussion, go ahead and check out ---> Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Examination of Apollo Moon photographs (2nd nomination). Thanks!-- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 19:43, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. -- Izno Repeat ( talk) 21:36, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
The Bigfoot hunter and Missing 411 conspiracy author David Paulides has posted to his blog here that his bio on WP needs correction. There have been multiple IP editors attempting to remove criticism - likely as a result. An interesting conversation is happening on the Talk page! Mostly, so far, just regarding attempts to remove the label cryptozoologist. RobP ( talk) 00:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Fans of Paulides are once again attempting to dilute criticism in his article. Please chime in! RobP ( talk) 12:32, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Hi all, I don't know if this is the right place, but these articles definitely need some attention. I'm just posting here to try and solicit help on revamping the many Anthroposophy-related articles. For many years, these articles have had pervasive POV issues mostly due to hyper-involved single-purpose editors with COIs. The articles in question are Anthroposophy, Waldorf education, Anthroposophic medicine, and Biodynamic agriculture. Most of these articles read like promotional material and desperately need our help. To get more specific Anthroposophic medicine is actually pretty good, but the others in that list are pretty good examples of WP:BROCHURE.
I could give you the diffs and the many ArbCom rulings, ANI postings, etc. (and will if asked) but suffice it to say that there is a very small group of editors who are themselves professionally linked to Anthroposophy and Waldorf education who are gatekeeping the articles so that all edits are filtered through their lens. As a result, many of the criticisms and less-favorable aspects of the history of this new age religion are dimmed in favor of excessive detail about the adherents' beliefs and positive praises of the subject material.
I of course want these articles to detail the beliefs of anthroposophists, no question about that. But overly favorable language and WP:WEASEL words are pretty rampant throughout. Then the many racist and unscientific views of adherents (anti-vax, anti-microbial theory of disease, their founder Steiner didn't believe in evolution, believed in racial "types", reincarnation, believed Jewish people should fully assimilate and abandon all Jewish identifiers, etc.) are minimized and reduced in size, book-ended with positive praise, and so on. Combine that with the overly wrought language and hyper-sophistry of the article text, and you have what we see today. I will tell you that if you agree to help me, you may become exhausted in the process. But if the wiki itself is less promotional in the process, it will have been worth it!!
Please don't come into this process with fiercely pro- or anti-Steiner views. The guy was just a random 19th century philosopher who had some interesting and crazy ideas. The only reason I'm interested in these articles is because of how clearly they are an example of what can happen when a very diligent, very obsessive, very biased group of editors are 99% of the edits on a set of controversial articles.
I personally am starting with the root article Anthroposophy and then hope to expand to revamp the daughter articles in the series. I've tried in the past to help bring these articles to NPOV, but was unsuccessful like many before me due to attrition, wiki-breaks, and a general dissatisfaction dealing with the very involved COI-editors. So I'm hoping that asking for help from more uninvolved editors will do the trick. Any takers? Thanks. -- Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 17:58, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
I find the episode descriptions in ghost/paranormal TV show articles often riddled with extreme promotional hype, WP:COPYVIO, WP:V and WP:PROFRINGE problems. Here's just one example. This type of cleanup is fairly simple, but it does take time. Volunteers are appreciated at articles such as List of Ghost Adventures: Aftershocks episodes, Ghost Brothers and The Othersiders. Thanks, - LuckyLouie ( talk) 19:27, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Hello, this page is up for deletion and I think this group would be interested in it. Malcolm Kendrick has promoted conspiracy theories about cholesterol and statins. Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 03:27, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Closed with a delete. What a mess that was, but it is over. Sgerbic ( talk) 04:25, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Afd opened for Fat Head, an unscientific conspiracy theory documentary. Cannot find a single reliable source that mentions this documentary. Perhaps someone else can take a look? MatthewManchester1994 ( talk) 21:34, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
I am letting you know of an rfc to merge List of cryptids. Which ever way the wind blows you are welcome to join in. Fyunck(click) ( talk) 08:01, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
What categories should the Gaia,_Inc. article have added? The website's listed topics are here and include a range of pseudoscience and alt.medicine, so I'd recon similar categories to Natural_News and maybe Goop_(company)? Any options welcomed. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) talk 02:54, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
Members of WikiProject Skepticism might like to know that there is a discussion / vote going on at Talk:MMR vaccine controversy#Time to move about renaming that article. The basis is that there is no longer a legitimate controversy. So they are considering changing it to one of the following:
If you would like to contribute, please join in.-- Gronk Oz ( talk) 14:20, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Short version: I noticed that Category:Magicians and its subcats contain several people who are not illusionists but people who think (or claim) they can do real magic. They should have a separate category, but I do not know what name it should have.
The long version is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Paranormal, but I guess people here would be interested too. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 20:49, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
There is a dispute on the Havana Syndrome (See here) regarding the qualifications of Robert Bartholomew to state his expert opinion that the "sonic attacks" on Americans in Cuba and China are actually psychogenic in nature. Please take a look and comment if interested! RobP ( talk) 03:21, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
A discussion of interest to the members of this project can be found at Talk:Conspiracy theory#"Without credible evidence". Beyond My Ken ( talk) 01:05, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
This from the NY Times. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 23:01, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Editor input is requested at Talk:Conspiracy theory#Lead (RfC). Thank you. Leviv ich 20:19, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ethan Lindenberger - ya'all might be interested in this discussion. Sgerbic ( talk) 21:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Having an edit war over criticism an editor (Alexbrn) insists on removing based on MEDRS, claiming this applies to alt-med as well as med if it involves pain management. ("Reports of pain reduction fall under WP:MEDRS.") Opinions? RobP ( talk) 20:41, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
See: Template:ArbCom Pseudoscience and also Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans RobP ( talk) 21:00, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
The new article hydrogen water, a product apparently marketed with pseudoscience, could probably use review from someone from this WikiProject. Thank you. Peacock ( talk) 14:42, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
These pages need a lot of attention. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to upgrade them to "high" on the wikiproject-skepticism on my own. But they need that. In general, essential oils should also be a covered topic for us. You'd think it'd be covered by "herbalism" but I've encountered the argument that it is not under our purview DolyaIskrina ( talk) 19:18, 27 April 2019 (UTC).
I transcluded some articles discussing natural explanations for miracles to Modern criticism of the Catholic Church. There is currently a discussion of the merits of that and other efforts at Talk:Criticism of the Catholic Church, if any of you are interested in evaluating them.-- Epiphyllumlover ( talk) 03:44, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
There's a discussion about a possible User Group for STEM over at Meta:Talk:STEM_Wiki_User_Group. The idea would be to help coordinate, collaborate and network cross-subject, cross-wiki and cross-language to share experience and resources that may be valuable to the relevant wikiprojects. Current discussion includes preferred scope and structure. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) talk 02:56, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the reliability of Logically Fallacious by Bo Bennett on the reliable sources noticeboard. If you're interested, please participate at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Logically Fallacious by Bo Bennett. — Newslinger talk 21:28, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
Coast to Coast AM ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
It's the one outlet that has arguably done the most in the past century to promulgate pseudoscience. I have added a much-needed, independently sourced Criticism section. Since creation in 2005, the article has largely been curated by fans and believers. Hence, the previous "Criticism" section contained petty squabbling between hosts about ratings, but little to zero about pseudoscience. I hope a few people will put this article on their watchlist. Thanks, - LuckyLouie ( talk) 21:14, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
I think we should add these under pseudo-history:
They qualify for conspiracy theories and hoaxes. — Partytemple ( talk) 01:01, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
This page has come across my computer. What do you think? Seems like it needs some special attention. State atheism Sgerbic ( talk) 21:46, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Up for deletion Tito Mukhopadhyay - /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tito_Mukhopadhyay Sgerbic ( talk) 21:56, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Continuing with the discussion of people using Facilitated Communication - we have many Wikipedia pages that are in AfD including this one for Larry Bissonnette. Can Bissonnette's art stand alone without his words, enough that he is worthy of a Wikipedia page? Anything that is claimed he has said about his work, was not his voice but that of his facilitator. So how can we know what he feels about any of this attention. How does anyone know what his true intent is for his artwork if his artist statements are facilitated? /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Larry_Bissonnette Sgerbic ( talk) 22:11, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
The article on Ball lightning needs a more balanced viewpoint. I started a discussion on the talk page but so far there is no reponse. PopSci ( talk) 16:00, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once said:
So yes, we are biased.
We are biased towards
science and biased against
pseudoscience.
We are biased towards
astronomy, and biased against
astrology.
We are biased towards
chemistry, and biased against
alchemy.
We are biased towards
mathematics, and biased against
numerology.
We are biased towards
medicine, and biased against
homeopathic medicine.
We are biased towards
venipuncture, and biased against
acupuncture.
We are biased towards
cargo planes, and biased against
cargo cults.
We are biased towards
vaccination, and biased against
vaccine hesitancy.
We are biased towards
magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against
magnetic therapy.
We are biased towards
crops, and biased against
crop circles.
We are biased towards
laundry soap, and biased against
laundry balls.
We are biased towards
water treatment, and biased against
magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards
electromagnetic fields, and biased against
microlepton fields.
We are biased towards
evolution, and biased against
creationism.
We are biased towards the
scientific consensus on climate change, and biased against
global warming conspiracy theories.
We are biased towards
geology, and biased against
flood geology.
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in
double-blind
clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon
preying on the gullible.
We are biased towards
astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against
ancient astronauts.
We are biased towards
psychology, and biased against
phrenology.
We are biased towards
mendelism, and biased against
lysenkoism.
And we are not going to change. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 02:22, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
hum, ...could benefit, imo, from some unbiased tlc, per WP policies and guidelines. Tks, 86.172.7.182 ( talk) 20:37, 26 August 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)
Interested users may wish to join a requested move discussion at Talk:The Great Replacement that concerns this project. Thank you. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 09:03, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
update: there is a new move discussion regarding whether to move Great Replacement → Great replacement conspiracy theory Nblund talk 19:12, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.
We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma ( talk) 04:24, 27 October 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)
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.
WikiProject Alternative views and WikiProject Skepticism have substantially similar, if not identical, scopes. The description of WikiProject Alternative views appears to indicate a more favorable perspective on non-mainstream theories. However, having two WikiProjects with similar scopes and different outlooks means that one of them is a point of view fork, and should be removed.
Between these two projects, WikiProject Skepticism is more active, with more pageviews, higher talk page activity (here vs. Alternative views), and a more active assessment department ( Skepticism vs. Alternative views).
From this, I am proposing to merge WikiProject Alternative views into WikiProject Skepticism. — Newslinger talk 21:35, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello, |
This article had accumulated a lot of cruft from fringe authors such as Henry Stevens, Jim Marrs and Gerold Schelm. The topic is a classic WP:FRINGE theory (secret Nazi antigravity technology, occultism, flying saucers, etc.) and requires WP:FRIND independent sources in order to maintain an objective article. So I've cleaned out the fringe sourcing and expanded the WP:RS sourcing: Before. After.. Unfortunately, this article is a popular drive-by target for fantasy and fringe advocates, so I hope a few folks here will put it on their watchlist. Also, if anyone has access to CSI articles that may have been published on the topic, please let me know. Thanks, - LuckyLouie ( talk) 21:07, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
There is a noticeboard discussion regarding the use of Climate Feedback and InsideClimate News to describe the accuracy of claims made by proponents of climate change denial. If you are interested, please participate at WP:BLPN § Accuracy of claims made by climate change deniers. — Newslinger talk 10:49, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
There's an RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence#RfC about lede to Race and intelligence about NPOV in the first paragraph of the article. More editor input is needed. Thanks. NightHeron ( talk) 02:00, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Editors who watchlist the article Scientific racism might be interested in looking at the related article Race and intelligence, which has been an area of contentious debate and edit-warring. (It is currently locked down for 3 days.) While Scientific racism is, I think, a good example of how Wikipedia handles fringe, the article Race and intelligence has a very different tone and content, as is clear from the first paragraph of the lede. See also Race and intelligence#The Jensenism debates. I'm putting this notice on all the WikiProjects that list Scientific racism as of high importance, in the hope that more editors will participate in discussions at Talk:Race and intelligence and help make the article compliant with WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE. The problems at Race and intelligence were discussed off-wiki here: [12]. Thanks. NightHeron ( talk) 13:41, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place of whether to delete the article Race and intelligence, see [13]. NightHeron ( talk) 12:26, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
There's an RfC at Talk:Indigenous Aryans#Request for comment: IA/OoI is a fringe theory about the fringe status of Indigenous Aryans. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 09:08, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at the above article that may be relevant to the subject of this project. Interested editors are invited to join the discussion here. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 03:49, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I re-wrote the opening sentences of the Efficacy of prayer article. The aim was to make it more direct and accessible. I don't have a strong sense of what kinds of stylistic revisions are smiled upon, so if anyone wants to check it out and give me some thumbs up or down, please do. There's more work to be done on the article if anyone else wants to jump in. BillyGoatsGruff2020 ( talk) 13:08, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Race and intelligence#Requested move 4 March 2020, which is about an article that is within the scope of this WikiProject. Levivich dubious – discuss 19:58, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to review this article and to join the discussion at Talk:USS Theodore Roosevelt UFO incidents which is about an article that is within the scope of this WikiProject. Thanks! -- Gtoffoletto ( talk) 13:55, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
I have added evidence-based criticism to the article about this Netflix show. I expect push-back from Goop's loyal fans. Please monitor the situation! RobP ( talk) 15:23, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
Following up on the discussion RobP and I started on the The Goop Lab talk page, I tried another format for the criticism section. It still needs work, but Rob - and anyone else - please let me know what you think. Here's a link to the draft in my sandbox /info/en/?search=User:BillyGoatsGruff2020/sandbox . I hope I did this right! — Preceding unsigned comment added by BillyGoatsGruff2020 ( talk • contribs) 15:00, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
There's currently a debate in the talk section of this entry, about the cast list. I'm bringing it up here in the Skeptics WP because it concerns accessibility of information and accountability. A cast list was posted. It included everyone in the series (or it seemed to be heading toward that), and it was accurate. Then an editor deleted everyone on the list except for people with Wikipedia pages. The other editor replied "Of what value is a list of nobodys?" Regardless of that editor's personal feelings, those are the members of the cast, and it's not up to him to make up policy for Wikipedia. People do not need to have entries of their own in order to be mentioned in entries, and there are many cast lists on Wikipedia which include people who do not have Wikipedia entries. As the saying goes, Wikipedia isn't paper. I don't see any reason or rationale in the other editor's objection. And I don't see the need to make less accessible the names and job titles of the people who chose to participate in the series. The editor who objected to the cast list suggested that we let a consensus develop among editors. Two of us (other than the people who made the list) are in favor; s/he is the only one who objects. RobP and anyone else here, perhaps you would weigh in? /info/en/?search=Talk:The_Goop_Lab#Cast_List BillyGoatsGruff2020 ( talk) 07:57, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Ufo, which is about a template that is within the scope of this WikiProject. -- {{u| Gtoffoletto}} talk 01:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
I came across this bio article and thought it just isn't close to being a worthy WP subject. I have put it up for deletion. Please comment here if interested: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen T. Chang. RobP ( talk) 02:02, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
I just submitted this page for deletion - /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Athena_Starwoman Sgerbic ( talk) 16:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Hello, |
This article on the war-time German theory that the moon, earth and galaxy are all made of ice has been a disaster, and tagged as a disaster, for over a decade. I would appreciate help sourcing it, removing the worst bits and adding the necessary bits. Much thanks. 86.106.90.99 ( talk) 04:48, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Hello,
Since some editors are contesting existence of articles associating religions and religious communities to superstitions, One of the article which concerns this project/topic has been nominated for deletion. You can support or contest the deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Superstition in Judaism by putting forward your opinion.
Thanks and regards Bookku ( talk) 04:53, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
Thought I'd heard it all. See Street light interference phenomenon. What's the criterion for adding something to Category:Pseudoscience? Or, if they're not claiming a scientific basis, FRINGE? Mathglot ( talk) 01:35, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Editors may wish to help with this work in progress. Shemirani appears to be an up and coming conspiracy theory promoter, best known for her anti-vaccine views and promotion of conspiracy theories linking 5G with COVID-19. -- Salimfadhley ( talk) 09:16, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
This is regarding the discussion here and the post here. Essentially, it's not a content dispute, but rather a dispute over the relevance of the opinions of the hypnotist mentioned in the last paragraph (Alex Tsander) and the reliability of the sources provided. I reverted the edits of the other editor after they deleted the last paragraph because I feel this is an opportunity to clean-up this part of the article rather than to remove it altogether. As an editor, my inclination is towards WP:PRESERVING something that has been in an article as-is for a number of years and fixing it if needed, rather than deleting it entirely without much discussion. I feel that what is being said in the paragraph is still relevant, and that better sources can be found that say essentially the same thing. Also, while there is some discussion on Talk:Stage hypnosis that the article may be skewed towards skepticism, I feel deleting this content altogether will skew things in the other direction. Not being anything close to an expert on hypnosis or the skepticism of it, I don't feel I'm the best person to find better sources and rewrite this paragraph. I thought some editors that are a part of this WikiProject might be able to weigh-in, even if it's just to say that I'm wrong and that this part of the article is not worth salvaging. Bmf 051 ( talk) 14:37, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Talk:Orgone § RfC about in/excluding sources on pseudoscience I dream of horses (Contribs) Please notify me after replying off my talk page. Thank you. 00:52, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
Please help by joining the discussion at Talk:Our Lady of Medjugorje. -- Governor Sheng ( talk) 16:49, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Superstitions in Muslim societies is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Superstitions in Muslim societies until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Bookku ( talk) 05:23, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
Pastoral care § Definition says: "
Spirituality in the context of pastoral care refers to the
human spirit, and is
genetic, measurable and heritable
", and cites as a source the book The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes. I am no expert on pastoral care, so I can't be bothered to spend time editing the content of this article, but since
God gene is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, I thought I would mention this here in case any project member is interested in considering whether
Pastoral care § Definition, and the quoted sentence in particular, could be improved.
Biogeographist (
talk) 13:21, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Please come participate in the discussion at Talk:Russian Academy of Natural Sciences#Dispute over legitimacy. Thank you. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:18, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
I have nominated Nostradamus for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Recently(re) created, may need attention. Possibly ( talk) 23:22, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
The article José Silva (parapsychologist) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
Unreferenced article with a slanted POV that has clearly not shown signs of improvement in years
While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your
edit summary or on
the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
will stop the
proposed deletion process, but other
deletion processes exist. In particular, the
speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and
articles for deletion allows discussion to reach
consensus for deletion.
I am notifying this since this falls under this WikiProject. Thank you.
Dege31 (
talk) 23:27, 14 February 2021 (UTC)Dege31
There is a noticeboard discussion on the reliability of McGill University's Office for Science and Society in the context of an article about JP Sears. If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § JP Sears. — Newslinger talk 08:09, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
The article The Dybbuk box has been proposed for deletion. If you are interested in lending an opinion, please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Dybbuk box.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rp2006 ( talk • contribs) 17:11, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 20:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
You might want to look at the article Psi wheel and add it to the project. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 21:05, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
Within the scope of this project I think, although unfortunately promotional and subject to COI editing. — Paleo Neonate – 06:34, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Category:Rational Skepticism articles needing expert attention has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Peaceray ( talk) 05:23, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
I am posting this here to make members of this group aware of a situation, and get involved if they decide it is worthy.
Years ago I reconstructed the page that is now titled Havana Syndrome. One of the things I did was add skeptical analysis of the predominant POV of the media and US gov't: that US citizens were under attack (first in Cuba, then in China, and now even in the US) by unspecified high-tech weaponry. Mass psychogenic illness experts, OTOH, looked at the data and all concluded the evidence points to nothing real whatsoever.
Over time the mainstream POV has been strengthened in the article, and the skeptical POC diminished, by editors who feel skeptics should have nothing to say on topics beyond Bigfoot and UFOs. (One actually said that on Talk.) One editor insists that Science-Based Medicine is not a WP:RS (despite it being specifically listed as such by WP) and removed valid criticism published there. (I just reinstated this item.)
Recently, I also noticed that all mention of skeptical analysis had been totally deleted from the lead. I just added something back, but it may be deleted again as the majority of editors active on this page seem to be of the mindset that the skeptical POV on this subject is Fringe and needs to be suppressed. RobP ( talk) 02:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
There is a new article on Henry Gobus which I think might warrant attention from the skeptical community, starting with its lede that says he is "... the only person who besides Charles Darwin has provided a complete and extensive process of evolution through his book...". The body of the article is largely taken up with blow-by-blow descriptions of disputes he had with subject experts. I can't see any evidence that his theory has undergone peer review, and there is a notable lack of references to any reliable sources. -- Gronk Oz ( talk) 12:48, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
This is one of those "how is there not a Wikipedia article on this already???" topics for me, because over the last few years as I've perused conspiracy-related content on social media, I very commonly see believers urge each other "go read up on The Finders." So in the past when I heard about it I just did some cursory googling, it seemed to be a Satanic Panic incident in the 1980s that didn't amount to too much, but the fact that people are still talking about it 30+ years later, and that it's been covered in a few RS's, lead me to conclude there should be a Wikipedia article on the topic.
Long story short, in 1987 two guys got arrested in Florida with six scruffy kids in their van, got accused of child abuse, turned out they were part of some weird absurdist commune, issue got resolved with no criminal charges, but some concerned citizen somehow got Congress and the DOJ involved, word got out that somehow the CIA had commented on the issue to DC Police, and so for decades now a portion of people are convinced these folks were a child-abusing cult protected by the government
In any case, I think it's a topic of relevance to anyone interested in Pizzagate and related issues, as part of the longer backstory, so I invite your participation to improve the brief article I've begun. MatthewVanitas ( talk) 23:52, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
There is info on the Thomas John Flanagan (TJ) page about a 2021 Spirit communication event for children which encountered harsh criticism once it was announced -- as being harmful to children. TJ did not cancel but went ahead, charging $400 for each of 8 children. The event was infiltrated by skeptics as reported on here. (Two of the kids were 'undercover agents', and were not discovered by TJ.) Do we think it's a good idea to add this info to that section, and maybe the lead? Or is the existing material sufficient? RobP ( talk) 05:11, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Panspermia#Case_studies says -
If we really had unequivocal evidence of extraterrestrial life, that would be the greatest news story of all time.
This claim (and possibly other statements in Panspermia) could use some skeptical attention.
Thanks - 2804:14D:5C59:8693:453D:A8A9:DE64:AD09 ( talk) 15:10, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
The following page has been nominated for deletion (again).
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (2nd nomination)-- Akrasia25 ( talk) 18:51, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
An editor has requested that Climate change denial be moved to a different name. Please join the discussion at Talk:Climate change denial#Requested move 8 July 2021. Thank you. -- Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 12:00, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
This Wikiproject may be interested in the noticeboard discussion about the statement "Neither qi nor meridians exist." in the Shiatsu article: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Do_qi_nor_meridians_exist?. MarshallKe ( talk) 00:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Satanic ritual abuse#Requested move 1 August 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 05:26, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Category:Anti-vaccination activists who died of COVID-19 has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- ke4roh ( talk) 15:21, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
For your own enlightenment and perhaps reflection: a critical essay by
Brian Martin that directly references this WikiProject, and some of the topics under its purview. Martin, Brian (12 April 2021).
"Policing orthodoxy on Wikipedia: Skeptics in action?". Journal of Science Communication. 20 (02): A09.
doi:
10.22323/2.20020209.{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link) Abstract: Wikipedia has been accused of being biased against challengers to scientific orthodoxy due to efforts by editors having affinities with the Skeptics movement. Examination of Wikipedia, including entries on fluoridation, the origin of AIDS and vaccination, reveals several characteristics typical of a Skeptics sensibility, including the definition of scepticism, lists of deviant ideas, derogatory labelling of heterodox viewpoints, and categories established without reference to reliable sources.
--Animalparty! (
talk) 00:55, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Major Arcana#Requested move 20 August 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 01:59, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Hi everyone,
A
recent deletion discussion on English Wikipedia has set an important precedent about the criteria that maps need to comply to in order to be used on English Wikipedia, and in which cases they may be removed from English Wikipedia per
WP:OR,
WP:UNSOURCED or
WP:SYNTH. I've written a new essay,
c:Commons:Evidence-based mapping, to help users to make accurate maps on Commons that will be acceptable for usage on (English) Wikipedia, to deal with existing inaccurate and unsourced maps on Commons, and to improve cooperation between users. I think some of you may be interested in reading this, because currently anyone can make a map based on no reliable sources whatsoever (and it cannot be easily deleted on Commons, unless it's an obvious hoax), and then used on any language version of Wikipedia, where they can easily mislead readers. Obviously we don't want maps without evidence to be misleading readers. If any of you think the essay can be improved further – especially where it pertains to the rules about reliable sources on English Wikipedia – feel free to make suggestions or corrections on the text here or its talk page. I hope this essay can be really helpful, and if many people agree, perhaps it can eventually be elevated to a guideline. Happy to receive your feedback! Cheers,
Nederlandse Leeuw (
talk) 17:29, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
There is a discussion at WP:RSN concerning this paper by Yuri Deigin and Rosana Segretto in Bioessays which may be of interest to the members of this WikiProject. See discussion here.
Segreto, R., & Deigin, Y. (2021). The genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin. BioEssays, 43, e2000240. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000240.
Thanks.— Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 23:50, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Greetings,
Requesting you to visit Draft:Irrational beliefs and Draft:Superstitions in Christian societies and help expand the same if the topics interest you.
Thanks and warm regards
Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' ( talk) 06:30, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Hello. In your project, Sean M. Carroll is rated C-class but the article has been expended vastly in the last 6 months. What about re-evaluating its class? -- 81.213.215.83 ( talk) 20:35, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
Evidence of absence needs work, esp. Proving a negative. I flagged the section, including adding CNs, and added it to this project. I also made a section on its Talk to discuss this. I found it because I got into an argument on Zoom about proving a negative (re god) due to absence of evidence - and the person points me at this WP article as proof you CAN prove such a negative... (So if you cannot prove god doesn't exist, he does). RobP ( talk) 01:11, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
Hello, |
I have opened an RfC on the Havana Syndrome talk page. Talk:Havana syndrome/Archive 4#RfC: Is "Science Vs" a Reliable Source and does it support the addition of my proposed text? DolyaIskrina ( talk) 03:34, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
An article related to this project, Michael Shermer, is being discussed at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Michael_Shermer. --Animalparty! ( talk) 22:14, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
Ok Skeptical folks... as years pass and and no indisputable evidence is uncovered proving the Havana Syndrome is the result of proposed but undiscovered sci-fi weapons, the likelihood that it is all due to mass psychogenic illness, the hypothesis put forward by the expert Robert Bartholomew, seems to be growing. YET, the Wikipedia page IMHO does not reflect this. And editors have kept this hypothesis totally out of the lead. What are we to do? RobP ( talk) 01:50, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Conspiracy theories seem to be hot now, so it's nice to see a show that treats them with the "respect" they deserve. I'm talking about the new Netflix animated series: Inside Job. It pokes fun at every fringe claim and conspiracy theory out there. This review takes a unique look at the show from a skeptical movement perspective. If anyone thinks it makes sense to add it to the Reception section, have at it. RobP ( talk) 06:26, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
Discussion ongoing...
Talk:Somatic experiencing § Proposed merge: Peter A. Levine → Somatic experiencing ––
Formal
talk 04:14, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
Your comments will be appreciated at Talk:Falsifiability#RfC:_Adding_a_challenging,_counterintuitive_but_instructive_and_well_sourced_example_in_the_lead. Dominic Mayers ( talk) 18:57, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Center for Inquiry Investigations Group until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.
Chess (
talk) (please use {{
reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 21:46, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:American political conspiracy theories#Requested move 19 November 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 14:07, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Alchemical literature is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted. The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alchemical literature. ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 20:10, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
A discussion that may interest members of this project is occurring at Talk:The Bell Curve § Merger proposal. –– FormalDude talk 10:29, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Taner Edis until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.
Santacruz ⁂ Please tag me! 23:13, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
A repeatedly disruptive editor has what seem to me to be off-base ideas regarding what belongs in a WP article and what does not. And also what articles should be deleted. They keep targeting articles pertaining to skeptics for some reason, attempting (failed) deletions (see Taner Edis section above) as well as attempting making questionable cuts. The latest scuffle is on the Sharon A. Hill page. If interested, take a look at the edit history and Talk to see what this is about. Am I wrong? Rp2006 ( talk) 22:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
The article National Council Against Health Fraud reads almost completely like a de facto official website, showcasing what the organization has done or written, and hardly featuring anything that reliable secondary sources have written about the group. I think it could use a large amount of paring back to be less promotional, and while I haven't yet done a deep dive, the question of notability is undemonstrated. It appeared as a list entry on several directories of websites: that alone is not significant coverage. What do other people think? --Animalparty! ( talk) 22:42, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
A merge proposal is in the process of being drafted that may interest watchers of this talk page. For details please see Draft talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19 § About this article –– FormalDude talk 08:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
Sharon A. Hill has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 14:10, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Talk:Sharon A. Hill regarding possible removal of content. The thread is Discussion_on_her_opinion_piece_on_Paranormal_State. Thank you. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
No notification here about this? See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#User:Rp2006 and something at RSN about Skeptical Inquirer. Doug Weller talk 19:19, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
This project may be interested in Ceremonial stone landscape, a controversial concept in Native American archeology. Thriley ( talk) 04:10, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
Should be of interest. Doug Weller talk 20:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
There is a discussion occurring at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Philosophy#Fallacy_articles that may interest members of this WikiProject. RapturousRatling ( talk) 22:32, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
I have nominated Green children of Woolpit for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. ( t · c) buidhe 22:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
WP:FTN#Eyes needed on some pseuodhistorian articles. Doug Weller talk 16:37, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
I have started a discussion over whether whether Wikipedia should describe psychics or mediums as "claimed", "self-purported", etc. Obviously, I do not think Wikipedia should be promoting fringe claims of individuals, but I am concerned that (a) the policy is being applied inconsistently here, and (b) co-ordinated editing, as related to the ongoing arb case regarding certain members of this WikiProject, may be influencing decisions here. However, I would greatly appreciate any other takes on the situation. Thank you. — AFreshStart ( talk) 14:33, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Of possible interest to members of this project; see this story in today's Guardian. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 15:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
In the recent ArbCom discussions it was made clear by several committee members that pseudoarcheology is covered by the fringe and pseudoscience discretionary sanctions. Doug Weller talk 08:15, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Sharon A. Hill has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 17:42, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
The article Protoscience has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
This article is just a wordy dictionary definition, it contains no significant encyclopedic material. It has been this way for at least sixteen years, see the talk page discussion on Delete the article. Per our policy on WP:NOTADICTIONARY, it has no business here.
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Steelpillow (
Talk) 14:46, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
I recently created a draft for anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss. There is currently controversy regarding her views about the return of Native American remains and the way her own institution treated her. I would appreciate some help from this project as it is a sensitive subject. Thriley ( talk) 00:07, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
I have nominated Truthiness for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. – Kavyansh.Singh ( talk) 08:51, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
There is an editorial disagreement on the dowsing pseudoscience article over whether fake bomb detectors are relevant. Some more eyes/views at Talk:Dowsing#Explosive Detectors would be appreciated. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 16:53, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
So this is it - I see we have a bunch of new people who have joined and expect more. I posted a couple days ago that I thought a themed subproject might be the way to get people checking in here often, and get us to know each other better and each other's talents. I tried and tried to find a group of pages that were skepticism related that needed work, but all I could find was science related pages. I want something we can dig our teeth into and spend a few months just digging into. I don't want to create a to-do list for someone else - that wouldn't motivate me. On Afrikaans Wikipedia every year they run an event to rewrite stubs, anything I think on any topic that was labeled a stub (they call them seeds which I think is a much better name because we want them to grow) so that's what I'm proposing a party to grow seeds (okay I'm not great with the naming stuff) Let me see if I can figure out how to make a subproject. No rules, but I propose we should shoot for June 1st, 2022. Sgerbic ( talk) 21:52, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
Here you go Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Skepticism Stub Sub-Project Project (SSSPP) Until June 1st, 2022. Sgerbic ( talk) 22:30, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm looking at the Blood stasis stub (BS) with the aim of re-writing it. I first cleaned up the dirty little stub and went to the chinese-language obituary and (Google) translated it to confirm its veracity. (It makes for interesting reading). I've found several journal articles written in support of BS, some of which I am planning to include. These were all written by scientists or clinicians involved with TCM and / or TCM institutions. I've also found some good counter-arguments at Science-Based Medicine with links to PubMed articles. Does anybody have any other ideas? Wyatt Tyrone Smith ( talk) 15:42, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
TCM practicioners believe it is an important underlying pathology-- Hob Gadling ( talk) 10:16, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
Jimminy crickets Wyatt! You have just finished this rewrite and I'm still fussing on my first one. Go ahead and make me look bad already. Actually go ahead and make me look bad. I have a busy day today and don't think I'll finish Fred, I'm at the point where I have a lot of reading to do. Sgerbic ( talk) 19:26, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
I've never heard of this man before - but it's mine. He married the daughter of a wealthy rancher in Salinas. That's my town! I'll try my hand at this radionic guy Fred J. Hart (businessman). I guess I'll be learning all about radionics and Albert Abrams. If anyone have comments to add, please comment here - will get full use of my Newspapers.com subscription (BTW Wikimedia library offers it free). Sgerbic ( talk) 22:59, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
Adding my sandbox (please don't edit without asking - but you are welcome to view) User:Sgerbic/sandbox Sgerbic ( talk) 23:05, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
I can't stand dealing with WMC - so hoping someone will have an answer for me about this. Working on this page I discovered that Hart ran for congress in 1944. This advertisement appeared and I would like to have it uploaded to WMC for use on his Wikipedia page. It's over 75 years old and is low rez. What are the rules for this, and if I can do it, how do I do it? [15] Sgerbic ( talk) 04:52, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
So finding out a lot using Newspapers.com - just trying to put it all in order. I'm currently wondering about how to use (or should I use) a description of him. I've come across a few that were written by reporters that wrote about him, one is on a book that quotes the reporter. They talk about his energy and size like "smart, peppy and gregarious go-getter" another says "a very large, strong, impressive-looking man" and another "impression of being an English prizefighter with lots of energy and reserve force" and so on. All these descriptions of Hart can be attributed, and I think that it helps the reader picture the man and understand why he seemed to be involved in so much and seemed to always be in charge. And because I don't have a photo, and am unlikely to find one, having this on the Wikipedia page would be helpful. But I'm not sure where to add it? It wouldn't be under career or early history (which I can't seem to find) maybe under personal life? Thoughts on this would be appreciated. Sgerbic ( talk) 20:55, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
I can't stand dealing with WMCI'd like to avoid it too now but cannot tell which WMC this is about. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 07:14, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
I sure wish that this content was available for use on WikiMedia Commons. A lot of good it's doing stuck in a carton that you have to go and look at in person and can't photograph. The papers on the reserach they were doing with low level radio frequency energy to cancerous mice and measured the size of the mice tumors is also included here. It says the information is restricted till 2019. I think I have read about this. [17] Sure wish the photos were uploaded at least. Sgerbic ( talk) 00:22, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
I should be done by now but it is so confusing. The years are all over the place. From what I can gather, Hart's wife Eva got breast cancer and had surgery and then was dying of it and Hart wanted to treat his wife with some medical device and the AMA shut him down. After Eva's death he opened up the National Health Foundation. This is all from the NHF website. But then it also says that Fred got interested in Abrams work in 1916 to cure her cancer. They only married in 1914 and had a daughter then. But she for sure didn't die till 1962 (I have her obit) so ???? I just emailed the NHF and asked them if the years on their website were correct. I'm hoping they will correct the website and not just email me back. I didn't tell them why I wanted to know, just that the way they worded the website it appears that everything even Eva's death happened in 1955. He was ordered by the AMA to stop treating Eva and others in 1955 (according to the NHF website) but according to his daughter's "papers", the daughter learned to use the machines and inherited the machines from her dad. So if Fred was shut down by the AMA in 1955, and still had the machines, and even his daughter knew how to use the machines, then why did he stop treating Eva privately at home? If he did and she lived till 1962 but was marked as "dying" in 1955, then that seems like something the foundation would be bragging about. At least now in 2022 they would mention this as everyone is now dead who could be in trouble. The website does say that he was busted in 1962 for using the machines. (I'll copy this over to the Hart talk page - but wanted to get your thoughts on this) Like what do I do if they email me the correct information but their website stays at 1916? Should I just only mention that on the talk page and leave the years out of it? But without the years it is even more confusing and does not fully tell the story of Fred Hart. I mean he was a successful businessman in real estate and was great with radio stations, why devote his life to radionics? Sgerbic ( talk) 00:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
Dear Skeptics: The article Frank Scully as currently written looks like a textbook example of how skeptics (or anybody) should NOT make a Wikipedia article. It devotes virtually the entire article to describing and "debunking" an aspect that was mentioned in a few columns and a book by someone most known for humor writing and screenplays. It appears that almost no effort has ever been made to examine the totality of sources and appropriate weight to grant any aspect, rather the lamentable trend of hyper focusing on the salacious and easily debunkable has been followed. Scully's relatively lengthy New York Times obituary gives all of three sentences to his (poorly received) writing on flying saucers. His brief obituary in Time magazine describes him as "Frank Scully, 72, author and columnist, who lost a leg to osteomyelitis and a lung to tuberculosis but made the most of his 30 years in and out of hospitals by writing Fun in Bed, Bedside Manna and Just What the Doctor Ordered, three bestsellers of the '30s that combined puzzles, good-humored jokes and vignettes for bedsore patients." No UFO mumbo jumbo. There are no BLP issues since the subject has been dead since the 60s, but keep this in mind when experiencing the urge to debunk a UFO proponent: the content found in skeptical/UFO-related literature may be a small, myopic fraction of the coverage in reliable sources. --Animalparty! ( talk) 01:46, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
Not sure I understand, reading this again - I thought that --Animalparty! was calling dibs on this rewrite, now that I read it again, I'm not sure that is true? Sgerbic ( talk) 00:24, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
Someone should do a rewrite? Well, I'm about to condense the article a bit, with some sourced boilerplate info added (not much is available, unfortunately) but retaining some of the flying saucer material. I will also remove the FBI memo stuff, as it might be of interest/relevance to some other pages but in this article seems a bridge too far. JoJo Anthrax ( talk) 17:01, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
While finishing up the Fred Hart page I stumbled on the Ruth Drown Wikipedia page. It's also someone found guilty of using one of these radio devices, except this one had even less moving parts, two wires, one went to the human. I like working on American's because I like to use Newspapers.com to find citations. I think this will be a lot quicker than Fred was, probably not as quick as Wyatt, but I'll give it a go. No photos could be found on WMC. So probably none. Sgerbic ( talk) 06:55, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
Caution: I was feeling frustrated when I wrote this so it might not be phrased as sweetly as I might normally. But I think the points are valid, so I left it as is. No offence intended.
I joined this WikiProject some time ago, but I still don't really understand how it is supposed to work. Who creates the list to do, for instance? Or does every member just add to it whatever they personally think is important? Or what is the purpose of the big list of articles on the main page - is that intended to be an exhaustive list of everything in scope of the WikiProject, and what are we supposed to do with those articles? The page of Resources is just as opaque - what does something like "Tagged articles changes database report" mean and what am I supposed to do with it, for example?
Frankly, some of these things look like an individual developed something for their own use, and just parked it here so they don't lose it. If they are meant for general use, then how can we find out what they are, when to use them, and what to do with them?-- Gronk Oz ( talk) 07:39, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
Hello all. Frustrated at clicking on articles in the Stubs category and finding the article is 10 paragraphs long, I went through all the stubs starting with A, re-assessing two-thirds of them. In the off chance that someone would like to check my work, I reassessed these as B-class: Bernard Acworth, Julia Belluz (ok doesn't start with A but did it anyway), Autologous blood therapy. C-class: 7 Wonders Museum, Affranchi (although I have no idea why it’s of interest to the project), Apostacon, Apport (paranormal), Arthur Findlay College. Start-class: After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond (redirected to authors's article). Also removed a bunch of old assessment notices from redirect pages and other admin thingies.
And I said I wouldn't do assessments... if it's ok, I'd like to keep going. Feedback welcome.
Robincantin ( talk) 23:38, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
Can anybody advise what the proper etiquette is here ... if I expand a Stub article, I have always avoided changing the classification myself (that would be like marking your own homework; I can't be objective). But if I just leave it, years could go by and nobody notices that it needs to be reclassified, and in the meantime it clutters up WikiProject lists, etc. Is there some way to flag an article as needing re-assessment?-- Gronk Oz ( talk) 05:49, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
I've done some work on the Estrogen dominance stub but there really isn't much there. Does anybody know of a reputable source that discusses it or the symptoms attributed to it? Wyatt Tyrone Smith ( talk) 18:56, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
I think I have just found my next stub rewrite. It checks all my favorite boxes, American, biography, old and very interesting. "Painting the mouse" I've not heard of that before - nor this person, but hopefully I can spend some time getting to know him. William Summerlin, nice to meet you. Sgerbic ( talk) 06:10, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
This is weird - I'm looking at this article [23] and it has four linked citation numbers at the beginning, I opened them up in another tab and they all were the same citation, the same one I was currently looking at. Sgerbic ( talk) 01:38, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
And this is DONE! Done I tell you! Anyway, so interesting - way more than I had thought when I stumbled across it. I'm going to leave my thoughts on the talk page and move on to something else. Thanks for your help all. Sgerbic ( talk) 00:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I've not heard of this person before - and I don't think he was ever a CSI Fellow - but he was on the Skepticism stub list. It looks like it might be interesting, so I'll give it a go. BTW I went though the stub category list and boy were there a lot that were rewritten some time ago but the stub tag wasn't removed. So now it is an even 200 items on the list that are awaiting a rewrite. Sgerbic ( talk) 06:58, 14 March 2022 (UTC) All done! I left my notes on the talk page. Looking for my next one now. Sgerbic ( talk) 05:13, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
I've looked at Michael W. Friedlander and the page has some potential to be rewritten, so I'm claiming it as my next project. Wyatt Tyrone Smith ( talk) 16:32, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
I removed all editors that had joined this project that have not edited English Wikipedia in over a year. We lost 77 people which is sad because looking at their interest I would have loved to have them here. I picked a year just because it seemed like it would be easy to figure out. I reviewed other Wikipedia projects to see how they manage their inactive members so we are in line with them. Of course if someone decides to start editing Wikipedia again and they notice that they have been marked "inactive" in this project, they can just move their name back to active. This appears to be the first time anyone has attempted to clean up the participants before. Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Participants So we went from 228 to 151, and there were many that haven't edited Wikipedia in 11 months, so we will probably loose more in the next few months.
My question is how do we let these remaining 151 know that we are attempting to Rejuvenate this project? If they have this page on their watchlist then that would be the obvious way (if they look at their watchlist that is). You would think that if they signed onto the project with the express goal of being on a team that focuses in this area and wants to be active they would be excited to come back and help out. There is a lot of work to be done. I know it is still early days, but I would hope to see their shiny happy faces here on talk sooner rather than later. Can we put out a notice somewhere? What is the protocol to tag people? Can we tag 150 people and let them know we are waiting for them? Your thoughts please. Sgerbic ( talk) 07:44, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
Wow - Wikipedia:WikiProject Astrology/Members "This is a manually compiled list. If you have constructively participated in this project, feel free to add yourself. You may also wish to list your specific interests or areas in which you would like to participate. Participants with no edits to pages within scope within the last year or who are inactive for 6 months may be removed from the list of active members." If we did this - our project would be down to about a dozen editors. Sgerbic ( talk) 19:26, 16 March 2022 (UTC)19:13, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for contacting me. It is good that you are trying to get the Project up and running again. I will try to help when I can, but I am 83 and my memory is not what it was. Good job I resigned as an admin!! -- Bduke ( talk) 07:00, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19 § RFC: How should we include allegations of undercounting?. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 13:11, 20 March 2022 (UTC) — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 13:11, 20 March 2022 (UTC)