Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Misconceptions and disputed facts

This page was listed on VfD on September 20.


 * Misconceptions and disputed facts - Doesn't seem like an encyclopaedia type article. -- Khym Chanur 23:48, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * This may turn into something beautiful. I was considering something like this only the other night. More detail is needed, however. Keep. -- sugarfish 00:04, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * I don't see how this can ever be NPOV. Whether "Christopher Columbus discovered America" depends more on what you mean by "discover" than anything else.  Whether the "world was created in seven days" by God is an unfalsifiable hypothesis and a matter of faith. Queen Victoria's second marriage is an old FOAF story.  I say get rid of it.  -- Smerdis of Tlön 01:07, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * I agree all the examples of misconceptions given are either disputes about semantics or actually disputed facts, but it's not difficult to come up with some that aren't. For example, it is a misconception that "Play it again, Sam" is a quote from the film Cassablanca.  The essential distinction between a misconception and a disputed fact is that people who believe the former are almost invariably unaware of the correct fact, while a considerable number of people who beilieve the latter are aware of the contrary POV.  I vote 'keep'.-- Daran 01:48, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * I think some of the examples need to be removed for reasons stated by Smerdis and Daran. Could be a viable article, but would need to be carefully watched for POV additions (like the Columbus thing; does anyone really believe Columbus "discovered" America, without considering the point of reference?). But the "Play it again Sam" is a good example of what could be useful and fun in this article. Keep - Marshman 03:00, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * I think my Mary Celeste example is a good example of a common misconception, and definitive of what should be on this page, as opposed to theological discourse (which will invariably lead to a continuing edit war). -- sugarfish 03:11, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * I'll take your word for it. :-)  Also the the one about the rings of Saturn, so I withdraw the word "all" -- Daran 04:22, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * I think the entries have to be a bit "lighter" (more trivia driven) Otherwise change the wording to: "Do people who do not know much about plantary astronomy think Satern is the only planet with rings?" - Marshman
 * I agree that they should be light, non-confrontational, and most importantly, backed-up by fact and be easily demonstrable (as opposed to being obscure, or worse, ambiguous). This topic is a pet subject of mine; I'm sure I can muster up several of them, i.e. the true Paul Revere story, the Nylon-NY-London myth, etc. -- sugarfish 07:59, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * And the article name might be improved: something like Commonly held misconceptions - Marshman
 * I think it should have a different name (or be two articles). These would make a good entry pages to draw people into learning more about a wide variety of controversial subjects, and explain where differences arise. This is one of the better functions an encyclopedia should do - educate. And some things are just getting deleted (bigfoot) which should instead be properly linked cryptozoology.
 * ~ender 2003-09-20 08:05:MST
 * Have added the Jedi census scam to the bottom of the list, because I think it could turn into a fun page. Agree that it would need watching to stop POV stuff appearing, ie the creationism v evolutionism argument over how the world was created.  But don't delete it, keep it!  Graham  :) 16:49, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * Creationism is as good a misconception as any. This is not "POV stuff". --Wik 18:09, Sep 20, 2003 (UTC)


 * Why do we even bother discussing damn-foolishness like this page? Let's just delete the thing and work on something that might possibly have some encyclopedic value one day. Tannin 14:22, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * I'd say delete. Martin 14:39, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * In a perfect world I think this could be a fun and useful entry ie the play it again Sam, but I am sure it would turn into a npov nightmare because people would attack other's religious, political views as being "Misconceptions" so I vote to delete it Smith03 17:42, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned that there's already a huge, well-maintained site dedicated to these kinds of misconceptions, snopes.com. -- BenRG 22:50, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * That there's another site dedicated to it is no reason not to have an article about it here. If we followed that logic for everything why bother having an online encyclopedia?  The information's already stored everywhere else...  Graham  :)  00:06, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * True enough. I mentioned snopes.com mostly because people have been talking about coming up with a list of misconceptions for the Wikipedia article, and snopes has thousands of them for the asking. Though I just did a search and failed to locate anything on "Play it again, Sam" or the Mary/Marie Celeste, so maybe it's not as complete as I thought. -- BenRG 05:29, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)