Talk:The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

SGU 5x5
I think there should be a paragraph or section on the Skeptics Guide 5x5 podcast, the 5 minute spin-off show the Skeptic's Guide crew also does. I don't think the 5x5 show is notable enough for a separate article, but a section on the show, it's premise, common themes, guests and the theme music is needed in my opinion. 213.89.251.44 (talk) 15:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

2008-08-10 Call For Encyclopedic Style
Although I appreciate referencing the death of Perry DeAngelis, the content appears worded to trigger emotion rather than to provide encyclopedic content.

Also, it might be better to have a general "Hosts" section, one subsection of which would list former hosts and thus Perry DeAgelis.

Aclwon (talk) 13:07, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Updated to Remove Unsourced Tag
Other than just general grammatical corrections, I moved 3 of the external links to the Reference section to meet WP:CITE requirements and remove the unsourced tag. If there are any doubtful or other claims that someone thinks require specific citation, pleased use the FACT tag, and I'll do my best to find a source. Drake Maijstral 23:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm curious about this tag:

''This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (November 2007)''

The references to sources "affiliated with the subject" are used to establish X happened on the show. You don't need the NYT agreeing that yep Perry died. I move this tag be removed. Mindme (talk) 15:11, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

October 13, 2007 Edit summary
Cleaned up the Guests section. First I added the dates the guests appeared on the show, obtained from SGUfans.net. I removed any guests who did not have Wikipedia pages from the list, as it is supposed to be a list of "notable" guests, and added Christopher Hitchens and Julia Sweeney, as both have or have had significant media presence. I then alphabetized the list of notable guests and the list of repeat guests. Also removed Steve Mirsky from the repeat guests, as he has only been on the show once (according to SGUfans).

Then took all links to outside sites and either made them references or moved the link to the "External Links" section. Also, assorted other small edits and general cleanup. JFlav 20:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Sgu banner.gif
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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Steve's Wikipedia article...
Since it's obvious Steve satisfies WP:PROF, I've created an article on him. (Steven Novella). Please have a look & help out if you can. Mi kk er (...) 01:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

A lot missing
No mention of the involvement with the PRX challenge Rebbecca did, or the swift newsletter mentions, or the TAM appearance or the live tapings in New York or the meet and great or anything that going on off air really. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.124.134.3 (talk) 21:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there a convention in play for the order of the guests?
It appears to be random to my eye, but I don;t want to screw it up and risk leaving someone who comes along in a few weeks with the task of reverting it after other edits have been made. --Opcnup (talk) 10:17, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * They're sorted alphabetically (by surname). --Ole Eivind (talk) 09:18, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Is Shermer a notable guest?
?--EmersonWhite (talk) 02:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, he's notable at any rate: Michael Shermer. Though, soon the interviewee list will be too long, and we'll have to start discriminating. Marasmusine (talk) 07:37, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Guest section update and cleanup
It appears that the guest section hasn't been updated for more than two years. I think it would make sense to update the list to cover recent years, and prune the list down to a dozen or so of the most notable guests. aprock (talk) 17:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Marasmusine (talk) 05:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * What would be the best way to trim down the guest section? All of the guests in the list are notable enough for their own article, and it's daunting to judge which guests should be excluded from the list. Do you think it'd be reasonable to trim the list down to just the most recent guests? If, for example, we pruned the list down to include only the guests that have been featured in the last 5 years, it would reduce the section by half without the need to judge each guest's notability. Smandella (talk) 17:43, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Add short bios of the hosts?
Would it be appropriate or ok to include a short biography of each of the hosts, kind of a mini-WP page for each one, say two or three paragraphs? I have some info on Perry and Evan, I know that info on Rebecca is easily found, and I could try to look for something about Bob and Jay (Steve has his own page). I'm sure that such would be of interest to readers coming to this page, but I'm not quite sure if it is strictly appropriate or within WP guidelines, so I'd like a consensus before starting.

Proper Stranger (talk) 22:01, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, Proper Stranger. A couple of paragraphs per person sounds too much for additions to this page. It would be disproportionate, IMO. A sentence or two per person, perhaps? (For balance, I think it should be the same for all five, including the two that have Wikipedia pages of their own.) If the co-hosts meet Wikipedia's guidelines for notability (check out the guidelines here), you might want to create individual bio pages for them. After a quick googling, I doubt it, though. I hope that's not discouraging; I'm very happy to see a bit more interest in this page. The last talkpage post was added in 2010! Bishonen &#124; talk 23:36, 10 August 2014 (UTC).


 * Ok, thanks for the feedback. Just to clarify, when you say "disproportionate", you mean because there's not all that much on the rest of the page? I'm not disagreeing with that, just wanted to make sure that's what you meant. I will see what I can come up with in terms of a few sentences for each one. And thanks for reminding me that Rebecca has a page; I knew that, for some reason I just spaced when I was writing the above.Proper Stranger (talk) 00:38, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was what I meant, it would unbalance the short page. Though now you mention it, and after I've googled the people (perhaps unskilfully, but still), I think it might also be disproportionate in the sense that it might be hard to find, you know, all that much "encyclopedic" information about them. We don't want to descend to CV-style. Bishonen &#124; talk 10:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC).

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20081204150613/http://skepchick.org/skepticsguide/index.php/topic,10521.0.html to http://skepchick.org/skepticsguide/index.php/topic,10521.0.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20151120032416/http://www.rationalityunleashed.net/2014-dose-rationality-top-10-podcasts/ to http://www.rationalityunleashed.net/2014-dose-rationality-top-10-podcasts/

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Material to add?
There are three interviews with Jay Novella that may contain material to improve this article. See: 24.186.60.146 (talk) 03:30, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Part 1
 * Part 2
 * Part 3

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:52, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The Know Show - Bob Novella with LARP prop.jpg

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:06, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The Know Show - Bob Novella with LARP prop.jpg

The Know Show
The second deletion of this material moved the goal posts. The first said it wasn’t in any way significant because they do this all the time. When I added text to explain that this was their first (and so far only) stand-alone event, now it needs to be recognized by secondary sources? I believe for something of this nature, primary sources are adequate. And per WP: “On occasion, Facebook pages that are clearly marked as official pages for notable subjects, with direct link to those pages from official websites, in which case they may be used as primary sources.” From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples RobP (talk) 14:24, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Speedy Keep
I just wanted to mention on the talk page that I was rather surprised by the result of the deletion discussion. The four sources from Book Riot, The Hindu Business Line, Business Insider, and Thrillist barely have WP:100WORDS of non-repetitious content. I was initially incorrect that Novella was not mentioned in any of the five articles from The Atlantic, Forbes, Montreal Gazette, The New Republic, and Slate however Novella is not mentioned at all in either The New Republic or Montreal Gazette articles. I think it's also worth noting that none of the five articles mention "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" at all, which means those sources do not in anyway contribute to the notability of the subject itself rather they demonstrate the notability of the host. Similarly, the book has a different Wikipedia page so I'm not sure how reviews of the book contribute to the notability of the podcast. I think it's also worth noting WP:FORBESCON, which should mean that the Forbes article definitely doesn't contribute to the notability of the subject. I think it's also worth noting that although I may have been wrong about whether or not the Skeptical Inquirer is a notable source absolutely no one in the discussion addressed the fact that both articles suffer from being primary sources per WP:INTERVIEW. It also seems worth noting that both journalists were part of "the Guerilla Skeptcism on Wikipedia team," which may have raised some red flags when it comes to WP:COI. As far as the awards go absolutely no one addressed the fact that WP:WEBCRIT states that "These criteria are presented as rules of thumb for easily identifying web content about which Wikipedia should probably have an article. In almost all cases, a thorough search for independent, third-party reliable sources will be successful for content meeting one or both of these criteria. However, meeting these criteria is not a guarantee that Wikipedia will host a separate, stand-alone article on the website." which indicates to me that having some awards does not guarantee that the subject is notable and worthy of a stand alone article. I wasn't convinced that the subject couldn't meet WP:GNG, but I expected a more thorough and thoughtful discussion than what happened especially considering that the current article is almost exclusively supported by sources that are not independent or secondary. I feel that there was quite a bit of bias based on assumptions made from a cursory look at the article itself (WP:ARTN) rather than a discussion of the available sources, and there was even a claim of WP:NOTTEMPORARY without anyone noting that the previous AfD was in 2008 with only WP:BLOGS cited as a reason for WP:GNG. TipsyElephant (talk) 16:39, 26 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Hello . Not sure what you are trying to do here but if you want to contest the result of the AFD, the right place is the Deletion review board. Given how the AFd went, I predict that the discussion there will be short. --McSly (talk) 17:07, 26 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I think I just feel that the discussion was rather dismissive of my concerns and was somewhat of an insulting dog-pile without justification. It seemed more like a vote between me and a bunch of people who disagreed with me rather than WP:CONSENSUS. It also seemed inappropriate that it ended with other user's stating that I should be slapped in the face with a dead fish, which I would think violates WP:CIVILITY. In the end I did not feel that any reviewer clearly demonstrated WP:SIGCOV by providing WP:THREESOURCES that have more than WP:100WORDS of non-repetitious content. I don't really want to go through another discussion like that so I'm probably not going to pursue the deletion at Deletion review board, but I think it would be justified to at least tag the article for relying heavily on primary sources. I just think it was much more of a borderline case than what was suggested by the AfD. TipsyElephant (talk) 18:55, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I felt strongly that no one in the discussion followed WP:AGF. I think that Shibbolethink is the only one who actually cited anything worth noting. They provided some guidelines I was unaware of and actually presented some sources to back up their claims rather than making assumptions. TipsyElephant (talk) 19:11, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Considering my judgment on this article has been questioned I would like to request that someone else at the very least remove The New Republic and Montreal Gazzette articles. I've read the entirety of the articles and the only relation to this Wikipedia page is that they both discuss questionable science. Neither have anything to do with the podcast or the host. I would also request that someone remove the Forbes article based on WP:FORBESCON. TipsyElephant (talk) 02:43, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * AfD closer here. The only relevant policy in that matter is WP:SIGCOV. The rest are mostly just essays. Forbes articles can be acceptable per WP:SPS, although that didn't factor into the close - you're free to keep discussing article content here. As for the AfD, looking at the sources you gave, and at the arguments made by other AfD participants, I was quickly convinced that the nomination had no chance of succeeding. Based on my previous experience closing AfDs, I'd say the sources here are already much better than for many articles which get marginally kept or closed as no consensus. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:21, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello, I wanted to thank you for your response and I also wanted to leave a final comment here to demonstrate that I came to my senses and realized my mistake with this AfD. I now realize that essays are not authoritative and I have removed any references that I've made to essays in any of the deletions I'm involved with. I've also come across multiple instances of articles being kept with similar levels of sourcing and I believe I have a better handle on what is and isn't considered notable. I also noticed that Bilby removed the sources that I made note of and I'm happy with the changes that have been made to the article. I hope the sources I found in the AfD can help improve the article and I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused. I'll make sure to be more cautious in future AfDs and read any policies or guidelines more thoroughly in order to avoid problems like this. Although it's an essay, I'll make sure to WP:KEEPCOOL in the future and edit when I'm in a better mood. TipsyElephant (talk) 19:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC)