Talk:Clinton Road (New Jersey)

Page move
I have moved Clinton Road to Clinton Road (New Jersey) to reduce confusion with the other Clinton Roads, perhaps in other states. NHRHS2010 Talk  00:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Are there articles on other "Clinton Road"s? The parentheses are usually just used if there's a conflict between article titles, not subject matter.  If there aren't other articles, this really isn't needed.... —AySz88\ ^ - ^  18:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Weird NJ: unreliable source
I noticed that our article is cited almost entirely to a book/web page called Weird NJ and the majority of those cites are anecdotes emailed in by readers with anonymized names such as "SlyC", "U101", and "Scot" who attribute their tales to people such as [http://books.google.com/books?id=XwnJbNeytFcC&pg=PA201&dq=Weird+NJ:+Your+Travel+Guide+to+New+Jersey%27s+Local+Legends+and+Best-Kept+Secrets+castle&hl=en&ei=AY2VTqyjLabq0gGFy8HjBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false "Two friends, brothers who I will call John and Bill..." and "I had a friend once who..."], etc. Weird NJ's disclaimer declares that the publication is intended for entertainment, denies responsibility for factual accuracy, and states that oral stories and legends cannot be confirmed independently. I'm all for articles about legends and folklore, but I feel that we should rely on higher quality sources and avoid those like Weird NJ who publish readers sensational 'friend of a friend' stories under the guise of "legend gathering". - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Clearly unreliable. Any material based on this source should be removed unless there is a reasonable glimmer of hope that reliable sourcing can be found, which I highly doubt in this case. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The book Weird NJ is a reliable source for local folklore. The legends should not reported as true, but that doesn't make them non-notable.  This was discussed at length at Articles for deletion/Clinton Road (New Jersey). --Arxiloxos (talk) 14:19, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * +1. The notability of Clinton Road comes from its reputation for supposed paranormal occurrences, not the unprovable question of whether they actually occur, the former of which is conclusively established by Weird NJ ' s reportorial methods. In what I've added to this article, I've used only those more frequently-reported anecdotes, and not those that have only been reported once. Daniel Case (talk) 15:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You do realize that that violates WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, of course? You've just said that it's the results of YOUR own research. And why would you consider either the site or the book to be a reliable source when their own editors emphatically state that they aren't in any way in their disclaimer? If the editors clearly and unambiguously state that they conduct no fact-checking or verification, that they take no responsibility whatsoever for the content, and that their material is good for nothing else except entertainment value, on what basis could you possibly disagree? Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 16:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec) I should have clarified that I was referring to the anecdotes already reported in the Weird NJ source material, and certainly nothing I've collected independently (which is to say, nothing, since I haven't collected anything independently). There are multiple stories of things like the pickup truck and the coin toss at the bridge, but many other things only get mentioned once and therefore I considered them too trivial for us. The mere existence and widespread dissemination of these rumors and legends are the facts here, not the substance of said rumors and legends. When we write about Paul Bunyan, we're writing about the fact of the existence of the legend, not trying to say that a giant with a blue ox actually existed. Daniel Case (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * We should consider the matter of WP:UNDUE weight as well. Weird NJ lists "not weird enough" as one of the criteria for not publishing readers contributions. We should not be weighting the article 50: 1 in favor of "weird" details that have not been published except by a single admittedly unreliable source. And, to Dominus Vobisdu's point, Weird NJ is not even a reliable source for notable "legends" since the magazine disclaims that "oral stories and legends" published in its pages cannot be confirmed independently. If I email weird NJ with a story that they deem as "weird" and decide to publish it, it automatically does not legitimize it as a notable legend or folklore. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Everything except your last sentence misses the point (of course oral histories and legends can't be independently confirmed, that's why they're called legends ... but just because something is legendary does not mean it can't be notable. Folklore, both generally and specifically, is a respected academic discipline that people collect, research, analyze and write dissertations on and get professorships in, and as such is a legitimate subject for an encyclopedia article), so that's the only one I'll address. To reiterate what I just said when responding to Dominus, the article has only those stories which get regularly retold. Certainly anyone can make something up and send it to Weird NJ (which actually hasn't written about Clinton Road that much in a while). That's not a guarantee that they'll publish it, and in my experience they don't publish everything people send them (in fact, they get a lot of stuff they don't publish). But when many people claim a certain thing occurred, it's IMO a notable aspect of the legend. Had I not been so discriminating, the article would have a lot more than it does. Daniel Case (talk) 16:54, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The notability and verifiability - even of folklore and legends - is established by mention in multiple reliable sources, not multiple mentions in one single source. The article is overly-weighted, per WP:UNDUE with unique material published by one source and no other, and that source disclaims responsibility for the accuracy of any legend it publishes. I see there are a few legends in this article that are mentioned by other, independent sources. Those are fine. I suggest we add those citations, and remove legends that aren't verifiable outside the pages of Weird NJ. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:06, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

See my long reply on this subject at RS/N. I have just finished typing it, I have to get away from my computer and do something else now, so I don't feel like repeating myself (BTW, it would have been better to let all of us here know that you and Dominus had initiated this same discussion there as well ... the fact that you didn't makes you look duplicitous, as if you were trying to get a consensus while excluding editors likely to argue against it. But of course I know you meant well. Daniel Case (talk) 17:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC)