Talk:Megalithic Yard

Pseudoscience? Thom was working backward, and suspected that there was some kind of common measurement, but I'm not sure how this is pseudoscience, except in what it's been used for subsequently. --MacRusgail 18:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It is not really pseudoscience. What has happened is that Thom has made a grave mistake in how he derived error (+/- 0.003) from his measurements of the stones. See http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/davel/MY.htm. Basically he measures many stone circles, all of which have errors of about 1 ft. He graphs these and see periods in the graph, he measure the distance between peaks and consoles that each distance is accurate to +/- 0.003 feet, thus he assumes that the yard they were measuring with is accurate to 0.003 feet. Which is completely groundless. There is only 1% confindence that the yard with error he gives would result in the stone formations, it takes a varying yard of (not surpisingly) almost +/- half the whole yard value (ie just random number) because you get any significane. So his data actually supports the idea that there was no megalithic yard, rather than that there was.--Dacium 12:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I suggest that the article Civilization One be merged with this one. The aforementioned article describes a single book that is concerned with issues similar to the ones discussed here, and that is, in fact, already mentioned here. athinaios 18:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but the one who has deleted the "Salt Line" article is a genuine brainless moron. Now how can anyone understand what a Salt Line is???--Snicoulaud (talk) 21:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC) I apologize for what I've just said but I'm SO angry: how can anyone delete an article that actually explains what a Salt Line is? Without it the reader is deliberately kept in the dark. Besides, the subject is notable enough to be in Wikipedia because Salt Lines were first hypothesised in the 1930's by Xavier Guichard who has an article in the English Wikipedia. Alan Butler and Christopher Knight, who have written many books about Salt Lines, prove the subject to be quite notable too. I'm not removing what I wrote yesterday, even if I've been most impolite, but I can't find any reason to speedily delete an article that couldn't be placed withing "Megalithic yard" itself. It might have been just a stub, but as far as I know stubs are not forbidden on WP.--Snicoulaud (talk) 07:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't really see why that information cannot be incorporated into Guichard's article then. Personally, I am not convinced of the notability of either. Perhaps it would be better if someone started an article on something along the lines of fringe theories about European megaliths or so? It must be stressed that none of the ideas referred to, whether by Guichard or by Butler, are accepted by professional archaeologists. athinaios (talk) 07:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've now incorporated Salt Lines into the Xavier Guichard article.--Snicoulaud (talk) 12:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not agree with the merge. One is an article of a book.  Another is a theory.  While they are related, you do not see someone merging an article about Egypt with an Ancient Egypt article either.  They also do not share the same authors, nor the same timeline.  Also note that Civilization One makes claims not supported by the Megalithic yard theory author and vice-versa.


 * Regarding the non-notable argument, do note that a book published in several countries (I have seen a copy here in Portugal) and a theory tested and researched by specialists are indeed notable. I understand we want to keep Wikipedia clean of non-notable material, but perhaps it would be a better idea to go deal with all those articles of rap/hip hop artists and Internet pseudo-celebrities.-- Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves  talk / contribs (join WP:PT) 22:15, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I also strongly disagree (disclaimer: I made the article). The subjects are wholly different. what you are suggesting is entirely against policy. -- Anonymous Dissident  Talk 10:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Deletion Notice
I noticed the article Salt Line was deleted. I don't think it was clearly explained that that article could be considered a content forck (see WP:CFORK). Anyways, can someone please notify, if for any reason, this article is nominated for deletion. --CyclePat 21:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Disentangle Thom's concept from Butler and Knight's
I came to this article because I was surprised to find it listed under the category of pseudohistory (and pseudoarchaeology). Thom's work was wrong, but he was posing a serious hypothesis in an intellectually respectable fashion. There is good scholarly criticism of Thom's concept, which relates his Megalithic Yard to the human pace.

The Butler and Knight material seems to fall into the area of fringe science and certainly deserves the categorization.

Some editing is in order to separate out Thom's early work from that of his successors.

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:49, 25 December 2007 (UTC)