Talk:Haunted doll

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 March 2019 and 29 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Maddywright, Samwolff450, Caranlee, Ghurley1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Synthesis
Some concern here that the article is conflating two subjects - ancient Egyptian/Roman/voodoo religious objects and modern, kitsch ghost stories - in what might be WP:SYNTHESIS. Does any of the literature draw an explicit connection between the two things? I note that Robert (doll) purports to originate from "a Bahamian servant who was skilled in black magic and voodoo"; is there anything more than that? --McGeddon (talk) 20:06, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Second this concern. I doubt very much we have reliable sources linking these. Dougweller (talk) 19:54, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't usually reply to 3 year old Talk page posts, but as I was reviewing the article for how it might be improved, I came to the same conclusion as Dougweller and McGeddon. The article, as written, tries to synthesize a connection between ancient religious objects and modern urban myths that doesn't exist in the literature. It's as if someone wanted to write an article about the modern pop culture meme of haunted dolls but got stuck on history and so decided to WP:OR their way out. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Unreliable sources
Starting with an article in Listverse.com, then the book published by the New Age publisher Llewellyn Worldwide, and the Krause Publications book. Debbie Turkilsen's paper is a student essay. The first source is http://paganwiccan.about.com/ - that and the reshafim.org,il site aren't RS but sources can be easily found I'd say. ihorror.com? Really? Maybe there are a couple of decent sources here, but that's about all. Dougweller (talk) 19:54, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I have to agree. I've been trying to help the new user who created the article as much as I have time to do, but you're right there's a lot left undone. —&#160;&#160;  &#160;&#160;Bill W.&#160;&#160;  &#160;&#160; (Talk)&#160;&#160;(Contrib)&#160;&#160; (User:Wtwilson3) &#160;&#160;— 20:01, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Some source are unreliable, but I am seeing enough reliable sources such as IBT and two published books. Haunted or possessed dolls have long been a part of horror films and folklore. Valoem   talk   contrib  03:34, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Harold the Doll
There is no mention of one of the most haunted dolls in the world, Harold the Doll, in this article (in fact Harold should have his won article as well). I also have noticed that the articles on Robert and Anabelle are in a poor state of underdevelopment and need to be expanded. Hopefully they do because they both have the potential to become GA or FA status if enough attention is paid to them.--Paleface Jack (talk) 02:22, 17 May 2017 (UTC)


 * There are plenty of credulous and sensational websites, facebook posts, and self-published books, but I could find zero reliable sources that cover "Harold The Doll" with anything even approaching a serious, in depth manner that would enable us to write an objective article. If you know of such sources, please provide them, and I'll expand the article accordingly. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:29, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposed changes
I am a student editor for Wiki.edu. My group and I chose this page to edit, and here are our proposed changes.

We are proposing a change for the "early history", since some of the beliefs are still practiced today. Instead, we would like to change this section to "origins". Under the new "origins" title, we included a more detailed explanation of West African fetish magic. Additionally, we are proposing an addition of a "psychology" section with why people perceive dolls as scary. For the bulk of our additions, we have added more detail about the existing dolls under that heading about specific haunted dolls, and conducted our own research to add more under "famous haunted dolls". One of the additions is Okiku, a Japanese doll.Caranlee (talk) 14:45, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

We have created a new section, which will go in between the history, and is titled, “The Market”. In this section, we will show how, since the booming industry of haunted doll movies has come about, that there has been a recent trend in buying and selling these dolls. But, behind the thought of the consumer, is something that is strange; there is a certain psychological element that pulls people into buying these dolls, since a doll represents what is supposed to be human. This brings interest to the consumer, because of the paranormal phenomena. Overall, we will be adding more detail to enrich the page. Maddywright (talk) 14:50, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

We have also added a new section on haunted dolls in pop culture. Like many other Wikipedia pages, haunted dolls are prevalent in movies, tv shows, and much more. Famous dolls like Robert and Annabelle have had movies inspired them. The use of haunted dolls is in tv shows like SpongeBob, The Simpsons, and in Ghost Hunters. Adding a section listing out uses and references of haunted dolls in pop culture will add to the article. Samwolff450 (talk) 15:01, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

We noticed that the descriptions of some of the haunted dolls was dry. We intend to give more information on supernatural occurences and origins for both Mandy and Letta Me Out. We are also considering expanding the see also page. --Ghurley1 (talk) 15:12, 10 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Welcome, and we appreciate any improvements to the article you can make. However please review our policies WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. We can't give credibility to supernatural claims, use sensational non-encylopedic language contained in sources, or expand them beyond what is warranted by a single source. Which is probably why descriptions appear to be "dry" when compared to pop culture sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:02, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I echo LuckyLouie's welcome and caution regarding improvements to the article. As it appears now, the sources remain poor and it doesn't adequately address that mainstream belief is similar to all other paranormal areas - it's not real. Ifnord (talk) 03:11, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

May 2021
I've excised large sections of WP:SYNTHESIS attempting to tie the history of ceremonial, fetish, voodoo, and other dolls used in primitive rituals to the modern day popularization of the concept of haunted dolls portrayed in film and media. Also removed were the malformed sections on psychology. These would require more authoritative scholarly sources rather than articles on pop culture websites. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:07, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Chucky the doll.jpg