Talk:St Mary's Church, Clophill

Names and apostrophes
There was, for future reference, a discussion of the article title and the church names at User talk:Uncle G. My view, explained at greater length there, is to go with the 1850 church commissioners in the Gazette, who had the Church of St Mary (to which The Virgin is the common appendix &mdash; that can also be found in the revised English Heritage listing) as the old building and St Mary's Church, with apostrophe, as the new building. Uncle G (talk) 17:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

exorcism
For what it's worth, my father was vicar of the adjoining parish to the North, Haynes, from 1970 to 1987, and was once called out (i think c. 1982?) by the vicar of Clophill; they and one other local vicar went to the church at midnight and did a ritual of exorcism, with bell, book and candle, after people had reported sounds and lights at the church (most likely grave robbers). The activity did stop afterwards, although i'm not claiming the exorcism was connected to the cessation. But occult activity, including the opening and desecration of graves and the use of occult symbols, certainly was going on there in the late 1970s. i don't have a citation i'm afraid. Barefootliam (talk) 02:50, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

further citation for "Paranormal Diaries" unnecessary
There's a common misconception on Wikipedia that primary sources are never acceptable, but those aren't the rules. The editor who added the fact that an incident is addressed in a film is not making any claims based on interpretation, and the fact that the film addresses the topic can be easily verified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.198.83.14 (talk) 02:08, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The claims require a citation. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:02, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I gotta say I'm confused as all get-out by the reaction to this simple factual claim, that "The incident was covered in some detail in the 2013 film The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill." First off, user Pigsonthewing removed the claim because it required a citation. Okay, he has a fair and valid point. But as stated above, due to the fact that this claim is so extremely easily verifiable, with no room for interpretation, it really is a case where a primary source is acceptable. How could a mainstream motion picture be considered a "fringe" source? The fact that the incident was covered in some detail in the film -- which is all the statement is claiming -- is really indisputable. It's a real stretch of the imagination and of definition to define the source as "unreliable" -- unless I'm somehow missing something? I also don't understand the "not in citation given" tag, as clicking on the tag for clarification leads you to the Wikipedia policy article on verifiability, leading me to again point out how extremely verifiable this is. Look, I know that some Wikipedia editors like to be on the lookout for the use of primary sources. But read the WP policy, and you'll see that they're not forbidden forthright, nor is the use of them automatically "original research." To quote the policy, "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources."

There is no analysis or synthesis of published material going on here. This is a case where the fact is so simple and verifiable that the claim is comparable to stating in the introduction to the article on Moby Dick that there is a whale in the novel.

Incidentally, this is not a matter of somebody taking "ownership" of an edit, since I'm not the person who originally included this factoid in the article. But I do think that the tags are being really absurdly applied here, and it's the absurdity I object to. If I'm wrong due to my own misunderstanding of either policy or the meaning to the tags that were applied, please enlighten me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.102.146 (talk) 04:12, 26 October 2014 (UTC)