Talk:Sally Morgan (psychic)

Derren Brown
The sentence about Derren Brown should be edited imo. It seems to imply that he thinks she may be genuine, whereas if you read the entire article he is clearly not a believer in her 'abilities' and is criticising her for not being willing to prove them in any way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.239.14.1 (talk) 15:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree 100% Someone had removed my edit that explained Brown's opinion and I've just re-added it as well as 3 new news articles about this subject.  Sgerbic (talk) 05:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The Derren Brown section and quote is seriously problematic. Not only is the quote taken way out of context, almost ridiculously so, but what DB suggested in jest is reported as if it was suggested in seriousness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.191.206.230 (talk) 14:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

(psychic)
Good to see a precedent has been set. If I'm ever notable enough to have a wikipedia page, it should be called billpg (super genius). After all, I claim to be a super genius, and as we all know, everyone is exactly what they claim to be. :) --Billpg (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If you can get literally dozens of reliable sources to describe you in those terms, feel free. Anyhow, the RM discussion is now closed. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 20:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I know the discussion is over, I'm just (affectionately) mocking it. --Billpg (talk) 23:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And interesting to note that no other alleged English psychics have this added to their article titles?Theroadislong (talk) 00:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Most of them have unique names so they don't need it at the end. This is only added here as there are multiple sally morgans so a bracketed term is added to distinguish. The reason i had suggested her other name was to avoid the need for brackets. RafikiSykes (talk) 00:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Dozens of reliable sources? She's had no professional body, neutral investigator or recognised challenge confirm her skills whatsoever. A doctor would be passed by a medical board, a lawyer by the abr, who passed her, exactly? I dispute her title, and suggest she be marked as "alleged psychic" or "self proclaimed medium" until such a time she can pass a neutral, scientifically unbiased test and until then, her page remain marked as so. Ronmoger (talk) 23:29, 09 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I note that this section of the Talk Page is about the article title and not, say, the info box, and it seems to fit Wikipedia policy to disambiguate this particular Sally Morgan with a simple descriptor. She is known as a psychic - it's in this role that she is a notable figure - whether or not she possesses paranormal abilities, so it's a simple non-ambiguous way for readers to know they need to click on this article rather than either of the other two Sally Morgans with articles to read about this Sally Morgan. The body of the article is the right place to present reliable secondary sources according to WP:BLP that support or dispute her claimed abilities.
 * I'm not entirely comfortable with today's replacement of "psychic" with "self-proclaimed psychic" in the Infobox by an IP editor a few hours before I write this. It's true, but it's less concise, and it's also a truism and will remain a truism until even one alleged psychic can reliably demonstrate psychic abilities with no plausible alternative explanation. Despite my scepticism, I think brevity and terms that will be broadly understood are appropriate for Infoboxes, and the exploration of the veracity of the claims deserves to be treated prominently within the text, where those who are interested may be open to considering viewpoints they may not have encountered previously, including within the Lead Section, if (and only if) reliable secondary sources support, challenge or cast doubt on the claimed abilities. That is the value of Wikipedia as an educational resource, presenting a representative picture of what reliable sources say on the matter without false balance or a one-sided view. Dynamicimanyd (talk) 22:30, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Criticisms and libel suits
This section reads in a slightly confusing manner, especially the first paragraph. This may be the result of layout changes made previously.

The first paragraph links to the RTE recording including the original allegation by a woman stating that she was an audience member in Dublin who overheard an English man's voice through the open window speaking information about 10 seconds before Sally Morgan mentioned the same name and information on stage. The same cluster of citations include various newspaper articles, not including the Daily Mail / Paul Zenon article which was subject of the libel suit.

The next sentence mentions Sally's response to the Guardian's report on her website (would be good to re-cite that Guardian report for clarity). The sentence after refers to the Daily Mail being forced to pay libel damages after "accepting the earpiece claim was untrue".

Up until this point, the Daily Mail's own earpiece claim and its contentious Paul Zenon article has not been mentioned, appearing two paragraphs below. I understand that the Daily Mail could not substantiate its claims in court, having only a photograph or TV still of Sally removing what looked like an earpiece and the recording of the unknown purported witness on an RTE radio phone-in.

The contested article has been removed by the Daily Mail, but is archived on archive.org (for example, [here]). It might be inappropriate to cite that and risk repeating any allegations not substantiated in libel proceedings, but it may be useful to verify statements about the claims made in relation to the libel. A citation of the original URL (albeit a dead link) might be acceptable - we need to check Wikipedia policy.

I've heard it said that the Daily Mail's mistake was in printing the claim regarding the earpiece as a statement of fact, not as only reporting a claim made by a caller on a radio phone-in, and I believe this was mentioned in one of the skeptical podcasts - perhaps The Pod Delusion - after the libel verdict came in. Since it could not substantiate the earpiece claim independently, the Mail was forced to pay damages, and chose to state that the earpiece claim was untrue (possibly as part of the settlement agreement), even though it could probably not substantiate its untruth any more than its truth (albeit that its untruth does no harm to Sally's reputation yet would serve to appease her lawyers)

It may help to reword the last sentence of the first paragraph to indicate that unlike many sources who reported the phone-in caller's words, the Daily Mail stated them as fact, but it's important that we don't do original research in a Wikipedia article and rely only on external sources we can cite. The archive.org copy of the article may help us to accurately cite sources and provide a neutral, balanced presentation of opinions. It may aid clarity to make a brief mention of the libel result in the first paragraph, providing more detail and carefully citing opinion with sufficiently reliable sources in the third.

A [sample chapter PDF] from Richard Bacon's autobiography mentions his experiences with Sally Morgan and refers to the then-ongoing libel case against the Daily Mail, though he makes it abundantly clear to Sally's lawyers that he completely believes in Sally's abilities and blames his late grandmother for being unnecessarily vague and for revealing sensitive personal information through Sally rather than describing what it's like on 'the other side' and other things he'd like to know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dynamicimanyd (talk • contribs) 06:17, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I ave not the words
Actually I do, but they are short, pithy and not to be used in polite company.

Sally Morgan using hot reading like the grief vampire she is: http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/girlfriend-upset-psychic-sally-morgans-7913186 Guy (Help!) 10:28, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

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